Anglo-Saxon Conceptions of Impairment and Disability

Home , Against a dwarf, Alaric Hall, Andreas (poem), Body Talks, Christ III, Cynewulf

Unhælu: Anglo-Saxon Conceptions of Impairment and Disability

Dissertation

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy

in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

Karen Anne Bruce, M.A.

Graduate Program in English

The Ohio State University

2014

Dissertation Committee

Leslie Lockett, Advisor

Brenda Brueggemann

Christopher A. Jones

Karen Anne Bruce

2014

Abstract

In this dissertation, I provide a reconstruction and analysis of the Anglo-Saxon conceptions of impairment and disability, as they are preserved within the textual record of the period. I develop the Old English lexeme unhælu as the most appropriate term for these conceptions, as it reflects the holism that is central to the Anglo-Saxon understanding of health and ability. Unhælu is a large and fluid category, which covers physical impairment, illness, and injury, and which takes into consideration their impact on both the body’s functionality and appearance. Importantly, it does not seem to cover mental health impairments and other similar conditions. It may perhaps be best understood in terms of Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s notion of the “extraordinary body,” which brings together various kinds of corporeal otherness, such as impairment, deformity, monstrosity, and mutilation. Consequently, this dissertation focuses on defining the polysemous concept of unhælu, determining how the Anglo-Saxons perceived the concept, and discovering how these beliefs impacted the lives of unhal people. To achieve these aims, I employ rigorous textual and linguistic analysis, and adapt the insights of present-day disability theory to an early medieval context.

In the opening chapters, I begin by establishing the linguistic and educational foundations of the Anglo-Saxon conception of unhælu. Chapter One examines the Old

English lexicon that reveals how they spoke and thought about impairment, while

Chapter Two considers the school-room texts that would have served as the contemporary equivalent of their disability theory. In the following chapters, I discuss what the Anglo-Saxons’ various responses to unhælu reveal about their perception of the state. Chapter Three uses the medical texts to provide a detailed reconstruction of unhælu, as suggested by the leeches’ remedies and their understanding of etiology.

Chapter Four builds on this foundation by employing the law-codes to further define unhælu as a category and to explore its potential consequences. These consequences could include social and economic disadvantage, feud (in the case of unhælu inflicted by illegal violence), and stigma (in the case of juridical mutilation). Chapter Five, which discusses the hagiographies, develops this focus on the social significance of unhælu, as it shows how the church made use of unhælu within the cults of the saints, and also discusses the lived experiences of unhal people. It reveals the complexity of unhælu as both a state that called for a miraculous cure, and that could serve as a marker of sanctity.

Chapter Six shifts focus to consider other cultural uses to which unhælu was put, as it examines how the Alfredian textual community appropriated the conception of unhælu for rhetorical and metaphorical purposes. Lastly, Chapter Seven shows how the Anglo-

Saxons considered unhælu to be a part of the human life-cycle that developed in age and ended with death, thereby linking it inextricably with human mortality, and with life in a fallen world.

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Dedication

Dedicated to my family in South Africa and the United States, and to the memory of my

grandmother.

Acknowledgements

This dissertation would not have been possible without the encouragement and the assistance of many other people, and it is a pleasure to be able to acknowledge their contributions at this point.

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my advisor, Leslie Lockett, whose question in one of my first seminars at The Ohio State University piqued my interest in

Anglo-Saxon disability, and who has guided me patiently and expertly through the long process of answering that question. She has always challenged me to think more deeply about the subject, and has supported me throughout this extremely ambitious project through her detailed comments and meticulous proof-reading. In my time at OSU, she has served as an example to me of the highest caliber of scholarship, and has inspired me to produce my own best work. Similarly, I am grateful to the other members of my committee, Drew Jones and Brenda Brueggemann. Their insights and knowledge have helped to shape the project immensely, and their encouragement and kindness has kept me writing. In addition, I am indebted to Lisa Kiser, who served as my advisor during my

M.A., and who helped steer me through much of my Ph.D. I greatly appreciate all of her care and guidance throughout the past years. I would also like to thank Richard Firth

Green, with whom I have had many interesting and stimulating conversations about my

v research. I am thankful to the Society for the Study of Disability in the Middle Ages, which has worked so hard to establish the field of medieval disability studies, and to provide venues for papers on the subject. Many of the ideas in this dissertation were first presented at SSDMA sessions at Kalamazoo.

I would also like to thank The Ohio State University for its support during my graduate studies, particularly the dissertation-year fellowship that allowed me to write without distractions for twelve months. In particular, I am grateful to Kathleen Griffin who always had a prompt answer to my questions and a solution to my problems, and to the entire English administrative staff who keep a massive department running as smoothly as it can. Likewise, I am grateful to Anne Fields and the Interlibrary Loan Staff, who found ways to get me every book and article I needed, often only hours after I realized I needed it.

Lastly, gratitude is due to my friends and family. I have been fortunate to be part of a wonderful group of medievalists and spouses, who have helped and supported each other on every step of the marathon that is graduate school: Scott Clark, Andrew

Richmond, David Sweeten and Regina Bouley Sweeten, Erin and Steve Shaull, Erin

Wagner, and Rachel Waymel. I have also been lucky to have a supportive family on both sides of the Atlantic. My parents, Graham and Pat Bruce, made it possible for me to attend graduate school in the United States, and, together with my brother Mark, they have encouraged me through the whole process. My now in-laws, Mike, Tami, and Sarah

Wallace, have made me feel at home in this new country, and have supported me throughout the process. And, lastly, I can’t begin to express my gratitude to my amazing

vi husband, Phillip Wallace, who has supported me in more ways than I can count. It would take another five hundred pages to list them, and even then I might need more space! My love and thanks to you.

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Vita

1999…………………………………Epworth High School

2002…………………………………B.A. English and Classical Civilizations, University

of Natal

2003…………………………………B.A.(Hons), English, University of Natal

2003-2005…………………………..Tutor, English Department, University of Natal and

University of KwaZulu-Natal

2003-2005…………………………..Post-Graduate Scholarship, University of KwaZulu-

Natal

2005…………………………………M.A. English, University of KwaZulu-Natal

2006-2007…………………………..Lecturer, English Department, University of

KwaZulu-Natal

2008…………………………………Distinguished University Fellowship, The Ohio

State University

2009…………………………………Stanley J. Kahrl Award for Outstanding Graduate

Student Essay, The Ohio State University

2010…………………………………M.A. English, The Ohio State University

viii

2009-2013…………………………...Graduate Teaching Assistant, English Department,

The Ohio State University

2014…………………………………Distinguished University Fellowship, The Ohio

State University

Publications

Bruce, Karen. “Aryans in Utopia: Mary Bradley Lane’s Mizora as an Example of the

Contemporaneity of the Utopian Form.” Topic 56 (2010): 23-32.

Bruce, Karen. “A Woman-Made Language: Suzette Haden Elgin's Láaden and the Native

Tongue Trilogy as Thought Experiment in Feminist Linguistics.” Extrapolation 49, no. 1

(2008): 44-69.

Bruce, Karen. “Amazons,” “Parthenogenesis,” and “Kate Wilhelm.” In Women in

Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Robin Reid. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood,

2007.

Field of Study

Major Field: English

Table of Contents

Abstract………………………………………………………………………………….. ii

Dedication……………………………………………………………………………….. iv

Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………….v

Vita……………………………………………………………………………………...viii

List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………..xi

List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………xii

Abbreviations……………………………………………………………………………xiii

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..1

Chapter 1: The Old English Lexicon of Impairment and Disability………….……….…40

Chapter 2: The Late Antique Intellectual Tradition………………………………...... 84

Chapter 3: The Curative Corpus………………...……………………………………...185

Chapter 4: The Anglo-Saxon Law-Codes…………………………………….………...230

Chapter 5: Hagiography……………….……………………………………….……….274

Chapter 6: The Cultural Uses of Unhælu……………………………………….………347

Chapter 7: Transient Hælu and Transient Unhælu……………………………………..425

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...476

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………....488

List of Tables

Table 1. Anglo-Saxon Lexemes for Impairment and Disability…………………………77

Table 2. Anglo-Saxon Lexemes for Specific Impairments……………………………....81

Table 3. Schedule of Most Severe Injuries and Associated Fines……………………...236

Table 4. Ranking of Fingers in Personal Injury Laws…………..………………...……243

List of Figures

Figure 1. Spectrum of Normal and Monstrous Bodies…………………………………142

Figure 2. Spectrum of Dependent and Independent Social Positions……………...... 295

Figure 3. Spectrum of Vision with Associated Values………...……………………….413

Figure 4. Continuum of Hælu and Unhælu……………………………………………..444

xii

Abbreviations

ASPR Krapp and Dobbie, eds., The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, vols 1- 6

BaP Bibliothek der angelsächischen Prosa

Barney The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, trans. Barney et al. bk. book

BL British Library

BT Bosworth, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, ed. and rev. Toller

BT Online Bosworth, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, ed. and rev. Toller, online edition

Carnicelli King Alfred’s Version of St Augustine’s Soliloquies, ed. Carnicelli

CCCC Cambridge, Corpus Christi College ch. chapter chs. chapters

CH I Ælfric, Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: The First Series, ed. Clemoes

CH II Ælfric, Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: The Second Series, ed. Godden

Hom. Supp. Ælfric, Homilies of Ælfric: A Supplementary Collection, ed. Pope

CCSL Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina

Cockayne Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, ed. and trans. Cockayne

xiii

Cons. Boethius, De consolatione Philosophiae, ed. Bieler

DMLBS Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources

DOE Corpus Cameron et al., The Dictionary of Old English Corpus on the World Wide Web

DOE Online Cameron et al., The Dictionary of Old English: A to G Online

DRA Alcuin, De ratione animae

DRGA Asser, De rebus gestis Aelfredi

EETS Early English Text Society - o.s. - original series - s.s. - supplementary series

EH Bede, Historia ecclesiastica, ed. and trans. Colgrave and Mynors

Etym. Isidore, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. Lindsay

Glorie Collectiones aenigmatum merouingicae aetatis, ed. Glorie

Godden and Irvine The Old English Boethius, ed. and trans. Godden and Irvine

Hecht Bischof Wærferths von Worcester Übersetzung der Dialoge Gregors des Grossen, ed. Hecht

Hörmann Augustine, Soliloquiorum libri duo, ed. Hörmann

Ker, Catalogue Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon

Klaeber’s Beowulf Klæber’s Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, ed. Fulk, Bjork and Niles.

Liebermann Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann

Life Asser, Asser’s Life of King Alfred, trans. Keynes and Lapidge

LM Liber monstrorum, ed. Orchard

LS Ælfric, Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, ed. Skeat

MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica

xiv

Miller The Old English Version of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. and trans. Miller

Narratio Narratio metrica de S. Swithuno, ed. and trans. Lapidge

OE Old English

OED Online Proffitt et al., Oxford English Dictionary Online

Pettit Anglo-Saxon Remedies, Charms, and Prayers from British Library MS Harley 585: “The Lacnunga,” ed. and trans. Pettit

PG Migne, ed., Patrologica Graeca

PL Migne, ed., Patrologia Latina

Sweet King Alfred’s West-Saxon Version of Gregory’s Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet

Translatio Translatio et miracula S. Swithuni, ed. and trans. Lapidge

Introduction

The Body That Is Not a Body

The OE Boethius presents a dialog between Wisdom and Boethius’ mind, in which

Wisdom uses the dialectic method to correct the mind’s disordered thinking and restore its understanding of the Good. Boethius has been unjustly sentenced to death by his king, and his mind has become so impaired by grief that Wisdom has to intervene in order to effect a cure. This cure takes the form of reminding Boethius’ mind that, for instance, fortune is inconstant, and money, power, and fame are transient and distract from the true

Good. As part of this process, Wisdom expounds on what it means to be human:

Ða cwæð he [i.e. Wisdom]. Wast þu hwæt mon sie? Ða cwæð ic [i.e. Boethius’ mind]. Ic wat þæt hit is sawl and lichoma. Ða cwæð he. Hwæt þu wast þæt hit bið mon ða hwile þe seo sawl and se lichoma undælde beoð. Ne bið hit nan mon siððan hi todælde bioð. Swa eac se lichoma bið lichoma ða hwile þe he his limu ealle hæfð. Gif he þonne hwylc lim forlyst, þonne ne bið he eall swa he ær wæs. Þæt ilce ðu miht geþencan be ælcum þinge, þæt nan ðing ne bið swelce hit was siððan hit wanian onginð.

(Then he said: “Do you know what man is?” Then I said: “I know that it is soul and body.” Then he said: “Indeed you know that it is man as long as the soul and the body are undivided. It is not man after they are divided. So also the body is body as long as it has all its limbs. If then it loses any limb then it is not just as it

was before. You can understand the same about everything, that nothing is such as it was after it begins to become less.”)1

Wisdom’s definition of the body is remarkable. He claims that the body remains a body only as long as it retains all of its limbs. By implication, if the body loses an arm or a leg, it is transformed into something else, something less than it was before. Although

Wisdom seeks to educate the mind through these teachings, his statement raises more questions than it answers. That is, what does the body become if it ceases to be a body?

What ontological change within the body is brought about by the loss of a limb? And what does this alteration mean for the person who inhabits the body?

These questions are not simply philosophical. People with missing limbs would have been reasonably common in Anglo-Saxon England, especially in the decades leading up to the translation of the OE Boethius, which was produced c. 890-930 CE in

Southern England.2 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle suggests that it was a period of extreme unrest in the region, with frequent, violent raids by Vikings and other foreign armies.3

These incursions would have resulted in widespread death and mutilation, so that people who were missing an arm or a leg (both obvious targets in warfare) must have been a frequent sight. In addition, people would have lost limbs to other causes: congenital conditions, accidents, internecine violence, and juridical mutilation. Consequently, we can safely infer that the Old English translator almost certainly would have come into

1 OE Boethius, ch. 34 (ed. Godden and Irvine, 1:326; trans. ibid., 2:59). Unless otherwise specified, all quotations from the OE Boethius are from the B-text. 2 For an excellent discussion of the dating and authorship, see Godden and Irvine, 1:140-46. 3 Janet Bately, ed., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition, vol. 3: MS. A (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1986).

2 contact with multiple people who were missing arms, legs, and other body parts. This context makes Wisdom’s statement seem oddly extreme. Through Wisdom, the translator was deeming bodies that he encountered on a regular basis to be no longer bodies, and thereby altering the status of the impaired people among whom he lived. Did he reach his conclusions about the impaired body through his observations of these people, or in spite of them? Did his conclusions reflect a broader, cultural sense that these people’s bodies were diminished or deficient in some way, that they were Other? In short, did they arise from a distinctively Anglo-Saxon concept or experience of disability?4

Anglo-Saxon Disability: Filling a Critical Lacuna

In looking for answers to these difficult questions, however, we discover a lacuna in medieval scholarship that critics are only beginning to fill. That is, up until this point, scholarship has not produced a full-length, wide-ranging study of Anglo-Saxon disability.

My dissertation addresses this gap by providing a reconstruction and analysis of impairment and disability among the Anglo-Saxons between the fifth century (in Bede’s account of Germanus) and the twelfth century (in the copy of the OE Soliloquies),5 based on the information preserved within the textual record of the period. Its primary aim is to reconstruct the Anglo-Saxon concept of disability and the lives of disabled Anglo-Saxons in the greatest detail that the corpus permits. Such a reconstruction is necessary because the textual record does not include any direct, detailed discussion of disability as a

4 I return to this passage and consider it in much greater depth in Chapter Six. 5 The OE Soliloquies is preserved in a single manuscript, BL, Cotton Vitellius, A.xv, ff. 4-59, which dates from the mid-twelfth century. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge, trans., Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources (1983; repr. London: Penguin, 2004), 299.

3 concept or category, as we might find in public discourse in the present day. Nonetheless, the record does provide a number of partial and oblique accounts that can be assembled to form a composite image of Anglo-Saxon disability. These accounts require rigorous textual and linguistic analysis in order to determine what they reveal about disability during the period. Even then, the image of disability that emerges from them is not always clear or consistent, and suggests that the Anglo-Saxons had a complex and even contradictory matrix of beliefs and practices around physical and mental difference, which is unsurprising given the instability and incoherence of disability as a category.

As Lennard J. Davis has demonstrated, any sense that we may have of disability as a stable, coherent category has more to do with contemporary cultural and political movements than with biology. He remarks:

[I]t is hard if not impossible to make the case that the actual category of disability really has internal coherence. It includes, according to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, conditions like obesity, attention deficit disorder, diabetes, back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, severe facial scarring, chronic fatigue syndrome, skin conditions, and hundreds of other conditions.6

Given this broad scope, Davis argues that present-day disability is an almost wholly constructed category of identity that was established in the 1970s “against the societal definitions that were formed largely by oppression,” and that served an explicit political purpose in allowing disabled people to fight for equal rights.7 He notes that disability, in similar fashion to other minority identities of the time, was founded on essentialism – that

6 Lennard Davis, Bending Over Backwards: Disability, Dismodernism, and Other Difficult Positions, with a foreword by Michael Bérubé (New York: New York University Press, 2002), 23. 7 Ibid., 10.

4 is, it was rooted in the body and in oppression experienced as a result of the body.8 As this type of essentialism has fallen out of favor in academic and activist circles, disability has become increasingly unstable and incoherent as an identity category, since it encompasses so many distinct conditions that do not have an inherent affinity with each other. I recount this history precisely because the Anglo-Saxons preceded it. They would not have been influenced by the much later definition of disability as a stable, coherent category of identity. Indeed, as my dissertation will show, the Anglo-Saxons did not have a single systematic concept of disability that shaped their perception and treatment of disabled people. Instead, they relied upon a disparate set of concepts that evolved in response to the practical social consequences of having disabled people within the community, or that were derived from sources such as the Christian scriptures and patristic literature, late antique encyclopedias and medical treatises, and the folk tradition.

Previous Studies of Medieval Disability

At this point, it seems appropriate to situate my dissertation within its academic context and to define the gap in the scholarship that it seeks to fill. As a field, medieval disability studies is still in an embryonic stage. Only in the last decade or so have medievalists begun the work of reconstructing medieval conceptions of and attitudes towards disability, and considering how these beliefs would have impacted the lived experiences of disabled people. Irina Metzler’s Disability in Medieval Europe: Thinking about

Physical Impairment During the High Middle Ages, c. 1100-1400, which was published

8 Ibid.

5 in 2006, did much to establish medieval disability studies as a discipline.9 Metzler discusses the theoretical framework and intellectual context of impairment in Western

Europe during the high Middle Ages. Her study covers three broad areas of inquiry:

medieval, theological, and philosophical notions of the impaired body and how it was seen to differ from the perceived “normal” body; medieval “scientific” (medical and natural philosophical) views of impairment relating to causalities and prevention of such conditions; and medieval therapeutic measures in the form of miracle healings of the impaired.10

More recently, Metzler has produced a second, companion study, A Social History of

Disability in the Middle Ages: Cultural Considerations of Physical Impairment.11 In this work, she seeks to tease out some idea of “the daily life and quotidian experience of physical impairment in the Middle Ages.”12 In particular, she focuses on four domains that are crucial for thinking about the social and cultural factors that shaped the lives of disabled people – namely, the law, work, aging, and charity.

Metzler’s two monographs are important, foundational works, and provide a wealth and diversity of information about disability in Medieval Europe. Nonetheless, they both privilege breadth of analysis, and cover a large chronological and geographical span, without drawing much of a distinction between the different forms that disability might take at different times within different cultures. While Metzler’s broad approach allows her to demonstrate similarities and continuities among different cultures, and

9 Irina Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe: Thinking about Physical Impairment During the High Middle Ages, c. 1100-1400 (New York: Routledge, 2006). 10 Ibid., 1. 11 Irina Metzler, A Social History of Disability in the Middle Ages: Cultural Considerations of Physical Impairment (New York: Routledge, 2013). 12 Ibid., 1.

6 therefore to define medieval disability as a coherent concept, it also means that her work needs to be supplemented by more precise studies that involve a greater degree of granularity. Specifically, it needs to be supplemented by studies that focus on a single culture and develop its specific concept of disability, as I shall be doing in this dissertation with Anglo-Saxon England. Indeed, since Metzler tends to focus on the high

Middle Ages in both texts, she does not discuss Anglo-Saxon England at any great length, which makes my study on the pre-Conquest period all the more important.

In the years following the publication of Metzler’s first monograph, scholars such as Edward Wheatley, Tory Vandeventer Pearman, Julie Singer, Christopher Baswell, and

Wendy J. Turner have further developed the field of medieval disability studies, although their primary focus has been the post-Conquest period. Given their focus, I wish to provide only a brief overview of the major works that have shaped and are shaping the field, and that have direct relevance to disability in medieval England.13 In Stumbling

Blocks Before the Blind, Wheatley discusses the lives of people with visual impairments in England and France during the eleventh to fifteenth centuries, and, most significantly for the field, develops the religious model, which argues that the medieval church wielded authority over contemporary discourses of and responses to disability.14 Pearman adopts Wheatley’s religious model in her Women and Disability in Medieval Literature

13 For two important studies that deal with medieval disability in cultures outside of England, see Lois Bragg, Oedipus Borealis: The Aberrant Body in Old Icelandic Myth and Saga (Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2004); and Kristina Richardson, Difference and Disability in the Medieval Islamic World: Blighted Bodies (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012). 14 Edward Wheatley, Stumbling Blocks Before the Blind: Medieval Constructions of a Disability (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010), 9-12. This model will be explained in much more depth when I come onto models of disability later in this chapter.

7 and complicates it by introducing the dimension of gender, producing what she calls the

“gendered model.”15 This model foregrounds the importance of “a historicized consideration of the links between the sociocultural production of gender and bodily ability.”16 She shows that medieval authoritative discourses tended to conflate the female body, femininity, and disability, and that this conflation often thwarted the teleological drive in narratives featuring disabled female characters, such as the Wife of Bath or

Margery Kempe.17 Finally, Singer has begun the process of defining a transhuman model of medieval disability, which does not depend on the same binary logic of abled/disabled that characterizes present-day discourses of disability.18 Instead, Singer argues that

“bodily impairment adds another layer of identity instead of stripping away the rest,” and disability becomes “a new ability with which a body or soul can be endowed,” as exemplified by writers’ adoption of a disabled persona for literary purposes, or the phenomenon of the medieval supercrip to which she alludes.19

In contrast to these literary analyses, legal scholarship has also played an important role in the development of medieval disability studies, although it has likewise focused almost exclusively on the post-Conquest period. No single, comprehensive monograph exists on the topic of medieval disability and law, but it has been explored

15 Tory Vandeventer Pearman, Women and Disability in Medieval Literature (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 5. 16 Ibid., 1. 17 Ibid., 1-2. 18 Julie Singer, “Toward a Transhuman Model of Medieval Disability,” Postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies 1-2 (Spring/Summer 2010): 173-79. 19 Ibid., 175-76. Singer explains that “‘supercrips’ are ‘exceptional’ people who ‘overcome’ their disabilities, often through acts of physical prowess,” and goes on to add that, in medieval supercrip narratives, “enhanced courage or virtue compensates for a physical impairment.” I discuss the supercrip in more depth in Chapter Five, since the phenomenon was markedly different in the late antique and Anglo- Saxon periods, to the point where I am not certain the concept can be applied to the early Middle Ages.

8 within a number of edited collections, most notably Wendy J. Turner’s Madness in

Medieval Law and Custom,20 and Cory James Rushton’s Disability and Medieval Law:

History, Literature, and Society.21 These studies consider the legal status of disabled people, the legal system’s responses to disability, and its creation of disabilities through juridical mutilation, usually within a single culture. Through this pioneering work, these scholars have started to map the terrain of disability in England in the high and late

Middle Ages.

By comparison, the Anglo-Saxon period has received relatively little attention, with the result that very little research exists on Anglo-Saxon disability per se. Rare exceptions may be found in the articles and chapters by Christina Lee, Beth Tovey,

Christina M. Heckman, and Jane Roberts, most of which are quite narrow in scope. Lee’s work deals primarily with diseases and the disabilities that result from them. For instance, in her chapter in The Material Culture of Daily Living in the Anglo-Saxon World, she uses archaeological and textual evidence to consider what diseases and impairments

Anglo-Saxons suffered, and the possibilities available to healers seeking to cure them.22

In her article in Anglo-Saxon Traces, she draws on the same sources to examine the impact of disease and disability on the individual and social levels.23 In a more recent

20 Wendy J. Turner, ed., Madness in Medieval Law and Custom (Leiden: Brill, 2010). 21 Cory James Rushton, ed., Disability and Medieval Law: History, Literature, Society (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013). 22 Christina Lee, “Body and Soul: Disease and Impairment in Anglo-Saxon England,” in The Material Culture of Daily Living in the Anglo-Saxon World, ed. Maren Clegg Hyer and Gale R. Owen-Crocker (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 2011), 293-309. 23 Christina Lee, “Body Talks: Disease and Disability in Anglo-Saxon England,” in Anglo-Saxon Traces, ed. Jane Roberts and Leslie Webster (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2011), 145-64.

9 chapter in Anglo-Saxon Studies, she has begun the work of defining the Anglo-Saxon construction of disability and suggesting various avenues for future analysis, but, by her own admission, “[i]n many ways, this is a pilot study for a much needed in-depth analysis of concepts of illness and disability in the Early Middle Ages.”24 Christina Lee and Sally

Crawford are in the process of producing such an analysis, but, at this point in time, my dissertation is unique in addressing this need and providing a comprehensive reconstruction of Anglo-Saxon disability. That said, as the only other scholar to have written extensively on Anglo-Saxon disability, Lee’s initial studies are an important secondary source for my own work, and I engage extensively with them throughout my dissertation.

By way of contrast, Heckman, Tovey, and Roberts each have only written a single article on Anglo-Saxon disability. Heckman examines the religious and cultural significance of the various disabling diseases attributed to Veronica, Titus and Tiberius in

The Old English Avenging of the Savior, an eleventh-century apocryphon.25 Tovey briefly sketches out some of the ways in which people became impaired in the period, and how those impairments either disabled them or exalted them as saint-like. She further examines how disability functions in the life-narratives of King Herod in Ælfric’s

24 Christina Lee, “Disability,” in A Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Studies, ed. Jacqueline Stodnick and Renée R. Trilling (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 23. 25 Christina M. Heckman, “Cancer, Leprosy, and Blood: Conflicting Pieties in the Old English Avenging of the Savior,” in The Treatment of Disabled Persons in Medieval Europe: Examining Disability in the Historical, Legal, Literary, Medical, and Religious Discourses of the Middle Ages, ed. Wendy J. Turner and Tory Vandeventer Pearman (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2010), 167-98.

10 homilies and of King Alfred in Asser’s De rebus gestis Ælfredi.26 Lastly, Roberts offers a brief lexical field study of Old English terms for “crippled or lame,” in which she argues that healt was the central Old English word for mobility impairment, and that crypel was rarely used, perhaps because it was a northern word, perhaps because of discomfort around it.27 To my knowledge, this list represents a complete account of the published scholarship on Anglo-Saxon disability qua disability, which reveals how underdeveloped the field is.28

Nonetheless, I would be remiss if I did not mention that scholars have addressed impairment in the Anglo-Saxon world from other perspectives: for example, legal scholars have considered the laws compensating injuries and prescribing punitive mutilations, while medical scholars have thought about etiologies of and treatments for impairing conditions. Of the former, Lisi Oliver has produced a helpful catalogue of the fines that the Germanic law-codes levied for various injuries, and speculated on the physiological and aesthetic reasons why different injuries might have been assessed at different values.29 Similarly, Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe has discussed how the body was used and read in late Anglo-Saxon juridical discourse; of particular interest is her analysis of how juridical ordeals and mutilations produced bodies that testified to their own guilt and the power of the king, that offered post factum knowledge about

26 Beth Tovey, “Kingly Impairments in Anglo-Saxon Literature: God’s Curse and God’s Blessing,” in Disability in the Middle Ages: Reconsiderations and Reverberations, ed. Joshua R. Eyler (London: Ashgate, 2010), 135-48. 27 Jane Roberts, “Some Thoughts on the Expression of ‘Crippled’ in Old English,” Leeds Studies in English 37 (2006): 365-78. 28 I am aware of certain other articles that are in press but that have not yet appeared, particularly in the Studies in Early Medicine series published by Archaeopress. 29 Lisi Oliver, The Body Legal in Barbarian Law (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011).

11 themselves, and that therefore were brought under discursive control.30 Of the latter,

M. L. Cameron offers a comprehensive study of Anglo-Saxon medical literature, and, most usefully for my purposes, reconstructs the conditions under which the patients lived, and examines the physicians’ treatments and their efficacy.31 He further considers the role of magic as a curative option, a topic which Alaric Hall and Karen Louise Jolly expand on further in their studies of elves and elf-charms, respectively, in Anglo-Saxon

England.32 Also on the medical front, much attention has been paid to Alfred the Great, the famous king of Wessex who experienced an unknown condition commonly thought to be hemorrhoids, Crohn’s disease, or some other perianal disorder.33 Multiple studies exist that diagnose his condition and think about what it meant for his kingship. In sum, there exists a wealth of material that is tangentially related to impairment and disability, yet it does not address the communal perceptions of and social responses to impairment that are central to my own study, and therefore it is not a substitute for the sort of work I wish to conduct.

30 Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe, “Body and Law in Late Anglo-Saxon England,” Anglo-Saxon England 27 (1998): 209-32. 31 M. L. Cameron, Anglo-Saxon Medicine, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 7 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 32 Alaric Hall, Elves in Anglo-Saxon England: Matters of Belief, Health, Gender and Identity, Anglo-Saxon Studies 8 (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2007); Karen Louise Jolly, Popular Religion in Late Saxon England: Elf Charms in Context (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1996). 33 Most notably, J. D. Oriel, “Anal and Genital Warts in the Ancient World,” Paleopathology Newsletter 3 (1973): 5-7; G. Craig, “Alfred the Great: A Diagnosis,” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 84 (1991): 303-305; David Pratt, “The Illnesses of Alfred the Great,” Anglo-Saxon England 30 (2002): 39-90.

Theoretical Principles and Assumptions

Before I outline the shape of my dissertation in more detail, I need to set out some of its basic theoretical principles and presuppositions, in order to lay the foundation for my study and to establish its vocabulary. My work draws on the insights of disability theory and adapts them in order to make them germane to the situation in Anglo-Saxon England.

As a field, disability studies grew out of the disability rights movement of the late twentieth century, and disability theory has a propensity to be both presentist and activist in its focus. Nonetheless, even for scholars of earlier periods, disability theory offers a useful conceptual and analytical framework, provided that we are careful to avoid the pitfall of anachronism. Medieval disability was fundamentally different from present-day disability, yet it involved a remarkably similar experience of deviance and injustice at its core. That is, medieval disabled people tended to have their physical or mental difference encoded as an undesirable deviance, and therefore faced marginalization, subjection, stigma, and other forms of oppression, albeit in different ways from the present day.

Disability theory offers a well-developed framework in which to conceptualize and discuss bodily difference and its social consequences, which is why I have chosen to adopt it and adapt it to medieval disability. For the most part, I will discuss the specific theories that I am using when I come to them, but, at this point, I wish to set out some of the broader ideas that inform my dissertation as a whole.

Disabilities

As this chapter has already established, disability is a remarkably broad category that encompasses a wide range of physical and mental differences, which include, to reiterate

Davis’ list, “obesity, attention deficit disorder, diabetes, back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, severe facial scarring, chronic fatigue syndrome, skin conditions, and hundreds of other conditions.”34 As this list suggests, people’s disabilities have many causes and take many forms: they may involve a difference in functionality or appearance; they may be temporary or permanent; they may be visible or invisible.

Consequently, disability does not have much internal coherence as a category. If the category is bound together by anything, it is disabled people’s shared experience of a physical or mental difference that impacts their daily life, and of the stigma and marginalization that results from this difference.35 My dissertation, therefore, focuses on this type of difference and its social consequences in the Anglo-Saxon period.

Impairment and Disability

At the same time, my dissertation uses the term “disability” in a more precise and specialized fashion, which requires further explication. That is, I maintain the standard distinction between impairment and disability, which refer, respectively, to the physical aspects of the state, and to its social consequences. The concepts of impairment and

34 Davis, Bending Over Backwards, 23. 35 Carol J. Gill, “Divided Understandings: The Social Experience of Disability,” in Handbook of Disability Studies, ed. Gary L. Albrecht, Katherine Seelman, and Michael Bury (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2001), 351-73. Gill also specifies that it is important that people identify as disabled, but this aspect of her argument is not germane to the Anglo-Saxon period.

14 disability are central to my methodology, and so it is important to define them in more detail and explain the presuppositions that undergird them. In 1980, the World Health

Organization (hereafter, WHO) developed a classification system – the International

Classification of Impairments, Disabilities, and Handicaps (ICIDH-1980) – that became highly influential in both disability theory and activism, even though its assumptions and language are actually somewhat ableist. The ICIDH-1980 distinguished between impairment, disability, and handicap. It defined an impairment as “any loss or abnormality of psychological, physiological, or anatomical structure or function”;36 a disability as “any restriction or lack (resulting from an impairment) of ability to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being”;37 and a handicap as “a disadvantage for a given individual, resulting from an impairment or a disability, that limits or prevents the fulfilment of a role that is normal (depending on age, sex, and social and cultural factors) for that individual.”38 To offer an example, a person may have a visual impairment caused by glaucoma; he may be disabled by their subsequent inability to read print; and he may be handicapped by being excluded from certain jobs that require reading, if appropriate accommodations (such as Braille texts or screen readers) are not available. By way of contrast, a person with minor myopia may have an impairment, but she would probably not be disabled by it, unless she wished to become a pilot, and, even then, other people might not agree with her assessment of

36 World Health Organization, International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities, and Handicaps: A Manual of Classification Relating to the Consequences of Disease (Geneva: World Health Organization, 1980; repr., 1993), 27. 37 Ibid., 28. 38 Ibid., 29.

15 herself as disabled.39 Indeed, very few people who wear glasses would think of themselves as disabled in any meaningful way. Although the ICIDH-1980 sets up a tripartite system with impairment, disability, and handicap, it is usually reduced to the simpler binary pair of impairment and disability, with handicap being folded into the category of disability. In this binary system, impairment is associated with physical and mental difference, and disability with the social consequences of that difference.

Yet, although this binary is extremely useful for analytical purposes, it is necessary to acknowledge that it might not be as clear-cut as it initially appears, as exemplified by the new WHO definitions. In 2002, the WHO revised its system of classification with its introduction of the new International Classification of Function

(ICF). The ICF is based on the following definition of disability:

Disabilities is an umbrella term, covering impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions. An impairment is a problem in body function or structure; an activity limitation is a difficulty encountered by an individual in executing a task or action; while a participation restriction is a problem experienced by an individual in involvement in life situations. Disability is thus not just a health problem. It is a complex phenomenon, reflecting the interaction between features of a person’s body and features of the society in which he or she lives. Overcoming the barriers faced by people with disabilities requires interventions to remove environmental and social barriers.40

39 This example is based on a real world precedent. In Sutton vs United Airlines Inc., two sisters who trained as pilots were excluded from United Airlines’ interview process, since they had 20/20 vision with corrective lenses but less than 20/20 vision without them, and therefore did not meet the companies’ vision requirements. Interestingly, United Airlines argued the women were not disabled since their impairments were made irrelevant by their corrective lenses, and therefore they were not protected by the ADA. The Supreme Court ruled for United Airlines, and argued that people’s corrective measures should be taken into account when evaluating whether they have a disability. For an analysis of this case, see Fiona Kumari Campbell, “Legislating Disability: Negative Ontologies and the Government of Legal Identities,” in Foucault and the Government of Disability, ed. Shelley Tremain (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2005), 123-24. 40 “Disabilities,” World Health Organization, last modified 29 November 2013, http://www.who.int/topics/ disabilities/en/.

While the WHO could use more positive language in discussing disability,41 its definition remains useful for identifying and naming the multiple aspects of the experience. As with the 1980 definition, it asserts that disability is not simply an individual and physical experience, but that it also arises from engagement with social and environmental barriers. Yet, in contrast to the earlier definition, it acknowledges that disability and impairment cannot necessarily be separated from each other. As Tom Shakespeare explains, people with impairments are not only disabled by society, but also may be disabled by their bodies.42 For instance, people with degenerative conditions that cause pain or exhaustion may be disabled in ways that cannot be alleviated or eliminated by social changes.43 Likewise, in everyday life, people’s experience of their impairment is not always easy to distinguish from their experience of the social barriers they face.44 For instance, people with depression may feel depressed because of differences in their brain chemistry and hormones, or equally due to traumatic and stressful life-events, which would include dealing with the stigma of having a mental health impairment. In this case, it is very difficult to tell where impairment ends and disability begins. As a result, the new WHO definition acknowledges that the physical and social aspects of disability are often inextricable from each other by making impairment a sub-category of disability.

41 For instance, impairment is not inherently a “problem” in body function and structure. It is usually a difference, which becomes a problem when the social environment does not accommodate it, as the WHO goes on to acknowledge. 42Tom Shakespeare, “The Social Model of Disability,” in The Disability Studies Reader, ed. Lennard J. Davis, 4th ed. (New York: Routledge, 2013), 217-18. 43 Ibid., 218. 44 Ibid.

Nonetheless, although it is essential to acknowledge the complexity of disability as a lived experience, I am reluctant to abandon the distinction between impairment and disability, since it is such a valuable analytical tool. When discussing disability in the

Anglo-Saxon period, it is extremely useful to be able to differentiate between the physical and social dimensions of the experience, as it allows me to address the Anglo-Saxon concept of disability in a more meaningful fashion. Specifically, it enables me to articulate the specific ways in which the Anglo-Saxons conceptualized and responded to impairment, and, as Metzler notes, push back against the problematic assumption that all impaired people were treated as disabled within the early Middle Ages.45 For these reasons, my dissertation preserves the distinction between impairment and disability as a deliberate part of its theoretical apparatus, although it recognizes that this distinction may be largely artificial in practice. I use impairment to refer to people’s physical and mental differences, and disability to refer to those differences’ social consequences. These social consequences include the concepts and discourses to which impairment gives rise, and the social and political experiences that people with impairments may share.

Extraordinary Bodies and the Normate

In addition to these notions of impairment and disability, my dissertation frequently has recourse to Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s notion of the “extraordinary body,” which, as shall become evident, is useful for articulating the Anglo-Saxons’ fluid and complex understanding of disability. Garland-Thomson employs the term “extraordinary body” to

45 Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe, 1.

18 refer to “the related perceptions of corporeal otherness we think of variously as

‘monstrosity,’ ‘mutilation,’ ‘deformation,’ ‘crippledness,’ or ‘physical disability.’”46

While the Anglo-Saxons did not have the same set of categories, they seem to have made similar connections among various forms of corporeal otherness, so that they clustered together impairment, illness, deformity, mutilation, and monstrosity in revealing ways.

Garland-Thomson’s notion of the “extraordinary body” enables us to acknowledge those connections among various kinds of bodily difference, while still maintaining the important distinctions between them.

In juxtaposition to these figures of otherness, Garland-Thomson establishes the figure of the normate, to which I devote less attention but which remains important to my study. She defines the normate in these terms:

This neologism names the veiled subject position of cultural self, the figure outlined by the array of deviant others whose marked bodies shore up the normate’s boundaries. The term normate usefully designates the social figure through which people can represent themselves as definitive human beings. Normate, then, is the constructed identity of those who, by way of the bodily configurations and the cultural capital they assume, can step into a position of authority and wield the power it grants them.47

This definition suggests that the figure of the normate exists in a complex relationship with figures of otherness. Specifically, as already established, figures of otherness help to define the figure of the normate by marking out its boundaries and representing what is

46 Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 5. 47 Garland-Thomson, Extraordinary Bodies, 8. By marked aspects of identity, Garland-Thomson mean the aspects that are not considered to be the human default, that lead to the person being considered different and treated differently. For instance, in a patriarchal society, male is unmarked and female is marked. In an ableist society, abled is unmarked and disabled is marked.

19 excluded from it. In a very real sense, the normate is like a statue carved out of a block of marble, in that it is what remains when all forms of otherness have been chipped away and discarded. It is difficult to specify what constitutes the normate in any other way, since any attempt to list its characteristics soon veers into the ludicrous, and belies its real social power.48 Moreover, figures of otherness serve to legitimize the figure of the normate, as their “cultural visibility as deviant” both obscures and neutralizes its existence.49 Because they are overly marked and overly visible in power relations, they mean that the normate passes almost unnoticed and unchallenged.50 That is, the normate seems natural and neutral by comparison. Yet, the relationship between the figure of the normate and the figures of otherness is not unidirectional. In Enforcing Normalcy, Davis asserts that, to the extent that Western culture has defined disability as a problem that must be solved, “the ‘problem’ is not the person with disabilities; the problem is the way that normalcy is constructed to create the ‘problem’ of the disabled person.”51 As part of the larger construction of normalcy, the figure of the normate serves to present figures of otherness as problematic, and to justify their marginalization and their disempowerment.

48 As Garland-Thomson wryly notes, the normate begins to resemble Erving Goffman’s “one complete unblushing male in America: a young, married, white, urban, northern, heterosexual, Protestant father of college education, fully employed, of good complexion, weight and height, and a recent record in sports.” Garland-Thomson, Extraordinary Bodies, 8; Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963), 128. 49 Ibid., 8-9. 50 Ibid. 51 Lennard J. Davis, Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness, and the Body (New York: Verso, 1995), 23-24. I discuss Davis’ theory of normalcy in more depth in Chapter Two, but it is worth noting at the outset that he has recently modified his position on normalcy as the driving force in culture. Instead, he believes that the concept of diversity is beginning to take normalcy’s place within the United States, and that disability is “undiverse” in that it does not involve the kind of celebration and choice that is at the heart of diversity. As a result, disability is an atavistic remainder of normalcy in an era that has otherwise embraced difference and diversity. The End of Normal: Identity in a Biocultural Era (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014), 1-14.

Consequently, the figure of the normate and the figures of otherness serve to define each other in significant ways.

Biological and Cultural Bodies

The existence of these figures reveals another central theoretical principle of my work: namely, bodies are both biological and cultural entities. They have a fundamental organic existence, and they are also constructed by the culture in which they are located. Garland-

Thomson makes a strong argument for the constructedness of disabled bodies:

The “physically disabled” are produced by way of legal, medical, political, cultural, and literary narratives that comprise an exclusionary discourse. Constructed as the embodiment of corporeal insufficiency and deviance, the physically disabled body becomes a repository for social anxieties about such troubling concerns as vulnerability, control, and identity.… [Disability] is a representation, a cultural interpretation of physical transformation or configuration, and a comparison of bodies that structures social relations and institutions. Disability, then, is the attribution of corporeal deviance – not so much a property of bodies as the product of cultural rules about what bodies should be or do.52

At the same time, as Garland-Thomson acknowledges, and as Mark Jeffreys argues even more strongly, this cultural construction of the body rests upon “biological bases” that cannot be wholly rewritten or ignored.53 Without essentializing disability, we can recognize that it has a biological foundation that may be difficult to separate from the cultural meanings that are ascribed to the body, but that ultimately has an existence

52 Garland-Thomson, Extraordinary Bodies, 6. 53 Garland-Thomson, Extraordinary Bodies, 8; Mark Jeffreys, “The Visible Cripple (Scars and Other Disfiguring Displays Included),” in Disability Studies: Enabling the Humanities, ed. Sharon L. Snyder, Brenda Jo Brueggemann, and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2002), 33.

21 outside of them. Indeed, the body’s biology may resist the cultural constructions placed on it, when it refuses to fit neatly into acceptable narratives of normalcy and deviance, when it refuses to have its extraordinariness hidden or cured.54 Because of this liberatory potential, it is crucial for scholarship to acknowledge “the conjoined material reality of both culture and biology, even while recognizing it as only partially knowable and never wholly objective.”55

Nonetheless, my dissertation focuses more upon the cultural dimension of the body, since that is what enables the study of medieval disability. Because bodies are cultural, they have a history, and are “an integral part of history to the extent of shaping it

– much as economic or social structures as well as intellectual or spiritual representations do – so that the body is simultaneously both the product and the medium.”56 As a result, scholars can write the history of the body at various points in time and in various cultures, as my work does with the disabled body in Anglo-Saxon England.

Typologies of Disability

Disability studies provides a number of ways to map a culture’s concept of disability and thereby write the disabled body’s history. In Claiming Disability: Knowledge and

Identity, Simi Linton provides a useful typology of disability that foregrounds the social

54 Jeffreys, “The Visible Cripple,” 39. For instance, Jeffreys narrates the story of Jim, his adopted brother who was born without legs. He explains how his parents, guided by the cultural imperative of normativity, attempted to hide Jim’s missing legs by making him uses prostheses and wear long pants, but Jim resisted by using a wheel chair and refusing to put on his prosthetic legs, thereby making his body’s impairments visible in defiance of social expectations. Ibid., 35-36. 55 Ibid. 56 Metzler, Social History of Disability, 1.

22 variables that structure the participation of disabled people within their communities.57 In this typology, Linton adapts and updates the 1948 system of classification developed by

Jane R. Hanks and L. M. Hanks, Jr., in The Physically Handicapped in Certain Non-

Occidental Societies.58 She defines six distinct categories into which cultures can be placed, and which constitute a spectrum from least to most inclusive.59 The category of

Pariah comprises cultures in which disabled people are generally denied their rights and refused assistance, and are considered a threat to their communities, to the point where they may be abused or killed.60 In similar fashion, the cultures in the category of Social and Economic Liability consider disabled people to impair the well-being of a society, and to be a drain on resources or a distraction from more important needs.61 The category of Tolerant Utilization includes cultures in which disabled people are largely marginalized, but are permitted to participate to the extent that they can fulfill necessary or useful roles and duties.62 Likewise, cultures in the category of Limited Participation determine disabled people’s roles and status according to their ability to be productive in terms of the standards set by abled people. By way of contrast, cultures in the category of

Laissez-Faire do not overtly exclude disabled people, who have relations with the abled majority, and receive support from their family and community, although disabled people do not have the power to set the terms of their own accommodation. Lastly, the category

57 Simi Linton, Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 37-38. 58 Ibid., 37. 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid., 38-44. 61 Ibid., 45. 62 Ibid., 51.

23 of Participation and Accommodation consists of cultures that proactively work towards the fair and equal participation of all members of their society.

