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MIAMI UNIVERSITY The Graduate School

Certificate for Approving the Dissertation

We hereby approve the Dissertation

of

Angela B. Fulk

Candidate for the Degree:

Doctor of Philosophy

______Director Britton Harwood

______Reader Catherine Karkov

______Reader Patrick Murphy

______Graduate School Representative Charlotte Goldy ABSTRACT

“ON ANGINNE”: ANGLO-SAXON READINGS OF GENESIS

by Angela B. Fulk

My dissertation focuses on the plethora of references to the that are found in literature, easily more than exist for any other book of the . The project traces both the ways that this Scriptural narrative impacted the newly-Christianized society of the Anglo- and the unique interpretations of Genesis that this culture produced. Central texts for this analysis include and the Genesis poem, along with the illustrations of the Genesis narrative found in the and the Old English Illustrated . The methodology is modeled on current paradigms in cultural history, such as the “contact zone” theories of Mary Louise Pratt, the research of Caroline Walker Bynum, and the comparable analysis of the poem published by Nicholas Howe.

Section One examines the pagan religious beliefs and practices of the Anglo-Saxons, insofar as these be ascertained by the scant surviving textual evidence and archeological relics, and demonstrates how the narratives of Genesis were used to provide a bridge for the Anglo- Saxons between pagan and Christian culture. Section Two discusses the political implications of Anglo-Saxon retellings of Genesis. Genealogies and other texts that incorporate Genesis material not only provided the Anglo- Saxons with a new sense of cultural identity based on their perceived role in history, but also served to strengthen the institution of Anglo-Saxon kingship. The discussion of the impact of Genesis on Anglo-Saxon social customs in Section Three centers on examining the story of and in light of the Germanic tradition of blood-feud and on considering how Anglo-Saxon concepts of gender roles shaped their interpretations of the female characters of Genesis, such as .

“ON ANGINNE”: ANGLO-SAXON READINGS OF GENESIS

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Department of English

by

Angela Beth Fulk Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2007

Dissertation Director: Britton J. Harwood

© Angela B. Fulk 2007

Contents Introduction 1

Section One: Genesis in the Context of Religious Change

Chapter One: Pagan Religious Worldviews 23 Chapter Two: Genesis and the of Anglo- Saxon 47

Section Two: The Political Impact of Genesis

Chapter Three: A Unifying History 84 Chapter Four: A “Gōd Cyning” 107

Section Three: The Social Context of Anglo-Saxon Genesis Narratives

Chapter Five: Blood Feud 157 Chapter Six: Peace-Weaving 180

Conclusion 214 Works Cited 217

iii “On Anginne”: Anglo-Saxon Readings of Genesis

Introduction

The prominence in Old of allusions to the Scriptural book of Genesis is a phenomenon worthy of note. In Beowulf, the most famous literary contribution of the Anglo-Saxons, the in ’s great hall of sings of of the world by the Christian , and is identified as a descendent of Cain. Genesis was certainly not the only section of Scripture with which the Anglo-Saxons were , but in addition to references such as those in Beowulf, an epic poetic treatment of the book, the Genesis poem, has survived, and Genesis was one of the very few books of Scripture to be translated into Old English in its entirety. In her 2000 article “The Anglo-Saxon Genesis: Text, Illustration, and Audience,” Catherine Karkov identifies “an awareness of audiences for and responses to Genesis that was arguably greater than that for any other subject in Anglo-Saxon England” (202). The prominence thus given to this book indicates that it was of special significance to the Anglo- Saxons. Its use in Beowulf, a work long noted for its combination of pagan and Christian elements, suggests that the narratives and images of Genesis may have played a crucial part in the assimilation of into Anglo- Saxon culture. This dissertation examines the role of Genesis in the transformation of Anglo-Saxon society from pagan to Christian through a detailed study of various treatments of the book of Genesis by Anglo-Saxon authors. By placing these writings into their cultural context, it describes the distinctive ways in which an emerging Anglo- Saxon Christian culture interpreted the stories of Genesis,

1 as well as how the book facilitated the Anglo-Saxon conversion to Christianity. As a cultural studies project, it concerns itself primarily with popular , the dissemination of Genesis material in the vernacular and its received interpretations, rather than the scholarly debates conducted by learned theologians among themselves. The greatest obstacle to any study of the Anglo-Saxon transition from to Christianity is that the pre- existing pagan culture was almost completely preliterate. All Old English writings that have survived are the products of a Christian milieu that sought to speak as little as possible of the old pagan ways. Tracing the customs and beliefs of Anglo-Saxon paganism is therefore a highly difficult task, though one that has inspired the efforts of scholars for generations. Until the last few decades, historians and literary scholars have repeatedly attempted to dissect cultural relics such as Beowulf in order to separate them into recognizably “Christian” or “pagan” fragments.1 More recent work has recognized, however, that

1 This approach has been especially common in Beowulf criticism because the oral-formulaic nature of the text indicates that it may have been originally a solely pagan composition, passed down through oral tradition and eventually transcribed in an altered form by a Christian writer. Alvin A. Lee, one of the earliest scholars to reject this approach, comments on its shortcomings and describes the “hypothetical principle of unity” his own work will assume in the introduction to his book, p.6. Lee’s hypothesis is that Anglo-Saxon poetry exhibits an “imaginative unity…that is at once heroic, Germanic, didactic, and Christian” (6). My own assumptions are similar, though my interest is in cultural patterns that may demonstrate cohesion more than unity.

2 the two categories of pagan and Christian are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Both cultural elements occurred side by side in the Anglo-Saxon era, as they do within poems such as Beowulf. How cross-pollination took place between the two seems a more productive question than how to separate them; certainly it will lead to a more complex understanding of Anglo-Saxon culture than the previous method. As Michel Foucault remarked in a 1984 interview, “What is interesting is always interconnection, not the primacy of this over that, which never has any meaning” (169). In order to examine a site of interconnection, however, one must define the separate elements that are identified as meeting at that site. Hence, this project entails a certain amount of speculation about pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon culture, in order to provide a context for the site of that culture’s initial encounters with Christianity, but its primary focus is on that locus of contact. Here, the narratives of Genesis rise to prominence. The examination of Anglo-Saxon literary treatments of Genesis that this project undertakes demonstrates not only how the narratives and themes of Genesis aided in the Christianization2 of the

2 Following the terminology of James C. Russell in his work, The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity, I use the term “Christianization” rather than “conversion” to describe the process of religious transformation undergone by the Anglo-Saxons as a collective body. “Conversion” implies a total and radical shift of undergone at a measurable point in time, and as such seems better applicable to individuals than to an entire social group. “Christianization” is meant to suggest a gradual process of change, whose effects within Anglo-Saxon society remained

3 Anglo-Saxons by speaking directly to pagan customs and concerns, but also how the already existing beliefs and customs of the Anglo-Saxons influenced the interpretations of Genesis, and indeed of Christianity, that their society eventually produced. Project Description and Outline Writing of “Anglo-Saxon culture” in any sense is somewhat of a definitional problem for any scholar. In this project, I use the term “Anglo-Saxon” to designate the society formed by a group of Germanic tribes that began to make their homes on the island of Britain after the withdrawal of the from that island. and Saxons were two of these original tribes; and also played a large role in the migration, as did other more minor groups. The native Britons who remained and survived the invasion were also absorbed into the emerging society, as were the who arrived later. From an extremely loose coalition of Germanic tribes, kingdoms were formed, and by the time of the Norman invasion, it was possible to speak of England—a word derived from “Angla-land” or “land of the Angles”—as a single nation with a distinct culture. The extreme difficulty of dating the composition of most surviving texts from the Anglo-Saxon period, not to mention establishing authorship of them, is only a minor obstacle within the context of this project precisely because its definition of Anglo-Saxon culture is so inclusive. In examining the continental Germanic roots of this culture, I make use of the invaluable record of the Roman historian , even though it was written several centuries before the earliest migration of these tribes to Britain. Even though the portion of the Genesis poem known uneven for centuries. (For an extended examination of these terms, see Russell, Chapter 2.)

4 as is believed to be an Old English adaptation of a continental Saxon text, it remains a central text for this project not only because of the close cultural relationship of these two districts at the time, but also because it was considered close enough in style and Biblical interpretation to be grafted into the Old English , producing what is treated within the context of the Junius Manuscript as a single text. Likewise, my treatment of Beowulf examines this text as a unified cultural artifact rather than a fragmented melange of Christian and pagan ideas. While every effort is made to read each of these texts in its historical context, and to identify the diverse cultural threads that meet within them—for example, in my reading of Tacitus, I strive to be keenly conscious of the Roman biases of the author—the ultimate goal of these readings is to discover the characteristics of the culture that is emerging from the combination of these varied influences. Several specific areas of Anglo-Saxon cultural custom provide the focal points of this investigation, and are examined in detail. Pagan Germanic religious beliefs and patterns of are an obvious starting point. Though, as stated above, very little is known about this aspect of Anglo-Saxon culture, much may be surmised by a careful study of archeological and place-name evidence, as well as earlier records of Germanic tribal customs on the continent, and later evidence of Northern Germanic practice. These historical records must, however, be examined with great care, for they describe at best the practices of the Anglo- Saxons’ distant ancestors or remote collateral relations. Some general traits of Anglo-Saxon religious practice may nevertheless be ascertained, and this project examines cultural connections between them and the surviving Genesis literature.

5 A second major cultural focus for this study is political; in fact, the political forms the most extensive area of study in the entire project. In this section, the project demonstrates how the cosmology and narratives of Genesis helped in the unification of the Anglo-Saxons from an extremely loose confederation of tribes into a coherent nation. Nicholas Howe, in a 1989 work, focused on this problem of unification and demonstrated how the poetic Exodus provided these scattered tribes with a single cosmology, mythic history, and future mission. My project does not quarrel with Howe’s conclusions concerning the Exodus, but instead focuses on how the various treatments of Genesis contribute toward the same objective—bearing in mind also that the surviving amount of Genesis material is much greater than that concerning Exodus, and even the Exodus poem contains a section describing the Genesis narratives of Noah’s ark and Abraham and the of Isaac. Genesis clearly had an even greater hold on the Anglo-Saxon imagination than Exodus, and I would argue that this is because Genesis fulfills the same political functions as Exodus and more. Howe explains that the Anglo-Saxon readers of Exodus were made to identify with the Israelites, as a people who had been brought by God to a promised land—in their case, England. Genesis, however, is an even stronger source of on which to build a society, because with it the step of cross-cultural identification is not needed. Once the Anglo-Saxon tribes accepted Genesis, they had a clear cosmology and a common history to draw on. All, now, were children of , created by God and gifted by him with a kingdom to enjoy. While all might be equally children of Adam, certainly not all individuals in Anglo-Saxon society were equals in social or political rank. The Anglo-Saxon theory of

6 kingship in pagan times had been closely linked to genealogy. Only those of royal blood possessed the right to rule, and among the pagan Anglo-Saxons had claimed descent from the themselves, as sections of the Anglo- Saxon Chronicle demonstrate. Conversion to Christianity necessitated revising the Anglo-Saxon outlook toward royal genealogy, but did not negate its importance.3 Genesis provided a wealth of Christian genealogical material, and the attention paid to illustration in the sections of the Genesis poem and of the Old English Illustrated Hexateuch that recount genealogies bears witness to the importance of this material to the Anglo-Saxon mind. Christian Anglo- Saxon kings traced their lineage back to Adam, but the question of which son of Adam they were descended from became vital. , the first son born after the death of Abel and exile of Cain, became the desired ancestor, while Cain, the wicked son, became the father of monsters such as Grendel. Anglo-Saxon culture paid close attention not only to a ’s genealogy, but also to his behavior while in office. While inheritance of position from father to eldest son was the norm, particularly in the later Christian period, it was by no means a universally followed custom. Any male of royal blood could be considered in line for the throne, and a worthy nephew could easily succeed to the kingship, as the story of Beowulf demonstrates. A king must show himself an able “helm” (“helmet,” hence “protector”) of his people. This definition of proper kingly behavior included leadership in war, but also extended to a religious function

3 In fact, it seems that traditions establishing Woden as an ancestor for Anglo-Saxon royal lines actually sprang up after the Christianization of the culture was well underway. See, for example, Chaney 28-33.

7 as the prime intermediary between the people and their God or gods. Perhaps most significantly, it meant providing for the people by the distribution of gifts. Gifts from the king were the primary sustenance of his warriors, and thus generosity became perhaps the most highly-praised kingly . Anglo-Saxon Christian culture embraced this emphasis on gift-giving; some of the most effective early to the Anglo-Saxons, as describes in his Ecclesiastical History, were those who demonstrated generosity in Christian giving. In Old English Genesis narratives, emphasis is placed on God as a heavenly ruler who desires to shower humankind with gifts. Their reciprocal obligation is to be worthy of the gifts received, making return gifts such as faithfulness and obedience.4 Having examined the religious and political implications of Anglo-Saxon readings of Genesis, my project finally turns to the social implications of these readings. Familial relationships, in particular, are prominent in Genesis. The attention given to the narrative of Cain demands examination within the Anglo-Saxon context of the idea of blood-feud, and the particular cultural sanction against shedding the blood of a kinsman. The role of women in Anglo-Saxon society is another significant cultural factor, and an examination of the type and degree of attention given to female characters in the Genesis narrative shows the Anglo-Saxon authors giving them more importance than contemporary theologians in Rome might have. The character of Eve as she is presented in the Genesis poem is particularly noteworthy, and my project considers some recent interpretations of her character being made in light

4 This section of the project builds upon the anthropological theories of gift-giving developed by Marcel Mauss.

8 of the traditional Anglo-Saxon view of the noble woman as peace-weaver. Primary Texts This project makes use of a variety of primary texts, most of which have already been mentioned. The most significant of these texts, the Genesis poem, appears in a collection called the Junius Manuscript. Named for its first modern editor, Franciscus Junius, who discovered the manuscript in 1655, this contains the poems referred to as Genesis, Exodus, Daniel, and Christ and . All of these poems, with the exception of Daniel,5 are discussed in depth in my study. The Junius Manuscript, which contains the only surviving texts of these poems, has been tentatively dated circa 1000-25 (Doane, Genesis A, 360), but the poems themselves are most likely older.6 In this

5 Because it does not contain significant amounts of material drawn from Genesis, the Daniel poem is not considered of primary importance to this project, but has been consulted as background material. 6 Dating of Anglo-Saxon materials is difficult, and usually there is much debate among scholars as to the correct date for a given text. Manuscripts themselves may often be dated with some certainty, but often only one copy of a manuscript has survived, and it is likely that the text or texts contained within have been copied from an earlier, non-surviving manuscript. In the case of works like Beowulf, a text may even have been transmitted orally for generations before being first written down. Hence, only broad approximations of dates can be made. For this project, precise dating is not essential, since I am focusing on a broad range of Anglo-Saxon culture. The dialogue between Christianity and an already-existing Anglo- Saxon culture continued for centuries, but the most

9 introduction, I summarize the best scholarly estimates that can be made about the dates of composition of Anglo-Saxon material, and comment on dating thereafter in the project itself only if it seems particularly relevant to the matter at hand. The Genesis poem, the longest work in the collection, is an Old English verse treatment of the book of Genesis up through chapter 22, verse 13, ending with the story of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac. Some episodes are missing from the text due to pages that have fallen or have been torn from the manuscript, but the poet has followed the Biblical text very closely. One of the main difficulties of working with this text is identifying points of distinctly Anglo-Saxon elaboration and interpretation. Such points can, however, be identified by comparison with the existing translations of Genesis and the patristic commentaries; the 3000-line text of the poem provides many opportunities for analysis. The first hundred lines, for example, are an introduction containing material not found in detail in the Bible, except in cryptic allusions, that describes the creation and fall of the angels. When working with this poem in particular, my study often closely compares its text with the existing Vulgate and translations of the Scripture with which the poet may have been familiar. On points of interpretation, I consult recognized continental theologians, such as Augustine, in order to determine whether a particular interpretation is typical of early medieval Christianity or unique to Anglo- Saxon theology.7 The portion of the poem often called significant works are those written in the first few generations following the start of Christianization. 7 The creation and fall of the angels, for example, is a subject widely discussed in early medieval theology, and

10 Genesis A, in its original form, may date as early as 650, a time when much of the Anglo-Saxon world was still pagan, or as late as 900 (Doane, Genesis A 36).8 Genesis B is the name often given to lines 235-851 of the Genesis poem, a section dealing with the Fall of . It has been given a separate by some editors because its contents may have originally been part of a separate work, a longer continental poem. According to this theory, the section known as Genesis B has been translated into a of Anglo-Saxon and inserted into the text of the Genesis poem, possibly to compensate for material that had already been lost from that poem. The original Old Saxon work was probably composed around or shortly before 850 (Doane, Saxon Genesis 53). This portion of the poem is markedly different in style and tone from the material that precedes and follows it. Unlike the majority of the Genesis A rendering, it does not studiously follow the Scriptural text, but elaborates freely in many of its details. Genesis B is thus more promising material for a cultural analysis, but it also presents the drawback of possibly originating in a continental Saxon culture at a time three or four hundred years after that culture became separate from that of the Anglo-Saxons on the

the unique features of the Genesis poem’s description of these events must be shown by comparison with existing theological works, not just with the Scriptural account. 8 A.N. Doane, in his 1978 edition of the text, summarizes earlier scholarship and arrives at these dates. As he points out, earlier generations of scholars tended to set a later date for the poem, but current estimates seem to fall within these parameters. In my brief treatment of dates, I tend to rely, as I have here, on the most recent estimates available.

11 island of Britain. Many close cultural and linguistic ties were retained, but the two societies were distinctly different by this time. My discussion of Genesis B attempts not to lose sight of these cultural differences, even while it points out the typically Germanic elements that remained current on both sides of the Channel. Ultimately, the similarities prove more important than the differences to this project. It must be remembered that the Anglo-Saxon scribe(s) who first interpolated the two manuscripts saw Genesis B as sufficiently close in style and vision—not just subject matter—to fill the gap in the exemplar of the Old English poem. Some scholars, in fact, do not make this distinction between Genesis A and Genesis B, preferring to treat both as one complete Genesis poem (and, significantly, the manuscript itself makes no such distinction).9 My project, in general, follows this model of treating the text as a single poem, as presented in the manuscript. The text of the Genesis poem as it appears in the Junius Manuscript is supplemented by numerous drawings. More than simply illustrating the text, these examples of manuscript illumination provide additional detail about how the Genesis narratives were interpreted by the Anglo-Saxon culture. My project frequently makes reference to these drawings, all of which can be viewed on the Internet at the web site of the Bodleian Library, which has generously made the entire Junius Manuscript available for view online. Its URL is . The Junius Manuscript also contains the poems known as Exodus, Daniel, and . Both Exodus and

9 See Carol Pasternack, The Textuality of Old .

12 Christ and Satan contain material of primary importance to my study. In the 590-line Exodus poem on the Israelites’ journey out of Egypt and the parting of the Red Sea, the poet has devoted nearly one hundred lines (362-446) to retelling the Genesis narratives of Noah and of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac. Christ and Satan opens with a brief account of the Creation (ll.1-21), and then continues with an extended three-hundred-line description of the revolt of Satan and his followers (ll. 22-364).10 These sections from both poems provide me with additional Old English poetic treatments of Genesis material for direct comparison with Genesis. Like most other Anglo-Saxon texts, however, neither of these poems can be authoritatively dated beyond the age of the manuscript, near the beginning of the eleventh century, so it is not possible to know with certainty whether they were originally written before or after the Genesis poem. The Junius Manuscript poems, while Scriptural in content, are written in a form that implies use as secular entertainment. Though their authors were no doubt learned in Scripture and theology, the purpose of these vernacular poems seems to have been to present Biblically-based stories to a popular audience, and I thus consider them reflections of popular theology. The Anglo-Saxon church also produced scholars who wrote and disseminated official orthodox theology, and my project examines how Ælfric and Bede, two of the greatest of the Anglo-Saxon theologians, presented

10 The Fall of The Angels is not described in the Biblical text of Genesis, but as no detailed description of this event is given anywhere in the Bible, the material seems logically to belong to the same timeline as the Genesis narrative. Certainly the anonymous author of the Genesis poem so believed.

13 the Genesis material to their flocks. For the purposes of this project, Ælfric (c. 945-c.1010), may be primarily remembered as the first translator of an official vernacular Anglo-Saxon version of Genesis, or at least of a substantial portion of the book. My project refers to specific verses of this translation, and to the illustrations that accompany the text in the manuscript known as the Illustrated Hexateuch, as well as to the Preface of the volume, in which Ælfric expresses his reluctance to have undertaken the task and his fear of the possible misuse of Scripture in the hands of the unlearned. In addition, Ælfric’s interpretations of Genesis material survive in various collected homilies delivered originally to the masses in the vernacular during worship services. All of this Ælfrician material thus reflects an intersection between official and popular theology, being written by a trained theologian for the edification of the masses.11 The Venerable Bede (c. 672-735), perhaps the greatest of all Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical scholars, wrote a four-

11 Karen Louise Jolly, in her 1996 study entitled Popular Religion in Late Saxon England: Charms in Context, defines “popular religion” as “those beliefs and practices common to the majority of the believers” (9). My own view of “popular theology” as expressed in this project is very text-centered. I concentrate my analysis on texts written in the vernacular, and hence intended for a lay or comparatively uneducated audience. Probably this audience was composed primarily of aristocrats or city-dwellers; I speculate that the masses of the peasant class were generally exposed to very little of the Genesis narrative in any form.

14 volume commentary on Genesis.12 In it, he drew heavily on existing commentaries by continental scholars, and in referencing this work, my project attempts to differentiate between Bede’s original interpretations, which may reflect prevailing Anglo-Saxon concepts, and those ideas that were common to all orthodox theologians of the day. Bede’s presentation of these continental ideas to an Anglo-Saxon audience is also analyzed to some extent. Even more important to the project, however, is Bede’s great Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum. Both the original Latin version of this work and the later vernacular translation are cited when appropriate. Though written when the conversion of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms was nearly complete, this history is the single most valuable surviving account of that conversion process. Reference to it provides some context concerning initial Anglo-Saxon reactions to this new religion, demonstrating what aspects of Christianity were most and least congenial to the Anglo-Saxon culture. Since an understanding of Anglo-Saxon pagan culture is a necessary aid to understanding their transition into a Christian culture, another important text for this study is the of Cornelius Tacitus. Tacitus, a Roman ethnographer, produced his treatise on the customs of the Germanic tribes in the year 98. Among the tribes that formed the subject of his study were the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons. Though they would not set sail for Britain for another 350 years, and would not be exposed to Christianity for another 500, the German peoples that Tacitus describes had a great influence on the pagan society

12 This commentary covers the first half of the book of Genesis, as Bede’s title states, “Usque Ad Nativitatem Isaac et Eiectionem Ismahelis Adnotationem” (up to the birth of Isaac and the banishment of Ishmael).

15 that their descendants would eventually establish on the island of Britain. Tacitus’s work is the most valuable source of information to survive concerning this pre- literate society, but like the other primary texts I have described, it must be used with caution. Much of the information Tacitus presents was gathered at second hand (or further) from Roman soldiers and traders. Though he made every effort to weed out unreliable source material and was, by the standards of his day, extremely meticulous in fact- gathering, his data becomes ever more spurious the farther away from Roman contact a given tribe lives. Among the more remote tribal groups are those that would eventually cross the Channel. Tacitus’s work also contains a strong Roman bias that tends to assume the Germans are “barbaric.” A contemporary reader must sift through the author’s assumptions about “primitive” versus “civilized” society in order to understand the Germanic cultural perspective. Finally, the considerable time difference between Tacitus’s study and the Anglo-Saxon period in Britain must be taken into account. Hence, much of the information in Tacitus cannot be uncritically applied, but must always be considered in conjunction with later Anglo-Saxon material. What we find in Tacitus is a detailed description of the ancestors of the people with which we are concerned, not of them themselves, just as material such as Norse describes the Anglo-Saxons’ distant cousins but casts only reflected light on their own customs. Perhaps the best primary source of information about the pagan Anglo-Saxons is the poem Beowulf. Beowulf is set in a time when the Anglo-Saxons were still pagan (approximately the early decades of the 500s), and contains some distinctly pagan references. However, it possesses equally strong Christian content, and describes the society

16 of the and —Northern Germanic tribes, unlike the Western Germanic Anglo-Saxons. The date of composition for the poem is unknown, and it may very possibly have existed for some time in oral form before the surviving version was written down.13 For all of these reasons, Beowulf cannot be read as a transparent record of Anglo-Saxon paganism, but it remains a priceless record of a society in transition between two competing worldviews. The anonymous poet thus fused elements of the old and the new belief systems. My project engages in the examination of both aspects of this work, as well as of the site of intersection that has produced this enduring work of literature. Methodology My methodology in this project owes most to the theoretical field of cultural studies. I examine the existing literature as a body, making comparisons and seeking to articulate from the available records a distinctly Anglo-Saxon interpretation of the Biblical text of Genesis. My concern is with popular rather than orthodox theology, and my work recognizes that in a time of ideological shift such as the transition of a society from pagan to Christian beliefs, popular understanding may be a site of multiple and even contradictory ideas. The medieval historian and theoretician who best exemplifies the type of work I attempt to carry out here is Caroline Walker Bynum. In her many works on medieval cultural history and theology, Bynum examines verbal and pictorial representations of theological concepts, pointing out the connections between the cultures that produced these artifacts and the metaphors and exempla used within them to articulate abstract concepts. Thus, theology is situated

13 The manuscript of Beowulf dates from around 1000; various estimates date the poem itself between 700 and 900.

17 within its context in both popular and elite culture. Bynum’s standard methodology, however, is to examine one particular concept, such as resurrection or fragmentation, as it is understood and interpreted throughout the medieval period. My project finds its unity not in one particular concept, but in the interpretation of one Scriptural book, Genesis, within the context of a single and unique medieval society. In the terminology of Mary Louise Pratt, sites “in which peoples geographically and historically separated come into contact with each other and establish ongoing relations” (6) are labeled “contact zones”. Specifically, this project studies the contact zone between early medieval Christianity and the Germanic culture of the Anglo-Saxons, examining in detail the process of transculturation that takes place in Anglo-Saxon interpretations of Genesis myth. Pratt defines “transculturation” as the ways in which members of “subordinated or marginal groups select and invent from materials transmitted to them by a dominant or metropolitan culture” (6). Though not “subordinated” in a political sense by Continental or Celtic Christian kingdoms, the Anglo-Saxons could certainly be deemed “marginal” peoples at this time of early contact. Genesis seems to have been their primary choice of transcultural artifact, selected from a much larger body of Biblical literature and adapted to fit the needs of the local culture. In discussing the role of Genesis myth throughout various facets of Anglo-Saxon culture, I follow the anthropologically-disciplined principles articulated by Craig R. Davis in his book Beowulf and the Demise of Germanic Legend in England. Davis explains that “culturally dominant sacred narratives ()…reflect the institutional structure of their societies and evolve according to general

18 changes in social organization” (xvi). Anglo-Saxon culture adopted the myths of Genesis as culturally dominant sacred narratives during its transition away from the previous pagan myths. Their vernacular retellings of Genesis reveal evolution both in the myth itself in order to better reflect the structure of Anglo-Saxon society and ongoing evolution of Anglo-Saxon social structures as a response to contact with Christian culture and its beliefs. Davis further asserts that: these prestigious and comprehensive sacred narratives inform the structure and typology of secondary heroic narratives (legends), which are cultivated to legitimize the political authority of particular ruling dynasties and more generally to promote an aristocratic value system calculated to support the continuation of these dynasties in power (xvi). Both Beowulf and the genealogies of Anglo-Saxon kings are examples of these types of secondary heroic narratives, created by drawing upon the cultural power of the dominant Genesis myth. The second section of my project describes in detail how Genesis myth was used in precisely these ways, both as a means of political unification of the Anglo-Saxons and as a tool for maintaining individual dynastic power. For the section of my work that situates Genesis within the political context of a group of isolated tribes beginning to think of themselves as a single nation, Nicholas Howe’s Migration and Mythology in Anglo-Saxon England serves as a useful model. As I have mentioned above, Howe’s conclusions concerning the Exodus myth are valid, but may be applied with equal or greater justice to the Genesis narrative. My work acknowledges this debt to Howe and builds on the foundation he has begun. The

19 political section of the finished product also owes a great deal to the groundbreaking theoretical work of the anthropologist Marcel Mauss on the subject of gift-giving customs within tribal societies. The significance of gifts for Anglo-Saxon culture has been acknowledged by growing numbers of scholars in recent years, but many studies still ignore its crucial import.14 Within the existing body of work examining the role of Genesis in the literature of the Anglo-Saxons, the study that comes closest to the focus of my own is Alvin A. Lee’s picturesquely titled 1972 volume, The Guest-Hall of Eden. Lee here addresses Old English poetry as a distinct body of work and attempts to find coherent connections between the existing poems through their use of Scriptural allusion. Lee identifies 18 Scriptural myths that are treated within Old English poetry; my work focuses on the eight of these that are taken from Genesis.15 While concerned with the

14 For examples of studies that examine Anglo-Saxon gift-giving, see the articles by Donahue and J. Hill in the attached bibliography. Perhaps not coincidentally, each of these articles concerns the political implications of passages in Beowulf. Dorothy Haines, however, has overlooked the distinctly Anglo-Saxon role of gift-giving in her otherwise perceptive study of the Genesis poem. 15 These are, as presented by Lee: 1. The Celestial Kingdom: The Transcendent Dream (Joy) of the Heavenly Dryht, of the Ordfruma (Creator) and His Thanes 2. The Fall of the Angels: Rebellion in the Dryht of Heaven 3. The Cosmogenic Myth: The Creation of the Hall Middangeard (Middle-Dwelling, i.e., ) and Its Inhabitants

20 same material, my approach differs from Lee’s in several important details. Most importantly, Lee sets out to catalogue how these various Biblical myths function within the individual poems in which they are presented. While he is very consciously moving beyond structural study of these works into a more content-based approach, Lee remains focused on poetry as a distinct genre and deliberately excludes any consideration of non-poetic material, such as homilies and Scriptural commentaries. My study makes extensive use of these non-poetic records, and also of the pictorial depictions of manuscript illustrations, as it strives to set the poetry it examines within a wider cultural context and contribute to a cultural studies-based critique of the formalism of works such as Lee’s. My project’s third and concluding section makes use of feminist theory in examining the role of women in Anglo- Saxon society as that role is portrayed in the various treatments of Genesis. Central to this question, it would appear, is the depiction of Eve in the Genesis poem. Traditionally, this poem’s presentation of the mother of humankind succumbing to the temptations of the has been considered to reflect a negative appraisal of women within Anglo-Saxon culture. Many recent studies, however,

4. The Fall of : The Disloyalty of Adam and the Beginning of His Fate as Exiled Wanderer 5. The First Murder: The Slaying of Cain, the Tree of Blood, and the Beginning of Fæðe (Feuding) 6. The Deluge: Noah, , and His Treasure Ship 7. The Tower of Babel: The Shining Fortress of Wlenco (Pride) in the Green Plain of Shinar 8. The of Abraham: Abraham the Wanderer and the Sacrifice of Isaac (15).

21 have begun to argue the opposite, reading the depiction of Eve in this poem as a strong, intelligent, and positive character.16 My study addresses this question, and also examines not only the Genesis poem, but a variety of written and pictorial source material in its consideration of what attitudes toward women are reflected in Anglo-Saxon treatments of Genesis.

16 See, for example, Alain Renoir, “Eve’s I.Q. Rating: Two Sexist Views of Genesis B.”

22 Section One: Genesis in the Context of Religious Change Chapter One: Pagan Religious Worldviews In order to understand the changes that occurred during the synthesis of Anglo-Saxon paganism and Christianity, and specifically the role of the book of Genesis in that synthesis, it is important to try to ascertain what sort of belief system the Anglo-Saxons possessed before they encountered Christianity. Historical records describing these beliefs are few. Archeology provides some clues, and some names of gods have survived either in writing or in enduring place-names. Clearly, tribal variations in belief were still quite significant, and each area seems to have had its own chief or . What can be discerned about the names and individual personalities of these deities, however, is not as important a question as what the Anglo-Saxons believed about the nature and function of gods in general, and what their own relationship with these powers was like. Through careful comparison of the wide variety of surviving source materials, some general observations about these beliefs can be made. One of the best source documents we possess for the study of the Anglo-Saxons’ initial encounters with and reactions to Christianity is Bede’s great Historia Ecclesiastica. This document is far from an ideal source, being written by a devoutly Christian monk more than a hundred years after the first Roman missionaries arrived on the island. Bede entered the monastery of Wearmouth and Jarrow at the age of seven, and thus knew little—at least at first-hand—of whatever non-Christian culture might have survived at that time outside the monastery walls. His purpose in writing the history is to celebrate the

23 triumphal progress of Christianity among his people, and thus he spends little time describing any resistance to that progress. However, his study is exceptionally thorough and well-researched by the standards of its day,1 and the few glimpses it provides of pagan beliefs are invaluable. Perhaps the best known of Bede’s descriptions of the initial contacts between Christianity and Anglo-Saxon paganism is his story of Coifi, the “primus pontificum”2 of Edwin, King of (II, 13). Edwin had married the Christian princess Æthelberga of , who brought with her the priest (later bishop) Paulinus as her personal chaplain. The king was subsequently pressured to convert to Christianity by his wife, by Paulinus, who attributed both Edwin’s success in battle and the safe birth of his and Æthelburga’s first child, a daughter, to the power of the Christian God, and also by Pope Boniface, who sent letters and gifts to the Northumbrian court. In addition, Bede records that Paulinus was able to confirm a visionary experience that Edwin had had years before, so that the king came to believe that it had been sent by the God of the Christians. Believing now that he had unknowingly sworn allegiance to this new God years earlier, Edwin agreed that he himself would become Christian. In a last step, however, he told Paulinus that he wished to call together his council, or

1 See Bede’s Preface for a description of his research methods, which include gathering information from sites of learning all over England and even, by proxy, from archives in Rome. 2 “Chief of the priests.” All translations are my own unless otherwise marked.

24 witan, to learn his chief advisors’ view of this new religion. Coifi, clearly an important religious leader within the existing pagan system, is the first to speak: Tu vide, rex, quale sit hoc quod nobis modo praedicatur: ego autem tibi verissime quod certum didici, profiteor, quia nihil omnino virtutis habet, nihil utilitatis religio illa quam hucusque tenuimus: nullus enim tuorum studiosius quam ego culturae deorum nostrorum se subdidit; et nihilominus multi sunt qui ampliora a te beneficia quam ego, et maiores accipiunt dignitates, magisque prosperantur in omnibus quae agenda vel adquirenda disponunt. Si autem dii aliquid valerent, me potius iuvare vellent, qui illis impensius servire curavi. Unde restat, si ut ea quae nunc nobis nova praedicantur, meliora esse et fortiora, habita examinatione perspexeris, absque ullo cunctamine suscipere illa festinemus (II, 13).3

3 “You may see for yourself, King, what sort of it is that is now being proclaimed to us: I, however, declare publicly and most truly to you this certain thing I have learned, that that religion which we have kept all the way to this point has absolutely nothing of power, nothing of usefulness: for none of your people has subjected himself more eagerly to the cultivation of our gods than I; and nonetheless there are many who receive from you more ample benefits, and greater ranks, than I, and who are caused to succeed more in all things that they arrange for doing or acquiring. If, however, the gods were strong at all, they would have rather wished to help me, who have

25 Immediately after this speech in Bede’s account, another, unnamed member of the council adds his own voice to Coifi’s: Talis […] mihi videtur, rex, vita hominum praesens in terris, ad comparationem eius quod nobis incertum est temporis, quale cum te residente ad coenam cum ducibus ac ministris tuis tempore brumali, accenso quidem foco in medio et calido effecto coenaculo, furentibus autem foris per omnia turbinibus hiemalium pluvarium vel nivium, adveniensque unus passerum domum citissime pervolaverit qui cum per unum ostium ingrediens, mox per aliud exierit. Ipso quidem tempore quo intus est, hiemis tempestate non tangitur, sed tamen parvissimo spatio serenitatis ad momentum excurso, mox de hieme in hiemum regrediens, tuis oculis elabitur. Ita haec vita hominum ad modicum apparet; quid autem sequatur, quidve praecesserit, prorsus ignoramus. Unde si haec nova doctrina certius aliquid attulit, merito esse sequenda videtur (II,13).4

more earnestly attended to being their servant. Whence it remains that, if you have observed by a thorough examination that these things which are now being proclaimed to us are better and stronger, without any delay we should hurry to receive them.” 4 “Such seems to me, King, the present life of men on earth, in comparison to that portion of time that is uncertain for us, as when you are sitting at dinner with your war-leaders and servants in wintertime, with the dining room having been made warm indeed by the hearth

26 The rest of the assembly is in agreement. After listening to Paulinus preach, Coifi once again raises his voice to declare that up to this point they have worshiped “nihil,” or “nothing,” for he has been able to find no truth within the old religious system. In Paulinus’s words, however, is “veritas […] illa, quae nobis vitae, salutis et beatitudinis aeternae dona valet tribuere” (II, 13).5 Coifi proposes that without delay the old temples and altars must be cursed and burned. In fact, he volunteers to take the lead in this destruction, and to that end takes up weapons and rides a stallion to the temple where the “idola,” or “idols,” resided.6 Upon arrival at the temple, he first casts into it the he has

having been kindled in your midst, but with raging whirls of wintry rain or snow all over everything outside, and an arriving sparrow might fly very quickly through the house, who, although entering through one window, soon goes out through another. Indeed for that time that he is inside, he is not touched by the stormy weather of winter, but nevertheless with the very short space of fair weather having run out in a moment, soon returning from winter into winter, he passes away from your eyes. Thus this life of men appears for a little time; however what will follow, or what has preceded it, we do not know at all. Whence if this new teaching has brought anything more certain, it seems deserving to be followed.” 5 “That truth, which is strong enough to give to us the gifts of life, salvation, and eternal blessedness.” 6 Bede informs us that Coifi is breaking the prescribed rules for priests both by carrying weapons and by a stallion rather than a .

