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'Comitatus' and Anglo -Saxon Poetry. Leslie Ann Stratyner Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College

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'Comitatus' and Anglo -Saxon Poetry. Leslie Ann Stratyner Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1991 Forged Ties: the 'Comitatus' and Anglo -Saxon Poetry. Leslie Ann Stratyner Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Stratyner, Leslie Ann, "Forged Ties: the 'Comitatus' and Anglo -Saxon Poetry." (1991). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 5276. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/5276 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand corner and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor. Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Order Number 9219576 Forged ties: The comitatus and Anglo-Saxon poetry Stratyner, Leslie Ann, Ph.D. The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical Col., 1991 UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106 FORGED TIES: THE COMITATUS AND ANGLO-SAXON POETRY A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Leslie Stratyner B.A., State University of New York at Albany, 1985 M.A. in English, State University of New York at Albany, 1989 December 1991 Contents Abstract iv Introduction 1 Notes 12 Chapter I The Web of Obligations: Ties that Bind The Comitatus 13 Introduction 13 Part 1: Practices and Institutions 14 The Lord/Thane Bond 14 The Kinship Group 19 "Sele-dreamas": The Joys of the Hall 23 The Feast 25 The Scop 26 "He me a]pas swor": Boasts, Oaths, and the Comitatus 28 Feuds, Vengeance, Wergild, and the Comitatus 32 Treasure and the Comitatus 36 Part 2: Persons and Types 45 The Ideal Lord 46 The Bad Lord 48 The Failing Lord 51 The Ideal Thane 53 Bad Thanes 58 Grendel, the Anti-Thane 63 Beowulf, Byrhtnoth, and the Hero-ideal 71 Conclusion 82 Notes 83 Chapter II "Cynna Gemyndig": Women and the Comitatus 90 Introduction 90 Wealhtheow and Cup-bearing 92 Treasure-giving 98 Peace-weaving 100 The "Evil Queens": Modthrytho and Grendel1s Mother 102 Woman as Thane, Kinship as Comitatus 109 Conclusion 114 Notes 116 Chapter III Fall and Redemption: "Genesis B” and "The Dream of the Rood" 120 Introduction 120 "Genesis B" 126 "The Dream of the Rood" 139 Conclusion 149 Notes 151 Chapter IV The Pattern in the Void: The Vanished Comitatus in the Elegies 154 Introduction 154 "The Wife's Lament" 158 "The Husband's Message" 166 "Wulf and Eadwacer" 174 "Deor" 187 "The Ruin" 192 "Resignation" 195 "The Wanderer" 200 "The Seafarer" 208 Conclusion 215 Notes 216 Conclusion 221 Works Cited 226 Vita 243 Abstract The focus of this study is the illumination of the most unchanging and consistent aspect of Anglo-Saxon poetry: the poetic representation of the ethos of the warrior band. The ideals of the comitatus offer a contributing, if not controlling, structure to nearly the entire corpus of Anglo- Saxon poetry. That warband could attain no finer poetic representation than Beowulf and "The Battle of Maldon," which, in presenting not only positive but negative models of behavior, best exemplify the ideals of the comitatus as embodied in Anglo-Saxon verse. Chapter 1 examines the institutions and practices of that masculine circle as illustrated in these poems. The second chapter is as a vital companion to the first. Though the comitatus is exclusively male, it is a mistaken presumption that women had no influence with regard to that group. Contrary to common perceptions, women had a critical position within the male organization of the warband. Chapter 2 examines that role. This, however, is not the entire scope of the dissertation. Of course, it is virtually impossible for a dissertation to detail every reference within Anglo-Saxon verse where the ideals of the comitatus are pertinent; thus, chapters 3 and 4 focus on the manifestations of the comitatus in the poetic situations where we would least expect it. One would hardly anticipate discovering the ethos of the comitatus permeating Eden or Calvary. Yet undeniably it does. Chapter 3 discusses the Anglo-Saxon "reinterpretations" of the fall of man and his redemption (seen in "Genesis B" and "The Dream of the Rood"). The speakers of the elegies are all deprived of a comitatus. Chapter 4 focuses on these poems, where ironically, we can ascertain the vitality and importance of the warband through an analysis of the consequences of its lack, and even its apparent repudiation. By examining cases in which the ideals of the comitatus seem irrelevant to the poetic situation, those ideals are in truth revealed to be the dominant paradigm. Thus, the controlling structure of the comitatus is explicated in various genres extant in the corpus of Anglo-Saxon poetry. v Introduction "Much that is characteristic of the oldest Germanic literature turns on the relationship between the companions and their lord." Sir Frank Stenton When the English historian Frank Stenton wrote those words in the early 1940s, he was not asserting anything revolutionary, even back then. Why then, fifty years later, is it still necessary that we continue to expound upon the influence of the comitatus on Anglo-Saxon poetry? Anyone even haltingly familiar with criticism concerning Anglo- Saxon verse knows that the territory is rife with exploration of the various institutional factors which comprise the framework of the comitatus and its atmosphere. For example, James Earl's "The Role of the Men's Hall in the Development of the Anglo-Saxon Superego," and Kathryn Hume's "The Concept of the Hall in Old English Poetry" provide a wealth of information about Anglo-Saxon mead halls. For a thorough understanding of boasts and oaths, see Nolan and Bloomfield's "Beotword, Gilpcwidas, and the Gilphlxden Scop of Beowulf." In addition, studies of the influence of the warrior ethos upon the poetry are not limited simply to the heroic poems, such as Beowulf and "The Battle of Maldon." 1 Both Kathleen Dubbs and Robert Diamond write about heroism in the Anglo-Saxon crucifixion poem "The Dream of the Rood." Yet these are only sparse examples from an exceedingly abundant well of scholarship. What is the purpose in treading the path that has been trodden so many times before? I have undertaken this study because, to my knowledge, no one has ever attempted to detail fully and in book-length form the many elements that comprise the ethos of the comitatus, and then apply that analysis to other Anglo-Saxon poems. Edward B. Irving, with A Reading of Beowulf and Rereading Beowulf comes closest, though of course he limits himself to Beowulf. There are, admittedly, a plethora of articles which concern, explicitly or tangentially, the influence of the comitatus ethic upon the poetry. Yet a more comprehensive study is required. The ideals of the comitatus in one form or another offer a contributing, if not controlling, structure to nearly the entire corpus of Anglo-Saxon poetry. A thorough rather than incidental illumination of the ethos of the warrior band as depicted in the poetry is not merely warranted, but demanded. The first chapter of this dissertation attempts to do just that. In it I examine the poetic representation of the comitatus within the poems where it is most evident; as my examples for the poetic representations of the comitatus, I choose exclusively Beowulf and "The Battle of Maldon." It is -these two poems which, in presenting not only positive but negative models of behavior, best exemplify the ideals of the warband. The second chapter serves as a vital companion piece to the first. Though the comitatus is exclusively male, and chapter 1 will accordingly focus on the institutions and practices of that masculine circle, it would be erroneous to presume that women had no influence with regard to that group. Contrary to common perceptions, women had a critical position within the stereotypical male organization of the warband, and we must examine that role. This, however, is not the entire scope of the dissertation. If indeed the comitatus and the ideals and practices surrounding it serve as a controlling element within Anglo-Saxon poetry, it is vital that we examine how those ideals and practices influence those poems where the warrior's milieu, or concerns specific to an Anglo-Saxon woman, would not seem to be apropos.
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