Although this schematic presentation of the typology may suggest that cultures can only fall into one category, the social reality is obviously more complex. Since cultures are never monolithic, they often span several categories at a single moment, and move in and out of them over time. An example from recent American history serves to illustrate this point. In the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century, disabled people, particularly the so-called “feebleminded,” were routinely placed within institutions, with the result that, by 1939, seventy-four percent of “feebleminded” individuals who had been formally diagnosed had been incarcerated.63 This drive towards institutionalization was based in part in the assumption that the “feebleminded” were social and economic liabilities, who could not conduct themselves according to basic social laws, and who constituted a drain upon society.64 Institutional programs were presented as a solution to both problems, as they offered places where the

“feebleminded” could be monitored by professionals, and where resources could be conserved by concentrating them on groups rather than on individuals.65 Yet, many institutions failed to provide proper care to the disabled people that they housed, and even actively harmed and abused them, treating them like pariahs rather than patients. A 1916

63 Sharon L. Snyder and David T. Mitchell, Cultural Locations of Disability (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 90. 64 Ibid., 86-88. Obviously, people’s motives are more complex than this nutshell history can suggest. Although institutionalization was driven by eugenic logic on a social level, individual families might have felt that their children would receive better care in institutions, or that they lacked the resources they needed to care for them. 65 Ibid., 89-90.

24 study showed that, within two months of admission, more than ten percent of people admitted to institutions died.66 As attitudes towards disabled people have begun to shift, and especially as these institutional abuses have become known, many people have tended to eschew institutionalization for relatives with developmental delays, and to take care of them at home, adopting an approach more typical of Linton’s Laissez-Faire cultures. Nevertheless, even in the present day, institutionalization remains an option, and certain institutions continue to abuse their residents.67 For this reason, the United States currently exhibits traits that would place it in several categories, although to a greater or lesser degree in the case of each category, and even in the case of certain impairments.

For instance, people with developmental delays were institutionalized at a disproportionate rate compared to other impairments. The same is likely to be true of most other cultures, since, as established above, disability tends not to be a stable or coherent category, and therefore invites varied social responses. As this study will show, the Anglo-Saxons occupied several positions in the middle of Linton’s spectrum, but almost without exception eschewed the extreme categories of Pariah and Participation and Accommodation.

66 Ibid., 91. 67 A particularly egregious example is the Judge Rotenberg Education Center in Canton, MA, that uses electric shocks to change the behavior of autistic, developmentally delayed, schizophrenic, and other neurodiverse students. See Jennifer Gonnerman, “The School of Shock,” Mother Jones, last modified 25 April 2014, http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/08/school-shock.

Models of Disability

Although Linton’s typologies are extremely useful for mapping the cultural status of disabled people, disability studies as a discipline inclines more towards the use of models of disability, i.e. simplified, theoretical representations of how society perceives disability and treats disabled people. Critics have identified numerous models of disability, which include the three medieval models that I discussed earlier in the chapter, but the three most common are the moral, medical, and social models. It is worth briefly rehearsing what these three models involve, since I shall refer to them frequently throughout my study.

The moral model holds that people’s disabilities are caused by their own sins or moral failings, or by those of their progenitors, with the result that impairments tend to be perceived as marks of shame, or as indications of evil.68 The moral model is often described as the earliest model of disability, and therefore has been treated as the primary model within the Middle Ages. As Metzler comments, the “belief of modern authors that ancient or medieval societies invariably saw a link between sin and illness appears to be the dominant historiographical notion on the subject of disability.”69 On the contrary,

Metzler argues that, while people in the Middle Ages sometimes drew a connection between sin and disability, it was not the only or even the primary explanation that they had for disability.70 Metzler reaches this conclusion primarily through an analysis of the

68 Anita Silvers et al., Disability, Difference, Discrimination: Perspectives on Justice in Bioethics and Public Policy (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1998), 57-58. 69 Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe, 13. 70 Ibid.

26 high and late Middle Ages, but the same seems to have been true of Anglo-Saxon

England.

The medical model substitutes a physiological or mental deficit for the moral flaw of earlier periods and thereby pathologizes disability.71 As Simi Linton puts it, “the medicalization of disability casts human variation as a deviation from the norm, as pathological condition, as deficit, and, significantly, as an individual burden and personal tragedy.”72 This model constructs disability as an individual condition or personal health problem that calls for medical intervention. This medical intervention has the primary aim of curing or ameliorating people’s impairments, but also serves a gatekeeping function by determining who has access to other forms of social assistance.73 To cite an obvious example, many disability services require people to have a medical diagnosis before they provide them with accommodations. Consequently, it positions disabled people as patients who are subject to medical authority, and doctors and other medical professionals as the authorities on disability.

Edward Wheatley offers a medieval equivalent to the medical model in his religious model of disability. Essentially, he states that institutionalized religion took the place of institutionalized medicine in much of Europe during the Middle Ages, since medicine had very little to offer to people with impairments.74 The church’s authority over the discursive terrain of illness and disability arose out of Jesus’ role as a miraculous

71 Silvers et al., Disability, Difference, Discrimination, 59 72 Linton, Claiming Disability, 11-12. 73 Ibid., 60-61. 74 Wheatley, Stumbling Blocks, 9.

27 healer and a spiritual physician.75 The church claimed Christ’s curative powers for itself, and so appeared to offer disabled Christians the best chance for healing, in much the same way as the medical establishment does in the present day. Moreover, as Wheatley demonstrates, the discursive power of religion in the Middle Ages and that of medicine in the modern world are remarkably similar:

At its most restrictive, medicine tends to view a disability as an absence of full health that requires a cure; similarly, medieval Christianity often constructed disability as a spiritually pathological site of absence of the divine where “the works of God could be made manifest.” Modern medicine tends to retain discursive control over disability by holding out the possibility of cures through developments in research; medieval Christianity held out the possibility of cures through freedom from sin and increased personal faith, whether that of the person with the disability or a miracle worker nearby. And thus, to some extent in modern medicine and to a greater one in medieval Christianity, there is a tacit implication that somehow the disabled person himself is to blame for resisting a cure.76

Through this discourse, the church achieved control over disabled Christians, and made them into the “docile bodies” that Foucault describes.77 That is, it made disabled people obedient to its own power, diminished the possibility of their independent agency, and thereby increased their economic utility to itself.78 Once again, Wheatley’s study is concerned primarily with the high and late Middle Ages, and the situation in Anglo-

Saxon England was slightly different. The Anglo-Saxon church certainly made religious and economic use of disabled people, as it relied upon the healing of disabled people to

75 Ibid., 10. 76 Ibid., 11. 77 Ibid., 12. For a more detailed discussion of the docile body, see Michel Foucault, Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison (Paris: Gallimard, 1975). 78 Ibid.

28 build its own reputation as a site for miracles, and thereby attract patrons and their money. Nonetheless, it does not seem to have wielded the same discursive power over them and controlled them in quite the same way. The church provided one curative option among many, and, while it might have presented that option as the best one, the

Anglo-Saxons were far more syncretic and eclectic in their approach to healing.79

The social model arose as an activist response to the medical model, and so it is often presented in tension with it. It characterizes disability as a social construction, which, in similar fashion to gender or race, is a “culturally and historically specific phenomenon, not a universal and unchanging essence.”80 That is, disability is the result of social and environmental factors that privilege non-impaired people and that marginalize or exclude those who are impaired. Therefore, in contrast to impairment, disability is not defined by any biological basis; it is experiential, public and structural.81 Consequently, the social model challenges the medical model’s assumption that disabled people’s bodies are defective and require correction; instead, it proposes that the society in which they live needs to be radically restructured so that it is more inclusive and allows for more modes of participation.82 Intertwined with the social model is the identity model, which asserts that disability is a formative and central aspect of people’s identity. That is, disabled people have the social and political experience of living within a social system designed for abled people, which serves as the basis for a kind of group identification and

79 See Chapter Five for a fuller discussion of how the Anglo-Saxon church made use of disabled people. 80 Shakespeare, “Social Model of Disability,” 216. 81 Ibid. 82 Brenda Jo Brueggemann, Arts and Humanities, The SAGE Reference Series on Disability: Key Issues and Future Directions (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications), 3.

29 affiliation.83 Disability serves to mark out people’s membership in a minority group, and so functions in a similar fashion to gender, race, or sexuality.84

Since the social model is dependent upon the insights of modern activism, it does not seem to have much in common with medieval conceptions of disability, which were rooted very much in biology. Even so, the social model provides the most appropriate and useful standpoint from which to study medieval disability from a present-day perspective, since it permits the separation of impairment and disability that is so methodologically useful. As a result, it allows us to discuss the ways in which disability is culturally and historically specific. It enables us to acknowledge that, although people in the Middle

Ages had the same types of impairments that people do in the present day, they would have understood and experienced them differently because of the different social context in which they lived. As a result, the social model underpins my project and informs my analysis throughout the dissertation.

Language Usage in the Dissertation

Finally, I need to discuss my general language usage in the dissertation, as it is sometimes at odds with general practice in the field of disability studies. The disability rights movement has worked and is still working to alter language that involves the derogation of disabled people, which includes open slurs and words that have negative connotations. For instance, it has targeted words such as “lame” and “crippled,” and

83 Ibid. 84 Ibid.

30 endeavored to replace them with the more neutral “mobility impaired” in an ongoing process of reform.85 This type of language reform simply did not exist in Anglo-Saxon

England, and so their texts often use words that a present-day reader might perceive as derogatory, although the Anglo-Saxons probably would have considered them to be blandly descriptive. For instance, Anglo-Saxon authors often refer to people with mobility impairments as lama “lame” or healt “halt.” In the present day, these terms are pejorative; in the Anglo-Saxon period, they were standard usage. Since language is such an important guide to how the Anglo-Saxons perceived disability,86 I do not wish to obscure their lexicon by replacing it with the more neutral terms favored by the disability rights movement. Consequently, I use two distinct sets of vocabulary within my dissertation. When I discuss disability in the present day or generally within Anglo-Saxon society, I employ the vocabulary advocated by the disability rights movement. When I examine disability in specific Anglo-Saxon texts, however, I endeavor to reflect the vocabulary of the texts, which, for the sake of readability, means that I use the present- day equivalents of Old English words, such as “lame” for lama or “halt” for healt. In this way, I aim to reflect the linguistic situation in Anglo-Saxon England, and also respect the importance of the linguistic changes that have taken place in recent decades.

85 Admittedly, “cripple” is a more complex case, in that it has been reclaimed by people with mobility impairments, particularly in the short form “crip.” Nonetheless, in this new context, it is very much an in- group word. 86 Chapter One is devoted to exploring what information about impairment and disability may be gleaned from the Anglo-Saxon lexicon.

Structure of Dissertation

With this theoretical foundation in place, I wish to provide an overview of the scope and structure of my project. As established earlier, my dissertation involves the careful reconstruction of the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of impairment and disability, and the lives of disabled Anglo-Saxons. Different chapters, therefore, approach the subject from different angles in order to offer the most complete and comprehensive account of it that the corpus allows.

Chapters One and Two consider the linguistic and educational foundations of the

Anglo-Saxon concept of impairment. Chapter One initiates the study by discussing perhaps the most fundamental source that we have for the Anglo-Saxon construction of disability: the Old English lexicon with its wealth of lexemes for impairments, such as unhælu, unfernes, hefignes, and untrumness. This chapter catalogues and classifies these lexemes, and maps some of the important connotations and associations that the Anglo-

Saxons had with impairment, such as sickness, heaviness, and the absence of wholeness.

It also considers the question of whether the Anglo-Saxons had lexical equivalents of

“impairment” and “disability,” and reaches the conclusion that their lexemes were closer in meaning to “impairment” than to “disability.” In the process, it establishes the lexeme unhælu as the most apt term for the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of impairment and disability.

Chapter Two discusses the Latin intellectual tradition that the Anglo-Saxons would have encountered in their education, and that would have laid another kind of foundation for their thinking about unhælu. In other words, it discusses their version of

“disability theory,” the writings that would have shaped scholarly thinking about the

32 topic. Although the educated elite constituted a small percentage of the population, they were responsible for almost all of the texts that we have available to us, and so it is crucial to think about the books that helped to form their beliefs. Therefore, this chapter discusses the school-room grammars and riddles, Isidore’s encyclopedic Etymologiae, and Gregory the Great’s Cura pastoralis and Dialogi, all of which were widely read in schoolrooms and monasteries. It shows how these Latin texts might have contributed to educated individuals’ conception of unhælu by providing them a framework in which they could consider the forms and functions of the normative body and its extraordinary counterpart.

Chapters Three, Four, and Five shift the focus to the question of how the Anglo-

Saxons responded to impairment, and what their responses suggest about their construction of disability. These chapters primarily consider the three forms of bot “a making good, remedy, restitution” that the Anglo-Saxons made available to impaired people in their communities.87 They examine, respectively, the leeches’ remedies as recorded in the curative corpus, the personal injury schedules in the law-codes, and the healing miracles of the saints and their cults, all of which are connected by the common lexeme bot. To be more specific, Chapter Three uses the leeches’ remedies to provide a fine-grained description of the Anglo-Saxon concept of unhælu. It sets out their complex understanding of etiology, thinks through the logic of their remedies and explores these remedies’ striking syncretism, and delineates precisely what conditions fell into the category of unhælu. It concludes that the Anglo-Saxons did not make much distinction

87 DOE Online, s.v. “bot.”

33 among impairment, illness, and injury, but rather primarily differentiated conditions on the basis of whether they were permanent and congenital, or temporary and acquired.

Chapter Four builds on this foundation and considers the evidence provided by the Anglo-Saxon law-codes. It begins by discussing the personal injury laws, which offered bot in the form of financial compensation for impairments inflicted through criminal or accidental violence. It argues that these laws sought to minimize unhælu, which had deleterious social and economic effects, by averting feuds that would lead to further injuries and impairments. Moreover, the chapter uses these laws to provide insight into how the Anglo-Saxons valued the different parts of the body, and therefore what impairments they considered the most severe. Likewise, it demonstrates how the Anglo-

Saxon concept of unhælu balanced functionality and aesthetics, and took both of them into account when considering an impairment’s severity. By way of contrast, the chapter also considers how the law uses impairment itself as bot, since the Anglo-Saxons made use of juridical mutilation as punishment for certain crimes. It discusses how this punitive use of mutilation involved a similar understanding of functionality and aesthetics to that of the personal injury schedules, and examines how it made certain types of unhælu into markers of criminality, which might have resulted in the stigmatization of people with those impairments. Lastly, it deals with the laws that exclude people who are “deaf and dumb” from legal participation, and addresses their implications for such people’s social identity and status, which seems to have been distinct from most other unhal individuals.

Chapter Five caps the discussion of how the Anglo-Saxons responded to unhælu, as it examines the interventions provided by the church, particularly the saints’ cults, as

34 they are represented within hagiographical narratives. Specifically, it examines how the church advocated charity as a Christian duty, and also how it provided access to healing miracles through the saints’ shrines and relics. In the process, it explores how these interventions would have created a symbiotic relationship between impaired people and the church, in which such people would have depended upon the church for support and healing, and it would have relied upon them to further the work of salvation, build its reputation, and increase its income. Moreover, this chapter moves the study away from the reductive concept of remedy that the medical model would prescribe as the most logical approach to the topic. Following the social model, it presents disability not as a condition requiring a cure but as a way of living in a society that is almost inevitably structured with abled people in mind. The hagiographical narratives make this sort of reconstruction possible, as they provide a wealth of incidental detail about the supplicants who seek cures at the shrines in order to show how the saints’ intervention transforms their lives. As a result, they offer insight into how people acquired impairments, how they lived with them and managed them, how they were treated by their communities and each other, and how they went about seeking the help of the saints. This chapter, therefore, presents the fullest reconstruction of the lives of impaired people. At the same time, this chapter explores how impairment and deformity sometimes functioned as markers of sanctity, as certain saints experienced unhælu and understood it as a sign that they were blessed by God. Consequently, this chapter attempts to map out the complex, even contradictory construction of unhælu as an undesirable impediment that called for a cure, and as a sign of holiness that underscored the saints’ exceptional status.

Chapter Six takes a different angle on the Anglo-Saxons’ construction of unhælu by examining the cultural uses to which the concept was put. Firstly, the chapter discusses Asser’s De rebus gestis Ælfredi, his biography of Alfred of Wessex. In it, Asser addresses Alfred’s lifelong, chronic unhælu, which the king experienced as disabling and feared would make him unfit to rule. Asser negotiates the complex cultural associations with unhælu, foreclosing the possibility that the king’s condition might be a result of sin, and characterizing it as a mark of his almost saintly virtue. Secondly, the chapter explores how the translation projects traditionally associated with Alfred of Wessex’s educational initiatives make use of unhælu as a metaphor. It focuses primarily on the two post-

Alfredian works, the OE Soliloquies and the OE Boethius, which employ impairment as metaphor to discuss complex philosophical and theological ideas. Primarily, it examines moments when the Old English text differs from the Latin original, either through the translator’s misunderstanding the original text or attempting to make it culturally comprehensible to his audience. It argues that those moments merit the most attention since they serve to reveal the beliefs about impairment peculiar to the Anglo-Saxon translator, rather than those of the Latin author. In this way, the chapter traces the cultural presence of unhælu, and moves the dissertation beyond reconstructing the concept into thinking of its relevance for future scholarship.

Chapter Seven concludes the project by considering unhælu in matters of life and death. It proposes that the Anglo-Saxons viewed bodily health and integrity as transient, so that they might have considered unhælu to be an inevitable, if undesirable, part of the life-cycle. It explores how this idea is expressed within Beowulf and other vernacular

36 texts, and compares it with the present-day activist concept of temporary able- bodiedness, which is the notion that most people will become disabled at some point in their lives. It develops this argument further by considering how the Anglo-Saxons frequently associated unhælu and death, and characterized them as similar states. At the same time, the chapter demonstrates how the Anglo-Saxons believed that unhælu itself was a temporary state, which ended when Christians were reborn into their resurrection body. This resurrection body was almost inevitably characterized as young, healthy, and whole, and served as a reward for a Christian’s faith and good works. Consequently, people’s unhælu was potentially brief and transient when viewed from the perspective of eternity, and only had to be endured for a lifetime before the body was restored in the afterlife.

Limitations

As this structure should suggest, my study aims to offer a comprehensive account of disability from multiple perspectives, yet it involves two important, deliberate limitations that should be specified at the outset. Firstly, as established at the outset, my dissertation focuses upon the Anglo-Saxon textual record. As a result, it does not make extensive use of archaeological evidence. Although I believe that a study of the archaeological record is important to understanding disability in Anglo-Saxon England, I have neither access to such material, nor the training necessary to interpret it. For these practical reasons, my dissertation concentrates on the textual record, and only supplements it, where germane,

37 with Lee’s excellent work on the archaeological record.88 Nonetheless, its conclusions should be of use outside the field of literary studies, and should help people who are doing archaeological research to interpret their physical findings.

Secondly and perhaps more importantly, I am deliberately excluding from the scope of my discussion mental health impairments and other similar conditions,89 which are indicated in Old English by terms such as ungewit “madness, insanity”; wodness

“madness, fury, frenzy, rage”; and ungemynd “confusion of mind, dementedness.”90

Although such conditions are disabling and deserve further investigation, the Anglo-

Saxons seem to have considered them a distinct enough category that it makes sense to treat them in a separate, future study. Specifically, the Anglo-Saxons seem to have associated them with possession by non-human entities such as demons and elves, or with an oppressive excess of emotion or desire in ways that they rarely did with non-mental impairments.91 For this reason, my dissertation only examines impairments that do not

88 In particular, interested readers should consult Lee, “Body and Soul: Disease and Impairment in Anglo- Saxon England,” 293-309; and “Body Talks: Disease and Disability in Anglo-Saxon England,” 145-64. 89 Even in the present day, mental health impairments are often considered fundamentally different from physical impairments, which may be a result of the long-standing mind/body distinction in the Western tradition, or may be a consequence of how mental health impairments seem to be more constructed and contingent than physical impairments. As Davis explains, “psychiatric disorders” lack a “discrete entity” that can be associated with the impairment, and instead consist of a “grab bag of symptoms that could easily comprise many other diagnostic categories. End of Normal, 46. For a more detailed discussion of this point, see Lennard J. Davis, Obsession: A History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 209-34. 90 BT, s.v. “ungewit,” “wodness,” and “ungemynd.” 91 For some scholarship that begins to point to these initial, very tentative conclusions, see Leslie Lockett, Anglo-Saxon Psychologies in the Vernacular and Latin Traditions (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011), 54-109; and Richard Raiswell and Peter Dendle, “Demon Possession in Anglo-Saxon and Early Modern England: Continuity and Evolution in Social Context,” Journal of British Studies 47 (2008): 738- 67.

38 directly affect people’s cognitive and intellectual faculties, or that, roughly conceived, are impairments of the “body” rather than the “mind.”92

92 From both a medieval and a modern standpoint, this distinction between mind and body is more of a theoretical than an actual one. The Anglo-Saxons had an extremely physicalized concept of the mind and its activities within the chest cavity. Lockett, Anglo-Saxon Psychologies, 54-109. Likewise, present-day neuroscience suggests that mental health impairments are often the result of physical factors such as brain chemistry, hormones, genetics, etc.

Chapter 1: The Old English Lexicon of Impairment and Disability

The Importance of the Lexicon

A culture’s language is a rich source of information about how it constructs and conceives of impairment and disability, since, as linguistic anthropology has shown,

“language structures reflect experiential-conceptual structures, which, in turn, reflect social structures.”1 Language reveals how people perceive and experience their social world, and what concepts and categories they use to structure it. As a result, it is able to offer insight into people’s values, beliefs, attitudes, and needs as they relate to impairment and disability.2 For this reason, the Old English lexicon is a particularly valuable witness to Anglo-Saxon conceptions of impairment and disability.3 Indeed, together with archaeological findings, the lexicon provides one of the few sources that reveal how Anglo-Saxons outside of the literary and religious elite perceived and experienced disability, since they may not have been responsible for the production of the

1 Marcel Danesi, Linguistic Anthropology: A Brief Introduction, 3rd ed. (Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press, 2012), vii. 2 Language may also have a role in shaping people’s worldview, though linguistic relativity – the idea that people’s language affects their cognition and perception of the world – remains a controversial theory, and a full discussion of its merits would take me away from my central argument without much benefit to it. For its earliest and still most influential articulation, see Benjamin Lee Whorf, “Science and Linguistics,” Technology Review 42 (1940): 227-31, 247-48. 3 Here and throughout this chapter, I am considering impairment and disability to be part of the same conceptual structure. That is, they are two aspects of the Western construction of people with extraordinary bodies. So, when I speak about the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of impairment and disability, I am speaking about the equivalent of that whole structure.

corpus but would have spoken the language. That said, we need to bear in mind that our knowledge of Old English is largely derived from a late West Saxon Schriftsprache that was highly standardized and that differed from spoken Old English in ways that are generally only evidenced in Middle English.4 For instance, Jeremy J. Smith makes the argument that the rapid appearance of Norse words in Middle English suggests that spoken Old English contained many more loanwords than were attested in the written language.5 Consequently, our present-day reconstruction of Old English may be more reflective of the language written by the elite than spoken by the general populace, but it seems unlikely that the Schriftsprache would have been entirely distinct from the dialect spoken in tenth-century Wessex.

In what follows, then, I focus on the Old English lexicon of impairment and disability as a means of exploring Anglo-Saxon perceptions and experiences of these states. As the least stable and most mutable element of a language, the lexicon is best able to reflect social beliefs and attitudes, and changes within them.6 The modern English lexicon of impairment and disability provides an excellent illustration of this

4 Robert D. Fulk and Christopher M. Cain, “Introduction,” in A History of Old English Literature, ed. Robert D. Fulk and Christopher M. Cain (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), 24. As Fulk and Cain note, only a tiny fraction of surviving Old English manuscripts date from before the latter half of the tenth century and are in a dialect other than late West Saxon, although certain of the late West Saxon texts incorporate features from other dialects, especially Anglian. On the development of the late West Saxon Schriftsprache, see Helmut Gneuss, “The Origin of Standard Old English and Æthelwold’s school at Winchester,” Anglo-Saxon England 1 (1972): 63-83; and Walter Hofstetter, “Winchester and the Standardization of Old English Vocabulary,” Anglo-Saxon England 17 (1988): 139-61. 5 Jeremy J. Smith, Old English: A Linguistic Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 65 6 Certain aspects of the lexicon are, of course, more stable than others. The open classes such as nouns and verbs are much less stable than the closed classes such as pronouns and prepositions – that is, we add new nouns and verbs to English every day, but very rarely add pronouns or prepositions.

phenomenon. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was medically and socially acceptable to refer to disabled people as, for instance, “retarded,” “crippled,” or

“spastic.”7 Medical professionals used these terms when they diagnosed people with various impairments, and they intended them to serve as neutral descriptions of the conditions. Even given this intent, though, these terms were fundamentally pejorative, since they were based in an understanding of disability as deviance or deficiency, and thereby legitimated a negative perception of disability.8 Unsurprisingly, they migrated into the wider social sphere as slurs and insults, such as “retard” or “spaz.”9 In recent decades, though, disability activists have worked to change the social acceptability of these words, so that they are beginning to be recognized as a form of hate speech, and becoming unacceptable in public discourse, although this process is still ongoing.

Likewise, activists have reclaimed words such as “cripple” (often in the form “crip”) and

“gimp,” and used them in transgressive and confrontational ways as a means of asserting the right to name their own experience.10 As a result of these efforts, the terminology has

7 Mark Sherry, Disability Hate Crimes (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010), 34, 53. 8 Ibid., 53. 9 Ibid., 34. Interestingly, these terms often underwent nominalization when becoming an insult, so retarded would be a clinical term but retard would be a slur. 10 Linton, Claiming Disability, 16-17. The performance artist and poet Nancy Mairs offers a powerful account of why she has chosen to call herself a cripple:

I am a cripple. I choose this word to name me. I choose from among several possibilities, the most common of which are “handicapped” and “disabled.” I made the choice a number of years ago, without thinking, unaware of my motives for doing so. Even now, I’m not sure what those motives are, but I recognize that they are complex and not entirely flattering. People—crippled or not— wince at the word “cripple,” as they do not at “handicapped” or “disabled.” Perhaps I want them to wince. I want them to see me as a tough customer, one to whom the fates/gods/viruses have not been kind, but who can face the brutal truth of her existence squarely. As a cripple, I swagger. But, to be fair to myself, a certain amount of honesty underlies my choice. “Cripple” seems to me a clean word, straightforward and precise. It has an honorable history, having made its first appearance in the Lindisfarne Gospel in the tenth century. As a lover of words, I like the accuracy with which it describes my condition: I have lost the full use of my limbs.

shifted significantly within public discourse, so that it has become preferred to speak about “people with disabilities” (as of the 1970s) or “disabled people” (as of the 1990s).11

As Paul T. Jaeger and Cynthia Ann Bowman explain, this language is more humane and places emphasis on the personhood of disabled people, and largely reflects the efforts of disability activists who have asserted their right to be treated as equal human beings.12

As this brief overview demonstrates, the lexicon is highly responsive to changes in social beliefs and attitudes towards impairment and disability, and reflects the status quo on at least the public level. The Anglo-Saxon situation is obviously distinct from that of the present-day, in that the Anglo-Saxons’ language reform efforts were never directed at improving the status of disabled people. If anything, this difference is a benefit in the context of the research, as it means that the Anglo-Saxons would have unselfconsciously used the words for impairment and disability that seemed most natural to them, without thinking about whether they were offensive. What is more problematic is that the lateness of the manuscript evidence and the uniformity of the Schriftsprache may have the effect of masking any shifts within the period, so that my findings may be geographically and chronologically limited to Wessex in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries for the

Mairs, “On Being a Cripple,” in Plaintext: Essays by Nancy Mairs (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1986), 8-9. We should note that the word “cripple” has an even longer history than Mairs suggests, as it has a close ancestor in the Old English lexeme crypel. 11 Linton, Claiming Disability, 13. There remains some debate about whether to use people-first language as in “people with disabilities,” or whether to foreground disability as an important point of identity and a source of pride through “disabled people. “Disabled people” is becoming more common in the disability community, and so is the term that I will be using throughout my dissertation. 12 Paul T. Jaeger and Cynthia Ann Bowman, Understanding Disability (Westport: Greenwood, 2005), 4.

most part.13 Yet, these limitations are unavoidable in this type of broad study, and, as long as we recognize them, they do not make the information that we can glean from the

Old English lexicon any less useful for gaining insight into how a community of Anglo-

Saxons perceived and experienced their social world.

The Absence of Impairment and Disability in the Old English Lexicon

I begin my study of the lexicon by noting a crucial absence within it. Specifically, Old

English has no lexemes that are direct ancestors of the modern English terms

“impairment” and “disability,” or that can be considered true cognates of them.

“Impairment” comes into the language via Old French empeirement and “disability” via

Anglo-Norman abilitie, and both words have substantially different meanings from their

Modern English descendents.14 Equally, as I shall demonstrate, Old English has no lexemes that cover an identical semantic range to “impairment” or “disability.” It has lexemes that are similar to impairment in that they refer to what the WHO deems problems in body function and structure, but they have additional denotative or connotative properties. For instance, words such as adl may mean both “illness” and

“impairment.” Old English has no lexeme that is equivalent to “disability” and that indicates the social experience of impairment. This absence does not mean, of course, that the Anglo-Saxons did not recognize impairment as a physical difference, or that it

13 Although my study of the lexicon is limited in its geographical and chronological coverage, the scope of my project will be widened in later chapters through the inclusion of datable Anglo-Latin material from other regions. 14 Empeirement means a “worsening,” although it was used of injury and impairment. Abilitie means power or authority to do a thing of legal validity, suitableness or aptitude, or capability to do something. OED Online, s.v. “impairment,” “disability.”

did not have social consequences. Rather, it means that they conceived of and responded to impairment in different ways, which the remainder of this project will delineate.

Anglo-Saxon Lexemes for Impairment and Disability

On a practical level, the absence of direct Old English equivalents to “impairment” and

“disability” has meant that I had to develop my lexicon of impairment and disability from the scattered evidence of the vernacular corpus. Specifically, I searched the Dictionary of

Old English Corpus on the World Wide Web for cases where individuals have a significant physical difference, and determined what lexemes are used to refer to them or their impairment.15 I also used the Dictionary of Old English,16 Bosworth and Toller’s

Anglo-Saxon Dictionary with Toller’s 1921 Supplement and Campbell’s 1972 Enlarged

Addenda and Corrigenda,17 and the Thesaurus of Old English to supplement my work with the corpus.18 After gathering this data, I looked for any patterns or trends that I could perceive, and determined the concepts and categories underlying them. It is important to acknowledge that this method has certain shortcomings. Firstly, it assumes that the

Anglo-Saxons would share our present-day notion of what would constitute a significant physical difference, which we cannot take for granted, but which is necessary if we are to

15 DOE Corpus. 16 DOE Online. 17 Joseph Bosworth, and T. Northcote Toller, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Based on the Manuscript Collections of Joseph Bosworth (Oxford, 1881-1898); Toller, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Supplement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1908-1921); Alistair Campbell, Enlarged Addenda and Corrigenda to the Supplement by T. Northcote Toller to An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Based on the Manuscript Collections of Joseph Bosworth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972). 18 Jane Roberts and Christian Kay, with Lynne Grundy, A Thesaurus of Old English in Two Volumes, 2nd ed., Costerus n.s. 131 (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2000).

collect any data at all. Secondly, it assumes that they would make the same mental connections between words that seem logical or intuitive to me, and thus consider those words part of the same conceptual category. I have tried to minimize this problem by making connections only where words are near-synonyms or are based on the same conceptual metaphor, so that they have some obvious link. Lastly, since I am more concerned with tendencies than individual cases, my analysis may flatten out any chronological and geographical variations that would have existed, assuming they were not already obscured by the common Schriftsprache. Nonetheless, even given these limitations, this methodology remains the most practical, comprehensive and useful way of constructing a lexicon of impairment and disability, since it draws on the Anglo-

Saxons’ responses to people with physical and mental differences, and attempts to make cultural sense of it. In what follows, I offer a series of brief discussions of each Anglo-

Saxon lexeme for impairment and disability, and conclude them with a summary of my findings in table form.

Unhælu

Christina Lee has recently suggested that “the closest we come to a term for disability in

Old English is unhal, since it seems to indicate not only physical weakness, but also includes concepts such as being unable to care for oneself physically, economically or even morally.”19 To be more precise, the noun unhælu would be directly parallel to

“disability,” and the adjective unhal would be the equivalent of “disabled.” Unhælu is,

19 Lee, “Disability,” 33.

however, a substantially rarer word than unhal, which may explain Lee’s preference for the adjectival form.20 According to Lee, unhælu can refer to both physical infirmity and its social consequences, which means that it covers the same semantic domains as impairment and disability. In particular, she foregrounds people’s inability to care for themselves as the most salient consequence of unhælu. In the present day, disability activists have worked to break the connection between disability and dependence, and so we may resist considering unhælu as an equivalent to disability, if it is largely defined by dependence.21 Yet, as my reconstruction of unhælu in later chapters will illustrate, unhal people in the Anglo-Saxon period often relied upon their kin-group and community for assistance and support, so that dependence upon other people for succor was an extremely common social consequence of impairment during the time. If disability comprises the social consequences of impairment, dependence would have been a central part of the Anglo-Saxon conception of disability, so Lee’s assertions accurately reflect the situation within the period. Nevertheless, Lee’s discussion of the lexeme unhal forms

20 As an illustration, the DOE Corpus contains around 100 entries for unhal, and only around 50 for unhælu (in the forms unhæl and unhælo). BT gives the standardized spelling of the noun as unhælu. BT, s.v. “unhælu.” 21 Very few impairments result in a person being dependent on a caregiver or a medical institution, particularly with the increase in available accommodations. The majority of disabled people hold down jobs, maintain a residence, get married, have children, and lead lives that are not too different in shape to the abled populace. Where disabled people are dependent on a caregiver, they still often seek to maintain independence and control, such as the journalist and poet Mark O’Brien who spent most of his life in an iron lung, and who has spoken about the importance of employing caregivers to whom he can give instructions and fire if they prove to be unsatisfactory. Of course, none of this is to imply that people who are necessarily dependent upon caregivers or medical institutions have failed in some way, or are less worthy of respect, or should strive for an independence they cannot attain. Rather, it is to query the automatic association between disability and dependence. As O’Brien himself elegantly puts it in Breathing Lessons, “[t]he two mythologies about disabled people break down to one: we can't do anything, or two: we can do everything. But the truth is, we're just human.” Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O’Brien, directed by Jessica Yu (1990; Brooklyn, NY: Icarus Films, 2009), DVD.

a part of a preliminary study on her part, and so she does not provide much analysis of the lexicon in support of her arguments. As a result, her claims need to be more fully assessed in light of the lexical evidence, which will be presented in the remainder of this section.

I follow Lee’s lead in identifying unhælu as the most appropriate lexeme for the

Anglo-Saxon concept of impairment and disability, less because it is the closest Old

English equivalent of “impairment” or “disability,” and more because it best conveys the presuppositions that lie at the core of the concept in the same way that the Modern

English terms do. Specifically, unhælu is a deadjectival noun whose root is ultimately derived from hal.22 Hal carries the interrelated meanings of “healthy” and “whole,” both of which persist from the adjective’s Proto-Germanic ancestor *hailaz “healthy, whole.”23 As this etymology suggests, the Anglo-Saxons believed that health and ability were characterized by a fundamental wholeness, which had physical, mental, and spiritual dimensions, and which could be disrupted by illness, impairment, or injury.

Consequently, in the same way that “disability” indicates how modern English speakers conceive of the state as a lack of ability, unhælu shows how Old English speakers understood it as a lack of wholeness.24

Moreover, the Anglo-Saxons appear to have used unhælu as a generic word to refer to impairment, illness, and injury, states which they thought had a similar effect on bodily integrity. For instance, in multiple homilies, the writers describe the people who

22 Dieter Kastovsky, “Semantics and Vocabulary,” in The Cambridge History of the English Language, vol. 1, The Beginnings to 1066, ed. Richard M. Hogg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 338. 23 Vladimir Orel, A Handbook of German Etymology, s.v. “*hailaz” (Leiden: Brill, 2003). 24 See Chapter Three for a reconstruction of the category unhælu and the presuppositions that underlie it.

come to Christ and the saints for healing as unhal, especially in their generalizing or summative statements about their miracles. For example, Wulfstan states that “ure

Drihten Crist gehælde fela þæra on life þe unhale wæron” (Christ our Lord healed many of those who were unhal during their life).25 Likewise, Ælfric explains how St. Swithun cured so many impairments and ailments “þæt man þær findan ne mihte fif unhale menn of þam micclan heape” (that five unhal men could not be found there from the great multitude).26 In both of these cases, the homilists employ unhal as a broad and general term that encompasses all of the conditions that were healed.

Further evidence for unhal’s status as a generic term is provided by the Old

English Life of St. Margaret that is found in CCCC 303. St. Margaret, acting as an intercessor, asks on behalf of her petitioners that “innan heora husum nan unhal cild sy geboren, ne crypol, ne dumb, ne deaf, ne blind, ne ungewittes” (in their houses, no unhal child be born, not crippled, not dumb, not deaf, not blind, not mentally impaired).27 Here, unhal seems to serve as a kind of headword, introducing and encompassing the various impairments that follow it. It seems to encompass mobility impairments, sensory impairments, and, interestingly, mental health impairments. This use of unhælu in the

Life of St. Margaret has a potential parallel in the glosses within the Anglo-Saxon gospels, although these vernacular glosses of the Latin Vulgate may not be the most reliable guide to Anglo-Saxon linguistic practices. For instance, the Lindisfarne Gospels

25 Wulfstan, Homilies 4 (ed. Bethurum, Homilies of Wulfstan, 131). Throughout this chapter, I have used the DOE Corpus to find these examples of usage. Unless otherwise stated, all translations are mine. 26 Ælfric, LS 21 (1:450). 27 The Old English Life of St Margaret in CCCC 303, ch. 19 (ed. Clayton and Magennis, The Old English Lives of Saint Margaret, 168).

gloss “debiles clodos caecos” (weak, blind, lame) with “unhalum haltum blindum”

(unhal, halt, blind),28 and “multitudo magna languentium cæcorum claudorum aridorum”

(a great multitude of those who were ill, blind, lame, shriveled) with “menigo micelo micelo ðara unhalra [ue]l adligra blindena haltra scryngcara” (a great multitude of of those who are unhal or ill/impaired and blind, halt, shrunken).29 In both these cases, the glossator chose to render the word that stands at the head of the list of impairments as unhal, which again suggests that it was viewed as a general term that encompassed a range of conditions. Indeed, in the first set of glosses, it translates the Latin debiles, which, as I explore later in this section, functions in a similar generic manner.

Yet, unhælu does not only refer to impairments, injuries, and illness in a general sense; it can be used to refer to clearly defined conditions as well. For instance, both the

OE Boethius and the OE Soliloquies use unhal specifically in reference to visual impairments. In the OE Boethius, Wisdom remarks that “þu wast þaet ða men þe habbað unhale eagan ne magon fuleaðe locian ongean þa sunnan þonne hio beorhtost scinð … gif se æppel lef bið” (you know that those men who have unhal eyes cannot very easily look at the sun when it shines most brightly … if the pupil is injured).30 Likewise, in the OE

Soliloquies, Gesceadwisnes comments how “þa þe unhale æagan hæbbað magon beon ieð on þistrum þonne on leohte” (those who have unhal eyes can be more at ease in the

28 Walter W. Skeat, ed., The Holy Gospels in Anglo-Saxon, Northumbrian, and Old Mercian Versions, 4 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1871-1887), 3:149. 29 Skeat, ed., The Holy Gospels, 4:45. 30 OE Boethius, ch. 38 (ed. Godden and Irvine, 1:355). This translation is essentially identical to Godden and Irvine’s translation, but I wished to leave unhal untranslated within the sentence for analytical purposes.

darkness than in the light).31 In both cases, this visual unhælu does not appear to be complete blindness, but rather partial visual impairment caused by an injury or an anatomical weakness. This impairment primarily seems to impact a person’s ability to tolerate bright light, which means that it may not rise to level of a disability.

Nonetheless, the Anglo-Saxons used unhal to describe people suffering from more severe forms of impairment and injury that would have been profoundly disabling.

For instance, Læceboc Book 1 includes a surgical procedure that describes amputation of a limb. The compiler introduces the procedure with the following conditional phrase: “gif

þu scyle aceorfan oððe asniþan unhal lim of halum lice” (if you must amputate or cut off an unhal limb from a hal body).32 This surgery occurs as part of a section on how to treat a blackened and deadened body, which suggests that the unhal limb in question is badly infected and gangrenous. Likewise, Ælfric tells of how St. Agnes heals Constantia, an emperor’s daughter who contracts leprosy and develops ulcerous sores in her limbs.

According to Ælfric, “heo [i.e. Constantia] wæs swa ... snotor, and swyðe unhal, and on eallum limum egeslice wunda hæfde” (she was very … wise, and very unhal, and she had terrible wounds in all her limbs).33 Ælfric’s remark that Constantia is unhal is clarified by the following description of her ulcerated limbs, so that her unhælu seems to be the physical manifestation of her leprosy. Lastly, if we move beyond the human domain, the

OE Bede narrates how a horse that is frothing at the mouth and convulsing on the ground is cured at the site of Oswald’s martyrdom; the translator explains that “hit [i.e. the

31 OE Soliloquies, bk. 1 (72). 32 Leechbook I 35.4 (ed. Cockayne, 2:83). 33 Ælfric, LS 7 (1:185).

horse] blonn from unhalum styrenessum þara leoma” (it ceased from unhal movements of the limbs).34 Interestingly, the translator specifies that the limbs’ movement, rather than the limbs themselves, is unhal. This phrasing may suggest that the horse’s seizures indicate an underlying state of unhælu, or that they fall outside of the normative, healthy range of motion. In short, even in the cases where unhælu is used in reference to a specific condition, that condition can run the gamut from weakness of an organ to disintegration of the body. As a result, unhælu functions in the same way as

“impairment” to refer to a range of physical differences, but it also encompasses illnesses in a way that “impairment” does not.

On the basis of this lexical evidence, I may assess Lee’s suggestion that unhal and unhælu are the closest Anglo-Saxon equivalents to “disabled” and “disability,” since they seem to signify that people are unable to care for themselves physically, economically and even morally. In the majority of texts, the people who are described as unhal are in situations of physical and economic dependence.35 They are frequently unable to support themselves, to carry out the tasks of daily life, or to cure themselves. Yet, it is difficult to determine whether their dependence is meant to be conveyed by the lexeme unhal, or understood from how their situation is described in the text. Ultimately, though, this distinction may be meaningless. Within the Anglo-Saxon corpus, unhal people are disproportionately represented within miracle narratives. As a result, most of the attested instances of unhal and unhælu are found within the hagiographies and gospel glosses,

34 OE Bede 3.9 (3:178). 35 See Chapter Five of this dissertation.

where unhal people are brought to Christ, the apostles, or the saints for healing. All of these narratives have rhetorical reasons to emphasize the dependence and desperation of unhal people, as they wish to glorify the saints’ interventions and their transformative power.36 Even if unhal people were somewhat less dependent than these narratives suggest, though, the frequency with which unhal and unhælu appeared in these contexts of dependence would have led to these lexemes acquiring connotations of dependence, as the audience would have found it difficult to detach the meaning of unhal itself from a repeatedly associated context of dependence. Yet, the same argument might be made of any word in the Old English lexicon of impairment, all of which appear disproportionately in miracle narratives. As a result, unhal and unhælu do not seem to have a unique connection with dependence.

A slightly stronger case may be made for the claim that unhal and unhælu connote an inability to care for oneself morally, although this connotation is still not well supported by the evidence. Miracle narratives sometimes depict unhal people as spiritually dependent upon the holy men and women who cure them. In certain narratives, divine cures are accompanied by conviction and conversation, which serves to connect the health of the body and the health of the soul, and makes them both available through the saints and other religious paragons. For instance, St. Agnes heals and converts the aforementioned Constantia.37 The prophet Nathan does the same for King Tyrus, whom is described as “swa unhal on hys andwlitan, þæt ðæt adl þe hatað cancer hym was on

36 Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe, 126-28. 37 Ælfric, LS 7 (1:185).

næbbe fram þam swyðran næsþyrle, oð hyt com to þam eage” (so unhal in his face, that the adl that we call cancer was on his nose from the right nostril until it reached that eye).38 Yet, narratives that combine cure and conversion are less common, and so they would not have resulted in the same association between moral dependence and the lexemes unhælu and unhal that we observe with dependence in general.

Moreover, the Old English corpus contains a single, possible instance where unhælu may literally express a character’s moral status, and that status does not appear to be that of dependence. Specifically, when Grendel is first introduced in Beowulf, he is described as “[w]iht unhælo, / grim ond grædig” (a creature of unhælo, grim and greedy).39 Unhælo tends to be understood as “evil” or “unholiness” within this context, and to characterize Grendel as a cursed, destructive creature.40 Although this interpretation has become fairly standard, it is not the only possible option. Peter

Clemoes, for instance, translates “wiht unhælo” as “being of sickness,”41 and Alvin A.