27 brought, and then orders it to be burned (II, 13). Subsequently Edwin is baptized, and Christianity becomes the accepted religion of the Northumbrians. Beyond the certainty that Edwin’s conversion and baptism are matters of historical fact (according to Bede, the baptism took place on 12, 627), and that the royal marriage of Edwin and Æthelburga began the chain of events by bringing Paulinus to the kingdom, it is difficult to separate fact from legend in the rest of Bede’s account. The Historia describes repeated supernatural intervention even before the remarkable council whose speeches I have quoted at length. Both the high priest and the other unnamed counselor seem far too eager to accept the new religion for the account to be credible, unless one assumes that the speakers know that the king’s mind is already made up and are seeking his favor. Nevertheless, even a legendary account would have to conform to contemporary cultural practice in its details in order to be believed by Bede’s audience.7 When examined in the context of the other available sources, this account is illustrative of many of the key characteristics of Anglo-Saxon pagan religion as it was practiced at the time of the arrival of Christian missionaries. Gods and The plural term “idola” used by Bede (II, 13) indicates that multiple gods were being worshipped at this particular . Certainly there is ample evidence that

7 Henry Mayr-Harting remarks that “it is possible that Bede’s father and almost certain that his grandfather could remember the heyday of Northumbrian heathenism” (22), and the same would certainly be true of his audience.

28 the Anglo-Saxons were polytheistic; in fact, we know the names and characteristics of many deities, both major and minor. While Bede does not name the idols to be found in Coifi’s temple, the act of profaning the temple by throwing a spear into it has been recognized by William A. Chaney and others8 as a link to the pagan cult of Woden (Chaney 40). As Henry Mayr-Harting explains, the spear was regarded as a symbol of this particular god, and the Scandinavians later practiced the custom of flinging a spear over the heads of their enemies before doing battle, as a sign that they were dedicating these men to Woden

8 Richard North, in particular, makes much of this link to Woden in his extended analysis of this incident (323- 38), although he takes the added step of surmising that Bede is partly basing his account on a pagan source in which Coifi actually represents Paulinus in disguise as the god Woden. North’s linguistic evidence for this theory is fascinating, but I cannot completely accept his conclusions. For one thing, Paulinus and Coifi are represented as two distinct individuals at the king’s council (Bede, Historia I, 284), and more conclusively, leading the Northumbrian people into a confused kind of synchretism in which Woden is identified with Christ, particularly by disguising oneself as the god, is completely out of character for a Roman and archbishop. While the Roman Church had officially sanctioned a missionary approach that would allow the Anglo-Saxons to retain as many of their traditional religious customs as possible (See Bede, Historia I, 162- 64), the strategy North describes would have far exceeded the bounds of orthodoxy.

29 (26). Given his role as god of battle, Woden seems particularly significant in connection with King Edwin, because one of Bede’s listed reasons for Edwin’s conversion is his belief that Christ had recently granted him victory in battle (II, 9). Presumably, before this point Edwin would have sought the favor of Woden in such matters. In addition, a genealogical list of the reigning family to which Edwin belonged lists Woden as an ancestor of Edwin (North 339).9 Woden, however, must have been only one of the “idola” being worshipped at this shrine. Anglo-Saxon practice seems to have been to erect one building to function as a center of worship for a number of gods (Mayr-Harting 25, Wilson 16). Who the others in this case might have been is impossible to say with certainty, though we do know the names and attributes of a number of Anglo-Saxon gods. Besides Woden, Tiw and Thunor have given their names to days of the week, as has the Frig, wife of Woden (Davidson, Lost Beliefs 56, 79). Many Scandinavian legends survive concerning Thunor, the thunder god. Tiw is lesser- known, but can be identified with the Roman Mars, as Thunor was with and Woden with (Davidson, Lost Beliefs 47). The extensive worship of both and Tiw is

9 The list that has come down to us was compiled after Edwin’s death, and it is questionable whether Edwin himself would have claimed this ancestry during his life. Possibly, this tradition sprang up after his death in battle, because Woden was said to become the adoptive father of warriors who so died, as North suggests (339). In any case, this list is strongly suggestive that Woden was worshipped by this royal family at some time.

30 attested by place-name evidence and by the frequent presence of both of their runic signs on burial urns (North 231-34). Both gods were associated with war (among other functions), and seem to have been associated with and patronized by common men, in contrast to Woden, the war god of the nobility.10 In another of his works, De Temporum Ratione, Bede mentions two pagan goddesses, and Eostre, who were worshipped in and April, respectively (353). We know very little of either of these goddesses, but they, like Frig, seem to have some associations with fertility and abundant harvest. Tacitus’s account of the “Anglii” on the continent around the year 100 asserts that “Nerthum, id est Terram matrem, colent (196).”11 He provides a detailed description of the ceremonial and subsequent washing of this goddess (probably some sort of idol). North builds an elaborate reconstruction from this description of a male god (or Ing) who yearly mated with Mother Earth to ensure fertility of both humans and crops (19-25). The earth does seem to have been personified as an important religious figure; the tenth or eleventh- century ritual field that Karen Louise Jolly uses to open her study of “elf charms” contains an to “Erce” (8). Tacitus records that the Germanic tribes of his day believed that their origins sprang from “Tuistonem deum terra editum” (130).12 This is the closest to an original pagan creation myth in Anglo-Saxon or early Germanic

10 See, for example, North 236. 11 “They worship Nerthus, that is Mother Earth.” 12 “The god , descended from the earth.”

31 record.13 All things seem to spring from Mother Earth, though who or what created Earth is unknown or unspecified. The functions of these known gods and goddesses, while they vary in specific detail, can thus be divided into the two broad categories of war and fertility. Significantly, these are the same two areas in which Paulinus had to prove the efficacy of appeals to Christ before Edwin would accept Christianity. The primary function of Anglo-Saxon deities was to provide their followers with material rewards of some sort. Unlike Christianity, which prescribes a codified moral system, this pagan religion does not seem to have dictated standards of moral conduct for its followers or to have concerned itself at all with the concept of “sin.”14 Rather than virtuous conduct, correct performance of ritual and sacrifice was the way to propitiate the gods. Rites and An unusual story attesting to the crucial function of correct ritual appears in Bede’s Life of St. Cuthbert. In this episode, dated approximately 650, a crowd of

13 H.R. Ellis Davidson describes some Scandinavian myth elements surrounding creation on p. 173 of Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe. Much more detailed than Tacitus’s mention of Tuisto, these accounts still leave many questions unanswered about which gods were believed to possess creative powers. Davidson speculates that certain extant Anglo-Saxon brooches may depict a creator god (174), but concludes that there is no satisfactory evidence to indicate what Anglo-Saxon paganism believed about creation. 14 Certainly the Anglo-Saxons had a cultural moral code, but it was not dictated systematically by their religion in the manner of the Christian code.

32 Northumbrian peasants jeers at a group of monks who are in danger on the sea. When Cuthbert rebukes them, they reply that the monks do not deserve pity because “ueteres culturas hominibus tulere, et nouas qualiter obseruare debeant nemo nouit (Two Lives 164).”15 Richard Fletcher points out that the concern of these peasants here is for the harvest, which may be disrupted if correct rituals are not performed. Their uncertainty is over the question of how to propitiate the new God so that He will reward them (Fletcher 286). It seems clear that at least part of the traditional propitiation methods for pagan gods involved some sort of sacrifice. Bede’s De Temporum Ratione specifies a specific , named Blotmonath, as the time when livestock sacrifice was carried out among the Angles (353). In , feasts accompanied times of sacrifice at specified festivals during the year,16 and archeological excavations at Yeavering in Northumbria of several great halls and a wooden amphitheatre, the latter thought to have been constructed by Edwin himself, have uncovered animal remains that are believed to constitute evidence of such sacrificial feasting (Davidson, Lost Beliefs 22-23). Tacitus is clear that the ancient Germanic tribes practiced both human and (144). There is no definite evidence that continued among the Anglo-Saxons in Britain, although, as

15 “They have taken the old methods of worship away from men, and no one has learned how the new ones ought to be observed.” 16 See Davidson, Lost Beliefs 89-93.

33 concludes in her 1992 analysis of the question, the possibility cannot be ruled out (“Human Sacrifice,” 340).17 The “idola” mentioned in Bede’s account of Edwin’s conversion are located in some sort of temple structure. Bede uses the terms “templa,” “altaria,” and “fanum” (“temples,” “high altars,” and “shrine”), in his descriptions of the physical locations of Anglo-Saxon worship (Historia II, 13). The Old English translation renders these descriptions as “þæt templ and þa wigbedo,” “þa hergas þara deofolgilda mid heora heowum,” and “þone herig and þa getimbro”. “Templ,” of course, is a borrowing from the Latin; “wigbedo” corresponds to the Latin “altaria.” “Hergas,” according to David Wilson, were particularly prominent religious sites, likely the locations of tribal worship (8), an interpretation that fits the description given. The Anglo-Saxon translator adds to the original text the details that this temple consisted of multiple buildings (“getimbro”) and was surrounded by some sort of protective hedge or enclosure (“heowum”). Though Bede mentions the existence of pagan temples at several points in his history, the above-mentioned passage is the most complete written description of one that we possess. The only possible temple site that has so far been identified is a hall with a large wooden post standing adjacent to it, discovered at the excavation at Yeavering, which Bede cites as Edwin’s “villam regiam,” or “royal residence” (Historia II, 14); otherwise, no archeological evidence has yet been found of these structures (Davidson,

17 Martin Carver raises the possibility that some of the graves excavated at may contain the remains of human sacrifice victims (Sutton 73).

34 Lost 23-24). It seems almost certain that they were made of wood, not stone, as subsequent Christian structures would be. Coifi, for instance, is able to destroy the buildings he attacks by fire. According to Tacitus, the Germanic tribes of his day had no religious structures of any kind, preferring to worship outdoors. He explains, “Nec cohibere parietibus deos…ex magnitudine caelestum arbitrantur: lucos ac nemora consecrant”18 (144). Their Anglo-Saxon descendants apparently had altered that custom,19 but from all accounts it seems that even their great tribal religious structures (hergas) were small, temporary affairs in contrast to the stone structures that the Christian church would erect. David Wilson also posits from place-name evidence the existence of small local called “weohs,” but of these there remains no archeological trace (10). The existence of Coifi himself is a greater point of scholarly controversy than the existence of some sort of pagan temple for him to burn down, however. Richard North , in fact, that there was no organized Anglo-Saxon priesthood(333). Linguistic evidence supports this theory,

18 “Not to confine the gods with walls…they have judged fitting to the greatness of their deities: they consecrate woods and sacred groves.” 19 At least to the extent of building some religious structures; Wilson’s extensive analysis of existing place- names points out the occasional combination of a god’s name with the element “leah”, meaning “grove”. These names might indicate the sites of sacred groves of the kind that Tacitus describes, though Wilson himself believes this meaning is unlikely (15-16).

35 for the Old English version of Bede’s History calls Coifi a “biscope” (the anglicized form of the Greek “episcopus”), rather than using an existing Anglo-Saxon term (II, 13). Other than the character of Coifi and a reference to the “idolatris…pontifibus,” the “idolatrous priests” of London, in Bede (Historia II, 6), the only other recorded mention of a pagan priest in Anglo-Saxon culture is a reference in the Vita S. Wilfredi to a “princeps sacerdotum idolatriae” or “magus” (Stephanus 28).20 Based on the description given, North concludes that this person was more likely to fit our concept of “male witch” than “priest” (333). Tacitus is quite clear that there were designated priests among the Germanic tribes of his day. In addition to the duty of presiding at religious ceremonies (202), his account assigns Germanic priests the functions of (146), ordering corporal or capital punishment (140), directing public meetings (148), and caring for ceremonial animals and objects (146, 196). The Scandinavian culture of the later period also included priests (Dubois 65). William A. Chaney, in his book The Cult of Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England: The Transition from Paganism to Christianity, argues that Anglo-Saxon kings were expected to mediate directly between their people and the gods in order to insure victories and plentiful harvests (2-3). This sort of function might naturally be expected of one who claimed descent from the gods, as these kings did. The willingness of Edwin’s people to follow him in accepting the new Christian religion also indicates the authority of

20 “prince of the priests of ” or “magician”

36 the king in religious matters.21 North believes that Anglo- Saxon kings thus took the place of the priesthood that he insists did not exist (15). Tacitus describes Germanic customs of divination in which the king and priest act in tandem to observe and interpret the movements and vocalizations of sacred horses (146). Certainly kings in this culture did exercise functions that we would consider religious as well as political. It is likely, as well, that heads of individual households acted as religious leaders within their own families. Tacitus writes that divination in regard to public matters was carried out by “sacerdos civitatis,” or “the priest of the state”, but private divination by “pater familiae,” “the father of the family” (146). The religious roles of rulers and household heads in this culture clearly diminished the scope of influence of the priesthood, but it is unlikely that the institution had died out completely by Edwin’s day, as North claims. Coifi’s role, as described by Bede, seems to have been to act as advisor to the king in matters of religion (although he did not wield authority over the king in these matters) and as caretaker of the royal temple. Such a structure would have required a caretaker. Bede’s description of Coifi as “pontifice sacrorum suorum” (Historia II, 13) could be translated as “high priest of his [Edwin’s] ,” so he may have had the duty of carrying out or overseeing these as well. His own self- description, as quoted in Bede, indicates that he was a man

21 Gale R. Owen points to Bede’s account of Edwin’s council as evidence that Edwin was considered “the spiritual leader of his people”(51).

37 uniquely dedicated to the service of the pagan gods, more than any other of Edwin’s subjects. And, since Coifi is also called “primus pontificum ipsius” or “the first of his [Edwin’s] high priests” (Historia II, 13), Bede is clearly picturing a Northumbrian priesthood with multiple members. The concept of a priestly class thus was familiar to the pagan Anglo-Saxons, though the scanty written records of them may indicate that they were not numerous. The use of borrowed Latin terms to describe priests in the written record, instead of whatever native words may have been in use prior to Christianization, is not in itself conclusive proof that there were no such native words; the Old English translation of Bede’s Historia uses the Latin borrowing “templ” to describe the site of idol-worship alongside native terms such as “hergas” (II, 13). It seems most likely that a pagan priesthood existed in pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon culture, but that such priests were few in number and largely attached to the great tribal worship- sites called “hergas.” These priests shared the responsibility for religious functions with other authority figures within the culture, such as kings and even leaders of families. Spiritual Beliefs The words of the second, unnamed counselor in the debate raise questions concerning pagan Anglo-Saxon belief in an . He states that no one knows either what precedes or what follows a human life on this earth. His recommendation is to accept Christianity on the basis that it provides greater knowledge about this question than the previous system. Whether or not the paganism of the Anglo-Saxons included belief in an afterlife is unclear. Evidence against such a

38 belief includes an account in Bede’s Historia of how the Christianized East Saxons relapsed into paganism during a time of epidemic. Bede states that both this people and their king were “diligentes hanc vitam, et futuram non quaerentes, sive etiam non esse credentes”22 (III. 30). Taking his cue from the above-mentioned counselor, Wilson concludes, “On the whole, the evidence would seem to suggest uncertainty [regarding afterlife] on their part” (97). Excavations of pagan burial sites are, so far, likewise inconclusive. Various types of grave goods are commonly found in both inhumation and graves from the pagan period. Owen and Wilson both list as common archeological finds such things as knives, grooming tools, keys, tweezers, spinning implements, fire-making tools, whetstones, combs, and containers of food (Owen 69-73, Wilson 67-164). An obvious interpretation is that these items were believed to be needed by the deceased in the next life. Not all grave goods necessarily indicate a belief in the afterlife, however; weapons or valuables may have been tokens of respect for the dead and the remains of sacrificed animals may have some other religious meaning. In fact, symbolic explanations can be found for the presence of any of these objects without the necessity of any kind of belief in afterlife. For example, Wilson mentions the possibility that such toilet items as combs and tweezers, which are often found in graves, might have been considered powerful items because they were associated with the hair of the dead. If so, burying them

22 “Esteeming this life, and not seeking a future one, or even believing it to exist.”

39 would have prevented them from falling into the hands of malicious magic-workers (139-40). By contrast, the Scandinavians of the have left us considerable evidence of their belief in afterlife. Warriors aspired to be selected by for membership in the company of after death. Odin was the Scandinavian counterpart of the Anglo-Saxon Woden, and it is likely that the Anglo-Saxon cult of Woden shared this belief in Valhalla. But the reward of living on in another realm after death is not restricted to warriors in the writings that preserve Viking-Age tradition. Apparently, all lived on in some region of the next world, though there were a variety of possible destinations, some desirable and some not. Thomas A. Dubois lists more than half a dozen of these, culled from his reading of ’s Prose and other early Scandinavian literature. They include places set aside for various specified groups, such as men who die from natural causes rather than in war, unmarried women, “good and righteous men,” and various types of the unrighteous, including perjurers and murderers (79-80).23 Whether any Anglo-Saxons of the sixth and seventh centuries would have had comparable expectations of what awaited them in the afterlife is unknown. Very little

23 For another reference to a universal afterlife, see Ibn Fadlan’s account of a tenth-century Viking . The slave-girl who has volunteered to be sacrificed during the funeral rites is lifted up over “a thing like a door- frame”, whence she exclaims that she can see waiting for her in the next world not only her master but many of her own deceased relatives, including her mother and father (Beowulf and Its Analogues 341-45).

40 written evidence of their specific beliefs exists; however, a passage from Beowulf has a ring that recalls the words of Edwin’s unnamed advisor. After describing the death of the great king Scyld Scefing, and his interment on a ship that is decked with treasure and then set adrift, the poet concludes, “Men ne cunnon/ secgan to soðe, selerædende,/ hæleð under heofonum, hwa þæm hlæste onfeng” (50-52).24 This description indicates a belief that someone, presumably a god, is waiting to welcome Scyld into the afterlife, but beyond the expectation that he will live on in another realm, nothing is known for certain. Perhaps, then, we can take Edwin’s advisor at his word. Even if, however, most Anglo-Saxon pagans did possess a belief in an afterlife that was detailed and specific in the manner of the Norse sagas mentioned above, one major deficiency—in comparison to the Christian picture of heaven—would have remained. As Paul Bauschatz points out, none of the possible afterworlds of pagan Germanic conception was believed to be permanent. Ragnarök, the final battle that might correspond roughly to the Christian Day of Judgement, would result in not just the destruction of the world of men but also of all other “created worlds” in existence (142). Thus, no afterlife could be eternal. In that sense, truly, the ultimate destination of the deceased was as mysterious as the ultimate flight of the counselor’s metaphoric sparrow. Death, for the Anglo-Saxon pagans, was thus a journey whose destination was in every case as unknown as that of

24 “Men do not know/ To say as a fact, hall- counselors,/ Heroes under the heavens, who received that freight.”

41 Scyld Scefing in the Beowulf poem. In Beowulf, Scyld Scefing’s death is rendered, “Him þa Scyld gewat to gescæphwile/felahror feran on Frean wære”25(26-27). The euphemism “gewat” translates, “he departed”. Bauschatz has identified “forþfaran” (or “forþferan”) as another common Anglo-Saxon euphemism for death; it translates “to go forth.” Bauschatz’s research into the origin of the term, however, suggests that the original meaning of the Germanic verb that became the Anglo-Saxon “faran” specifically indicated travel by water (57). This verb is also used in the Beowulf passage, in which Scefing’s body, at least, does depart by water. Scefing’s body is set adrift in a ship on the ocean after his death. As archeological sites like Sutton Hoo attest, another possible custom was the burial of both ship and body. The dead Rus Viking of Ibn Fadlan’s account is placed in his ship and burned in it at a site on land, where a mound is afterward raised. Davidson also mentions graves in and that are surrounded by stones forming a ship outline (Myths 169). Whatever form ship burial might take, it was a popular custom, for both men and women, throughout the Germanic world during the early medieval period.26 Some symbolic significance is indicated; Davidson suggests that those so buried may have been devotees of the cult of the , gods who were associated with bodies of water (Lost Beliefs 19). The linguistic analysis above indicates that whatever specific gods may

25 “From them then Scyld departed at the fated time/ Very vigorous to go into the ’s protection.” 26 Davidson states that ship-burials first became common in the sixth century (Lost Beliefs 19).

42 have been appealed to by the custom, however, the journey into the other world was culturally figured as a voyage made by water. Bauschatz examines in depth the ritual significance of water in Germanic religion in his book The Well and the Tree. His title refers to an image from the Norse poem Voluspá of the , , growing beside a spring of water called Urth’s Well (3). Bauschatz considers these two symbols of well and tree to be the central metaphors of Germanic cosmology. Bauschatz also articulates in this book his theory of the Germanic conception of time as divided only into the two categories of past and not-past (in his terminology, “nonpast”). Present and future, in this paradigm, become one. As he explains, “The past is experienced, known, laid down, accomplished, sure, realized. The present, [and what we would call the future] to the contrary, [are] in flux and confusion…”(139). One strong piece of evidence for this theory is that unlike other Indo-European languages such as Latin, the Old English language does not possess a distinctly future verb tense, only present and preterit. A culture’s language both shapes and reflects its conception of reality; therefore Bauschatz’s theory may have merit. Bauschatz links the tree with his category of “nonpast,” that temporal realm of unfinished action in which living human beings dwell. The well represents the past, which Bauschatz describes as “a realm of experience including all of the accomplished actions of all beings, men, gods, etc. It is ever growing, and it has a direct, nurturing, sustentative effect upon the world” (15-16). The completed events of the past thus exert enormous influence on the realms of the world tree, which include the homes of gods

43 as well as men. It is this entire tree that will be destroyed in Ragnarök. Whether or not Bauschatz’s theory about the symbolic relationship between the well and the tree and the Germanic conceptualization of time is correct, it is clear that both trees and water held great significance for . Tacitus frequently indicates that sacred groves form Germanic religious sites, and also includes a mention of a “secreto lacu,” or “secret pool,” in which sacred objects are washed and in which the slaves who carry out this task are afterwards drowned (196). The surviving place-names linked with Anglo-Saxon paganism include nine names linking the name of a pagan god with the word “leah,” meaning “grove” (Wilson 15). Whether or not these were sites of worship such as Tacitus describes, clearly the names denote groups of sacred trees. Similarly, the name “Tyesmere” translates “Tiw’s pool”; Wilson lists it as the only known pool in England to be specially dedicated to a god, though he remarks that there are many similar sites on the Continent (15). The Life of St. Boniface, the great Anglo-Saxon missionary to the continental Saxons and a contemporary of Bede, describes pagans in the region of Hesse who “lignis et fontibus…sacrificabant.”27 Boniface wins their attention by chopping down an “arborem quandam mirae magnitudinis, qui prisco paganorum vocabulo appellatur robur Jovis”28 (Willibaldus 180). “Jovis” here

27 “Were sacrificing to trees and springs”. 28 “A certain tree of amazing magnitude, which by the old designation of the pagans was called the oak of Jupiter.”

44 probably is a Latin designation for the Germanic god Thunor (Davidson, Lost Beliefs 47). Besides the inanimate natural features of trees and wells, Germanic religion also encouraged great reverence for animals. Animal sacrifice was a central religious rite, as witnessed by the quantity of ox bones found at the “temple” site at Yeavering (Davidson, Lost Beliefs 22), as well as Coifi’s designation as “pontifice sacrorum suorum”29 (Bede, Historia II, 13). Pope Gregory’s letter to Augustine dated 18, 601 also recognizes that the Anglo-Saxons “boves solent in sacrificio daemonum multos occidere”30 (Bede, Historia I, 30). Ancient Germanic tradition included the observation of animal bodies or behavior as a means of foretelling the future, as Tacitus relates (146). The specific animals referenced by Tacitus in this connection are birds and horses. Bauschatz writes that both of these animals are particularly important because they are associated with Odin/Woden; he believes that they are able to “mediate between men and gods” or to facilitate contact between the different worlds of Germanic cosmology (67). King Edwin, it seems, was particularly sensitive to the omens of birds. He is described in a Life of St. Gregory as being disturbed on his way to church one day by the cawing of a crow, considered a bird of ill . It was apparently feared that its cry meant an impending death. The intrepid Paulinus solved this crisis by ordering the bird to be

29 “High priest of his [the king’s] sacrifices.” 30 “Are accustomed to kill many cattle in sacrifice to demons.”

45 shot, proving its powerlessness by its death (Davidson, Lost Beliefs 138). The Germanic belief system also seems to have granted talismanic status to certain animals, particularly those associated with kings or warriors. Bearing a representation of such animals was believed to impart something of their spirit, as the Beowulf poet explains, “Eoforlic scionon/ Ofer hleorber[g]an gehroden golde,/ Fah ond fyrheard,--ferhwearde heold/ Guþmod grimmon”31 (303-06). Examples of this type of ornament have been discovered on surviving helmets from the pagan period, though it is likely that over time such ornaments lost their supernatural significance and became merely traditional.32 All of these characteristics of Anglo-Saxon pagan religious thought indicate the attitudes and expectations regarding religion with which the Anglo-Saxons met the first Christian missionaries. Pagans like Edwin evaluated the Christian message based on criteria drawn from this existing . More importantly for this project, these same cultural associations continued to shape Anglo-Saxon religious experience throughout the early Christianization process, and provided the lens through which the Anglo-Saxon people viewed the Christian scriptures, and in particular, the book of Genesis.

31 “Boar-figures shone/ Over their cheek-guards adorned with gold,/ Decorated and fire-hard,--the war-minded boar held guard/ Over the lives of the fierce men.” 32 For a thorough study of these elements of shamanistic belief in Anglo-Saxon paganism, see Stephen Glosecki.

46 Chapter Two: Genesis and the Christianization of Anglo- Saxon Religion As the new doctrines of Christianity spread throughout the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, the culture’s beliefs and expectations concerning the realm of religion began to shift. Through the public conversions of King Edwin and other royals and nobles, Christianity gradually became a socially acceptable belief system, and eventually, the social norm. Despite the drama of conversion narratives as presented by Bede, however, a complete cultural shift from one set of religious beliefs to another is a gradual transition. At first, the devotions of many of the professed adherents of the new religion probably resembled those of Rædwald, King of the East Angles, who as Bede complains, attempted to integrate Christianity into his existing belief system by simply adding an to the Christian God to his pagan shrine (Historia Ecclesiastica II, 15). Open worship of pagan gods eventually ceased, though in the first few generations after the arrival of Christian missionaries, Bede reports several instances of kingdoms returning to pagan practice when pagan rulers came to the throne (Historia Ecclesiastica II, 5; III, 30). Most common folk seem to have willingly followed their leaders in matters of religion, and in fact, during the early years of missionary activity must have had only a vague conception of the nature and doctrines of Christianity. The form of Christianity that eventually came to dominate the religious life of the Anglo-Saxons, while it left no room for worship at pagan shrines, did represent a cultural synthesis between late classical Christianity and the previously existing Anglo-Saxon culture and religion. Old English Genesis narratives are a particularly

47 noteworthy locus of that cultural intersection, because in them the religious and social structures of the Biblical Genesis narrative are integrated with familiar Anglo-Saxon religious and social structures. The Genesis narratives produced by the Anglo-Saxons provide a bridge between pagan and Christian religious thought. They are an invaluable record of a culture undergoing a transition in dominant religious myth. The Genesis narrative as presented in these texts answers the most basic question in the minds of worshippers new to Christianity: Who this new God is. The texts are clearly monotheistic, but assist in the transition from to by placing the Christian God within a cosmos that includes other spiritual beings (angels and demons), and by emphasizing the mystery of His Trinitarian nature. He is repeatedly celebrated in His role as Creator—a central doctrine of the book of Genesis. The retellings of stories from Genesis demonstrate this God’s ability to provide the same that pagan worshippers sought from the old Germanic gods, and introduce the concept that unlike the old gods, this God requires obedience to a moral code, not just ritual propitiation, in return for His gifts. Ritual worship, nevertheless, is an important part of the practice of Christianity, and the practices of the Roman Church (and even the Celtic one) were new and strange to the Anglo-Saxon culture. Judeo-Christian worship as practiced in Genesis, however, was similar to the existing customs—sacrifice at outdoor shrines, usually performed by rulers or male heads of family groups, but with the occasional appearance of professional . The Old English retellings of Genesis also retain some vestiges of

48 the previous Germanic veneration of trees and water, and even, occasionally, certain animals. The Christian God As Bede’s story of Rædwald suggests, the most significant initial shift in the transition from paganism to Christianity was the move from polytheism to monotheism. Accepting the worship of a new Christian God was an easier task for those like Rædwald than abandoning the worship of their existing . Memory of the old gods was slow to die out completely; Woden, in particular, appears in genealogy lists written as late as the end of the tenth century (Sisam 290), as well as in the “” from a manuscript dating roughly from the time of the .1 In the charm, Woden appears concurrently with Christ, in what Karen Louise Jolly describes as a “parallel function” (128), much as the altars in Rædwald’s shrine must have been. Figuring Woden as the acknowledged ancestor of most of the Anglo-Saxon royal families does not confirm or deny his divine status,2 but it certainly confirms his position of importance in Anglo-Saxon culture

1 MS Harley 585; for dating, see Jolly 106. 2 Craig R. Davis argues that in the later genealogies, Woden and other figures originally regarded as divinities (Seaxnet, Frealaf, Geat)have lost their status as gods and become regarded more as heroes of legend. Woden, he says, can thus appear “presumably with most of his venerable martial attributes intact” on a list that otherwise functions in an explicitly Christian context (“Cultural,” 30). See Chapter Three of this project for a more detailed discussion of these genealogies.

49 long after Christianity had become that culture’s “official” religion. Within the bounds of orthodox Christianity, however, only one God is able to exist. Old English Genesis narratives reinforce the identity of this one true God, but at the same time, their emphasis on the activities of other spiritual beings--angels and demons—reflects traces of an earlier understanding of a cosmos in which many unseen divine forces were at work. The Scriptural narrative of Genesis begins with God alone,3 surrounded by nothingness. He then proceeds to exert His creative power to form everything else in the universe—material and spiritual. In the opening of the Biblical narrative of Genesis, however, the only explicit description of the creation of spiritual beings is that of the creation of humankind—distinguished from every other living creature by being made “in the image of God” (1.27). Angels—the spirit-beings who serve God and were also created by Him—are not mentioned until the end of Chapter Three of Genesis, when God sets “cherubim” to guard the

3 As the following pages will discuss, Orthodox Christian theology interprets the text of Genesis 1 as indicating God’s Trinitarian nature from the start. Catherine Karkov points out that the Anglo-Saxon illustrator of the Junius Manuscript indicates this by depicting a cross inside the halo that surrounds the face of God in the opening illustrations of the Genesis poem (Text 138, 167). Nonetheless, God is shown here, in accordance with Christian orthodoxy, as one God who contains within Himself the three persons of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

50 entry of the so that Adam and Eve may not return (3.24).4 By contrast, in a departure from the Scriptural source material, the epic retelling in the poetic Genesis opens with an extended account of God’s creation of the angels and the subsequent rebellion and fall of a part of their number. The poet’s rendering of Genesis 1.1, “In principio Deus creavit caelum et terram,”5 does not appear until lines 112-13, “Her ærest gesceop ece drihten,/ Helm eallwihta, heofon and eorðan.”6 Chronologically, the narrative of the creation and fall of the angels does belong at the beginning of the Genesis material. Early medieval commentaries on Genesis 1.1 customarily expanded upon the creation of “caelum” to include the account of the angels (Huppé 133). Bede, in his commentary on Genesis 1.2, remarks upon the fact that the account of creation given focuses on the earth, not on heaven, from this point on. He provides a brief account of the angels, and of the fall of , focusing on the contrast between the “inanis et uacua,” or “unoccupied and empty,” earth, and the splendor of the “caelum caeli,” or “heaven of heaven,” where the angels dwell with God. Bede cites Saint Jerome as his source for this portion of the commentary (4-5).

4 Though the “serpent” who appears as a tempter in the first verse of Genesis 3 is commonly identified as the disguised figure of Satan, leader of the fallen angels, he is not explicitly identified as such within the text of Genesis 3 itself. 5 “In the beginning God created heaven and earth.” 6 “Here first created the eternal Lord,/ The Helm of all creatures, heaven and earth”.

51 In a 1998 article, Mary C. Olson points out that the first illustration to appear in the manuscript of the Illustrated (an Old English paraphrase of the first six books of the Bible with a preface by Ælfric) depicts the fall of the angels, despite the fact that this event is not mentioned explicitly in the text (6).7 Benjamin Withers argues that, along with Ælfric’s Preface, this illustration of the angels’ fall plays a key role in instructing the reader about how the following text is to be interpreted. So common was the inclusion of an account of the creation and fall of angels in commentary on Genesis, in fact, that Ælfric finds it necessary to remark in his Preface to his translation of Genesis that the Scriptural book “ne spricð na be þæra engla gesceapenisse” (117).8 The choice of the Genesis poet to include material about angels in the opening section of the poem is thus not remarkable in its own right; however, the length of this 111-line section accentuates its importance to the

7 See pages 6-8 of Olson’s article for a fuller summary of how Augustine and Bede’s exegesis of Genesis 1 connected the creation and fall of angels with the Biblical text. 8 “Does not speak at all about the creation of the angels.” Nowhere in Scripture, in fact, is there found a complete narrative of these events. References to the angels’ creation and fall, from which the orthodox Judeo- Christian narrative has been reconstructed, can be found in the Bible in Luke 10:18, 2 Peter 2:4, and Jude 6. Isaiah 14:12-15 and Ezekiel 28: 11-17 are also frequently interpreted as accounts of the fall of Satan.

52 narrative.9 Its placement, also—before the paraphrase of the verse which might overtly its inclusion—suggests that this material is considered vital to an understanding of the more closely Scriptural material that follows. From first to last, this introduction to the poem highlights the role of angels. Genesis begins with an exhortation to praise and love God, who is described/identified by a variety of epithets, the majority of which refer to His relationship to the angels. His first epithet, occurring in line one, is “rodera weard,” or “the heavens’ guardian.” This description implies the presence of angels, who as inhabitants of heaven are guarded by God, and are also the only beings who might conceivably threaten heaven, making such guardianship necessary. In line two, God is described as “wereda wuldorcining,” or “the battle-hosts’ glory- king,” an epithet that recognizes Him as a battle-leader whose warriors are the angels. This role of God is again emphasized in line four, where God is called the “heafod ealra heahgesceafta,” or “the head (leader) of all the high creations.” This epithet describing the angels emphasizes their nature both as beings created by God and subject to Him, and as beings of a higher order of creation than

9 Among other things, the focus on events in heaven that opens the poem paves the way for the theme of interconnection between the order of events on earth and the overarching order of heaven. See pages 57-60 of Karkov’s Text and Picture in Anglo-Saxon England for one example of how this interconnection is suggested through the illustrations in the Junius Manuscript; many more examples may be found throughout this work.