Lee interprets it as “unhealthy being,” 42 both of which would be in line with the usual meaning of unhælu. Such a reading has multiple possible ramifications. It could refer to

Grendel’s physical alterity; the text does not provide many details about his appearance,

38 Vindicta Saluatoris 1.6 (ed. Cross, Two Old English Apocrypha, 249). 39 Klaeber’s Beowulf 120b-121a (7). 40 For instance, Fulk et al. suggest the reading “creature of evil.” Klaeber’s Beowulf, 124. Howell D. Chickering translates it as “unholy spirit.” Beowulf: A Dual-Language Edition, rev. ed. (New York: Anchor Books, 2006), 55. Similarly, Roy Liuzza renders it as “unholy creature.” Beowulf: A New Verse Translation (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview, 1999), 57. J. R. R. Tolkien, characteristically, suggests “accursèd thing” in his prose translation. Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, together with Sellic Spell, ed. Christopher Tolkien, (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), 16. 41 Peter Clemoes, Interactions of Thought and Language in Old English Poetry, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 12 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 39. 42 Alvin A. Lee, Gold-Hall and Earth-Dragon: Beowulf as Metaphor (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 217.

but they point to a kind of monstrous deformity. It could also refer to his dismemberment of the inhabitants of Heorot, as he literally makes them unhal or unwhole when he tears off their limbs. Lastly and perhaps least probably, it could refer to his association with the marshes and fens, which would have been sites of diseases such as malaria.43 Whatever the case, these possibilities suggest that it is not necessary to understand unhælo as “evil” or “unholiness” in this context. Even if we do interpret it in this more traditional way, however, evil and unholiness do not imply moral dependence. They suggest a total disregard for morality, which is in keeping with Grendel’s status as a creature that has been condemned by God as part of the kin of Cain.44

In sum, after considering the attested instances of unhælu and unhal in the corpus,

I would conclude that the lexemes are more equivalent to impairment and impaired than they are to disability and disabled. That is, they clearly denote people’s physical state, which may involve weakness, illness or impairment. They are much less likely to indicate the social consequences of that physical state, which tend to be conveyed by the broader textual context, but which may have become attached to them through repeated association. Nonetheless, because of how they convey the holism that is central to the

Anglo-Saxon concept of health and ability, I would still argue that they are the most appropriate words to use for the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of impairment and disability.

43 Cameron, Anglo-Saxon Medicine, 10-11; R. L. Gowland and A. G. Western, “Morbidity in the Marshes: Using Spatial Epidemiology to Investigate Skeletal Evidence for Malaria in Anglo-Saxon England (AD 410-1050),” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 147, no. 2 (February 2012): 301-11. 44 Klaeber’s Beowulf 102-114 (6-7).

Unfernes45

Although unhælu is the closest Anglo-Saxon equivalent to impairment, the Anglo-Saxon lexicon contains another word that has a similar denotative meaning: unfernes and its related adjective unfere. BT defines unfere as “incapacitated, disabled, infirm, feeble.”46

Indeed, the dictionary suggests that it is the only lexeme that means “disabled,” since it does not assign that denotation to any other word.47 While BT’s definitions might argue for using unfere and unfernes instead of unhal and unhælu, the lexical evidence does not support that conclusion. Unlike unhal, unfere is an exceptionally rare word, and is only attested in works composed late in or after the Anglo-Saxon period.48 The lexeme is found in only two Old English works, namely, in an entry in the C- and D-texts of the

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and the OE Honorius.49 The specific entry in the Anglo-Saxon

Chronicle is dated to 1055, while the OE Honorius is generally accepted as a twelfth- century text, which means they are just before or after the Norman Invasion.50 Likewise,

45 BT does not contain an entry for unfernes or unfernys, so I have adopted the spelling of the lexeme used in the Thesaurus of Old English, s.v. “weakness.” 46 BT, s.v. “unfere.” 47 BT Online. 48The lexeme’s positive equivalent, fere, is equally rare, appearing once in the OE Life of Machutus, and once in the C-text of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, three times in the D-text, and twice in the E-text. The entries in the two versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle come from 1016 onwards, and David Yerkes dates the OE Machutus to the late tenth century. The Old English Life of Machutus (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), xxxix-xlii. This evidence places fere earlier than unfere but still late within the period. 49There is a third possible instance in the lesser Cleopatra Glossary, but it appears to be a scribal error. That is, the glossary includes unfer, with grighund “greyhound” written above it, as part of a small group of terms about dogs. Herbert D. Meritt suggests that the scribe had leporarius in mind, which literally means “hare-like” but which was frequently applied to dogs such as greyhounds. He argues that the scribe conflated leprosus “leprous” with leporarius, and so used unfer as if it were a lemma for leprosus instead of leporarius. Some of the Hardest Glosses in Old English (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1968), 48- 49. While this explanation seems sensible to me, the gloss is problematic enough that I prefer to omit it. 50 Valerie Flint dates the first recension of Honorius’ Latin Elucidarius to in or just before 1100, and argues that it was written in England. “The Career of Honorius Augustodunensis: Some Fresh Evidence,” Revue Bénédictine 82 (1972): 63-86. Although older, her study has not been superseded. Consequently, the Old

unfernes, the noun form, appears only twice in late texts: the twelfth-century In festis sancta Marie, and the OE Honorius. This evidence suggests that unfere and unfernes may have only emerged in the eleventh century, and, even then, that they may not have been widely used. These limitations militate against using them as the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of impairment and disability, especially when compared to a much more common pair of terms like unhal and unhælu.

Nonetheless, although unfere and unfernes may appear infrequently within the corpus, BT’s definition suggests the lexeme was used to refer to disabled people, and so, for the purposes of this lexical study, it is necessary to look at the instances where it appears and consider their implications. As mentioned above, the first example is found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as part of the entry for 1055. In the C-text, it reads:

On ðam ylcan geare forðferde Tremerig se wylsca biscop sona æfter ðære hergunge; se wæs Æþelstanes biscopes gespelia syððan he unfere wæs.51

(In that same year, Tremerig the Welsh bishop passed away soon after that incursion; he was bishop Æþelstan’s subsitute since he was unfere.)

John of Worcester’s twelfth-century Chronicon ex chronicis provides an explanation for why Æþelstan would have required a substitute, noting that Tremerig took over the position “postquam ipse ministerium episcopale per se implere nequiuit, erat enim per annos tredecim oculorum lumine priuatus” (when he [i.e. Æthelstan] could not fulfil the

English translation has to be a twelfth-century work. N. R. Ker dates the manuscript that contains it to the mid-twelfth century, although that only can be taken as the work’s terminus ad quem. Ker, Catalogue., no. 209. 51 Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe, ed., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition, vol. 5: MS C (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2000), 116. The D-text differs only in orthography. G. P. Cubbin, ed., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition, vol. 6: MS D (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1996), 74.

episcopal office himself, for he was deprived of the light of his eyes for thirteen years).52

John expands the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’s statement that Æþelstan was unfere by foregrounding Æþelstan’s blindness and his subsequent inability to perform his official duties. Interestingly, he specifies that Æþelstan was blind for thirteen years, which is a potentially ambiguous statement. It may suggest that Æþelstan was blind for thirteen years before he left office, or that he remained blind for thirteen years after he gave up the bishopric. If the former were the case, it would suggest that he experienced a kind of progressive loss of vision, which gradually stripped him of his ability to perform the duties of his office. Æþelstan’s situation, however, is complicated by contemporary canon law, which prohibited people whom it deemed “irregular” from advancement to holy orders.53 In particular, canon law required that an ordinand have an “undeformed” body, so that a blind man or a man missing his eyes could not be ordained without special dispensation.54 Given this legal context, it seems more likely that Æþelstan would have been removed from office once his blindness was apparent. Consequently, in the Anglo-

Saxon Chronicle, unfere seems to refer less to Æþelstan’s actual impairment, and more to his subsequent unfitness for his office.55

52 John of Worcester, The Chronicle of John of Worcester: The Annals from 450 to 1066, ed. R. R. Darlington and P. McGurk and trans. Jennifer Bray and P. McGurk, 3 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 2:578-79. 53 Gregory R. H. Helmholz, The Spirit of Classical Canon Law (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1996), 64 54 Ibid., 64-65. 55 Fere, the positive adjective, has similar implications, as I discuss later in this section.

The OE Honorius offers a somewhat different sense of what unfere means. The lexeme first appears early in the text, when the author discusses the traditional problem of the good suffering and the evil prospering:

Hwy synden þa lyðere mæn swa welige on wurlde, & habbeð of heore wille genoh, & þa gode mænn habbeð swa feola ermðen & byrstes ælces godes? Eall þ[æt] is for þan gode mannen, þ[æt] heo ascunigen & lytel tellen ond unwurð of þan wele þe þa yfela man byð of swa swyðe asadede, & þa gode mænn synden byrstige & gedrefde & unfere, þe læste heo toswyðe blissoden on heore lichames hæle, & heora wurldwelen.56

(Why do depraved men so prosper in the world, and have enough of what they desire, and good men have so many miseries, and lose everything good? All that is for the sake of the good men, so that they despise and count as little and of no value that prosperity in which the evil man abounds so greatly, and the good men are afflicted and oppressed and unfere, lest they delight too much in the health of their bodies, and in their worldly strength.)

Tracing the logic of the syntax, people who are unfere lack bodily hælu and worldly strength, which is presented as a blessing in this context since it prevents them from having the wrong priorities. They may be ill, impaired or infirm; the context does not allow for more specific conclusions. They do not, however, seem to be unfit for a particular task, in contrast to the bishop in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

The lexeme unfere reoccurs later in the OE Honorius when the speaker addresses the objection that certain evil men are not healthy:

& eft þære byð sume yfele mænn, þe byð swyðe byrstige & unfere, for þan þ[æt] heo understanden beo þan, þæt bitere byð þa saregan þe he sculen on helle on ecnysse geðrowigen, for heora unmihte.57

56 OE Honorius, lines 47-53 (ed. Warner, Early English Homilies from the Twelfth Century MS Vesp. D xiv, 141-42). 57 OE Honorius, lines 70-73 (ed. Warner, Early English Homilies from the Twelfth Century MS Vesp. D xiv, 143).

(And again there are some evil men, who are very afflicted and unfere, in order for them to understand through that, that the sorrows will be bitter that they must suffer in hell in eternity, because of their weakness.)

The statement suggests that unfere people experience mental distress, since evil people’s unfernes allows them to live through what is presumably a lesser form of the sorrows in hell. It is worth thinking through the logic behind this assertion. Old English depictions of hell tend to involve extensive, vivid descriptions of the torments that the damned suffer, which focus particularly upon bodily pain and dismemberment.58 These depictions suggestion that unfere people may have a similar corporeal experience to the damned, and they may feel a similar kind of pain or helplessness. As a result, the OE Honorius suggests that unfernes can refer to various kinds of physical afflictions, and can carry connotations of physical pain and mental distress. These connections emerge even more strongly in a passage that addresses the opposite situation, i.e. good people who are healthy and prosperous:

& for þan God gyfð þan gode mannen mihte, þ[æt] heo geforðigen þ[æt] god þ[æt] heo beginneð, ærest for heom sylfen, & syððen for oðren Godes þeowen, þ[æt] heo heom helpen, swa wel swa heo mugen, & eft for þan þ[æt] heo geletten þa lyðere mænn, þ[æt] heom ne onhagige ofer þan goden to yfeligen eall þ[æt] heo wolden, & heo habbeð heora hæle, þe læste oðre gode mænn beon unrote for heora unfernysse, ac þ[æt] heo beon bliðe for heora hæle.59

(And God gives strength to good men in order that they may carry out the good that they begin, first for themselves, and then for other servants of God, so that

58 For instance, the compositions of artist F in London, BL, Harley 603 prominently figure illustrations of decapitated and amputated bodies within Hell. Sarah Semple argues that it presents a specifically Anglo- Saxon perception of hell based on contemporary juridical practices. “Illustrations of Damnation in Late Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts,” Anglo-Saxon England 32 (2003): 235-41. 59 OE Honorius, lines 58-69 (ed. Warner, Early English Homilies from the Twelfth Century MS Vesp. D xiv, 143). Unrot can mean angry, sorrowful, or resentful.

they may help them, as well as they can, and again because they may hinder the depraved man, that he may not have power over the good to do all the evil that they wish, and they have their hælu, lest they be angry, sorrowful or resentful towards other good men about their unfernes, but rather so that they are happy about their hælu.)

The passage sets up unfernes as an antonym to hælu through the structure of its argument, which confirms that it means infirmity, illness, or impairment. Moreover, it once again depicts unfernes as a cause of mental distress, since it implies that it gives rise to anger, sorrow, and resentment towards other people.

In festis Sancte Marie virginis, a mid-twelfth-century text which is a translation of a Latin sermon by Ralph D’Escures, and which spans the transitional period between Old

English and Middle English,60 offers a somewhat different take on unfernes, when it develops the Virgin Mary as an example of the active life:

On his cildlicen unfernysse, heo hine baðede, [ond] beðede, [ond] smerede, [ond] bær, [ond] frefrede, [ond] swaðede, [ond] roccode, swa þ[æt] man mæig rihtlice beo hire secgen, “Martha wæs bisig & cearig emb þa þenunge.”61

(In his child-like unfernes, she washed him and bathed him and anointed him and carried him and comforted him and wrapped him in cloth and rocked him, so that it may be rightly said about her “Martha was busy and careful about the service.”)

Despite the passage’s misleading reference to Martha, who is solely being used as a symbol of the active life, the text is describing how the Virgin Mary takes care of the infant Christ, although her actions are clearly intended to foreshadow her participation in

60 Elaine Treharne, “The Life of English in the Mid-Twelfth Century: Ralph D’Escures Homily on the Virgin Mary,” in Writers of the Reign of Henry II: Twelve Essays, eds. Ruth Kennedy and Simon Meecham-Jones (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 169-86. 61 Sermo in Festis Sancte Marie Virginis, lines 114-16 (ed. Warner, Early English Homilies from the Twelfth Century MS Vesp. D xiv, 137).

his burial. Consequently, Christ’s unfernes is not illness or impairment, but the helplessness and dependence of a newborn baby. In this case, unfernes indicates his inability to carry out basic life functions for himself, which is arguably similar in nature to Bishop Æþelstan’s inability to execute the functions of his episcopal office.

Since unfernes can be used of diverse states such as impairment and infancy, it is necessary to consider the base meaning of the word, as suggested by its etymology.

Unfernes is ultimately derived from fere, which comes from the Proto-Germanic word

*faranan “to travel, to pass over” via the adjectival form *foriz.62 Therefore, it is closely related to the Old English lexemes feran “to go, to travel” and faran “to go, to travel.”63

Fere frequently retains this idea of motion. For instance, the D-text of the Anglo-Saxon

Chronicle says of William’s victory in 1066: “ða com Wyllelm eorl of Normandige into

Pefnesea on sancte Michæles mæsseæfen, & sona þæs hi fere wæron, worhton castel æt

Hæstingaport” (then Earl William came from Normandy into Pevensey on the eve of St

Michael’s Mass, and, as soon as they were fere, they built a fort at Hastings). In this context, fere appears to mean “able to go” or “fit for military service,” the two definitions suggested by the DOE Online.64 Indeed, the two meanings are intertwined in this case, as the army’s military readiness is indicated by how they are able to travel to Hastings and build their fort there. The Phoenix presents even more compelling evidence that fere was associated with motion, as it describes a region of the earth as gefere, which the DOE

Online defines as “accessible.”65 In other words, gefere land is land that can be travelled

62 Orel, Handbook, s.v. “*faranan,” “*foriz.” 63 DOE Online, s.v. “feran,” “faran.” 64 DOE Online, s.v. “fere.” 65 DOE Online, s.v. “gefere.”

or reached. Therefore, given unfere’s close relationship to fere, it is possible that the word carried connotations of impaired motion in some cases, although such a meaning is not strongly attested in the corpus.66

In sum, unfernes has some overlap with the present-day concepts of impairment and disability. The Anglo-Saxons employed the lexeme both to designate a state of illness, impairment, or infirmity, and to suggest people’s inability perform certain functions or fulfill certain roles. In this way, lexeme denotes both the physical condition and its social consequences. Yet, although unfernes has some similarities with

“impairment” and “disability,” the lexeme is so late and so rare that it cannot be treated as the main Anglo-Saxon term for physical deficiency. This lateness and rarity suggests the possible influence of Old Norse. Indeed, the OED Online seems to advocate such an interpretation, as it presents an etymological relationship between the early modern adjective fere “able to go, in health” and Old Norse fœ́ rr.67 If this is accurate, fere and unfere might not have been indigenous terms. Moreover, these two lexemes were often used outside the framework of hælu and unhælu, as fere could describe a military force’s general fitness and ability to travel, and unfere an infant’s helplessness. As a result, unfernes was almost certainly not the fundamental Anglo-Saxon lexeme for the contemporary equivalent of disability, and so it makes little sense for this dissertation to use it instead of unhælu, despite what BT suggests.

66 Phoenix 4b (ed. Blake, The Phoenix, 49). 67 OED Online, s.v. “fere.”

Adl and Other Illness-Related Words

Up until this point, I have discussed the Old English words, unhælu and unfernes, that seem best to correspond to impairment and disability, and showed the extent to which they cover the same semantic range. I now examine the other lexemes that the Anglo-

Saxons used to refer to impairment and disability, and consider what they reveal about their construction of these states. In order to facilitate this analysis, I will not deal with individual lexemes, but instead will divide them into broader conceptual categories, so that I can illustrate important trends within the lexicon.

Firstly, as Lee notes in her brief discussion of the Anglo-Saxon language of disability, the Anglo-Saxons used the same lexemes to refer to both impairments and illnesses.68 In particular, she identifies the noun adl as instance of a word that covers both types of conditions. 69 The DOE Online, however, suggests a more limited scope for adl, as it defines the word as “ailment, disease, illness, sickness.”70 Consequently, it is necessary to assess the lexical evidence, and determine whether the word can refer to impairments as well.

In contrast to unhælu and unfernes, adl tends to be used in relation to a particular body part, and is often found in a blend with a body-part word. For instance, the

Lacnunga offers a remedy “wið ðære miclan siondan fotadle, þære ðe læceas hatað podagre” (against that severe, suppurating foot-adl, that the leeches call podagra, i.e. gout).71 Likewise, Læceboc Book 1 provides “læcedomas wið paralisin þæt is on

68 Lee, “Disability,” 33. 69 Ibid., 33. 70 DOE Online, s.v. “adl.” 71 Lacnunga 61 (ed. Pettit, 1:56).

englisc lyftadl” (leechdoms against paralysis, that is, air-adl in English),72 and the OE

Bede talks about a man being stricken with “þa aðle ... þe Grecas nemnað paralysis, & we cweðað lyftadl” (the adl … that the Greeks call paralysis and we call air-adl).73 In other cases, the lexeme adl is qualified with an adjective or genitive phrase, as in the

“healfdeade adl” (half-dead adl) found in Læceboc Book 2, which seems to be hemiplegia; 74 the “adle þæs mycclan lices” (the adl of the large body) in the OE

Dialogues, which the context clarifies as leprosy;75 and the “færlicre adle” (sudden disease) in the Lacnunga, which appears to be seizure disorder of some sort76. Finally, it may be used more generally to refer to a non-specific illness or impairment, as in the

Seafarer’s grim pronouncement that all people will die from “adl oþþe yldo oþþe ecghete” (adl or old-age or blade-hate).77 This evidence suggests that, in contrast to the

DOE Online’s definitions, adl was indeed used for conditions that present-day Western readers would classify as impairments (such as paralysis or hemiplegia), or illnesses that would lead to severe, long-term limitation of functionality and so would become impairments (such as gout, which results in mobility impairment, or leprosy, which causes nerve-damage, blindness, and limb-loss in the absence of treatment).

I have established that the Anglo-Saxons used adl to refer to illnesses and impairments, yet the question remains whether the lexeme could be used for all

72 Leechbook I 59.1 (ed. Cockayne, 2:12). 73 OE Bede 32 (2:378). 74 Leechbook II 30.1 (ed. Cockayne, 2:280). Malcolm Cameron identifies the healf-dead adl as hemiplegia, i.e. paralysis of one side of the body. Anglo-Saxon Medicine, 16. 75 Wærferth of Worcester, OE Dialogues 3.15 (ed. Hecht, 1:204-205). 76 Lacnunga 66 (ed. Pettit, 1:56). 77 The Seafarer 70 (ASPR 3:145).

impairments or whether it was limited by other criteria. If we consider the above instances, adl seems to be caused by infective entities that bring about unhælu, which, as

Chapter Three will explore, included elves and venoms. It does not seem to be caused by, for example, wounds or amputations. That observation generally holds true for the corpus as a whole, although there are some notable exceptions. For instance, Læceboc Book 2 offers a remedy for “missenlica adla geborstena wunda” (various adla of burst wounds), which presumably means open wounds.78 The purpose of this remedy is ambiguous, though: are the adla the burst wounds themselves, or are they conditions caused by the wounds, such as infections and related fevers?79 Either way, this instance suggests that adl could be used for conditions that were not caused by infective entities, but scarcity of examples suggests that it was not the usual usage.

Moreover, as Lee raises in her discussion of the language of disability, adl appears to involve a distinction between acquired and congenital conditions.80 That is, adl could be used of illnesses or impairments that people developed in their lifetime, but not those that they had since birth. An examination of the corpus turns up no specific, clear- cut example of adl signifying a congenital condition. That said, this type of usage may be implied in the instances when authors describe Christ and the saints healing crowds of people with adla, or God promising a lack of adla in the afterlife. It may also be implied within the authors’ choice of syntax. For instance, John 5:3 in the West-Saxon Gospels

78 Leechbook II 1.1 (ed. Cockayne, 1:174). 79 Interestingly, adl is derived from Proto-Germantic *aidlaz “burning, fever, disease,” which suggests that the word initially referred to a specific disease-symptom such as fever, and came to be associated with illness and impairment. Orel, Handbook, s.v. “*aidlaz.” 80 Lee, “Disability,” 33.

states that “[o]n þam porticon læg mycel menigeo geadludra, blindra & healtra & forscruncenra” (in that portico lay a great crowd of people with adl, of the blind and the lame and the paralyzed).81 In this case, the syntax is ambiguous. On the one hand,

“geadludra” may be in apposition to “blindra & healtra & forscruncenra,” as the absence of a coordinating conjunction may suggest. On the other, it may simply be the first item in the list, as in the Latin verse that uses asyndeton at this point. If the former is true, geadludra would cover conditions that are as likely to be congenital as they are acquired.

Nonetheless, the evidence is too sketchy and too inconclusive to suggest that adl was used for congenital conditions, and it seems most likely that it just applied to acquired conditions. Consequently, the Anglo-Saxons may only have used it to refer to certain types of impairments.

Adl, however, was not the only word that the Anglo-Saxons used to speak and write about both illness and impairment. The nouns coþu and seocnes cover a similar semantic range to adl, although they exhibit some specialization in certain texts or contexts of use, and therefore require further discussion. The DOE Online defines coþu as “disease, illness, sickness,” but examples within the corpus shows that it was also used of impairments. Coþu primarily appears within writings of Ælfric, who uses it generally for illnesses and impairments, and more specifically for gout, paralysis and leprosy.82

Læceboc Book 2 employs it exclusively for stomach and bowel disorders,83 but the prose charms that are found in BL Cotton Galba A.xiv follow Ælfric’s more general

81 Skeat, ed., The Holy Gospels, 4:44. 82 Ælfric, CH 1 2 (31, 35); Ælfric, CH II 1, 3 (10, 42); Ælfric, LS 15 (1:128). 83 Leechbook II 31.1, 32.4, 33.1 (ed. Cockayne, 2:220-38).

understanding of the lexeme and offer a remedy for fotcoþe “foot-coþe,”84 which suggests that the usage in the Læceboc is idiosyncratic.

Seocnes and especially the related adjective seoc appear much more commonly within the corpus, and demonstrate the same pattern of usages as adl and coþu. For instance, The Fortunes of Men describes people with mobility impairments as

“seonobennum seoc” (seoc with sinew-wounds),85 while Andreas and Elene call them

“limseoce” (limb-seoc).86 Likewise, Ælfric’s Homilies offers the following advice about almsgiving, which was usually done with the right hand: “Gif seo swiðre hand bið seoc oððe untrum, wel he mot dælan mid þære wynstran handa, gif he þone idelan gylp eallunga onscunað” (if the right hand is seoc or infirm, he may well distribute (alms) with the left hand, if he shuns empty vainglory entirely).87 Nevertheless, the Anglo-Saxons seem to have used seocnes in a manner that was distinct from adl and coþu, since they used it to refer to various forms of mental health impairment and possession, as in the compounds deofolseoc (devil-sick), feondseoc (fiend-sick), and monaþseoc (moon-sick).

In this respect, seocnes might have had an additional semantic force that adl and coþu did not.88

84 Bernard Muir, ed., A Pre-Conquest English Prayer-Book (BL MSS Cotton Galba A.xiv and Nero A.ii [ff.3-13]) (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2009), 89. 85 Fortunes of Men 19 (ASPR 3:154). 86 Andreas 579 (ASPR 2:99); Elene 1214 (ASPR 2:19). To these examples, we might add Beowulf’s Grendel who is described as “feorhseoc” (life-sick), although this example is complicated by the location of the sickness and so will be addressed in Chapter Seven. Klaeber’s Beowulf 820a (29). 87 Ælfric, Hom. Supp. 30 (806). 88 A discussion of the Anglo-Saxon concept of mental health impairments lies beyond the scope of my dissertation. For a discussion of devil-sickness, see Peter Dendle, “Lupines, Manganese, and Devil- Sickness: An Anglo-Saxon Medical Response to Epilepsy,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 75, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 91-101; and Richard Raiswell and Peter Dendle, “Demon Possession in Anglo-Saxon and Early Modern England: Continuity and Evolution in Social Context,” Journal of British Studies 47 (2008): 738-67.

In short, the Anglo-Saxon lexicon contains several words that encompass conditions that the present-day West would consider illnesses and impairments, but that suggest the existence of other cultural distinctions. Specifically, these lexemes appear to refer to conditions that are caused by infective entities (as opposed to wounds or amputations), and to distinguish between acquired and congenital conditions. These lexemes suggest that the Anglo-Saxons did not distinguish between illnesses and impairments, or consider them to be fundamentally different states.

Lexemes Reflecting Embodied Experience: Weakness

In addition to suggesting how the Anglo-Saxons categorized illness and impairments, the

Old English lexicon also shows how unhal people may have experienced their unhælu, or, at least, how hal people imagined that they did. That is, the lexicon contains a set of terms that use the corporeal experience of unhælu in order to name it. These lexemes seem to encode how unhal people felt within their bodies, or how they interacted with the world, although it is important to stress that they may actually reflect how hal people perceived them. It is difficult to find a comparable modern analogy, but the common phrases “confined to a wheelchair” or “wheelchair-bound” may come close. They suggest that people who use a wheelchair are incapable of mobility, that they experience their bodies are being entrapped or enclosed by the device, which are, of course, ableist assumptions that most wheelchair users would dispute. Consequently, in looking at these words, we should bear in mind that they may refer to either the real experience of unhælu or the imagined one.

The majority of the lexemes in this category define unhælu in terms of physical weakness. The Anglo-Saxons frequently use the noun untrumness “weakness, infirmity” and the related adjective untrum “weak, infirm” to refer to unhælu and unhal people.89 As

Lee notes, untrum, along with unhal, is the most common gloss or translation of Latin debilis, which is “commonly used to describe impairment and weakness within Latin texts.”90 She cites Hans-Werner Goetz’s detailed quantitative study of debilis in which he sets out the complexities of the word, and which may cast light on how the Anglo-Saxons understood untrum, though we should be careful of assuming that the lexemes are exactly equivalent.91

Goetz bases his study on Latin texts from the sixth to the eleventh centuries, and includes several texts that were authored by or known to Anglo-Saxons.92 Goetz shows that the Latin authors of this period used debilis to refer to paralysis, blindness, kyphosis or spinal curvature, speech impairments, mental disorders, and gout.93 Moreover, they used the lexeme to refer to denote conditions that arose from sickness, infirmity, wounding, age, pain or hunger.94 Likewise, they used it of the whole body and its component parts, including the limbs, the hands, and feet; the sinews, muscles, and

89 BT, s.v. “untrumness” and “untrum.” Untrumness is frequently spelt untrymness as well. BT, s.v. “untrymness.” 90 Lee, “Disability,” 34. 91 Ibid., 34. 92 Hans-Werner Goetz, “Vorstellungen von menschlicher Gebrechlichkeit im frühen Mittelalter,” in Homo Debilis: Behinderte – Kranke – Versehrte in der Gesellschaft des Mittelalters, ed. Cordula Nolte (Korb: Didymos-Verlag, 2009), 24. For instance, his sources include works by Alcuin, Boniface, and Willibald of Mainz, who worked and wrote on the continent but who were Anglo-Saxons by birth. He also uses Isidore’s Etymologiae, which was one of the most influential books in Anglo-Saxon England, and which will be discussed in depth in the next chapter. 93 Ibid., 31-35. These conditions are listed in order of how often debilis was used to refer to them. 94 Ibid., 26-31. These conditions are listed in order of frequency, as above.

nerves; the bones; and the eyes.95 In short, debilis seems to be a very broad and general lexeme. Moreover, as Goetz continues by demonstrating, debilis did not only indicate a person’s physical condition, but also had implications for their social status. The so- called debiles were assumed to need help and protection, and to require the charity of the community.96 Goetz shows that they were often described as poor or as beggars, or presented as widows and orphans as well, both of which show why charity might have been necessary.97 Nonetheless, they were seldom characterized as burdens on society, or made responsible for their condition because of their sinfulness.98 Instead, they were believed to have keen spiritual insight, which was a common contemporary interpretation of how people were affected by illness and impairment, as I shall discuss in the next chapter when I examine Gregory’s works.99 Lee notes that debilitas, therefore, is similar to disability, since it encompasses people’s physical condition and their social status.100

Even if untrum is not semantically identical to debilis, the Anglo-Saxons’ use of untrum as the most common gloss for debilis suggests that they believed the Old English lexeme was applicable to the same broad range of illnesses and impairments. Examples outside of the gloss tradition seem to bear out such a conclusion. For instance, the OE

Bede describes how Bishop Mellitus’s mobility was impaired, as he was inflicted “mid lichoman untrymnesse mid fotadle” (with untrumness of the body with gout).101 Here, as

95 Ibid., 35-40. 96 Ibid., 46. 97 Ibid., 42-46. 98 Ibid., 46. 99 Ibid., 47. 100 Lee, “Disability,” 33-34. 101 OE Bede 12 (16). Although the OE Bede is a translation, untrumness is not translating debilitatis here, but infirmitatis.

we have observed with unhælu, untrum acts as a kind of head word that anticipates and introduces the specific illness. Likewise, to reiterate an example, Ælfric offers advice about how to give alms “[g]if seo swiðre hand bið seoc oððe untrum” (if the right hand is sick or untrum).102 Here, untrum seems to cover a wide range of conditions that impair the dexterity and mobility of the hand. In both cases, then, untrum emerges as a generic term for illness and impairment.

The Anglo-Saxons’ use of untrum to refer to impairments reflects a broader tendency to characterize unhælu in terms of weakness, which therefore may be considered one of the defining features of the state. Together with untrum, the Anglo-

Saxons frequently employed the adjective lef “weak, infirm” to describe impairments.103

Elene describes people with mobility impairments as lefe,104 while The Fortunes of Men mentions “sum on feðe lef” (certain people weak in the feet).105 Likewise, the OE

Boethius suggests that people may experience visual impairment and be unable to tolerate light “gif se æppel lef bið” (if the pupil is weak).106 The balance of evidence suggests that lef may have been particularly, though not exclusively, associated with mobility impairments. Significantly, a related noun, lefung, appears to denote immobility of the limbs. Ælfric tells of how a king and his generals did not want to offend magicians “þi læs ðe hi þas lefunge on heora limum gebrohton” (lest they brought these mobility

102 Ælfric, Homilies: Supplementary Collection, 806. 103 OED Online suggests that lef may be etymologically related to left, though it notes that this connection is doubtful. OED Online, s.v. “left.” 104 Elene 1214 (ASPR 2:19). Elene also uses laman and limseoce, as discussed above, to refer to people with mobility impairments. 105 Fortunes of Men 18 (ASPR 3:154). 106 OE Boethius, ch. 38 (ed. Godden and Irvine, 1:355).

impairments on their limbs).107 BT’s definition of lefung stresses its meaning of

“paralysis” or “lameness,” which would seem to connect it firmly with mobility impairments; however, the word is a hapax legemenon and so it is impossible to draw any firm conclusions from it.108 In addition, the Anglo-Saxons also used unstrang “unstrong,” unmeaht “un-might,” and unweorchard “infirm, delicate” to refer to impairments, although these lexemes are rare, and so do not bear detailed discussion.

Lexemes Reflecting Embodied Experience: Heaviness

The Anglo-Saxons did not only conceive of unhælu in terms of physical weakness, but also in terms of corporeal heaviness. They often used hefigness “heaviness” to describe diseases and impairments. For instance, the OE Bede uses hefigness and its related verb hefigian to refer to a wide range of physical conditions. To cite just a few of the many examples, it relates how the Northumbrian king Oswald heals a man who “mid þa hefignesse þæs gebrocenan earmes swiðe geswenced wæs, swa þæt he for þy sare ne meahte furðon his hond to muðe gedon” (was so troubled with the heaviness of that broken arm, that he was not able to raise his hand to his mouth for the pain). Oswald laments of himself “þæt þeos aðl & þeos hefignes mines lichoman swiðe weaxeð, þæt ic eom neded þæt ic sceal hraðe deað underhnigan” (that this disease and the heaviness of my body increases greatly so that I am forced that I must soon succumb to death).109 In similar fashion, to expand on an example discussed earlier, the OE Bede explains how

107 Ælfric, CH II 5 (210). 108 BT, s.v. “lefung.” 109 OE Bede 15, 18 (1:156, 190)

Bishop Mellitus was “mid lichoman untrymnesse mid fotadle swiðe gehefigad” (greatly weighed down with physical weakness with foot-adl).110 Likewise, the text tells of how

Æðeldryð’s coffin served to cure “monegum monna, þe heora eagan sargedon

& hefigodon” (many men, whose eyes were painful and heavy). 111 As this suggests, the translator of the OE Bede found hefigness and hefigian useful words to encapsulate the experience of a wide range of impairing conditions that affected many different body parts. It suggests that he felt the experience of unhælu was characterized by heaviness, as the unhal person was weighed down by the mass of the body.

Lexemes Referring to Embodied Experience: Conceptual Metaphors

The Anglo-Saxons’ use of conceptual metaphors to refer to unhælu provides another example of them using embodied experience to name the state. According to George

Lakoff and Mark Johnson, conceptual metaphors are “cross-domain conceptual mappings” where we conceptualize, reason about and visualize one domain of experience in terms of another.112 For instance, when we say that we grasp an idea, we are using the sensorimotor domain to talk about the intellectual one.113 Since we tend to form concepts through our bodies and our bodily interactions, conceptual metaphors often depend upon embodied experience and make explicit use of it when mapping between domains.114

110 OE Bede. 45 (2:322) 111 OE Bede 16 (2:143) 112 George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 45. 113 Ibid., 45. 114 Ibid, 555. Lakoff and Johnson espouse embodied realism, which is “the view that the locus of experience, meaning and thought is the ongoing series of organism-environment interactions that constitute

Leger is the clearest example of how the Anglo-Saxons used conceptual metaphors to refer to unhælu. Leger literally means “a lying,” yet it is extended to states that may only sometimes involve lying down such as impairment, illness and even death.115 For instance, the Phoenix presents paradise as a place where there is “ne sorg ne slæp ne swar leger” (no sorrow, nor sleep, nor heavy leger),116 while Christ III describes heaven in very similar terms as a place where there is “[ne] slæp ne swar leger” (no sleep nor heavy leger).117 The collocation of slæp and leger suggests a strong association between lying down in sleep and lying down in unhælu. Although only certain types of unhælu would leave a person prone, both poems appear to use the lexeme leger to cover all of the forms of unhælu that people may experience in life. In short, they treat leger as a generic term for illnesses and impairments. Interestingly, within both texts, leger is described as swar “heavy,” which is noteworthy in light of the association between unhælu and heaviness, and further suggests the experience of embodiment that underlies this lexeme.

That is, unhal people lie down because they are weighed down by their bodies. Leger, therefore, seems to depend on a conceptual metaphor that is still evident in modern

English – that is, LIFE AND HEALTH ARE UP; SICKNESS AND DEATH ARE DOWN.118

Johnson and Lakoff suggest that the physical basis for this conceptual metaphor is found

our understanding of the world.” “Why Cognitive Linguistics Requires Embodied Realism,” Cognitive Linguistics 13 (2002): 249. See also Lakoff and Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh, 74-93 115 BT, s.v. “leger.” The clumsy translation is necessary since there is no good Modern English equivalent. Leger can also mean a bed or lair in Old English. It comes from Proto-German *leȝran, which has much the same meaning. Orel, Handbook, s.v. “*leȝran.” 116 Phoenix 56 (ed. Blake, The Phoenix, 92). 117 Christ III 1661 (ASPR 3:67). 118 George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 14.

in the way that people lie down when they are seriously ill, and are prone and may be buried under the earth when they die.119 This connection might have been even stronger in the Anglo-Saxon period, as, in the absence of effective prostheses, people with certain impairments would have had to crawl or lie down much the time, which would have strengthened the association between unhælu and a horizontal posture. Consequently, leger – lying down – becomes a lexeme for illness and impairment through the process of metonymy.120 Moreover, the use of leger for both lying sick and lying dead suggests that the Anglo-Saxons might have viewed unhælu and death as similar states in which, to paraphrase the conceptual metaphor, people were down.121

Summary of Anglo-Saxon Lexicon of Impairment and Disability

At this point, it may be useful to provide a table summarizing the Anglo-Saxon lexicon of impairment and disability, and categorizing the words according to their underlying concept or metaphor. In addition to the categories set out in the above discussion, I have included three other sets of lexemes that the Anglo-Saxons potentially used to refer to unhælu, but for which the evidence was substantially ambiguous. Consequently, I have omitted them from detailed discussion in the chapter, but I have included them in the table for reference and have shaded their rows grey. In presenting the information, I have selected a core version of each lexeme, and then have given related forms or variants alongside it.

119 Ibid. 120 I am using metonymy in the linguistic sense of the term, where “one entity [is used] to refer to another that is related to it.” Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 35. 121 See Chapter Seven for a discussion of the affinities between unhælu and death.

Concept/Metaphor Core Lexeme122 Related Lexemes Illness adl “disease, ailment” adlung, adlig, geadlian, adlþracu, adlwerig, adlseoc, adlberende coþu “illness, sickness” seocness “sickness” seoc, seocan, gesiclian suht “sickness, probably from Old Saxon” Un-wholeness Unhælu unhal, unhælþ, geunhælan, wanhal, samhal Weakness lef “weak, infirm, ill” lefung, alefan, alefdednes, alewan, lewsa untrumness “weakness, illness, untrymþ,untrymman, infirmity” untrymigu, untrymian, medtrum “not strong in health” unmeaht “unmight, weakness” unstrang “unstrong” unweorcheard “delicate, weak, infirm” Downward Force or hefig “heavy” hefignes, hefigian Orientation (SICK leger “a lying down” legerian, legerbære, IS DOWN) legerfæst Impaired Movement unfere unfernysse (?) Age tiderlic “infirm, frail” tiderness forwerod “decrepit, feeble with forwerednes, forwerion age” Evil geyflian “to fall ill, injure” seoslig “afflicted, oppressed” Dissipation of gebysgian “to trouble, afflict” abysigan, bysigan, Energy gebysgod

Table 1. Anglo-Saxon Lexemes for Impairment and Disability

122 The definitions in this table, for the most part, are drawn from the DOE Online if the words begin with A-G, and BT if they begin with H-Z.

From this table, we can draw some general conclusions about how the Anglo-Saxons perceived unhælu. Firstly, the Anglo-Saxons conceived of unhælu largely in negative terms. Many of the lexemes are negative in form – that is, they begin with the negating prefix un-. The morphology of unhælu defines the state that the lexeme signifies as an absence of wholeness, not the presence of some other attribute. An identical argument may be made of untrumness and unfernes. Moreover, this morphology suggests that the

Anglo-Saxons believed in the existence of a constructed norm which unhal people failed to attain. That is, unhælu is only meaningful because of the concept of hælu, which serves as the norm against which it is measured and found lacking. Secondly, the Anglo-Saxons focused on the embodied experience of unhælu, which they constructed as a physically oppressive state. In particular, they believed that unhælu was characterized by bodily weakness, heaviness, and prostration, so that they seem to have imagined the unhal body almost as a leaden weight that was difficult to move. At the same time, they recognized that this embodied experience might have mental effects, such as sorrow, anger, or distraction. Lastly and perhaps most significantly, the Anglo-Saxons did not seem to draw much distinction between illness, impairment, and injury, as they used the same lexemes indiscriminately in reference to all these bodily states. Since the Anglo-Saxons did not differentiate between these conditions, we should be careful of applying our present-day categories of illness and impairment to their textual record.123 Instead, we should interpret the evidence from the perspective of their more holistic understanding of

123 For instance, Irina Metzler is very cautious about conflating impairment and illness in a manner which is more appropriate for the present day than the Middle Ages. Disability, 11.

unhælu, which is based primarily around the distinction between temporary and permanent conditions.

Lexemes for Specific Impairments

As the foregoing discussion has demonstrated, the Anglo-Saxons had a substantial lexicon for referring to unhælu in general; however, they did not tend to use these inclusive, universalizing terms when they wrote about unhal people. Instead, they tended to specify precisely what impairment or illness the person had. For instance, Ælfric describes a group of unhal people who are healed by Christ as “dumbe [and] deafe. healte

[and] blinde. wode [and] hreoflige” (dumb and deaf, halt and blind, mad and leprous),124 while the OE Life of St. Margaret in CCCC 303 remarks of a similar group that “sume hi wæron blinde and deafa and sume crypeles and sume dumbe and sume ungewitfulle”

(some of them were blind and deaf, and some cripples, and some dumb and some insane).125 Such catalogs of unhælu are relatively common within the literature, and illustrate how the Anglo-Saxons tended to identify unhal people’s conditions, rather than using a generic term.126 This pattern of usage suggests that the Anglo-Saxons focused on the specific form that people’s unhælu took, more than on the basic fact that they were unhal. Indeed, as the following chapters will show, the Anglo-Saxons were largely interested in how unhælu impacted people’s functionality and appearance, and therefore

124 Ælfric, CH I 29 (343). 125 The Old English Life of St Margaret in CCCC 303, ch. 19 (ed. Clayton and Magennis, The Old English Lives of Saint Margaret, 170). 126 Of courses, these catalogs serve a rhetorical purpose. By specifying all of the unhal people’s conditions, the authors are able to enumerate Christ’s or the saint’s miracles, and thereby foreground their greatness through amplification.

would have been likely to emphasize the differences between distinct forms of unhælu.

Moreover, this system of nomenclature suggests that the Anglo-Saxons might have considered people’s unhælu to be the most salient part of their social identity, as it literally reduces them to their condition. They are the deaf, the dumb, the halt, and nothing more. In Erving Goffman’s terms, then, the Anglo-Saxons seem to have treated the various forms of unhælu as stigmatizing attributes that “spoil” people’s social identity and define how they are perceived in their community.127

The Anglo-Saxons had an extensive vocabulary for specific impairments, which deserves further investigation, but which would make for a book-length project in its own right. For the purposes of this dissertation, therefore, I have taken the preliminary step of compiling a table of the major lexemes that the Anglo-Saxons used for various impairments, some of which are literal, others of which are metaphorical. For the most part, I have not repeated any of the lexemes that appeared in Table 1, although, as should be evident, the Anglo-Saxons used the general terms in reference to specific impairments.

Once again, I have identified a core form of each lexemes, and provided related forms that are associated with it.

127 Goffman, Stigma, 1-5.

Type of Impairment Core Lexeme Meaning128 Related Forms Visual blind blind blindnes, blendnes, Impairment129 ablindian, ablindan, (ge)blend(i)an, forblindan, ofblindan, foregeblind, stærblind “stare- blind” ungeseonde unseeing ?bisene “blind,”130 ymesene “sightless” dimm dim dimnes, dimman, dimmian, adimmian deorc dark deorcian mist mist, darkness mistian, mistran, eagmist “eye-mist” genip darkness, obscurity þeostru darkness, dimness þeostrian, aþeostrian,

þynness thinness, geþynnian weakness unscearpsyne not sharp-sighted amolsian to weaken, decay (only of eyes) Hearing deaf deaf deafnes, deafu, Impairment adeafian, adeafung ungehyrnes unhearing aslawian to become dull forclysan to close up Continued Table 2. Anglo-Saxon Lexemes for Specific Impairments

128 Once again, the definitions in this table are drawn from the DOE Online if the words begin with A-G, and BT if they begin with H-Z. 129 I am grateful to Rachel Klippenstein for her help with the section of the table on visual impairment. We are collaborating on an article on this subject. 130 The DOE Online notes that bisene may be related to beseon. DOE Online, s.v. “bisene.”

Table 2 continued Type of Core Lexeme Meaning Related Forms Impairment Mobility crypel crippled crypelnes, creopere, Impairment gecreopan, eorþcrypel “earth- cripple” healt halt hielto, healtian, ahealtian, ahyltan, lemphealt “limp-halt” hinca (only limper, hobbler huncettan used of the Devil in hellehinca “hell-limper”) feþeleas footless healffeþe half-foot lama lame limmlama “limb-lamed,” adlama “fire-lamed”131 limseoc limb-sick limleas limbless luncian to limp, to hobble slæpan to sleep slapende, aslapen adeadan to become dead, to lose feeling

The Anglo-Saxons’ frequent use of these specific lexemes raises the question of whether they thought of these impairments as separate conditions, rather than as members of a broader, generic category.132 In the present-day West, visual, hearing and mobility impairments are all considered prototypical impairments that result in disability, although other impairments (such as obesity, cancer, or depression) might have a more tentative or disputed status, and so draw attention to the fact that disability is largely an artificial

131 DOE Online, s.v. “adlama.” Another possible interpretation, though not suggested by the DOE Online, might be adl-lama, where adl refers to “impairment, illness.” 132 Obviously, modern English has an equally large and diverse set of terms for individual impairments, but disability as a general concept has far more of a cultural presence in the present day than unhælu did in Anglo-Saxon England, which more than counterbalances these terms.

category constructed for political purposes.133 We cannot assume that visual, hearing, and mobility impairments would have shared a similar prototypical status in Anglo-Saxon

England, or even would have been considered part of the same conceptual category. The textual record suggests only that the Anglo-Saxons would have considered all of these impairments forms of unhælu. This chapter has presented multiple examples in which people who are described as blind, deaf, or lame are either called unhal or untrum, or are included in a group that is given such a designation. Moreover, since visual, hearing, and mobility impairments are almost always permanent, the Anglo-Saxons would have grouped them together on that basis, and distinguished them from temporary conditions.

Beyond those basic affinities, though, the Anglo-Saxon might have distinguished between the various impairments on the basis of their specific effects upon the body.

They would not have had the political impetus to create the artificial category of disability, and so they would have been more likely to focus on the particularities of people’s unhælu, since different illnesses and impairments would have affected their functionality and appearance in different ways. At the same time, though, the Anglo-

Saxons did not develop their conceptions of unhælu solely from their own experiences; rather, they drew on the insights of the late antique intellectual tradition, which provided them with a framework to think about issues of normative functionality and form, and which served as their equivalent of disability theory.

133 Garland-Thomson, Extraordinary Bodies, 13. Although deafness is part of the prototypical image of disability, the Deaf community often dispute this status and present themselves as a linguistic minority.

Chapter 2: The Late Antique Intellectual Tradition

The Importance of the Late Antique Intellectual Tradition

The Old English lexicon provides us with a preliminary sense of the Anglo-Saxon conceptions of impairment and disability, which I have termed unhælu. This chapter begins to flesh out that initial impression by examining the late antique intellectual tradition that the Anglo-Saxons would have inherited, and that would have contributed to their perceptions of unhælu. Michael Lapidge makes a strong case for beginning any scholarly investigation into the Anglo-Saxon world with this material. He states:

In our attempts to understand the mental world of the Anglo-Saxons, and to interpret the literature which they have bequeathed to us, there is one tool of interpretation which allows perhaps a surer estimation than any other, and that is knowledge of the books which the Anglo-Saxons themselves knew and studied.1

As Lapidge suggests, the books that Anglo-Saxons read are a valuable interpretative tool because they allow us to reconstruct the intellectual landscape of the time, and to determine which ideas were circulating within it. Unhælu presents us with a somewhat more complicated case, in that it would not have existed exclusively or even primarily as

1 Michael Lapidge, “Surviving Booklists from Anglo-Saxon England,” in Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Michael Lapidge and Helmet Gneuss (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 33.

a scholarly construction. Rather, unhælu would have belonged more to the domain of everyday life and embodied experience. In other words, the Anglo-Saxons might have relied less upon the learned tradition, and more upon their own perceptions and experiences to make sense of the unhælu that was a part of their lives. Even so, much of the information we have about unhælu comes through the filter of Anglo-Saxon literary culture. This culture was produced and recorded chiefly by the learned elite, and it often drew upon the Late Antique intellectual tradition. Consequently, it is important to consider how the books which the Anglo-Saxons read present impairment, so that we can discern places where the Anglo-Saxon works draw on those sources and places where they differ from them.

Determining what books were available to the Anglo-Saxons, however, is no easy task, since it involves gleaning and assessing information from a variety of sources, including manuscripts, inventories and citations.2 It becomes even more difficult when we attempt to narrow the scope of the inquiry to a particular writer or school, since we cannot assume that a particular book was known in every place and time. For this reason,

I focus on the works which were most influential and most widely disseminated in

Anglo-Saxon England, the works with which the vast majority of the literate elite would have been at least partially familiar. I begin by examining the grammars and the hexametrical riddles, which were central to the monastic curriculum and which would

2 Michael Lapidge, “Surviving Booklists,” 33; Lapidge, The Anglo-Saxon Library (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 53. Lapidge’s The Anglo-Saxon Library offers a remarkably thorough reconstruction of the contents of vanished Anglo-Saxon libraries, although he omits Bibles and liturgical books, and focuses only on the Latin works that the Anglo-Saxons would have had available to them. He does not include any vernacular works that they produced.

among the first Latin texts that students encountered. After that, I shift my attention to

Isidore of Seville’s Etym., which was by far the most prevalent encyclopaedic work in

Anglo-Saxon England. I conclude by looking at Gregory the Great’s Cura Pastoralis and

Dialogi, which were among the most popular ecclesiastical works due to Gregory’s role in converting the Anglo-Saxons.

The Anglo-Saxon Curriculum

As Michael Lapidge explains, virtually all of the literate people in Anglo-Saxon England would have been trained by the church in a monastery, cathedral, lesser canonry, or small minster.3 Most of our evidence for the Anglo-Saxon curriculum, however, comes from the monastic context, in which novices and oblates received instruction in the Latin language that was central to religious discourse. These students began by memorizing large tracts from the psalter and hymnal in order to participate in the Divine Office.

Thereafter, they received instruction in grammar. In the early period, they would have learnt this grammar from Donatus’ fourth-century Ars minor, together with the late Latin commentaries on it, and Christianized versions of it such as the seventh-century Ars

Asporii. In the late period, they would have been more likely to use Priscian’s sixth- century Institutiones grammaticae, which offered a more comprehensive treatment of the topic. As Vivien Law remarks, these late Roman grammatical works were fundamentally unsuited to the needs of Germanic learners, since they assumed a native knowledge of the

3 Michael Lapidge, “Anglo-Latin Literature,” in Anglo-Latin Literature, 600-899 (London: Hambledon Press, 1996), 1.

language.4 Consequently, Anglo-Saxon scholars compiled their own grammars based on these Roman sources: most notably, Boniface’s Ars grammatica and Tatwine’s Ars

Tatuini from the early eighth century, Alcuin’s Ars grammatica from the late eighth century, and Ælfric’s Excerptiones de arte grammatica anglice from the late tenth century.5 At the same time, students studied Latin metrics, which were considered fundamental to a knowledge of the language.6 Once again, the Anglo-Saxons relied upon the metrical treatises of late antiquity that were poorly suited to the needs of non-native speakers, who did not have an intuitive understanding of, say, stress patterns of elision. In response, scholars such as Aldhelm, Bede, and Boniface devised more elementary treatises that addressed the specific needs of Anglo-Saxon students, and that provided examples of common metrical patterns.7 In particular, Aldhelm’s De metris includes a hunded riddles designed to exemplify the hexametrical form. These grammatical and metrical works represent the core of the Anglo-Saxon curriculum, and we can be confident that most literate Anglo-Saxons would have been exposed to their ideas in some form, which makes them particularly influential and significant works. Given these texts’ aim, they do not contain any direct explication and discussion of unhælu, although

Aldhelm composes a series of riddles on the theme of visual impairment. Nonetheless, they are grounded in a series of assumptions about the body and its normative state that almost certainly would have influenced how the Anglo-Saxons thought of unhælu.

4 Vivien Law, “The Study of Latin Grammar in Eighth-Century Southumbria,” Anglo-Saxon England (1983): 57-59. 5 Vivien Law, The Insular Latin Grammarians, Studies in Celtic History 3 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1982), 53-80; and Law, “The Study of Latin Grammar,” 43-71. 6 Lapidge, “Anglo-Latin Literature,” 2. 7 Ibid.

The Normative Body within the Grammars

From the start of the Anglo-Saxons’ educational career, they would have been steeped in presuppositions about the normative body and its capabilities. As part of students’ very first lessons in grammar, almost all of them would have learnt some version of Donatus’ definition of a noun from the Ars minor: “Nomen quid est? Pars orationis cum casu, corpus aut rem proprie communiterue significans” (What is a noun? A part of speech with case, signifying a body or a thing, either in a proper or common manner).8 As Leslie

Lockett discusses, this definition of a noun gave rise to much scholarly debate about the distinction between corpus “body” and res “thing.”9 Nonetheless, the grammarians generally agreed that corpus referred to corporalia “corporeal things” and res referred to incorporalia “incorporeal things.”10 Moreover, they claimed that corporalia could be distinguished from incorporalia on the basis of sight and touch, as people could only see and touch corporalia.11 Consequently, Donatus’ definition of the noun assumes the existence of a normative body. It assumes that everyone possesses the senses of sight and touch, and is able to use them to categorize the things around them in a meaningful way.

If this distinction between corporalia and incorporalia were purely grammatical, this definition would be ableist, but it would not have particularly problematic implications for the Anglo-Saxons’ conception of unhælu. Nevertheless, grammar

8 Donatus, Ars minor, ch. 2 (ed. Holtz, Donat et la tradition de l’enseignement grammatical, 585). As discussed, Anglo-Saxon students, especially in the later period, may not have read the Ars minor itself, but they would have found a very similar definition in other grammars. 9 Lockett, Anglo-Saxon Psychologies, 228-34. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid.

became intertwined with ontology in the late antique and medieval periods, with the result that grammatical classes were assumed to reflect ontological categories. As Law shows, the early Christian grammarians believed that language was capable of transcending material life on earth, and thereby revealing higher spiritual, philosophical and ontological truths.12 Law suggests, however, that these scholars did not find much higher meaning in the grammatical doctrine about word classes such as nouns and verbs.13 While she is correct in her assessment that the grammarians rarely offered spiritual interpretations of the word classes,14 she does not give enough weight to the fact that many of their works use word classes to explore ontological issues. In discussing the noun, the grammarians frequently include digressions about what it meant for a noun’s referent to be incorporeal.15 These digressions suggest that they believed grammar could act as an index to the structure of divine Creation, and so could serve as a means of answering certain ontological questions. Consequently, the grammatical distinction between corpus and res becomes an ontological one as well, and the normative body becomes necessary to understand this fundamental aspect of ontology.

The centrality of the senses to this ontology is suggestive of the theory of embodied realism, which, according to Lakoff and Johnson, holds that our conceptual

12 Vivien Law, The History of Linguistics in Europe: From Plato to 1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 112-24. 13 Ibid., 115. 14 Ibid. As Law notes, the Carolingian grammarian and theologian Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel was an exception, as he developed a spiritual interpretation of the eight parts of speech and explored the mysteries of number and gender in his commentary on Donatus. However, although his homilies were available in Anglo-Saxon England and were a major source for Ælfric, we have no evidence that they had access to his grammatical works. 15 Lockett, Anglo-Saxon Psychologies, 230.

categories are largely grounded in and shaped by our bodies, which include our perceptual and motor systems.16 The grammars’ division of things into corporalia and incorporalia on the basis of the senses is a clear instance of categories that depend upon and are defined by bodily experience. For this reason, Amy Vidali’s critique of embodied realism may be productively applied to the ontology that was transmitted in late antique grammars. Specifically, Vidali argues that Lakoff and Johnson’s theory is fundamentally ableist.17 According to her, Lakoff and Johnson assume that people develop metaphors primarily because they share common physical, cognitive, and sensory experiences that shape their perceptions.18 Almost without exception, Lakoff and Johnson define these common experiences in terms of the abled body, which they present as normal and natural.19 They exclude the diverse experiences of disabled bodies, presumably as irrelevant to the common human experience.20 Consequently, Vidali asserts that Lakoff and Johnson suggest that “the building blocks of language are formed by able bodies and are transferred to those with disabilities by contagious contact,” which relegates disabled people to a second-class existence.21 They do not give enough weight to the cultural explanations and influences that might have shaped language in ableist ways.22 As a result, Lakoff and Johnson’s theory is built on and shores up the myth of the normative body. Similar criticisms may be levelled at the late antique grammars and their unspoken

16 Lakoff and Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh, 555. 17 Amy Vidali, “Seeing What We Know: Disability and Theories of Metaphor,” Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies 4, no. 1 (2010): 34-42. 18 Ibid., 37-39. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid., 39-41. 21 Ibid., 39. 22 Ibid., 37.

assumption that all bodies possess the senses of sight and touch. By ignoring bodies that do not have those capabilities, they uphold the naturalness and the primacy of the normative body. They suggest that the normative body is best able to perceive and understand the design of Creation.

Normative and Non-Normative Bodies within the Enigmata

The ontology found in the grammars influences another important set of school texts: the riddles or enigmata, which were used for didactic purposes in the classroom, and which provide a wealth of information about non-normative bodies. Specifically, within the

Anglo-Saxon period, Latin riddles were often used to teach and exemplify meter, almost inevitably the hexameters in which most Anglo-Latin poetry is written.23 Aldhelm’s De metris best exemplifies this practice, since, as mentioned earlier, it primarily discusses dactylic hexameter, and then models that meter in a series of a hundred enigmata.24 In composing these enigmata, Aldhelm drew inspiration from the work of Symphosius, a late Latin poet who invented a set of a hundred three-line riddles, apparently as a party- trick.25 Aldhelm took the number and form of his enigmata from Symphosius, but used them for a far more serious purpose. In Lapidge’s words, “Aldhelm set out to reveal the hidden links between all creation – animate and inanimate – and by means of an intricate

23 For a history of the Anglo-Latin hexameter, see Andy Orchard, “After Aldhelm: The Teaching and Transmission of the Anglo-Latin Hexameter,” The Journal of Medieval Latin 2 (1992): 96-133. 24 Aldhelm’s provision of models arguably reflects his own style of composition. His poetry is “almost wholly cobbled together from a combination of repeated phrases, both borrowed and newly coined.” Andy Orchard, The Poetic Art of Aldhelm, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 8 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 74. 25 Michael Lapidge, “The Comparative Approach,” in Reading Old English Texts, ed. Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 30.

web of interlocking themes and metaphors to lead the reader to contemplate God’s

Creation afresh.”26 His enigmata use the riddle-form to address ontological issues, and so have a strong affinity with the grammars. Aldhelm’s riddles were extremely influential and inspired many imitators, including Boniface, who composed twenty enigmata on the virtues and vices; Tatwine, who produced a collection of forty enigmata; and Eusebius, who penned sixty riddles to expand Tatwine’s collection to the more canonical one hundred. 27 As this brief textual genealogy should suggest, Symphosius’ riddle-collection stands as progenitor to the Anglo-Latin riddle tradition. The Old English riddles in the

Exeter Book may also be viewed as a reflex of this tradition, as some of them are direct vernacular translations of Latin antecedents, and their number (over ninety) approaches the Latin model of one hundred.28 Following this history, I first examine Symphosius’ enigmata and their construction of the non-normative body, and then consider the extent to which Aldhelm and his successors, writing in both Latin and the vernacular, inherited that construction along with the riddle-form.

The Enigmata and Deformity or Impairment as a Sign of Non-Humanness

Certain of Symphosius’ enigmata play on his audience’s assumptions about the normative body and make them part of the riddle game. The poems use non-normative physical features to reveal and playfully obscure the identity of their subjects. They evoke the normative human body through their lexical choices, and show how their subjects

26 Lapidge, “Anglo-Latin Literature,” 9. 27 Ibid., 9. 28 Lapidge, “The Comparative Approach,” 30.

differ from it in either form or function. As a result, deformity and impairment become central to the riddles’ mystery, and serve to indicate their subjects’ non-humanness.

Symphosius’ enigmata about the mole, the poppy and the pestle provide excellent examples of this riddling strategy:

Talpa. Caeca mihi facies atris obscura tenebris; Nox est ipse dies nec sol mihi cernitur ullus; Malo tegi terra: sic me quoque nemo videbit.29

(Mole. My face is blind, hidden in black shadows; Day itself is night, and no sun is seen by me. I prefer to be covered by the earth: thus no-one will see me either.)

Papauer. Grande mihi caput est, intus sunt membra minuta; Pes solum est unus, sed pes longissimus unus; Et me somnus amat, proprio nec dormio somno.30

(Poppy. My head is large, the organs inside are small; There is only one foot, but [my] one foot is very long; And sleep loves me, but I do not sleep with my own sleep.)

Pistillus. Contero cuncta simul virtutis robore magno; Una mihi cervix, capitum sed forma duorum; Pro pedibus caput est: nam cetera corpore non sunt.31

(Pestle. I grind all things together with great force of strength. I have one neck, but the appearance of two heads; There is a head instead of [my] feet; for the other parts of [my] body do not exist.)

In these riddles, Symphosius evokes the human body through the use of metaphorical or catachrestic language. The poppy has a head and a foot, and the pestle has two heads, a neck and no feet. Likewise, the mole has a face, a feature which may be more associated

29 Symphosius, Aenigmata 21.1-3 (ed. Glorie, 643). 30 Symphosius, Aenigmata 40.1-3 (ed. Glorie, 663). 31 Symphosius, Aenigmata 88.1-3 (ed. Glorie, 709). I have treated corpore as a dative of possession.

with humans than animals, but which at minimum the two species share.32 Since these words primarily denote parts of the human body, they call those parts to the readers’ mind and invite them to assemble them into a body, much as we might build a model out of pieces. In the case of the pestle and the poppy, the resulting assemblage is reminiscent of the monstrous races, which I discuss later in this chapter. Consequently, Symphosius evokes the human body only to confound that possibility. Riddles tend to deal in norms, although there are notable exceptions that, as I shall discuss later in this section, play off of this genre convention. They tend to describe the most typical, normative example of their subject, albeit in an obscure way, in order to allow their readers to identify it. They present a version of their subject akin to the Platonic Ideal, though grounded in the earthly plane. In similar fashion to the grammars, then, they suggest an unselfconscious assumption that their readers will have a shared sense of normative form and function, i.e. a virtually universal norm that they can use to interpret the enigmata.

For this reason, a riddle’s inclusion of non-normative body parts usually suggests that its subject is not human. Although conjoined twins may have two heads, an amputee may have one foot, and many people are blind, their bodies are not normative, and so they do not serve as an index to the human. Consequently, impairment and deformity

32 Facies can simply mean “form or outward appearance,” but I would argue that that the proximity of caeca, “blind”, encourages the reader to interpret it more specifically as “face.” Both meanings are attested in the Anglo-Saxon period per the DMLBS, s.v. “facies.” Susan Crane discusses the facelessness of animals in rationalist philosophy, such as Levinas’ belief that animals have no faces or only secondary faces, because we only acquire a face in relation to universal, ethnical imperatives. She is not explicit about whether people in the Middle Ages held a similar view, although she does remark that the animal’s missing face recalls juridical mutilation, where people’s crimes or fault are rendered visible upon their bodies, which suggests that she does not find the concept inapplicable. In this case, the animal’s “fault” would be a lack of reason. Animal Encounters: Contacts and Concepts in Medieval Britain (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), 50-51.

serve the same role as the other peculiar details in the poems, such as the mole’s propensity for being covered by earth, the poppy’s permanent sleeplessness, the pestle’s lack of any body beyond its head. All of these details indicate that the solution to the riddle lies outside of the boundaries of the human, that the subject in question lacks normative human form or functionality. The mole’s blindness, the poppy’s large head and single “foot,” and the pestle’s double-headedness function as part of the limiting process of the riddle’s description, and assist in marking the beings described as non-human.

Impairment and deformity may fulfill this function to a lesser degree than the more idiosyncratic details, yet I would argue that the difference is one of degree rather than kind. To determine how Symphosius makes use of the non-normative body in this way, we need to understand how his riddles are working.

On the one hand, Symphosius’ riddles are characterized by their brevity and extreme economy, so that every element limits or clarifies the solution in some way. It may be helpful to think of this process in logical terms. At the beginning of any riddle, the reader knows only that the solution exists in the set of all things. Every detail defines a smaller and smaller subset by excluding anything that does not fit. As the riddle proceeds, the set of all things is reduced to a set of one, which is the solution. On the other hand, riddles involve misdirection and obfuscation as a central part of the game, which means that their elements often simultaneously conceal the identity of their subject as they point to it. As a result, riddles involve a ludic interplay between hiding and revealing that the readers have to negotiate. For this reason, Symphosius uses metaphorical and catachrestic language to describe non-human subjects in human terms,

since it allows him to veil their identity by putting a human disguise on them. This technique is most evident in the non-animal riddles – i.e. the riddles where there is no shared anatomy between the riddle’s subject and a human – with poppies having feet rather than stems, and pestles having necks rather than handles. Yet, by making their bodies non-normative, he is able to suggest that his subjects are not human, that his readers need to look past their disguise. Consequently, within the riddles, impairment and deformity serve to clarify rather than obscure the answer, to point the reader away from the human as a likely solution. In sum, while the riddles may employ body-part words to hint at a human solution and obscure the real answer, they use non-normative form and function to foreclose that possibility and demonstrate that the solution is non-human. The result is that these texts align impairment and deformity in part with non-humanness.

The Anglo-Saxons inherited this poetic association between the non-normative body and non-humanness, and imitated it within their own compositions. Aldhelm’s and

Eusebius’ enigmata about the fish show how they internalized this connection, and used it within their own compositions. For instance, Aldhelm’s riddle makes the fish’s lack of feet and hands its most salient feature:

Me pedibus manibusque simul fraudauerat almus Arbiter, immensum primo dum pangeret orbem. Fulcior haud uolitans ueloci praepetis ala Spiritus alterno uegitat nec corpora flatu. Quamuis in caelis conuexa cacumina cernam, Non tamen undosi contemno marmora ponti.

(The kindly Creator deprived me at once of feet and hands when He first created the mighty world. I am not sustained in flight by the swift wing of a bird; nor does breath in alternating inhalations animate my body. Although while in the skies I

gaze on heaven’s vaulted summits, yet I do not scorn the waters of the surging sea.) 33

Eusebius’s riddle mirrors Aldhelm’s focus on the fish’s lack of feet and hands, as it opens with these lines:

De pisce. Non uolo penniger aethram, non uago rura pedester; Sic manibus pedibusque carens me pennula fulcit. Trano per undisonas ac turgida cerula limphas, Astriferumque polum et sublime peragro tribunal.34

(About the fish. I do not fly the heaven with wings, I do not roam the countryside on foot. Thus, lacking hands and feet, a little wing supports me. I swim through the waters resounding with waves and through the swollen cerulean sea, and I travel through the starry sky and the lofty judgment seat.)

Within these riddles, Aldhelm and Eusebius use impairment in an identical fashion to

Symphosius. By referring to hands and feet, they call to mind human anatomy, yet they evoke those parts only to demonstrate their absence. The fish lacks or is deprived of hands and feet. Consequently, the reader is encouraged to compare the subject’s body to the normative human one, and reach the conclusion that the subject cannot be human.

Aldhelm’s enigma about the fish may imitate Symphosius in using the non-normative body to indicate non-humanness, yet his text raises its own problematic questions about impairment. If Aldhelm intended his enigmata to present the ontology of creation, what does it mean for the creator to deprive a creation of certain important limbs? This

33 Aldhelm, Aenigmata 71.1-6 (ed. Glorie, 479; trans. Lapidge and Rosier, Poetic Works, 85). 34 Eusebius, Aenigmata 40.1-4 (ed. Glorie, 250). Again, the syntax of this riddle is somewhat incoherent. In the second line, carens is clearly intended to modify me, but, as it stands, it modifies pennula, which makes no sense. The fin cannot be lacking hands and feet. Likewise, in the third line, the two adjectives are stacked before the two nouns that they modify in a rather odd fashion, especially given the presence of ac that normally designates a close internal connection between two words.

question may be phrased in even stronger terms: fraudare can also mean “to defraud, to trick, or to steal,”35 while almus can be interpreted as “gracious, fostering, or holy.”36 We may wonder why a holy creator would cheat his creation, and why a creator who stole from his creation would be described as nurturing. It creates an odd tension, which is only partially resolved when we discover the creature is a fish and so does not require hands or feet to move. It remains an open question what we should make of cases where people have been born without certain limbs; where, to use Aldhelm’s language, they have been cheated of their arms or legs by their nurturing creator. Eusebius’ riddle, which offers a more neutral description of the fish’s body, does not raise the same problematic issues.

Eusebius’ enigma about the lizard provides another instance of impairment being used to characterize an animal. The riddle is built around a piece of false lore found in both the Physiologus and Isidore’s Etymologiae.37 The Physiologus describes the sun- lizard as a beast whose eyes weaken and eventually grow blind as it ages. Its nature compels it to find a crack in an east-facing wall and gaze upon the rising sun, which opens and renews its eyes.38 The Physiologus was known in various Latin recensions and redactions in Anglo-Saxon England, and a partial vernacular translation that comprises its entries on the panther, phoenix, and whale is found within the Exeter Book.39

35 DMLBS, s.v. “fraudare.” 36 DMLBS, s.v. “almus.” 37 This lore presumably is intended to explain the reptile’s habit of basking to keep warm. 38 Michael J. Curley, ed. and trans., Physiologus: A Medieval Book of Nature Lore (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 66-67. 39 Lapidge, “Surviving Booklists,” 120. Lothar Frank offers a full account of the Physiologus’ transmission history in England. Die Physiologus-Literatur des englischen Mittelalters und die Tradition (PhD diss., Tübingen, 1971).

Nonetheless, most Anglo-Saxons would have learnt of this lore from Isidore’s

Etymologiae, which describes the saura as a type of lizard that goes blind as it ages and receives light when the sun rises.40 Consequently, the text draws upon an existing scholarly connection between the lizard and visual impairment, and uses this connection as the primary clue to its subject’s identity:

De saura lacerto. Porro senectutis fugiens discrimina ferre Lumina fuscantur mihi, sicque foramina tecti Illa parte domus [quae] solis spectat in ortum Intro, ac Titanis radiis inluminor ipsis.41

(About the lizard. I am one avoiding bearing the dangers of old age in the future. The light of my eyes grow dark, and I enter the holes in the roof on that side of the house that looks upon the rising of the sun, and I am illuminated by Titan’s rays themselves.)

The riddle is a poetic paraphrase of the lore that is found in these late antique texts, and it does not have the same tension between the subject’s “human” attributes and its non- normative body. Rather, the text presents a miniature narrative based upon prosthesis.

The lizard’s fading eyesight is prosthetized by the sun, which supplies the light that he is lacking. The polyptoton in lumina and inluminor underscores this substitution. This narrative of prosthesis suggests that all living creatures naturally and instinctively seek to normalize their impairments, and to strive for a normative body. Indeed, the Physiologus

40 Isidore, Etym. 12.5.47 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.; trans. Barney, 257). 41 Eusebius, Aenigmata 50.1-4 (ed. Glorie, 260). The opening line of this riddle is incoherent, as it is far from clear with what fugiens is agreeing. It is a long way from intro “I enter,” and there is no nominative singular before that point. I have chosen to treat it as a predicate adjective with sum omitted, since the alternative would be to assume it is ungrammatical and nominative fugiens is meant to refer to the dative mihi.

is explicit in attributing the lizard’s sun-gazing to its nature.42 Consequently, the riddle presents normativity not as a social construction, but as a biological imperative.

Aldhelm’s enigma about the Colossus of Rhodes provides perhaps the best and most significant example of impairment being associated with non-humanness:

Omnia membra mihi plasmauit corporis auctor, Nec tamen ex isdem membrorum munia sumpsi, Pergere nec plantis, oculis nec cernere possum, Quamquam nunc patulae constent sub fronte fenestrae. Nullus anhelanti procedit uiscere flatus Spicula nec geminis nitor torquere lacertis. Heu! Frustra factor confinxit corpus inorme, Totis membrorum dum frauder sensibus intus.

(The maker of my body fashioned all my limbs for me; nevertheless, I do not derive the normal functions accruing to limbs from them: I cannot walk on my feet nor see with my eyes, even though there are wide-open windows beneath my forehead. No breath comes from panting inwards, nor do I strive to cast arrows with both arms. Alas, my creator made this gigantic frame in vain, since I am inwardly devoid of all feeling in my limbs.)43

Here, Aldhelm uses impairment as his primary means of indicating that, while the body under consideration may be human in shape, the Colossus is ultimately something other than human. He goes through the various organs and limbs of its body and shows how they lack the munia, the functions or endowments that we might expect them to have, with the result that we move further away from the normative human with every detail, and come to the realization that we are not dealing with a human at all. It seems significant that Aldhelm defers the most non-human details – the Colossus’ lack of

42 Curley, ed. and trans., Physiologus, 67. 43 Aldhelm, Aenigmata 72.1-8 (ed. Glorie, 481; trans. Lapidge and Rosier, Poetic Works, 85).

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respiration, its gigantic body, its absolute lack of sensation – until the end. It suggests that he wishes his readers to come to a gradual realization of what the Colossus is, to move from the non-normative human to the non-human. He may have theological motives for structuring the poem this way, since it appears to be offering commentary on the futility of idolatry, of humans creating inanimate statues and then worshipping them.44 By starting with the human and moving to the non-human, he is able to set up an implicit contrast between God’s living creation and people’s non-living creations.45 Yet, it has the result of putting impairment on the same continuum as inanimateness, of suggesting that people with impairments have certain affinities with inanimate objects, just as earlier riddles connected them to beasts. Most problematic in this regard is the Colossus’ closing statement, where it laments being made in vain since it is devoid of all inward feeling in its limbs. In identical fashion to Aldhelm’s fish, the Colossus uses frauder “I am cheated” to describe how his creator made him incapable of sensation. As a statement on idolatry, his complaint makes perfect sense, but it has unpleasant implications for impairment. If people with impairments lack feeling or functionality in some limbs, does that make them lesser creations? Does it mean that they have less of a purpose and a place than able- bodied people? And how can they be understood as the work of a perfect creator?

Aldhelm almost certainly did not intend his riddle to serve as a commentary on impairment, but his technique and the ontological nature of his enigmata make these

(perhaps unanswerable) questions inevitable.

44 The Colossus of Rhodes was a statue of Helios, a Greek sun-god. 45 Aldhelm’s movement from animation to inanimation is reminiscent of James Simpson’s discussion of medieval anxiety over whether idols were alive or dead. Under the Hammer: Iconoclasm in the Anglo- American Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 49-84.

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Non-Normative Human Bodies in the Enigmata

The Anglo-Saxon corpus of enigmata contains other examples of impairment being used to mark a creature as non-human, but it would be redundant to discuss all of them.

Instead, I wish to turn back to Symphosius’ riddles, and consider their second and less common use of impairment as an additional complicating factor in the riddle’s solution.

His riddle about the miles podagricus “gouty soldier” provides an excellent example:

Miles podagricus. Bellipotens olim, semper metuendus in armis, Sexque pedes habui, quos numquam nemo negavit; Nunc mihi vix duo sunt: inopem me copia reddit.46

(Gouty soldier. Once powerful in war, always to be feared in arms, I had six feet, which no-one ever denied. Now, I have scarcely two: abundance has made me destitute.)

Without the final line, the answer would be fairly transparent, especially given the martial context suggested by riddle’s opening line and its use of copia, which has a secondary military meaning of “supplies, provisions or troops.”47 In this context, the mystery of the soldier’s six feet is relatively straightforward: he rode a horse to war, and so added its four feet to his own two. Yet, the final line obfuscates matters: what does it mean that this soldier has scarcely two feet? We would expect him to have two feet after giving up his horse, we would be able to interpret his having one foot as a war injury, but it is hard to know what to make of a state between those two numbers. As it turns out, the soldier is a

46 Symphosius, Aenigmata 94.1-3 (ed. Glorie, 715). 47 DMLBS, s.v. “copia.”

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miles podagricus or gouty soldier, a solution that meets the conditions of the riddle, but which does not appear to be strongly suggested by it or easy to intuit from it. To put it bluntly, the soldier’s gout seems like a cheat, an artificial way of increasing the complexity of an otherwise simple enigma. Thus, in this riddle, impairment obscures the human body, and makes it less legible and identifiable. Symphosius is able to use impairment in this way, because, as discussed above, riddles as a genre tend to depend upon normative views of the body. The reader’s expectation is that they will present a typical representative of their subject. Consequently, the rare riddles that involve a non- normative body confound this expectation, and make it part of the process of obfuscation.

In the specific case of the gouty soldier, his statement that he has scarcely two feet encourages the reader to dismiss the possibility of his being human, since the normative human body has two feet. Thus, even though the riddle involves a non-normative human body, it still uses non-normativity as a mark of non-humanness, which is possible because the reader has grown accustomed, through reading earlier riddles, to expecting that non-normative bodies will signify non-humanness.

A more extreme instance of this technique may be found in Symphosius’ famous enigma about the one-eyed garlic seller:

Luscus alium uendens. Cernere iam fas est quod vix tibi credere fas est: Unus inest oculus, capitum sed milia multa. Qui quod habet vendit, quod non habet unde parabit?48

(One-eyed man selling garlic. Now it is possible to see what is hardly possible for you to believe: one eye belongs [to him], but many thousands of heads. Whence shall he, who sells what he has, obtain what he does not have?)

48 Symphosius, Aenigmata 95.1-3 (ed. Glorie, 716.)

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The garlic seller has hundreds of heads of garlic as merchandise, but only one eye in his own head. The riddle comically suggests that he cannot trade a head for an eye; the humor comes from the confusion of the head as a body part and as a term for a garlic bulb, which the preceding reference to an eye encourages.49 People may have a thousand heads of garlic, but not a thousand heads on their neck. In regard to this aspect of the riddle, Dieter Bitterli remarks that it uses numbers to confuse and mislead the readers, but he does not explain precisely why those numbers might be so perplexing.50 I would suggest that the confusion arises partially from the riddle’s literal and metaphorical usage of body-part words, and partially from its presentation of non-normative anatomy. If the readers do not realize that eye is being used literally and heads metaphorically, they have to invent an anatomy that includes both those features, yet the thousand heads and single eye are puzzlingly incompatible details, given the usual connection between those body parts. At the same time, the riddle uses non-normative anatomy to obscure its subject, but in a more complex way than we have encountered so far. Specifically, it presents two opposite kinds of non-normative anatomy in the extreme multiplication of heads, and the reduction of eyes. Consequently, the subject’s body is non-normative in two distinct and seemingly contradictory ways, which increases the mystery around it. Nonetheless, both non-normative features seem to point the reader away from the possibility that the riddle

49 Dieter Bitterli, Say What I Am Called: The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book and the Anglo-Latin Tradition (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 68-69. 50 Ibid., 68.

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is about a human, since they do not correspond to the image of the normative human body, the heads obviously more than the eye.

Symphosius’ riddle about the one-eyed garlic seller was popular enough in the

Anglo-Saxon period to inspire an Old English version, which is found in the Exeter

Book. Although similar to its Latin source, the vernacular version places the garlic seller within a specific context and expands upon the description of his body:

Wiht cwom gongan, þær weras sæton monige on mæðle, mode snottre; hæfde an eage ond earan twa, ond II fet, XII hund heafda, hrycg ond wombe, ond honda twa, earmas ond eaxle, anne sweoran ond sidan twa. Saga hwæt ic hatte.51

(A creature came travelling where men sat, many in an assembly, wise in mind; it had one eye and two ears, and two feet, twelve hundred heads, a back and a stomach, and two hands, arms and shoulders, one neck and two sides. Say what I am called.)

According to Bitterli, the Old English riddle implicitly “contrasts the outlandish

‘creature’ with an almost equally strange assembly of wise men.”52 This contrast between the garlic seller and the assembly he enters serves to obscure his humanity, since it presents him as a “monstrous ‘wiht’ walking among ordinary people.” 53 Indeed, it is significant that he is called a wiht “creature,” while the members of the assembly are weras “men.” These different descriptors suggest that they are different entities, with the

51 Riddle 86 (ASPR 3:238). 52 Bitterli, Say What I Am Called, 69. 53 Ibid., 69.

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men embodying a human, corporeal normativity that the “creature” exceeds with its heads and lacks with its eye. Consequently, the riddle sets up very deliberate connections between the normative and the human, and the non-normative and the non-human, which it then exploits to obfuscate its subject.

In addition to embodying normativity, the wise men also indicate the type of knowledge necessary to solve the riddle. Robert DiNapoli reads their assembly as the conventional locus of the wisdom tradition.54 Bitterli argues, however, that the locus usually is employed with reference to the wise readers who can solve the riddle, but the wise men in this case have knowledge that the readers do not: they already know and see what the reader has yet to discover.55 As this suggests, the wise men are able to identify the “creature” because they have access to the evidence of their senses. They can see him standing in front of him, and determine exactly what his single eye and twelve hundred heads are. Vision solves the mystery of his anatomy, and turns him from a monster into an impaired man. Thus, ironically, the possession of normative senses is necessary to unravel the riddle.

54 Robert DiNapoli, “In the Kingdom of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is a Seller of Garlic: Depth- Perception and the Poet’s Perspective in the Exeter Book Riddles,” English Studies 81.5 (2000): 453. DiNapoli makes the argument that the garlic-seller riddle works as a meta-narrative, in which the one-eyed man is meant to evoke Oðinn (who is god of poetry and of vision), and his twelve-hundred heads suggests the poet’s ability to portray in the many-layered depths of reality. He reads it as a tableau that depicts how the the poet feels marginalized within the Christian milieu that has taken over his native tradition. I do not find this reading particularly convincing, since it would involve the poet adapting a foreign text in a foreign form in order to express his affinity with traditional native poetry. Moreover, the details that DiNapoli finds most significant are present in the Latin source, which makes it hard to ascribe specifically Germanic symbolism to them. 55 Bitterli, Say What I Am Called, 69.

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Although the Old English riddle follows its Latin source in describing the garlic seller having over a thousand heads and a single eye, it expands on his anatomy in significant ways.56 Most of the vernacular version is taken up by a catalog of his body parts, which, other than his single eye and twelve hundred heads, are completely normative. It describes an ordinary torso and an unremarkable number of limbs. In

DiNapoli’s words, it is “almost prosaic in its catalogue of basic features of the human body,” which raises the question of why the Old English author spends so much space enumerating them.57 The simplest answer is that the author felt they were necessary to solve the riddle. As Craig Williamson remarks, we would probably not know the solution to the riddle if we did not have access to Symphosius’ collection, which comes with titles that provide the answers.58 The Anglo-Saxon poet might have thought Symphosius’ enigma was too confounding, and wanted to give additional assistance. By providing a catalog of normative human body parts, he gestures towards the garlic seller’s humanity and profoundly limits the possibilities for the solution, although the change does not make the riddle transparent by any means. Thus, the Old English text strengthens the association between the normative and the human.59

56 Ibid., 69. 57 Robert DiNapoli, “In the Kingdom of the Blind,” 453. 58 Craig Williamson, The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press), 376-77. 59 Although not about impairment per se, Symphosius’ riddle about the woman pregnant with twins makes use of a similar technique to his riddle of the one-eyed garlic seller, and seems to have inspired Aldhelm’s enigmata about the woman giving birth to twins and the sow pregnant with piglets. All of these texts present the readers with a seemingly monstrous creature with multiple heads, organs and limbs, which turn out be the total of the mother’s and fetuses’ body parts. As Bitterli remarks, these riddles rely upon contemporary cultural concepts of the normal and abnormal in order to mask their subjects’ true identities. They mislead their audience by presenting the domestic as the monstrous. Say What I Am Called, 70. At the same time, though, these pregnancy riddles ultimately end up reinforcing normativity as a virtually universal state, since, once they are decoded, the mother and her fetuses end up having the typical number

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In addition to translating and adapting Symphosius’ riddle about the garlic seller, the Anglo-Saxon authors composed their own enigmata that used non-normative anatomy as a complicating factor in their solution. When read together, Aldhelm’s and Tatwine’s collections engage repeatedly with the theme of visual impairment in its various manifestations, which may suggest that they were directly inspired by Symphosius’ garlic seller.60 Aldhelm’s riddle on a man blind from birth presents visual impairment in its most extreme form:

Iam referam uerbis tibi, quod uix credere possis, Cum constet uerum fallant nec friuola mentem. Nam dudum dederam soboli munuscula grata, Tradere quae numquam poterat mihi quislibet alter, Dum Deus ex alto frauderat munere claro, In quo cunctorum gaudent praecordia dono.

(I shall now say to you in words what you will scarcely be able to believe, even though it’s true and not trifles to trick the mind. For once upon a time I gave a welcome gift to my son, a gift which no-one could ever have given to me, since God from on high had deprived me of the bright bounty in which all other men’s hearts rejoice.)61

Here, Aldhelm goes further than Symphosius in making blindness the only salient feature that distinguishes the man. In Symphosius, the gouty soldier and the one-eyed garlic seller are defined by both their impairment and their profession; in Aldhelm, the man is simply blind. Consequently, the man’s visual impairment serves as the primary mystery

of body parts. Indeed, the riddles can only be decoded by assuming that their bodies are normative, and their heads, organs and limbs will add up to a certain fixed number. 60 These poets’ emphasis on the various forms that visual impairments could take seems to confirm the lexicon’s impression that the Anglo-Saxons tended to distinguish between forms of unhælu as a result of their effect upon the body’s functionality. 61 Aldhelm, Aenigmata 85.1-6 (ed. Glorie, 505; trans. Lapidge and Rosier, Poetic Works, 89).

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in the enigma, the factor that both defines him and makes his identity a puzzle. The riddle emphasizes the mystifying nature of his impairment, as it presents his blindness through a logical paradox that the reader has to unravel in order to reach the solution. Specifically, the man is able to give to his son what he himself does not possess. The gift in question is obviously vision; the blind man has engendered a seeing son. Although this situation may not strike us as particularly mysterious, Aldhelm presents it as a marvel that the reader will scarcely be able to believe, which may be part of the riddle’s strategy of misdirection, but which has the effect of presenting visual impairment as a state that gives rise to wonders.

Aldhelm’s phrasing of this paradox becomes problematic, though, when he has the blind man complain that God has deprived him of the bright bounty or gift in which the hearts of all other men rejoice. Here, Aldhelm implies that this blind man is unique in his lack of vision, that everyone except him is able to see, which is patently false. The universalizing nature of the riddles provides a partial counterargument. As discussed earlier, the subjects of riddles usually function in a similar fashion to the Platonic Ideal, in that they represent all possible members of their class. In other words, the blind man of the riddle should stand for all blind men. Nonetheless, this blind man is strangely particular, as the riddle’s logical paradox requires him to have a specific biography. He is a father and has a seeing son, details that would not be common to all blind men.

Consequently, the riddle ends up characterizing him as an individual who is unique in his impairment. Indeed, it underscores his singularity through his remark that the “cunctorum

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… praecordia” (the hearts of all) rejoice in their vision. As a result, the riddle argues that the sense of sight is so normative that it is virtually universal.

Moreover, Aldhelm has the blind man suggest that he is alone in his impairment because he has been singled out by God. For a third time, Aldhelm presents impairment as God defrauding his creation, when the blind man claims that God cheated him of a bright gift. As in the riddles about the fish and the Colossus, he uses the verb fraudare to describe the actions of a creator who deprives his creations of a particular ability.

Nevertheless, as in the riddle about the fish, fraudare is juxtaposed with a word that seems to contradict it: namely, the noun munus, which means bounty or gift in this context. As a result, Aldhelm is making the rather strange assertion that God defrauds people of a gift that he presumably chooses to bestow or withhold, especially when he has absolute, unquestionable power over human lives. It seems to be a way of trying to counterbalance the sovereignty of God with the expectation and desirability of normativity. Within the riddle about the blind man, then, Aldhelm seems to be struggling with the question of how impairments can be divinely ordained and yet still be unwelcome and even unfair. Unlike the fish whose limblessness can be explained by its natural form or the Colossus whose insensate body is a result of human creation, the blind man is unique among humankind in his lack of vision, and he was created by God. As a result, his impairment poses an ontological and theological problem that the riddles are unable to solve, though I shall examine other texts later that assign a divine purpose to impairment. The logic behind his blindness endures as a mystery even after the readers have worked out his identity.

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Perhaps inspired by Aldhelm, Tatwine produced a fairly extensive sequence of riddles on the eyes, in which he covers visual acuity and various visual impairments. This sequence suggests that he is interested in exploring the spectrum of vision and thinking through its possibilities. Unsurprisingly, he begins with the normative eyes:

De oculis. Discernens totum iuris, natura locauit Nos pariter geminos una de matre creatos. Diuisi haut magno parui discrimine collis, Vt numquam uidi illum nec me uiderat ipse; Sed cernit sine me nihil, ille nec sine cerno.62

(On the eyes. Discerning all of the law, nature placed us together [as] twins, born from one mother. I am separated by the not at all large division of a little hill, so that I never look at him, and he himself had never looked at me, but he sees nothing without me, and I see nothing without him.)

This riddle offers useful information about how the normative body was conceived.

Tatwine defines the eyes as creations of nature, which made them through its awareness of natural or divine law. Thus, the normative body is an expression of the order and logic of the universe, the underlying laws that shape and govern it. He also discusses the eyes’ normative form and functionality: they come in pairs; they are on either side of the nose; they work in tandem to enable binocular vision. Interestingly, though, Tatwine overstates the eyes’ synchronicity, when he suggests that one eye sees nothing without the other, which is clearly false. This statement equates normative vision and vision in general, so that, as in Aldhelm’s riddle of the blind man, the normative becomes the universal.

Moreover, Tatwine seems to imply through the polyptoton in discernere and cernere that

62 Tatwine, Aenigmata 18.1-5 (ed. Glorie, 185).

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the eyes in turn permit us to have insight into natural law. Where nature discernit

“discerns,” the eye cernit “sees.” This repetition seems to suggest that the eye is capable of similar insight to nature itself. Such an assertion would not be particularly surprising or novel. The grammars often provide an ontological basis for the riddles, and, as I have dicussed, they teach that sight is necessary to distinguish the fundamental, natural categories of corporalia and incorporalia.

Immediately after his riddle on the eyes, Tatwine offers two enigmata that involve visual impairments of various kinds. The first riddle involves eyes with strabismus or crossed eyes:

De strabis oculis. Inter mirandum cunctis est cetera, quod nunc Narro quidem: nos produxit genetrix uterinos, Sed quod contemplor, mox illud cernere spernit; Atque quod ille uidet, secum mox cernere nolo. Est dispar nobis uisus, sed inest amor unus.63

(On squinting eyes. Among other things, that which I now narrate should be marveled at by everyone: a mother brought us forth as siblings born of the same womb, but what I regard, he soon scorns to see; and, what he looks at, I soon refuse to see with him. Our vision is different, but one desire is within [us].)

Here, visual impairment is figured as discord within the body, as an unnecessary conflict between two siblings who share the same desire. The eyes’ desire is not specified, but it must refer to a longing to look at the same object, and so achieve normative vision.

Tatwine’s sequence of enigmata sets up a contrast between these squinting eyes and the normative eyes in the preceding riddle. Tatwine shows how these normative eyes work

63 Tatwine, Aenigmata 19.1-5 (ed. Glorie, 186).

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together in an orderly and harmonious fashion, which he in fact overstates through his depiction of their synchronicity. In contrast, the squinting eyes desire this type of cooperative relationship, but are unable to achieve it. As a result, impairment is figured as a type of corporeal disorder that exists against the body’s wishes. Moreover, in similar fashion to Aldhelm’s riddle of the blind man, visual impairment is presented as a state that gives rise to wonder. For Aldhelm, the blind man’s ability to engender a seeing son is the marvel. For Tatwine, strabismus – the visual impairment itself – necessarily elicits a reaction of amazement from the audience. He uses the gerundive mirandum “be wondered at” to indicate the response he expects the audience to have, and the gerundive often implies necessity or desert. Consequently, strabismus seems to fulfill a similar function to the bodies of the monstrous races, which I will discuss in depth when I come to Isidore, and which also serve as an opportunity to marvel at the infinite variety of creation.