53 humans. Finally, in the opening exhortation, God is “a rice/ Ofer heofenstolas heagum þrymmum” (7-8).10 The “thrones of heaven” may be most simply identified as seats of power occupied by angels, though as Ælfric instructs his audience in his “Primus Sermo De Initio Creaturae” (Hom. I.1), “throni” is the name of one of the ten orders of angels recognized by Roman Catholic theology.11 Like the Genesis poem, Ælfric’s sermon begins with the account of the creation of these ten orders of angels, following an introductory paragraph that expands on the identity of the God who created them. Ælfric’s list of the first nine orders follows the Gregorian model, as might be expected of an Anglo-Saxon theologian.12 He describes angels as beautiful and powerful “gastas,” or “spirits,” that do not have bodies, and emphasizes their identity as created beings. Then, just like the Genesis poet, he proceeds to relate the fall of some of these angels, led by

10 “Always ruling/ Over the thrones of heaven with His high hosts.” 11 The Scripture reference where this term is found is Colossians 1:16. 12 Ælfric’s list is “englas. > heahenglas. Throni. Dominationes. Principatus. Potestates. Uirtutes. Cherubim seraphim (179).” This is the list offered by Gregory in his Moralia xxxii. 48 (Dudden 361). The names of these ranks of angels are commonly accepted by theologians, but the order in which they are listed is more commonly that of Pseudo-Dionysius, not Gregory (Dudden 361).

54 “Leohtberend” (an Anglicization of Lucifer), to become the tenth order, now called demons (“deoflum,” 179-80).13 As evil spirit-beings in opposition to God and his angels, demons also attract much interest in Anglo-Saxon theology and religious narrative. In his lonely hermitage, the Anglo-Saxon Saint Guthlac is continually besieged by demons who had haunted the spot on the fens before he made it his dwelling.14 As already mentioned, the fall of the angels is described at length in the Genesis poems and Ælfric’s sermon on creation. Both texts will later emphasize the role of demonic activity in the fall of humankind as well. Even Grendel and his mother, in Beowulf, though they are clearly mortal beings, are described as “helrunan” (163), which Klaeber glosses as “skilled in the mysteries of ,” and also directly labeled “deofla,” or “demons” (1680). J.R.R. Tolkien explores this demonic connection in Appendix A (“Grendel’s ”) of his groundbreaking paper, “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics”. He emphasizes the identity of both as physical enemies whose goal is to do bodily harm to those they attack, rather than to endanger or enslave their , as true demons would.

13 See David Johnson’s article “The Fall of Lucifer in Genesis A and Two Anglo-Latin Royal Charters” for an examination of sources and analogues of this portion of the Genesis poem. As this article stresses, even legal documents like these charters in tenth-century England often found occasion to recount the story of the creation and fall of the angels. 14 See Felix’s Latin Life of Saint Guthlac and/or the Guthlac poems of the .

55 Nevertheless, the context of the poem makes it clear that these descendants of Cain derive some of their sinister power through their connections with the demonic realm. Monster-beings like Grendel and his mother are also related in Anglo-Saxon thought to “eotenas ond ylfe ond orcneas” (Beowulf 112), a triad that may be translated as “giants, , and monsters.” Such beings were common elements of pagan Anglo-Saxon , if not necessarily religion. The Beowulf-poet integrates them into a Christian cosmology by calling them descendents of Cain and linking them with the “gigantas þa wið Gode wunnon/ lange þrage” (113-14).15 “Gigantas” is a Latin borrowing that replaces the native word “eotenas” both here and in the section of Genesis that describes these giants, mentioned in Genesis Chapter Six. The exact origin of these giants is unclear in the Biblical text, but in Genesis they are also directly specified as “caines cynne,” or “relatives of Cain” (1249), an orthodox interpretation shared by Bede (In Genesim 99). Jolly’s work on “elf-charms” indicates that belief in elves continued into the tenth and eleventh centuries. These “ylfe” were, as she explains, “ambivalent, amoral creatures” who were believed to cause injury or illness to humans and animals by shooting them with invisible arrows or (133-34). Jolly’s analysis of the surviving texts of charms used to counteract these creatures indicates a striking similarity between the conception of elves and that of demons, who also attacked unseen. Charms against demons closely resemble those against elves or

15 “Giants that fought with God/ for a long time.”

56 dwarves, and are often found in the same manuscripts.16

The Anglo-Saxon concept of the Christian God thus left ample room for Him to be surrounded by a cosmos full of other spiritual beings. Within orthodox Christianity, He is, however, the only one of these beings to have the title of God and to receive worship. The Genesis poet, for example, stresses His superiority in this regard by the repeated use of titles such as “frea engla,” meaning “Lord of angels.” One of the first mysteries an Anglo-Saxon convert to Christianity would have encountered in trying to understand this new and powerful “frea engla” is His Trinitarian nature. This concept, difficult enough for even the faithful to comprehend, must have been even more complicated in a society still making the transition from polytheism to monotheism. In some ways, a triune God may have seemed easier for a polytheist to accept than a single-natured god. Church theologians, however, needed to use great care in explaining to former polytheists how, as Ælfric puts it, “þry hadas syndon an ælmihtig god” (“De Initio Creaturae” 179).17 Barbara C. Raw notes in her study Trinity and Incarnation in Anglo-Saxon Art and Thought that the tenth and eleventh centuries in Europe saw “a striking development in devotion to the Trinity” that was reflected in Anglo-Saxon art and theology (10). Ælfric in particular, however, exhibits a preoccupation with the Trinity that goes beyond the norm for theologians of his day. Raw writes, in some puzzlement, that “one is left,…so

16 See Jolly, particularly Chapter 5. 17 “Three persons are one Almighty God.”

57 often, with the sense that there is some deep, unstated reason for Ælfric’s repeated explanations of Trinitarian doctrine” (41). Possibly, the reason for this emphasis in Ælfric’s work is that he perceived a need to make sure that his readers or hearers, who may have known little Christian doctrine beyond the Pater Noster and Creed,18 understood the true nature of the God they worshipped. Ælfric begins his homily against paganism, “,” with a discussion of the nature of the Trinity, a strategy that suggests that he may have linked Trinitarian doctrine with the refutation of pagan heresy (Homilies of Ælfric 677- 78).19 Jennifer O’Reilly links this emphasis within Ælfric’s theology to a refutation of the fourth-century Arian heresy. Any learned Anglo-Saxon cleric of Ælfric’s

18 See Jolly 69. 19 In her book Tradition and Belief, Clare Lees remarks that Ælfric seems to have considered systematic examination of the doctrine of the Trinity “not only theologically important but aesthetically satisfying” (xi). Barbara Raw writes that Ælfric “seems relatively untroubled by the possibility of heresy” in his writings concerning the Trinity (25), but as already stated, she also finds his repeated emphasis on this point of doctrine inexplicable. Raw states that the possibility of heretical perversion of Trinitarian doctrine was linked with of the Antichrist in the time of Ælfric (23). This connection might explain an otherwise puzzling passage in Christ and Satan in which the fallen angels accuse Lucifer of deceiving them by claiming, “þæt ðin sunu wære/meotod moncynnes” (“that your son was/ruler of mankind,” ll.63- 64).

58 day would have known of this heresy, whose appearance in the Romano-British church is condemned by Bede in Book I, Chapter 8 of his Historia. An anti-Arian line of argument may also be traced to St. Augustine, one of Ælfric’s principal sources, but O’Reilly believes that these Arian references are neither “simply a fossilized survival of a remote debate” nor “a topical allusion to a hitherto unknown outbreak of in eleventh-century Winchester” (178). Clare Lees, as well, in writing about late Anglo-Saxon England, recognizes that “fears of Arianism haunt the period” (107), though “the social fact of heresy is famously absent” from Anglo-Saxon England (108). Whatever his exact reasoning, Ælfric apparently perceived that a substantial portion of his audience was ignorant or uncertain about the key Trinitarian aspect of the mystical nature of the Christian God. For Anglo-Saxon writers trained in early medieval theology, the Genesis narrative was a favorite text to expound in connection with Trinitarian doctrine. Commentators led by Augustine had long identified the presence of God in all three persons in the first two verses of Genesis 1. Ælfric emphasizes this interpretation in both his sermon “De Initio Creaturae,” where he uses the term “þrynnes” to translate the Latin “trinitas” (179), and his Preface to his translation of Genesis. Here he devotes a significant section of this short Preface to an exegesis of Genesis 1.1-2, explaining that the “beginning” referred to by the Latin “In principio” of verse 1 is actually the Second person of the Trinity, who identified Himself in the Apocalypse by saying, “Ic eom angin, þe to eow sprece”

59 (117).20 The Third person, Ælfric continues, is included in the account in the following words, in which “spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas” (117).21 Ælfric encourages the reader of his translation to be watchful for Trinitarian references in the text, saying, “Oft ys seo halige þrinnys geswutelod on þisre bec”(118).22 He mentions two specific instances of this, one being the plural nature of God’s statement in Genesis 1.26, “Uton wyrcean mannan to ure anlicnisse,23 and the other the visit to Abraham by three angels in Genesis 18 (118).24 Bernard Huppé identifies a Trinitarian reference in the first example of Anglo-Saxon Christian poetry, “Cædmon’s Hymn” as recorded by Bede. His reading draws attention to the three aspects of God that the poet identifies as objects for praise at the beginning of the

20 Ælfric’s translation of Apocalypse 1:8. 21 “The spirit of God was being borne over the waters.” For the portion of Ælfric under discussion, see page 117 of Jonathan Wilcox’s edition of the Prefaces. 22 “Often is the Holy Trinity revealed in this book.” 23 “Let Us make man in Our likeness”. For Ælfric, both the plural nature of the pronouns and the singular nature of the noun “anlicnisse” are significant explicators of the Trinity(118). 24 This identification of the group of three male visitors to Abraham as a manifestation of the Trinity was standard theology for the time. Bede writes in his commentary, citing Augustine as his authority, “Quod ‘tres viri ei apparuerunt’ mysterium est sanctae Trinitatis” (“That ‘three men appeared to him’ is the mystery of the holy Trinity”) (211).

60 verse, “potentiam Creatoris, et consilium illius, facta Patris gloriae”(IV, 24).25 As Huppé explains, the power of God the Creator can easily be seen as a reference to God the Father, the wisdom of God to the Son, and the works of God to the Holy Spirit (111). This interpretation is borne out by Ælfric’s explication of the Trinity in his Preface to Genesis, where he refers to the Son as the “Wisdom” of the Father, and explains that through the Holy Spirit, “geliffæste se Fæder ealle þa gesceafta þe he gesceop þurh þone Sunu”(117).26 Here again, the poem calls attention to the function of a Triune God at the moment of creation. The Genesis account establishes the role of the Christian God as Creator, a function that is repeatedly stressed by Anglo-Saxon authors. As mentioned in the previous chapter, Anglo-Saxon paganism does not seem to have had a prominent creation narrative. The new religion of Christianity leaped to fill this gap, and attention is drawn again and again in the Old English retellings of Genesis to God’s creative function. The poet Cædmon is directed in his vision, “Canta…principium creaturarum” (IV,

25 Bede’s original text, written in Latin, presents the poem in a Latin translation, though he laments the difficulty of the translation of poetry from one language into another. The Old English translation of Bede renders the lines, “meotodes meahte ond his modgeþanc/weorc wuldorfæder” (“Cædmon’s,” 2-3). In either case, the words translate as, “the power of the Creator, and His wisdom, the works of the Father of Glory.” 26 “The Father brought to life all the created things that He made through the Son.”

61 24),27 and this forms the subsequent theme of the poem mentioned above. In Beowulf, also, the scop in Heorot is said to sing the tale of the creation of the world by “se Ælmihtiga” (90-98). There is peace and happiness in the hall, accentuated by the joy of this song, until the arrival of Grendel, angered because “him Scyppend forscrifen hæfde” (106).28 The title of “Scyppend,” or “Creator”, is a favorite epithet for the Christian God, used also by Cædmon, Ælfric, and the Genesis poet. Christ and Satan begins with a poetic retelling of the creation story, very much like the opening of Genesis. Knowledge of creation seems to have been a fundamental element of Anglo-Saxon faith, a logical starting-point for the imparting of any Christian truth. For this reason, Ælfric begins his homily collection with the message “De Initio Creaturae.” In the Exodus poem, the first part of the instruction given to by God from the burning bush concerns how God created the world (25-26). The poet uses creation doctrine in both and as a mark of effective ; Judas, when he is finally ready to aid the search for the cross, sends up a prayer to the creator (725ff.) and the cross is revealed.29 Similarly, when Juliana appeals to God, “þurh þæt æþele

27 “Sing…the beginning of creatures.” 28 “Him the Creator had condemned.” 29 This pivotal prayer, in fact, begins with an acknowledgement of God’s role in creation, and continues with an account of the ranks of the angels and their fall— all Genesis-based material.

62 gesceap/þe þu, fæder engla, æt fruman settest” (273-74),30 she is given power over the devil himself. “Cædmon’s Hymn” and Genesis both begin by exhorting the reader/hearer to respond with praise to the creation narrative. Again and again, creation is emphasized as a gift from a loving God, and the audience is reminded of all the other gifts that may follow from their devotion and obedience to Him. As Chapter One established, fertility and victory in war were the two general categories of rewards that the pagan Anglo-Saxons sought from their gods. The Old English retellings of Genesis provide ample assurance of the power of the Christian God to provide both for His followers. A God who created all life is easily able to provide fertility for crops, beasts, and humans. The charm for blessing a field with which Jolly begins her book (a ritual that fulfills the need expressed by the peasants in Bede’s story of St. Cuthbert) quotes Genesis 1.28 in both Latin and English (Jolly 7). The words of the Genesis text here thus not only provide assurance of God’s power, but themselves become a used to invoke that power to the aid of the user of the charm. Within the Genesis poem are numerous references to both fertility and victory in battle as gifts of God, but both are shown most clearly in the poem’s treatment of the patriarch Abraham, who is the focus of the final 1200 lines of the poem. The episode of “the war of the kings,” found in lines 1960-2164, emphasizes God’s assistance in war of the noble man Abraham, who defeats an alliance of four

30 “By that noble creation/that You, Father of angels, established at the beginning.”

63 kings with his small warband of 318 men. In the Bible, this episode is recounted in the 24 verses of Genesis 14, but the poet expands the account, with much Old English war terminology, to fill a full 200 lines. Abraham’s skill in fighting is celebrated, but the central reason for his astonishing victory is stated in lines 2072-73, among other places: “him on fultum grap/heofonrices weard.”31 With God as his ally, Abraham’s success is assured. Abraham is an ideal model of fertility as well. His son Isaac was born long after both Abraham and his wife believed themselves to be beyond child-bearing years. God repeatedly promises this son to Abraham, and despite skepticism from both parents, eventually brings about Isaac’s conception and birth. Not only is Abraham provided with the miraculous gift of a son long after biology would have declared such a thing impossible, but God further promises that through Isaac, a great multitude of descendants will be born for Abraham: “Of þam leodfruman/brad folc cumað, bregowearda fela/rofe arisað, rices hyrdas,/woruldcyningas wide mære” (2334-37).32

31 “He seized the heavenly kingdom’s Guardian/as a helper for himself.” Even pagans are able to recognize this divine source of Abraham’s success as a warrior; in lines 2807-08, King Abimelech tells Abraham, “soð metod/on gesiððe is,” which may be translated “the True Lord is in your comitatus,” a much more warlike rendering of the original Latin “Deus tecum est in universis quae agis” (“God is with you in all that you do,” Genesis 21:22). 32“From that founder of a people/a great folk will come, many brave/princely guardians will spring, shepherds of the kingdom,/earthly kings widely well-known.”

64 Abraham’s choice to follow this God has made Abraham the founder of a dynasty, the father of kings whose fame will be widely known. As stated in the previous chapter, Anglo-Saxon concepts of religion prior to the introduction of Christianity do not seem to have included a moral code as such. Nor does the God of Genesis impose a strict moral code, the Decalogue and other commandments being presented in Exodus and subsequent Scriptural books. Rather, God tests the loyalty and obedience of His followers in Genesis by issuing specific commands, such as telling Noah to build the ark in Genesis 6 or demanding Abraham’s sacrifice of his son Isaac in Genesis 22. The loyalty and obedience owed to God by His followers in these narratives corresponds closely to that owed to an Anglo-Saxon king or battle-chieftain by his followers.33 The quintessential example of this type of obedience- testing command is God’s initial order to Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2). In the Genesis poem, the section that relates this episode begins with God’s command concerning the tree, and emphasizes that material rewards will follow obedience to it (235-36). The demon (not Satan himself) who appears in snake’s form first approaches Adam—a clear break with Scriptural tradition—and presents himself as a messenger from God sent to reverse the original command. God, he says, has changed His mind and now wishes Adam to eat the fruit he had earlier forbidden. Only when Adam refuses the snake’s command does the evil one turn to Eve.

33 Section 2 of this project examines this comparison of God to an ideal Anglo-Saxon ruler in much more detail.

65 He presents himself as a genuine messenger of God, insulted by Adam. Eve, he suggests, can make things right between Adam and his Lord by stepping in to eat the fruit herself. This deception tricks Eve, who eats the fruit and persuades Adam to do likewise. God’s command about the fruit of the tree has been disobeyed, and humankind forever damned, but in this retelling of the story, there is no deliberate sin on Eve’s part. In fact, she thinks she is acting in obedience to the new command of God, sent via the snake. In attempting to make up for what she supposes is Adam’s mistaken rudeness and disobedience, she is in fact carrying out the “peace-weaving” function expected of an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman.34 She is misguided, and she and Adam will be punished for their actions, but God will also continue to guide and aid them and their descendents as the Genesis narrative continues. Satan’s deliberate treachery to the God who gave him power and a beautiful form stands in stark contrast to Adam and Eve’s sin within this poem. There will be no forgiveness for what Satan has done. The reader/hearer of the poem is left with no doubt that this God requires absolute obedience, and is thus prepared for the later introduction of a systematic moral code formed by a list of God’s commands. The Elements of Worship Like the systematized moral code, most elements of the systematic rituals of worship prescribed by Christianity are not present in the Biblical book of Genesis, but will be introduced in subsequent books. The only ritual element

34 Much more is said about this role in a later section of the project.

66 present in accounts of worship in Genesis is that of sacrifice—a familiar element of Anglo-Saxon paganism, as seen in the last chapter. Sacrifice is present in Christian worship only in a vestigial, figurative sense, but accounts of sacrifice found in Genesis demonstrate the link between Christian and Germanic ritual worship. Sacrifice as an act of worship is first practiced in the Genesis narrative by , Adam and Eve’s sons, in Genesis 4. In this instance, it is God’s acceptance of Abel’s sacrifice and rejection of Cain’s that leads to Cain’s jealousy and murder of his brother. No reason is given in the Biblical account for why God prefers Abel’s offering; Bede offers the explanation in his commentary that God perceived a deficiency in Cain’s attitude of worship, not in his offering itself (74). The Genesis poet, like the Biblical text itself, simply states God’s reaction without explanation (976-79). If the poem’s audience were concerned, like the Northumbrian peasants in the Life of St. Cuthbert, with learning how to please the Christian God through correct sacrifice, the seeming arbitrariness of God’s favor here would surely have been unsettling. The Church, however, regarded this sort of sacrifice as an element of the Old Law, now obsolete, so teaching the correct ritual practice of it was not necessary. Pagan practices of sacrifice were to be discontinued, but the Anglo-Saxons who encountered Genesis passages that described sacrifice could feel a kinship with the Hebrews, who originally had worshipped their God in the same way the Anglo-Saxons had worshipped theirs. The Genesis narrative repeatedly describes faithful followers of God making sacrifice to Him. Noah offers a

67 sacrifice in thanks when the flood waters recede and he and his family are finally able to leave the ark. The great patriarch Abraham practices sacrifice at significant points in his life. All of these instances of sacrifice are described by the Genesis poet,35 who emphasizes God’s response of blessings to the one who faithfully in this manner.36 The culminating instance of sacrifice in the Genesis poem is God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, drawn from the account in Genesis 22. Though the book of Genesis itself continues for 28 more chapters after this incident, the Old English Genesis poem closes here. This story recounts Abraham’s greatest test of obedience to his Lord, as God orders him to sacrifice the long-awaited son who is to continue the Hebrew dynasty.37

35 For Noah’s sacrifice in Genesis 8:20, see lines 1497-1503. For Abram/Abraham’s sacrifices, see lines 1790- 93 (Genesis 12:7); 1805-8 (Genesis 12:8); and 1885-89 (Genesis 13:4). Only the instance in Genesis 13:18 is omitted in the poetic retelling. 36 Huppé notes this emphasis on Abraham’s reward for faithful sacrifice in his discussion of lines 1808-13 (188). 37 Twenty-first century readers may find this an odd conclusion to a poem that sets out to recount the Genesis narrative in its entirety, but for the Genesis poet as well as for Ælfric, who emphasizes in his Preface that he has translated Genesis only “to Isaace, Abrahames suna” (116), this act of sacrifice seems to have formed a logical culmination of the narrative.

68 The primary focus of medieval commentary on this passage is the reading of the sacrifice of Isaac as a type of the crucifixion of Christ. Abraham is asked to sacrifice his son in the same way that God will one day sacrifice His for the good of Abraham and his (physical and spiritual) descendents. Certainly any reader or hearer of the poem who was well acquainted with Christian theology would have been aware of this interpretation, and it is possible to read some echoes of it in this section of the Genesis poem. Doane’s commentary on this section, found on pages 322-24 of his edition of Genesis A, points out these instances, but they are all ambiguous, such as the fact that line 2887, which reads in part “wudu bær sunu,” can be interpreted as either “the son bore the wood,” or, in allusion to the Crucifixion, “the wood bore the son.” Only a reader who is already aware of the typological link between Isaac and Christ would pick up on such subtlety. The text of the poem never makes a direct reference to Christ at any point.38 Instead, it presents the narrative on a literal level, with the focus on Abraham’s obedience to his Lord’s command. From the evidence presented in the previous chapter, it can be concluded that the pagan Anglo-Saxons had conducted human sacrifice in the ancient past, though it

38 The Junius Manuscript is illustrated only part of the way through, ending on page 88. There are, however, spaces left for illustrations in the section of the text that relates the sacrifice of Isaac, and it is possible that these would have contained reference to Christ. As mentioned in footnote 3 above, the symbol of the cross is used repeatedly in those earlier drawings that depict God.

69 was no longer practiced by the time of their contact with missionaries from Rome. This sanctioning of human sacrifice by the Christian God is unique in the Genesis accounts. The Anglo-Saxons of the conversion period, aware of the practice of human sacrifice but no longer considering it an appropriate means of propitiation of the gods, were able to empathize with the position of Abraham at this point. Hitherto, he has sacrificed only animals, but now undertakes the offering of his son in response to God’s specific command. Isaac clearly has no suspicion at all of his father’s real intent. When his son asks him where the sacrifice he intends to offer may be, the Abraham of the poem responds, “Him þæt soðcyning sylfa findeð,/moncynnes weard, swa him gemet þinceð” (2895-96).39 This answer proves Abraham’s complete willingness to offer to the “soðcyning” any sacrifice that the Lord deems fit. Abraham has passed the test, and since in fact human sacrifice is not condoned by Judeo-Christian theology, God promptly calls to Abraham to desist before his son is harmed. Proving his right to the title of “mancynnes weard,” God saves Isaac’s life by providing a ram as a substitute offering. Most commentators of the early medieval period would here draw a comparison to the substitutionary nature of the sacrifice of Christ, but the Genesis poet is content to emphasize only the rewards given to Abraham in return for his total obedience. Animal sacrifice continues to be carried out throughout both the Old and New Testaments, but will eventually be performed only at the temple in Jerusalem by

39 “The True-King will find that for himself,/Mankind’s Guardian, as it seems fitting to him.”

70 those specially designated as priests. Genesis takes place long before the temple is built, and those who perform sacrifice in Genesis first build their own altars. These are simple stone structures located in the open air at a spot convenient for the worshipper, much the way that pagan Anglo-Saxon shrines seem to have been. God gives Abraham specific instructions about where to go to offer up Isaac in Genesis 22, specifically a mountain in the region of Moriah, a name translated by Jerome in the Vulgate as “terram Visionis,” “the land of Vision.” The Genesis poet renders God’s instructions as directions to an unnamed “steape dune,/hrincg þæs hean landes þe ic þe […] getæce”(2854-55).40 High places seem to have had a spiritual significance for Anglo-Saxon paganism, as evidenced by the choice of a “hliðe se wæs heah ond brad,” (3157)41 as the site for Beowulf’s tomb. Marvin Carver points out that, much like the fictional burial site in Beowulf, the Sutton Hoo cemetery was located on the high ground of a terrace overlooking the Deben River (x, 24). Likewise, the temple complex at Yeavering was located on a hill overlooking the Derwent River (Davidson, Lost 22). For the Anglo-Saxons, particularly holy sites seem to have required a combination of high ground and a body of water below. Like the outdoor worship sites, the depictions of priestly or clerical functions in the book of Genesis bear a fairly close resemblance to what we know of pagan Anglo- Saxon culture, as described in the previous chapter. Establishment of the hereditary Hebrew priesthood stemming

40 “a steep hill,/the ring of the high land that I will show you.” 41 “hill-side that was high and spacious.”

71 from Moses’s brother Aaron does not take place until the succeeding Scriptural book, Exodus. Only one priest appears in Genesis, in fact, and his origin and position are at least as mysterious as those of the priest Coifi as described by Bede. After his victory in the war of the kings, as he is returning home, Abraham encounters Melchizedek, who is described both as “rex Salem” and “sacerdos Dei altissimi”42 in Genesis 14.18. The Genesis poem introduces him as “solomia sinces hyrde./[…]se mæra melchisedec,/leoda bisceop”(2101-03).43 Like Coifi, Melchizedek is identified as a “bisceop”—clearly a high- ranking cleric. He is also a king. The interaction between him and Abraham in the poem contains nuances of both priest/layperson and king/warrior relationships in the Anglo-Saxon tradition. In his role as priest, Melchizedek blesses Abraham. In the Biblical text, this blessing is brief, acknowledging Abraham’s unique relationship with God and God’s responsibility for the victory that Abraham has just won. The Genesis poem does not alter the blessing’s contents, but expands the two original verses into fifteen lines of poetry, emphasizing the gift of victory by repetition of battle-terminology (2105-2121). After receiving Melchizedek’s blessing, Abraham, just as he does in the Biblical account, offers a tenth part of the spoils he has acquired to this priest, an action that in a religious

42 “king of Salem” and “priest of the Most High God” 43 “ of the treasure of the people of Salem/[…] the illustrious Melchizedek,/the bishop of the peoples.”

72 sense, could be interpreted as the tithe expected of all Christian parishioners. But Melchizedek is also a king—the “solomia sinces hyrde,” according to the poem—and the other elements of his encounter with Abraham fit more closely with that role as understood in Anglo-Saxon culture than with the role of a priest. An Anglo-Saxon king was both a recipient and distributor of treasure in his relations with his warriors; the title “sinces hyrde,” or “treasure’s guardian”, is indicative of this aspect of his position. Melchizedek both presents gifts to Abraham and receives a share of the booty from him, actions that in an Anglo-Saxon context indicate Abraham’s acknowledgment of Melchizedek as his political lord. An Anglo-Saxon audience would have interpreted Abraham’s behavior here as stemming from the same motivations as that of Beowulf when the great Geat warrior returns victorious from his exploits among the Danes and presents his overlord, , with the lion’s share of all the treasures they have given him. The poem underscores this exchange by stating that Melchizedek greets Abraham “mid lacum,” or “with gifts” (2103), without stating specifically, as the Biblical text does, that these gifts consisted of “panem et vinem,” or “bread and wine” (Genesis 14:19). Literally, the provision of bread and wine would indicate hospitality, and commentators such as Bede did not fail to note the foreshadowing here of the elements of the Eucharist as well. The term “lacum” used by the poem can mean “sacrifices” as well as gifts, and if taken in this sense, could be seen as a Eucharistic reference, and certainly would emphasize Melchizedek’s role as priest. The ambiguity of the term “lacum” is thus uniquely appropriate

73 in reference to Melchizedek, as its alternate interpretations of “gifts” and “sacrifices” would emphasize for an Anglo-Saxon audience his dual status as both king and religious leader. This dual role as priest and king makes Melchizedek a unique figure among Biblical characters. Orthodox Christian commentary on Melchizedek traditionally identifies him as a type of Christ, who is also given both these titles. For the pagan Anglo-Saxons, however, this combining of political and religious function was not unusual, as the last chapter demonstrated. From the perspective of Anglo-Saxon culture, the Melchizedek of the poem acts toward Abraham as a godly king ought to act, and Abraham responds with the appropriate respectful tribute. Abraham himself acts as a priest in the episode of the sacrifice of Isaac, as well as at other times of sacrifice. Likewise, Noah takes the role of priest at the sacrifice offered upon leaving the ark. Later religious protocol among the Hebrews will dictate that anyone who wishes to offer sacrifice must go to the temple and use the services of the professional priestly class there. At this time in Genesis, however, Abraham and Noah act as priests by virtue of their status as heads of families. We have seen in Chapter One that the head of a pagan Anglo-Saxon family, as well, could assume the function of a priest within his own family group. Here, too, the customs of worship demonstrated in Genesis would seem more familiar to an Anglo-Saxon audience than those used later by either the Hebrews or the Christian Church. Sacred Objects The Anglo-Saxon belief in the sacredness of both trees and water resonates with the Genesis narrative at several

74 points, most notably in the Garden of Eden and Flood episodes. In Genesis 3, the fate of the human race is forever altered by the violation of a sacred tree—a concept that would have been readily understood by early Anglo- Saxon readers or hearers. Ælfric, it is true, remarks in his homily “De Initio Creaturae” that God’s designation of a particular forbidden tree seems strange and arbitrary (181), but he is writing relatively late in the Anglo-Saxon period, and in this particular passage is guided by the exegesis of Augustine.44 The earlier Genesis poem reveals a more uniquely Germanic approach to the Garden of Eden and its sacred trees. The Genesis poet devotes nearly 30 lines (460-89) to describing and contrasting both of the specific trees mentioned in Genesis 2 and 3, the and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (“lignum vitae” and “lignum scientiae boni et mali”). When the tempter, newly arrived from hell, first catches sight of Adam and Eve in the garden, they are positioned near these trees. In the poem, both trees stand side by side, laden with fruit and created specifically by God to represent a choice of possible futures for humankind: Oðer wæs swa wynlic, wlitig and scene, Liðe and lofsum. Þæt wæs lifes beam […]. Þonne wæs se oðer eallenga sweart, Dim and þystre. Þæt wæs deaðes beam.(467-78)45

44 See M.R. Godden’s commentary on this homily (9-10). 45 “One was so splendid, splendid and beautiful, Gentle and praiseworthy. That was life’s tree […]. Then the other was entirely black, Evil and dark. That was death’s tree.”

75 Editor A.N. Doane remarks on this contrast in his Introduction to the Genesis B text, stating, “The poet has externalized the eventual results of the Fall in the form of two trees of the original story, polarizing them as symbols of man’s free and absolute choice in the garden”(139). These trees are recalled as well by the illustration on folio 8 recto of the Illustrated Hexateuch, which features two trees in its representation of Paradise. Doane perceptively identifies the symbolic emphasis placed on the trees in this text. Paul Bauschatz’s reading of the Germanic concept of the world tree, however, sheds even more light on the poet’s use of this image of the tree found in the original text.46 The sacred tree of , in Bauschatz’s conception, represents all elements of the universe that are not part of the realm of the past; this includes the world in which humans exist in the present. In the vision of the Old English Genesis poem, both of the trees become something more than symbols of a choice: they actually embody the two possible worlds within which Adam, Eve, and their descendents may live. The poet’s description of the consequences of eating each tree’s fruit underscores this identification of tree and world, and in fact the word “worulde” is twice used to describe these consequences. In line 470, “on worulde” is used in reference to the tree of life, and in line 481, “on þisse worulde” refers to the contrasting choice of the tree of death. Even the role played by the serpent in the story of the Fall fits closely with the Germanic mythos of the world

46 See the summary of Bauschatz’s theory in Chapter One.

76 tree. Coiled around the roots of the Germanic world tree, and gnawing at them from below, lurks the great serpent Níðhöggr, according to the Icelandic tale Gylfaginning.47 For an Anglo-Saxon audience, this may have partially explained the actions of the newly-arrived tempter in the Garden, who “wearp hine þa on wyrmes lic and him þa ymbutan/þone deaðes beam þurh deofles cræft (491-92).48 The identification of the serpent in the Genesis 3 account as a disguised devil is the standard Christian interpretation of the text; the one commonly remarked innovation by the Saxon poet here is that a lesser demon sent by Satan performs this role, instead of Satan himself. Doane believes that this detail is “probably a patristic idea” (100), though the only direct analogues that he cites are Juliana and the Latin text on which it is based. Ælfric also gives this version of events in lines 70-72 of his homily ”Adnuntiatio Sanctae Mariae,” where he writes, “se deoful asende oðerne deoful on nædran anlicnysse to ðam frumscapenan wife euan hi to beswicenne.”49 In his commentary on this homily, Malcolm Godden finds “no immediate source” for this notion in Ælfric other than the two poems Juliana and Genesis (104). Another innovation of the Genesis poem here that has thus far gone unremarked is that the original Biblical text does not contain the image of the serpent coiled around the

47 See Bauschatz 5-6, and Davidson, Lost Beliefs 69. 48 “He cast himself then into a serpent’s body and wound himself then around/the tree of death through devil’s craft.” 49 “The devil sent another devil in the likeness of a serpent to the first-created woman Eve to deceive her.”

77 tree, which is the strongest connection to Germanic myth. Though the Bible never describes the serpent in this position, the Illustrated Hexateuch also shows the serpent coiled around the tree in its depiction of the temptation scene on folio 7 recto. Bauschatz reads the characteristic coiling of dragons and serpents in Germanic myth as a sign of the connection of various worlds, both present and past (130). This iconography is appropriate for a moment at which the tempter is about to cause several worlds to collide and be forever changed as a result. In Germanic mythology as described by Bauschatz, the elements of tree and well almost always occur in conjunction. Though the image of the tree is the predominant element in the description of the Garden of Eden, water is also part of this setting. The Biblical account names the two fateful trees in Genesis 2:9; in Genesis 2:10 it continues by describing the river that waters the garden--a river that then divides into four named rivers, two of which are the Tigris and Euphrates.50 In the section of the Genesis poem that relates the content of these verses, the poet describes the “wætre wlitebeorhtum” (220)51 that irrigates the garden as “wylleburne,” or “a well-spring” (212). The choice of this term as a translation of the Latin “fons,” or “fountain,” of verse six is faithful to the original text, but its

50 These four rivers were considered significant enough by the illuminator of the Illustrated Hexateuch that they are each given an individual illustration, found on folio 5 recto and verso. 51 “water bright in beauty”

78 appearance here also recalls the well/tree combination suggested by Bauschatz. There is a break in this portion of the manuscript, following page 12, that forms the division between what are frequently termed the Genesis A and Genesis B portions of the text. Page 13 opens in the middle of a sentence, as God is instructing Adam and Eve not to eat from the forbidden tree. As God then returns to heaven, the poet describes Adam and Eve: “stod his handgeweorc/somod on sande” (241- 42).52 This reference to “sande,” Doane explains, indicates a shore beside a body of water (256). This interpretation is borne out by the accompanying illustration,53 which shows Adam and Eve positioned between the two trees. Below their feet, at the bottom of the page, appears a body of water containing fish and labeled “qodda mare,” an abbreviation for “quoddam mare” or “a certain sea”. Doane identifies a Latin translation of a first-century Hebrew narrative called Vita Adae et Evae as a possible source for this body of water (256). A “mare” containing salt water matches neither the Biblical description of a river irrigating the Garden, nor the image of a well whose waters nourish the tree described by Bauschatz. However, this illustration shows Adam and Eve completely enclosed by the positioning of God directly above them in heaven, the trees on either side, and water below. Elements of sacred iconography in both Christian and Germanic traditions thus combine in this illustration to indicate the placement of Adam and Eve within the sacred space that is Paradise.

52 “His handiwork stood/together on the sand.” 53 Reproduced by Doane in his edition of The Saxon Genesis, page 206.

79 The other portion of the Genesis narrative in which water is a prominent feature is the episode of Noah and the Flood. The description of the flood contains the only other use in the Genesis poem of the significant word “wylleburne” already discussed: God, the poem says, “let/willeburnan on woruld þringan” (1372-73).54 If, as suggested above, the word “wylleburne” carries the connotation of Germanic sacred springs, its use here to describe the sacred waters of God’s punishment is appropriate. These waters change the very structure of the world by the force of their encounter with it. When Noah and his family emerge from the ark, they enter what is described as the “þryddan eðyl,” or “third home” (1492). Doane finds this line challenging to interpret, both because the other two “homes” are not named and because of some grammatical confusion in the manuscript; he recognizes that the “third home” is the earth but is not sure why it might be so designated. After summarizing several possible interpretations offered by previous scholars, he suggests, if the noun’s case is read as nominative rather than accusative, that “the first home was the Paradise of Adam, the second the Earth of Seth, the third the Sea that bore up Noe” (273-74). However, the reading in the accusative case, that the “þryddan eðyl” was covered by the waters before they receded, is the simplest solution. This earth is now a new home for humankind, different from the earth of Seth, for it has been scoured by God’s sacred and transformative waters. The fact that Noah has reached this

54 “let/the well-springs force their way into the world.”

80 “third home” by a journey over water would also have resonance in mythological terms for an Anglo-Saxon audience, for whom death, the journey into the other world, was commonly depicted as a journey over water. In this section of the Genesis poem, then, Noah, according to the conventions of Germanic myth, has now passed over the water in a journey from one world to another, from the second to the third home.55 The sacred nature of the waters of the Flood was recognized by orthodox Christian interpretation, which linked these waters to the water of baptism. Allusion to Germanic mythic traditions of the powers of water might be found in one more detail of the Flood section of Genesis: the image of the raven perched on a floating corpse, found in line 1497.56 Though Anglo-Saxon battle literature is filled with the motif of the raven picking at the bodies of the slain, Doane points out that this particular tradition can be traced all the way back to the Talmud. The one innovation in this retelling, he maintains, is the description of the corpses as “fleotenda,” or “floating” (271). In fact, this may be a detail drawn from Early Christian traditions of illumination of this section of Genesis. The Flood scenes depicted in both the sixth-

55 Nicholas Howe sees the element of crossing over water as essential to the Anglo-Saxon migration myth; see page 74 of Migration and Mythmaking. The cultural trope of migration exhibited in Noah’s story is further discussed in Chapter Three of this dissertation. 56 Folio 15 recto of the Illustrated Hexateuch also contains an illustration of the Flood that depicts a raven eating a corpse.

81 century Vienna Genesis and the seventh-century Ashburnham Pentateuch prominently floating corpses.57 Though this detail in the poem may thus be attributed to simple descriptive realism in a battle-literature tradition, it also recalls the pagan Germanic belief that the gods would signal acceptance of an object or person by receiving it into a body of water; floating was a token of divine rejection. This concept, stemming from the association of the well with past or completed actions, was probably originally expressed through human sacrifice, and was the source of the “ordeal by water” test used to identify witches as late as the Early Modern era (Bauschatz 61). An Anglo-Saxon reader might thus interpret the poem’s description of the floating of the bodies of those killed by the Flood as proof that God has rejected them utterly. The story of Noah contains the only real examples of animals as messengers in the way that the ancient German tribes seem to have regarded them: Noah must trust the birds, specifically a raven and a series of doves, to tell him when it is safe to leave the ark. The Anglo-Saxon poet finds nothing strange in the fact that the raven, chosen first by Noah to act as a scout, proves treacherous and unhelpful. As we have seen, this bird was a traditional figure of ill-omen, and the poet calls him “se feond,” meaning “the enemy,” in line 1447. The doves that Noah sends out subsequently, however, bring him reliable tokens of the end of the flood.

57 These illustrations are plates 23 and 45 of Kurt Weitzmann’s Late Antique and Early Christian Book Illumination.

82 In particular, the second of the three doves brings Noah a branch of an olive tree. The olive branch is conventionally interpreted as a sign of peace within the Mediterranean culture that produced the original narrative, but neither dove nor olive has specific connotations as a species within Germanic tradition. The poem only mentions once, in line 1473, that this branch comes from an olive tree. Instead, the emphasis in lines 1467-72 is simply that the bird has found a tree, a scene not described in the original account. Within the Germanic context, as we have seen, all trees take on some degree of sacredness, and the bird sent out by Noah in the capacity of diviner/priest has returned with a clear token of God’s favor.

The above examples of uniquely Anglo-Saxon readings of the book of Genesis point to the intersecting nature of concepts of at the time they were written. The society that produced these texts was in the midst of a transition from one religious paradigm to another, and the scriptural book of Genesis more than any other seems to stand in the locus of that transition, as it is translated in various ways into the vernacular. The Old English retellings of this book of beginnings truly mark the beginning of a new and distinctly Anglo-Saxon concept of Christianity—a concept that, as future sections of this project demonstrate, remained in dialogue with Anglo-Saxon political and social theory, as well as theology.

83 Section Two: The Political Impact of Genesis Chapter Three: A Unifying History The initial Anglo-Saxon “invasion” of Britain was conducted by comparatively small bands of Germanic warriors with a variety of tribal affiliations—Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians being the most prominent of these. These tribal groups shared a common linguistic and cultural history, but even in the time of Tacitus, it was clear to the Roman historian that any systematic study of the Germanic people had to take into account tribal differences. The second half of the Germania, in fact, attempts to catalogue the names and descriptions of some fifty tribal groups, including the “” and “Anglii.” The groups that settled in Britain shared a common language but spoke widely differing dialects of it, and recognized a common pantheon of pagan deities, but devoted themselves as tribal units to different members of that pantheon.1 As they came to dominate major portions of the island, they formed not one kingdom, but several. In a famous section of his Historia Ecclesiastica, Bede explains that the formation of these kingdoms was primarily determined by the settlement patterns of the various tribal groups (I, 15). The Anglo-Saxons did not become completely unified as a political unit until late in their history, but even in Bede’s day, signs of a movement toward a shared sense of cultural identity are apparent. Bede, for example, is able to refer in his title to a “Gentis Anglorum” that includes

1 David N. Dumville, for instance, links the Saxons with the particular worship of a god called Seaxnet, while the Angles seem to have had special devotion to Woden (“Kingship” 78-79).

84 all the peoples now described as “Anglo-Saxon.” In fact, in another famous and much-disputed passage, Bede gives Æthelbert of Kent, the first of the Anglo-Saxon kings to accept conversion, the title of “tertius quidem in regibus gentis Anglorum”2 (Historia II, 5). Bede thus implies a tradition in which at certain times, one of the Anglo-Saxon kings was able to lay claim to ruling over all or most of the others. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle also makes reference to this tradition, giving such a king the title of “Bretwalda” or “Brytenwalda.”3 Bede lists seven kings as holders of this office, beginning with the South Saxon king Ælle in the fifth century. Scholars continue to debate the actual political implications of this title; certainly it was not until the tenth century that the heirs of could claim rulership over a united England. Whether or not the office of bretwalda ever existed in an official capacity, however, the very existence of the concept of such an office hints further at a vision of a unified English people, dating back at least to the time of Bede, and perhaps earlier. In his 1983 article, “Bede, the Bretwaldas and the Origins of the Gens Anglorum,” Patrick Wormald makes a similar point. Dismissing the references to bretwalda-ship as too scattered and elusive to constitute definitive proof about political realities in early Anglo-Saxon Britain, Wormald nevertheless identifies a pervasive “sense of community which Anglo-Saxons acquired against the political odds” (120). For the source of this “sense of community,”

2 “the third, indeed, of the kings of the people of the Angles” 3 Year 827

85 which he identifies in the early eighth-century writings of Boniface and Stephanus as well as Bede (122), Wormald looks to religion rather than politics. Specifically, he identifies the Gregorian mission, stated by Bede to have the object of converting “nostram, id est Anglorum, gentem”4 (Historia II,1), as the origin not only of the concept of the essential cultural unity of the Germanic tribes in Britain, but of the custom of applying the name “Angli,” which eventually evolved into “English,” to all of them alike. (As the story goes, the slaves encountered by Pope Gregory in the market, who inspired in him the desire to evangelize their people, were identified to him as “Angli.”) Wormald emphasizes the subsequent role of Canterbury in governing an “English” Church whose parameters crossed the boundaries of any existing kingdoms. Certainly this reading is consistent with Bede’s conception of the church in his Historia Ecclesiastica. It seems, then, that as well as conferring the benefits of eternal salvation and literacy that we have already observed, the arrival of Christianity provided the Anglo-Saxons with their first “view of themselves as a single people before God” (Wormald 125). The subsequent literary retellings of Christian mythical material in the vernacular demonstrate how the Anglo-Saxons made use of their newly adopted religion of Christianity to aid in the formation of a common cultural identity, an identity shaped by fusion of elements from their shared pagan past with the new Christian cosmology. For example, Nicholas Howe has traced the importance of migration as a cultural myth for

4 “our people, that is, the people of the Angles”

86 the Anglo-Saxons, shaped and validated by reference to the Judeo-Christian Exodus narrative. Genesis, as well, became a unifying text for the Anglo-Saxon peoples. Unlike Exodus, however, which required the Anglo-Saxon reader to make cross-cultural identification with the Israelite people, Genesis provided a history that the Anglo-Saxons could directly graft themselves into. As the previous chapter demonstrates, the religious practices of the patriarchs of Genesis were similar to those of the Anglo-Saxons’ pagan ancestors; the Genesis stories of migration also formed a link to the Germanic past. The Old English readings of Genesis frequently focus on the recounting and revising of genealogy, for figures such as Adam and Noah could now be revered as the fathers of all. The Cultural Trope of Migration Besides a common Western Germanic linguistic base that allowed easy communication, and a cultural heritage derived from the Germanic culture described centuries earlier by Tacitus, the living in Britain shared a history of migration from their Continental homelands. In his highly significant 1989 book, Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon England, Nicholas Howe examines literary evidence that “tradition about the migration served as their [the Anglo-Saxons’] myth of identity” (3). Howe focuses primarily on the Exodus poem as an example of Scriptural interpretation emphasizing migration, but Anglo- Saxon treatments of Genesis also indicate a recurring fascination with the myth of migration. Inspired by Howe’s groundbreaking work, Paul Battles published a study in 2000 entitled “Genesis A and the Anglo-Saxon Migration Myth.” Battles identifies eight

87 passages within the poem that focus on instances of migration, and performs a careful semantic analysis to document how migration is described in each case.5 His results demonstrate the existence of certain established tropes used to describe migration, present in all or most of the eight cases within the poem, whether the original Biblical material contains them or not. Most significant are the tropes Battles labels “in search of more spacious territory” and “settling the green plains” (56). Neither of these concepts directly fits the Genesis accounts of migration, which are prompted in general by compulsion from God, rather than by land shortage, and which take place in a desert land that, while fertile enough, hardly fits the description of “green plains.” Both of these descriptions, on the other hand, are very apt reminders of the Anglo- Saxons’ motivations in coming to Britain. The first migration of human beings to occur in the Genesis narrative is the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden. In the poem, this event is described in lines 943b-64, a passage not discussed by Battles. Pages 45 and 46 of the original manuscript, on which these lines appear, contain illustrations of the departing couple. Significantly, Adam and Eve are shown in these scenes clothed in Anglo-Saxon fashion, as Catherine Karkov points out in her book Text and Picture in Anglo-Saxon England: Narrative Strategies in the Junius 11 Manuscript (76). This clothing choice implies a strong association between Adam and Eve and the Anglo-Saxon people, particularly at this initial moment of migration.

5 Lines 1649-67 and 1694-1699a; 1730-1738a; 1767-1790a; 1816b-1819 and 44-47a; 1873-9; 1890-1931a; and 2621-2623a.

88 God’s command is the reason Adam and Eve must leave the Garden, and this pattern holds true throughout the Genesis narrative. In the Biblical account, human migration is consistently prompted by God, and the Old English poem retains a strong emphasis on God as both prompting the initial movement and then blessing the subsequent settlement.6 If the Anglo-Saxon audience did see a connection between the migrations of the patriarchs of Genesis and their own past history of tribal migration, this dual role played by the Christian God is also significant. By connecting with the tales of Genesis, the Anglo-Saxons can affirm the guidance and blessing of God upon themselves as a people. Migration becomes a cultural/spiritual heritage that the Anglo-Saxons can be proud to share with the Israelites. A New History As its name suggests, Genesis is a book of origins, explaining how everything in the world came into existence. Genesis traces the history of the human race back to two original parents, which it names Adam and Eve. As Chapter One of this project demonstrates, the Germanic peoples do not seem to have possessed a viable creation myth of their own prior to the coming of Christianity. The new Judeo- Christian myth of origins provided them with such a myth— one that united them with all other peoples of the world, for all, whether Christian or pagan, were considered descendents of Adam and Eve.

6 Neither of these characteristics of migration is discussed by Battles, but both are essential to an understanding of migration as presented in Genesis.

89 This new vision of human history—and their own place in it—seems to have inspired various Anglo-Saxon artists to create works integrating Judeo-Christian myth, Romanized history, and Germanic tradition. Bede begins his history of the English church and people by describing the island and recounting his knowledge of the origins of the original Britons, , and Scots that inhabited it, but then devotes twelve chapters to a summary of the Roman Empire’s dealings with the island. For him, this is where “English” history begins; as he writes, until the time of , “Brittania Romanis…inaccessa atque incognita fuit”7 (I, 2), strongly implying the dominance of the Roman perspective within his history. The importance of Rome in Bede’s conception of history is underscored by his use of Latin, the language of Rome, as the vehicle for his text. His aim throughout is to integrate his own “English nation” into the already-established history of the Roman world. Such an emphasis might be expected from Bede, a monk cloistered from childhood and well schooled in Latin texts, but other Anglo-Saxon artists also show evidence of this desire to fuse Germanic legend with Biblical material and Continental historical traditions. The whalebone box known as the Casket was made in eighth-century Mercia or Northumbria, in the same region and at approximately the same time that Bede was writing his history. The carvings on the box represent episodes from various narratives. Scenes that have so far been identified by modern scholars include the Adoration of the Magi, the Sack of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., Romulus and Remus with the she-wolf who suckled them, and the Germanic legend of Welend the Smith.

7 “Britain was inaccessible and unknown to the Romans.”

90 Additional panels whose subjects have yet to be identified are believed to reflect other Germanic legendary material. The text that accompanies these images is macaronic, in a mixture of Latin and Old English, inscribed most often in , but also, in one instance, in the Roman alphabet (Webster, “Iconographic” 236). The box as a whole, with its carved scenes and cryptic inscriptions, presents an especially intricate and mystifying (to contemporary scholars) integration of Biblical, classical, and Germanic “history,” whose significance appears to be both religious and political.8 Likewise, the poem found in the Exeter Book contains the scop/narrator’s boast that he has been among various peoples of the world. His list includes not only a wide catalogue of Germanic peoples, but also , Romans, Israelites, Assyrians, Hebrews, Indians, Egyptians, , and (ll. 76-84). The poem is usually read as a repository of a scop’s knowledge in catalogue form, dating back to continental Germanic material, but perhaps assuming its written form in Mercia in the eighth century.9 The newer material, clearly gathered from Biblical and classical sources, is blended skillfully with names and dates from Germanic antiquity. The scop, representative of

8 For more detailed analyses and interpretations of this artifact, see Leslie Webster’s “Stylistic Aspects of the ” and “The Iconographic Programme of the Franks Casket,” and Carol Neuman de Vegvar’s “The Travelling Twins: Romulus and Remus in Anglo-Saxon England.” 9 See page xlv of Krapp and Dobbie’s Introduction to their edition of The Exeter Book.

91 Anglo-Saxon loremasters, has been among and been part of all. Great kings, queens, and battle-leaders of the Germanic past could thus be integrated into this new expression of history shaped on a Christian model. Legendary material like the tale of Weland the Smith could be placed side by side with Biblical stories like the Adoration of the Magi, as on the Franks Casket. Even the giants and monsters of Germanic legend could be fitted into the context of the new Christian mythology. Elves became demons; “eotenas” could be identified with the “gigantes” of Genesis 6:4,10 and as Beowulf demonstrates, the presence of monstrous outcasts like Grendel could be explained by identifying them as descendents of Cain, cursed by God and outcast for all time (107). The watery entrance to the cave that Grendel and his mother inhabit provides a clue to counter the objection that no descendents of Cain could have possibly survived the great Flood—clearly, these monsters are at home in the water. Grendel functions within the Beowulf narrative as an ultimate representative of “the other,” a figure completely outside the pale of organized society. More subtly, though, a careful reader can detect traces of “other-ness” in the description of the Danes’ heathen practices; for example, lines 175-88, which read in part, ”Metod hie ne

10 “Entas,” in fact, is the word used by Ælfric in his prose translation of Genesis for the Latin “gigantas” of this verse (Illustrated Hexateuch 12v); the Genesis poet makes no direct translation of the verse, but uses the Latin-derived “gigantmæcgas” in the corresponding portion of the poem (1268).

92 cuþon,/dæda Demend, ne wiston hie Drihten God,/ne hie huru heofena Helm herian ne cuþon,/wuldres Waldend“11 (180b-83a). The poem’s audience, by contrast, though encouraged to be sympathetic to the pagan Danes within the context of the story, could feel itself superior to its Germanic ancestors who were not guided by the knowledge of Christian truth. While they may have felt spiritual superiority to adherents of Germanic pagan , however, the Anglo- Saxons’ awareness of kinship with the pagan Germanic peoples of the Continent inspired a tradition of missionary efforts towards them in the seventh and eighth centuries. Wilfrid, who spent time among the Frisians on his journey back and forth to Rome in 678-79, may have been the first of these missionaries (Fletcher 197). Soon after, Bede writes, a clergyman named Egbert, of Northumbrian birth but living in , became inspired to spread the word of God to those who had not yet heard it, particularly to “in Germania plurimus…nationes, a quibus Angli vel Saxones qui nunc Brittaniam incolunt, genus et originem duxisse noscuntur” (Historia V, 9).12 The group sent by Egbert to , aided by the political support of Pippin II of the Franks and his son Charles Martel, achieved widespread success; a pair of like-minded but bolder missionaries, both named Hewald, ventured into the “provinciam Antiquorum Saxonum,” the “province of the Old Saxons” (Bede, Historia

11 “The Ruler they did not know,/the Judge of deeds, nor did they know the Lord God,/nor did they indeed the heavens’ Helmet honor or know,/the Lord of glory.” 12 “Many nations in Germania, from which the Angles or Saxons who now inhabit Brittania, are known to derive their descent and origin.”

93 V, 10), and were speedily martyred. Missionary impulses of this kind were hardly unknown during the period; it was, after all, less than 100 years since Roman and Irish missionaries had begun their work in Britain. What is significant about these accounts, as demonstrated by the quotation above, is that the Anglo-Saxon church, still almost in its infancy, felt a kinship with pagan Germanic speakers across the Channel and desired to bring them also into the Christian fold. This belief in a common origin ties together both Angle and Saxon in Egbert’s formula. Christianity has the potential to reunite these long- separated kinsfolk. St. Boniface, the great Anglo-Saxon missionary to the continental Germans, uses the same rhetoric in a 738 letter (number 46) written to solicit support for his mission from Christians in Britain. As stated earlier in the chapter, it was their common identity as Christians that bonded the Anglo-Saxons together, above all other cultural elements they shared. When the Viking attacks on England began in the ninth century, the ensuing battles are often described in terms of valiant struggles of Christians versus pagans. When the Vikings first appear in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in the account for the year 787, they are identified as Danish (“deniscra monna”) in the A text, which is generally considered to contain the most accurate surviving version of the Chronicle’s original “common stock” text from the age of Alfred. Though the terms “Deniscan” and “sciphere,” meaning something like “ship-army” or “ship-warriors,” are repeatedly used for the Vikings in subsequent entries, they are also simply called “heþnum monnum,” or “heathen men” in the A text’s annals for 838, 851, 853, 855, and 865. The D text of the Chronicle frequently supplements the A text’s

94 entries with additional information about events in Northumbria.13 One such entry depicts a Viking raid on Lindisfarne in 793 as an attack by “heathen men” (“hæþenra manna”) against “God’s church” (“Godes cyrican”). Bishop Asser uses the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as his primary source for recording the early events in his biography of Alfred the Great. He, however, is even stronger in his casting of the battles between English and Vikings as a holy struggle, as he repeatedly identifies the Vikings as “pagani” and their opponents as “Christiani.”14 This identification of themselves as Christians united against the pagans seems to have been a decisive factor for the Anglo-Saxons led by Alfred to drive off the Vikings in the ninth century. The textual and archeological evidence from previous centuries, however, indicates that the use of Christianity as a unifying factor for these disparate Germanic tribes goes back much further than the initial Viking invasions. By Alfred’s day, no Anglo-Saxons had reason to be confused about their origin and purpose. They could confidently identify themselves as a Christian

13 This version of the Chronicle is comparatively late, probably dating from the mid-eleventh century. See G.P. Cubbin’s introduction to his edition of this text, especially pages liii-lv. 14 See, for example, Asser’s accounts of the years 851, 852, 860, 867, 868, and 871. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge remark on this choice of terms in the Introduction to their translation of the work; they speculate that Asser may have expressed the struggle in this way in order to encourage his primarily Welsh audience to identify with the English (42).

95 people, created by God, and descended from Adam and Eve. While once their ancestors walked in pagan darkness like the Danes of Beowulf, now they could regard themselves as instruments of God against the heathen. Genesis and Royal Genealogies Questions of ancestry were extremely important in Anglo-Saxon culture. Beowulf, for example, when he is challenged on the Danish shore by the guardian of the coast, identifies himself not by his own name, but by making reference to the name and reputation of his father (262-6). Likewise, he asserts that he has come to see “’s son” (“sunu Healfdenes,” 268), nearly ten lines before he identifies Hrothgar by name. In this warrior society, ancestry was a prized possession and a key to status. Kings, like Hrothgar, took particular pride in claiming long lists of ancestors stretching into Germanic antiquity. In fact, the Beowulf poem begins with sixty- three lines that trace the line of Hrothgar back to the legendary ruler Scyld Scefing. The arrival of Christianity and its accompanying Judeo-Christian account of world history deeply impacted Anglo-Saxon genealogical records. The culture never lost its fascination with the recitation of long and complicated genealogical lines, particularly in reference to royalty, but as the culture became Christianized, the names and myths of Genesis began to be featured in those genealogies. The genealogical charts of Anglo-Saxon kings have drawn the attention of many scholars during recent decades. Kenneth Sisam’s seminal study of this material, published in 1953, points to the scholarly consensus that these genealogies are obviously fictionalized. The sources in which they appear, however, offer them as authentic records

96 of royal bloodlines. They were, in fact, carefully crafted propaganda designed to validate the power of the rulers to whom they pertained; Craig R. Davis describes them as “an ideological ‘workshop’…the primary place where competing cultural traditions were explicitly coordinated, rationalized and prioritized” (Beowulf xv). The earliest written Anglo-Saxon genealogy we possess is that of the legendary migration-era battle-chieftains , of whom Bede writes that they were descended through some five generations from “Voden, de cuius stirpe multarum provinciarum regium genus originem duxit” (Historia I.15).15 Most of the ruling houses of the Anglo-Saxons did apparently trace their descent from Woden, the god of battle;16 Sisam reads this as an authentic pagan tradition, but points out that many later genealogical lists trace the ancestors of the king several generations back beyond

15 “Woden, from whose lineage the descent of the kings of many of our provinces takes its origin.” In his book, Nicholas Howe stresses the prominent position of Hengist and Horsa in Anglo-Saxon genealogies as additional evidence for the cultural significance of migration (29-30). 16 The rulers of the East Saxons are the one notable exception; they claimed to be descended from the god Seaxnet. David N. Dumville speculates that the West and South Saxon royal houses probably claimed this descent originally as well (78). We have no surviving genealogy for the South Saxon rulers, and Dumville and Sisam concur that the extant West Saxon genealogy was probably originally borrowed from an Anglian source (Sisam 302, Dumville 78).

97 Woden, a practice he labels “a fanciful development of Christian times” (308). The pedigree of ruling houses was crucial in early Anglo-Saxon society, because although inheritance played a role in the transmission of leadership for these Western Germanic tribes, they did not practice primogeniture as later English custom would demand. Tacitus writes that the Germanic tribes of his day chose “reges ex nobilitate, duces ex virtute” (140).17 The functions of king and battle-leader were united in early Anglo-Saxon England, and both of these qualities seem to have played a role in determining royal succession. Anglo-Saxon literature such as Beowulf, as well as the Anglo-Saxon historical record, suggests that there was a possibility of any male of royal blood succeeding to the kingship, if he were recognized as worthy.18 In ancient times the claim of these royal families to enjoy direct descent from the gods was no doubt taken seriously; as Chapter One points out, one of the functions of early was to serve as a link between the people and the gods. After the Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons had begun, Woden was clearly retained as a revered founder of royal dynasties, whether or not he was still regarded as divine. Individual attitudes toward the pagan gods no doubt varied, especially in the early period. Davis notes that even the thoroughly Christian historian Bede relates a genealogical list that includes Woden

17 “Their kings by reason of their noble birth, their leaders [presumably war leaders] by reason of their worth.” 18 See Christopher Brooke 31ff, Dumville 84, and Campbell 56.

98 without accompanying editorial comment; his suggestion is that this silence indicates that even Bede “had not brought himself to a firm opinion about the old god” (“Cultural,” 26). For a man like Bede, who was both so learned a historian and so orthodox a theologian, to have had no opinion on this subject seems highly unlikely, but Bede’s failure to comment at this point may very well indicate that he considered it politically inexpedient to cast aspersions on Woden in a work dedicated to a Northumbrian king who no doubt claimed descent from him. In Bede’s genealogies, Woden is the founding figure, but Anglo-Saxon genealogies composed later than Bede’s begin to provide royal ancestors that predate Woden.19 At first, the new names added are mostly those of other traditional Germanic gods, such as Geat and Frealaf (identified with the Northern Germanic ). This practice involves manipulation of mythological material that would not have been possible during thoroughly pagan times, and Davis remarks that by this period in Anglo-Saxon history, “the old gods had become men,” at least within the learned circles in which written genealogies were composed (“Cultural,” 29). Still later in the ninth century, these earlier extensions of royal genealogies begin to incorporate Christian material, specifically material drawn from the early chapters of Genesis. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records such a genealogy in its entry for the year 855. Here, the ancestors of West Saxon King Æthelwulf, the

19 The earliest example of such genealogies is found in the manuscript Vespasian B VI, which Sisam dates to approximately 812 (289).

99 father of Alfred the Great, are listed for twenty-three generations prior to Woden. The most fascinating detail it contains is the ancestor named Sceaf, “id est filius Noe. se wæs geboren on þære earce Noes.”20 The blending of Latin and the vernacular used in the wording of this notation highlights the link that it forms between the older Germanic mythology and the traditions of Christianity expressed in Genesis. Sceaf is a legendary ruler of the Danes, said to have mysteriously drifted ashore in a treasure-laden ship as an infant.21 The Chronicle links him with the Genesis narrative of Noah and the Flood, naming him as a fourth son of Noah (to whom only three sons are attributed in the Bible) born while Noah and his family were on the ark. As Davis points out, here we see a combination of two traditions, both concerning “a divinely directed ship bearing ancestors” (“Cultural,” 30). The author thus achieves a fairly seamless blend of traditional pagan material with the new history derived from Biblical narrative, in a form particularly well-suited to a people whose ancestors were seafarers. The genealogy of Æthelwulf continues back from Noah in a form faithful to the Genesis account all the way back to “Seth. Adam primus homo et pater noster. id est

20 “That is the son of Noah. He was born on Noah’s ark.” The quotation is taken specifically from the “B” and “C” manuscripts of the Chronicle, also known as Cotton Tiberius A.vi and B.i. 21 See Sisam 317 and Davis, “Cultural,” 30. In Beowulf, this legend of a sea-borne origin is attributed not to Sceaf himself, but to a son, Scyld Scefing (6-7, 44- 46).

100 Christus.”22 Davis considers this passage an indication that the author’s source was the genealogy of Christ found in Luke 3:38, which concludes by naming Adam the “son of God” (“Cultural,” 30). Undoubtedly so, though the author here makes a few alterations, explicitly reminding readers, as Luke does not, that Adam was the “first man.” No genealogy could go back farther than this, except to claim descent from a god or gods, as the old Anglo-Saxon tradition had been. Woden, who appears in the “early Germanic heroes” section of this genealogy, is replaced as divine dynastic founder by “our father,” who is identified as “Christ,” rather than God the Father. Davis writes that this reference to Christ indicates a remaining “impulse to imagine the founding deity in incarnate form” (“Cultural,” 36). Still, Christ is not imagined as “begetting” Adam in a physical sense. The naming of Christ here emphasizes the Trinitarian nature of God at the moment of creation.23 “Pater noster” adds the reminder that this Trinitarian God was not just the father of Adam, but of all humanity. This myth of the descent of humanity from Adam through Noah and his sons is clearly laid out in the Hebrew book of Genesis. In Genesis, however, Noah has three sons. Thomas Hill has identified several apocryphal Judeo-Christian texts that ascribe a fourth son to Noah, but the account of Noah’s son Sceaf, actually born on the ark, is unique to the Anglo-Saxon genealogical records (381-83). Hill

22 “Seth. Adam the first man and our father. That is Christ.” 23 The frequent emphasis on Trinitarianism in Anglo- Saxon theology is discussed in more detail in the previous chapter.

101 speculates that this creation of a unique ancestor was meant to enhance the prestige of the royal house, setting them apart from all other peoples of the earth, as well as from Anglo-Saxons not of the royal line. Davis, however, believes that this genealogy does not imply a unique descent from Sceaf for the royal house alone, but that Sceaf may be considered a common ancestor for the Anglo- Saxon peoples collectively. In his interpretation, the importance to kingship here is that only the royal family possesses a specific genealogy that allows them to trace their ancestry with certainty, all the way back to the beginning of time (“Cultural,” 31). Such a genealogy implies a smooth transition of power from father to son, all of it set in motion and authorized by God himself. The importance of the accurate tracing of ancestry for the Anglo-Saxons can be seen in the treatment given to the genealogical material of Genesis in the Genesis portion of the Junius 11 manuscript. Poets in our own time would likely be tempted to omit or compress most of the material that consists of “X begat Y”, but the Anglo-Saxon poem, while never departing in detail from the source, devotes nearly 200 lines to the leisurely recounting of the descendents of Cain and Seth as listed in Genesis 4:17- 5:29. These 200 lines of text are spread over 13 pages in the manuscript, for even more unusual than the space devoted to recounting of genealogies in the text is the amount of space devoted to illustrating this section of the poem. Art historian Catherine Karkov has remarked that the only other known manuscript of Genesis material to place this much emphasis on the illustration of these genealogies is the corresponding section of the Old English Illustrated

102 Hexateuch (“Anglo-Saxon,” 209). Clearly, the Anglo-Saxons regarded this material as a key section of the text. Karkov’s detailed analysis of the content of these illustrations demonstrates that the illustrations place a much greater emphasis on the descent-line of Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve, then on the descendents of Cain (“Anglo-Saxon,” 214). As we have seen in the above genealogies, Seth is the son from whom all living humans, including the Anglo-Saxons, are said to be descended in this version of history.24 In depicting Seth and his progeny, the Anglo-Saxon artists were thus depicting their own ancestral myth. This identification between the artists and their subjects is underscored by the typically Anglo- Saxon clothing in which the patriarchs are garbed.25 Seth and his heirs in these illustrations are also clearly portrayed as men of power in their society.26

24 With the possible exception of figures like Grendel and his mother, but even these are portrayed in Beowulf as not truly belonging to the human race. 25 Karkov remarks in Text and Picture in Anglo-Saxon England that the “attributes of Anglo-Saxon life” shown in these illustrations remind us that the Biblical characters being depicted were considered “very much a part of Anglo- Saxon ‘historical’ texts like chronicles and genealogies” (1). See also page 155 of Karkov’s book. 26 By contrast, Cain and his successors, who are depicted as human (not horrible monsters) and do not in fact bear any visible “mark” of God’s curse in these illustrations, are not shown to possess any symbols of power or authority, as those of the divinely favored

103 Karkov notes the presence of crowns and scepters in many of these portraits; in others, the patriarch is shown leading or teaching his followers (“Anglo-Saxon” 214). Typically, in these illustrations, the patriarch depicted is shown on the left with his semiotic indications of leadership. On the right is shown his wife with the baby son who will appear in his father’s position of leadership in the next illustration. The illustrations that appear on the pages of the Old English Illustrated Hexateuch are similar, except that there the pattern of succession from father to son is dramatized by “alternating scenes of family groups and burials” (Karkov, “Anglo-Saxon” 213). The text of the Genesis poem likewise emphasizes the sons’ inheritance of their fathers’ status and possessions, a concept not commented on directly by the Biblical text. The phrase “heold yrfe,” meaning literally, “held the inheritance,” is used three time in this section to describe the position of a son/successor—of Enos in lines 1143-44, of Malalehel in line 1167, and of Mathusal in line 1218. The word “yrfe” seems to connote mostly inheritance in the form of property,27 but the poem makes clear that power and status were conferred to these sons as well. Lines 1155-57, for example, state: “þære cneorisse wæs cainan siððan/æfter enose aldordema,/weard and wisa”.28 The Biblical passage has become a catalogue of the transfer of

dynasty of Seth do. See Karkov, Text and Picture in Anglo- Saxon England 82-83. 27 The same word is used in line 3051 of Beowulf to refer to the treasure-hoard formerly guarded by . 28 “There for that race was Cainan afterwards/after Enos the supreme judge,/guard and guide.”

104 power, with a function similar to that of the Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies. This orderly inheritance of power from generation to generation thus appears to be the focal point of the Biblical text for the Anglo-Saxon audience. The transfer of power that in Germanic tradition was fraught with controversy between rival claimants here is accomplished smoothly and with the implicit sanction of God Himself, who began the chain by giving earthly authority to Adam. Anglo- Saxon kings who claimed their descent in an unbroken line from Adam’s son and successor, Seth, could thus embrace the as the source of their own authority and position.

The myth of identity that the Anglo-Saxons fashioned for themselves in those early centuries after their conquest of Britain is complex. Wormald identifies Christianity as the primary factor serving to unite these previously disparate peoples. Howe denies that either Christianity or language were central to this process, maintaining that the chief bond was the trope of migration, though he admits to “other, though always partial, sources of cultural identity” (12). All of these things and more are actually at work. One thread in the process, however, can be observed to be the Anglo-Saxon treatment of Genesis. Through the dissemination of written text and visual illustration, these versions of Genesis told in the Germanic language of the people demonstrated how Christianity could unite with and reinforce older traditions of identity, providing the Anglo-Saxons with a richer and more clearly delineated past, a sense of

105 identity and unity in the present, and even a vision for their future as a people.

106 Chapter Four: A “Gōd Cyning” In addition to functioning as an aid to political unification among the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, the Genesis narratives as interpreted by the Anglo-Saxons also served to reinforce the prevailing concepts of the proper duties of a ruler. Within Anglo-Saxon culture, three particular functions of the ruler are distinctive: his roles as war leader, religious intermediary, and gift-giver. In the Anglo-Saxon Genesis poem, the great leader Abraham can be seen to perform all of these roles. In addition, God himself, the “rodora weard,” or “Lord of the Heavens”, as He is described in the first line of the poem, proves His right to that title by acting as war-leader of the heavenly hosts, and also as the greatest gift-giver of all.1 Thus, the Genesis narratives serve both as reinforcement for the political authority of earthly rulers who properly carry out these duties (and correspondingly, to undermine the authority of those who do not), and as a rationale for the wholehearted worship of the Judeo-Christian God. The practice of choosing a king from among all qualified male members of the royal house instead of relying solely on primogeniture meant that a claimant to an Anglo-Saxon throne had to be careful to prove his worthiness by his behavior, both before and after he was crowned. The Beowulf poet calls attention to the exemplary behavior of Scyld’s son Beowulf early in the poem,

1 Chaney writes that though the metaphor of God as king is certainly not unique to the Anglo-Saxons, it is “peculiarly congenial” to their culture (46). See Chaney 46ff for an overview and brief analysis of Anglo-Saxon for God that involve royal imagery.

107 remarking to his audience that a young man who does likewise will retain the support of his father’s warband later in life (20-25). Even a king who initially was chosen to rule could forfeit his followers’ support as a result of his subsequent actions, however. The much- discussed Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for 755 recounts how Sigeberht, ruler of the West Saxons, was deposed for “unrihtum dædum,” or “wrongful deeds,” by his counselors (“witan”) and his kinsman Cynewulf, who took the throne in his place. What wrongs Sigeberht was accused of committing are not specified, and in his discussion of this incident, Stephen D. White emphasizes that the written account we possess reflects the self-justification of the winning side in a political coup (159). However, while it may be impossible for a contemporary historian to determine whether Sigeberht deserved his fate, the rhetoric of this passage indicates that the wrongful actions of a king could be considered adequate grounds for his removal. Because kingship was thus not simply assured by birth, the model of the worthy who follows prescribed codes of behavior is frequently emphasized in Anglo-Saxon texts. Their readings of Genesis depict both earthly and heavenly rulers acting according to the expected norms as warriors, religious functionaries, and gift-givers. This chapter examines each of these roles in turn, demonstrating first how it is defined within secular literature, then how it is applied in Anglo-Saxon Genesis texts both to human leaders such as Abraham and also to God Himself. The King as War Leader Though Tacitus, as seen in the previous chapter, draws a distinction between Germanic “reges,” or “kings,” and “duces,” by which he presumably means “war leaders” (140),

108 it is clear from other sources that one qualification for kingship among the Anglo-Saxon peoples was the capacity to lead troops on the battlefield in times of war. In writing his panegyric account of the life of Alfred the Great, the monk Asser stresses this quality of the king above all others as he describes Alfred’s ascent to the throne after the death of his brother Æthelred. Alfred, he says, became king: divino concedente nutu, cum summa omnium illius regni accolarum voluntate […]. Quod etiam vivente praedicto fratre suo, si dignaretur accipere, facillime cum consensu omnium potuerat invenire, nempe quia et sapientia et cunctis moribus bonis cunctos fratres suos praecellebat, et insuper eo quod nimium bellicosus et victor prope in omnibus bellis erat.2 (Chapter 42). Though Asser does not state this directly, it is possible to interpret Alfred’s victories in battle as confirmation of the divine approval of his kingship. Much of the rest of Asser’s text focuses on recounting Alfred’s many successes in battling the Vikings.