Tatwine’s second riddle about visual impairment deals with a one-eyed person, who shares an impairment but not a profession with the garlic seller:

De lusco. Unus sum genitus lucifer fratris sine fructu, Eius sed propriam post ditabor comitatu Mortem, una uitam deinceps sine fine tenemus In uita, natum nullus quem creuerat umquam. Hoc qui non credit uerum tunc esse uidebit.64

64 Tatwine, Aenigmata 20.1-5 (ed. Glorie, 187). As quoted here, the riddle is an accurate representation of what appears in Glorie’s edition, even though the Latin in line 4 is highly defective and is essentially gibberish. Adolf Ebert’s edition suggests: “in uitam natum, nullus quem creuerat umquam.” “Die Räthselpoesie der Angelsachsen, insbesondere die Aenigmata des Tatwine und Eusebius,” in Berichte über die Verhandlungen der königlich sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Philologisch- historische Classe 29 (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1877), 37. This alternative version, however, does not solve the major problems with the text, which is that natum and quem do not seem to refer to anything that precedes them.

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(On the One-eyed Person. I was born a single light-bringer without the benefit of a brother, but, after my own death, I shall be enriched by his company, thereafter we have life together without end, which son no-one had ever brought forth in life. Anyone who does not believe this will then see it to be true.)

In this riddle, Tatwine is using visual impairment to explore a theological point about the resurrection of the body. Specifically, he is claiming that, even if individuals are born with physical impairments, they will become normative in the afterlife. In other words, impairment is a temporary state that must be endured in life but that will be rectified after death. Here, he is drawing on standard Christian teachings about the perfection of the resurrection body.65 The riddle suggests that this restoration is necessary and desirable, because of the nature of impairment. In reflecting on his absent brother, the eye describes itself as being “sine fructu,” which can mean without fruit, without profit, without advantage.66 Thus, impairment is linked with loss, sterility and death. In particular, it seems to be antithetical to the procreative cycle that is at the heart of nature. The single eye has been born without its brother, which seems to have been born as nothing, although the fourth line is too incoherent to admit any sure interpretation.67

Consequently, impairment appears to go against the natural law which both shapes and is perceived by the normative eyes. Finally, Tatwine again seems to be presenting impairment as a state which results in incredulity, although, in this case, the emotion may

65 See Chapter Seven for a full discussion of this theology. 66 DMLBS, s.v. “fructus.” 67 In similar fashion, the Old English translation of Gregory’s Cura Pastoralis found in the Hatton Manuscript uses “deaf” to refer to sterile corn, which suggests that Tatwine’s association between impairment and sterility may derive from wider Anglo-Saxon culture. Alfred the Great, OE Pastoral Care, ch. 39 (ed. Sweet, 411).

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be directed equally at the body’s impairment and restoration.

Summary of the Grammars’ and Riddles’ Construction of Unhælu

In sum, what lessons did the Anglo-Saxons learn about unhælu as they studied grammar and metrics in their school texts? At the outset, we should note that these lessons might not have been wholly new to them, but rather might have confirmed attitudes and beliefs that were inculcated by their own culture, which, after all, was shaped by the same

Christian ideology that influenced the late antique period. First and foremost, the grammars and the riddles uphold the myth of the normative body. They suggest that virtually all human bodies have the same form and functions, and share in a common corporeal experience. As a part of this construction, they present non-normative bodies as aberrations rather than variations, and exclude them from the definition of the human.

This does not mean that the people with extraordinary bodies were considered non- human, but that they were not perceived as representative of humankind in general.

Moreover, these school texts construct the normative body as positive and desirable. The normative body enables an awareness of fundamental ontological categories, an understanding of the identity of things. It exists in a state of unity, harmony and happiness. By way of contrast, the non-normative body is disordered, sterile and miserable. It may be a cause of wonder for normative people, but it provides few pleasures to the person who inhabits it. In short, as part of the Anglo-Saxons’ first lessons, they would have been steeped in the myth of the normative body and its

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supremacy, a myth that would only be strengthened when they read Isidore of Seville’s

Etymologiae.

Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae

Isidore of Seville’s seventh-century Etymologiae (hereafter, Etym.) was the primary representative of the late antique scholarly tradition within Anglo-Saxon England.

Bernard Bischoff and Michael Lapidge describe the work as “the standard encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, which was it was known in Anglo-Saxon England from at least the late seventh century.68 Likewise, Peter Hunter Blair remarks that Isidore’s work was “a major influence on the development of Anglo-Saxon intellectual life in the age of

Bede.”69 From that period onwards, it was viewed as a foundational text, and remained popular and influential throughout the period. According to the evidence of manuscripts, quotations and allusions, it was among the most widely read and disseminated texts in

Anglo-Saxon England.70 Consequently, it is “one of very few texts about which we can safely say that the vast majority of Latin authors and the most prolific OE authors had direct knowledge of it.”71 In other words, it was known and used not only by the most important authors, but also by the middling and frankly mediocre ones. Given this breadth of influence, it is crucial to consider what it would have taught the Anglo-Saxons about unhælu.

68 Bernard Bischoff and Michael Lapidge, Biblical Commentaries from the Canterbury School of Theodore and Hadrian, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 10 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 204. 69 Peter Hunter Blair, The World of Bede (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 293. 70 Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Library, 311. 71 Lockett, Anglo-Saxon Psychologies, 226.

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Isidore’s Methodology in the Etym.

Understanding Isidore’s Etym., however, requires understanding his methodology, which differs profoundly from those of present-day etymological works. His assumptions about language and ontology are embedded within his methodology, and would have affected how the Anglo-Saxons read and interpreted the text. Indeed, they would have been one of the major lessons they learnt from it. Consequently, we cannot examine what the work says about impairment and disability without taking into account how it does so. As the title Etym. suggests, Isidore uses the etymologies of words to structure his encyclopedia and to discuss the nature of the things that those words signify, although his etymologies usually have no basis in the historical development of a word. Jacques Fontaine states that Isidore uses etymology as “le principe d’organisation de toute sa pensée” (the principle of organization for all his thought).72 Mark Amsler, likewise, claims that

“[e]tymology in Isidore’s encyclopedic discourse is a generative strategy, not only because it produces a formalized account of the world but also because it produces accounts.”73 Thus, Isidore uses etymological reasoning to organize his material and to generate knowledge about it.

Isidore’s etymology for etymologia provides the best illustration of his sense of the method’s power and potential:

72 Jacques Fontaine, “Cohérence et Originalité de l’Étymologie Isidorienne,” in Homenaje a Eleuterio Elorduy S.J., ed. Félix Rodríguez and Juan Iturraga (Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, 1978), 113. 73 Mark Amsler, Etymology and Grammatical Discourse in the Late Antique and Early Middle Ages, Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science 44 (Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1989), 143.

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Etymologia est origo vocabulorum, cum vis verbi vel nominis per interpretationem colligitur.... Cuius cognitio saepe usum necessarium habet in interpretatione sua. Nam dum videris unde ortum est nomen, citius vim eius intellegis. Omnis enim rei inspectio etymologia cognita planior est.

(Etymology is the origin of words, when the force of a verb or noun is inferred through interpretation.... The knowledge of a word’s etymology often has an indispensable usefulness for interpreting the word, for when you have seen whence a word has originated, you understand its force more quickly. Indeed, one’s insight into anything is clearer when its etymology is known.)74

For Isidore, etymology offers a way of understanding a word’s vis, which is a difficult term to render into modern English. In this context, it is often translated as “power, force, meaning,” or “sense,” yet Amsler suggests that it is better understood as “essential potency/semantic motivation.”75 It represents a word’s capacity to signify things, and also the discursive space in which people can use language to make sense to others.76

Therefore, when Isidore claims that etymology permits us access to a word’s vis, he is arguing that it allows us to grasp its essential force and its semantic possibilities. In this way, the etymologies of words permit us deeper insight into the things that they signify.

They serve as an intermediary between us and the world, and allow us to grasp the causes of things through the origins of words.77 As Fontaine persuasively argues, Isidore’s conviction about the power of etymology is reflected by his adaptation of Tertullian’s

74 Isidore, Etym. 1.1.29 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.; trans. Barney, 54-55). 75 Amsler, Etymology and Grammatical Discourse, 138. In linguistics, semantic motivation refers to the metaphorical and metonymic meanings of words. 76 Ibid., 139. Here, Amsler is drawing on Augustine of Hippo’s statement that “[v]is verbi est, qua cognoscitur quantum valeat. Valet autem tantum quantum movere audientem potest” (the essential potency/semantic motivation of a word is that through which the extent to which a word signifies is understood. A word signifies in so far as it is able to affect the hearer). De dialectica 7, quoted in and trans. Amsler, Etymology and Grammatical Discourse, 139. 77 Amsler, Etymology and Grammatical Discourse, 140.

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saying that “omnis enim rei inspectio auctore cognito planior” (indeed one’s insight into anything is clearer when its creator is known).78 Isidore’s alteration of auctore “creator” to etymologia suggests that he perceived a strong relationship between creation and etymology. Indeed, he claims that “etymologia est origo verborum” (etymology is the origin of words), which attributes a kind of creative power to it. Based on this phrase,

Fontaine argues that Isidore’s identification of etymologies and origins sets up a quasi- mathematical analogy between the etymologies of words and the creators of things.79

That is, etymologies have the same relationship to words that creators have to things.

Specifically, by knowing a word’s etymology or a thing’s creator, we are able to go back to its origins and derive greater insight into them.

Yet, as Fontaine also reminds us, Isidore understands that language is created by humans, and so it may be entirely arbitrary at times. According to him, “Isidore n’a cependant pas la naïveté de penser qu’il y aurait naturellement un mot pour chaque chose, et une chose accessible dans sa réalité profonde derrière chaque mot” (Isidore, however, is not naïve enough to believe that there would naturally be a word for each thing, and a thing accessible in its profound reality behind each word).80 Indeed, in the Etym., Isidore clarifies:

Non autem omnia nomina a veteribus secundum naturam inposita sunt, sed quaedam et secundum placitum, sicut et nos servis et possessionibus interdum secundum quod placet nostrae voluntati nomina damus. Hinc est quod omnium

78 Fontaine, “Originalité,” 122. Isidore replaces auctore with etymologia, adjusts the participle cognito to agree with the new feminine subject, and adds a clarifying est, but otherwise the two sentences are identical. Cf. Tertullian, De fuga in persecutione 1 (ed. Thierry, Tertulliani Opera 2, 1133). 79 Fontaine, “Originalité,” 122-23. 80 Ibid.

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nominum etymologiae non reperiuntur, quia quaedam non secundum qualitatem, qua genita sunt, sed iuxta arbitrium humanae voluntatis vocabula acceperunt.

(However, not all words were established by the ancients from nature; some were established by whim, just as we sometimes give names to slaves and possessions according to what tickles our fancy. Hence it is the case that etymologies are not to be found for all words, because some things received names not according to their innate qualities, but by the caprice of human will.)81

Nonetheless, even as Isidore recognises that certain words are arbitrary and the product of human impulses, he presents language in general as informed by nature, and by the ancients’ deep understanding of things’ innate qualities.82 In other words, we are not dealing with a Saussurean system where the relationship between signifier and sign is purely a matter of convention, where all words are arbitrary. Isidore is prepared to concede that is true in the case of some words, but he primarily views language as an essential system, where the sign is informed by the deep and true nature of the signifier.

Moreover, based on his statement that words created by human caprice do not have etymologies, we can assume that the Etym. only deals with words that reflect reality, and provide insight into the nature of things. Consequently, as we move into examining

Isidore’s encyclopedia, it is important to recognize that he did not plan the text purely or primarily as a linguistic exercise, but rather believed that etymologies permitted access to

81 Isidore, Etym. 1.1.29 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.; trans. Barney, 55). 82 Isidore was not alone in asserting that language is more a matter of nature than convention. Most notably, Plato takes up this issue in the Cratylus. In this dialogue, Socrates argues for the fundamental naturalness of language, since he claims that legislators can discern the name most suited to a thing, and their insights give rise to language. At the same time, though, he acknowledges that certain words are a product of convention and usage. Cratylus, ed. and tr. Harold North Fowler, Loeb Classical Library 167 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926). David Sedley makes a strong case that Plato endorses the etymological theory that Socrates articulates in the dialogue. Plato’s Cratylus, Cambridge Studies in the Dialogues of Plato (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003), 25-50. Consequently, Isidore is working with a Platonic notion of language as an essentialist system.

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ontology. Consequently, when we read his etymologies, we need to keep in mind that they are intended to express the true essence of things – that is, to show what is most natural to or salient about them.

The Etym.’s Influence on Conceptions of Unhælu

To return to the main question of this section, what might Isidore’s Etym. have taught literate Anglo-Saxons about unhælu? In other words, how might it have shaped their sense of non-normative bodies? I wish to approach the answer from an oblique angle, since the encyclopedia does not cover impairment and deformity in any direct way. That absence, however, does not mean that the work would not have affected how the Anglo-

Saxons perceived those states. As Lennard Davis argues, the extraordinary body exists in relation to the normative body and is understood through it.83 Admittedly, Davis considers the norm to be a modern construction that arose in the nineteenth century, as he argues that the sciences of statistics and eugenics led to the development of a quasi- mathematical, quantifiable standard to which all people are assumed and pressured to conform.84 Davis claims that, in earlier periods such as the Middle Ages, people thought

83 Davis, Enforcing Normalcy, 22-23. As discussed in the introduction, Davis has since modified this position, as he believes that the hegemony of the norm has ended and has been replaced with diversity, which is no more inclusive of disability. Indeed, in this new regime, disability exists as a remnant of normalcy, and reveals the suppressed norm that underpins diversity. The End of Normal, 1-14. 84 Davis, Enforcing Normalcy, 23-35. Davis offers a very specific history in his book, which I summarize as a means of indicating the assumptions behind his construction of the norm. In the nineteenth century, statisticians such as Adolphe Quetelet and Francis Galton discovered that human physiology and mental ability tended to conform to a pattern of distribution, where most people fell in the middle, and few at the extremes. For instance, Quetelet studied the heights of French conscripts. He discovered that majority of them were of average height, with only a few very short or very tall people. He observed a similar distribution for the chest circumferences of Scottish soldiers, with most being average, and only a few being very narrow or broad. This pattern of distribution is called normal distribution, and is mapped on the bell curve. While this observation about the distribution of physical and mental traits may seem innocuous,

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in terms of the ideal instead of the norm. In contrast to the norm, the ideal holds up divine perfection as its standard, and assumes that no human can live up to it, since the ideal cannot exist in the world.85 Davis’ scheme is, however, an oversimplification. While the

Middle Ages may not have had a mathematical norm,86 they certainly had a concept of human normativity. We have already discussed how the grammars and riddles rely upon the existence of a normative body in their presentation of ontology. That is, they assume that the body has a certain form and is able to carry out certain functions, which establishes a norm. Likewise, as I shall demonstrate in this section, Isidore not only presents a corporeal norm through his etymologies of the human body and its parts, but also intends his audience to understand it as a norm. He implicitly contrasts this corporeal norm with the extraordinary bodies of the monstrous races, so that he defines it through what it excludes as well.

The Etym.’s Construction of the Normative Human Body

Isidore begins the process of defining the body by considering what it means to be human. He provides etymologies of the Latin and Greek words for “human” that characterize the body in certain ways, and reveal fascinating assumptions about human

it was taken up by the eugenics movement of the time, which suggested either that it was best to be average (Quetelet’s l’homme moyen or “middle man”) or, far more often, to exceed the average (Galton’s positive extreme). The corollary is obvious: if it is desirable to be above the average, it is undesirable to be below it. This eugenic logic has had horrific consequences, since it has led to social interventions that were designed to correct and eliminate impairment, such as forced sterilization, experimentation, and even genocide. 85 Ibid., 23-24. 86 The concept of the norm is inherently mathematical, as it is derived from statistics. Nonetheless, within disability studies, it is often used as a shorthand for people’s preconceptions of what is normative, which is how I will be using it in reference to the Middle Ages.

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form and abilities. Isidore first examines the Latin homo, which we preserve in our scientific nomenclature Homo sapiens. He explains that humans are called homo, because, as Genesis 2:7 narrates, God created them from the soil (humus).87 He continues to note, though, that this etymology is misleading: “Abusive autem pronuntiatur ex utraque substantia totus homo, id est ex societate animae et corporis” (Incorrectly, the whole human is named from this term, that is, the whole human consisting of both substances, the association of soul and body).88 In other words, homo should only refer to the body, which was formed from earth, and not the soul, which was breathed into it by

God. The lexeme is incorrect when it is applied to the whole organism, because it does not take the soul into consideration and so fails to express the essence of humanity. Here, he is almost certainly following Augustine of Hippo, who presents the soul and body as unequal entities that are nonetheless united by a conjugal bond. In Augustine’s final, most mature writings, he develops the idea that the soul is superior to the body and rules over it, and yet has a natural desire to be within the body and can only experience the highest heaven through it.89 As a result, Isidore’s anthropology initially seems to center on the unity of the body and the soul, so that the shape and function of the body are less important than the presence of the soul within it. It seems to place no weight on whether a person is impaired or deformed.

87 Isidore, Etym. 11.1.4 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.; trans. Barney, 231). 88 Ibid. 89 David G. Hunter, “Augustine on the Body,” in A Companion to Augustine, ed. Mark Vessey (Chichester: Blackwell, 2012), 355-57. In Augustine’s earliest works, though, he adopts a similar Neoplatonic stance to Plotinus and Porphyry, who present the body as a hindrance to the soul and its pursuit of higher matters. Ibid.

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Isidore, however, adopts a different perspective, when he considers the Greek lexeme ἄνθρωπος (anthropos). He explains:

Graeci autem hominem ἄνθρωπον appellaverunt, eo quod sursum spectet sublevatus ab humo ad contemplationem artificis sui…. Quod Ovidius poeta designat, cum dicit: Pronaque cum spectant animalia cetera terram, os homini sublime dedit caelumque videre iussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus. Qui ideo erectus caelum aspicit, ut Deum quaerat, non ut terram intendat veluti pecora, quae natura prona et ventri oboedientia finxit.

(The Greeks called the human being ἄνθρωπος because he has been raised upright from the soil and looks upwards in contemplation of his Creator…. The poet Ovid describes this when he says: While the rest of the stooping animals look at the ground, he gave the human an uplifted countenance, and ordered him to see the sky, and to raise his upturned face to the stars. And the human stands erect and looks towards heaven so as to seek God, rather than look at the earth, as do the beasts that nature has made bent over and attentive to their bellies.)90

Importantly, this etymology foregrounds ability in a number of ways. Firstly, it presents sight as an essential human trait, since it is necessary for the type of spiritual engagement that distinguishes humans from animals. That is, it allows humankind to look to heaven and contemplate God, and so it sets them apart from the animals that are preoccupied

90 Isidore, Etym. 11.1.5 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.; trans. Barney, 231). This etymology is not transparent, and Isidore does not explain it. Barney et al. suggest that Isidore may be connecting ἄνθρωπος with ὤψ (ops), “eye, face, countenance.” That said, few of the etymologies have any basis in the historical development of the lexeme, and so the precise linguistic logic behind Isidore’s discussion is almost irrelevant. Moreover, most Anglo-Saxons did not have much Greek competence, and would have been incapable of decoding or supplying the supposed etymological “root” of ἄνθρωπος. The school of Theodore and Hadrian at Canterbury is the only notable exception. Theodore and Hadrian were both native Greek speakers, and taught their students Greek; however, knowledge of the language does not seem to have spread much beyond that milieu. See Michael Lapidge, “The Study of Greek at the School of Canterbury in the Seventh Century,” in Anglo-Latin Literature 600-899 (London: Hambledon Press, 1996), 123-39; and Mary Bodden, “Evidence for the Knowledge of Greek in Anglo-Saxon England,” Anglo-Saxon England 17 (1990): 217-46.

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with their immediate earthly appetites. Consequently, the etymology conflates corporeal sight and spiritual vision in a problematic way, when it suggests that physical sight is necessary to gaze towards God’s dwelling place in order to seek him. As Isidore presents it, the connection seems to go deeper than corporeal sight serving as a metaphor or model for spiritual perception, which is a common trope.91 Rather, he seems to be advocating an early version of embodied realism, in which the way people think is constrained by the way we are shaped, and so corporeal sight provides a cognitive template for spiritual vision.

As explored earlier in the chapter, embodied realism does not take into consideration the experiences of non-normative bodies, since they are generally not encoded in the language that people use.92 In this instance, Isidore’s etymology effectively excludes certain people with extraordinary bodies from the definition of the human. If ἄνθρωπος reveals that humanity is defined by standing upright and looking upward, what does that mean for people who are blind, or who cannot stand, or who have curvature of the spine? Are they unable to contemplate God? Are they less than human?

Are they more like animals, which Isidore explicitly characterizes as prona “bent over”?

Since such people are absent from the Etymologiae, I cannot use Isidore’s text to answer these questions, and shall have to return to them when I discuss the hagiographies in which they appear.

91 I discuss this trope when I come to the OE Soliloquies in Chapter Six. 92 Sign language may be an exception.

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Isidore’s etymologies of the Greek and Latin words for “human” indicate that he imagined that the human body had a certain form and was capable of certain functions – in other words, that he had a normative image of it in mind. His etymologies for the human body and its parts only confirm this impression of corporeal normativity, as they define the body’s form and functions in a precise and comprehensive manner. Isidore structures his examination of the body after the fashion of a Classical medical textbook: he works downwards from head to toe and provides an etymology for each part. The result is a complete anatomy presented in lexical terms. In what follows, I shall primarily discuss the eyes and the limbs, since the Anglo-Saxons considered visual and mobility impairments to be among the most severe forms of unhælu,93 and they appear most frequently within the textual record.94

Isidore discusses two Latin lexemes for the eye: oculus and lumen. He offers two possible etymologies for oculus, which suggests a belief that language can indicate multiple dimensions of a thing’s essence. Firstly, he notes that oculus is derived from the structure of the eyes, since the eyelids cover (occulere) them in order to protect them from injury.95 Thus, he suggests that they have a certain natural form, which would have seemed quite logical to the Anglo-Saxons who took into account the appearance of the eyes in their law-codes. Secondly, he offers a more psychological understanding of

93 See my discussion of the personal injury laws in Chapter Four for an analysis of how the Anglo-Saxons ranked impairments. 94 To give a rough impression, blind appears over five hundred times in the corpus, and lama appears over seven hundred times. Deaf appears just over one hundred times, and dumb just over two hundred times. DOE Corpus. 95 Isidore, Etym. 11.1.36 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.; trans. Barney, 233).

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oculus, when he claims that the eyes possess a hidden light (occultum lumen). He clarifies this statement with the following explanation:

Hi inter omnes sensus viciniores animae existunt. In oculis enim omne mentis indicium est, unde et animi perturbatio vel hilaritas in oculis apparet.

(Among all the sensory organs, they are closest to the soul. Indeed, every indication of the mental state is in the eyes, whence both distress and happiness show in the eyes.)96

Nevertheless, it is difficult to know how the Anglo-Saxons, with their almost universal separation between sawol “soul” and mod “mind,” and their cardiocentric model of cognition, would have understood this assertion.97 It seems unlikely that they would have been swayed by its underlying cephalocentrism, especially since Isidore presents multiple models of cognition within his work, and offers no compelling argument to prefer any one of them.98 Instead, they might have read it as a straightforward statement of how the eyes serve as a major paralinguistic cue to people’s emotions, without accepting the psychological model that connects the eyes with the soul. In this case, they might have understood the connection between the eyes and the soul metaphorically, just as we would interpret the saying “the eyes are the windows to the soul” as a figure of speech.

They might have found support for this interpretation in the existing relationship between the eyes and the soul in conceptual metaphor; for instance, the extremely common conceptual metaphor SEEING IS UNDERSTANDING would have been part of their stock. In

96 Ibid. 97 Lockett, Anglo-Saxon Psychologies, 34-41, 54-109. 98 Ibid., 210-12.

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short, they might have read Isidore’s etymology as articulating the social function of the eyes, and dismissed the deeper psychological implications.

Isidore’s etymologies for oculus focus on the eye’s outer appearance and its psychological/social function in expressing emotion. By way of contrast, Isidore’s etymology for lumen, which literally means “light” but which was often used to refer to the eye, attempts to explain the process by which the organ produces vision: “[o]culi autem idem et lumina. Et dicta lumina, quod ex eis lumen manat, vel quod ex initio sui clausam teneant lucem, aut extrinsecus acceptam visui proponendo refundant” ([t]he eyes are also called lights (lumina) because light (lumen) emanates from them, either because they hold a light that has been closed up in them from the beginning, or because they reflect light that has been taken from the outside in order to supply vision).99 Here,

Isidore explains that the eyes are called lumen due to the light emanating from them, although he equivocates about the origin of that light. He claims that it was either enclosed in them from the beginning, or that they reflect it from an outside source.

Regardless of the source, though, the eye’s emission of light enables sight.100

Consequently, Isidore is defining the eye not simply in terms of its capacity for vision, which by itself would make ability central to its essence. He is defining it in terms of the physiological processes that make vision possible, which emphasizes its functionality

99 Isidore, Etym. 11.1.36 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.; trans. Barney, 233). 100 Here, Isidore is providing a very condensed version of the visual-ray theory, which I will discuss in greater depth when I consider metaphors of sight in the OE Soliloquies. For the moment, it is sufficient to note that he is presenting a standard Platonic theory of how vision operates, according to which light emitted from the eye coalesces with daylight, and serves as a material intermediary between the eye and whatever it perceives. David C. Lindberg, Theories of Vision from Al-kindi to Kepler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 3-6.

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even more strongly. The eye is intended to see, and is intended to see in a certain way. It may be significant that sight depends upon the unity of the light inside and outside of the eyes, since it suggests the same characterization of ability as harmony and wholeness that is evident in the riddles. In sum, Isidore’s etymologies of oculus and lumen illustrate the broad spectrum of ways in which he delineates the parts of the body. He defines the eye in structural, functional, psychological and physiological terms, in addition to the linguistic analysis that is at the base of his method. Consequently, he establishes a norm for the eye’s form and functionality in multiple domains.

Isidore uses the same normative principles to construct his etymologies for the limbs, which are perhaps even more important for the Anglo-Saxon concept of unhælu, since the arms and legs would have been major sites of impairment during the period.

Beginning with the arm, Isidore offers the following etymology for the limb:

Brachia a fortitudine nominata: βαρὺ enim Graece grave et forte significatur. In brachiis enim tori lacertorum sunt, et insigne musculorum robur existit. Hi sunt tori, id est musculi: et dicti tori, quod illic viscera torta videantur.

(The arms (bracchium) derive their name from strength: for βαρύς in Greek means “heavy and strong.” In the arms is the brawn of the upper arms (lacertus) and there the marked strength of the muscles is located. This is called the brawn, that is, the muscles (musculus): and they are called the brawn (torus) because at that point the sinews seem to be twisted (tortus).)101

This etymology defines the arm primarily in terms of ability, as it foregrounds strength as the limb’s essential characteristic. Notably, Isidore does not specify a particular function for the arm or an end to which this strength should be put, so that ability appears to be

101 Isidore, Etym. 11.1.63 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.; trans. Barney, 235).

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separated from functionality, and that the arm is defined purely by its strength and not what that strength can do. Again, Isidore relies on anatomy in order to think about the arm’s capabilities: he locates its strength in the brawn of the upper arm, and considers the structure of its muscles and sinews. Thus, in similar fashion to the eyes, he is thinking about ability in terms of the physiology that enables it.

In contrast, Isidore does not provide an etymology for the whole leg, since Latin uses synecdoche to refer to the limb, and has the shin stand for the whole leg. He provides the following etymology for crus: “[c]rura dicta, quia in his currimus et gressum facimus” (the shins (crus, gen. cruris) are so called, because with their help we run

(currere) and take steps (gressus)).102 This etymology connects the shins to two kinds of movement, and emphasizes how they produce the normative human gait. Similarly,

Isidore states that feet (pes, gen. pedis) are named from the Greek πόδες, which simply means foot and so is not helpful as an explanatory etymology; however, he adds by way of clarification that the feet move forward set on the earth in alternating motion.103 It is unclear whether Isidore intended his readers to discern a connection between the lexeme

πόδες and the movement he describes, although it would be in keeping with the logic of his encyclopedia. Either way, though, his definition of the foot foregrounds its role in mobility and its normative gait in a manner similar to his etymology of the shin.

Consequently, Isidore seems to present the leg largely in terms of its functionality.

102 Isidore, Etym. 11.1.110 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.; trans. Barney, 238). 103 Isidore, Etym. 11.1.112 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.; trans. Barney, 238).

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Nevertheless, Isidore defines certain parts of the leg in terms of their form. For instance, he claims that tibia are similar in length and shape to trumpets (tuba), while the ankles (talus) are characterized by their protruding roundness (tolus).104 Isidore’s etymologies for the knees are particularly interesting in this regard, as he uses their form to articulate what again appears to be an early form of embodied realism:

Genua sunt commissiones femorum et crurum; et dicta genua eo quod in utero sint genis opposita. Cohaerent enim ibi sibi, et cognata sunt oculis, lacrimarum indicibus et misericordiae. Nam a genis genua dicuntur. Denique conplicatum gigni formarique hominem, ita ut genua sursum sint, quibus oculi formantur, ut cavi ac reconditi fiant. Ennius: Atque genua conprimit arta gena. Inde est quod homines dum ad genua se prosternunt, statim lacrimantur. Voluit enim eos natura uterum maternum rememorare, ubi quasi in tenebris consedebant antequam venirent ad lucem.

(The knees (genu) are points where thighs and shins meet; and they are called genua because in utero they are situated opposite the eye-sockets (gena). There they cling to each other, and they are co-engendered with the eyes as signs of tearfulness and an appeal for pity. In this way genu is named after gena. Thus, when a human being is folded together in the process of gestation and taking shape, the knees are raised up, and with their help the eye sockets are formed, so that they may become hollow and recessed. Ennius writes: And the eye-socket (gena) presses close to the knees (genua). This is the reason why people are immediately moved to tears when they fall on their knees, for nature wanted them to remember the womb of the mother, where they sat in darkness, so to speak, before they came to the light.)105

Here, Isidore is thinking about the form of the body in a slightly different way. He focuses on the development of the human body during gestation, and provides an account of why certain parts have the form they do. In the process, he outlines a theory of

104 Isidore, Etym. 11.1.110-11 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.; trans. Barney, 238). 105 Isidore, Etym. 11.1.108-9 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.; trans. Barney, 238).

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embodiment that may have affected how the Anglo-Saxons viewed people with impairments, and that needs to be considered as a result. Firstly, Isidore suggests that people’s physical bearing provokes an instinctive reaction from the people around them.

If people are on their knees, others will treat them with pity and mercy. Secondly and perhaps more interestingly, Isidore suggests a profound connection between the body and the mind, when he claims that adopting a certain physical posture calls forth certain emotions and memories. When people fall to their knees, their posture brings to mind their time in their mother’s womb and causes them to weep. These two assertions have troubling implications for people whose impairments made them unable to stand, or who had to crawl on their hands and knees to move between places. Indeed, the Anglo-Saxon lexicon attests that many people with mobility impairments had to adopt that mode of movement, as crypel, from which Modern English derives “cripple,” comes from creopan, “to creep or to crawl.”106 Consequently, we may wonder whether these people with mobility impairments were believed to be naturally deserving of pity and in need of a charitable response, or whether they were considered to be locked in a certain emotional or mental state, characterized by tearfulness or even perhaps infantilization.

106 Jane Roberts has suggested that crypel was not the primary word for mobility-impaired people in Anglo- Saxon England, and may have been too blunt for polite usage. Healt, from which Modern English gets “halt,” was the usual lexeme. “Some Thoughts on the Expression of ‘crippled’ in Old English,” Leeds Studies in English 37 (2006): 365-78. Although interesting, I am not wholly convinced by her argument, since the textual record does not, to my knowledge, contain any examples of the Anglo-Saxons using lexicons for impairments in an insulting fashion.

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Alcuin’s De ratione animae and a (Potentially) Anglo-Saxon Theory of Embodiment

Within the Anglo-Saxon corpus, Alcuin of York articulates a similar theory of embodiment in the ninth-century De ratione animae, his treatise addressed to

Charlemagne’s cousin Gundrada about the nature of the rational soul. Alcuin’s intended audience suggests his unusual position: he lived in England through to middle age, but then took up a position as a scholar and teacher in the court of Charlemagne. Nearly all of his works were written in this Carolingian milieu and drew upon continental philosophy, and so they should not be taken as necessarily representative of contemporary Anglo-

Saxon views.107 Certain of these texts, such as his Ars grammatica, came to be circulated fairly widely in Anglo-Saxon England, but De ratione animae was not among them. That said, it appears to have been available to some Anglo-Saxon authors (such as Ælfric of

Eynsham and perhaps the Seafarer-poet), and to have influenced their own texts.108

Despite its limited currency, then, Alcuin’s theory of embodiment is worth discussing for its similarity to Isidore’s etymology for genu and the assumptions that underpin it.

Towards the end of the treatise, Alcuin considers the relationship between the soul and the body, writing:

Et cum afflictiones aliquae corpori eveniunt, offenditur anima, dum temperamentum faciendi, quod vult, deerit; et haec offensio dolor vocatur. Si autem in tantum fraudatur membrorum ministratione, ut non habeat, quid operetur in eis, recedit, quasi indignata habitationi suae.

(And when any afflictions befall the body the soul suffers damage, since it lacks the balance necessary for accomplishing what it wishes; and we call this damage

107 Lockett, Anglo-Saxon Psychologies, 282. 108 Paul Szarmach, “A Preface, Mainly Textual, to Alcuin’s De ratione animae,” in The Man of Many Devices, Who Wandered Full Many Ways: Festschrift in Honor of János M. Bak, ed. Balász Nagy and Marcell Sebök (Budapest: Central European University Press), 398-99.

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sorrow. But if it be deprived of control of the limbs to such an extent that it is helpless, it withdraws as if disdaining its home.)109

Alcuin, in similar fashion to Isidore, claims that we experience emotions as a result of our corporeal state, but he understands the connection in a very different way. Isidore suggests that our posture calls emotions to mind, but Alcuin establishes a deeper relationship between the state of the body and the state of the soul enclosed within it.

Specifically, he argues that corporeal afflictions damage the soul and result in sorrow, which presents grief as a natural and inevitable result of impairment. He attributes this sorrow to the soul’s sense that the body is out of balance and no longer capable of carrying out the soul’s wishes. His underlying assumption is that impairment is a form of disorder within the body, a perspective that we have already observed in the riddles.

Alcuin takes his argument even further, though, when he claims that the soul withdraws from the body once it is completely deprived of control of the limbs. In similar fashion to Aldhelm, he uses the verb fraudare to refer to the soul’s loss of control, suggesting that it has been cheated out of something that should belong to it. Once again, then, impairment is likened to defraudation, although the situation becomes even more complex when we take the soul’s response into account. Specifically, the soul is deprived of its rightful and natural control of the body, and, in turn, deprives the body of its presence by withdrawing from it. Here, Alcuin seems to be referring to the state of exstasis, in which the soul supposedly recedes from the senses. He discusses exstasis only

109 Alcuin of York, DRA 12 (PL 101.639-50); trans. James Curry, De ratione animae: A Text with Introduction, Critical Apparatus, and Translation (PhD diss., Cornell University, 1966), 86.

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a few lines earlier within the treatise when he considers how the soul turns away from the senses so that it may better contemplate God, itself, or other spiritual matters.110 For instance, people in exstasis may not see what is before them, or hear what is said to them.111 In the same way, people whose limbs are impaired may often experience numbness within them, a corporeal phenomenon that Alcuin seems to be explaining through exstasis. Yet, the exstasis that results from impairment does not appear to serve the same higher function – that is, the soul does not turn towards God but retreats from the body, as implied by the image of it disdaining its home. The soul’s disdain suggests that the impaired body is not worthy of it, that it is an inferior vessel. Consequently,

Alcuin goes even further than Isidore in suggesting that mobility-impaired people are mired in grief because of their physiology.

The Etym.’s Establishment of a Lexical Norm

I could continue examining Isidore’s etymologies of various body parts and considering their implications for the Anglo-Saxon notion of unhælu, but I wish to move on to thinking about the most important concept that Anglo-Saxon readers would have inherited from the text – namely, Isidore’s model of the normative body. As I have established, Isidore presents a head-to-toe anatomy of the body and its parts through his etymologies, almost all of which are intended to reveal the innate qualities of the things that they signify. His etymologies of the body are no exception, and so should be read as

110 Alcuin of York, DRA 12 (PL 101.639). 111 Ibid.

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definitions of the body’s essence. Consequently, Isidore offers a prescriptive set of definitions for what the body should be and thereby establishes a corporeal norm, which is different from but comparable to the eugenic, statistical norm that Davis discusses. In similar fashion to Galton and Quetelet, Isidore specifies the form that the normative body should possess and the functions it should be able to perform. He may not measure them mathematically, but he certainly defines them linguistically. To take the example of the eyes, he claims that they are covered by eyelids, they contain light, and they are used to see, which specifies their form and their function. Moreover, Isidore’s etymologies present the body and its parts in more than purely physiological terms. Some of them focus on corporeal ability or on basic bodily processes. Others, though, foreground how people use their bodies to engage in social activities, such as how the eyes communicate emotions and other kinds of cognitive activity. Still others involve spiritual engagement, such as people looking to heaven with their eyes and contemplating God; or mental and emotional responses, such as people weeping when they fall to their knees. As a result, the Etymologiae not only presents embodied ways to participate in every aspect of life, but also constructs them as normative.

In certain cases, Isidore presents arbitrary, cultural constructions as natural and inevitable. For example, people may not be asking for pity when they kneel or be brought to tears by the act, yet Isidore does not take into account other possibilities. Likewise, he does not consider the alternative modes that impaired people may use to perform the same tasks. In their cases, functions that seem to be intrinsic to certain body parts are remapped elsewhere. As Tobin Siebers poetically expresses it,

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[a]ll disabled bodies create [a] confusion of tongues – and eyes and hands and other body parts. For the deaf, the hand is the mouth of speech, the eye, its ear. Deaf hands speak. Deaf eyes listen.112

Given the absence of a developed sign language in the late antique and medieval periods,113 Siebers’ example may not be the most germane, yet his fundamental point is applicable. Isidore and, later, the Anglo-Saxons would have come into frequent contact with people with extraordinary bodies, bodies that would have looked different and functioned in different ways. Yet, Isidore’s etymologies suggest that the body can only have one form and function if it is to remain true to its essence, and so they codify a norm against which all other bodies can be judged. The logic behind this norm is ultimately linguistic: the structure or abilities of the various parts of the body explains their naming.

Any profound deviance means that their names would no longer make natural sense, that the signifiers for them would be arbitrary and would not reflect their essence, which is a view that Isidore resists in his notion of semantic change as loose or improper usage.

Thus, the notion of a norm underpins Isidore’s whole project. We might term this a lexical norm, in contrast to Davis’ statistical norm.

Isidore’s presentation of this lexical norm reinforces its normativity. He conceives of the parts of the body as components of a highly ordered and structured system, which is organized on two interrelated levels. Firstly, his account of the body is ordered by the system of language, which is not arbitrary for Isidore. Secondly, his account is structured

112 Tobin Siebers, Disability Theory (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008), 53. 113 I examine the medieval “sign languages” in Chapter Five.

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by the systematic organization of the encyclopedia, in which his discussion of the body occupies a section of its own, and is arranged neatly from head to toe. Through this reliance on these linguistic and encyclopedic systems, he suggests that the body too forms an orderly system, that its usual structure and functions can be identified and catalogued.

This characterization of the body is underscored by his frequent use of anatomical and physiological theories, which also seek to impose a kind of order on it by constructing it as a coherent system or set of systems.

Isidore’s etymology for health is illustrative of this approach to the body. He defines health as wholeness and orderliness, particularly with respect to the humors:

“[s]anitas est integritas corporis et temperantia naturae ex calido et humido, quod est sanguis; unde et sanitas dicta est, quasi sanguinis status” ([h]ealth is integrity of the body and a balance of its nature with respect to its heat and moisture, which is its blood – hence health (sanitas) is so called, as if it were the condition of the blood (sanguis)).114

This etymology defines health as the state of the humoral system. It may specify blood as the chief humor, but the text continues by discussing all four humors and their role in maintaining health. As he explains, a disease is caused by an excess of humors, when they increase beyond their natural course.115 Consequently, he presents health as the natural state of the body, and suggests that it is characterized by wholeness, harmony and order. This corporeal balance can only be achieved through moderation. He claims that the word medicine (medicina) comes from moderation (modus), and that medicine can

114 Isidore, Etym. 4.5.1 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.; trans. Barney, 109). 115 Isidore, Etym. 4.5.3 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.; trans. Barney, 109).

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comprise physicians’ treatments, food and drink, clothing and shelter.116 In other words, health comes from living within the golden mean and avoiding excess. It is almost presented as a reward for leading a temperate life. This theory depends on orderliness on multiple levels: the balance of the various humors in the body, and the temperance of the lifestyle necessary to achieve it. It imagines the body as a complex system that is influenced by internal and external factors, but that is naturally orderly and can be understood.

Nonetheless, Isidore’s construction of the body becomes much more complex, when we take into consideration the etymology of the Latin lexeme for body, i.e. corpus.

Isidore claims that “[c]orpus dictum eo quod corruptum perit. Solubile enim atque mortale est, et aliquando solvendum” (the body is so called, because it perishes when it disintegrates. It can be dissolved and it is mortal, and at some point it has to be dissolved).117 In other words, he defines the body by its move towards disintegration, which suggests that he conceives of its unity and order as a temporary state. This dissolution primarily refers to the decay of death, but it also potentially encompasses diseases and dismemberments that disrupt the body’s unity and may cause it to perish.

Isidore emphasizes the inevitability of the body’s disintegration when he stresses that

“aliquando solvendum” (at some point it has to be dissolved), which underscores the transience of life and health.

116 Isidore, Etym. 4.2.1 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.; trans. Barney, 109). 117 Isidore, Etym. 11.1.14 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.; trans. Barney, 232).

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As a result, Isidore constructs the body in inconsistent and potentially contradictory ways. He defines the body itself through its inevitable disintegration, yet he suggests that health is its default state, and posits a stable structure and set of abilities for its parts. We do not need to reconcile these viewpoints, since Isidore was more interested in compiling information than ensuring consistency, and often contradicts himself throughout his various texts. Nonetheless, we may think of them as two perspectives on the body which the Anglo-Saxons would have inherited and which might have influenced their notions of unhælu. On the one hand, if the body moves to disintegration, it suggests that able-bodiedness is a transient state on the way to impairment, disease or death. This viewpoint is reminiscent of the present-day notion of temporary able-bodiedness (TAB), which is a term coined by activists in the 1980s and which “reflects the drive to understand disability as a human condition and as something more normal and inevitable than being able-bodied.”118 The term serves to express the fact that people will inevitably become disabled through age, accidents, diseases or other circumstances, and so disability rights are human rights in the broadest sense.119 Isidore makes a similar observation about the transience of health and ability, but he obviously does not take it through to an activist conclusion. On the other hand, if the body has a stable structure, it suggests that impairment can be understood as a deviation from the norm that makes the

118 Brueggemann, Arts and Humanities, 255. I discuss temporary able-bodiedness at greater length in Chapter Seven. 119 Ibid., 8. From a present-day perspective, this term may present the inevitably of impairment too strongly, and Deborah Marks has suggested the alternative term “contingently able-bodied,” which more accurately reflects the situation and yet still retains the political urgency of the original term. Disability: Controversial Debates and Psychosocial Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 1999), 18.

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body less coherent, and needs to be corrected in some way. Both views are evident in the

Anglo-Saxon textual record, and shall be discussed in depth in later chapters.

The Etym.’s Construction of Non-Normative Bodies via the Monstrous Races

If Isidore’s discussion of the human body constructs a lexical norm, his subsequent examination of the monstrous races serves to reinforce it.120 Shortly after examining the normative body, Isidore turns his attention to portents, which often take the form of extraordinary bodies: the so-called monstrous races and monstrous births of medieval lore. He begins by noting the distinction between portents and unnatural beings:

Inter portentum autem et portentuosum differt. Nam portenta sunt quae transfigurantur, sicut fertur in Umbria mulierem peperisse serpentem. ... Portentuosa vero levem sumunt mutationem, ut exempli causa cum sex digitis nati.

(There is a difference between “a portent” (portentum) and “an unnatural being” (portentuosus). Portents are beings of transformed appearance, as, for instance, is said to have happened when in Umbria a woman gave birth to a serpent. ... But an unnatural being strictly speaking takes the form of a slight mutation, as for instance in the case of someone born with six fingers.)121

In these definitions, Isidore is setting up categories for people with extraordinary bodies, depending on how profoundly they deviate from the human norm. People with minor mutations, such as an additional finger, are portentuosa, abnormal or unnatural beings.

The word marks them as being outside the bounds of what is normal. By way of contrast,

120 Isidore discusses the human body and its parts, briefly examines the various human ages, and then moves onto the portents, so the two sections fall within the same book. 121 Isidore, Etym. 11.3.6-7 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.; trans. Barney, 244).

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people whose appearance is not recognizably human are portenta, and appear to have a mystic predictive force. For instance, according to Isidore, Alexander learnt of a baby whose upper body was human but dead, and whose lower body was living but composed of various animal parts. He interpreted the child’s anatomy as a sign that the king would be murdered, since the worse parts had outlived the better ones.122 Because of this power, portenta are more than simply abnormal; they are supernatural. We may plot this scheme out on the following continuum:

Normative Body Portentuosus Portentum

------|------|------|------

Natural/Normative Abnormal/Unnatural Supernatural

Figure 1. Spectrum of Normal and Monstrous Bodies

After making this distinction, though, Isidore tends to treat portentum and portentuosus as being synonymous, which suggests that he considers these two types of bodies to be more closely related to each other than to the normative body. Both categories involve non-normative bodies, and so form a contrast with the corporeal norm defined in earlier sections.

Before thinking how precisely Isidore characterizes his portenta and portentuosa,

I should clarify that my intention is not to conflate these monstrous beings with people with disabilities. It is a gross oversimplification to think of the concept of the monstrous

122 Isidore, Etym. 11.3.5 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.; trans. Barney, 232).

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races primarily as a medieval response to deformities or impairments within society, or match them up with particular genetic or teratological conditions. As Jeffrey Jerome

Cohen articulates in his monster theses, the monstrous body is a cultural body that incorporates the fear, desire, anxiety and fantasy of a particular cultural moment.