2 “with the divine will allowing, with the greatest goodwill of all those who dwelt near that kingdom […]. Which even with his aforesaid brother living, if he had thought himself worthy to accept it, he would have been able to acquire most easily with the consent of all, because certainly he surpassed all his brothers both in wisdom and in all other good practices, and besides this because he was very warlike and was a victor in nearly all battles.”

109 Beowulf, a text much concerned with the description of the qualities necessary for a ruler to be considered a “good king” (“god cyning”), begins with a celebration of kings’ fighting abilities before all other qualities: “Hwæt, we Gar-Dena in geardagum,/þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon,/hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon!” (1-3).3 These kings, stemming from noble blood, as seen in the last chapter, are well-known for their might and courage on the field of battle. The first of them to receive specific mention is Scyld Scefing, of whom the poet is quick to say that he “Oft[…]sceaþena þreatum,/monegum mægþum meodosetla ofteah,/egsode eorl[as]” (4-6).4 Primarily, it appears, for his ability in war, Scyld Scefing is the first ruler in the poem to receive the epithet of “god cyning” (11). Beowulf himself is the central king-figure of the poem, and he proves his worth in each of the poem’s three main episodes by his prowess as a fighter. Though usually an Anglo-Saxon ruler would be followed into battle by his loyal band of warriors, Beowulf fights mostly alone. During his battle with Grendel, his followers, sleeping at first, attempt to come to his aid, but their weapons have no effect on the monster, who must be conquered hand-to-hand by Beowulf. Hrothgar charges Beowulf at line 1377 that “þe anum,” or “you alone,” must defeat Grendel’s mother, and the hero does so. The band of men, including Hrothgar himself, who guide Beowulf to the monster’s lair, help him

3 “Lo, we have heard in days of yore/of the might of the kings of the people of the Spear-Danes,/how the noble ones performed courageous deeds!” 4 “Often […] deprived troops of enemies/many tribes of their mead-seats,/terrified the noblemen.”

110 only in that and in lending him a , which proves to be an ineffectual weapon against the foe he faces. In the final battle against the dragon, Beowulf is aided in his fight only by his young kinsman , who thus demonstrates his worthiness to act as the fallen king’s successor. The dominant royal figure in the early sections of the poem, however, is the Danish king Hrothgar. The poet first introduces this ruler, after sketching his royal genealogy, by emphasizing his success and glory in warfare (“heresped” and “wiges weorðmynd,” 64-65). The power and wealth that allow him to build the great mead-hall of Heorot for feasting and treasure-giving stem directly from this prowess in war. Like other kings in many Old English texts, Hrothgar, whose very name may mean something like “joyful spear,” is given the epithet of the “helm” (371 et al.) of his people. Literally, this word means “helmet”; its application to a king stresses his function as protector of his folk in a military context. Trouble comes in Beowulf when Hrothgar has become too aged to carry out this function of defense personally.5 The

5 Though Charles Donahue argues that the poem contains no suggestion “that Hrothgar ought to fight against Grendel” (30), the poem clearly demonstrates that the weakness of Hrothgar’s old age now threatens to result in the demolition of everything he has built. The young warrior Beowulf is needed to rescue the old king. Hrothgar does participate personally in the defense of Heorot as much as possible by riding out along with the band of warriors who escort Beowulf to the mere where Grendel’s

111 appearance of Beowulf, a young hero of noble blood who is personally able to defeat the enemies that Hrothgar cannot, presents a serious challenge to Hrothgar’s reign, as the queen Wealhtheow recognizes. In her speech to Hrothgar beginning at line 1168, she reminds him that the kingdom should be passed on to a member of the royal family—a son or nephew—rather than to an outsider like Beowulf. If the king has implicitly lost status with his people by needing the help of Beowulf to defend the realm, her advice here allows Hrothgar to regain the political upper hand. Reminding him that he holds the undisputed position of “sinces brytta,” or “distributor of treasure” (1170), she instructs him to reward the Geats with gifts. By so doing, Hrothgar re-establishes his lordship over Beowulf in the relationship between them, demonstrating that for all his fighting prowess, Beowulf remains dependent on his overlord for the gifts of treasure and weaponry that will allow him to maintain his position as noble warrior. After returning to his own country, Beowulf once more is considered a candidate for succession to the kingship, this time upon the death of his uncle, King Hygelac. In fact, Hygelac’s widow directly offers the Geatish throne to Beowulf, in the belief that , her son by Hygelac, is unable “wið ælfylcum eþelstolas/healdan” (2371-72).6 Here Queen recognizes Beowulf’s superior military qualifications and is prepared to elevate him in preference to her own son, who does not have the necessary skill in

mother resides. His fighting days, however, are clearly behind him by this point. 6 “to hold the native seats against foreign peoples”

112 battle to hold the kingship. Beowulf refuses, offering instead to aid Heardred as he assumes the office. In this controversy over succession, as in the earlier discussion between Wealhtheow and Hrothgar over the possibility of Beowulf becoming heir to the Scylding kingdom, an inheritance-based criterion eventually prevails. By the time this poem was written, Anglo-Saxon inheritance customs may have been shifting to reflect Continental/Roman norms, but the older claim of royal blood united with merit was still strong. Beowulf’s fighting prowess is almost sufficient to win him a throne; in fact, in the second instance, it has—he himself declines the offer. Heardred is killed young in battle, perhaps due to the deficiency in military skills that earlier concerned his mother, and Beowulf succeeds him uncontested. We are told that like the legendary Scyld Scefing, Beowulf was a “god cyning” (2390). In true warrior style, he begins his reign by avenging Heardred’s death against the who caused it, and he ends his reign in combat with the dragon that is threatening his people. Though Beowulf is an old man who has ruled for fifty years when the dragon appears, he considers it his responsibility to kill the monster singlehanded, stating to his followers: “Nis þæt eower sið,/ne gemet mannes, nefn(e) min anes,/þæt he wið aglæcean eofoðo dæle,/eorlscype efne” (2532-35).7 Not even a warrior of noble blood should presume to become the people’s chief defender; that position is the king’s, no matter how old the king may be. The battle with the dragon proves to be

7 “This undertaking is not yours,/nor is it proper for a man, except myself alone,/that he should exchange strengths with a monster,/even a man of nobility.”

113 Beowulf’s last, but he dies as a king should, destroying his enemy. While Beowulf serves as the most prominent model of an ideal king in the text that bears his name, that role is given in the Genesis poem to the patriarch Abraham. Though the text never labels him with that title, it emphasizes his noble lineage (1716, 1737, et al.)—the lineage of the kingly genealogies discussed in the previous chapter. Perceiving his lineage and his worth, God gives into Abraham’s power the “rume rice,” or “broad kingdom,” of Canaan (1790). In the illustrations of the text, Abraham is twice portrayed leading his folk with a large spear in hand (84, 88), a sign interpreted by Karkov as indicative of “power and Anglo-Saxon kingship” in the earlier rendering of Seth (MS 56, Text and Picture 83). In the text of the poem, the epithet “frumgara,” meaning “first-spear,” is applied to the leaders of groups of men, whether these be tribes or nations. Malalahel (1169) and Jared (1183), of the lineage of Seth, the sons of Noah (1334), and finally Abraham himself and his brother Haran are given this epithet within the poem (1708). The Judeo-Christian God honors Abraham with his status as patriarch for reasons known only to Himself, but presumably based on Abraham’s spiritual qualities. The Abraham of the Old English Genesis poem, however, also proves himself worthy of his position by demonstrably fulfilling the requisite functions of kingship in that culture. As the depiction of him as a spear-wielding leader of men indicates, Abraham in this poem is a warrior.8

8 Noah, too is described in the poem as “wigend”, “a warrior” (1411). In his case, the poem explicitly informs

114 The episode of the “war of the kings”, recounted in the Genesis poem in lines 1960-2164,9 has occasioned scholarly comment as one of the most extensive passages of poetic interpolation within the poem. As observed in Chapter Two, the Genesis poem here devotes over 200 lines to an episode originally told in the 24 verses of Genesis 14. The poem draws freely here on the Anglo-Saxon tradition of battle-poetry to describe how Abraham’s nephew Lot is carried away from Sodom by a victorious coalition of four kings from the north who have just defeated five southern kings, and how Abraham raises a force that pursues them and succeeds in rescuing his kinsman. The prevailing critical approach to this passage has centered on the search for an allegorical purpose for its emphasis within the poem. Doane writes that “this particular section [of the Scriptural account] had not acquired any important exegetical tradition unavoidably

the reader that Noah was chosen by God because of his courage (1287 ff.) 9 The opening point of this narrative is clearly signaled in the text, but scholars differ in identifying its ending point. Huppé, and more recently Andrew Orchard, write that the episode is found between lines 1960-2095 (195); Doane identifies it in lines 1960-2101 (Genesis A 69). My own reading is that the scene encompasses not only the battle itself, but also the subsequent distribution of treasure (2102-64). Orchard, in fact, though he upholds Huppé’s reading of the scene boundaries, remarks that on stylistic grounds lines 2096-172 share many characteristics with the preceding section and should be regarded as aligned with it (123-24).

115 determining its interpretation” (295), though various commentators had proposed allegorical readings. In 1959, Bernard Huppé proposed a reading of this section of the poem as “the first psychomachia”—an account of the defeat of the five senses by “the four states of sinful living,” themselves subsequently defeated by “the ” (Abraham and his warriors) (197). This reading, however, is based almost completely on patristic commentary, for Huppé is only able to find evidence for it in the text by drawing attention to an “ambiguity” in Melchizedek’s words to Abraham in line 2107. Huppé here translates “Wæs ðu geworðod on wera rime” as “You have been honored in the number of men,” which he understands to be a reference to the numerological symbolism of the 318 men that Abraham leads, as identified by Biblical commentators, including Bede (198). For Huppé, working within the formalist paradigms of his day, this section of the poem requires such an allegorical interpretation in order to fit within the “one great, universal tradition of Christian poetry” (239) that he wishes to celebrate. Without the additional significance supplied by a knowledge of the patristic commentaries, Huppé laments that this sequence will reveal only “a very un-Christian delight in the heroics of battle and in poetic expression for its own sake” (195). However, his interpretation is built on the thin reed of a single line, which might just as well be translated as “You have been honored among the number of men,” thus erasing the perceived ambiguity. Thirty-five years after Huppé’s work was published, Andrew Orchard wrote an article in support of Huppé’s reading of this section of the poem as a psychomachia, an interpretation that Orchard feels “has proved less

116 influential than it might” (126). Recognizing that Huppé’s analysis is based entirely on that one line, Orchard offers “two small pieces of further evidence” that this episode may be read allegorically (127). The first of these is that Orchard sees the poem as intentionally emphasizing the role of the king of Elam above that of the other four kings who are his allies. He points out that this emphasis may hint at an allegorical interpretation if seen in the light of the Scriptural commentary of Jerome, which “equates Elam with the forces of worldliness” (127). His second argument is that many Latin poems offering similar allegorical interpretations of Scripture were known in Anglo-Saxon England. Most notably, the Psychomachia of Prudentius, whose preface emphasizes the godliness of Abraham as exhibited in this episode, was widely popular among Anglo- Saxon readers. Orchard persuasively identifies a number of parallels between Prudentius’s work and this section of the Genesis poem (128-30). Both Huppé and Orchard ably demonstrate the possibilities of a learned Anglo-Saxon reader interpreting the text allegorically here. Certainly there would have been many such readers, familiar with Prudentius and the patristic commentaries, within the tenth-century monastic context in which the Junius Manuscript was likely produced. Orchard points out, in fact, that one of the illustrators of the Junius Manuscript is believed to have also provided illustrations for one of the surviving Anglo-Saxon manuscripts of the Psychomachia (130). Even if we consider a composition date as early as the late seventh or early eighth century for the Genesis A portion of the poem from which this section is taken, the poet may still have been familiar with the work of Prudentius, which Gernot R.

117 Wieland believes to have been known by Anglo-Saxon scholars by the end of the seventh century and “certainly” by the time of Bede (214). Nonetheless, the amount of expansion here given to the original text argues against a purely allegorical intent; not all the additional detail included ties directly to an allegorical interpretation.10 Even more tellingly, the fact remains that the poem makes no direct allusion to Prudentius or to any other Scriptural commentaries, except, perhaps, in the ambiguously phrased line discussed above. The Genesis text never instructs the reader that Elam signifies the secular world, never explains how the number 318 would be written in Greek, and never uses references to abstract personifications of Virtues and Vices in its descriptions of the battles. Only readers with independent knowledge of these other texts would be led to see an allegorical interpretation here, and though the possibility is left open for such an educated audience to read and appreciate the poem in this way, the text does not insist upon it. In an age when Latin was considered the divinely sanctioned language of the Church, vernacular renditions of Scripture were written primarily for audiences who were not fluent in Latin, so it seems that a significant percentage of the poem’s intended readers or hearers almost certainly would not have been familiar with the body of patristic commentary on this text. Even within a monastic setting,

10 Orchard has perceptively identified possible allegorical symbolism for some of these details, though; see particularly his comments on the north/south dichotomy stressed in the account of the conflict and the emphasis on the King of Elam (124, 127).

118 this may have been the case. C.R. Dodwell, the editor of The Old English Illustrated Hexateuch, points out that in that manuscript’s prose rendition of this section of Genesis, a scribe has omitted the detail that the battle was fought by four kings against five, and the illuminator, apparently not familiar enough with the original Scripture (let alone the commentaries) to realize the mistake, has shown only four kings in the illustrations (71). Though the Genesis poet was very probably acquainted with the Latin works that would support an allegorical reading, and the poem allows educated readers to make this interpretive choice, it is not necessary to have knowledge of these commentaries in order to appreciate the poem. Huppé relies upon a patristically-based interpretation here in order to further his quest to establish a universal, unchanging Christian tradition within Western literature, but most scholars today recognize that belief systems such as Christianity are always impacted by the eras and cultures in which they become manifest. A reading of the poem that respects its Anglo-Saxon context will recognize that the exuberant enjoyment of a good fight that undoubtedly comes through on these pages is not without its spiritual significance as well. Any Anglo-Saxon audience, even an unlearned one, would have increased in its respect for Abraham, the hero of the final third of the poem, after hearing of his prowess in battle, and would have considered this prowess as a sign of his divinely-marked worthiness as a leader. When a messenger arrives to inform Abraham of the captivity of his nephew, Abraham consults with his allies, the brothers Aner, Mamre, and Eschol. All three are mentioned in the Biblical text, but the poem expands this

119 account to report a conversation between them and Abraham, in which Abraham asks for their aid, and further requests them to “ræd ahicgan,” or “devise a plan” 2031), for carrying out the rescue. In this Anglo-Saxon poem, Abraham thus behaves in a demonstrably Germanic fashion; he consults first with his counselors before summoning his entire warband (2039ff). Though the poem stresses this initial consultation, it likewise emphasizes that it is Abraham himself, the son of Thare, who directs the plan of attack once the enemy is sighted (2052ff). Lines 2069-71 celebrate the courageous decision of this hero, who “sealde/wig to wedde nalles wunden gold/for his suhtrigan.”11 The totality of Abraham’s victory is demonstrated by repeated references to the recovered treasures and captives, as well as to the trail of enemy corpses on which the birds of prey are feeding. The poet concludes that no man ever led a military expedition of a few men against a much larger force “wurðlicor,” meaning “in a more worthy fashion” (2094), than Abraham, who has thus proven himself a match in battlefield valor for any Germanic hero. Abraham’s courage and power, however, do not stem entirely from within himself. As the poem reminds readers at lines 2057-59 and 2072-73, during the account of the battle, victory in this matter will come from God, who has given his blessing to Abraham. The speech delivered to Abraham after the battle by Melchizedek, whom the poem calls Bishop of Salem (2103), is expanded here from 20 words in the Vulgate account to 13 lines of poetry. The

11 “gave/warfare as a ransom, not twisted gold,/for his nephew.”

120 theme of the speech in both versions is the role of God in granting Abraham the victory; the elaboration of the poem serves only to emphasize God’s power and the closeness of the relationship between God and Abraham.12 Later in the poem, a neighboring king, Abimelech, makes a similarly themed speech to Abraham. In the Biblical text, Abimelech says to Abraham in Genesis 21:22, “Deus tecum est in universis quae agis.”13 In the poem, this portion of Abimelech’s words is elaborated into 10 lines of dialogue, reading in part, ”Sweotol is and gesene þæt þe soð metod/on gesiððe is, swegles aldor,/se ðe sigor seleð” (2807-2809).14 Originally Abraham’s enemy, Abimelech has recognized that God is with Abraham in a victory-bringing relationship that gives Abraham power over him. He is therefore seeking to make an alliance with him. Because of his relationship with God—because, as Abimelech describes it, God fights alongside him—Abraham receives gifts and a valuable alliance without even having to fight for them. The God-given power to intimidate one’s enemies would certainly be desired by Anglo-Saxon rulers; the poem

12 Bede’s commentary on this battle episode also interprets Abraham’s success in battle as a strong sign of God’s favor: “miraculum quidem est divinae potentiate permaximum, quod cum cohorte tam modica tantam hostium stragem fecerit Abram” (187). (“Indeed it is a very great wonder of the divine power, that with such a small cohort Abram brought about such a great massacre of his enemies.”) 13 “God is with you in all things that you do.” 14 “Open it is and apparent that the True Lord/is in your comitatus, the Sky’s Prince,/He who gives victory.”

121 assures them that the Christian God is able to grant it to them as He did to Abraham. Within the poem, the sign of circumcision instituted by God as a mark of the relationship between Himself and Abraham and his descendents is described as “a sign of victory” (“sigores tacn” 2313, 2322). The original phrase in the Vulgate is “signem foederis,” or “a sign of covenant” (Genesis 17:11). The early medieval commentators frequently linked circumcision and salvation, but the particular emphasis on victory here appears to be the poet’s alone. The Anglo-Saxon-born , the leading theologian at the court of , wrote of the connection between the “bonitas,” or “goodness,” of a king and military victory in a letter to King Æthelred I of Northumbria written around the year 793. For him, it is a simple equation: “Regis bonitas totius est gentis prosperitas, victoria exercitus” (18).15 He goes on to list a variety of other specific things that will result, but it is significant that his description of general prosperity for the people begins with victory in battle. This victory, he asserts, is the direct result of the king’s “bonitas,” a word that describes the king’s behavior, but may also hint at his overall quality of fitness to reign. Thomas D. Hill believes that this passage demonstrates Alcuin’s “belief in the gæfa (victory bringing luck) of a Woden descended king” (64 n. 1). In actuality, Alcuin’s letter reflects a transitional point for this belief between its pagan formulation and a newer, Christian articulation of it.

15 “The goodness of the king is the prosperity of the entire people, victory of the army.”

122 Alcuin does not claim this idea as original; rather, he is careful to claim a written source for it by using the formula “legimus…quod,” or “we have read…that” (18). He does not give the name of an author, however, and to my knowledge, no subsequent scholar has identified this source, if there was one. Chapter Two has already alluded to the Anglo-Saxon emphasis on the Christian God’s ability to provide victory to those who serve Him. This association of God with victory is repeatedly emphasized in the Genesis poem by applying to Him such epithets as “Wielder of Victories” (“sigora waldend” 126, 1112, 1365, 1408), “Victory-Lord” (“sigedrihten” 523, 778), “Lord of Victories” (“sigora drihten” 1036), and “King of Victories” (“sigora…cyning” 1797). In the poem, God, as powerful king of all the world, is not only presented as a deity who grants victory to humans, but also as undefeatable warleader of the heavenly hosts. The first four lines of the poem introduce Him in this capacity, as “the Heavens’ Guardian” (“rodera weard” 1), “the Hosts’ Glory-king (“wereda wuldorcining” 2), “the Armies’ Strength” (“mægna sped” 3), and “the Leader of All the Angels” (“heafod ealra heahgesceafta” 4). When a number of the angels rebel against him early in the poem, this victory-granting God deprives them of victory (55). Further, he does not simply direct a battle between them and the loyal angels from his throne, but acts as an Anglo-Saxon ruler would to attack his enemies “selfes mihtum,” or “with his own might” (59). The poem goes on to describe this attack in physical terms: “grap on wraðe/faum

123 folmum and him on fæðm gebræc” (61-62).16 This passage is found on page four of the manuscript; on the preceding page three, a full-page illustration of the Fall of the Angels reinforces this depiction of God’s direct involvement in the fighting. Here, God Himself casts spears after the rebels as they fall into hell, while the other angels look on. As already seen, in the iconography of this manuscript, the wielder of spears in such a context is by that token presented as a ruler. The King as Religious Leader As the earlier chapters of this dissertation indicate, traditional Germanic custom placed the king in a special relationship to the gods. The king carried out sacrifices for the people and had a role in ceremonies of divination that indicated the will of the gods. One of the necessary qualifications for rulership was the ability to claim descent from the gods, and victory in battle was a sign of the gods’ favor for the ruler who achieved it. As the old polytheistic religion gradually gave way to Christianity, many of these expectations of a ruler carried over into the new Christianized culture. Bede repeatedly testifies to the importance of a king’s conversion in leading an entire people to accept Christianity. Though he is careful to emphasize in his account of Æthelbert of Kent, the first king to be converted by the Roman mission, that the king did not order his subjects to follow him in embracing the new religion, it is clear that many did become Christian because of the king’s example. Bede describes Æthelbert’s policy in these words: “nullum tamen

16 “He gripped the angry hostile ones/in his hands and crushed them in his embrace.”

124 cogeret ad Christianismum; sed tantummodo credentes arctiori dilectione, […]amplecteretur” (I, 26).17 In Anglo- Saxon culture, as we have seen, the reward of the king’s favor was a powerful incentive. Æthelbert’s decision to convert, while ostensibly personal, in fact was a commitment of his people as a body to the Christian religion. In all of Bede’s accounts of the conversion of the early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, he focuses on the conversion of the king, indicating again and again that most, though not all, of the people would follow the king’s choice in matters of religion. Conversely, when a non-Christian king succeeded to a throne, the people tended to renounce their newfound Christianity and return to older customs of worship. On the death of Æthelbert, he was succeeded by an unbelieving son named Eadbald. Bede writes scathingly of his wickedness, and charges that he ”occasionem dedit ad priorem vomitum revertendi, his qui sub imperio sui parentis, vel favore vel timore regio, fidei et castimoniae iura susceperant” (II, 5).18 This passage highlights even Bede’s ambivalence about the process of “conversion” described earlier. He is as concerned here with the people’s sexual behavior (“castimoniae”) as with their state of belief, but he here acknowledges what he had

17 “Nevertheless he would compel no one to become Christian; but only embrace the believers with a closer love.” 18 “He gave occasion to return to their former vomit, to those who under the rule of his father, either for the favor or the fear of the king, had accepted the laws of faith and purity.”

125 attempted to deny in the earlier passage, that hope of reward or fear of punishment from Æthelbert, rather than inner conviction, had impelled many of the early conversions. The authority assumed by Anglo-Saxon kings in matters of religion stemmed not only from their power to reward or punish their subjects, but from a cultural tradition that placed the king at the head of any religious system. Kings were expected to function as leaders in this area, just as in warfare. Bede’s description of the Christian king Oswald of Northumbria celebrates a ruler who used this aspect of his role as king to inspire greater Christian devotion among his people (III, 2). When his kingdom was under attack, Oswald erected a cross before going into battle, and led his army in prayer before leading them into battle. Bede emphasizes that Oswald raised this wooden cross with his own hands, and that after the Northumbrian forces won the victory, the cross became a site of pilgrimage and a relic used for healing miracles. Even in Bede’s own day, nearly a hundred years later, wood from this cross was still being harvested and applied as a remedy for the injuries and illnesses of both humans and domestic animals. As suggested by the previous section, Oswald’s reliance on the Christian God for victory, since it was successful, validated both monarch and deity. Here, however, a king is also shown consecrating a site for worship that is subsequently adopted as a holy place. Pagan Anglo-Saxon rulers were considered to have great religious authority because they were directly descended from the gods. Though the doctrines of Christianity precluded any ruler from claiming direct physical descent from its God, the genealogies of Christian ruling families

126 were altered to include figures from the Bible, particularly those mentioned in the early chapters of Genesis. As Chapter Three pointed out, though Christian belief specified that no one’s genealogy could stretch farther back than Adam, Adam could in some sense claim the triune God as his father.19 The ability to trace his descent from Adam in specific detail set the Anglo-Saxon king in a closer relationship with God than that enjoyed by ordinary laymen. Oswald, who after his death was acclaimed popularly as a saint, is an extreme example of this phenomenon, but his assumption of the role of religious leadership was an expected part of his royal duties. The patriarchs of Genesis, who, as we have seen, are depicted in Anglo-Saxon accounts as rulers of their people, derive their authority from their closeness to God. Adam, Noah, and others are able to speak directly with God, something that those who are not of the chosen lineage are not depicted as able to do. The face-to-face communication of God with the patriarchs is emphasized in the illustrations of the Genesis manuscript, where an anthropomorphically-depicted God is shown conversing with Adam and Eve (9, 10, 11, 41, 44, 45), the recently slain Abel (49), Cain (51), and Noah (65, 74, 76). God is also pictured shutting the door of Noah’s ark with His own hand as it begins its voyage (66), and similarly opening it when the flood has ended (68, 73). This detail is drawn from Genesis 7:16, though Karkov remarks that its pictorial depiction is “unusual” and “extremely rare in medieval art” (Text and Picture 90). In

19 See, in particular, the discussion in Chapter Three of the genealogy of Æthelwulf.

127 this manuscript, however, not only does it appear three times, but also in pictures drawn by both of the two artists who illustrated the manuscript.20 The emphasis thus placed on God’s personal interaction with Noah underscores Noah’s authority in his crucial role as leader of the people. As stated above, however, Abraham is the patriarch who is given the most “kingly” status in this poetic interpretation of Genesis. Twice in the illustrations he is shown speaking face-to-face with God (84, 87), and the text of the poem, as does the original Biblical account, records the content of many of these conversations. God affirms the close relationship between Himself and Abraham in the dream of Abimelech, found in lines 2632-66 of the poem. Here, the pagan king Abimelech, who has sinned against Abraham, is told by God to make restitution quickly if he wishes to live. Abraham, God says, “is god and gleaw, mæg self sprecan,/geseon sweglcyning. [….]He abiddan mæg/gif he ofstum me ærenda wile,/þeawfæst and geþyldig, þin abeodan”(2658-63).21 This rendering of God’s words substantially follows the Biblical account, where Abraham is described as a prophet (“propheta,” Genesis 20:7), but places great stress on the privilege given to Abraham of speaking with and actually seeing God. Abimelech is

20 One illustrator is responsible for the illustrations through page 68, after which a second artist takes over. For a discussion of the contrasting styles of both artists, see Karkov, Text and Picture 33-36. 21 “is good and wise, may himself speak,/see the Heaven-King. [….]He, virtuous and patient/may pray quickly to Me if he desires/to declare your messages to Me.”

128 receiving God’s message in a dream, but is effectively told that any reply he may have must be sent through Abraham; Abimelech’s own will not be heard. Abimelech’s subsequent favorable treatment of Abraham ensures blessings for himself and his kingdom. He has thus acted as wisely as possible for a pagan, but Abraham’s influence with God demonstrates that he is more powerful and worthier to rule than Abimelech. The King as Gift-Giver Perhaps the most distinctly Germanic of all the roles of an Anglo-Saxon king was his function as a giver of gifts. In the pre-monetary economy of the Germanic tribes, the bond between a ruler and the warriors who followed him was cemented by his ability to reward their bravery and loyalty with gifts of land and treasure. For this reason, the title of “brytta,” meaning “gift-giver” or “divider of treasure,” is often given to admirable kings in works such as Beowulf. The observations of Tacitus attest to the ancientness of this custom, though Tacitus himself, as a Roman living in a money-based economy, often appears baffled by the intricate customs of gift-exchange practiced by the Germanic tribes. In describing the gifts expected by the war-band of a Germanic chieftain, for example, Tacitus emphasizes what he perceives as their greed: exigunt enim principis sui liberalitate illum bellatorem equum, illam cruentam victricemque frameam; nam epulae et quamquam incompti, largi tamen apparatus pro stipendio cedunt.(152)22

22 “for they demand from the generosity of their own chief that warlike horse, that gory and conquering spear;

129 The difference between the rewards given to a Germanic warrior and the “stipendium” that a Roman soldier received is that the Roman’s pay consisted of a set amount, whether that amount was expressed in the form of money or in some other commodity, such as salt. Germanic chieftains, on the other hand, rewarded their followers when and as they chose. The followers, however, understood well that if they remained loyal and fought bravely, they had a right to expect rewards from their leader. Indeed, they were dependent on these gifts for survival. Generosity was perhaps the most lauded virtue of a Germanic chief; he was expected to give freely, but was rewarded by the complete loyalty of his men in return. Anthropologist Marcel Mauss, in his seminal treatise on gift theory, explains the logic behind this type of reward system: it is not the cold reasoning of the merchant, the banker, the capitalist. [These chiefs] are concerned with their own interest, but in a different way from our own age. They hoard, but in order to spend, to place under an obligation, to have their own “liege men.” (75) Tacitus is unable to appreciate such reasoning. He blames the German warriors for their desire to acquire goods by fighting, hypothesizing that they possess a certain racial laziness in comparison to commerce-minded Romans. Germans, he says, are “tantum ad impetum valida: laboris atque

for a banquet and equipment that although primitive, is nevertheless abundant, passes for pay.”

130 operum non eadem patientia” (136).23 He explains that to them, “pigrum quin immo et iners videtur sudore adquirere quod possis sanguine parare” (152).24 No doubt the virtue of courage in battle was more highly honored by these tribes than that of hard work in the fields, but Tacitus fails to take into account another reason why the spoils of war are more desirable than the fruits of the earth: these rewards come as a gift from one’s chief. Personal ties of love and loyalty were forged between leader and followers by this means. The salary system used by the Romans was impersonal and produced no such bonds. Though cultural customs varied slightly from tribe to tribe, and some change did occur over the course of the next 400 years, the culture of the Anglo-Saxon tribes who invaded the island of Britain was in many respects highly similar to that described by the Germania. Their warrior society continued to revolve around the basic unit of the comitatus (Tacitus’s word for the Germanic war-band), led by a chief who sustained the loyalty of his followers with generous gifts. Many of these gifts consisted of gold in the form of rings or bracelets, but gifts of weapons, horses, and especially land were also highly valued signifiers of a lord’s esteem. The operation of this bond between chieftain and retainers can be seen in much of the extant body of Anglo-Saxon poetry, particularly those poems which seem to be based on a centuries-old oral tradition only written down after the coming of Christianity.

23 “only powerful in a single rush: not similarly hardy for labor and exertions.” 24 “in fact, it seems quite tedious and unskillful to acquire by sweat what you could get by blood.”

131 One such poem is “The Wanderer,” found in the Exeter Book, which dates from around the year 975. The situation described in the poem, however, would have been readily familiar even to a German of Tacitus’s day. The speaker in the opening section of “The Wanderer” is a warrior who has been separated from his people. His lord and his previous companions are dead, and he has been left alone to seek a new home, a new band where he will be accepted and rewarded. Among the Germanic warriors, it was considered a great disgrace to survive after one’s leader has fallen in battle (Tacitus 152). Even worse than the guilt of survival for the persona of this poem, though, is the loss of his chief and fellow warriors. A Germanic warrior cannot function properly on his own; his proper place is as a member of a comitatus unit. This speaker concentrates in his lament on his need for the companionship provided by the institution of gift-exchange. His former lord is remembered as “my gold-friend” (“goldwine minne,” 22); he recalls the “sincþege,/hu hine on geoguðe his goldwine/wenede to wiste” (34-36)25 and how he once “partook of the gift-seat” (“giefstolas breac,” 44). Instead of the twisted, or “wunden,” gold that he then received (32), he must now accept the path of an exile, seeking for a new “dispenser of treasure” (“sinces bryttan,” 25). The distribution of treasure by the king or chieftain is also a common topic in Beowulf. In the introductory section of the poem, aspirants to a throne are urged to emulate the generous example of Beowulf the son of Scyld in giving “splendid treasure-gifts” (“fromum feohgiftum,” 21)

25 “receiving of treasure/how in his youth his gold- friend/ accustomed him to the feast”

132 to their fathers’ warriors during their fathers’ reigns, so as to secure the future support of those warriors. Indeed, as we have already seen, since determining inheritance of a kingship was not a simple matter, the support of the old warriors may have been invaluable to a young man who wished to become king. Showing generosity, it is reasoned, is a key proof of worthiness to succeed to the kingship. An already-established king could further enhance his prestige by a display of generous gift-giving, and it is for this reason, we are told, that Hrothgar decides to build the great hall of Heorot: “þær on innan eall gedælan/geongum ond ealdum, swylce him God sealde/buton folcscare ond feorum gumena” (71-3).26 Here, God is acknowledged as the ultimate source of all gifts within the king’s powers of disposal. The passage notes, as well, that some things do not fall within the king’s power—public land, the “folk-share,” is not the king’s to dispose of, nor are human beings.27 All treasures that are within the king’s possession, however, can be and ought to be given to those who serve him, as tokens of merit or esteem, or as rewards for services rendered. Only by demonstrating his bountifulness can Hrothgar insure that his fame as a monarch will spread “widely” (“wide,” 74) throughout the Germanic world. Within the Beowulf poem, Hrothgar’s role as giver of treasure to his people is stressed by the title of

26 “There within to distribute to all/young and old, such as God gave him/except public land and the lives of men.” 27 Klaeber suggests that this line be read as a “corrective addition” to the text (cvii, n.1).

133 “brytta,” which is given to him four times: by one of his warriors, by the poet, by the queen, and by Beowulf (352, 607, 1170, 1487). The title is also applied to Scyld, the legendary and perhaps semi-divine founder of the Danish royal line (35), and twice to Beowulf’s own lord and uncle, Hygelac (1922, 2071). Beowulf himself is never referred to by this title, but Wiglaf repeatedly makes clear that he owes Beowulf his loyalty (and the other Geatish warriors do also) because of the generous gifts that the king has distributed (see, for example, 2633ff.). This chapter has already mentioned how Queen Wealhtheow’s skillful advice to Hrothgar to act as a treasure-giver toward the young Beowulf allows the king to assert his authority subtly after the young man defeats a foe that is beyond the king’s ability. Beowulf, it seems, has had no designs on the Danish throne and is completely satisfied with the reward of weapons and horses that has been given to him for driving away and mortally wounding Grendel. Wealhtheow’s subsequent addition of jewelry and a cloak, along with a speech exhorting him to be content with what he has been given, may well be unnecessary from his point of view, though her motive in attempting to secure the succession for her son by sending this potential challenger home is understandable in this situation. After achieving victory over the monstrous enemies of the Danish king, Beowulf willingly returns to his own country as planned, and there presents a generous share of the treasure he has received from Hrothgar as a gift to Hygelac and Hygd, his queen.28 With this action, Beowulf

28 It is impossible to calculate with precision what proportion of his reward Beowulf gives away here, for the

134 demonstrates his loyalty to his own lord, and his preference to receive treasure from his hand than from that of any other. He adds with the gift the courteous reminder to Hygelac, “Gen is eall æt ðe/lissa gelong” (2149-50).29 Hygelac, in his turn, rewards his nephew with an ancestral sword, a large amount of land, and the right to rule in the Geatish kingdom, second only to himself (2190ff.). Beowulf has thus achieved his goal—a position of power and stability within Geatish society—by following the familiar tenets of gift-exchange between warrior and lord in aristocratic Germanic society. Because of his adherence to custom, his valor is rewarded, political order is preserved in both the Danish and Geatish kingdoms, and Hrothgar, Beowulf, and Hygelac have all been given opportunity to demonstrate kingly generosity. The acceptance of Christianity by the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms brought a new religious significance to the existing conception of gift-exchange between monarch and subject. In one example, Bede records in his Historia the full text of a letter sent by Pope Boniface to potential convert King . The pope wisely sent gifts along with the letter as a gesture of good-will that

poem does not enumerate all the gifts he received from Hrothgar after his second exploit of killing Grendel’s mother. To take one example, however, the poem earlier listed a gift of eight horses from Hrothgar to Beowulf (1035), and Beowulf here gives four horses to Hygelac and three to Hygd, presumably keeping only one horse for himself. 29 “All of my joys are still/dependant on you.”