Monsters tend to emerge within cultures at times of category crisis as an expression of people’s fears, anxieties, and desires, and serve to delimit and police the boundaries of what is possible and acceptable. They discourage exploration of unknown, hybrid, liminal or transgressive modes and spaces.123 In other words, monstrous bodies reveal more about the fears of a society than of any extraordinary bodies that exist within it. Yet, in

Isidore’s encyclopedia, people with extraordinary bodies exist side-by-side with impossibly monstrous beings. His catalog brings together dwarves and giants who cover six acres; people with misshapen heads or multiple heads (who might conceivably be conjoined twins), and creatures such as the minotaur or the dog-headed cynocephali; people born without a hand, and people born just as a leg; individuals with their eyes in their chest, or with their organs on the other side of their bodies; people with fused fingers or toes, and hermaphrodites.124 Where we might make distinctions, Isidore presents them all as part of a long and indiscriminate list, in which they all are equally real and monstrous. Consequently, we may wonder what the results of this sort of rhetoric would be for people who had extraordinary bodies. Would they have been considered monstrous and would it have affected how they were treated?

123 Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, “Monster Culture (Seven Theses),” in Monster Theory: Reading Culture, ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 3-20. 124 Isidore, Etym. 11.3.7-38 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.).

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Stephen Asma touches on this issue in his discussion of Augustine’s De civitate

Dei, a text that may not have been well-known in Anglo-Saxon England, but that influenced much earlier thought about the monstrous races. According to Asma,

Augustine suggests that the distant monstrous races and individual monstrous births are closely interconnected, which is the same perspective that Isidore adopts.125 Augustine encourages his readers to observe the parallels between, say, a newborn cycloptic child and the race of Cyclopes, so that they do not think of God as an imperfect craftsman who is capable of failures and mistakes.126 This argument serves to answer the challenge that monsters pose to God’s creative powers, as I shall discuss in a moment, but it leaves certain people with extraordinary bodies in an unfortunate position. They may not be failures or mistakes, but they are still monsters and they still have to deal with the consequences of that label.

For instance, we have an account from tenth-century Byzantium of conjoined twins, who, according to Leo the Deacon, were “τεράστιόν τι θαῦμα πέλοντας

χαὶ χαίνόν” (a monstrous and novel wonder), and who travelled around the Roman

Empire after they left their home region of Cappadocia.127 An account in the Theophanes continuatus implies that their peripatetic lifestyle may have been because people were

125 Stephen T. Asma, On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 86. 126 Ibid. 127 Leo the Deacon, Historia, ch. 10 (trans, Alice-Mary Talbot and Denis F. Sullivan, The History of Leo the Deacon: Byzantine Military Expansion in the Tenth Century, 207). The twins were separated after one of them died, but the surviving one only lived three days after the surgery, which is still remarkable given the state of medicine at the time. See G. E. Pentogalos and John G. Lascaratos, “A Surgical Operation Performed on Siamese Twins during the Tenth Century in Byzantium,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 58, no. 1 (1984): 99-102.

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uneasy about their presence in their community, when it narrates how they lived for a long time in Constantinople and were treated as a curiosity by others in the city, but were later exiled because they were considered a bad omen.128 Byzantium is obviously not

Anglo-Saxon England, yet this anecdote shows that people with extraordinary bodies could be understood as monstrous, as both wonders and omens. Anglo-Saxon sources do not provide us with as compelling evidence of people with extraordinary bodies being considered monsters, yet we have one interesting case in the Liber Monstrorum

(hereafter, LM) of an intersexed person whom the author appears to have known and whom he includes in his catalog of monsters. I shall discuss this case when I come to the

LM later in this chapter. Consequently, Isidore’s discussion of the monstrous races not only sets up a contrast to the norm he defines earlier in his encyclopedia, but also potentially offers a template for thinking about people with certain types of bodies.

For this reason, we need to think more deeply about Isidore’s attitude towards these people with extraordinary and impossible bodies, about how he read them and presented them in the Etymologiae. At the beginning of the discussion, Isidore cites

Varro’s standard definition of portents only to dispute it:

Portenta esse Varro ait quae contra naturam nata videntur: sed non sunt contra naturam, quia divina voluntate fiunt, cum voluntas Creatoris cuiusque conditae rei natura sit.... Portentum ergo fit non contra naturam, sed contra quam est nota natura.

(Varro defines portents as beings that seem to have been born contrary to nature – but they are not contrary to nature, because they are created by divine will, since

128 Theophanis Continuati 6.49 (ed. Bekker, Theophanes Continuatus, 433); trans. Pentogalos and Lascaratos, “A Surgical Operation,” 99.

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the nature of everything is the will of the creator.... A portent is therefore not created contrary to nature, but contrary to what is known nature.)129

As John Block Friedman remarks, Isidore may have been influenced by Aristotle’s notion that so-called monsters had no supernatural significance, but were the product of problems with the man’s semen or with fetal development.130 Isidore shares this belief that, as Friedman expresses it, “things contra naturam do not truly violate the natural laws of the universe”; however, he transmutes this idea through his Christian belief that nature is controlled by the divine will.131 For Isidore, monsters cannot be the random result of reproduction gone awry, but have to be the product of God’s will and serve a higher divine purpose.

This aspect of his argument reveals the primary problem that the norm poses in a

Christian ontology. If God is the supreme creator, and if normativity is the most natural and desirable state for creation, then what are we to make of creations that deviate from the norm? Have they been cheated by God, as Aldhelm’s and Alcuin’s riddles may suggest? Did God somehow err in making them, as Augustine is anxious to dispute? Or have they been created that way for a purpose? Isidore gestures towards this final possibility, when he claims that God sometimes uses defects in newborns to indicate future events.132 That is, God may create people with extraordinary bodies to perform a predictive function that ordinary bodies cannot. Isidore admits that this explanation is

129 Isidore, Etym. 11.3.1 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.; trans. Barney, 244). 130 John Block Friedman, The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1981), 113-15. Friedman notes that it is unlikely that Isidore had any direct knowledge of Aristotle, but he would have had access to many of his ideas, perhaps through the lost encyclopedia of Varro. 131 Ibid., 115. 132 Isidore, Etym. 11.3.4 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.; trans. Barney, 244).

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only true in some cases, yet it still suggests that there is a divine purpose to monstrous births and the monstrous races, even if people cannot always discern what it is.133

Interestingly, as I explore in my final chapter, orthodox Christian doctrine held that people with impairments and deformities would be “restored” to physical normativity when their bodies were resurrected, and, in fact, served as a sign that God had that type of absolute power over the human body. As a result, the extraordinary bodies of the monsters promise a future where almost all bodies will be normative.134

Although these monsters may serve as a supernatural purpose, Isidore insists that they remain a part of nature. He argues that that they are not contrary to nature, but rather to well-known nature. In other words, people only perceive monsters as unnatural, because their knowledge of nature is incomplete and needs expansion through an encyclopedia such as the Etymologiae. Likewise, Isidore claims that the monstrous births and races are human, when he explains:

Sicut autem in singulis gentibus quaedam monstra sunt hominum, ita in universo genere humano quaedam monstra sunt gentium, ut Gigantes, Cynocephali, Cyclopes, et cetera.

(Just as, in individual nations, there are instances of monstrous people, so in the whole of humankind there are monstrous races, like the Giants, the Cynocephali (i.e. “dog-headed people”), the Cyclopes, and others.)135

133Augustine adopts a similar stance on God’s creation of monsters. He claims that God created monsters to show that he will fulfill his prophecies about the bodies of the dead. They demonstrate God’s absolute power over nature and the body, and offer surety about what will happen on resurrection day. Augustine, De civitate Dei 21.8 (ed. Dombart and Kalb, De civitate Dei, 443). 134 In some versions of the doctrine, as I shall discuss, the bodies of the saints retain the marks of their martyrdom. 135 Isidore, Etym. 11.3.13 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.; trans. Barney, 244).

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Here, he describes monstrous births as monstrous people, and states that the monstrous races are included in the whole human race.136 Consequently, despite how normative his description of the body is, Isidore seems to be urging an expansion of the natural and the human as categories, and an acceptance of people with extraordinary bodies as part of the divine will.

Yet, Isidore’s presentation of the monstrous races undercuts his articulation of their shared humanity. His approach is characterized by putting his subjects’ extraordinary bodies on textual display and encouraging his readers to stare at them in a manner that is uncomfortably reminiscent of a freakshow. He does not emphasize what their bodies have in common with normative bodies, but focuses how profoundly they differ from them, and what makes them particularly monstrous. His discussions of the

Cynocephali and the Cyclopes, who may not be the most representative of disabled people but whom he earlier specifies as human races, provide an excellent illustration of this approach:

Cynocephali appellantur eo quod canina capita habeant, quosque ipse latratus magis bestias quam homines confitetur. Hi in India nascuntur. Cyclopes quoque eadem India gignit; et dicti Cyclopes eo quod unum habere oculum in fronte media perhibentur. Hi et ἀγριοφαγῖται [agriophagitai] dicuntur, propter quod solas ferarum carnes edunt.

(The Cynocephali are so called because they have dogs’ heads, and their barking indeed reveals that they are rather beasts than humans. These originate in India. India also produces the Cyclopes, and they are called Cyclops because they are

136 Again, Augustine adopts a similar, if somewhat more skeptical, position. He claims that, if the monstrous races exist and if they are human (neither of which he concedes as true), they are rational and descended from Adam. Augustine, De civitate Dei 16.8 (ed. Dombart and Kalb, De civitate Dei, 328). For a discussion of Augustine’s nuanced standpoint, see Friedman, Monstrous Races, 91-92.

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believed to have a single eye in the middle of their foreheads. These are also called ἀγριοφαγῖται, because they eat only the flesh of wild animals.)137

Isidore may initially count the Cynocephali as a human race, but his description of them seems to contradict that position. He foregrounds the extreme alterity of their bodies and their speech – their canine heads and their barking talk – and concludes that they have more in common with beasts than humans.138 He does not wholly deny their humanity, but he does characterize them as being mostly bestial.139 Similarly, Isidore focuses on the

Cyclopes’ single, central eye, which is less of a profound physical difference, but which still foregrounds how they deviate from the norm. Even so, he may be suggesting that the

Cyclopes are more like beasts in their diet of only wild flesh, which recalls the eating habits of a carnivorous predator. He also locates both races in India, which, in such catalogues of monsters and wonders, is always the mysterious and exotic land of the

Other. In short, we are left with an impression of overwhelming and insurmountable

Otherness, which undercuts his initial claim that the monstrous races are equally natural and human. It sets up a clear distinction between the normative body and the “monstrous” or extraordinary one, and suggests different ways to conceive of and respond to them.

137 Isidore, Etym. 11.3.15-16 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.; trans. Barney, 245). 138 In contrast to Barney et al.’s edition, I would translate “magis bestias quam homines” more literally as “more beasts than humans,” which better suggests that the Cynocephali have human characteristics but are primarily bestial. 139 It may seem logical to assume that a dog-headed race would be more bestial than human, but the medieval understanding of the race appears to have been more complex. According to one pervasive tradition which the Anglo-Saxons seem to have known, St. Christopher was a giant-sized Cynocephalus. He begins life as a typically cannibalistic Cynocephalus, but he converts to Christianity and receives baptism, which suggests that his race is capable of human reason and faith, and is not primarily bestial. For overviews of this tradition, see Andy Orchard, Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf-manuscript (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003), 12-18; David Gordon White, Myths of the Dog Men (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 24-48; and E. Ann Matter, “The Soul of the Dog-Man,” Rivista di storia della filosofia 61 (2006): 43-53.

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Indeed, he uses monstra and monstruosus – “monsters” and “monstrous” – to describe these races far more often than homines and humanus – “humans” and “human.”

Likewise, Isidore’s catalog of the monstrous races occupies far more textual space than his initial theological discussion, so that the section is weighted towards presenting them as Other rather than a variation on the human. Consequently, this material would ultimately have worked to reinforce the notion of the normative and non-normative body, and to have presented the normative body as more prototypically human than its non- normative counterpart.

Summary of the Etym.’s Influence on the Conception of Unhælu

In sum, then, Isidore’s Etym. would have affirmed the Anglo-Saxon school texts’ teachings about the normative body in multiple ways. Firstly, the work establishes what I have termed a lexical norm through its etymologies of the body and its parts. It insists that the etymologies of words can reveal the essence of the things that those words signify. Its corporeal etymologies assume that the body has a certain form and is capable of certain functions, and so they present a normative appearance and abilities as the defining essence of the body. Secondly, Isidore reinforces this norm by showing the monsters whom it excludes. He may briefly mention their humanity, but ultimately places the focus on their alterity. He textually puts their extraordinary bodies on display and emphasizes all of the ways in which they do not meet the human standard. In short, he defines his corporeal norm both by what it is and what it is not. Consequently, Isidore’s

Etymologiae would have provided support for and given structure to the myth of the

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normative body, as it would have reinforced the normative body’s existence, and specified its form and functions. In this respect, it might have confirmed what the Anglo-

Saxons already believed, or it might have offered them new ways of thinking about the body. Either way, it would have offered them a well-developed framework for thinking about both normative and non-normative bodies.

The Liber monstrorum as an Anglo-Saxon Response to the Etym.

Isidore’s Etym. had a tremendous impact on Anglo-Saxon intellectual life, and the influence of its ideas about normativity is evident in their own writings about the monstrous races. The tradition of the monstrous races appears to have been tremendously popular in Anglo-Saxon England, as their authors produced and translated several major compilations on the subject, which included the Liber monstrorum that serves as the basis for the following discussion.140 The LM dates to the century c. 650 x c. 750 and may have been produced by a colleague or disciple of Aldhelm.141 According to Andy Orchard, it uses Augustine’s De civitate Dei and Isidore’s Etym. as two of its major sources, and so it serves as a way for us to trace the Anglo-Saxon reception of earlier patristic ideas about

140 Other Anglo-Saxons texts on the monstrous races include the Wonders of the East, which appears in the Nowell Codex that Ker dates to s. x/xi, and the nearly contemporaneous London, BL, Cotton Tiberius B. v. Ker, Catalogue., no. 216 and no. 193. Both manuscripts are illustrated with miniatures that depict the monstrous races, though they vary greatly in quality: the Nowell Codex has crude watercolors, while the Tiberius volume has lavish paintings in ink and pigments. These miniatures seem to be another way in which readers could gaze upon and marvel at the monsters’ extraordinary bodies, and so are almost like the postcards produced as advertisements by freakshows. The Tiberius codex includes a transcription of the Latin source, which appears to be an adaptation of the Letter of Pharasmenes to Hadrian. Orchard, Pride and Prodigies, 22-23. In the Nowell Codex, The Wonders of the East is followed by The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle, a travelogue that also contains material about the monstrous races such as the hairy Ictifafonas and the Cynocephali. 141 Lapidge, Anglo-Latin Literature 600-899, 283-96.

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monsters.142 It admittedly favors Augustine as its source for the monstrous races, but it still makes clear use of Isidore in its catalog, and the two authors do not differ fundamentally in their attitude to the monstrous races.143 Consequently, the LM allows us get some sense of what a particular reader (or community of readers) would have taken away from these late antique works. In particular, I wish to focus on whether the Anglo-

Saxon author was more influenced by their insistence on the monsters’ common humanity or their presentation of their alterity, and whether they affected how he perceived people with extraordinary bodies.

The LM opens on a note of profound doubt about whether monsters – a category which the author further divides into monstrous humans, beasts and serpents – actually exist:

[e]t dum sermo de his per multarum scripturarum auctoritatem uelud excelsis sideris fulgore olim humano generi pene ubique refulsit, mendacia ea nemini iteranda putassem nisi me uentus tuae postulationis a puppi precelsa pauidum inter marina praecipitasset monstra. Ponto namque tenebroso hoc opus aequipero, quod probandi si sint uera an instructa mendacio, nullus patet accessus eaque per orbem terrarum aurato sermone miri rumoris fama dispergebat, quorum maximam partem philosophorum et poetarum scriptura demonstrat, quae semper mendacia nutrit. Quaedam tantum in ipsis mirabilibus uera esse creduntur.

(And whilst discussion of these things once shone almost everywhere for humankind as if with the brightness of a lofty star through the authority of many writings, I should have thought that those lies were unrepeatable to anyone, if the gust of your request had not cast me from the high poop quivering amongst the monsters of the deep. For I compare this task with the dark sea, since there is no clear way of testing whether that rumour which has spread throughout the world with the gilded speech of marvellous report is true or steeped in lies; of which things the writings of the poets and philosophers, which always foster lies,

142 Orchard, Pride and Prodigies, 86. 143 Ibid., 93.

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expound the greatest part. Only some things in the marvels themselves are believed to be true.)144

As this passage suggests, the author does not seem to place much credence in the reality of monsters, which he begins by characterizing as an outdated belief and a literary lie. He claims that people cannot know whether rumors of monsters are true or not, but that poets and philosophers trade in lies, so any reports should be viewed with some skepticism.145

Nonetheless, the author of the LM ultimately concedes that certain of these rumors are believed to be true and may be trusted in some part, by which he seems to mean the monstrous races. He remarks that he will start with the most reliable material, and he first discusses what he terms the “monstrosis hominum partibus” (the monstrous parts of men).146 Consequently, although he is skeptical about monsters, he is least skeptical about the monstrous races, and, in fact, provides an eye-witness account of an intersexed person he apparently knew:

Me enim quendam hominem in primordio operis utriusque sexus cognouisse testor, qui tamen ipsa facie plus et pectore uirilis quam muliebris apparuit; et uir a nescientibus putabatur, sed muliebria opera dilexit, et ignaros uirorum, more meretricis, decipiebat; sed hoc frequenter apud humanum genus contigisse fertur.

(Indeed I bear witness at the beginning of the work that I have known a person of both sexes, who although they appeared more masculine than feminine from their face and chest, and were thought male by those who did not know, yet loved

144 LM Prologue (ed. and trans. Orchard, 254-57). 145 Orchard presents the author’s doubt as part of his rhetorical strategy to assert the truth of Christian knowledge and disprove pagan lore, which suggests that he is adapting the monster tradition to his own purposes. Specifically, he is amplifying tendencies that already exist in Isidore and especially Augustine’s works. Isidore states that certain monsters such as Geryon and the Gorgons do not exist but were invented to explain the causes of things, though he excludes the monstrous races from this category. Likewise, Augustine raises the possibility that the monstrous races may not exist at all. Pride and Prodigies, 90. 146 LM 1 (ed. and trans. Orchard, 258-59).

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feminine occupations and deceived the ignorant amongst men in the manner of a whore; but this is said to have happened often amongst the human race.)147

Although we should be dubious of medieval eye-witness accounts, I would suggest that we should be open to the possibility that the author of the LM had an intersexed person in his community, and is speaking from experience. To me, the anecdote evinces a level of queer panic that testifies to the author’s personal involvement. The author seems extremely anxious about the mismatch between the intersexed person’s appearance and behavior, and accuses hir of deceiving men in the manner of a whore, which is the same hateful rhetoric that is deployed against trans* people in the present day. This rhetoric, unfortunately, works to obscure what the intersexed person has supposedly done. Did zie work as a prostitute, or did zie simply attempt to have relationships with men, which would only be transgressive because of hir intersex status?148 Nevertheless, as with the conjoined twins in Byzantium, the inclusion of this person in a catalog of monsters suggests that the Anglo-Saxons considered certain people with congenital deformities to be monstrous.149 As a result, the Anglo-Saxons seemed to treat monstrosity as a separate

147 Ibid. 148 “Zie” and the possessive “hir” are pronouns sometimes adopted by intersex people. I have used them here since I do not know how the intersex person would have gendered hirself. 149 We should not conclude from this case, however, that monstrous people were always considered part of the monstrous races. Given the person’s intersex status, we might expect hir to be classed as a hermaphrodite. In the Etym. Isidore describes hermaphrodites having a male right breast and a female left one, and siring and bearing children in turn. Isidore, Etym. 11.3.11 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.; trans. Barney, 244). The author of the LM paraphrases this description much later in the piece, and does not draw a connection between these hermaphrodites and the person he knows. It is difficult to know how to interpret that absence of a connection. On the one hand, it may simply be a consequence of the LM’s haphazard organization, so that, for instance, giants appear multiple times in the catalog without reference to previous instances. On the other, it may indicate that the author did not think of the person he knew as a hermaphrodite, since zie appears to have a male chest and no children. Even so, he still seems to have thought of hir as monstrous, or else he would not have included her in a book of monsters. So, he is still employing the framework of monstrosity, if not the monstrous races per se, to interpret his own lived experiences.

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category of unhælu, which was comprised of people with severe congenital deformities, and which was marked by a more extreme separation from the human norm.

It is worth exploring the reasons why the Anglo-Saxons might have drawn a connection between monsters and people with congenital deformities. The best explanation seems to lie in the way that the Anglo-Saxons could not narrate these deformities in the same way as they did with other forms of unhælu. G. Thomas Couser argues that all anomalous bodies call for a narrative that explains their origins, as disabled people are asked, often explicitly, to account for their differences.150 Yet, I would suggest that, in the Anglo-Saxon period, some bodies demanded narratives more than others, and resisted the usual explanations that people provided for them. For instance, the Anglo-Saxons might have assumed that a man who was missing an eye had lost it in violence or an accident, but they could not employ the same mundane story to explain a cycloptic child. As a result, they had to look for another narrative that could account for it, and monstrosity was an available cultural narrative that seemed to do so. In this way, people with severe congenital deformities were perceived as monsters.

Given the author of the LM’s use of monstrosity to understand at least one of the extraordinary bodies around him, it is significant that he understands the monstrous races in similar fashion to Isidore and Augustine. He opens his discussion by suggesting that the monstrous races are not that different from normative humans, when he remarks that he will be dealing with “quae leviore discretu ab humano genere distant” (those things

150 G. Thomas Couser, Signifying Bodies: Disability in Contemporary Life Writing (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009), 16-17.

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which differ by a rather trifling amount from humankind).151 This remark can be interpreted in two opposite ways: he may be suggesting either that they should not be considered human, or that they do not differ from humans in any profound and meaningful way. When he moves into his examination of the actual races, though, he leans more towards the former possibility, as, even more than Isidore, he provides multiple details that separate them from the human norm. For the purposes of comparison, it makes sense to examine how he approaches the Cyclopes and the cynocephali. He describes the Cyclopes in the following terms:

Et fuit quoddam humanum genus in Sicilia, ubi Ethnae montis incendium legitur: qui unum oculum sub asperrima fronte clipei latitudinis habuerunt. Et Ciclopes dicebantur et procerissimarum arborum altitudinem excedebant, et humano sanguine uescebantur. Quorum quidam sub anthro resopinus una manu duos viros tenuisse et crudos manducasse legitur.

(And there was a certain human race in Sicily, where the flame of Mount Etna is read about; they have a single eye as broad as a shield under the roughest of foreheads. And they are called Cyclops and used to exceed the height of the tallest of trees and feed on human blood. And one of these is said in books to have lain in his cave holding two men in one hand, and to have eaten them raw.)152

After discussing several other monsters, he comes to the Cynocephali:

Cinocefali quoque in India nasci perhibentur: quorum sunt canina capita, et omne uerbum quod locuntur intermixtis corrumpunt latratibus, et non homines, crudam carnem manducando, sed ipsas imitantur bestias.

(Cynocephali are also said to be born in India, who have the heads of dogs, and spoil every word they say with mingled barks, and do not imitate humans but the beasts themselves in eating raw flesh.)153

151 LM 1 (ed. and tr. Orchard, 258-59). 152 LM 1 (ed. and tr. Orchard, 264-65). 153 LM 1 (ed. and tr. Orchard, 268-69).

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In both cases, the author goes even further than Isidore and Augustine in emphasizing the monsters’ extreme alterity, which is evident in both their appearance and their customs.

The Cyclops do not only have a single eye, but are also giant in size. They do not subsist off of wild meat, but are cannibals in their taste for human blood and flesh. Their diet is more than bestial; it breaks a fundamental human taboo by displacing the human body from the pinnacle of the food-chain and reducing it to meat.154 It epitomizes their transgression of boundaries and their rejection of the common human norm.155 As

Friedman concludes, the LM depicts them in “their most grisly guise.”156 Likewise, the

Cynocephali do not only have canine heads and speak in barks, but also eat raw flesh.

While this dietary practice is not taboo in the same way as cannibalism is, it still places them outside of the human norm, as the author himself underscores.157 Nonetheless, it is interesting that the author of the LM presents them as more human in their speech than

Isidore does. The Cynocephali in the Etym. only bark; those in the LM mingle words with barks. This hybrid speech seems to reflect their hybrid bodies, and may make them more disturbingly transgressive, since they straddle the human-animal boundary in multiple ways. In short, the LM constructs the monstrous races in terms of an alterity that transgresses and threatens the human norm. It may begin by claiming that they differ

154 Jennifer Brown, Cannibalism in Literature and Film (New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2013), 4. 155 Ibid., 4. 156 Friedman, Monstrous Races, 151. 157 Per Claude Lévi-Strauss, cooking is a process that mediates between nature and culture, and therefore a means by which humans distinguish themselves for animals. Consequently, cooked meat is inherently cultural and human in a way that raw food is not. Mythologiques I: Le cru et le cuit (Paris: Plon, 1964).

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from humans in trifling ways, yet it presents them as crossing the boundary of the human and breaking fundamental human taboos, neither of which is a small matter.

This approach is not unique to the Cyclopes and Cynocephali. Friedman discusses how the LM constructs almost all of the monstrous races as a danger to humankind.158 It presents most of the races as engaging in violent, deceptive, or transgressive behavior of some kind; it characterizes even traditionally peaceable groups such as the pygmies as bellicose.159 Moreover, it locates them in a hostile and remote landscape, as the LM describes them as inhabiting “occulto situ orbis terrarum” (the secret arrangement (or

“filthiness”) of the land).160 Friedman argues that the monstrous races are intrinsically linked to the landscape that they inhabit, and that this connection suggests that God has justly exiled them from humankind and wished to eliminate them. 161 We can take his point even further, if we consider Orchard’s suggestion that occultus situs may mean

“secret arrangement” or “secret filthiness.” If intended, this paronomasia suggests that the monstrous races inhabit filthiness and so become like filth themselves, which may express a fear of their polluting or contaminating influence. Consequently, as Friedman claims, the work goes out of its way to “make these beings enemies of mankind who are deservedly banished from the centers of civilization, and to make their deviation from the physical norms and customs of medieval people responsible for their exile and their hostility and danger to humans.”162

158 Friedman, Monstrous Races, 151-53. 159 Ibid. 160 LM Prologue (ed. and tr. Orchard, LM, 254-55). Orchard suggests both “arrangement” and “filthiness” as readings for situ, although “filthiness” seems less likely. 161 Friedman, Monstrous Races, 151-53. 162 Ibid., 153.

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In short, the LM goes beyond the Etym. and De civitate Dei in emphasizing the dangerous alterity of the monstrous races, and presenting them as a threat to the human norm. The extreme character of this discourse is troubling, since, as I have established, the Anglo-Saxons seem to have drawn a connection between the literary monstrous races and real people with severe congenital deformities in their community. If these unhal people were perceived as dangerous and transgressive, they might have experienced marginalization, exclusion, and even violence as a result of their physical difference.

Indeed, the author’s palpable horror and disgust when describing the intersexed person suggests that such unhal people did not meet with much acceptance from their communities.

Questions of Form and Function in the Tradition of the Monstrous Races

As depicted in the Etym. and the LM, the monstrous races raise questions about the relative importance of form and function to the concept of unhælu. Specifically, Isidore’s etymologies of the human body are based upon both the body’s form and its function, which implies that are equally important in defining its essential qualities, and determining its normativity. As a result, they suggest that deformity and impairment both cause a body to become unhal by stripping it of some essential characteristic. The monstrous races, however, complicate this construction of unhælu by suggesting that function may be more important than form. The monstrous races are formally other, but they do not seem to be impaired. Rather, in many cases, their different forms appear to lead to what might be termed superability, as they result in exceptional speed, strength, or

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supernatural powers.163 As a result, these texts’ depiction of the monstrous races suggests that unhælu privileges form over function. This hierarchy would have found support in the works of Gregory the Great, who, as the final section of this chapter will demonstrate, focused almost exclusively on impairment and its spiritual benefits.

The Influence of Gregory the Great on Anglo-Saxon Intellectual Life

Isidore’s influence on Anglo-Saxon intellectual life was surpassed only by that of

Gregory the Great, due to Gregory’s unique position in Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical history. Mechthild Gretsch explains that, by the tenth century, Gregory had been venerated by the Anglo-Saxons more universally and longer than any other saint except the apostles.164 He was considered “doctor et apostolus of the gens Anglorum” (teacher and apostle of the English people) due to his role in sending out the mission that brought

Christianity to the Anglo-Saxons, and then teaching their new Christian community through multiple letters and the so-called Libellus responsionum.165 Because of his special relationship to the Anglo-Saxon church, his teachings were held in the highest

163 Isidore, Etym. 11.3.12-27 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.; trans. Barney, 244-45). 164 Mechthild Gretsch, Ælfric and the Cult of Saints in Late Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005), 21. 165 Ibid., 22. Critics have raised concerns about the authenticity of the Libellus responsionum, but most people accept it as a genuine work, largely due to Paul Meyvaert’s arguments. “Bede’s Text of the Libellus responsionum of Gregory the Great to Augustine of Canterbury,” in England Before the Conquest. Studies in Primary Sources Presented to Dorothy Whitelock, ed. Peter Clemoes and Kathleen Hughes (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1971), 15-33; and “Le libellus responsionum à Augustin de Cantorbéry: une oeuvre authentique de saint Grégoire le Grand,” in Grégoire le Grand, ed. Jacques Fontaine, Robert Grillet, and Stan Pellistrandi (Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche, 1986), 543-50. For a summary of the controversy, see Rob Meens, “A Background to Augustine’s Mission to Anglo-Saxon England,” Anglo- Saxon England 23 (1994): 5-17. For my purposes, though, the controversy is irrelevant, as Bede and the vast majority of Anglo-Saxons had no doubts about its authenticity, and I am interested in their reception of the text.

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esteem, and his writings were extensively circulated during the period. As with Isidore, we can safely assume that very few educated Anglo-Saxons would have been unfamiliar with his works. Indeed, two of his most important texts – the Dialogi and the Cura pastoralis (also known as the Regula pastoralis) – were translated into Old English as a part of the Alfredian vernacular project, which by itself suggests how valued his writings were.166 Given this cultural prestige, Gregory’s writings are particularly significant for thinking about the attitudes towards and beliefs about unhælu that the Anglo-Saxons would have inherited from the Latin tradition. Unlike the grammars and the Etym., his texts deal with the issue of impairment directly. They offer interpretations of the state and suggest responses to it, and so would have given the Anglo-Saxons an explicit framework for thinking about it. Their discussion of the non-normative body, therefore, may be viewed as a complement to the other texts’ delineation of the normative body.

In discussing Gregory’s works, I wish to focus my discussion on the two texts that were translated into the vernacular, because the translations suggest that the Anglo-

Saxons accorded them a particular weight, and also allow us insight into how they read them. I begin by considering the Dialogi and then turn to the Cura pastoralis. Despite their common authorship,167 they are two very distinct works written for different purposes. The Dialogi, as its name suggests, is a series of dialogues between Gregory and

166 As I discuss in more depth later in this chapter and in Chapter Six, Wærferth of Worcester was responsible for the translation of the Dialogi, while the OE Pastoral Care is the text that Alfred is most likely to have produced. 167 The authenticity of the Dialogi has been disputed, most recently and notably by Francis Clark. The Pseudo-Gregorian Dialogues, 2 vols (Leiden: Brill, 1987); and The “Gregorian” Dialogues and the Origins of Benedictine Monasticism (Leiden: Brill, 2003). Very few other scholars accept Clark’s arguments, and Paul Meyvaert has convincingly refuted them. “The Enigma of Gregory the Great’s Dialogues: A Response to Francis Clark,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 39, no. 3 (1988): 335-81.

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a young deacon in which he teaches about the lives and works of holy men – that is, hagiography. The Cura pastoralis is a treatise that provides practical advice and support to members of the clergy. Because of these two texts’ distinct functions, they offer different interpretations of and responses to impairment. As a result, different works circulating under Gregory’s name offered different views of impairment tailored to different purposes and audiences.

Gregory’s Dialogi and the Relationship between Impairment and Sanctity

In the Dialogi, Gregory suggests that a special relationship exists between impairment and sanctity. Firstly, he shows how impairment provides an opportunity for the saints to demonstrate their sanctity through healing miracles. To cite just two of his dozens of examples, he narrates how Fortunatus restores vision to a blind man, and how Benedict cures a man of leprosy.168 In both cases, they are able to cure conditions that the medicine of their era could not treat, and thereby to reveal their access to divine power. Likewise,

Gregory demonstrates how the saints’ own impairments may serve to enhance or enable miracles, as in the case of Bishop Marcellinus who cannot walk because of severe gout but still has himself set in the path of a fire and subdues it, or the bishops of Africa who have their tongues removed but continue to speak.169 The Anglo-Saxons adopt an identical approach to impairment in their own hagiographies, and so it makes sense to

168 Gregory the Great, Dialogi 1.10, 2.26 (ed. de Vogüé and Antin, Dialogi, 2:100, 2:214). 169 Gregory the Great, Dialogi 1.6, 3.32 (ed. de Vogüé and Antin, Dialogi, 2:62-64, 2:394).

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defer a fuller discussion of its implications to Chapter Five in which I discuss the genre at length.

Secondly and perhaps more interestingly, Gregory develops the idea that impairment itself may serve as a marker of holiness. In his discussion of Isaac of Spoleto, he claims that people’s infirmity may function to preserve their virtue:

Fit itaque miro modo ut una eademque mens et uirtute polleat, et ex infirmitate lassescat, quatenus et ex parte constructa sit, et ex parte se conspiciat esse destructam, ut per bonum quod quaerit, et habere non ualet, illud seruet humiliter quod habet.... Sic ergo et in unaquaque anima agitur, ut in humilitatis custodia aliquando ad lucra maxima ex minimo damno seruetur.170

(Thus it happens in a marvelous way that the one and the same mind may be strong in virtue and becomes weary from infirmity, to the extent that it may be fortified from one side and may see itself to have been destroyed on another side, so that, through the good that it seeks and is not able to have, it humbly preserves that [good] which it has…. Thus it is brought about in every single soul, that, sometimes for the protection of humility, it is preserved for the greatest gain out of some small loss.)

Gregory’s syntax is a little opaque, and we need to parse out his argument. In the broader context of the chapter, Gregory is attempting to show Peter that God withholds the lesser good from the people to whom he gives the greater, so that they do not become proud of the gifts that they have received. He makes the observation that people’s virtue is sometimes accompanied by infirmity in what he considers to be a marvelous way. The ablative phrase miro modo “in a marvelous way” suggests that this combination of virtue

170 Gregory the Great, Dialogi 3.14 (ed. de Vogüé and Antin, Dialogi, 2:312-14). I have taken “ex” in its causative sense, where the logic is that x arises out of y. It could also potentially be taken as “after,” which would make the final clause “it is preserved after some small loss to great gain.” The logic of Gregory’s argument, though, precludes it from being read in the usual fashion as “from,” since the loss of health enables the preservation of humility.

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and infirmity is no coincidence, but rather is the deliberate product of divine intervention.

He explains that infirmity serves to remind the mind of its weakness and vulnerability, and prevent it from being too secure in its virtue. It is noteworthy that Gregory focuses on infirmity’s effect on the mind and not on the body. He is not interested in the corporeal reality of infirmity, in the physical experience of exhaustion or pain, except insofar as it affects the mind. Indeed, he presents health as an abstract good, akin to virtue, that the mind seeks and cannot attain. That is, health may be a much lesser good than virtue, but it is not in a fundamentally different category to it, which is underscored by how Gregory uses the pronoun illud “that one” to refer back to bonum “the good” when he discusses the good of health and then the good of virtue. Perhaps because of this essential similarity, health may be sacrificed for the sake of virtue. Through infirmity, the mind preserves its sense of humility and avoids falling into the sin of pride, which works to the ultimate good of the soul. Consequently, Gregory characterizes infirmity as a small harm that yields great profit, since it preserves the greater spiritual gifts. By implication, if people are infirm, they may possess profound virtue.

The Old English translation of the Dialogi, which was produced under Alfred of

Wessex’s patronage and which Asser attributes to Bishop Wærferth of Worcester, offers a close paraphrase of Gregory’s original passage.171 It reads:

[and] swa hit geweorðeð wundorlicum gemete, þæt an [and] þæt ilce mod ægþer ge mid healicum mægnum weaxeð [and] strangað [and] eac of his agenre

171 Asser, DRGA, ch. 77 (62). I discuss the authenticity of Asser’s text in my chapter on the Alfredian corpus. Within present-day scholarship, Malcolm Godden makes a strong case for Wærferth’s involvement as translator. “Wærferth and King Alfred: the Fate of the Old English Dialogues,” in Alfred the Wise: Studies in Honour of Janet Bately on the Occasion of her Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Jane Roberts, Janet L. Nelson, and Malcolm Godden (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 1997), 37-38.

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untrymnysse wergað [and] teorað, to þon þæt hit geseo hit sylf beon on oþre healfe fæstlice getimbrod [and] on oþre tyderlice toworpen, to ðon þæt hit eadmodlice [and] fæste healde þæt god, þæt hit hafaþ, þonne hit habban ne mæg, þæt hit seceð [and] georneð.... Þus hit byð gedon in anlepra gehwylcre sawle, þæt heo byð ful oft to þam mæstan gestreonum gehealdenu of þam lytlan woningum in þa heordnesse [and] weard heora sylfra eadmodnesse.172

(And so it comes about in a wondrous fashion, that one and the same mind increases and grows strong with lofty virtue, and also becomes weary and tires from its own infirmity, so that it may see itself to be built up securely on the one side, and to be cast down weakly on the other side, so that it may humbly and firmly hold onto that good that it has, when it is unable to have that [good] that it seeks and desires. Thus, it occurs in every single soul, that it is very often protected from a little loss for a great gain in that keeping and it guards their own humility.)

Self-evidently, Wærferth does not depart much from his source, to the point where his syntax often seems more Latinate than Germanic. His few innovations are expansions or amplifications of Gregory’s points. He stresses the association of virtue with strength and infirmity with weakness through his use of synonymia. He expands the single Latin verb polleat “it may be strong” into “weaxeð ond strangað” (it increases and grows strong) and, likewise, lassescat “it becomes weary” into “wergað ond teorað” (it becomes weary and tires). He also foregrounds humility as the virtue that infirmity serves to preserve, as he turns the prepositional phrase “in humilitatis custodiam” (for the protection of humility) into the verb phrase “weard heora sylfra eadmodnesse” (it guards its own humility), which places more weight upon it. Lastly and most significantly, he emphasizes how frequently virtue is accompanied by infirmity. Gregory uses the adverb

172 Wærferth of Worcester, OE Dialogues 3.14 (ed. Hecht, 1:204-205). For a more general discussion of the Anglo-Saxon reception of the Dialogi and reasons why Alfred may have commissioned the transmission, see Kees Dekker, “King Alfred’s Translation of Gregory’s Dialogi: Tales for the Unlearned?,” in Rome and the North: The Early Reception of Gregory the Great in Germanic Europe, ed. Rolf H. Bremmer, Jr., Kees Dekker, and David F. Johnson (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 27-50.

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aliquando “sometimes” when he discusses how a little harm can preserve the soul;

Wærferth uses ful oft “very often.” The Old English translation presents it as a far more common occurrence than the Latin original. In short, Wæferth presents an even stronger version of Gregory’s case, which suggests that he enthusiastically embraced his argument.

Gregory develops the connection between sanctity and impairment even further, as his dialogues continue. He argues that physical weakness or illness can result from the mind seeing beyond its human capabilities and the flesh being overwhelmed by the spirit.

Towards the end of the third book, Gregory tells the young deacon about how Theodorus, the keeper of St. Peter’s church in Rome, saw a vision of its namesake apostle. He was so overwhelmed by the sight that he lost all strength in his body and was unable to get out of bed for several days. The deacon, who also happens to be called Peter, is amazed that

Theodorus fell sick because of his vision, but Gregory responds:

Quid super hoc re miraris, Petre? Nunquidnam menti excidit, quia cum Daniel propheta magnam illam ac terribilem uisionem uidit, ex qua etiam contremuit, protinus adjunxit: Et ego elangui, et aegrotavi per dies plurimos? Caro enim ea quae sunt spiritus capere non ualet; et idcirco nonnumquam cum mens humana ultra se ad uidendum ducitur, necesse est ut hoc carneum uasculum, quod ferre talenti pondus non ualet, infirmetur.173

(Why are you surprised about this matter, Peter? Surely it has not escaped your mind that, when the prophet Daniel saw that great and terrible vision, at which he likewise trembled, he immediately made the connection: “And I grew weak, and was sick for several days”? For the flesh lacks the strength to grasp those things that are of the spirit; and therefore sometimes when the human mind is carried

173 Gregory the Great, Dialogi 3.24 (ed. de Vogüé and Antin, Dialogi, 2:362-64). When Gregory speaks of a talentum, he is referring to the Roman measure of weight that was around 71 lb or 32 kg. Talent, meaning a gift or skill, is the product of a later semantic shift, which was inspired by the Biblical parable of the talents.

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beyond itself in order to see, it is inevitable that this little fleshly vessel, which lacks the strength to bear the weight of a talent, may be weakened/made ill.)

Here, Gregory suggests that illness and impairment may sometimes be a result of exposure to the divine. He cites the precedent of Daniel 8, in which Daniel receives a vision of a battle between a ram and a goat near the gate of Ulai, which, according to the angel Gabriel, is a prophecy of conflict between the kings of Persia and Media, and the king of Greece. After seeing this vision, Daniel is ill and exhausted, and takes to his bed for several days. Daniel does not specify what exactly caused this physical response: was it seeing a vision that terrified him and transcended human understanding; was it being in the presence of an angel; or was it the overwhelming nature of the whole event?

Nonetheless, Gregory specifies that Daniel and, by extension, Theodorus experience weakness and illness, because the human body is unable to cope with an intense spiritual experience. The body, which Gregory deprecates as a vasculum “little vessel,” lacks the strength to grasp spiritual matters and is weakened by the attempt.

Once again, Wærferth’s translation of this passage remains reasonably close to its source:

to hwan wundrast þu, Petrus, for þissere wisan? cwyst þu, þæt þu ne gemyne, þæt þa þa Danihel se witega geseah þa mycclan [and] þa [and]drysnlican gesyhðe, he aforhtode eac for ðære gesihðe? he selfa þus cwæð: “ic afeorrode þa [and] gemettrumode manega dagas.” we magon geþencan, þæt se lichama ne mæg þa wisan befon [and] geþæncan, þe þæs gastes beoð, [and] forðon full oft þonne þæt mænnisce mod byþ gelæded ofer hit self hwæthwylces to geseonne, hit sceall nyde þæt licumlice fæt beon getydrod, þonne hit ne mæg aberan þa byrðene swa mycelre wyrde.174

174 Wærferth of Worcester, OE Dialogues 3.24 (ed. Hecht, 1:227-28).

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(Why are you amazed over this matter, Peter? Are you saying that you do not remember that, when Daniel the prophet saw that great and terrible sight, he trembled with fear because of that vision? He himself said thus: “I withdrew then and was ill for many days. We are able to think that the body is unable to grasp and conceive of those matters that are of the spirit, and, because very often when the human mind is led beyond itself to see something, it must be by necessity that the bodily vessel will be weakened, when it cannot bear the burden of such a great occurrence.)

Despite the translation’s general fidelity, Wærferth makes some interesting alterations.

He emphasizes Daniel’s fear and trembling in a way that appears to make it responsible for his later weakness. Gregory mentions Daniel’s physical response in a subordinate clause, but Wærferth foregrounds it in a main clause and then uses it to introduce the scripture that follows. He seems to be working out the corporeal logic behind Gregory’s argument, and suggesting that a physical connection exists between the fear in the moment of the vision and the weakness after it. Similarly, Wærferth seems to underscore the experience of exstasis. He translates elangui “I grew tired” as afeorrode “I withdrew.” Of course, he may have mistaken elangui for elongavi, which would have the same meaning as afeorrode. Alternatively, though he may have chosen to translate it that way to reflect and emphasize Gregory’s later claim that the human mind is led beyond itself. If so, he may again be thinking through the corporeal logic of having a vision and then experiencing weakness. Consequently, Wærferth seems to be engaging with and elaborating on Gregory’s arguments in a manner which suggests that he is internalizing them.

In the Dialogi, then, Gregory develops a multifaceted interpretation of illness and impairment, which is very different from the constructions presented in the grammars,

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riddles and the Etymologiae. He follows the other works in maintaining that illness and impairment are negative; he does not rehabilitate them as neutral or even positive states.

Nonetheless, he suggests that illness and impairment may serve a positive purpose. They may offer saints the opportunity to reveal their sanctity and demonstrate the power of

God. They may preserve humility when a person possesses great virtue, and, by extension, serve as markers of their inner state. They may also be a sign of an immediate and intense encounter with the divine, and so indicate a person’s extraordinary wisdom or nearness to God. In short, Gregory tends to conceive of illness and impairment as small losses that achieve or signify great gains. Wærferth’s translation suggests that this perspective on unhælu was appealing to Gregory’s Anglo-Saxon readers, and we may observe its influence on their own works and especially on their hagiographical tradition.

Gregory the Great’s Cura pastoralis and Impairment as Divine Discipline

In contrast, Gregory’s Cura pastoralis offers a more mixed assessment of illness and impairment than his Dialogi. On the one hand, the Cura pastoralis argues for almost the same connection between a person’s physical and spiritual state that the Dialogi does, although the text conceives of it in a different way. When Gregory advises priests how to minister to the well and unwell, he gives them the following guidance regarding the latter group, which I quote at length because of its importance:

At contra ammonendi sunt aegri, ut eo se Dei filios sentiant, quo illos disciplinae flagella castigant. Nisi enim correctis hereditatem dare disponeret, erudire eos per molestias non curaret.... Dicendum est aegris, ut si in caelestem patriam suam credunt, necessario in hac labores uelut in aliena patiantur. Hinc est enim quod lapides extra tunsi sunt, ut in constructione templi Domini absque mallei sonitu

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ponerentur. Quia uidelicet nunc foras per flagella tundimur, ut intus in templum Dei postmodum sine disciplinae percussione disponamur, quatinus quidquid in nobis est superfluum, modo percussio resecet, et tunc sola nos in aedificio concordia caritatis liget. Ammonendi sunt aegri, ut considerent pro percipiendis terrenis hereditatibus quam dura carnales filios disciplinae flagella castigent. Quae ergo nobis diuinae correptionis poena grauis est, per quam et numquam amittenda heriditas percipitur, et semper mansura supplicia uitantur?175

(On the contrary, the unwell should be urged to feel themselves [to be] children of God because the whips of discipline chastise them. For, unless he had determined to give them an inheritance after correction, he would not care to educate them through troubles. It should be said to the unwell that, if they believe in their own heavenly native land, they may necessarily suffer hardships as if in a foreign land. For it is hence that the stones are hammered outside, so that they may be placed in the construction of God’s temple without the sound of a hammer. Because, clearly, we are now beaten outside by scourges, so that we may be placed inside in God’s temple afterwards without the discipline of beating, to the extent that beating may now cut away what is superfluous in us, and then the mutual agreement of love alone may bind us together in the building. The unwell should be urged to consider what harsh scourges of discipline may chastise earthly sons for securing inheritances. What punishment of divine correction, therefore, is hard on us, through which we both secure an inheritance that never will be lost and avoid suffering that will last forever?)

Here, Gregory conceives of illness and impairment, both of which can be denoted by

Latin aeger, as a form of divine fatherly discipline, in which God shows his love for his children by correcting them. Importantly, he does not suggest that people with illness and impairments have committed extraordinary sins that require them to be punished in this way. In other words, he does not seem to be working with the moral model in which impairment is a direct result of sin. Rather, he suggests that all people are living in a fallen world, and require correction to ensure that they are fit for heaven. He likens them to stones that must be hammered into shape so that they can be built into God’s temple,

175 Gregory the Great, Cura pastoralis 3.12 (ed. Judic, Rommel, and Morel, Règle pastorale, 2:326-28).

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which suggests that God is transforming their natural state and suiting them to his divine purpose. In short, people with illnesses and impairments partake of sinful human nature, and are not exceptional in their transgressions.

On the contrary, Gregory suggests that, as divine discipline, illness and impairment are spiritually advantageous. They allows people to secure their divine inheritance and avoid eternal punishment. As he explains, they cut away what is superfluous in them, by which he seems to mean earthly and fleshly attachments. By depriving people of an earthly inheritance, illness and impairment ensure that they receive a heavenly one. He elaborates on this point later in the section:

Ammonendi sunt aegri, ut considerent quanta salus cordis sit molestia corporalis, quae ad cognitionem sui mentem reuocat, et quam plerumque salus abicit, infirmitatis memoriam reformat, ut animus qui extra se in elatione ducitur, cui sit condicioni subditus, ex percussa quam sustinet carne memoretur. [Here, he provides a long example based on Balaam’s ass, which spoke to him and rebuked him for beating her, when she would not travel down a path guarded by an angel.] Insanus quippe homo a subiugali muto corripitur, quando elata mens humilitatis bonum quod tenere debeat ab afflicta carne memoratur.... Ammonendi sunt aegri, ut considerent quanti sit muneris molestia corporalis, quae et admissa peccata diluit, et ea quae poterant admitti compescit; quae sumpta ab exterioribus plagis, concussae menti paenitentiae uulnera infligit. Unde scriptum est: Liuor uulneris abstergit mala, et plagae in secretioribus uentris…. [Here, he engages in exegesis of Proverbs 20:30, as quoted in the preceding sentence.] [Q]uia cum exterius percutimur, ad peccatorum nostrorum memoriam taciti afflictique reuocamur, atque ante oculos nostros cuncta quae a nobis sunt male gesta reducimus, et per hoc quod foras patimur, magis intus quod fecimus dolemus. Vnde fit ut inter aperta uulnera corporis amplius nos abluat plaga secreta uentris, quia sanat nequitias praui operis occultum uulnus doloris.176

176 Gregory the Great, Cura pastoralis 3.12 (ed. Judic, Rommel, and Morel, Règle pastorale, 2:328-30). For the full story of Balaam’s ass, see Numbers 22-24. The translation of Proverbs 20:30 comes from the Doauy-Rheims translation of the Vulgate. Edgar Swift, ed., The Vulgate Bible: Douay-Rheims Translation, vol. 3, The Poetical Books, with Angela M. Kinney, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 639.

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(The unwell should be urged to consider how great a salvation of the heart a bodily affliction may be, which calls the mind back to examination of itself, and which restores memory of the infirmity which is often cast aside during periods of health, so that the mind, which is carried out of itself in exaltation, may be reminded by the beating that it sustains through the flesh to what condition it may have been subject. Indeed, a mad man is chastised by a mute beast of burden when an exalted mind is reminded by the afflicted flesh of the good of humility that it should preserve. The unwell should be urged to consider how great a gift bodily affliction may be, which both cleanses sins committed, and restrains those that could have been committed; which inflicts wounds of penitence, obtained from outer blows, on the shaken mind. Whence is it written: “the blueness of a wound shall wipe away evils: and stripes in the more inward parts of the belly.” Because, when we are beaten outwardly, we, silent and afflicted, are called back to the memory of our sins, and we bring back before our eyes all that was wrongly done by us, and, through this which we suffer outwardly, we grieve more inwardly for what we have done. Whence it happens that, among the open wounds of the body, the secret stripe in the belly cleanses us more greatly, because a hidden wound of grief heals the wickedness of perverse deeds.)

In this section, Gregory develops a multifaceted explanation for how physical illness and impairment ensures spiritual health. He opens with an argument that recalls the Dialogi’s claims. He asserts that bodily affliction spurs the mind to examine itself and to remember its state, particularly in moments of exaltation. Infirmity reminds the mind of its intrinsic weakness and vulnerability, and so is able to preserve its humility. He continues by making a powerful case for the spiritual value of illness and impairment, when he shows how they deal with the problem of sin. According to him, bodily affliction serves as both penance for and protection from sin. He cites Proverbs 20:30, which, as quoted in the passage, states: “Liuor uulneris abstergit mala, et plagae in secretioribus uentris” (The blueness of a wound shall wipe away evils, and stripes in the more inward parts of the belly). In the Moralia in Job, Gregory provides a useful explanation of his understanding of the verse. According to him, the blueness of a wound symbolizes the discipline of

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corporeal blows, while the stripes in the more secret parts of the belly are the wounds of the mind that are inflicted by compunction, since a mind swollen with evil thoughts is like a belly distended with food. Consequently, external discipline washes away sins, and internal compunction pierces the mind with the punishment of penitence.177 Yet, as the

Cura pastoralis suggests, Gregory considers external discipline and internal compunction to be intimately connected, in similar fashion to the body and the soul. He claims that, when people experience the physical pain and weakness that he represents as a beating, they are compelled to remember their sins and to feel grief over them. In this way, bodily affliction translates to mental anguish, which Gregory privileges as a form of penitence and which purifies the individual of their sin.178

Less clear is how illness and impairment prevent sin, and Gregory does not elaborate on this aspect of the argument, which leaves open several possibilities. Firstly, it could be an extension of his point that bodily affliction causes people to be mindful of their deeds, so that it makes them reflect not only on what they have done, but also on what they are about to do. Secondly, it could be a suggestion that ill or impaired people lack the ability to commit certain sins. For instance, if people cannot talk, they cannot commit slander, or, if they do not have hands, they cannot steal.179 Thirdly, elsewhere in the Cura pastoralis, Gregory conceives of the psychology of temptation as a step-wise process, which involves the stages of suggestion, delectation (i.e. attraction to and

177 Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob 23.40 (ed. Mark Adriaen, Moralia in Iob, 1174-75). 178 For the importance of compunction and penitence in Gregory’s theology, see Carole Straw, Gregory the Great: Perfection in Imperfection (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 214-21. 179 As Chapter Four discusses, a similar logic informs juridical mutilation within the law-codes.

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enjoyment of the idea of sin), and assent.180 Bodily affliction could intervene and interrupt at any of these stages, by ensuring that people were too focused on their misery for the suggestion to enter their mind, or that they derived no enjoyment from the thought of the sin, or that, as mentioned earlier, they could not act on the temptation. Whether the restraint is mental or physical, though, Gregory is adamant about its spiritual benefits.

According to him, people who are unhealthy in body are healthier in spirit because of it, which is opposite to the logic of the moral model.

In fact, as Gregory concludes, illness and impairment allow people a special opportunity for imitatio Christi. He advises:

Ammonendi sunt aegri quatinus patientiae uirtutem seruent, ut incessanter quanta Redemptor noster ab his quos creauerat, pertulit mala, considerent.... Cur itaque asperum creditur, ut a Deo homo toleret flagella pro malis, si tanta Deus ab hominibus pertulit mala pro bonis? Aut quis sana intellegentia de percussione sua ingratus exsistit, si ipse hinc sine flagello non exiit, qui hic sine peccato uixit?181

(The unwell should be urged, to the extent that they may still possess the virtue of patience, to consider what great evils our Redeemer endured from those he had created…. Why, then, is it considered harsh that a human should bear lashes from God for evil deeds, if God endured such great evils from humans in exchange for his good deeds? Or who with sound understanding emerges ungrateful from his own beating, if he himself, who lived here without sin, did not leave here without a lash?)

Gregory encourages people with illnesses and impairments to remember Christ’s Passion, so that they can preserve the virtue of patience, which is, of course, what Christ demonstrated during his trial and crucifixion. By implication, their bodily affliction

180 Gregory the Great, Cura pastoralis 3.29 (ed. Judic, Rommel, and Morel, Règle pastorale, 2:389). 181 Gregory the Great, Cura pastoralis 3.12 (ed. Judic, Rommel, and Morel, Règle pastorale, 2:332).

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allows them to share in the suffering of Christ and to imitate his response in the face of it.

For Gregory and other theologians, imitatio Christi was not a shallow or superficial act of mimesis. Rather, as Bernard Green summarizes, Gregory believed that:

Christ is the teacher whose example is the pattern of how to return to God…. He came as a human being in order to be seen; he wanted to be seen so that he would be imitated. Everything he did was for the instruction of humanity. The likeness of God [in humankind] is restored through imitating Christ’s humility and justice and the imitation of Christ delivers from sin.182

Consequently, physical illness and impairment offered people a way to identify with

Christ at the height of his mission and also in his moment of greatest humility. These bodily states offered Christians a way to share in his sufferings on a corporeal, visceral level, and to develop the same virtues that he possessed in response to it. Nonetheless,

Gregory is careful to assert that human suffering and Christ’s suffering are not the same, perhaps to ward off potential pride. He emphasizes that Christ suffered unjustly at the hands of humans for doing good, while humans suffer justly at the hands of God for the sins they have done. Again, though, Gregory does not seem to be implying that people with illnesses and impairments are unusually sinful. Homo “human” is a generic word that potentially encompasses the entire human race. Rather, he is suggesting that people with illnesses and impairments have all the more reason to imitate Christ’s patience, since their bodily afflictions are fair and deserved.

182 Bernard Green, “The Theology of Gregory the Great: Christ, Salvation and the Church,” in A Companion to Gregory the Great, ed. Bronwen Neil and Matthew Dal Santo (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 151.

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It is interesting that Gregory settles on patience as the virtue that these people must preserve, as opposed to obedience to or dependence on God, which are equally prominent themes of the Passion. He may be articulating a cultural expectation of how people with illnesses or impairments should behave – that is, they should be patient when experiencing physical pain or weakness. His rhetorical questions at the end seem to reinforce this stance, as they imply that anger, bitterness and complaints are inappropriate responses to the situation, and even signs of mental derangement. We may notice a similar attitude in the present day, as disabled people are encouraged to remain positive and cheerful, regardless of their experiences of physical pain or social oppression. While we may find Gregory’s prescription of patience problematic from this perspective, he would have considered it a cardinal Christian virtue, one of the fruits of the spirit that

Paul defines in Galatians 5:22-23. Indeed, within the Anglo-Saxon period, Gregory himself was held up as a model of patience in the face of illness.183 In sum, then,

Gregory’s Cura pastoralis presents illness and impairments as spiritually beneficial states, which encourage penitence for sins and inculcate Christ-like virtues of humility and patience, and which therefore help people to achieve eternal life.

Nonetheless, the Cura pastoralis’ recuperative gestures towards impairment have problematic implications for the Anglo-Saxons’ conception of unhælu. Specifically, these gestures associate impairment with suffering and presuppose that, for the elect, such suffering is always only temporary, as the body will undergo perfect restoration when it is resurrected. In this way, they implicitly promise impaired people that they will have a

183 I discuss Gregory’s illness and the hagiographical tradition that was built up around it in Chapter Five.

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normative body in the future, provided that they lead an appropriately Christian life. As a result, although Gregory suggests that impairment has spiritual benefits, he still privileges the normative body as the telos to which people should aspire.184

The Anglo-Saxon Response to Gregory’s Cura pastoralis

For the most part, the Alfredian translation of the Cura pastoralis, which might have been the work of Alfred of Wessex, remains faithful to its source, and I will focus on only the parts that have significant changes, in order to avoid unnecessary repetition.185

Firstly, the translator alters Gregory’s opening assertion about how people with illness and impairments should feel themselves to be children of God:

Ongean ðæt sint to manianne ða metruman ðæt hie ongieten & gefreden ðæt hie sua micle ma beoð Godes bearn, & he hie sua micle ma lufað sua he hie suiður manað & suingð, forðæm, if he ðæm gehiersuman mannum næfde geteohchad his eðel to sellanne, hwie wolde he hie mid ænegum ungetæsum læran?186

(On the contrary, the impaired are to be urged to understand and sense that they are so much more children of God, and that he loves them all the more, the more severely he admonishes and chastises them, because, if he had not determined to give his inheritance to obedient people, why would he want to teach them with any disagreeable things?)

184 I discuss the restoration of the body and its implications for unhælu in more depth in Chapter Seven. 185 Malcolm Godden is skeptical that Alfred was the translator of any of the works that have been attributed to him. Yet, he concedes that, of the whole corpus, Alfred is most likely to have translated the Cura pastoralis. “Did King Alfred Write Anything?,” Medium Aevum 76 (2007): 1-23. Janet Bately offers a response to Godden’s arguments, in which she claims that it is reasonable to conclude that Alfred was the mind behind the translations of the OE Pastoral Care, Psalms, OE Boethius, and OE Soliloquies. “Did King Alfred Actually Translate Anything? The Integrity of the Alfredian Canon Revisited,” Medium Aevum 78, no. 2 (2009): 189-215. I address the Alfredian authorship debate at length in Chapter Six. 186Alfred the Great, OE Pastoral Care, ch. 36 (ed. Sweet, 1:251). I quote from Sweet’s version of Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 20, rather than BL Cotton Tiberius B. xi. The Cotton manuscript was badly damaged in the fire at Ashburnham House, and its contents are now mostly attested in Franciscus Junius’ seventeenth-century transcription. For this reason, I prefer to use the contemporary Hatton manuscript, though the differences between the two manuscripts are actually only orthographical in the sections I discuss.

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Clearly, the Old English translator offers a much stronger version of Gregory’s argument.

Gregory claims that people with illnesses and impairments should feel themselves children of God, since he is disciplining them. The translator, by way of contrast, suggests that these people are particularly beloved by God, that they are so much more children of God because of their unhælu than abled and healthy people are. He continues to explain the logic of this assertion: if God disciplines the people whom he loves, then it follows that he provides the most discipline to the ones whom he loves the most.

Consequently, the translator accords people with illness and impairments an even higher spiritual status than Gregory does.

Although the translator’s perspective on people with illnesses and impairments may seem positive, it has problematic implications for the construction of unhælu. An analogy may help to explain why this is the case. In present-day Western society, disabled people and, particularly, disabled women find themselves surrounded by a halo, as public discourse presents them as heroic or saintly for living with impairments.

Disability activists have rightly sought to dismantle this halo, since, while it may seem benign and even good, it denies people their full, complicated humanity and makes them

Other. It also obscures the need for social change through accommodation by making disability an individual struggle. To some degree, Gregory avoids the pitfall of “othering” people with illness and impairments by grounding his discussion in the assumption of shared human sinfulness and suggesting that their physical affliction is one path to penitence. He does not claim that they have a special relationship with God because of

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their bodily status. The translator, however, presents people with illnesses and impairments as exceptional, as especially beloved children of God and therefore as Other from the rest of the human race. From a medieval viewpoint, such an assertion would not be troubling, as it would place people with illnesses and impairments in a similar category to the saints, who were also Other in their sanctity. From that of present-day disability studies, though, we would be dubious of any claims that separate out people with illnesses and impairments from the rest of humanity, and that make them out to be saints simply because of their potentially different modes of living.

Secondly, the translator expands and clarifies Gregory’s argument about why physical affliction leads to spiritual health:

Eac sint to manianne ða mettruman ðæt hie geðencen hu micel hælo ðæt bið ðære heortan ðæt se lichoma sie medtrum, forðæm sio medtrymnes ðæt mod sio gehwierfð gehwelces monnes hine selfne to ongietanne, & ðæt gode mod ðe sio hælo ful oft aweg adriefð ðæt gemynd ðære medtrymnesse geedniewað, ðætte ðæt mod ðe ofer his mæð bið uphæfen gemyne of ðæm suingum ðe ðæt flæsc ðolað to hwæm eal monncynn gesceapen is.187

(The impaired are to be urged to think what great health it is for the heart that the body is impaired, because impairment causes the mind of each person to contemplate himself, and the memory of impairment renews the good mind that health very often drives away, so that the mind that is elevated above its measure may remember, by the afflictions that the flesh suffers, what all humankind was created for.)

For the translator, bodily affliction stimulates mental contemplation since it causes people to remember the purpose for which they were created. By way of contrast, Gregory claims that it reminds the mind to what condition it is subject, which is a much broader,

187 Alfred the Great, OE Pastoral Care, ch. 36 (ed. Sweet, 1:255).

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more abstract statement. Nevertheless, even though the vernacular version is more precise, it still allows for a number of interpretations. It may be suggesting that illness and impairment remind people of their subordination to and dependence on God, or of their mortality and inevitable death. The Anglo-Saxons thought of unhælu in terms of both dependence and death, as I explore in later chapters, and so either possibility would be a culturally appropriate way of reading the passage. Nonetheless, the translator’s reference to the flesh suggests that it is more likely that he is thinking about illness and impairment as reminders of death. When people’s bodies are weak or in pain, they are confronted with the frailty, vulnerability and transience of the flesh, and so realize their own human mortality. In short, the translator is taking Gregory’s arguments and making them more readily comprehensible by his readership, which suggests that he felt that they were applicable to his time and deserved a wider audience. Indeed, as the famous preface to the OE Pastoral Care claims, it was translated precisely because it was one of the books “ða ða niedbeðearfosta sien eallum monnum to wiotonne” (that are most needful for all men to know), which suggests a high estimation of its relevance and usefulness.188

Gregory’s Cura pastoralis and Impairment as a Metaphor for Negative States

Up to this point, we have discussed how Gregory’s Cura pastoralis presents illness and impairment as spiritually beneficial, and constructs them as negative states that have positive consequences, an argument which his Anglo-Saxon translator accepts and even amplifies. Nonetheless, Gregory’s positive interpretation of illness and impairment is

188 Alfred the Great, OE Pastoral Care, Preface (ed. Sweet, 1:7).

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counterbalanced by his frequent use of them as metaphors for undesirable spiritual states.

The best illustration is provided by his examination of the Levitical rule that no man with any physical imperfection should be admitted to the priesthood. He describes how Moses tells Aaron:

Homo de semine tuo per familias qui habuerit maculam, non offeret panes Domino Deo suo, nec accedet ad ministerium eius.... Si caecus fuerit, si claudus, si uel paruo, uel grandi et torto naso, si fracto pede, si manu, si gibbus, si lippus, si albuginem habens in oculo, si iugem scabiem, si impetiginem in corpore, uel ponderosus.189

(A man from your seed throughout their families who has a blemish, he may not offer bread to his Lord God, nor be added to his ministry. If he is blind, if he is lame, if he has a small, or a large, or a crooked nose, if his foot or if his hand is broken, if he is hunch-backed, if he has bleary eyes, if he has a white spot in his eye, if he has a continual scab, if he has a dry scurf on his body, or a rupture.)

Given Leviticus’ focus on purity, the writer of the book intended these laws as literal prohibitions that excluded men with certain illness and impairments from the priesthood, since the priests were meant to be as unblemished as the sacrifices they offer.190 Gregory, however, interprets these laws figuratively and allegorizes each of the blemishes. To cite just a few representative examples, the blind man does not know the light of heavenly contemplation; the lame man is aware of what spiritual path he should follow, but is too weak of purpose to keep to it; the hunchbacked man is weighed down by earthly cares

189 Gregory the Great, Cura pastoralis 1.11 (ed. Judic, Rommel and Morel, Règle Pastorale, 1:164). Gregory is quoting Leviticus 21:17-21 at this point, and so I have used the Douay-Rheims translation as the basis of my own version, although I have clarified some of the conditions. Edgar Swift, ed., The Vulgate Bible: Douay-Rheims Translation, vol. 1, The Pentateuch, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 615. 190 For a fascinating account of how the Hebrews conceptualized bodily impairments, see David Tabb Stewart, “Sexual Disabilities in the Hebrew Bible,” in Disability Studies and Biblical Literature, ed. Candida R. Moss and Jeremy Schipper (New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2011), 69-71.

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and fails to consider heavenly ones; the man with a white spot in his eye seeks to understand the truth but has it obscured by his own depravity; and the man with a dry scurf is infected with avarice that he refuses to restrain.191 As a result, Gregory creates an allegorical system in which each physical illness or impairment corresponds with a spiritual flaw, and serves as a specific metaphor for it.

This metaphorization of impairment might have had implications for how the

Anglo-Saxons perceived literal impairment. Linguistic theory holds that metaphors generally work according to the principle of unidirectionality, where “the metaphorical process typically goes from the more concrete to the more abstract but not the other way around.”192 To put it in more practical terms, blindness is often used as a metaphor for spiritual ignorance, but spiritual ignorance is never used as a metaphor for blindness. Yet,

I would suggest that the unidirectionality of metaphor does not prevent the target domain from influencing the source domain. That is, when metaphors use illness and impairment to represent negative states, they promote and reinforce harmful beliefs about these embodied experiences. They align them with dysfunction, deviance and disorder, and so contribute to the stigma built up around them.

Jay Dolmage take this argument further when he argues for an intimate, reciprocal relationship between metaphor and the body. He claims “that metaphors, in some way, come about through dynamic processes of bodily experience and inscriptions of embodiment, but also that they might just as easily create or structure these inscriptions

191 Gregory the Great, Regula 1.11 (ed. Judic, Rommel and Morel, Règle Pastorale, 1:164-72). Impetigo is either a scaly or purulent skin disease, and so is not exactly equivalent to the bacterial skin infection that carries the name in the present. 192 Zoltan Kövecses, Metaphor: A Practical Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 6.

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and experiences, that metaphors are also incorporated into bodily experience.”193 If

Dolmage is correct, Gregory’s intent might have been to use illness and impairment to comment on spirituality, but his metaphors would have influenced his readers’ understanding of or attitude towards such bodily conditions as well. The question, then, becomes how his metaphors would have influenced their perceptions. One possibility is that his metaphors would have associated illness and impairment with spiritual deficiency. This possibility is not wholly precluded by his later presentation of illness and impairment as spiritually advantageous states, since it is possible for multiple, contradictory views of the same conditions to exist in the same cultural space. In the present day, for instance, people with Down’s syndrome can be treated as both special angels and prime candidates for abortion; the only commonality is that neither construction accords them their full humanity.194 Gregory might have been working with a similar dichotomy, in which people with illnesses and impairments may be spiritually elevated or spiritually flawed, but cannot occupy the spiritually normative space between them. Another possibility is that his metaphors would have reinforced the construction of illness and impairment as deficiency. They would have presented them as fundamentally negative states, and so confirmed what seem to have been prevailing cultural beliefs about them. Unfortunately, the Alfredian translation of this passage does not give any

193 Jay Dolmage, “Between the Valley and Field: Metaphor and Disability,” Disability And/in Prose, ed. Brenda Brueggemann and Marian E. Lupo (New York: Routledge, 2013), 105. See also Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors (1978 and 1988; repr. in one vol., New York: Picador, 2001). 194 For a discussion of both these constructions, see Michael Bérubé, Life As We Know It: A Father, A Family and an Exceptional Child (New York: Vintage, 1998).

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indication of which interpretative possibility the Anglo-Saxons preferred, as it is a close and accurate rendition of its Latin source without any real additions or digressions.195

Summary of Gregory the Great’s Influence on the Conception of Unhælu

In sum, then, the Anglo-Saxons would have discovered that Gregory’s Dialogi and Cura pastoralis both confirmed and countered the constructions of unhælu that they would have found in the grammars, the riddles, and Isidore’s Etym. Specifically, Gregory does not challenge the belief that unhælu is non-normative and negative per se, and may reinforce it through his use of illness and impairment as metaphor. Nonetheless, he also provides a more positive perspective on unhælu, and expands the implications and associations surrounding it. He shows that unhælu has potential positive spiritual benefits, as it acts as a form of divine discipline and a restraint on sin. Consequently,

Gregory’s works would have offered the Anglo-Saxons a complex and multifaceted take on unhælu, constructing it as both a positive and negative state, but not permitting it to occupy the neutral space in between these extremes. Given Gregory’s profound influence on Anglo-Saxon spiritual and intellectual life, we should not be surprised to discover that the Anglo-Saxon concept of unhælu was characterized by a similar ambivalence and multiplicity, as will become evident in the following chapters of my dissertation that use the leechbooks and herbaria, the law-codes, and the hagiographies to reconstruct unhælu.

195 Alfred the Great, OE Pastoral Care (ed. Sweet, 1:62-73). Later in my project, I discuss how other Alfredian or post-Alfredian translations make use of unhælu as a metaphor, and explore their underlying assumptions.

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Chapter 3: The Curative Corpus and the Category of Unhælu

Unhælu and the Myth of the Normative Body

The Anglo-Saxons’ conception of unhælu was founded on the myth of the normative body. This myth shaped the lexicon that they used to refer to impairment and disability, and informed the late antique intellectual tradition that served as their equivalent of disability theory. In short, this myth influenced both the lingustic and educational foundations of the Anglo-Saxon concept of unhælu, with the result that it was aligned with non-normativity. Unsurprisingly, then, the Anglo-Saxons believed that unhælu called for a normalizing response, which they provided through various institutions such as the church, law, and medicine.1 All of these interventions had the goal of remediating people’s unhælu or minimizing its disruptive effects on the community, thereby maintaining normalcy on both the individual and the social level. In the following chapters, therefore, I explore what the Anglo-Saxons’ normalizing interventions reveal about their conception of unhælu, and use them to reconstruct the concept in more precise terms, since a society’s practical response to impairment inevitably develops out of its understanding of it.

1 As this chapter will illustrate, the medical establishment in the Anglo-Saxon period had nothing like the power and cohesion of the medical establishment in the present day. Indeed, it might more accurately be viewed as a branch of the church in many cases.

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Bot and the Anglo-Saxon Response to Unhælu

As the following chapters will demonstrate, the Anglo-Saxons responded to unhælu in three primary ways. Firstly, the leeches attempted to cure unhal people and restore them to normativity in a manner that is reminiscent of the medical establishment in the present day. They were joined in this endeavor by the shrines of the saints, which promised an alternative and even more effective source of healing through the access they offered to divine power. Secondly, the kings enacted a system of legal compensation that enabled people who had become unhal through criminal violence or negligence to sue their assailant and receive financial restitution for their physical losses. Lastly and perhaps most importantly, the church advocated charity as an appropriate ethical and spiritual response to unhælu. It encouraged abled people to help and support unhal community members, and to perceive them as catalysts for virtue who furnished an opportunity for good works.2

Interestingly, within the Old English lexicon, the responses of cure and compensation are linked by a common lexicon – that is, bot “a making good, an amelioration.”3 The leeches’ medical remedies and the saints’ healing miracles are called bot, as is the sum of money that the law-codes prescribe as compensation for mutilation.4

2 Lee, “Disability,” 35. 3 The Dictionary of Old English suggests a base meaning for bot of “a making good,” which is consistent with the sense of its Proto-Germanic ancestor. DOE, s.v. “bot.” Bot derives from the Proto-Germanic feminine substantive *boto, which itself is connected to the comparative adjective *ᵬatiz, “better.” Thus, a literal translation of *boto would be “a making better,” or, more idiomatically, “an amelioration.” Orel, Handbook, s.v. “*boto.” As this etymology may suggest, bot is connected with the Old English adjective betera, “better,” from which we get the Modern English comparative adjective. 4 As Audrey Meaney explains, Anglo-Saxon læcas, a lexeme that I have translated with the cognate “leeches,” were usually associated with monasteries, but sometimes with royal or ducal courts. They visited the sick at home, and also treated those brought to them. They were normally male, and may have been

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Does this shared lexeme suggest that the Anglo-Saxons thought that a relationship existed between cure and compensation? More specifically, does it imply that the Anglo-Saxons perceived fundamental similarities between cure and compensation, or believed that they remediated unhælu in comparable ways? Alternatively, does it imply that they believed that cure and compensation worked together to provide a more complete social response to unhælu? I shall return to these questions at the end of Chapter Four, after I have examined curative and compensatory bot in more depth.

For the moment, I wish to consider what it means for our understanding of unhælu that two of the major interventions were categorized as forms of amelioration. By referring to these responses as bot, the Anglo-Saxons characterized unhælu as a state that needed to be made good through curative, legal and other interventions, which, in a real sense, parallels and prefigures the assumptions of the medical model. In other words, they considered unhælu to be an undesirable deviation from “the good,” which therefore seems to have constituted a norm for them. Implicit in the idea of bot is the assumption that unhal people lack or have lost something that the rest of their community possesses, and so need to have it restored to them in some way. This construction of unhælu gives rise to other questions. For one, what were the mechanics of this deviation? More specifically, what did the Anglo-Saxons believe caused this deviation, how precisely did they conceive of it, and how did they seek to correct it through bot? For another, was this deviation considered social deviance? That is, did the Anglo-Saxons hold people

either laymen or monks. “The Practice of Medicine in England about the Year 1000,” Social History of Medicine 13, no. 2 (2000): 221-24.

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responsible for their own unhælu, and did unhælu affect those people’s broader social identity?

The Anglo-Saxon Curative Corpus

The curative corpus offers an ideal site to begin answering these questions,5 as it establishes etiologies for unhælu, indicates what types of conditions were included within its ambit, and demonstrates one category of social response to unhal people. In the following analysis, I shall focus on Læceboc Books 1-3 and the Lacnunga, which comprise three of the major compilations of remedies, and which contain material that allows for deeper insight into unhælu.6 Læceboc Books 1 and 2, often called Bald’s

Leechbook after its colophon, is a tenth-century compilation of remedies, which exists uniquely in London, BL, Royal 12. D. xvii, and which might have been influenced by

Alfred of Wessex’s educational reforms.7 Læceboc Book 3 follows Bald’s Leechbook in the manuscript, and is a separate, shorter compilation of remedies. Lastly, the Lacnunga is a late tenth- or early eleventh-century commonplace book, which is found in London,

British Library, Harley 585. I have chosen to consider only works in Old English,

5 Although this corpus is normally called the medical corpus, I prefer to refer to it as the curative corpus. As I discuss in more depth in the chapter, Anglo-Saxon medicine is distinct from present-day Western medicine. While the Anglo-Saxons used familiar methods like surgery, cautery and herbal medicine to treat conditions, they combined them with magic and religion to create hybrid curative techniques. The broader term better acknowledges the fluidity of the medical, magical and religious domains in Anglo-Saxon England. 6 I have chosen not to discuss the Herbarium or the Medicina de quadrupedibus, since they do not contain much material that allows for an analysis of unhælu. I provide typical remedies from them later in this chapter, in order to demonstrate why they are not particularly useful as sources for understanding unhælu. 7 Richard Scott Nokes, “The Several Compilers of Bald’s Leechbook,” Anglo-Saxon England 33 (2007): 51-76.

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although the Anglo-Saxons had Latin medical treatises available to them as well.8 Some of these vernacular texts record indigenous Anglo-Saxon beliefs and practices, which, as

Karen Louise Jolly argues, were derived from the Germanic folk-tradition, but which were integrated into popular Christianity through the dynamic interaction between the native culture and the originally foreign religion.9 As a result, the remedies in these texts are a popular synthesis of Germanic and Anglo-Saxon beliefs. Other of these texts are translations of Latin works or incorporate sections from them, and therefore may serve as a guide to what foreign material was most valued and appreciated by the educated elite.

For instance, Bald’s Leechbook represents a conscious attempt to synthesize native and

Mediterranean curative practices.10 The Lacnunga also includes non-native material of

Roman, Greek, Byzantine, and Celtic origin in its sprawling and disorganized collection of charms and remedies.11 By way of contrast, Læceboc Book 3 consists mostly of native

Anglo-Saxon practices, and seems relatively free of Mediterranean influences. 12 In short, these works provide a cross-section of both the native practices that the Anglo-Saxons would have inherited from their ancestors, and the foreign ones that they incorporated into their tradition.

8 For a discussion of what texts the Anglo-Saxons had available to them, see Cameron, Anglo-Saxon Medicine, 48-74; Stephanie Hollis, “Medical and Scientific Writings,” in A Companion to Anglo-Saxon Literature, ed. Phillip Pulsiano and Elaine Treharne (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001), 188-208; and Wilfrid Bonser, The Medical Background of Anglo-Saxon England (London: Wellcome Historical Medical Library, 1963). 9 Jolly, Popular Religion, 27-32. 10 Cameron, Anglo-Saxon Medicine, 35. 11 Ibid., 45. 12 Ibid., 35.

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Before examining these texts, however, I need to acknowledge an important limitation that constrains my discussion of the material. Although the Anglo-Saxon curative corpus as a whole is a rich source of information on unhælu, most of the individual remedies do not offer much insight into unhælu as a concept or a category. To provide a prototypical example, Læceboc Book 1 provides this remedy for a leucoma or a cataract: “[w]iþ flie eahsealf celeþonian sæd genim on þam wyrttruman gnid on eald win

7 on hunig do pipor to læt standan neahterne on fyre nytta þonne þu slapan wille”

(against a leucoma or a cataract, an eye-salve. Take celandine seed from the root, crush it into old wine and honey, add pepper, let it stand overnight at the fire, use when you want to sleep).13 These texts exemplify the pattern that the vast majority of remedies follow – that is, they begin by naming the form of unhælu that the remedy is intended to cure, and then set out instructions for how to treat it, which tend to involve the use of herbs, minerals, and animals’ body parts or bodily fluids. By way of illustration, it may be helpful to provide some remedies for visual impairments from other texts. For example,

Læceboc Book 3 includes this different remedy for a leucoma or a cataract: “[w]iþ flie gebærned sealt 7 swegles æppel 7 attrum ealra emfela gnid to duste 7 do on þa eagan

þweah leohtlice mid wylle wætre 7 smire æfter mid wifes meolce” (against a leucoma or a cataract, rub to dust burnt salt and (?)“beetle nut” and (?)atramentum, equal quantities of all, and put [it] on the eyes, wash lightly with spring water, and smear afterwards with

13 Leechbook I 2.15 (ed. Cockayne, 2:32). Cockayne suggests that “on þam” should be read “oþþe þone,” which makes more logical sense as the remedy would then instuct the person to take celandine seed or root. A leucoma is a “white opacity in the cornea of the eye, the result of inflammation or a wound.” OED Online, s.v. “leucoma.”

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woman’s milk).14 Likewise, the Herbarium contains the following remedy for dimness of the eyes, which reads: “wið egena dymnesse genim þære ylcan wyrte betonican anre tremesse wæge & wyl on wætere & syle drincan fæstendum. Þonne gewanað hit þone dæl þæs blodes ðe seo dymnys of cymð” (against dimness of the eyes. Take one coin’s weight of that same herb betony, and boil it in water, and then give it to the person to drink while he is fasting. Then it will decrease that part of the blood from which the dimness comes).15 The Medicina de quadrupedibus includes another remedy for the same condition: “[w]ið eagena dymnesse, wudugate geallan & lytel wines meng tosomne, smyre mid ðriwa” (against dimness of the eyes, mix wild goat’s gall and a little wine together, smear with three times).16

Such prototypical remedies, which identify the condition and then provide a course of treatment, are important for tracing the Anglo-Saxons’ general curative practices, but they are not particularly illuminating when it comes to understanding unhælu as a concept. Specifically, they give us a sense of what forms of unhælu the

Anglo-Saxons identified, how they defined these specific conditions, and how they felt that these conditions required correction; however, they do not take us much farther when it comes to understanding unhælu as a general concept. Consequently, I will be focussing on only a relatively small number of remedies, which may not be typical of the usual

14 Leechbook III 2.4 (ed. Cockayne, 2:308). BT notes that Cockayne suggests “beetle nut” as a possible interpretation of swegles æppel, which is the only definition of the ingredient that I have found. BT, s.v. “sweglesæppel.” Nonetheless, Cockayne is not the most reliable source of identifications, as evidenced by his translation of “attrum” as olusatrum (Cockayne, 2:209). Cameron suggests that it should actually be taken as atramentum, shoemaker’s blacking. Cameron, Anglo-Saxon Medicine, 107. 15 OE Herbarium 1.5 (ed. de Vriend, OE Herbarium, 30). 16 Medicina de quadrupedibus 6.5 (ed. de Vriend, Medicina de quadrupedibus, 254).

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Anglo-Saxon practice, but which include material about unhælu that the more usual remedies do not. In particular, I will be concentrating on the so-called narrative charms, which include narrative accounts that are often bizarre on the surface, but which, after careful analysis, provide insight into the Anglo-Saxon understanding of unhælu.

The Anglo-Saxons’ Two-Fold System of Etiology

As an initial step in exploring the Anglo-Saxon concept of unhælu, it seems appropriate to begin with their understanding of etiology, which involves a two-fold distinction. On the one hand, certain forms of unhælu would have had readily observable causes, such as a man breaking his leg in a fall, or losing a hand in battle, or having his foot amputated by order of the court. The Anglo-Saxons did not look beyond the proximal causes in those cases, as evidenced by the curative corpus. For instance, Læceboc Book 3 contains remedies for severed and shrunken sinews caused by a dog’s attack:

Wiþ hundes slite cnuwa ribban lege on þ[æ]t dolh 7 rudan wyl on butran lacna mid þ[æ]t dolh. Gif sinwe syn forcorfene nim renwyrmas gecnuwa wel lege on oþ þ[æ]t hi hale synd. Gif sinwe sien gescruncene nime æmettan mid hiora bedgeride wyl on wætre on beþe mid ond rece þa sinwe geornlice.

(Against a dog’s bite, pound ribwort, lay it on the wound, and boil rue in butter, treat the wound with it. If the sinews are severed, take intestinal worms, pound them together well, lay [them] on [the sinews] until they are well. If the sinews are shrunken, take ants together with their nest, boil them in water, and bathe [the sinews] with [it] and steam the sinews conscientiously.)17

17 Leechbook III 34 (ed. Cockayne, 2:328).

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Setting aside the treatments until the next section, this remedy presents an entirely straightforward instance of cause and effect: the unhal person is attacked by a dog, and their sinews or tendons are damaged by its bite, which causes some degree of mobility impairment. The corpus has other examples of this sort of unhælu, such as snake bites, dislocated shoulders, and fractured bones, but they are equally transparent and show the same cause-and-effect relationship. In short, this category of unhælu did not seem to require any exceptional explanations or carry any special implications.

On the other hand, the Anglo-Saxons would have encountered forms of unhælu that were caused by factors of which present-day medicine is aware, but which would have been invisible and incomprehensible to medieval people, such as conditions that develop from bacterial or viral infections, or that arise from genetic or neurological differences. In the absence of microscopes and genetic testing, they would have had to invent alternative explanations for this category of unhælu. In some cases, they attributed them to God’s will and the saints’ powers, and believed that they served a divine purpose.18 In other cases, though, they sought explanations for them in their own physiology and, to a much greater degree, in the world around them.

Certain Anglo-Saxons were aware of humoral theory and its account of disease as an imbalance in the humors, which they would have encountered in Isidore’s

Etymologiae and other late antique works. Nonetheless, in general, the Anglo-Saxons did not seem to embrace this theory fully or to understand its finer implications.19 As Lois

18 I discuss this belief in more depth in Chapter Five. 19 Victoria Thompson, Dying and Death in Later Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2004), 92-3; Cameron, Anglo-Saxon Medicine, 161.

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Ayoub discusses, the only vernacular texts to contain extensive references to the humors are the Læceboc Books 1 and 2, and the late Peri Didaxeon, all of which are heavily dependent upon Latin originals.20 The Old English Herbarium and the Medicina de quadrupedibus contain a brief mention of the humors, while the Lacnunga includes only a single reference to them.21 Outside of the curative corpus, humors are almost never mentioned.22 Ayoub concludes from this evidence that “in Anglo-Saxon England humoral theory was specialized medical information rather than common knowledge.”23

That is, a minority of the educated elite might have understood unhælu in terms of humoral imbalance, but the majority of the population almost certainly would have relied on indigenous knowledge and the folk tradition handed down by their ancestors.

Whereas humoral theory attributes unhælu to an internal imbalance, the Anglo-

Saxons placed far more emphasis on external causes.24 In a seminal study, J. H. G.

Grattan and Charles Singer identified four elements that they thought distinguished pagan

Germanic beliefs about etiology: flying venoms, the evil nines, worms as a cause of disease, and the doctrine of elf-shot.25 Their study is clearly outdated and their list needs to be expanded, yet it indicates the extent to which the Anglo-Saxons attributed unhælu to a range of external causes. In their Germanic theory of etiology, people become unhal after an encounter with a non-human entity that has the ability to affect their body in

20 Lois Ayoub, “Wæta and the Medical Theory of the Humours,” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 94, no. 3 (1995): 336-41. 21 Ibid., 341. 22 Ibid., 341-2. 23 Ibid., 344. 24 Thompson, Dying and Death, 91-92. 25 J. H. G. Grattan and Charles Singer, Anglo-Saxon Magic and Medicine: Illustrated Specially from the Semi-Pagan Text “Lacnunga” (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952), 52-62.

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some way.26 As I explore later in this chapter, people may be assaulted by elves, witches and other non-human beings, or they may be infected by venoms, flying venoms, and wyrmas.27 Leeches, then, bring about healing by expelling these foreign entities through

26 In recent years, scholars have debated whether the natural and the supernatural existed as categories in Anglo-Saxon England. Jennifer Neville has argued that the Anglo-Saxons did not separate natural and supernatural phenomena, but rather drew a distinction between the human world and the non-human one that was populated by the Other in all its forms. She gives the example of Beowulf, where birds, sea- monsters, demons, whales, deer and the Grendelkin all seem to inhabit the same landscape and interact with humans in parallel ways. She claims that all of these members of the Other – animals, monsters, otherworldly beings – come the closest to constituting the Anglo-Saxon natural world. Representations of the Natural World in Old English Poetry, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 27 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 2-4. Alaric Hall, however, has recently challenged her thesis, asserting that the Anglo-Saxons had a “substantial lexicon of the otherworldly,” which prominently involved the prefix el- “foreign, strange; from elsewhere.” Elves in Anglo-Saxon England: Matters of Belief, Health, Gender and Identity, Anglo-Saxon Studies 8 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2007), 11-12. Looking at the DOE entry for el-, though, the prefix only seems to refers to otherworldly entities in the compounds elwiht “alien being” and elgast “alien spirit,” and those compounds are only found in Beowulf in reference to the Grendelkin, who are presented as exiles and outsiders as much as monsters. DOE, s.v. “el-.” Thus, the lexical evidence does not seem to be as strong as Hall suggests, and I tend to concur with Neville. Consequently, rather than talking about the natural and supernatural, it may make more sense to talk about the human and non-human, with the understanding that the non-human encompasses entities that people in the present-day Western world would consider supernatural. 27 It is difficult to define precisely what these venoms are. They are not identical to the toxins of, say, snakes and spiders, but instead seem to be invisible, infective agents. Cameron claims that they can best be explained as showing an understanding of communicable disease, although that creates a danger of anachronistic readings that suggest the Anglo-Saxons had a sense of epidemiology similar to the present- day one. Anglo-Saxon Medicine, 9. Likewise, it is difficult to determine what wyrmas are. Thompson explains the lexeme wyrmas can refer to worms, maggots, dragons, snakes, lice, fleas, scorpions or spiders, creatures which are linked by certain common characteristics, such as the production of venom, an uncanny way of moving, a close relationship to human flesh, the ability to vanish underground, and a closeness to the dead. Death and Dying, 132. Bonser interprets these wyrmas as actual parasites which infest the body, and notes that they are most often used to explain intestinal conditions. Medical Background, 277. It seems plausible that many of the remedies were referring to real parasites, which the Anglo-Saxons and their Germanic ancestors would have been able to see in people’s excrement or in their rotting flesh. Archaeological research provides strong support for his argument. An analysis of human fecal matter from ninth- to eleventh- century levels in York has shown that the city’s residents had chronic infestations of intestinal parasites, so that worms would have been an everyday sight. Thompson, Death and Dying, 136. Likewise, Lois Magner theorizes that the doctrine of worms might have been inspired or at least bolstered by the observation of tissue or mucus in excretions, vomit, and blood. A History of Medicine (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2005), 107. To this list, I would add pus, which perhaps significantly is wyrms in Old English, though the lexeme is not etymologically related to wyrmas. By way of contrast, Grattan and Singer, who are admittedly anxious to find magic and myth in every aspect of Anglo-Saxon curative practice, draw an association between the wyrmas in the remedies and serpents, which symbolized death and death-dealing disease in both Scandinavian and Mediterranean

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the use of herbal medicine, prayers, and incantations, or avert unhælu by employing similar methods prophylactically. In order to illustrate this theory of etiology and think about its implications, I wish to consider two remedies from the curative corpus that provide an unusual amount of detail about the causes of the condition that they claim to combat – namely, “The Nine Herbs Charm” and “Wið færstice,” both of which are found in the Lacnunga, and which draw on Christianized Germanic beliefs.