135 the Anglo-Saxon king would have readily appreciated, but Boniface also explains within the letter that the Christian faith itself is a “wonderful gift” (“mirabile donum”) that God wishes to bestow on him. Indeed, Edwin’s queen has already received the “reward of eternity” (“aeternitatis praemio”) by being baptized (II, 10). The relationship between God and believer here comes to resemble the traditional gift-based connection between monarch and subject, in which loyalty will be generously rewarded. When Edwin soon afterward accepts the faith, Bede gives more credit for this decision to a miraculous vision than to the pope’s letter. Significantly, however, this vision also involves a gift given to the king by God. Before he became king, Bede tells us, Edwin was visited by the vision of a man who promised to save him from his enemies and in time raise him to the kingship, in return for Edwin’s promise to follow the teachings of the one who had given him the gift. His benefactor would be recognized by the sign of placing his right hand on Edwin’s head. Years later, a Christian missionary performed this gesture, and Edwin immediately accepted the faith, as he was bound in honor to do (II, 12). In an earlier letter to the first English monarch to be converted, King Æthelbert of Kent, Boniface’s predecessor, Gregory the Great, uses the concept of gift- giving to explain the proper role of a Christian monarch: Propter hoc omnipotens Deus bonos quosque ad populorum regimina perducit, ut per omnibus quibus praelati fuerint, dona suae pietatis impendat. Quod in Anglorum gente factum cognovimus: cui vestra gloria idcirco est praeposita, ut per bona quae vobis concessa sunt,

136 etiam subiectae vobis genti superna beneficia praestarentur. (I, 32)30 Here the Christian ruler’s role is described within the framework of a gift exchange beginning with Almighty God. God has first given “good things” to Æthelbert; now the king, having received these gifts, is obligated to reciprocate by granting God’s blessings to the people he rules. Æthelbert will then be once more compensated in his turn, as Gregory assures him. He must strive to be worthy of this great calling: ut illum retributorem invenias in caelo, cuius nomen atque cognitionem dilataveris in terra. Ipse enim vestrae quoque gloriae nomen etiam posteris gloriosus reddet, cuius vos honorem quaeritis et servatis in gentibus. (I, 32)31 The reward of Æthelbert will thus be twofold, in heaven and upon the earth.

30 “Almighty God leads all good men to the government of nations for this reason, that through them the gifts of His own devotion may be offered to all those whom they rule. Which we know to have been done among the nation of the English: over whom your glory has been placed in command, so that through the good things which have been granted to you, celestial blessings might also be displayed to the nation that is subject to you.” 31 “So that you may find Him to be your rewarder in heaven, whose name and knowledge you have extended over the earth. For He Himself will also render the name of your glory more glorious to future generations, whose honor you seek and preserve among the nations.”

137 Though he does not discuss in depth the ways in which the Christian idea of the gift differs from older concepts such as the Germanic customs, Mauss does comment briefly on the origin of the custom of almsgiving. He explains that when a society takes this step in its religious development, “the gods and the spirits accept that the share of wealth and happiness that has been offered to them and had been hitherto destroyed in useless sacrifices should serve the poor and children” (18). In other words, a gift exchange that had previously taken place in a closed system consisting only of an individual and the gods, in which the gods gave blessings in return for sacrifices, has opened up to include other people. Instead of reciprocating the gods’ gifts with sacrifices, people who have been blessed begin to satisfy the gods by passing some of their gifts along to other humans. The Anglo-Saxon consciousness of gift-giving as a religious obligation is beginning to make this shift during the time of conversion as described by Bede. King Edwin’s conversion narrative describes the first type of conception of the relations between God and man. God gives various kinds of gifts to Edwin, who in turn responds by offering his faith to God. In his letter to King Æthelbert, Pope Gregory introduced the second stage of religious gift-giving by formulating God’s gifts to Æthelbert as blessings that should be passed on to the people of his realm. Religiously inspired giving to others supplements but does not take the place of gifts given directly to God in the Christian faith. Bede tells the story, for example, of the Northumbrian King Oswy, who had trusted in an offer of gifts and treasures to the Mercians to stave off an attack on his kingdom in the year 655. When they refused to

138 accept his offer, Oswy, already a Christian, decided to offer the gifts to the Lord instead. He swore that if God would aid him in defeating his enemies, afterward he would endow monasteries and dedicate his daughter to God as a nun. He was victorious and handsomely kept his vow (III, 24). Such “bargaining” with the Lord reflects a fairly simplistic level of religious thought, but was considered an orthodox practice in the Church at that time, particularly since it made Christianity more accessible to those who had previously been accustomed to pagan religious systems. Anglo-Saxon converts to Christianity were most ready to accept religious teaching from missionaries who were able to accommodate their message to already existing customs, particularly those customs that surrounded the gift. Roman missionaries soon learned how to frame the gospel in a way that would be inviting to their audiences, and so did their Irish counterparts, who began the task of converting the island on the opposite coast at approximately the same time as the Romans. Not long after the death of King Edwin, the next Christian king, Oswald, asked the Irish to send the Northumbrians a bishop to instruct them in the faith. Bede records however, that the man who arrived was “of a rather austere spirit” (“austerioris animi”), and for that reason was not accepted by the people (III, 5). He was quickly replaced, and the new Bishop Aidan was beloved by all. Bede praises his holiness, and writes that among other virtues, “nihil […] huius mundi quaerere, nil amare curabat. Cuncta quae sibi a regibus vel divitibus saeculi donabantur, mox pauperibus

139 qui occurrerent erogare gaudebat” (III, 5).32 This virtue of generosity would have been easily understood and appreciated by the Anglo-Saxons, making them more eager to hear his teaching, since they admired the life he lived. Aidan was able by his actions more than by his words to bring the people of Northumbria from their older conception of gifts earned or exchanged to an understanding of Christian giving, in which gifts are not earned and are in fact given to those who will never be able to repay them. Repayment, it is assumed, will come from God. Bede tells a story in which King Oswin, the predecessor of the above-mentioned King Oswy, had made the bishop a gift of a fine horse so that Aidan would more easily be able to travel about the kingdom. True to form, the bishop gave the horse away to the first beggar who approached him. Bede records the subsequent conversation between the holy man and the indignant ruler. When he learns what had occurred, the king asks: “Quid voluisti, domine antistes, equum regium, quem te conveniebat proprium habere, pauperi dare? Numquid non habuimus equos viliores plurimos, vel alias species quae ad pauperum dona sufficerent, quamvis illum eis equum non dares, quem tibi specialiter possidendum elegi?” (III, 14)33

32 “He took care to seek or to love nothing of this world. All the things that were given to him by kings or rich men, he rejoiced in bequeathing later on to the poor people that met him.” 33 “What did you mean, lord bishop, to give to a pauper the kingly horse which it was fitting for you to have for

140 Oswin, though a generous man and an apparently sincere Christian, is here articulating a philosophy of the gift that more closely resembles the traditional Germanic than the Christian model. He is quite willing to give gifts to the poor, as Christianity demands, but he is still thinking of gifts as being somehow deserved by people according to their station. The bishop replies, “Quid loqueris,[…]rex? Numquid tibi carior est ille filius equae, quam ille filius Dei?” (III, 14)34 The king is completely disarmed by this answer, and begs the bishop’s forgiveness. The bishop has in this incident both demonstrated and articulated a purely Christian concept of the gift. For him, all objects are gifts of God, meant to be passed on to the children of God. Gifts are meant to be given freely, with no thought of whether the recipient has earned them or not, just as a more advanced Christian doctrine than that of King Oswy would maintain that one cannot bargain for the gifts of God, which are given freely to those in need. Gift-giving is repeatedly emphasized in the Genesis poem, but in the more traditional Anglo-Saxon context of a kingly attribute, possessed by the patriarchs and especially by God Himself. The custom of sacrifice is often described as the practice of offering gifts to God. Chapter Two of this dissertation describes the role of sacrifice in the poem, demonstrating its importance as an

your own? Did we not have many commoner horses, or gifts of other sorts which would suffice as gifts for the poor, although you should not give them that horse, which I chose particularly for your possession?” 34 “What are you saying,[…]king? Is that son of a mare more dear to you than that son of God?”

141 indication of the leadership status of those such as Noah and Abraham, who perform it. Not only was the offering of sacrifice seen as a priestly function (often performed by political leaders) in Anglo-Saxon culture, but it also takes on here a significance similar to that of Beowulf’s presentation of gifts to Hygelac on his successful return from the Danish kingdom. The Hebrew patriarchs offer to God a portion of the worldly goods that they have acquired, in token of the assurance that they wish to devote themselves only to God and to receive gifts from His hands only. God receives their sacrifices gladly and rewards those who offer them with additional blessings as a token of His favor. Most frequently, as in Noah’s sacrifice in lines 1497-1503 and the sacrifices of Abraham in lines 1790-93, 1805-8, and 1885-89, God gifts the patriarch with land, a gift that implies rulership and underscores the kingly nature of the act of sacrifice. Culturally, then, God’s acceptance of the sacrifice of Abel and rejection of that of Cain could thus be read as an indication of His choice of which son of Adam would be the subsequent ruler of the human race, though the poem does not explicitly state so. The offering of a sacrifice, however, was the prerogative of the head of a family or other political unit among the Anglo-Saxons.35 By rights,

35 The Hebrews, in fact, seem to have followed the same custom in regard to sacrifice. The only other instance I recall of two men simultaneously offering sacrifice in the Hebrew scriptures is the competition between Elijah and the prophets of Baal in I Kings 18—another case of the use of competing sacrifices in order to determine which party God favors.

142 sacrifice should have been offered by Adam, as the family’s head. The act of the two sons in offering sacrifices becomes fraught with political significance: in thus usurping their father’s role, they are vying for the right to succeed him, and God makes His choice between them. The younger son is preferred, presumably for some greater merit that God is able to detect. Such a choice, made according to merit rather than age, is in accord with Anglo-Saxon inheritance customs. As we have seen, the poem and its accompanying illustrations make clear that after the murder of Abel, the chosen ruling line is that of Adam and Eve’s third son, Seth, rather than that of Cain. Karkov points out that in the illustrations, the descendents of Cain lack the symbols she labels as ”attributes of power” possessed by the descendants of Seth. Her suggestion is that the illustrations depict Cain’s line as the “workers” in the tripartite division of society, while the nobler functions of rulers and priests belong to Seth’s progeny (Text and Picture 82). Alternatively, Cain may have forfeited his right to rule as part of his punishment for the murder of Abel, but neither the poem nor the Biblical text states this; his punishment is to go into exile. God seems to have rejected Cain and chosen the line of a younger son for His own reasons even before the murder. Beowulf presents the character of the monster Grendel, an outcast descendent of Cain. He shares his ancestor’s punishment of being exiled from human society—the society of the descendents of Seth—and he particularly resents the presence of the mead-hall of the great king so near his territory. Grendel seizes possession of the mead-hall by night, and the poet’s description of his activities

143 underscores the counterpart of his nightly rule to Hrothgar’s rule by day (166-67). Like his ancestor Cain, Grendel has attempted to take by violence the rule that has been denied him. Though he gains dominion over the hall during the hours of darkness, one thing is explicitly denied Grendel in the poem: “no he þone gifstol gretan moste,/maþðum for Metode, ne his myne wisse” (168-69).36 The “gift-stool” is the throne that marks Hrothgar’s kingly power; power symbolized in this culture by the dispensing of gifts. God prevents Grendel from approaching or touching it. Edward B. Irving’s 1968 interpretation that this passage is stating that Grendel cannot ”make proper use like an ordinary retainer of the treasure for which Heorot is so famous” (178) remains the prevailing critical view.37 Taken in the context of the earlier part of the passage, however, Irving’s reading is flawed. It is true that as an outcast, Grendel has no lord to give him gifts, and certainly cannot expect to receive them from Hrothgar as a loyal warrior would, but in this context his potential approach to the gift-stool is as a conqueror, not a suppliant. God prevents him from seizing Hrothgar’s throne. He is not worthy of it, and the proof of this lack is found in the statement that he is incapable of understanding its function—the giving of gifts. In this characteristic,

36 “He might not approach the gift-seat,/that precious thing because of God, nor could his mind understand it.” 37 Lee modifies this reading by identifying Grendel with his ancestor Cain and Hrothgar’s gift-stool with the heavenly gift-stool of God, but in his reading, too, Grendel is unable to approach as a suppliant (186-87).

144 also, he is a true heir of Cain, whose unfitness for rule was shown by God’s refusal to accept his sacrificial gifts even before he became a murderer. In the poetic Genesis, God demonstrates His own kingliness by being the supreme giver of gifts to all created beings. The term “brytta,” meaning “gift-giver”, often used as a title for a human ruler, is also applied to God in this poem, in which He is praised at the moment of creation as “lifes brytta,” or “the Giver of Life” (122, 129). This title underscores His role as creative force— every living thing owes its existence to Him. In comparison, human rulers are merely “wilna brytta and worulddugeða” (1620), “sinces brytta” (1857), or “goldes bryttan” (1997), epithets that translate, respectively, as “distributor of wished-for-things and worldly goods,” “distributor of treasure,” and “distributors of gold”. When God is first depicted in the poem, it is as the Lord of the halls of heaven, surrounded by His war-band of angels, whom He rewards with the gifts of “brightness and glory” (“wlite and wuldre,” 36). When the rebellious angels cease to deserve these gifts, He instead gives them hellfire as a “reward” (“leane,” 37). This section of the poem, which has no direct source in the Scriptural Genesis, is the most distinctively Anglo-Saxon material in the text, and in it the parallels between God and an Anglo-Saxon ruler are clearly delineated. This Anglo-Saxon depiction of the creation and fall of angels stresses the might of the heavenly war-band, and of God as its leader, as well as His power to reward loyal followers and punish those who are disloyal. After the description of this rebellion and punishment, however, God’s decision to create an earthly

145 realm as a counterpart to the heavenly one is explained as a direct consequence of the rebellion and fall of Satan and his followers. After they are banished to hell, there is a resulting vacancy in heaven, which God is moved to fill: him on laste setl wuldorspedum welig wide stodan gifum growende on godes rice, beorht and geblædfæst, buendra leas, siððan wræcstowe werige gastas under hearmlocan heane geforan. þa þeahtode þeoden ure modgeþonce hu he þa mæran gesceaft, eðelstaðolas, eft gesette, swegltorhtan seld selran werode þa hie gielpsceaþan ofgifen hæfdon heah on heofenum. forþam halig god under roderas feng ricum mihtum wolde þæt him eorðe and uproder and sidwæter geseted wurde, woruldgesceafte on wraðra gield þara þe, forhealdene, of hleo sende. (86- 102)38

38 “Behind them seats rich with an abundance of glory, remained widely growing with gifts in God’s kingdom, bright and prosperous, deprived of inhabitants, since the miserable spirits traveled into the exile-place in the miserable torture- enclosure. Then our King took counsel in His mind how He then the illustrious creation,

146 Humankind will be a new and better war-band to take the place of the one that has been lost. The entire earthly creation is made in order to be a home for them. This explanation for the creation of the world is not original to the Genesis poem. Often referred to as the doctrine of replacement, this idea that the purpose of humankind is to replace the fallen angels may have originated in the works of St. Augustine.39 In her article “Vacancies in Heaven: The Doctrine of Replacement and Genesis A,” Dorothy Haines traces its subsequent appearances in the works of Gregory the Great, Bede, Ælfric, , and the (151-53). Haines believes that the closest analogues to the reference in the poem are Blickling XI and Ælfric’s “Sermo de Initio Creaturae.” In both of these homilies, she points out, the doctrine is expressed in terms of “dwellings” (“wununga”) or “seats” (“stede”) that are left vacant at the departure of Satan and his followers, and wait to be filled. The terminology of the poem is strikingly similar (153). David F. Johnson identifies two analogues to this section of the

homes beneath, might again set up, heavenly-bright houses for a better warband when they the boasting adversaries had given up those high in the heavens. Therefore holy God under the firmament’s orb by His powerful might wished that for them earth and the heaven above and the broad water be created, created worlds as a replacement for the angry ones who, failed in purity, He sent from His protection.” 39 See De Civitate Dei 22.1 and Enchiridion ad Laurentium 62.

147 poem in tenth-century legal charters in his article “The Fall of Lucifer in Genesis A and Two Anglo-Latin Royal Charters.” One of these, King Edgar’s charter for the refounding of New Minster, Winchester, also uses the terminology of vacant seats, in this case “the shining seats of the heavens” (“lucidas celorum sedes”, Charters 96)) Haines’s and Johnson’s conclusions that these references in the poem, the homilies, and the charters reflect a distinctly Anglo-Saxon interpretation of the doctrine of replacement are well-reasoned, but neither critic addresses the additional stress that the poem places on the concept that these seats are gifts of God. Ælfric, in fact, maintains that God intended for humans to “earn with obedience” (“geearnian mid eaðmodnysse,” 181) the right to possess these heavenly dwellings. Though the poem is clear that the group of fallen angels has forfeited their right to the dwellings as a result of rebellion against God, it describes the dwellings as gifts within the power of God to distribute as He wishes. The phrase “gifum growende”(88), meaning “growing with gifts,” that is used to describe the empty seats left by the fallen ones highlights the position of God as a distributor of gifts in this context. His motivation for the creation of human beings and for the entire earthly realm that they will inhabit is to have worthy recipients for these gifts, which will be wasted if they remain undistributed in His treasury. God’s very identity as ruler of the universe is, in the Anglo-Saxon conception of the obligations of a ruler, dependant on His generous distribution of gifts. It is in the following passage, recounting the process of

148 creation, that He is twice given the title of “lifes brytta.” In line 135, the newly-created world of middle-earth is called a “tiber.” Doane’s glossary offers the translations “sacrifice” or “offering” for this word in other contexts, but speculates in this case that the word may be a misspelling for a different term with a meaning similar to “structure” (393). His earlier commentary on this line remarks that a translation of the term as “‘sacrifice,’ ‘offering,’ or ‘gift’ is obviously strained” (234). Within the gift-oriented economy embraced by the poem, however, the term “gift” makes perfect sense—the earth is one more gift that God is preparing to present to His newest subjects. Later, the area of Paradise that has specifically been prepared as a dwelling for the first humans is described as “filled with gifts” (“gifena gefylled,” 209). Satan, whose was to set himself up as a lord in rivalry to God, attempts in this poem to function likewise as a gift-giver for his followers. Chained fast and unable to leave hell, he recruits a volunteer to undertake the mission of journeying to Paradise and tempting Adam and Eve by reminding his fallen war-band of the gifts he has given them in the past (409 ff.). In the vision of this poem, even an evil lord like Satan maintains his power by giving gifts to those who follow him, though readers may be free to question whether these gifts are good. This view differs from that of the Beowulf poet, who, as discussed above, does not credit Grendel with the ability to comprehend the gift-giving obligations of a rightful ruler. The demonic messenger who agrees to carry out Satan’s plan understands what he is attempting to do in terms of

149 gift-theory as well: “men forweorpan,/forlæran and forlædan þæt hie læn godes,/ælmihtiges gife an forleten,/heofonrices ge/weald” (691-94).40 The heavenly kingdom, the seats he and his companions have left behind, is now being offered as a gift to the newly created humans. He must persuade them to eat from the tree of death rather than the tree of life, must make an evil gift seem preferable to a good one. If Adam and Eve can be made to eat from the wrong tree, he reasons that they will lose their chance to occupy those heavenly dwellings and will instead be given ones in hell. In the poem, the tempter himself plucks the fruit from the tree of death (493), a small but significant deviation from the original Genesis text, in which Eve takes the fruit from the tree (3:4). The tempter of the poem, then, is able to offer the fruit to both Adam and Eve from his own hand (or whatever appendage we imagine a serpent to have)41 as a gift. He tells Adam, in fact, that God has sent him here to give Adam the command to eat the fruit, which is presented as a gift for faithful service in lines 500-07, though it is not directly called one. Among other points, Adam’s refusal includes the objection that a genuine messenger from God should be able to produce some sort of “tacen,” a sign to prove his identity (540).

40 “to throw down,/misteach and mislead men so that they leave alone/the gift of God, the Almighty’s gift,/the heavenly kingdom’s power.” 41 The poem depicts the tempter taking serpent’s form in line 491, and never states that he abandons it. However, the illustration on page 28 of the manuscript shows the tempter in anthropomorphic form, offering fruit to Adam and Eve simultaneously with both hands.

150 Having articulated his doubts about the authenticity of the message, Adam concludes, “He mæg me of his hean rice/geofian mide goda gehwilcum þeah he his gingran ne sende” (545-46).42 In other words, God is perfectly capable of giving gifts to Adam without the intermediary of a messenger, and Adam refuses to receive any gifts from a potentially spurious source. Adam’s reasoning here is somewhat reminiscent of Beowulf’s when the warrior turns over most of the gifts he has received from Hrothgar to his own overlord, Hygelac. In Anglo-Saxon tradition, gifts must be received only from one’s own lord; to accept them from any other source may entail a conflict of loyalty. Having failed in his approach to Adam, the tempter makes his offer to Eve. Here again, the poem emphasizes that when she takes the fruit, it is not from the tree but from the tempter (“æt þam laðan,” 592). But the fruit itself is not the only gift proffered by the devil to Eve. Apparently prompted by his conversation with Adam, the tempter offers Eve a token of his sincerity in the form of a vision—another substantial departure from Scripture. This “tacen,” as it is called in lines 653 and 774, appears to Eve as soon as she has eaten the fruit. At that moment, “þurh þæs laðan læn” (601),43 she is able to see the heavenly seat of God and His angels—a vision that persists until Adam also eats the fruit, at which point it abruptly vanishes. Doane points out that the term “læn” used here refers specifically to a feudal grant from an overlord to a vassal (Saxon 146). Eve has fallen into the trap that Adam

42 “He [God] may give to me from His high kingdom/with every good thing even though He did not send His servant.” 43 “through the gift of the hostile one”

151 narrowly avoided: she has implicitly bound herself to the service of a new lord. The gifts that the tempter gives are deceitful, however. The vision lasts only temporarily, and the fruit, we are told in lines 718-22, may have borne the name of fruit, but was in reality the gift of death, hell, and destruction. Karkov points out that the key word “tacen” in this passage is used at various points to refer both to the vision and to the fruit, both of which ultimately become signs of disobedience that mark Adam and Eve in a lasting fashion (Text 131). By failing in their duty of loyalty and obedience to God, Adam and Eve forfeit their possession of the numerous gifts He has provided for them. The abundance of Paradise, described in line 890 with the same phrase earlier used of the abundance of heaven, “growendra gifa” (“growing with gifts”) will henceforth be denied them. Mercifully, however, God does not sever His relationship with human beings completely. He provides other, lesser gifts for Adam and Eve (see 955ff.) and grants blessings throughout the poem to their descendants in return for their obedience and sacrifices. The final episode of the poem, in fact, concerns a test of obedience and willingness to sacrifice: the story of Abraham and his son Isaac found in Genesis 22. Since the book of Genesis as found in the Bible continues for nearly 30 more chapters, this story may seem a rather arbitrary ending for the poem. One possible explanation for the choice to close the poem here is that the sacrifice of Isaac was read typologically in the as a precursor to the crucifixion of Christ. While the poet may have had such an interpretation in mind, and the poet’s audience would likewise have been aware of it if they had

152 received any prior religious instruction regarding this narrative, nonetheless, the poem itself makes no direct reference to events in this passage.44 Typological interpretation, though it may be detected in the poem’s subtext, does not seem to be the intended emphasis here. Doane notes that the poem breaks off at a point corresponding to Genesis 22:13, even before the conclusion of the Biblical account of this event. He finds, however, that the ending takes place at “the most effective dramatic moment,” emphasizing “Christ’s merciful grace,” and adds, ”Ælfric indicates that Genesis 22 is a natural stopping place for a Genesis translation (Preface to Genesis, ed. Crawford, EETS 160, 76,5); it is a natural stopping place in Genesis commentaries, and is the last part of Genesis familiar from the liturgy” (324-25). Ælfric, however, makes no hint of considering this “a natural stopping place” in his Preface to the translation of Genesis. He explains that he has translated the book “buton to Issace, Abrahames suna”45 (116), but does not mention a specific chapter and verse reference. Jonathan Wilcox, in fact, cites “Ælfric’s translation of Genesis 1 to 24:22,” which he considers “taking the story almost as far as to Isaac” (78), apparently interpreting the reference in the Preface

44 Various critics have attempted to find such references in what they see as pointed or ambiguous phrasing in the text. See Doane’s notes on lines 2887b- 2888a, 2906b-2908a, 2933a, and 2936 for discussions of such passages and various interpretations of them that have been offered. 45 “only up to Isaac, Abraham’s son”

153 to indicate all of Genesis up to 25:19, a verse that announces, “hae quoque sunt generationes Isaac filii Abraham Abraham genuit Isaac.”46 Nor do all medieval commentaries on Genesis end with Chapter 22; Bede’s, in fact, concludes sooner, with Genesis 21:9-10. In his Preface, Ælfric further explains that he has ended his translation in this spot, not by his own choice but “for þam þe sum oðer man þe hæfde awend fram Isaace [þa] boc oþ ende” (116).47 The reason for the poet’s choice of concluding episode may best be found in the concluding lines themselves, which describe Abraham’s sacrifice of the ram provided by God to take Isaac’s place: “Abrægd þa mid þy bille, brynegield onhread,/reccendne weg rommes blode,/onbleot þæt lac gode, sægde leana þanc/and ealra þara þe he him sið and ær,/gifena, drihten forgifen hæfde” (2932-36).48 The phrase “reccendne weg” in line 2933, Doane points out, can be read both as “guiding path” and as “recendne wig,” meaning “smoking altar.” He favors an interpretation of the line as having “double meaning” in reference to the typological reading of this sacrifice as pointing the way toward the eventual atoning sacrifice of Christ and its reenactment in

46 “These too are the generations of Isaac the son of Abraham. Abraham begat Isaac…” 47 “because another man has translated the book for you from Isaac to the end” 48 “He moved quickly then with the sword, adorned the burnt offering,/the guiding path with the ram’s blood,/sacrificed that gift to God, said thanks for the rewards/and for all the things that He to him later and before,/the gifts, the Lord had given him.”

154 the Eucharist (324). Anglo-Saxon readers trained in theology would undoubtedly have thought about the crucifixion while reading this section of the poem, but the poem itself does not directly mention Christ at any point.49 The enigmatic phrase may simply be a mistranscription of an original that read “smoking altar”, but if not, “guiding path” might also refer to the act of sacrifice itself as carried out by Abraham. As we have seen, the act of gift exchange, which can be carried out between a human and god by means of sacrifice, is a binding element of the covenant relationship between lord and retainer in Anglo-Saxon culture. The act of sacrifice has served throughout the poem to mark the true servants of God, those who strive to mend the bond of trust that was broken by Adam and Eve. In this sense, continued sacrifice is the “guiding path” to a deeper relationship with God. The concluding lines emphasize the significance of this gift exchange by indicating that as he sacrifices the ram, Abraham is rendering his thanks to God for all the

49 Though the text of the poem never mentions Christ, Karkov points out in her analysis of the illustrations that the cross, symbolic of Christ and his sacrifice, is depicted in the halo surrounding God’s head in the drawings, indicating Christ’s pre-incarnate presence as the Word, the second person of the Trinity, from the initial moment of Creation. In addition, a cross appears on a tree in the drawing on page 7 of the manuscript, which she interprets as “a sign of the tree of life and the cross of the Crucifixion” (Text 51). Thus, readers who are paying attention to both text and pictures will be constantly reminded of Christ.

155 “leana” (“rewards”), and for all the “gifena” (“gifts), both that God has given to him up to this point (“ær”) and that He will give to him in the future (“sið”). Note that both elements of time in the traditional Germanic conception of it are thus represented; Abraham’s relationship with God is assured through eternity. This conclusion of the poem, in which the eternal and beneficent nature of God’s rule over His human servants is , is a fitting ending for a poem that began by describing the splendor of the eternal reign of God in the heavenly realms, the homes He established as rewards for His first servants, the angels, and which are now offered as future rewards for His earthly retainers who serve Him with faithfulness.

The Genesis poem consistently articulates the relationship between God and His earthly servants, such as Abraham, in terms of the proto-feudal relations between a king and his followers in early Anglo-Saxon culture. The positive example of Abraham’s obedience and loyalty at the end of the poem balances the disobedience of Adam and Eve at its beginning—perhaps all the more neatly if there is a suggestion of the Crucifixion implied in the sacrifice of Isaac. Throughout the Genesis narrative as recounted by the poem, we see the patriarchs as earthly rulers chosen by God who achieve success in warfare and other arenas as a result of their right conduct in obeying God’s commands and offering generous sacrifice to Him. God Himself is portrayed as the “king of kings,” ruling the universe justly and benevolently, and acting in accordance with Anglo-Saxon cultural expectations of a supreme ruler and “god cyning.”

156 Section Three: The Social Context of Anglo-Saxon Genesis Narratives Chapter Five: Blood Feud Besides its religious and political implications within Anglo-Saxon culture, the book of Genesis impacted, and was impacted in its turn by, the conceptions of familial relationships that were current within that culture. As texts such as Beowulf attest, early Anglo-Saxon society was a warrior culture, in which tribal leaders battled each other for dominance. In such a precarious society, kinship ties were crucial. For this reason, kin- slaying was one of the culture’s greatest taboos. The Genesis narrative of Cain and Abel thus resonated especially strongly for the Anglo-Saxons, and was told and retold by them, often within the context of the Germanic custom of blood feud. The Problem of Kin-Slaying In its early days, at least, Anglo-Saxon England was a warrior culture. The invasion was led by chieftains of tribes held together by kinship bonds and by the need for common defense. With battle a constant possibility, lives depended on the loyalty of each group’s warriors to each other and to their lord. Individual and injuries were redressed by a system of blood-feud, in which the victim’s kin were honor-bound to carry out revenge against the perpetrator. In Beowulf, the section depicting the fight with Grendel’s mother indicates that even monsters outside the bounds of the human race could be bound by this obligation, and that it could, theoretically at least, even be extended to female kin in the absence of any males. The practice of seeking revenge against any who injured one’s kinfolk seems to have satisfied a basic sense of justice

157 for the Anglo-Saxons. It left a difficult conundrum, though, in a situation in which one kinsman injured another. The dilemma of what should be done with a kin- slayer may have been the root of the Anglo-Saxon fascination with the story of Cain and Abel. Tacitus demonstrates that the practice of feud was central to Germanic social relations in his day when he explains that for the Germans, “suscipere tam inimicitias seu patris seu propinqui quam amicitias necesse est” (162).1 There is, unfortunately, less direct historical evidence of how the feud custom was later practiced in Anglo-Saxon culture, even though, as Paul Hyams writes, “Every student of the Anglo-Saxons accepts the existence of feud as a feature of society before the Norman Conquest” (1). Hyams believes that the “most convincing” example of feud that survives in the historical record is the story of dynastic struggle in the West Saxon kingdom between Cynewulf and Sigeberht recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 755 and mentioned in the previous chapter (Hyams 6). Several instances of blood-feud appear in this lengthy Chronicle entry. First, after being deposed by Cynewulf, Sigeberht is slain by a swineherd who is stated to be avenging the death of an ealdorman, presumably his lord. Many years later, Cynewulf attempts to exile Sigeberht’s brother Cyneheard, but is ambushed and killed by him instead. Cyneheard offers “feorh and feoh,” meaning “life and reward,” to those of the king’s men still alive after Cynewulf’s death if they will agree to end the fighting, but they refuse, and continue the battle until all of them

1 “It is as necessary to take up the feuds of either a father or a relative as it is to take up his friendships.”

158 are killed or gravely wounded. The story ends with a much larger band of Cynewulf’s followers riding out the next morning to avenge their lord. When they trap Cyneheard in the same place where he had earlier slain the king, he attempts to bargain his way past them by first bribing them with riches and lands (“feos and landes”), and then by warning them that he has a number of their kinsmen among his retainers. The king’s men reply that “him nan mæg leofra nære þonne heora hlaford,”2 and eventually they kill all but one of these kinsmen along with Cyneheard. This example clearly demonstrates the Anglo-Saxon warrior’s obligation to take revenge against the killer of his lord. There is poignant conflict in this story between kinship loyalties and the bond between lord and retainer, but in the end, loyalty to one’s lord is paramount. Nevertheless, kinship ties seem to be second in importance only to the lord/retainer bond. Instances of feud are more common in Anglo-Saxon literature than in the historical records of the period. Probably our best surviving textual source depicting the blood-feud in Anglo-Saxon culture is the Beowulf epic, in which the concept of taking revenge against one’s enemies is often stressed. As Beowulf assures Hrothgar, “Selre bið æghwæm/þæt he his freond wrece, þonne he fela murne” (1384- 5).3 There are several possible interpretations for why Beowulf considers blood vengeance a “better” (“selre”) response to an injury than mourning. Firstly, violent retribution is the “manly” response expected from a

2 “No kinsman was dearer to them than their lord.” 3 “It is better for each man/that he avenge his friend than that he mourn much.”

159 warrior, who should be a man of action, not just of mourning words.4 Such revenge will apparently be more emotionally satisfying to the warrior than mourning, both because it gives him a concrete action he can take and because it satisfies the demands of justice. John M. Hill makes the point in The Cultural World in Beowulf that in this cultural context, “acts of revenge can be good and jurally definitive” (29). Hill regards Beowulf’s role in the poem, then, as “a ‘legislator’ figure” or “a juristic warrior” in that his actions in killing Grendel and his mother restore a peaceful balance to the Danish kingdom (36-37).5 In this case, Beowulf is also acting with the explicit authorization of King Hroðgar. Beowulf needs such authorization here because he is avenging an injury that was committed against the Danes, not against his own people. Though Grendel and his mother operate within the code of blood-feud, as she proves when she arrives to seek

4 The description of Beowulf’s funeral at the end of the poem indicates that mourning was not considered necessarily “unmanly” or an activity associated only with women. The warriors here mourn their fallen king with honor. The dragon that killed him is, however, already dead. If it still lived, the warriors would be expected to kill it first, before mourning at the burial mound. 5 Craig R. Davis offers a similar, though more psychologically-oriented reading when he writes that the episodes in which Beowulf battles Grendel and Grendel’s mother represent “the imaginary exorcism of demons incarnating, with increasing specificity, the force of endemic kindred violence” (Beowulf xv).

160 vengeance for the death of her son, they do not practice the associated custom of offering payment for causing a death or injury in the form of money or treasure. This practice, called wergild, presumably developed later than the blood-feud itself, although it is attested as early as the days of Tacitus. He writes that in Germanic law, “equorum pecorumque numero convicti multantur. Pars multae regi vel civitati, pars ipsi, qui vindicatur, vel propinquis eius exsolvitur” (150).6 In the law-codes developed in Britain after the coming of Christianity, Anglo-Saxon rulers attempted to moderate the practice of blood-feud by codifying a system in which wergild was paid to the victim’s family in order to prevent further bloodshed. The older custom died hard, however; even as late as the tenth century, King Edmund was still lamenting the practice of blood-feud, writing, “Me egleð swyðe [and] us eallum ða unrihtlican [and] mænigfealdan gefeoht ðe betwux us sylfum syndun” (Robertson 8).7 Hyams’s interpretation of this law-code is that, though Edmund was attempting to mitigate the practice of violence in his kingdom, “the king intended no outright prohibition of feud” (16). Patrick Wormald concurs, writing, “We no longer think that early medieval kings aimed to ‘limit the feud.’ But they were beginning to take its functions (and profits) unto themselves” (“‘Inter,’ 196).

6 “Those convicted are fined with a number of horses and cattle. Part of the fine is paid to the king or the state, part to he himself who is being avenged, or to his relatives.” 7 “The unrighteous and manifold fights that exist among us distress me and all of us greatly.”

161 The establishment of law-codes by kings such as Edmund reflects the attempt to impose the will of a higher authority (the king, and through him, God Himself) in the settlement of matters that otherwise would have been settled by the heads of the families involved. While the substitution of gold for blood is a significant judicial shift, perhaps even more important is the introduction of the concept that a law-breaker has transgressed not just against an individual or against that individual’s kinship- group, but against society and against the will and commandments of God, represented by the person of the king. In the words of Edmund’s law-code, the law-breaker has violated the king’s “mund”—literally, the king’s “hand,” meaning his power, but perhaps better understood by the later phrase “the king’s peace” (Robertson 10). This new legal concept would have helped to restore peace in the wake of violence even in that previously most difficult of situations for Anglo-Saxon justice to resolve: the case of one kinsman killing another, in which vengeance exacted by the family becomes impossible. The poem Beowulf bears witness to the dilemma produced by such an event in the story told by Beowulf of how one of his uncles, Hæðcyn, killed his older brother Herebeald with an arrow. Though the shooting was an accident, Beowulf says, it produced an untenable situation for the surviving family members: “þæt wæs feohleas gefeoht, fyrenum gesyngad,/hreðre hygemeðe; sceolde hwæðre swa þeah/æðeling unwrecen ealdres linnan” (2441-43).8 Even an accidental

8 “That was a fight that could not be atoned for with gold, sinned exceedingly,/wearying the mind in the breast;

162 shooting seems to have called for retribution in some form. Beowulf’s statement here implies that dying “unwrecen” was in some way a detriment to the honor of the slain prince. Because the killer was Herebeald’s brother, however, the family could not exact retribution without further violating kinship ties. This unresolvable tragedy seems to have been hardest on King Hreðel, the bereaved father and also the head of the family. According to Beowulf, his grandfather’s grief over the death of his son led to his own early demise, stricken not just because of his son’s loss, but because he himself was powerless to avenge his son’s death as an Anglo-Saxon lord was obligated to do: “wihte ne meahte/on ðam feorhbonan fæghðe gebetan;/no ðy ær he þone heaðorinc hatian ne meahte/laðum dædum, þeah him leof ne wæs” (2464- 67).9 Today’s popular psychology would explain that the king was unable to achieve “closure” after the death of his son because he was unable to fulfill his culturally mandated role as avenger. A king in such circumstances might well feel a stain upon his own honor, even though he was powerless to act. Davis writes that Hreðel’s death was caused by “emotional confusion” (Beowulf 74). Beowulf’s description of the king’s death, “Godes leoht geceas” (2469),10 implies that death came as a welcome relief to Hreðel, ending his hopeless struggle with this dilemma.

yet nevertheless the prince/had to lose his life unavenged.” 9 “He could not in any way/settle the feud against the life-slayer;/yet he could not hate the warrior/for his hostile deeds, though he was not dear to him.” 10 “He chose God’s light.”

163 The killer, Hæðcyn, apparently the middle son of the family, succeeded his father even though we are told that his father had held no love for him. His reign was short, however, ending when he was killed in battle by the Swedes. The third brother, Hygelac, who was Beowulf’s beloved uncle and lord, then came to the throne. One of Hygelac’s warriors avenged Hæðcyn by killing the Swedish king who had struck him down, and balance was restored to the Geats’ royal house, preparing the way for a long and prosperous reign by Hygelac. The theme of brother slaying brother appears also in Beowulf in the charges that the hero levels against Unferð in line 587 as he answers his challenge: “ðu þinum broðrum to banan wurde”.11 The poem does not explain how or why Unferð killed his brothers, but his presence as a valued counselor in Hrothgar’s court indicates that the Danish king, at least, has no intention of demanding retribution from him. Davis suggests the possibility that these brothers may have rebelled against the king, in which case Unferð, by killing them, was demonstrating his loyalty to his lord (Beowulf 125). Certainly this would explain why the murderer Unferð could be not only unpunished but a prominent court figure. The poem gives no real hint of such a motive for the killings, however, and it may simply be that according to traditional Germanic custom, such an event would have been regarded as purely a family affair and not for outsiders, even the king, to interfere in.12

11 “You were a murderer to your brothers.” 12 Klaeber writes that this explanation of why “Unferð remained unmolested in spite of the murder[…]is scarcely believable” (149 n.6), but I would argue that Klaeber here

164 Beowulf follows a much later, Christian-influenced concept of justice when he tells Unferð, “þæs þu in helle scealt/werhðo dreogan” (588-89).13 This statement demonstrates how Christianity offers a way out of the dilemma caused by instances of kin-slaying, just as the codifying of a king’s law-code offers a way of conceiving of right and wrong that moves beyond family or tribal loyalty. Unferð, Beowulf says, has transgressed against God’s law as well as against his family, and God will punish his deeds even though the king is unwilling or unable to do so. Many recent critics of the poem, including Craig R. Davis and David Williams, have commented on the link between Unferð’s crime of kin-slaying and Grendel’s dark heritage as the descendant of Cain, murderer of his brother. Williams detects foreshadowing in the poem of Unferð later proving treacherous to Hrothgar by aiding in his nephew Hroðulf’s bid for the throne—an attempt that may have included the murder not just of Hroðulf’s cousin Hreðric, but also of Hroðgar himself (86-87). Davis links Unferð with Grendel and writes that he, “too, is a descendant, at least in spirit, of Cain” (Beowulf 111). The poem’s references to the Biblical story of Cain and Abel certainly do seem relevant to this later character accused of kin-slaying. Somewhat surprisingly, I have not

is judging according to the standards of his own day. The available textual evidence, including the poem’s account of the killing of Herebeald, discussed above, suggests that such an idea may have been entirely “believable” within the traditional social structure of Anglo-Saxon culture. 13 “For this you in hell shall/suffer damnation.”

165 seen similar critical connections made between Cain and Abel and the poem’s later account of the slaying of Herebeald. This story in fact seems a more perfect parallel, with its account of one brother slaying another, eventually paving the way for a third, younger brother, Hygelac, to inherit their father’s kingdom, just as Seth eventually became considered the true heir of Adam. Cain and Abel The Biblical story of Cain and Abel thus forms a strong backdrop to the Beowulf poem. This story, as has already been demonstrated, resonated within a society where kin-slaying was an extreme taboo both as an acknowledgement of the heinousness of the act and as a possible new pathway to resolving such crimes, with a Christian God able to judge and punish the transgressor, even if no earthly authority is able to do so. The vernacular retelling of this story in the Genesis poem offers some further insights into its cultural relevance. Cain and Abel are vitally important in the mythical narrative of human history provided by Genesis in that they, as the first two sons of Adam and Eve, are the first humans to be born (from parents created directly by God). When they are first introduced, the poem describes them as “freolicu” and “frumbearn” (968). “Freolicu,” which means “free-born” or “noble,” emphasizes their worthiness to be ancestors of all humankind, including those of noble blood— a crucial detail in an always class-conscious medieval society. “Frumbearn,” which means “first-born sons,” seems an odd term given that the boys are not twins. In fact, the poem later acknowledges, as the Biblical text establishes from the first, that Cain is the “ærboren,” also meaning “firstborn” (973). In this case, the prefix

166 “frum” seems to mean, as it does in the epithet “frumgara,” discussed in Chapter Four, “first” in terms of rank rather than chronology (the meaning of “ær”). Both Cain and Abel, at least at the moment of their births, are accorded equal respect by the poet. This equality of rank agrees with the fact that, as we have already seen, inheritance rights were not based solely on birth order in early Anglo-Saxon custom. The two are equal in their birth, which is a very high position, given that their father Adam is the founder and patriarch of the entire human race. Which of these sons is fittest to succeed him as head of the family group would, according to Anglo-Saxon expectation, be proven by their later conduct. The poem turns immediately to a description of that conduct. Line 970 refers to the brothers (presumably now grown-up) as “dædfruman,” which seems literally to mean “first-doers,” the first doers of deeds. Doane points out that this word is used elsewhere in Anglo-Saxon literature to describe the victorious King Edward after a battle against the Danes and is also used in Beowulf as an epithet for Grendel (2090). To Doane, the fact that this word is applied to both brothers seems ironic (245-46). The use of the word to describe both Cain and his purported descendent, Grendel, may seem a bit more than coincidental given the close intertextual connection between Beowulf and the myth of Cain and Abel, but the uses of “frum” documented above seem to indicate that the general meaning of the phrase is “doers of important, famous, or precedent- setting deeds”. The deeds done by these brothers will impact the entire human race, and thus merit close scrutiny.

167 As in the original Biblical tale, Cain’s chosen profession in the poem is that of a farmer, a tiller of the soil. Abel, however, in the poem’s version “æhte heold/fæder”14 (974-75). Genesis 4:2 of the Biblical account calls Abel “pastor ovium,” “a shepherd of sheep.” Most contemporary theological interpretations of the passage stressed this detail, because it allowed close identification between Abel and Christ, the “Good Shepherd.”15 Oddly, the poem conceals it, never using the term “shepherd” for Abel. In the ancient world, Adam’s “property” would logically have been measured in livestock, but the poet must have some reason for choosing this vague formulation. Doane’s reading of this point is theological. He cites both Isidore and Bede for the identification of Abel with Christ, which, he argues, makes Abel the true heir of his father (246). Certainly this reading is possible, but why not reinforce it, as Bede does, by making the connection between Abel's profession of shepherd and Christ’s self-identification? Another interpretation is suggested by Anglo-Saxon social class dynamics. As a tiller of the soil, Cain is identified with the peasant class, a class to which shepherds also belonged. As a guardian of property, however, Abel is here identified with the dominant warrior class, and his greater nobility is highlighted. In her Text and Picture in Anglo-Saxon England, Catherine Karkov makes a similar observation about the contrast between the illustrations of Cain’s descendents and those of Seth in the manuscript of the poem. She writes that Seth represents

14 “guarded the property of his father” 15 See, for example, Bede’s In Genesim 81.

168 the “noble” and Cain the “less noble, branches of the genealogical tree” (82). For her association between Cain’s line and the peasant class, she cites in addition to the pictorial evidence Ælfric’s division of society into the classes of “laboratores, bellatores, oratores”.16 While Cain’s descendents are the workers, Karkov writes, Seth’s are apparently destined to produce the members of the other two categories (82-83). The theory that Abel is identified from the start as the nobler in nature of the two brothers, despite being the younger, may also be reinforced by God’s choice to honor Abel’s sacrifice rather than Cain’s. As explained in Chapter 4, in an Anglo-Saxon context, this choice may have been seen as tantamount to a selection of Abel as the chief heir of his father, and as ruler over his brother, for it was expected that the ruling male, of a family or of a kingdom, should be the one to offer sacrifices on behalf of his people. The resulting jealousy of Cain is thus more fully explained, as is his decision to murder his brother. Only by removing Abel from the line of succession could he press his own claim to be head of the family after his father’s demise. Though the poem does not ever use the word “shepherd” to describe Abel, as stated above, the word “hyrde,” which Doane glosses as “shepherd, guardian, keeper,” does feature prominently in the Genesis poem’s version of the story. It is spoken by Cain after the murder, as part of the famous statement “num custos fratris mei sum,” as it appears in the Vulgate translation of Genesis 4:9, more familiar to us in English as “I am not my brother’s keeper”. Cain’s words

16 “workers, warriors, clergy”

169 in lines 1007-8, “ne ic hyrde wæs/broðer mines,” are indeed a literal Old English translation of the statement. However, the fact that the word “hyrde” can mean “shepherd” brings Abel’s Biblical profession to mind, as the fact that it can mean “guardian” recalls the poem’s description of Abel as the (presumably noble) guardian of his father’s property.17 The placement of the line division in the poem reinforces the double entendre of the sentence. Yes, Cain is stating that he is not his brother’s keeper, but if we pause in our reading at the end of the line, the statement instead reads, “I was not the shepherd,” or perhaps more significantly, “I was not the guardian”: damning evidence of Cain’s motive for jealousy. By the act of killing his brother, however, Cain once more proves his inherent unworthiness as a patriarch: as a kin-slayer, he has violated the ultimate Germanic taboo. The poem emphasizes the heinousness of this act by focusing immediately on Abel’s blood, which is spilled on the ground. In the Biblical version, God informs Cain that he has learned of the murder because “vox sanguis fratris tui clamat ad me de terra” (Genesis 4:10).18 The poem describes this blood being poured out on the earth at the moment of the murder in line 984, and then extends this description into a lengthy metaphor not found in the Bible: cwealmdreore swealh þæs middangeard, monnes swate,

17 “Hyrde” is actually used in this sense later in the poem, when Cain’s great-grandson Malalahel is described as the “yrfes hyrde” or “inheritance’s shepherd” in line 1067. 18 “The voice of the blood of your brother calls to me from the earth.”

170 æfter wælswenge. wea wæs aræred, tregena tuddor. of þam twige siððan ludon laðwende leng swa swiðor reðe wæstme. ræhton wide geond werþeoda wrohtes telgan. hrinon hearmtanas hearde and sare drihta bearnum. doð gieta swa. Of þam brad blado bealwa gehwilces sprytan ongunnon. we þæt spell magon, wælgrimme , wope cwiðan nales holunge Ac us hearde sceod freolecu fæmne þurh forman gylt þe wið metod æfre men gefremeden, eorðbuende siððan adam wearð of godes muðe gaste eacen. (984-1001)19

19 Thereafter middle-earth swallowed the blood of the slaughtered one, the man’s blood, after the deathly blow. Woe was raised, progeny of pains. From that twig afterwards grew evil horrible fruits more intensely the longer it went on. The injury’s twigs reached widely among the nations. The branches of sorrow touched the sons of multitudes severely and painfully. They do so still. From these broad leaves every evil began to sprout. We may lament that story, the slaughter-cruel fate, with weeping not without cause. But the noble woman severely harmed us through the first crime

171 Here the orthodox idea of the spreading corruptive power of Cain’s sin is expressed through a tree metaphor. Though Doane points out similar usages of a tree image to describe the subsequent branching of Cain’s “family tree” and other religious concepts in Glossa Ordinaria and Gregory’s Moralia in Job (Doane 247), the placement and extended development of this image seem unique to Anglo-Saxon literature.20 The tree springs up from the earth that has swallowed the blood of Abel. In the Biblical account, the earth, or “terra,” is mentioned at several key points in the text. First, in verse 10, quoted above, it is from the earth that the blood cries out. Then, in verse 11, God tells Cain that he is “maledictus…super terram.”21 The earth will no longer bear its fruit for him despite his labor, and he will become a wanderer and a vagabond upon the earth (verse 12). The idea, therefore, that through his brother’s murder Cain has defiled the earth and will be punished accordingly is already present in the original narrative. In the Genesis poem, the addition of the growth of the tree of evil from the polluted ground may be impelled by a heightened sense of the sacredness of the earth, which the

which henceforward men were always to carry out against the Lord, earthdwellers, since Adam was made powerful by the spirit from God’s mouth. 20 Charles D. Wright has in fact identified two analogues to this section of Genesis, both in Anglo-Saxon literature: “Maxims I” from the Exeter Book and a section of ’s Carmen de virginitate. 21 “cursed upon the earth”

172 Germanic tribes seem at one time to have worshipped.22 Here, the consequences of offending the earth are much more directly delineated than in the Biblical account. Doane comments that “This growth [of the tree] is spontaneous, begun even before God interviews Cain, and not an imposed punishment”(247). The earth, not God, is the agent here, and the consequences of Cain’s offense against it are immediately visible and wide-reaching. The later revelation, this one taken straight from Scripture, that because Cain has defiled the earth it will no longer produce its fruits for him seems almost anti-climactic in this context. The image of the tree, in a Biblical context, is reminiscent of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that was the occasion of Adam and Eve’s . In the poem, both this tree and the one stemming from the spilled blood of Abel merge into one as we are reminded in the above passage of the sin of Eve, the “freolecu fæmne” of line 998. We the readers, the poem reminds us, still taste the fruits of sin as the deeds of our forebears branch into our own lives. This particular reading of the tree-image, while not necessarily unorthodox in respect to Christian doctrines, is nevertheless strongly indebted to the pagan Germanic concept of the world-tree, discussed in Chapters One and Two. As explained there, the world-tree in Germanic mythology is associated with the realm of the present and future combined, the space of ongoing action that is the world in which we all live. Its roots are nourished by the nearby well that represents the past, the

22 See references to the gods Nerthus and Erce, detailed in Chapter One.

173 realm of completed action. Together, the two icons of well and tree depict the connection that Germanic paganism believed to exist between the actions of the past and the ongoing occurrences of the present and future. In the poem, the tree that springs up is the tree that represents the sinful post-Fall world that the poem’s readers live in, and hence is equated with the tree of Adam and Eve’s sin, but instead of being nurtured by the water of a well, it springs from the blood of the murdered man; that is, from the evil done in the past. To the Anglo-Saxon mind, the specific consequences represented by the spreading branches of the tree here may have also been seen as a reference to the never-ending cycle of violence resulting from the custom of blood-feud.23 Under this system, one killing could quite literally branch into more and more deaths for decades to come, as family groups continued to seek vengeance against each other. An act of violence such as Cain’s would almost certainly unleash a series of other violent acts in early Germanic society. The poem’s image of the tree springing from Abel’s blood underscores this problem. The Christian story, however, begins to provide a possible solution by proposing an alternate method of retribution for the wrong-doer. Instead of being punished by the victim’s family (which, of course, in the case of kin-slaying posed its own unique dilemma), Cain is judged by God—the ruler whose power he has transgressed against.

23 See lines 192ff. of the collection “Maxims I” found in the Exeter Book for an explicit statement that feuding began among men on the day that the earth swallowed Abel’s blood.

174 Alternatively, as the genealogies discussed in Chapter Three remind us, God, who is “our Father,” could be interpreted as Cain’s spiritual father in this instance. Whether Cain is seen as being punished by God as a political or spiritual authority—and elements of both are, in fact, at work—he is clearly being removed from the context of revenge-feud justice. Cain’s sentence is exile, or “wræc” (1014). This punishment, too, would have had meaning for Anglo-Saxon readers. Poems like “The Wanderer” remind us that in this tribal society, membership in kinship-groups and warbands was crucial. A warrior on his own had no power, no potential source of wealth. In being sent away by his Lord and told that he is now “winemagum lað”24 (1021), Cain suffers a fate that Anglo-Saxon readers may have considered worse than death. In their warrior code, there was honor in being killed in a feud; Cain, however, has clearly forfeited his honor as well as his Lord’s favor. Cain himself agrees with the justice of this sentence, but does not understand its full ramifications at first. Just as the Biblical Cain does, the Cain of the poem states that he now expects to be killed by some other human being. The wording of the poem is different from that of the Vulgate at this point, however. In the Biblical text, Cain says, “Omnis igitur qui invenerit me occidet me” (Genesis 4:14).25 In the poem, this is rendered, “hwonne me gemitte manscyldigne/se me feor oððe neah fæhðe

24 “hateful to his dear kinsmen” 25 “Anyone therefore who might find me will kill me.”

175 gemonige/broðorcwealmes” (1028-30).26 The word “fæhðe” (1029), which Doane glosses as meaning “enmity, hostile deed,” should rather be understood in its primary meaning of “feud,” as it is glossed both by Klaeber in his edition of Beowulf and by Malcolm Godden in his edition of Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies. The nuance is important here. Despite the judgement that God has just handed down, Cain is still thinking of his act in terms of the blood-feud custom. He does not realize that the justice of God is intended to replace the vengeance of men.27 Even God’s reply in this context is heavily tinged with the older custom, however; he promises sevenfold punishment to anyone who subsequently attacks Cain. The mark that God puts on Cain as a sign of this promise is labeled in the poem a “freoðobeacen” (1045). Doane explains this term by saying “freoðo is ‘a formal pledge of protection,’ ‘promise to avenge’” (249). The threat of vengeance, it seems, cannot be removed utterly from this interaction, but the fact that it is now God and not other human beings who has the right to exact vengeance for human violence represents a significant shift in moral/legal thinking. Bede’s commentary on Cain’s punishment adds a specific detail not mentioned in Scripture: “vagus semper esset et profugus, neque ausus uspiam sedes habere quietas sive” (In

26 “When anyone meets me, guilty of sin,/he will remind me far or near of the feud/over the slaying of my brother.” 27 For a full discussion of the ramifications of this shift in Anglo-Saxon legal theory, see the Introduction to David Williams’s Cain and Beowulf: A Study in Secular Allegory.

176 Genesim 79).28 The description of Cain as a wanderer and vagabond is taken verbatim from the Vulgate, but David Williams points out that the additional statement about Cain not having a “seat” in any place seems to originate with Bede. Williams remarks that “[this detail’s] origin is possibly English” and that it must have had “special significance” to its early medieval readers (25). He links this detail to the passage in Beowulf in which Grendel is unable to approach the “gifstol” in Heorot (168), already discussed in Chapter 4 (Williams 45). In the illustration of God’s judgement of Cain, found on page 51 of the Junius Manuscript, Cain is depicted standing up, accompanied by his wife and child, in the city he later builds. This detail may not be significant, as none of the subsequent depictions of either Cain’s or Seth’s descendents shows them seated, until the drawing of Seth’s grandson Cainan on page 57. This may be because the text of the poem inserts the detail, not found in the Vulgate, that Cainan was the “supreme judge” (“aldordema,” 1156) of the family after his father’s death. However, the Old English Illustrated Hexateuch also depicts Cain in a standing position as he builds his city on page 9 recto, and this contrasts sharply with the way that both his and Seth’s descendants on this and subsequent pages are nearly always shown in a seated position of power. For the Anglo-Saxons, Cain’s punishment is thus emphatically linked to loss of power. He will not be allowed to inherit his father Adam’s authority and leadership, which he attempted to usurp at the time of his and Abel’s sacrifices.

28 “He will always be wandering and a fugitive, not having dared to have a seat or rest anywhere.”

177 In Beowulf, the stain of Cain’s disgrace and the taint of his sin have been inherited for apparently countless generations. Grendel’s mother does recognize her kinship- bond with her son, but both are still unrepentant killers of their “brothers”—humankind. They exist in exile, marked somehow as different, monstrous. In his attempts to take possession of Heorot, Grendel seems to be the true heir of Cain, who tried to seize the rulership from Abel and failed. Like his ancestor, cursed and exiled, Grendel is unable to rule the meadhall, prevented by God from enjoying dominion over what he attempts to take by force. Beowulf, as a hero sent by God, is able to eradicate the race of Cain and end the ongoing feud cycle. The Cain and Abel myth is also referenced in the legal charter drawn up in 966 for King Edgar’s refoundation of the religious community of the New Minster at Winchester. Edgar was responsible, both here and elsewhere in England, for dissolving a previously existing community of secular clergy, and replacing it with an assembly of monks who would be governed according to the Benedictine Rule. Such secular clerics were most likely non-celibate and remained closely allied with the powerful families into which they had been born. The Benedictine reform that included the refoundation of New Minster thus may have been impelled in part by genuine piety on the part of the king, but it also strengthened his political position by weakening the power of the nobility and creating a party of monks who would be loyal to the crown. In the charter, Edgar anticipates the hostility of the secular clerics and their allies to the new community of monks, and pronounces a string of curses against any who oppose these monks or any other of the newly reformed

178 religious communities he has established, including a condemnation “eadem maledictione qua Cain parricida qui fratrem suum Abel stimulante inuidia liuidus interemit mastigia addictus est” (Miller 99).29 The word “parricida” is applicable to the killer of any close relative, and the warning appears to be that the clerics who have been displaced must not turn against their “brothers,” the monks who have received God’s favor, as Cain turned against Abel. Edgar calls down the wrath of God on any who would do so, reinforcing his own authority by linking both his favor and his wrath with those of God. For the Anglo-Saxons in general, the significance of the Cain and Abel narrative is that it poses a problem very familiar in pre-Christian history and legend: the problem of the murderer, made even more complex in the case of the one who slaughters his own kin. Genesis, however, by placing the authority for punishing the wrongdoer on God rather than on the victim’s family, provides a new politico-legal framework that paves the way for the abolishment of the blood-feud and the strengthening of the power of the king in his role as God’s appointed ruler.

29 “with the same curse by which the rascal Cain is doomed as a parricide, who envious with the stimulation of jealousy killed his own brother Abel”

179

Chapter Six: Peace-Weaving In the introduction to their 1990 collection of essays entitled New Readings on Women in , Helen Damico and Alexandra Hennessey Olsen point out the general scholarly consensus that “the evidence of the sources of Anglo-Saxon England suggests that English women were in a stronger position before the Norman Conquest than they were in subsequent centuries” (10).1 Though making cross-cultural comparisons about the status of women in a given society over a period of centuries is a vastly problematic undertaking, it seems certain that the Anglo- Saxon views of women, stemming from the Germanic roots of their culture, were substantially different from those of the Hebrew culture that produced the book of Genesis or the Romanized Church that disseminated the narratives of that book to the Anglo-Saxons. Consequently, Anglo-Saxon retellings of Genesis depict female characters who possess greater agency and authority than the women of the original text or the Continental commentaries. As many contemporary critics attest, the locus of female authority for these characters seems to be the vital peace-weaving function of Anglo-Saxon noblewomen, a concept that consistently colored Anglo-Saxon portrayals of figures such as Eve. Germanic Views of Gender and the Role of the Peace-Weaver Tacitus comments at several points in his Germania about the high status of women among the Germanic tribes as compared to that of Roman women. These tribes, he writes, esteem women for their prophetic powers and seek their

1 Particularly, Damico and Olsen here are referencing Christine E. Fell’s Women in Anglo-Saxon England.

180 counsel respectfully (142). Perhaps most significantly, he describes a Germanic concept of the marital relationship in which both partners are considered equals, and the wife is expected to share in all of her husband’s activities, including warfare. As a symbol of this expectation, the husband presents his bride with a marriage gift of: boves et frenatum equum et scutum cum framea gladioque. in haec munera uxor accipitur, atque in vicem ipsa armorum aliquid viro adfert: hoc maximum vinculum, haec arcana sacra, hos coniugales deos arbitrantur. ne se mulier extra virtutum cogitationes extraque bellorum casus putet, ipsis incipientis matrimonii auspiciis admonetur venire se laborum periculorumque sociam, idem in pace, idem in proelio passuram ausuramque (158).2 It is clear even from Tacitus’s description that much of this articulation of women’s roles is intended to be symbolic—though women, he writes, will be found close by when Germanic men go to battle, to tend to them and to spur

2 “oxen and a bridled horse and a shield with a German spear and sword. A wife is taken in accordance with these gifts, and in turn she herself brings some item of arms to the man: this is the greatest bond, these are the sacred mysteries, these things the gods of marriage judge. So that the woman may not think herself to be outside the thoughts of gallant deeds and outside the chances of wars, by the auspices themselves of the beginning marriage she is admonished that she comes as a partner of labors and perils, about to have suffered and dared the same in peace, the same in battle.”

181 them to greater bravery (142), they are not actually expected to participate in the fighting. Still, Germanic marriage customs granted great authority to women. Men, Tacitus writes, concern themselves with warfare and hunting, and leave “domus et penatium and agrorum cura feminis senibusque et infirmissimo cuique ex familia” (154).3 This description, though it does not say so outright, is strongly suggestive of a custom by which wives would be given charge, either in whole or in large part, of the home and estate, while men’s primary function was seen as war and other activities outside the home. This division of authority would be consistent with the description given elsewhere (and cited above) of a wife being considered an equal partner in her husband’s fortunes. Such later descriptions as we have of marriage among the aristocratic class of Anglo-Saxons suggest that these women, at least, were given a prescribed sphere of authority by societal custom—an authority most often described as that of the “peace-weaver”. In this culture, as in most, aristocratic marriages were essentially political alliances, and the importance of the bride was her function in uniting two powerful houses. Unlike aristocratic brides in many other societies, however, the Anglo-Saxon wife was not considered simply an object of exchange, but a true agent, both at the time of the marriage and subsequently, who had the responsibilities

3 “the care of the house and of the household gods and of the fields to the women and the old and to whoever is weakest of the family”

182 both of strengthening the family of her new husband and of maintaining the tie between his family and hers. In The Cultural World in Beowulf, John M. Hill attests to the “importance [of women], as childbearers, for the maintenance of the dynastic line” (236). The production of children was, of course, one of the chief functions of the noble Anglo-Saxon bride. Unlike brides in the Roman tradition, who were often regarded as no more than vessels for the seed of the male, Anglo-Saxon women were considered to have an integral physical role in the child’s conception. The Greco-Roman position that the vital life- giving seed was produced by the man alone stemmed from certain strains of early Greek medicine. The god Apollo famously articulates this position in Aeschylus’s Eumenides,4 but it was Aristotle who firmly established it as an influential philosophical doctrine,5 though in the field of medicine, Aristotle was opposed on this point by Galen, who believed that both females and males contributed seed to the formation of a fetus. The did not have direct access to the relevant works of either Aristotle or Galen in Latin translations, however, and it is difficult to tell from surviving evidence precisely what the prevailing theories of human conception may have been in the West during the Anglo-Saxon period.6 One of the few

4 Lines 657 ff. 5 See Part II of G.E.R. Lloyd’s Science, Folklore, and Ideology: Studies in the Life Sciences in Ancient Greece for a lengthy discussion of Aristotle’s theories on this question. 6 Joan Cadden, in her work Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages, concentrates almost solely on the

183 surviving treatises from the period that addresses this question is the encyclopedic Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville, and while Isidore makes reference in one passage to “semen […] masculi, unde animalium et hominum corpora concipiuntur,”7 he also implies a two-seed model of conception in another passage, apparently drawing from two different authorities with no attempt to reconcile the two (Cadden 52-53). While there seems to have been scholarly disagreement and uncertainty about the role of women in conception at this time, however, it is clear that the prevailing ideology of Western Europe in the early Middle Ages was patriarchal, emphasizing the role of the father far over that of the mother. The Germanic tribes, by contrast, may have originally followed a pattern of matriarchal descent, as reported by Frances and Joseph Gies in their Marriage and Family in the Middle Ages (34). An important piece of supporting evidence for this theory is Tacitus’s description of the nature of the relationship between maternal uncle and nephew among the Germans: “sororum filiis idem apud avunculum qui apud patrem honor. quidam sanctiorem artioremque hunc nexum sanguinis arbitrantur” (162).8 Many Beowulf scholars have

scholarship of the High and Late Middle Ages. She comments that it is “difficult if not impossible” to discern prevailing theories about reproduction in the period prior to the twelfth century (52). 7 “the seed […] of the male, whence the bodies of animals and humans are conceived” 8 “To the children of sisters the same esteem is given by the maternal uncle as by the father. Certain of them suppose this bond of blood to be holier and closer.”

184 pointed out over the years that this custom would explain the close nature of the relationship between Beowulf and Hygelac, which proves to be Beowulf’s most significant family tie within the poem. Nevertheless, Beowulf is consistently identified in the poem as the “son of Ecgtheow” rather than of his unnamed mother. The surviving genealogies examined in Chapter Three also attest that at least by the time of the arrival of literacy among them, the Anglo-Saxons were a patriarchal society. True , though it may have once been the custom, had long been abandoned by this time, though mothers were still accorded a degree of respect in this culture. Lines 23-25 of the poem called “Maxims I” from the Exeter Book read, “Tu beoð gemæccan,/sceal wif and wer in woruld cennan/bearn mid gebyrdum.”9 “Gebyrdum” is a problematic word for a translator here. It might be either singular or plural. Its basic meaning is “birth,” but it is often used to mean “descent.”10 If taken in the plural sense with the latter meaning, this line could offer proof that descent was at least sometimes reckoned bilaterally. Even if “gebyrdum” is rendered simply as “birth,” however, there is no escaping the poem’s clear statement that a woman as well as a man is necessary to produce a child—and the woman is listed first. The surviving historical record shows us glimpses of Anglo-Saxon mothers assuming authoritative roles in the

9 “Spouses are two,/a woman and a man shall conceive into the world/a child from the lineage(s).” 10 “Ancestry, lineage” is in fact the only meaning listed for the word by Malcolm Godden in his edition of Ælfric’s homilies.

185 upbringing of their children, as well. In an analysis of the well-known episode from Asser’s Life of Alfred Chapter 23, in which the young Alfred is the winner of a book of poetry in a contest initiated by his mother, Mary Dockray- Miller concedes that though the story itself is probably apocryphal, its inclusion in Alfred’s biography indicates that his mother, Osburh, was not only literate but also intimately involved in “supervis[ing] the education of her children” (45). In the second chapter of her book, Motherhood and Mothering in Anglo-Saxon England, Dockray- Miller lists multiple examples of Anglo-Saxon royal widows who became abbesses of powerful religious houses after their husbands’ deaths, and then passed on the control of these houses to their daughters. The example of the character of Wealhtheow shows us that queens were known to exercise maternal influence in attempting to secure future rule for their sons, and Stacy S. Klein reminds us that the Encomium Emmae Reginae depicts Emma refusing Cnut’s proposal of marriage unless he vows that a son of hers will assume the throne after him (Klein 117, Encomium 32). Even before the possibility of pregnancy and the birthing of children, the moment of wedlock represented a new union and the strengthening of ties between powerful families. This is the political view of marriage offered by Beowulf in his conversation with Hygelac about the proposed union of Hrothgar’s daughter, , to , son of the king of the Heaðo-Bards. According to Beowulf, Hrothgar’s hope is that through this marriage, “he mid þy wife wælfæhða dæl,/sæcca gesette” (2028-29).11 Beowulf is

11 “He with this woman might settle a great deal/of deadly feuds, of quarrels.”

186 skeptical about the ultimate success of this plan, observing that such attempts often fail, “þeah seo bryd duge” (2031).12 In this case, Germanic legend informs us, the enmity between the two families was too great for a lasting peace to be made through marriage. Most royal and aristocratic marriages, however, were made with a similar goal in mind. In fact, even the custom of female that developed within the early centuries after the arrival of Christianity carried with it similar expectations on the part of noble Anglo-Saxon families. Clare Lees and Gillian Overing make the point in their article “Birthing Bishops and Fathering Poets” that among the Anglo-Saxons, aristocratic women who became nuns were expected to play a role in maintaining ties between their families and the Church. They observe, “The saintly royal women maintain the family, even within their cloistered environment, and their family maintains them, with an eye firmly on dynastic interests” (143). Though the term “peace-weaver” (“freoðuwebbe” in Old English) may seem at first glance to refer only to the role of a bride in bringing peace though marriage to two previously antagonistic families, L. John Sklute determines that it more likely refers to the function of such a noblewoman after marriage. He explains that “the warp of her weaving is treasure and the woof is composed of words of good will. The compound freoðuwebbe expresses the duty of the king’s wife […] to construct bonds of allegiance between the outsider and king and his court.” (208) Much of this “weaving” seems to have been done formally at times of

12 “even though the bride is good”

187 feasting, both by the lord’s wife giving gifts in the same way her husband would be expected to, and also by her role as the server of mead to her husband and the other guests in the hall. Hrothgar’s queen, Wealhtheow, is the quintessential example of a woman exercising these roles as she is depicted in the feasting scenes of Beowulf. Wealhtheow is depicted as offering political advice to her husband as well, in accordance with Hennessey Olsen’s description of “the women of Germanic tradition who admonish their male kinsmen to act in accordance with the heroic code” (“Cynewulf” 225). In her work Woman as Hero in Old English Literature, Jane Chance writes, “the social ideal of woman enunciated in the Old English Maxims I,[…]marks her as the peaceful and peace-loving complement of the warring male” (61) This view of marriage ascribes different roles to the male and female partners, but does not necessarily suggest powerlessness on the part of the female. By using her words, and her treasures, wisely, the noble Anglo-Saxon wife is able to prevent her husband from needing to fight many battles with his sword. Elsewhere, Chance writes that in Anglo-Saxon marriage, “there is an underlying bond between man and woman which resembles the bond of loyalty between lord and retainer and which is predicated on the reward of treasure for valor and faithfulness” (xv). As Chance’s comparison of the marriage relationship to the relationship between lord and retainer indicates, Anglo-Saxon women were by no means considered the full equals of men. Critics today, who must make judgements based on the limited evidence of the source materials, differ in their estimates of exactly how much power these wives possessed. Joyce Hill observes that royal Anglo-

188 Saxon women “are undeniably limited in their sphere of activity, operating through or on behalf of the royal men” (240). After pointing out the greater value accorded in heroic literature to men’s role of engaging in warfare than to any of the peaceable roles played by women, and also the large number of royal marriages, like Freawaru’s, that end in disaster, she concludes that the dominant stereotype in Anglo-Saxon literature appears to be that such women are “in the end, essentially helpless” (243). Such women are often depicted as failing in their efforts to establish peace, it is true. As already seen, Beowulf makes this observation to Hygelac in lines 2029-31 of the poem. He does not blame the bride for this failure, however, arguing that if the motivations for blood-feud are too strong, strife will erupt, “þeah seo bryd duge” (2031). In endnote 10 of this chapter, I translate the word “duge” as “is good,” following the suggestion of Klaeber’s glossary. Most other translators of Beowulf into have done something similar with this passage.13

13 E. Talbot Donaldson, in 1966, rendered the passage exactly as I have done: “even though the bride is good” (60), and Howell D. Chickering’s 1977 version is also nearly identical: “though the bride be good”. Charles W. Kennedy, in a 1940 translation, wrote “though the bride in her beauty be peerless and proud” (66). S.A.J. Bradley, in 1982, was a bit more reserved: “even though the bride may be adequate” (465). ’s acclaimed 2000 translation reads,”no matter how admirable the bride may be.” In 2002, Alan Sullivan and Timothy Murphy produced a less literal rendering of the

189 The difficulty here is that modern English requires a form of the “to be” verb plus an adjective to translate what was originally a verb in Old English. The phrasing “is good” may give the erroneous impression to the modern reader that Beowulf is speaking here simply of an inborn quality such as the bride’s lineage or beauty. In fact, however, the verb “duge” depicts the bride as acting capably or appropriately in order to fulfill her function. A true understanding of the concept of peaceweaving, as Stacey S. Klein explains, “demands that one redefine the place traditionally allotted to the domestic world within a heroic ethos[…]and recognize women as central forces, rather than marginal supports, in the production of social order” (104). In short, though marriage arrangements were initially based on economic or political considerations among high-ranking Anglo-Saxon families, the bride was expected to bring more than beauty and distinguished ancestry to the relationship. She was expected to be an active supporter of both her husband and of the family from which she came, strengthening ties between them with all her resources, including her wits and the property that was under her control. Though not a full equal of her husband, she was expected to aid him just as one of his retainers would, and her position within his household was an honorable, respected, and valued one. The Roles of Women in Genesis: Eve Within the Genesis poem, the many women who appear are usually described in terms that would be appropriate for women of high class status. Both Audrey L. Meaney and Jane

passage that begins “Yet the best of brides/seldom has…” (70).

190 Chance note that the word “ides” is applied by the poet to a list of women including Eve (896), Cain’s wife (1054), the two wives of Lamech, descendent of Cain (1076), Sarah and Hagar (1728),14 and the women of Sodom and Gomorrah (1970) (Meaney 159, Chance 1). This, in fact, is only a partial list. The word is also used in the poem of the female descendants of Lamech in the line of Seth (1234), the women of the line of Cain (1261), and the wife and daughters of Lot (2502).15 In her article, “The Ides of the Cotton Gnomic Poem,” Meaney speculates that “ides” was originally a term used “for woman in her sacral and mysterious aspect” as described by Tacitus (158). By the period in which written Anglo-Saxon literature was produced, however, she believes that much of this original connotation had been lost, and both she and Chance agree in interpreting “ides” in the Genesis poem to mean “noblewoman” or “lady,” as opposed to a woman of ordinary or peasant status (Chance 1, Meaney 160). Pat Belanoff, also, has noted the frequency of the term in this poem; she comments that, though elsewhere in Old English literature, the word is used only of nobility,

14 This is erroneous on Chance’s part; only Sarah is mentioned in this line, though “ides” is used elsewhere to apply to Hagar (see the following note). 15 The word is often used repeatedly to describe a given woman. Additional uses of “ides” for characters listed above include: Eve (578, 589, 626, 700, 704, 821), Sarah (1720, 1774, 1853, 1875, 2234, 2394, 2638, 2655, 2703, 2764), the women of Sodom and Gomorrah (2086, 2157), Hagar (2229, 2249, 2271, 2806) Lot’s daughters (2468, 2607), and Lot’s daughters and wife (2514, 2537).

191 here it seems to appear “atypically as a generalized term for women” (823). The vocabulary of the poem, however, is not lacking in other words for “woman,” such as “fæmne,” “wif,” and even “meowle.”16 “Ides,” for that reason, does not seem to be chosen lightly, though Belanoff is correct that it seems “atypical” to say the least that virtually all the women of Genesis thus are accorded superior social status within the Genesis poem, even the slave Hagar. Perhaps the poem suggests that there is an element of the holy and prophetic about these characters, who appear in a , occasionally interacting face-to-face with God and His angels. This respect may also be given to them because they collectively represent the first women on earth, whose actions have far-reaching consequences for the rest of humankind, or because of their roles as mothers of eventually-powerful dynasties. In any case, they are, from Eve onward, depicted explicitly as figures worthy of respect. This respectful attitude toward women is not typical of Biblical interpretation in the Greco-Roman tradition. Eve, in particular, is more typically excoriated as a wicked temptress, bringer of sin into the human race, in Continental theology. Cecily Clark sums up this attitude by writing that in the Church Fathers’ estimation: Genesis was held to show Eve, and all her daughters with her, as essentially inferior to Adam, having been created after him, from one of

16 “Fæmne” is used first in line 184 and appears nine times subsequently; “wif” occurs fifty times in all, starting in line 174; “meowle” is a rare word used only once, in line 1172.

192 his ribs, and explicitly as a ‘help’ to him, not as an equal partner. It depicted her as readier than Adam to succumb to temptation and therefore, unless strictly disciplined, a moral danger to him; as instigator of the Fall, she had justly (it was claimed) been set under Adam’s authority. (152) In the Old English Genesis poem, however, Eve is accorded much greater status, as she is depicted here in the accepted role of an Anglo-Saxon peace-weaver. In the poem, Adam and Eve are very nearly created equal. Though Eve is described as “fultum,” “a helper” for Adam (173), and called simply “wif,” or “woman,” the first time she is mentioned (174), she is also identified as a “freolice fæmnan,” or “noble woman,” at the moment of creation (184). The description of Adam and Eve that follows this line stresses the traits that the two have in common, and when the Lord subsequently gives them his blessing, it is given to them both—“monna cynes/ða forman twa, fæder and moder,/wif and wæpned” (193-95).17 The roles of male and female are listed twice here, and though the man is listed first in the first instance, in the second one, the woman precedes. Neither seems to be given superior status in this passage, and the blessing, which includes control over all other creatures of the earth, is given to both together. God’s motive for creating Eve is described in the poem as a wish that Adam should not “ana wære/neorxnawonges

17 “the first two/of the race of men, father and mother,/woman and man [literally, ‘weaponed one’].”

193 niwre gesceafte/ hyrde and healdend” (170-72).18 This is an expansion of God’s notion in the original Biblical version of the tale that “non est bonum esse hominem solum” (Gen. 2:18).19 The poem here is emphasizing that Adam will not be the only shepherd/guardian or possessor of paradise; Eve, like a true Germanic bride, will share in these roles. In its rendition of the blessing that God delivers to Adam and Eve in Genesis 1:28-30, the poem emphasizes that both are being addressed equally by repeatedly using the dual pronoun “inc,” which is found four times in the ten lines from 195-205. Catherine Karkov points out that in three of these four instances, “inc” is capitalized in the manuscript, a strategy that she interprets as “designed to draw our attention” (Text 28). By the time God’s speech winds up in line 205 with the summary statement “Inc hyrað eall,”20 it is abundantly clear that Eve is to share Adam’s authority over Paradise. The illustrations that accompany this section of the poem in the manuscript likewise depict Adam and Eve on an equal or nearly-equal basis. Karkov notes that “the poses of Eve on page 10 and Adam on page 11 are virtually identical, down to the detail of the right foot treading on a beast” (Text 41). These poses show both in attitudes of prayer, with faces and hands lifted to God. The feet treading on beasts (a lion in Eve’s case and a ram in Adam’s) are indicative of the authority that both are being given as “hyrdes” of all other creatures in existence.

18 “be alone/the shepherd and keeper of Paradise’s/new creation” 19 “It is not good for the man to be alone.” 20 “All will obey both of you.”

194 The specific choice of animals in these pictures also has iconographic significance. Karkov links the ram beneath Adam’s foot to the sacrificial animal that will appear at the crucial portion of the story of the sacrifice of Isaac (Text 41). The lion in this case most likely signifies the devil, who is described as a prowling lion in I Peter 5:8. Karkov points out that the lion Eve is standing on “slinks off into the margins of the page with its tail between its legs,” a detail she associates with temptation and transgression (Text 61). Certainly the temptation and Fall of Eve are foreshadowed here, but the placement of the lion under Eve’s foot also strongly invokes associations with Genesis 3:15, in which God tells the serpent (representative of Satan) that “inimicitias ponam inter te et mulierem et semen tuum et semen illius. Ipsa conteret caput tuum et tu insidiaberis calcaneo eius.”21 In the Vulgate translation, erroneously, it is the woman, “ipsa,” who is predicted to crush the head of the serpent. The “semen” or “seed” here is read in traditional Christian theology as a reference to , who eventually will defeat the power of Satan once and for all, but the feminine “ipsa” pronoun links Eve with the mother of Jesus, Mary. In his commentary on this passage, Bede in fact identifies “ipsa,” “the woman,” with the Church, constant enemy of the devil, but this, too, can be read as a Marian reference, as Mary was often considered to be figuratively representative of the Church (“Ecclesia") by medieval

21 “I will establish feuding between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. She will crush your head and you will lay snares for her heel.”

195 theologians.22 Interestingly, in his description of the devil here, Bede invokes the “roaring lion” passage from I Peter mentioned above (66). The illustration of Eve with her foot on a lion thus not only reminds the viewer of her susceptibility to Satan’s deception, but also of her eventual overcoming of evil through her holy offspring. Eve and Mary are often closely linked in Anglo-Saxon literature, as in Christ and Satan, when Eve reminds Christ, “Hwæt, þu fram minre dohtor, drihten, onwoce/in middangeard mannum to helpe” (437-38).23 Though Anglo-Saxon poets and illustrators do not deny Eve’s sin or its consequences, they frequently remind us that Eve’s “daughter” Mary provided redemption for those tainted by that sin.24 Eve’s association with Mary does not erase the enormous significance of her temptation and Fall, however. The Genesis poem makes no direct mention of Mary, but ameliorates its depiction of Eve by departing considerably from the original Scriptural text in its recounting of this story.25 In the story as found in Genesis 3, the serpent

22 Chance, for example, identifies Poem 9 of the sequence as an evocation of Mary as Ecclesia (17). 23 “Lo, you from my daughter, Lord, awakened/in middle- earth to help mankind.” 24 See Chapter 2 of Jane Chance’s Woman as Hero in Old English Literature for an extensive discussion of Mary as she appears in Anglo-Saxon literature, particularly as a figure of the “new Eve”. 25 This section of the poem is the portion often called Genesis B, and sometimes approached as an entirely separate poem by literary critics. Though it is not differentiated

196 approaches Eve and tempts her to eat the by promising that this act will give her knowledge that God has withheld from her and Adam. In the Old English poem, the tempter takes the form of a snake but is specifically stated to be a demon sent by Satan, not Satan himself. He approaches not Eve, but Adam, and introduces himself as a messenger of God, sent to inform Adam of a change in God’s previous command. God now, he says, is ordering Adam to eat the fruit that had previously been denied him. Adam, however, does not believe this message. He states that this messenger bears no resemblance to the angels he has seen before, and comes with no clear token of God’s authority; therefore, Adam will wait for a direct message from God before eating the fruit. Only then, in the poem, does the tempter approach Eve, and his initial suggestion to her is that Adam’s refusal to obey God’s new command has put both Adam and Eve herself in danger of God’s wrath. Eve, he suggests, may be able to save herself and her husband from the consequences of Adam’s disobedience by eating the fruit. Critics have differed in their interpretation of Eve’s character in this passage. Though he himself disagrees with this view, Alain Renoir points out that it is possible to read the tempter’s approach of Adam first and Eve second as a sign of her inferiority (264), and the poet does inform us that she is susceptible to temptation because God has given her a weaker spirit (“wacran hige,” 590) than

as such in the manuscript, and fits neatly within the narrative structure of the poem as a whole, it is this section of the poem that departs most radically from its Biblical source material.

197 Adam’s. Jane Chance reads Eve’s actions here as an “inversion” of the peace-weaver role (65), by which she means that though Eve acts correctly according to the customs surrounding this role, she is nonetheless to be condemned because her performance of it in this instance is misguided. Her conclusion is that, for the Anglo-Saxons, Eve represents a “failed peace-weaver” (109). In contrast to Chance, who reads the tone of the poem as disapproving of Eve (65), J. M. Evans sees this as a favorable portrayal of a woman who is acting to protect her husband (113). Evans points out a series of three passages in which Eve is praised, the first of which occurs after she has eaten the fruit herself and as she is bearing some to Adam. Even at this moment, in the midst of her sin, Eve is described as “idesa scenost,/wifa wlitegost þe on woruld come/forþon heo wæs handgeweorc heofoncyninges” (626-28).26 Eve’s beauty is not a defense of her actions, and in fact, such a description could be read as an indictment of her as a scheming temptress, if it were not for the final clause reminding the reader that Eve is beautiful because she was created by God. This is not a condemnatory picture of Eve, and Evans reminds us that substantially the same description of her is repeated twice more, in lines 699-701 and 820-02 (Evans 114). We are thus reminded of Eve’s role in God’s creation even after her initial sin, a picture that does not seem overly critical of her. When Satan’s messenger initially approaches Adam, he invokes the lord/retainer relationship that exists between

26 “the most beautiful of women,/the most splendid of wives that has come into the world/because she was the handiwork of the heavenking”

198 Adam and God, reminding Adam that God is his “hearra,” or feudal overlord (521). The demon’s argument to Adam is that God has been impressed by his obedience hitherto in refraining from eating the fruit, and now means to reward him. Eating the fruit, he promises, will make Adam wiser and more beautiful than he was first created. Adam turns him down on the grounds that he cannot be sure this message comes from God, and therefore must continue to obey his lord’s original command. Eve, when she is approached subsequently, is alarmed because the messenger tells her that the relationship between God and Adam has been disrupted by Adam’s disobedience. She takes action in order to mend this relationship in accordance with peace-weaving custom. We are told that Eve is more vulnerable to the tempter’s words than Adam because she has a “weaker spirit” (590, see also 649). Adam is intelligent enough to recognize that the being in serpent’s form that claims to be a messenger of God does not look like any angel he has ever seen, and to realize and be suspicious of the possibility of deception. The statement that Eve’s mind is “weaker” than Adam’s may therefore mean that, unlike Adam, she is not clever enough to suspect a trick in this instance. Conversely, Eve’s “weakness” could be interpreted as lack of courage—she may surrender to the tempter because she is more susceptible than Adam to the fear of God’s punishment, with which the tempter threatens her.27 Renoir, in fact, posits, that the intended comparison

27 Chance believes that Eve is described as having a “weaker mind/spirit” than Adam because of her virginity (67), but Adam is likewise virginal.

199 of the term “weaker” may be between Eve’s mind and that of the tempter, rather than that of Adam (269). In any case, Eve’s lack of suspicion is quite understandable if we recall that sin has not yet entered the world—no one has ever lied to Eve before. In lines 595-98, the narrative voice of the poem expresses amazement not that Eve fails to realize the deception but that God would allow his loyal servant to be thus deceived by the devil’s lies. What ensues, then, is not seen within the poem as completely her fault. Renoir observes that not only does the tempter speak at greater length with Eve than with Adam, but his arguments to her are more rhetorically sophisticated (266). After listening to him, Eve does not seem to believe that she is sinning in eating the fruit. We are specifically told in lines 708-714 that Eve means well in acting as she does. “Heo dyde hit þeah þurh holdne hyge” (708),28 says the narrator. Far from intending harm, Eve believed that “heo hyldo heofoncyninges/worhte mid þam wordum” (712-13).29 She firmly believes that this messenger has been sent by God and that in eating the fruit she has done a good deed. The deceptive vision of heaven that she is given after consuming the fruit serves as confirmation in her mind. “Hwa meahte me swelc gewit gifan/gif hit gegnunga god ne onsende,/heofones waldend?” (671-73)30 she asks Adam, but this is plainly a rhetorical question. Unlike the readers

28 “Nevertheless she did it through a loyal spirit.” 29 “She had brought about the favor/of the heaven-king with the words [that she spoke to Adam].” 30 “Who might give me such understanding/if God did not plainly send it,/heaven’s ruler?”

200 of the poem, Eve is blithely unaware that there is any power in the universe other than God that could provide such a vision. Chance posits that Eve’s “weaker mind” could be a description of the “mind of the peace-weaver, who occupied a less aggressive and warlike role than that of the lord” (73), and that “Eve fails here not because she is unintelligent or inferior to Adam but because she has not been trained to resist, to fight, to remain strong against an adversary…[and has] been trained instead to concede, to ameliorate, and to harmonize” (74). This view, which is consistent with the “peace-weaver” function of an aristocratic Anglo-Saxon wife, provides justification for Eve. Discord is being threatened between Adam and God; it is her duty to prevent animosity between them. The woman’s mind may not be inferior to the man’s after all, then, just different. Chance believes, however, that Eve goes beyond the bounds of her function as peace-weaver, and in fact is acting in the role of a retainer instead (76), and that Eve “oversteps her role” even as a retainer by dealing with God directly, when this should be Adam’s prerogative (91). Given the situation as outlined by the tempter, however, it is difficult to picture how Eve could refrain from taking action. Because of what Adam has done, this messenger predicts that God will be furious with both Adam and Eve. He stresses this by using the dual second-person pronoun “inc” right from his first line of dialogue with Eve (551), and goes on to use it five more times in the speech that follows (557,558,562,577,579), always in a

201 context that evokes impending punishment.31 He himself, he suggests, has a privileged position of closeness to God that allows him to accurately predict the Almighty’s thoughts and deeds. Eve is being threatened here that she will be held responsible for Adam’s act, even though she was not present and knew nothing of it. This would not have been considered fair in Anglo-Saxon law, according to historian Christine Fell, who finds that throughout the Anglo-Saxon period, law codes consistently specify that a wife is not to be held responsible for crimes committed by her husband without her knowledge (59).32 Having been put (according to the tempter) into this untenable situation, Eve seems to be left with very little choice but to take action to protect both herself and her husband from punishment. Making peace between Adam and God in this way is precisely the duty of a peace-weaver. Chance feels that Eve oversteps here by taking matters into her own hands. Perhaps, according to this view, a more appropriate “wifely” strategy would have been for Eve to go to Adam and attempt to change his mind. Certainly, eating the fruit as Eve does is not typical of a peace-weaver’s standard duties of negotiation and distribution of treasure and mead. Like Chance, Renoir writes that at this point in the story,

31 Renoir discusses this use of dual pronouns in depth on pages 265-8. 32 Fell cites the law-codes of Wihtred of Kent, Ine of , and Cnut on this point. Though he discusses all of these law-codes in his monumental 1999 work The Making of English Law, Patrick Wormald does not mention this aspect of them.

202 Eve’s behavior most closely resembles the action of an Anglo-Saxon retainer attempting to save his lord from ruin. Renoir, however, points out that Germanic women were expected to take on this role in the absence of capable men, and suggests that Eve’s address to Adam as her lord (“frea”) in line 655 highlights this aspect of her relationship to him (268). Chance’s observation, quoted earlier, that Anglo-Saxon marriage “resembles the bond of loyalty between lord and retainer“(xv) seems to undermine her own argument here. Eve acts in the belief, at least, that she is remaining loyal both to her lord/husband and his overlord, God, and that her consumption of the fruit will mend the breach between the two. The attitude of the poet towards Eve’s sin may be most clearly revealed in the portions of the poem that discuss its aftermath. Adam and Eve, we are told, recognize the wrongfulness of what they have done immediately after eating the fruit. The deceptive vision drops away from Eve’s eyes, and she and Adam pray together, asking God “þæt hie his hearmsceare habban mosten”33 for what they have done (780). This reaction of actively requesting punishment for their disobedience indicates that Adam and Eve both remain loyal to God even now. Even after the Fall, the poem describes Eve as “idesa scienost,/wifa wlitegost”—a description that is justified because “hie wæs geweorc godes/þeah heo þa on deofles cræft bedroren wurde” (821-23).34 Here we are reminded of Eve’s

33 “that they might have his punishment” 34 “Most beautiful of women/most splendid of wives--she was God’s creation/though she then by devil’s skill had become deprived.”

203 original status as a flawless creation of God. She retains much of her original beauty despite her fallen condition, and in these lines, blame is cast on the devil rather than on her. Adam, however, has just spent the previous thirty lines heaping blame on her quite heatedly, and it is another mark of Eve’s essential goodness here that she accepts all he has to say without argument. Later, when God arrives to pass judgement, the poem expands on the original words ascribed to Eve in Genesis 3:14, “serpens decepit me et comedi,”35 by adding self-accusatory phrases such as “ic fracoðlice/feondræs gefremede” (899-900).36 Though Eve has fallen, she consistently accepts her guilt and resulting punishment. In the illustration of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise on page 45 of the Junius Manuscript, Karkov points out the unusual detail that Eve is carrying a spindle. She explains, “If Eve carries anything in early medieval expulsions, it is usually a distaff” (Text 76). Karkov goes on to characterize the spindle as “an object associated with Mary” (77), and thus to interpret the drawing as one more symbolic indicator of the future salvation to come from the body of Eve. In the corresponding illustration at the base of page 7 verso of the Old English Illustrated Hexateuch, Eve is also shown carrying an unusual implement, this time a pickax. The cruciform shape of this object may also be intended to prefigure the coming of Christ from Mary’s line, but at the very least, both illustrations demonstrate respect for the value of Eve’s labor. In the first case, this is the

35 “The serpent deceived me and I ate.” 36 “I shamefully/performed the hostile attack.”

204 traditional female activity of spinning—an important early medieval skill; Karkov reminds us that “Anglo-Saxon women […] were renowned for their textile production” (Text 77). In the second, Eve is shown as a true partner of Adam, shouldering the same agricultural tools he does, in this case quite literally: Adam is pictured in the lower right corner of the following page, holding the same pickax. Thus, although Chance may be accurate in labeling the Eve of the Anglo-Saxon Genesis poem as a “failed peace- weaver” (109), Eve nevertheless emerges as a sympathetic figure rather than a villain in this version of the narrative. Hers is a mistake in judgement, rather than a failing in loyalty to Adam or to God; her attempt at peace- making is sincere and would have been an appropriate action had the messenger been telling the truth. In fact, it may represent one more figurative link between Eve and Mary, for as Chance points out, Mary’s importance is as “intermediary between man and God” (65)—precisely the function Eve has attempted to play here, though without her descendent Mary’s success. Bede’s commentary on Genesis identifies Eve’s essential sin as pride (“superbia,” 66), and perhaps that is the heart of the matter in the poem as well—Eve oversteps by considering herself wiser and more discerning than Adam. Though she is mistaken, and though the consequences of her error are grave indeed, she is presented as duly repentant afterwards. Always, she remains a servant of God. Eve’s Daughters In the genealogical portions of the poem that follow the story of Adam and Eve, corresponding to the Biblical chapters of Genesis 4 and 5, women appear more prominently than they do in the Biblical text. Though patriarchal

205 descent is emphasized, women are clearly seen as having an important part in the production of children. Lines 1171- 72, for example, which read “hym bryd sunu,/meowle to monnum brohte,”37 are a poetic expansion of Genesis 5:15, where in the Vulgate, Malalahel, grandson of Seth, begets his own son, Iared. The Bible verse makes no mention of Malalahel’s wife. In sharp contrast, the lines of the poem quoted above seem to give his wife almost all of the credit for producing this child and then presenting him to Malalahel after he is born. John Vickrey disagrees with this interpretation of the Genesis poem’s treatment of motherhood; in his article “Genesis 549-51 and 623-25: Narrative Frame and Devilish Cunning,” he writes that it is “broadly true that in Old Saxon and Old English texts fathers only were acknowledged as parents of children” (354). Vickrey’s aim is to argue that the reference to “hire eaforan” in line 623 of the poem, applied to the children of Eve, would have been seen by the work’s original audience as “an offensive, almost unnatural, expression” (354). Even Vickrey, however, acknowledges that in addition to the passage he highlights in his article, the poem also ascribes parenthood to women in lines 1054, 1076, 2394, and 2607 (Vickrey 355). A careful reading of the genealogical section of the poem will add lines 1062, 1119, 1131-33, 1147-48, 1170-72, 1187, and 1213 to this list. This level of frequency strongly challenges Vickrey’s assertion that the attribution of parenthood to women is “unnatural.” As it turns out, his source for the assertion quoted above that Old English and

37 “His bride to him brought/a son, the woman to the man.”

206 Old Saxon texts generally acknowledge fathers only is an outdated work from 1934 (Vickrey 346 n.28), and as we have seen already in this chapter, both “Maxims I” and Eve’s words to Christ in Christ and Satan are counterexamples of Anglo-Saxon texts that recognize motherhood as highly significant. In addition to the frequent textual mention in this section of the poem (roughly lines 1049-1247) of women who are largely ignored in the Biblical source material, the women in the family lines of both Cain and Seth are consistently pictured in the detailed illustrations of these passages found on pages 51-63 of the Junius 11 manuscript. Karkov remarks at length on the attention being paid to these women, both in text and illustrations, finding it “unusual” (Text 84). The patriarchs of the lines of Cain and Seth are pictured in family groupings in this section, typically including father, mother, and child. In general, these pictures show the father on one side of the page, with the mother standing or sitting on the opposite side, holding the child in her arms. In her analysis of these illustrations, Karkov finds iconographic connections between their portrayal of these women and standard depictions of Mary and the Christ child (Text 85-86). In both text and illustration, Karkov writes, women are depicted “as fertile bodies, the bearers of sons” (149). Though this role may seem humble, it is one that links these women not only to Mary, mother of the Savior, but also, in Karkov’s view, to contemporary Anglo-Saxon queens, much of whose status derived from their positions as mothers of royal heirs (Text 149 ff.). The Old English Illustrated Hexateuch does not stress the role of women in the genealogies in its text, which is

207 taken more directly from the Scriptures. Nevertheless, its seven and a half pages of illustration for this portion of the text (pages 9-12 recto) consistently depict wives and often daughters as part of the family groupings. In contrast to the women of this portion of the Junius Manuscript, who are usually depicted either actually in the process of childbirth or seated with infants in their arms, the women of the Hexateuch are shown seated beside their husbands, with an older child or children nearby. As we have seen in other instances, a seated position tends to represent a position of honor, and these women are thus shown to be respected partners of their husbands, though the source of their power as mothers of sons is also stressed. In the episode of the “war of the kings,” discussed in detail in Chapter Four, the poem shows great sympathy for the plight of the captured women of the city of Sodom. “Sceolde forht monig/blachleor ides bifiende gan/on fremdes fæðm” (1969-71),38 writes the poet of this capture. Later, when they are rescued, the women’s joy is celebrated in line 2087, and the joy of their loved ones in line 2156, where Abraham calls them “healsmægeð,” a term glossed by Doane as “women to be embraced by the neck,” or more simply, “beloved women”. Though the original Biblical text mentions captured women only once, in Genesis 14:16, in the poem their plight is stressed throughout the episode. Rather than simply intending to rescue his nephew Lot, as stated in Genesis 14:14, the Abraham of the poem sets out explicitly to rescue both Lot and his “bride” (2033).

38 “Many a frightened/pale-cheeked woman went trembling/into a stranger’s embrace.”

208 After the fighting is over, when Abraham meets with Melchizedek, Abraham gives this ruler of Sodom a portion of what he has recovered. In the Vulgate, the king asks Abram for the “animas,” or “living souls” he has brought back with him, telling him that he may keep “cetera,” “the rest” of the spoils (Genesis 14:21). The poem elaborates on this verse, describing the spoils as a typical Germanic treasure of twisted gold (2128), but instead of the vaguer term “animas,” Melchizedek here pleads to be given the women, “mennen minra leoda”39 (2126). Clearly, these women are seen as precious assets, more valued even than golden treasure, and the term “healsmægeð”, used of them by Melchizedek in line 2156, as well as the repeated descriptions of their emotions, indicates that they are seen as beloved individuals as well. Lot’s wife is traditionally remembered not for her capture and rescue along with her husband in this episode, but for her disobedience to the command of the angel as she and her family are being rescued from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. All of the family members had been instructed not to look behind them as they fled, but Lot’s wife turned to look back anyway and was turned into a pillar of salt. The poem, in standard Judeo- Christian fashion, interprets this event as punishment (“wite,” 2570) for her disobedience to God’s instruction (2570-71). Lot’s wife is, however, given motivation for her action in this account that goes beyond mere curiosity or perversity; she turns because she hears the sound of “þæt fyrgebræc,/leoda lifgedal”40 (2562-63). Though the tone of

39 “the handmaids of my peoples” 40 “that crash of fire,/the people’s parting from life”

209 the later lines is condemnatory, these lines suggest that Lot’s wife may not have sinned deliberately, but was perhaps merely startled into her reaction by the sound of the destruction behind her. The description of this noise, which is not mentioned in the Bible, may have been drawn directly from Bede’s commentary on this passage, in which he writes that Lot’s wife “metu femineae fragilitatis ad clamorem pereuntium repentinum, et fragorem flammarum caelo delapsarum, retro respexit”41 (227). This idea of sudden loud noise as the reason for the transgression of Lot’s wife may have originated with Bede, who does not emphasize her sin as such in his commentary, though he stresses that, figuratively, her story serves as a cautionary tale warning others not to turn back once they have set their feet on the paths of righteousness. Bede’s phrase “metu femineae fragilitatis” is reminiscent of the poem’s famous description of the “wifes wacgeþoht” (“woman’s weak-mind”) attributed to Eve in line 649. The depiction of Lot’s wife in the poem, in fact, is much like its portrayal of Eve. Though both women are said to suffer just punishment from God for their sins, some rationale for their actions is added in the poem that goes beyond the Biblical source, showing them both as fallible, even weak, but certainly not evil, and perhaps not even willfully disobedient. Sarah The final third of the Genesis poem tells the story of Abraham and his wife Sarah, giving Sarah a position within the poem itself that roughly parallels that of Eve, who was

41 “with the fear of womanly frailty, looked back behind to the sudden outcry of those perishing and the crash of flames falling down from heaven”

210 the dominant female figure in the opening third. Like virtually every other woman in the poem, Sarah is described in terms appropriate for an Anglo-Saxon lady. She is called “idese” from her very first appearance in line 1720. Her marriage to Abraham, called “an ideal marriage” by Daniel Anlezark in the title of a 2000 Medium Ævum article, seems, at least initially, to be almost egalitarian. Abraham and Sarah “sinc ætsomne sibbe heoldon,”42 (1725) we are told. In this formulation, the property, or “treasure,” of the family is considered to belong equally to both, and both are given the responsibility of maintaining it. In accordance with Germanic traditions concerning a wife’s role, Sarah is also shown giving her husband counsel about important matters of family interest when she advises him to take her maidservant Hagar as a concubine. This suggestion was Sarah’s in the original Biblical account as well, but the poem accentuates her authority at this moment by depicting her bluntly instructing her husband, “do swa ic þe bidde”43 (2227). In response, we are told that Abraham “idese larum/geþafode”44 (2234-35). At this moment, Sarah takes the lead in guarding the family’s interests, and Abraham meekly follows her instructions. Much the same happens later, when Sarah feels that the child produced by Abraham’s relations with Hagar, Ishmael, is threatening the inheritance rights of her son, Isaac. The speech that Sarah makes to Abraham in lines 2783-91, asking that he send Hagar and her son away, is reminiscent of Wealhtheow instructing Hrothgar to leave the Danish kingdom to his own

42 “held treasure together in peace” 43 “Do as I bid you.” 44 “submitted to the suggestion/of the woman”

211 children, born of her, in Beowulf 1169-87. Abraham does not comply with this request until the Lord instructs him to do as Sarah has suggested. God’s command is phrased a bit more strongly in the poem, which renders the original “omnia quae dixerit tibi Sarra audi vocem eius”45 (Genesis 21:12) as “mægeð hire”46 (2798). Sarah’s power to direct her husband in these matters thus even receives divine sanction. Though Sarah is depicted with a certain amount of power within the marriage, there are counterexamples within the poem that make clear the ultimately patriarchal power structure. In line 1725, quoted above, Sarah and Abraham hold property jointly, but there are other passages in the poem, such as lines 1875-79, in which she and the other women of the household are lumped together with the household property, being moved from one place to another at the men’s instigation. She also is obedient to Abraham in two separate instances when he asks her to allow two foreign rulers, first the Egyptian pharaoh and later a local king named Abimelech, to believe that she is his sister and not his wife, so that they will not kill him in order to take her for themselves. God protects the obedient wife in both of these instances, and she is returned unharmed to her husband. Abimelech, in fact, not only returns Sarah to her husband, but also gives him what the poem calls “bote,” or “compensation” (2719) in the form of “woruldgestreonum,” or “worldly treasures” (2718) to make up for the insult of taking Abraham’s wife. Though

45 “All the things that Sarah may say to you, hear her voice.” 46 “Obey the woman.”

212 this detail, too, is part of the Biblical account in Genesis 20:14, the characterization of Abimelech’s gift as “compensation,” a nuance added by the poem, is suggestive of the payment of wergild, the traditional Anglo-Saxon method of making amends for intercourse with another man’s wife. Sarah and Eve, the dominant female characters in the closing and opening sections of the poem, are linked by the illustrator of the Junius 11 manuscript in the pictures on pages 45 and 88, in which both women are depicted following their husbands and carrying spindles in their hands. Adam is leading Eve out of paradise, and Abraham is leading Sarah to Egypt. Karkov remarks of the women as they are depicted here, “both are theologically linked to Mary, yet they are also contrasted as representatives of the disobedient and obedient wife” (Text 40-41). Eve, mother of all human beings, and Sarah, mother of the line of Israel, and by extension of all followers of the Judeo-Christian God, are the first and last women we meet in the Anglo- Saxon Genesis poem. Eve’s disobedience and Sarah’s obedience to God are chronicled in the poem as they are in the Biblical text, but the spindles they hold remind us that within the poem, both women are shown as peace- weavers, using their intelligence and authority to aid their husbands and smooth the relationship between them and their overlord, God.

213 Conclusion The vernacular and pictorial renditions of the myths of Genesis that have survived in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts have much to teach us about the ways that Anglo-Saxon culture regarded such disparate matters as cosmology, religious practice, history, the exercise of political power, the pursuit of justice, and the roles of women in marriage and society. This dissertation project places all of the central Old English narratives of Genesis, and their illustrations, side-by-side, and by using supplementary evidence drawn from various Old English and Latin texts of the period, it accentuates a number of previously undetected or unexplored connections between these texts and distinctive elements of Anglo-Saxon culture. While no scholar may ever completely be able to account for the immense fascination that the book of Genesis evidently exerted over the Anglo-Saxons, this project goes a long way toward explicating much of the ideological work that Genesis was made to perform in the hands of writers and artists throughout the Anglo-Saxon period. The problem of lack of precise dating for anonymous Old English works like the Genesis poem makes the historical context of my analysis necessarily vague at points. While manuscripts like the Junius, or the Vitellius A Manuscript that contains Beowulf, can be dated with reasonable accuracy, the origins of the poems they contain will likely never be determined to the satisfaction of all researchers in the field. However, as my project points out, the process of Christianization within Anglo- Saxon culture took place gradually over a period of centuries and is thus not precisely dateable either. In this way, the Biblical literature discussed in my

214 dissertation becomes a mirror of the process that produced it. Many of the details of religious belief and practice of the pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon period may likewise never be known. I have made the best use possible of the archeological record, Tacitus’s account of Germanic tribes under the Roman empire, and Bede’s Historia, reading the latter “against the grain” in a sense by accentuating those details about paganism which Bede himself sought to efface, in order to outline a basic schema of what the pagan religion of the Anglo-Saxons must have been like at the time of Augustine’s mission. The links that appear between this form of paganism and the details of how Genesis is retold for Anglo-Saxon audiences by Anglo-Saxon authors reveal both how these narratives were used to provide a bridge between old and new beliefs and practices and how the newly literate Anglo-Saxon Christian culture began to reinterpret the sacred texts of its new religion in ways that were useful to itself, not just religiously, but politically and socially as well. In this way, my study becomes a complement to Nicholas Howe’s 1989 work Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon England. As I have demonstrated, Genesis, for the Anglo-Saxons, was at least as potent a source for mythmaking as Exodus in Howe’s discussion, not only performing parallel functions to those he outlines in terms of uniting the Anglo-Saxons as a cultural unit, but speaking to multiple other sites of emergent cultural change as well. Through the process of my analysis of Old English Genesis narratives, undertaken from multiple angles, yet always under the broadly defined rubric of cultural studies, I have been able to provide more complex

215 interpretations of familiar texts like Beowulf, as well as demonstrating both the distinctiveness and subtlety of expression that can be found in the less well-known and studied Anglo-Saxon treatments of Biblical material. Genesis, the site of spiritual beginnings for two of the great religions of our day, proves to be a productive beginning site for a study of the Anglo-Saxons, as well.

216

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