“The Nine Herbs Charm”

“The Nine Herbs Charm,” as its usual title suggests, uses a combination of magical herbs and an incantation in order either to ward off or to expel various causes of unhælu.28 As a part of the incantation, the leech lists the various entities and substances against which the herbs are efficacious, and thereby provides a catalog of some etiologies for unhælu:

Nu magon þas VIIII wyrta wið nygon wuldorgeflogenum, wið VIIII attrum and wið nygon onflognum, wið ðy readan attre, wið ðy runlan attre, wið ðy hwitan attre, wið ðy wedenan attre, wið ðy geolwan attre, wið ðy grenan attre, wið ðy wonnan attre, wið ðy wedenan attre, wið ðy br[un]an attre, wið ðy basewan attre,29 wið wyrmgeblæd, wið wætergeblæd, wið þorngeblæd, wið þys[tel]geblæd, wið ysgeblæd, wið attorgeblæd,

cultures. Anglo-Saxon Magic, 55. Consequently, we might best think of these worms as based on the empirical observation of parasites and bodily secretions, but given otherworldly significance. 28 The text is ambiguous about its purpose; the closest it comes to stating its aim is when the leech concludes with “ic þis attor of ðe geblawe” (I blow this poison from you), which could be interpreted either way. Lacnunga 76 (ed. and trans. Pettit, 1:66-67). 29 The charm lists ten types of venom, which seems inconsistent with its claim that the nine herbs are effective against nine venoms. Pettit, 2:154. Likewise, it does not list nine herbs before this opening statement. Ibid., 2:109-12. Consequently, there is a problem with the arithmetic of the poem, but a solution to it goes well beyond the scope of my discussion.

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gif ænig attor cume eastan fleogan oððe ænig norðan cume, [oððe ænig suðan] oððe ænig westan ofer werðeode.

(Now these nine herbs have power against nine (?)fugitives from glory, Against nine poisons and against nine flying diseases: Against the red poison, against the (?)foul poison, Against the white poison, against the blue poison, Against the yellow poison, against the green poison, Against the dark poison, against the blue poison, Against the brown poison, against the purple poison, Against blister caused by ‘worm’, against blister caused by water, Against blister caused by thorn, against blister caused by thistle, Against blister caused by ice, against blister caused by poison, If any poison should come flying from the east, Or if any should come from the north, [or any from the south], Or any from the west over the race of men.)30

Like a broad-spectrum antibiotic, this charm works against a wide range of entities: the nine fugitives from glory, who are probably evil spirits or demons; a rainbow of poisons; blisters that come from various natural sources; and flying venoms from all of the cardinal points. Its catalog’s length and its repetitiveness, moreover, have important implications for how Anglo-Saxons conceived of unhælu. That is, as the charm seeks to ward off or expel all of these malignant agents, it reveals a profound fear of infection and pollution. It presents the world as a place where people are literally surrounded by and under constant attack from an army of invisible, hostile entities that seek to penetrate their defenses and to make them unhal. It encourages people to take extraordinary

30 Lacnunga 76 (ed. and trans. Pettit, 1:64-67). Wuldorgeflogenum is a hapax legomenon, which may mean “ones who fled from glory,” “ones from whom glory has fled,” or “glorious ones who fled.” Pettit, 2:153. It is most likely that the lexeme refers to evil spirits or fallen angels, but it may be a reference to the nine pieces of the snake that flew apart when Woden struck it with nine glorious twigs, a bizarre incident mentioned earlier in the poem. Pettit, 2:153. Runlan is also a hapax legomenon, which Pettit understands as “foul, dirty” based on the definition of runol in BT. He notes that we might have expected a color word in the context. Pettit, 2:155.

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precautions against their assaults, and thereby indicates an underlying anxiety that humans are vulnerable and cannot maintain their own hælu. As Thompson insightfully notes, this etiology and its concomitant sense of dread might only have been reinforced by Christian teachings that people are living in a fallen world, and are under siege by the evils within it.31

“Wið færstice”

Likewise, “Wið færstice,” which derives its usual title from its incipit, offers insight into how Anglo-Saxons might have conceived of and responded to these infective, foreign presences within their bodies. The remedy is intended to treat færstice, a sudden pain or puncture that could be indicative of a number of disorders.32 It attributes this symptom to a non-human spear lodged inside the person’s body, which the læce commands either to come out or to melt:

Ut, spere! Næs in spere! Gif herinne sy isenes dæl, hægtessan geweorc hit sceal gemyltan. gif ðu wære on fell scoten, oððe wære on flæsc scoten, oððe wære on blod scoten, [oððe wære on ban scoten], oððe wære on lið scoten, næfre ne sy ðin lif atæsed. Gif hit wære esa gescot, oððe hit wære ylfa gescot, oððe hit wære hægtessan gescot, nu ic wille ðin helpan. þis ðe to bote esa gescotes, ðis ðe to bote ylfa gescotes; ðis ðe to bote hægtessan gescotes; ic ðin wille helpan.

(Out, spear! Not in, spear!

31 Thompson, Death and Dying, 93. 32 Since færstice is a hapax legomenon, no-one knows precisely to what condition it is referring. The name literally means “sudden stitch or puncture,” and Cameron has suggested that it could have covered a range of conditions with that symptom, such as muscle cramp, rheumatism, a side-stitch from overexertion, or even angina pain or lumbago. Cameron, Anglo-Saxon Medicine, 141-42.

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If there should be herein a sliver of iron, The work of a witch [or witches], it shall melt [(?)or heat shall melt (it)]. If you were shot in the skin, or were shot in the flesh, Or were shot in the blood, [or were shot in the bone], Or were shot in the joint [or limb], never may your life be harmed. If it were shot of gods [or spirits], or if it were shot of elves, Or if it were shot of witch [or witches], now I will help you. This is your cure for shot of gods [or spirits], this is your cure for shot of elves, This is your cure for shot of witch [or witches]; I will help you.)33

This charm identifies attacks by three non-human entities as potential causes of færstice: that is, elves, hægtessan, and æsir. It is worth briefly considering the characteristics of these non-humans, in order to determine against what threats the charm is defending, and their implications for the concept of unhælu. Unfortunately, we have very little evidence for how the Anglo-Saxons conceived of the æsir, who are presumably the pantheon of deities from the Norse religion. The OE Rune Poem suggests that the Anglo-Saxons associated them with wisdom and knowledge, as it describes the rune os as “ordfruma

ælcre spræce, / wisdomes wraþu ond witena frofur” (the origin of any speech, the support of wisdom, and the comfort of the wise).34 Thus, the most we can adduce about the

Anglo-Saxons’ perception of the æsir is that they considered them to be non-human entities who fostered wisdom in some cases, but who also caused unhælu in others.

In contrast, we have considerably more information about the Anglo-Saxons’ understanding of elves and hægtessan. Elves, who might later have been Christianized as

33 Lacnunga 127 (ed. and trans. Pettit, 1:92-95). 34 Rune Poem 10-12 (ASPR 6:28). Robert Di Napoli states that Old English os means “god or divinity,” but that the poet is also punning on the Latin lexeme os, “mouth.” “Odd Characters: Runes in Old English Poetry,” in Verbal Encounters: Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse Studies for Roberta Frank, ed. Antonina Harbus and Russell Poole (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 149-50.

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devils or demons, are a common cause of unhælu within the curative corpus.35 The remedies often either attribute people’s unhælu to their assaults, or imply their involvement in the names they give to the conditions, such as ælfadl “elf-disease,” wæterælfadl “water-elf disease” or “water elf-disease,” and ælfsogeþa “elf-juice.”36 As

Alaric Hall has shown, the Anglo-Saxons believed that elves were liminal and transgressive beings; they were human-like and prototypically masculine, but they also possessed traits that were considered effeminate.37 They caused unhælu through ælfsiden, which literally translates to “influence of elves,” but which refers to elven magic that might have involved sexual perversion, gender variance, and bodily transformation, if it were similar to its much better-documented Scandinavian counterparts.38 In short, much like the monstrous races, elves defied and therefore threatened the social norms of the community.

Similarly, the Anglo-Saxons seem to have included two groups of women within the category of hægtessan: non-human women such as valkyries and furies, and human women with extraordinary abilities, such as witches and prophets.39 The hægtesse in

“Wið færstice” are more likely to be the non-human type, since they are associated with the liminal, otherworldly space of the burial mound, although the shared lexeme should

35 Hall, Elves, 73. 36 DOE Online, s.v. “ælfadl” and“ælfsogeþa”; and BT, s.v. “wæterælfadl.” I have provided my own literal definitions for the latter two words to indicate their lexical connection with elves. 37 Hall, Elves, 54-96. By the eleventh century, we find evidence of a belief in female elves, which is probably an attempt to align sex with gender. Ibid., 155-67. 38 Ibid., 119-30. Hall challenges the wide-spread belief in elfshot as a cause of disease. He shows that, although this belief is well-attested in sixteenth-century Northern England and Scotland, we have little unambiguous evidence of it in earlier periods. Elves are never explicitly said to shoot people or animals in the Anglo-Saxon remedies, and ylfa gescot (which only appears in “Wið færstice”) can equally mean “elf- pain.” Ibid., 96-118. 39 Hall, “The Meaning of Elf,” 171-74.

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make us cautious of assuming that the Anglo-Saxons distinguished strongly between female non-humans and human women with exceptional powers. If the charm is internally coherent, the hægtessan may be equated with the mighty women who are mentioned early in the text, and who seem to be akin to the valkyries:

Stod under linde, under leohtu(m) scylde, þær ða mihtigan wif hyra mægen beræddon, 7 hy gyllende garas sændan.

(I stood under a limewood shield [or linden tree], under a light shield, Where [or when] the mighty women deliberated upon their power, And they sent yelling spears.)40

These mighty women with their noisy spears may also be the loud riders described at the very beginning of the piece:

Hlude wæron hy, la hlude, ða hy ofer þone hlæw ridan, wæron anmode, ða hy ofer land ridan.

(Loud were they, lo loud, when they rode over the mound, They were fierce, when they rode over the land.)41

If the hægtessan are identical with these beings, they are deeply transgressive, liminal figures. They take on masculine, martial roles, as they raid and fight across the land, and wield phallic spears. Consequently, these virago-like hægtessan are in many ways the mirror image of the effeminate elves. In short, then, the Anglo-Saxons believed that both

40 Lacnunga 127 (ed. and trans. Pettit, 1:90-91). These lines have many grammatically ambiguous elements. Firstly, Pettit notes that it is unclear whether stod means “I stood” or “he/she/it stood.” Pettit prefers the former possibility, and suggests that the first person pronoun is referring to reciter of the charm. Secondly, he notes that it is uncertain whether it is the women or the spears that are yelling, but that poetic convention supports the latter interpretation. Pettit, 2:237, 240. 41 Lacnunga 127 (ed. and trans. Pettit, 1:90-91).

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ælfe and hægtessan were transgressive, liminal beings, and that they brought about unhælu through magic, or, as in “Wið færstice,” through weaponry that remained lodged in the flesh.

The Association between Unhælu and Transgression

This etiology raises the question of whether the Anglo-Saxons associated certain forms of unhælu with transgression. In other words, did the Anglo-Saxons believe that, when people were attacked by non-human entities and penetrated by their weapons, they were contaminated by the contact and took on transgressive traits? More specifically, was unhælu sometimes connected with the forms of deviance that the non-human beings embodied, such as gender variance and sexual perversion?

Within the curative corpus, we find tantalizing hints that certain forms of unhælu might have been associated with or at least raised fears of other kinds of transgression. In particular, Læceboc Book 3’s remedy for ælfsogoða “elf-juices,” which seems to be a form of anemia or jaundice,42 reveals an intriguing preoccupation with gender normativity. The text begins:

Gif him biþ ælfsogoþa him beoþ þa eagan geolwe þær reade beon sceoldon. Gif þu þone mon lacnian wille þænc his gebæra 7 wite hwilces hades he sie; gif hit biþ wæpned man 7 locaþ up þonne þu hine ærest sceawast 7 se andwlita biþ geolwe blac, þone mon þu meaht gelacnian, adtæwlice gif he ne biþ þær on to lange; gif hit biþ wif 7 locaþ niþer þonne þu hit ærest sceawast 7 hire andwlita biþ reade wan, þæt miht eac gelacnian.43

42 Jolly, Popular Religion, 134-35; Hall, Elves, 105-107; DOE Online, s.v. “ælfsogeþa.” 43 Leechbook III 62 (Cockayne, 2:148).

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(If it is elf-juices that he has, his eyes are yellow where they should be red. If you wish to cure that person, consider his or her bearing and take note of what sex he or she is. If it is a man and he looks up when you first look at him and his face is yellow-dusky, you can cure that man entirely, if he is not therein too long. If it is a woman and she looks down when you first look at her and her face is a dusky red, you can also cure that.)

As Cameron remarks, this remedy is one of the very few that provides a set of diagnostic criteria and uses them to predict the unhal person’s prognosis.44 Yet, these criteria differ according to the person’s gender, so that a positive sign in a man is negative in a woman, or vice versa. The different colors of the man’s and woman’s complexion may be medically pertinent, as they could indicate different underlying causes of jaundice that resolve differently for the sexes.45 The same cannot be said for their demeanor, which seems to be more consistent with Anglo-Saxon gender expectations than with any presentation of jaundice. Specifically, a man is meant to look up at the leech and, by implication, show masculine strength and assertiveness; a woman is meant to look down and demonstrate her feminine modesty and submissiveness. They should react that way the instant they encounter the leech, which implies a lack of premeditation or calculation.

In short, the remedy may suggest that unhal person will have a better outcome if they

44 Cameron, Anglo-Saxon Medicine, 40-41. 45 Hall has raised the possibility that these distinctions may correspond to different kinds of jaundice. For instance, he notes that an orange-yellow tint (i.e. a red tint) may indicate hepatitis, and a blackish-yellow tint neoplastic disease. “Calling the Shots: The Old English Remedy Gif hors ofscoten sie and Anglo-Saxon ‘Elf-Shot,’” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 106, no. 2 (2005): 204. Men and women may recover more effectively from some causes of jaundice than others. For instance, new research has indicated that women are more capable of spontaneously clearing acute hepatitis C virus infection, which might explain why they have a better prognosis if their skin is orange-yellow. J. Grebely et al., “The Effects of Female Sex, Viral Genotype, and IL28B Genotype on Spontaneous Clearance of Acute Hepatitis C Virus Infection,” Hepatology 59, no. 1 (2014): 109-20.

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instinctively conform to their social roles, and thereby show themselves to be free of any deeper pollution.

Transgression of a different kind may be found in Metrical Charm 3, “Wið dweorh,” from the Lacnunga. This charm has been the subject of much critical debate, as scholars have battled to determine against what entity it is meant to protect and how it accomplishes that aim. As Bill Griffiths explains, the text has a surreal quality to it, arising from the basic uncertainly about who is being addressed – the unhal person or the cause of his unhælu – and from various corruptions in the text that have been subject to psychoneurotic emendations.46 The incipit of the charm presents it as a remedy against

“dweorh,” which DOE Online defines as a dwarf or a pygmy, or as a fever that may have been accompanied by delirium and convulsion.47 In this particular case, the dweorh appears to be a malicious dwarf who brings about unhælu by bridling and riding the person. Its incantation describes a strange being who intends on using the unhal person as a mount:

Her com ingangan inspidenwiht. Hæfde hi(m) his haman on handa, cwæð þ(æt) þu his hæncgest wære. Leg[d]e þe his teage an sweoran. Ongunnan hi(m) of þæm lande liþan. Sona swa hy of þæm lande coman þa ongunnan him ða liþu colian.

(Here came walking in an inspiden creature. It had its bridle in its hands, said that you were its horse. It laid its reins on your neck. They began to travel from the land.

46 Bill Griffiths, Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Magic (Norfolk: Anglo-Saxon Books, 2003), 200. For instance, Cockayne takes dweorh “dwarf” as weorh “skin eruption” in his translation, and so obscures the charm’s meaning. Cockayne, 3:43. 47 DOE Online, s.v. “dweorg.” See Cameron, Anglo-Saxon Medicine, 152 for a discussion of dweorg as fever.

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As soon as they left the land then the limbs began to cool.)48

Although scholarly debate exists about whether the “you” addressed in the charm is the person or his unhælu,49 the textual evidence shows that it is much more likely to be the unhal individual. In the ritual that accompanies the incantation, the leech writes the names of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus on seven hosts, sings the charm into the person’s ears and above his head, and then has a virgin hang either the inscribed hosts or a copy of the charm around his neck.50 The virgin’s actions seem intended to protect the person’s neck, presumably from the spidery dwarf who wishes to throw his bridle over it, and so it suggests that the charm is addressed to the unhal person whom the dwarf has verbally claimed as his steed. Moreover, as David E. Gay argues, the charm seems to present an early variant of witch-riding beliefs, in which sleep paralysis is attributed to a witch sitting on a person’s chest.51 In such a scenario, the person would be the dwarf’s horse, and would be under the constricting, controlling influence of his bridle, which would cause the feeling of paralysis and suffocation.

48 Lacnunga 86 (ed. and trans. Pettit, 1:72-75). No-one is precisely sure what is meant by inspiden or haman. Pettit notes that inspidenwiht is usually amended to spiderwiht or spider-creature, and that other Germanic languages have a connection between spiders and dwarves, which lends credence to that emendation. I have adopted that reading in my later discussion. Pettit, 2:186-88. Pettit also comments that haman may be a bridle or an animal-pelt, perhaps used for shape-shifting, or for turning the person into a horse. Ibid., 2:188-90. For an in-depth discussion of the connection between dwarves and spiders within this charm, see David E. Gay, “Anglo-Saxon Metrical Charm 3 Against a Dwarf: A Charm Against Witch-Riding,” Folklore 99, no. 2 (1988): 175. 49 For an overview of this debate, see Griffiths, Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Magic, 200. 50 The remedy instructs “ho hit on his sweoran” (hang it on his neck), without making the antecedent of the pronoun clear. Lacnunga 86 (ed. and trans. Pettit, 1:72-73). 51 Gay, “Metrical Charm 3,” 174-77.

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Given this interpretation, the charm demonstrates a fear that unhælu may involve deeper forms of transgression. It depicts a breakdown within fundamental ontological categories, as the dwarf’s actions towards his victim collapse the distinction between human and animal. The dwarf uses the unhal person as humans use animals, as he bridles him and treats him as a steed. The person loses the ability to control and direct his own actions, and has to respond to his rider as a well-trained animal would. Moreover, the charm seems to contain elements of sexual deviance as well. The lexeme hengest often refers specifically to a gelding, a horse that has been castrated in order to render it more docile and obedient.52 As with the remedy for ælfsogoða, this aspect of the remedy connects unhælu with a loss of masculinity, albeit a more literal one in this case. In similar fashion, riding has obvious sexual connotations, especially given the parallels with the witch-riding tradition in which witches would often rape their victims. As a result, the charm may also hint at fears of transgressive intercourse or, more accurately, rape, though it is impossible to determine whether it would be non-human intercourse, homosexual intercourse, or bestiality. Although the evidence in this charm is ambiguous and inconclusive, it suggests that the Anglo-Saxons might have believed that social transgression and ontological violation were implicit in the causes of certain types of unhælu. It suggests that they might have feared that certain unhal people were profoundly affected by their contact with non-human forces, and that their unhælu was symptomatic of a larger underlying contamination, which could be manifested in their beliefs or behavior.

52 BT, s.v. “hengest.”

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Yet, even as the curative corpus raises the possibility that unhal people may be altered by their encounters with non-human forces such as elves and hægtesse, it does not suggest that they are responsible for bringing them upon themselves. If “Wið færstice” can be taken as representative of this etiology, it presents unhælu as the result of persistent, impersonal aggression on the part of non-human forces that array their troops and ride out across the landscape. Significantly, the person in question seems to have done nothing to invite the attack. The leech claims that the patient can shield himself from it or escape it with the leech’s help, but that is different from asserting that he is culpable for it. In other words, this etiology does not blame the unhal person for his unhælu in the same way as the moral model does. He is presented as an incidental victim of a non-human raid. Likewise, “The Nine Herbs Charm” indicates that demons, poisons, and blisters are almost omnipresent, and exist in a wide variety of forms and arise from a number of sources, which implies that they are almost impossible to avoid. Again, the charm offers people a way to protect themselves, but it does not blame them for being under assault. Consequently, the Anglo-Saxons seem to have believed that these forces were outside of human control, and would act in ways that humans could not predict or prevent, unless they took extraordinary measures against them. It is an etiological system in which unhælu is associated with non-human forces and carries no human culpability.

Summary of the Etiologies’ Implications for Unhælu

In sum, the curative corpus suggests that the Anglo-Saxons might have recognized two categories of unhælu, which we may term proximate and non-proximate. Specifically,

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unhælu in the proximate category had an obvious, immediate cause, and was usually situated within the realm of human life, such as an impairment that resulted from an accident or a feud. In some cases, though, this type of unhælu might arise from the non- human domain, as in a dog’s bite that severed a sinew or a snake bite that resulted in poisoning. This type of unhælu affected people’s daily lives and altered their social identity, but it did not carry any deeper connotations of contamination or pollution. By contrast, unhælu in the non-proximate category did not have an immediately apparent cause, and was usually attributed to an encounter with a non-human force or entity. This type of unhælu potentially had more profound implications for the unhal person, as the

Anglo-Saxons might have believed that they were contaminated by the encounter, and exhibited certain transgressive or liminal traits. Even in these cases, though, they did not hold the people responsible for their unhælu, or attach any kind of moral culpability to their state.

Remedies

Despite these differing etiologies, the Anglo-Saxons tended to treat unhælu in the proximate and non-proximate categories in much the same way.53 Ælfric of Eynsham, in his late tenth-century Homily on St. Bartholomew’s Day,54 describes contemporary

53 As Beth Tovey comments, the remedies in the curative corpus are not necessarily an accurate indication of the practices of the leeches, who presumably drew on practical knowledge acquired through experience and through other channels of transmission, such as training from an experienced practitioner. “Kingly,” 138-39. Yet, from a practical standpoint, they are the only substantial, detailed record of the leeches’ practices that we have, and so we have no choice but to work with them as if they offered a more accurate account than they probably do. See also Meaney, “Practice of Medicine,” 221-37. 54 For the dating of Ælfric’s works, see Peter Clemoes, “The Chronology of Ælfric’s Works,” in The Anglo- Saxons: Some Studies in Some Aspects of their History and Culture, Presented to Bruce Dickins, ed. Peter

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medical practices, as he decries the potential for idolatry and witchcraft within some of them:

God is se soða læce þe ðurh mislicum swincgelum his folces synna gehælð. Nis se woruldlæce wælhreow þeah ðe he þone gewundodan mid bærnette oððe mid ceorfseaxe gelacnie. Se læce cyrfð oððe bærnð & se untruma hrymð, þeahhwæþere ne miltsað he þæs oþres wanunge, for þan gif he læce geswicð his cræftes: þonne losað se forwundoda…. Se cristena man þe on ænire þyssere gelicnysse bið gebrocod & he þonne his hælðe secan wyle æt unalyfedum tilungum oððe æt awyrigedum galdrum oþþe æt ænigum wiccecræfte þonne bið he ðam hæðenum mannum gelic þe ðam deofolgylde geoffrodon for heora lichaman hælðe & swa heora sawla amyrdon.... Nis nanum cristenum menn alyfed þæt he his hæle gefecce æt nanum stane: ne æt nanum treowe, buton hit sy halig rodetacen. ne æt nanre stowe, buton hit sy hali godes hus.... Se wisa agustinus cwæð þæt unpleolic sy þeah hwa læcewyrte þicge: ac þæt he tælð to unalyfedlicere wigelunge. gif hwa þa wyrt on him becnytte buton he hi to þam dolge gelecge. Ðeahhwæðere ne sceole we urne hiht on læcewyrtum besettan: ac on þone ælmihtigum scyppende þe ðam wyrtum þone cræft forgeaf. Ne sceal nan man mid galdre wyrte besingan ac mid godes wordum hi gebletsian & swa ðicgan.55

(God is the true leech who cures his people’s sins through various chastisements. The world’s leech is not slaughter-cruel, though he treats the wounded person with cauterization and with the surgeon’s knife. The leech cuts and burns, and the infirm person screams, yet he [i.e. the leech] does not take pity on the other’s wailing, because, if he stops his work, then the wounded person perishes…. The Christian person, who is troubled in any of this likeness [i.e. with infirmity], and then wishes to seek his health in forbidden practices, or in accursed incantations, or in any witchcraft, then he is like those heathen people who made offerings to an idol for their body’s health, and so destroyed their souls…. It is not permitted to any Christian person that he draw his health from any stone, nor from any tree, unless it is the holy crucifix, or from any place unless it is God’s holy house…. The wise Augustine said that it is not dangerous even if someone eats a curative herb, but he counts it as forbidden sorcery if someone binds those herbs on himself, unless he lays them on a wound. Nonetheless, we must not place our hope in curative herbs, but in the almighty creator who gave power to those herbs.

Clemoes (London: Bowes and Bowes, 1959), 212-47. Clemoes dates Ælfric’s first series of homilies to c. 989. Ibid., 243. 55 Aelfric, CH I 31 (ed. Clemoes, 448-50).

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And no person must enchant an herb with an incantation, but bless it with God’s words and so eat [it].)

Ælfric’s homily is useful not only for delineating the scope of Anglo-Saxon curative practices, but also for providing insight into their underlying logic. According to him, the

Anglo-Saxons made use of a range of remedies in order to treat unhælu. Firstly, he describes how leeches would treat people with surgery and cautery, but he implies that such interventions were largely confined to the wounded, who would die without such interventions. In general, this impression is confirmed by the curative corpus, which rarely mentions surgery or cautery. Nevertheless, it attests to the use of related but less invasive techniques such as physiotherapy. For instance, Læceboc Book 1 contains a remedy for shrunken sinews or tendons that involves stretching out and splinting the leg:

Gif sino gescrince 7 eft æfter þon swelle genim gate tord gemeng wið eced smit on sona halað. Monegum men gescrincað his fet to his homme wyrc baþo do earban to 7 cersan 7 smale netelan 7 beowyrt do on troh hate stanas wel gehætte gebeþe þa hamma mid þam stan baðe þonne hie sien geswate þonne recce he þa ban swa he swiþost mæge do spelc to 7 betere swa mon oftor mid þy beþige.56

(If a sinew shrink and swells again after that, take a female goat’s dung, mix with vinegar, smear [it] on, it will soon heal. In the case of many men, his feet contract up to his ham [i.e. the area behind the knee]. Prepare baths, add vetch and cress and small nettle and balm/black horehound, put in a trough hot stones well- heated, bathe the hams with the stone bath, when they are sweaty, then let him stretch out the bone as greatly as he can, apply a splint, and [it is] the better, the more often one bathes with this.)

Such therapies, however, are not much more common than surgery and cautery, and may still involve the invocation of magical or other curative elements. In the preceding

56 Leechbook I 26 (ed. Cockayne, 2:68).

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remedy, the leech applies a female goat’s dung to the sinew and adds special herbs to the baths, which suggests that physiotherapy by itself was not considered efficacious. It is impossible to discern what the logic behind the application of the dung and herbs is – namely, are they intended to invoke magical elements, or serve a more mundane curative purpose, or both? Regardless of the reasoning, their inclusion suggests that the Anglo-

Saxons thought that physiotherapy by itself was not enough to effect a cure.

Secondly, Ælfric discusses how the Anglo-Saxons sought healing through what he calls forbidden practices: the use of herbs, minerals, and incantations to perform curative magic. He distinguishes these practices from what he considers legitimate treatments, which include eating herbs with curative properties or applying them to wounds, and at the same time invoking God’s power through prayers. Consequently,

Ælfric seems to be setting up a dichotomy between, on the one hand, religion and legitimate medicine, and, on the other, magic and illegitimate medicine. For Ælfric, God is the ultimate source of healing, and so he permits people to use the herbs in ways that access their healing powers, as determined and ordained by God at their time of creation.

Thus, he suggests that the herbs’ curative powers are a reflection of God’s power. As

Karen Jolly expresses it:

The heart of medicine in the Augustinian-Christian view of nature was a recognition of God as ultimately responsible for all phenomena within nature and affecting humankind. Any person desiring healing should first and foremost acknowledge God as the source and continue to acknowledge him while seeking cures through the things he has made, all the while invoking his power.57

57 Jolly, Popular Religion, 91-92. Although the average Anglo-Saxon may not have had much knowledge of Augustine, Ælfric was familiar with a number of Augustine’s works, and often used him as a source in his own writings.

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By way of contrast, magic is dangerous, because it uses herbs and incantations to access forces that are not associated with God or his power. Again, as Jolly explains, the

Germanic tradition that the Anglo-Saxons inherited held that “all of nature was alive with spiritual entities, a very holistic view of the world that focused on nature as a source of food and healing, without much distinction between natural and supernatural forces.”58

Magic calls on these forces and uses them to bring about healing, and so makes idols out of the trees, stones and sacred places that contained them.

Although Ælfric sets up this neat dichotomy between forbidden and permissible practices, the remedies in the curative corpus do not draw much of a distinction between magic and religion, which suggests that the average Anglo-Saxon did not share the abbot’s concerns, and may explain why he felt the need to draw boundaries in his homily.

Rather, the remedies adopt a far more hybrid, syncretic approach, as they combine pagan incantations with Christian prayers. A particularly good instance may be found in the following remedy from the Lacnunga:

Wið ðon þe mon oððe nyten wyrm gedrince, gyf hit sy wæpnedcynnes sing ðis leoð in þæt swiðre eare þe heræfter awriten is; gif hit sy wifcynnes, sing in þ(æt) wynstre eare: “Gonomil orgomil marbumil marbsai ramum tofeð tengo docuillo biran cuiðær cæfmiil scuiht cuillo scuiht cuib duill marbsiramum.” Sing nygon siðan in þ(æt) eare þis galdor 7 ‘Pater n(oste)r’ æne.

(In the event that man or beast drinks an insect, if it is male sing this song that is written hereafter into the right ear; if it is female sing it into the left ear: “Gonomil orgomil marbumil marbsai ramum tofeð tengo docuillo biran cuiðær cæfmiil scuiht cuillo scuiht cuib duill marbsiramum.”

58 Ibid., 27.

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Sing this incantation nine times into the ear and the Our Father once.)59

This remedy moves seamlessly from the leech chanting a magical incantation, which is derived from Old Irish but which would have been incomprehensible to the Anglo-

Saxons, to reciting the Pater Noster.60 Læceboc Book 1 has a very similar remedy, which suggests that this type of syncretism was reasonably common.61 It reads:

Wiþ ﬂeogendum atre 7 ælcum æternum swile . on Frigedæge aþwer buteran þe sie gemolcen of anes bleos nytne oððe hinde . 7 ne sie wiþ wætre gemenged . asing ofer nigon siþum letania . 7 nigon siþum pater noster . 7 nigon siþum þis gealdor . Acræ . ærcræ . ærnem . nadre . ærcuna hel . ærnem . niþærn . ær . asan . buiþine . adcrice . ærnem . meodre . ærnem . æþern . ærnem . allu . honor . ucus . idar . adcert . cunolari . raticamo . helæ . icas xpita . hæle . tobært tera . fueli . cui . robater . plana . uili . Þ[æt] deah to ælcum 7 huru to deopum dolgum.62

(Against flying venom and each venomous swelling: on a Friday, churn butter that has been milked from a cow or a hind of one color, and let it not be mixed with water, sing a litany over it nine times, and the Pater Noster nine times, and this incantation nine times: Acræ . ærcræ . ærnem . nadre . ærcuna hel . ærnem . niþærn . ær . asan . buiþine . adcrice . ærnem . meodre . ærnem . æþern . ærnem .

59 Lacnunga 26 (ed. Pettit, 1:14-15). Again, it is interesting that the remedy varies according to gender. 60 Pettit offers the following translation and interpretation of a reconstructed Old Irish version, which itself is fairly tentative and dubious: “I wound the animal, I hit the animal, I kill the animal. Kill the (?)persistent creature! Its tongue will fall out! I destroy the little spear with verse. Against the (?)dear-animal. (?)An ending. I destroy. (?)An ending (?)to the (?)dear-animal. Kill the (?)persistent creature!” Pettit, 2:33. 61 Three variants of this charm may be found in The Lacnunga, but Læceboc Book 1 offers the fullest version. Pettit, 2:23. 62 Leechbook I 45.5 (ed. Cockayne, 2:112, 114). The periods stand for puncti. Jacqueline Borsje offers a partial interpretation of the garbled Old Irish in the charm:

The urging of a claim against gore, against the poison of a snake, against wounding [is] his ele, against the poison of a snake, ær . asan (milk?) . bui (cow?) þine . adcrice, against the poison of a snake, against the poison of a snake, against poison, allu . honor . and water, ad cert with the drink against them. May my ele heal you. Christ in whom is healing.

“A spell called éle,” Ulidia 3:proceedings of the Third International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, University of Ulster, Coleraine 22-25 June, 2009. In memoriam Patrick Leo Henry, ed. Gregory Toner and Séamus Mac Mathúna (Berlin: Curach Bhán Publications, 2013), 204-205. As she demonstrates in the article, an éle is this specific type of spell, where éle is the Old Irish word for oil or salve, but also related to the Hebrew eli as in Jesus’ cry on the cross: “Eli, eli, lama sabachthani.” Ibid., 193-212.

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allu . honor . ucus . idar . adcert . cunolari . raticamo . helæ . icas xpita . hæle . tobært tera . fueli . cui . robater . plana . uili. That is of use for all [wounds] and especially for deep wounds.)

Once again, the remedy begins with Christian prayers, and ends with a charm that the

Anglo-Saxons would have perceived as magical. Although “icas xpita hæle” (Christ in whom is healing) acknowledges Christ as the source of the healing, the evidence suggests that the Anglo-Saxons did not understand it in these terms.63 For one, the remedy refers to the text as a galdor “incantation,” which is almost without exception used of magic and sorcery.64 For another, the scribe has garbled “christi” into “xpita,”65 which suggests a fundamental lack of comprehension. Consequently, as with the other remedy, it combines Christian prayers and a magical incantation. The existence of multiple remedies of this type suggests that, in contrast to Ælfric’s objections, many Anglo-Saxons found this type of syncretism unproblematic and chose to seek cures from multiple sources, both Christian and pagan. They understood magic and religion as two powerful forces on which the leeches and unhal people can draw in order to remediate unhælu.

The Anglo-Saxons’ all-encompassing approach to healing reflects important tendencies within the Anglo-Saxon concept and experience of unhælu, which the leeches strove to normalize. Firstly, it suggests that unhal people felt a psychological need for healing, or that they experienced a cultural pressure to strive for it, which are obviously not exclusive possibilities. It illustrates that they were prepared or expected to explore all

63 For the reading of “xpita” as “christi,” ibid., 204. 64 DOE Online, s.v. “galdor.” 65 The scribe seems to be conflating Latin christus with Greek Χριστός to produce xpita.

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of the options available to them in the hopes that they would be able to achieve hælu through one of them. A similar argument may be made for why unhal people commonly sought the assistance of both leeches and the saints, and so I shall defer discussion of this point until Chapter Five, where I shall both expand on it and complicate it by thinking about the social and spiritual functions of unhælu.

The Inefficacy of Anglo-Saxon Treatments

At the same time, this approach suggests that the Anglo-Saxons were anxious that they had no reliable, effective means of treating unhælu outside of perhaps divine healing, which was at the discretion of God and the saints, and so could not be guaranteed by human means.66 Scholars have long debated the efficacy of Anglo-Saxon curative practices, and have come to very different conclusions about them. Early scholars, such as Grattan and Singer, assert that only the minority of Anglo-Saxon remedies would be effective against the conditions that they purport to treat, or have a basis in the leeches’ observations of their patients.67 More recent scholars, particularly Cameron, have argued against this view, and asserted that Anglo-Saxon medicine is more rational than was previously believed.68 Cameron claims that it is remarkable how many of their remedies take into account factors of which the leeches, with their knowledge of physiology, immunology, and microbiology, could not have been aware.69 According to him, this

66 Medicine’s general ineffectiveness in the period might have militated against the earlier establishment of the medical model. 67 Grattan and Singer, Anglo-Saxon Magic and Medicine, 92. 68 Cameron, Anglo-Saxon Medicine, 180. 69 For instance, Cameron cites the practice of feeding liver to people experiencing night blindness; this condition is commonly caused by an absence of vitamin A, a nutrient in which liver is particularly rich.

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evidence means that the læcas monitored their patients and based their treatments on experience.70

Although Cameron’s argument is an important corrective to Grattan and Singer’s assumptions about Anglo-Saxon curative practices, he may overstate how many of the remedies have clinically efficacious components, and how efficacious those components actually are. Barbara Brennessel, Michael D. C. Drout and Robyn Gravel ran an experiment in which they compounded several Anglo-Saxon remedies that had a strong claim to clinical efficacy, and tested them in vitro against common, pathogenic bacteria.

This experiment was designed to provide empirical evidence for Cameron’s claims about the rationality of Anglo-Saxon remedies, and yet the compounds proved to be biologically ineffective against the bacteria they were meant to combat,71 which suggests that any improvement would have been the result of the placebo effect. If even remedies that had some scientific basis were ineffective, Anglo-Saxon treatments, in general,

Ibid., 12. Similarly, he notes that their treatment for eye styes – a salve made of onion, garlic, oxgall, wine and copper – contains three ingredients that are especially effective against staphylococcus, which is usually responsible for such infections of the sebaceous glands. Ibid., 120. 70 Ibid., 12. 71 Barbara Brennessel, Michael D. C. Drout, and Robyn Gravel, “A Reassessment of the Efficacy of Anglo- Saxon Medicine,” Anglo-Saxon England 34 (2006): 183-96. While this experiment may seem conclusive, it has certain flaws that we must acknowledge. The researchers themselves state that they were not always certain how to interpret the remedy, and that the plant cultivars they were used were unlikely to be identical to the Anglo-Saxon varieties. Ibid., 185-86. They claim that they were able to negate the first problem by making multiple compounds that exhausted the possibilities, and that they were unconcerned by the second one since different cultivars still had similar antibiotic properties. Ibid., 187. Yet, there is a larger issue that they have not addressed: the development of bacterial resistance to antibiotics. Even if their compounds were identical, the bacteria they are treating are certainly not; they evolve too fast for that to be a possibility. If a researcher tested methicillin on methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), they might conclude that our most common front-line antibiotic for treating the bacteria is entirely ineffective, even though it historically worked extremely well. Given this, it may be that the bacteria have simply adapted to traditional Anglo-Saxon remedies, as they are adapting to our modern antibiotics. Consequently, this experiment does not wholly disprove Cameron’s claims about the rationality of Anglo-Saxon medicine, but it should lead us to be more skeptical of them.

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would not have consistently and predictably resulted in healing. They may have seemed to effect a cure in cases where people’s immune systems cleared the cause of unhælu or sent it into remission, but not everyone would have experienced such a positive result.

Many people would have grown worse and died, which makes the corpus’ occasional assurance that “him biþ sona sel” (for him/it, it will soon be well) or “sona halað” (it will heal soon) false and yet rather poignant.72

As a result, when an unhal person sought healing from a leech, both parties must have been aware that the outcome of the treatment was unpredictable and unforeseeable, and that they were largely powerless in the face of unhælu. In such a situation, the hybrid and syncretic nature of the remedies makes a great deal of sense.73 It indicates a general

72 For instances of these formulae, see Pettit, 1:72, 100, 120; Cockayne, 2:68. 73 I need to address a potential objection here, which is that the majority of remedies do not explicitly contain what Meaney terms extra-medical elements, or “elements, which do not contribute to the medical treatment in any practical way, but which would, like a placebo, have contributed greatly to the psychology of a cure.” “Extra-Medical Elements in Anglo-Saxon Medicine,” Social History of Medicine 24, no. 1 (2011): 41-56. As Meaney has shown, only a small percentage of remedies in the corpus make use of prayers, incantations, amulets, and rituals. Ibid. Nonetheless, I am not certain that her distinction between medical and extra-medical is a useful one in the Anglo-Saxon context. From a present-day perspective, herbs may seem to be of more practical benefit in treating unhælu, yet, as Ælfric’s homily illustrates, the Christian Anglo-Saxons would have believed that prayer was much more efficacious in bringing about healing. They certainly would not have thought of prayer or magic as akin to placebos. Moreover, they would have believed that herbs derived their benefits not from their intrinsic pharmacological properties, but from the extrinsic power of God or other non-human forces. If we work from that contemporary understanding, then the vast majority of remedies would be extra-medical by our standards, although such a category would have been almost meaningless to the Anglo-Saxons. Nonetheless, even if we collapse the distinction between medical and extra-medical, it remains true that only a minority of the remedies make use of every available curative method. Most of them simply list herbs or other natural substances, and give instructions about how they should be used to treat the person. This general tendency is contrary to the syncretism and hybridity that we have observed in certain charms, and goes against the notion that the Anglo-Saxons experienced anxiety around unhælu. I would suggest that one possible response lies in the social context. As I have mentioned before and as Chapter Five will discuss, the Anglo-Saxons frequently sought healing from the church and its saints at the same time, and they would have employed prayer and other ecclesiastical interventions to bring about healing, which may have made it unnecessary for the leeches to do the same. Moreover, even in cases where the remedies do not specify prayers, it is highly probable that the leeches would still have spoken them over their unhal patients. Given their monastic affiliations, they would almost certainly have incorporated prayer into their routine curative practices. Likewise, unhal people may have relied on pagan practices such as charms and incantations far more often than the remedies suggest, if Ælfric felt that they merited

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anxiety or insecurity about the limited, inconsistent remedies that human practitioners could provide, and a concomitant desire to draw on all of the resources available to them.

That is, if the leeches evoked all of the non-human powers and forces of which they knew, one of them might work, and the unhal person might be cured. It suggests that curative bot, at least when it comes from a human source, is more of a desperate hope than a comforting certainty. As a result, unhælu would have been a state that was surrounded by considerable anxiety and insecurity.

Nonetheless, even if the bot that the leeches offered was not usually efficacious in bringing about a cure, we should not discount the other benefits that they might have provided to unhal people. For instance, they might have given them support and reassurance, and permitted them to have greater insight into their condition. In this way, they might have alleviated some of the unhal person’s fears and doubts, and made their unhælu more psychologically bearable.

The Unhal Role

In the previous section, I suggested that unhal people experienced a psychological need or cultural pressure to seek healing for their unhælu, and that they drew on all of their available resources in order to achieve it. At the same time, they might have experienced considerable anxiety or uncertainty, stemming from an awareness that they had no guarantee of healing. I wish to use these initial observations in order to begin defining

condemnation in a homily. In short, the remedies should be understood as part of a larger curative system, which needs to be taken into consideration when defining unhælu.

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what I term the unhal role, which, as the name suggests, is based on Talcott Parsons’ concept of the sick role. Parsons, a functional sociologist, coined the term as a means of indicating the rights and responsibilities that sick people had within their society. Writing of the situation in the United States in the 1950s, Parsons argues that sick people have the right not to be held responsible for their condition and to be exempt from normal social roles, but they also have the responsibility to seek treatment and to cooperate with the medical establishment.74 Parsons’ mid-twentieth-century description of the sick role is outmoded in the twenty-first century in which sick people are compelled to work instead of taking leave,75 and has always been of limited applicability to people with chronic diseases. Nonetheless, if we recognize these issues, Parsons’ fundamental concept remains a useful tool for thinking about unhælu in Anglo-Saxon England, as it provides a means to articulate that unhal people might have had a distinct social identity.

As we have already observed, the Anglo-Saxon unhal role overlaps in some respects with Parsons’ description of the sick role, although it would be anachronistic to describe it in terms of rights and responsibilities. Just as sick people in the mid-twentieth century had the right not to be blamed for their condition and the responsibility to get medical assistance, the Anglo-Saxons believed that unhal people were not culpable for their unhælu and encouraged them to seek a cure in order to achieve normalcy.

Moreover, unhal people might have been subject to different social expectations, especially if unhælu were linked with transgression and liminality; however, the curative

74 Talcott Parsons, The Social Structure, New Edition (New York: Routledge, [1951] 1991), 288-323. 75 In the current economy, people in minimum wage jobs with few benefits often continue to work while they are sick as they cannot afford to miss out on a day’s income, or are afraid of being fired if they miss too many shifts, especially if they work in an at-will state.

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corpus tends to present its remedies in impersonal terms, and does not contain any real case studies, which means that it is difficult to get any sense of the lives of unhal people from it.

Nonetheless, the corpus’ impersonality in itself suggests another aspect of unhal people’s social identity. With the exception of Patriarch Elias’ remedy for Alfred’s anal or gastric condition,76 almost all of the medical texts frame their remedies as responses to unhælu and its various manifestations within the body, and not as treatments offered to specific individuals. As a result of this tendency, the remedies minimize and even efface the unhal people that they are meant to cure. In many cases, the unhal people are present only as an affected body part, as in these remedies from Læceboc Book 1 and Book 3 for a twisted mouth, presumably caused by a stroke:

Wiþ wouum muþe genim ompran 7 ealdne swines rysle to sealfe fete on þone won dæl.77

(Against a twisted mouth, take dock and old pig’s fat as a salve; apply to the twisted part.)

Wiþ lyft adle, gif se muþ sie woh oþþe won: nim cellendran, gnid on wife meolce; do on þæt hale eare. Him biþ sona sel.78

(Againt paralysis, if the mouth is twisted or dusky: take celandine, grind it into woman’s milk; put it in the healthy ear. For it/him, it will soon be better.)

In both remedies, the unhal person is reduced to a twisted mouth, which the læce then attempts to remediate. This tendency is reminiscent of the naming practices, which are

76 This remedy is discussed in Chapter Six. 77 Leechbook I 12 (ed. Cockayne, 2:54). 78 Leechbook III 47 (ed. Cockayne, 2:338). As discussed in Chapter One, lyftadl is paralysis, where lyft may refer to weakness or perhaps to air, if the Anglo-Saxons believed it was caused by flying venoms.

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disfavored by disability activists, of calling disabled people “the disabled,” or people with specific disabilities “the blind” or “the deaf.” Just as those practices reduce disabled people to their impairment, and imply that it is the only meaningful component of their self, the remedies’ approach equates unhal people to their unhælu, and treats it as the most important part of their identity. Obviously, the aim of the curative corpus dictates its representation of the people it seeks to treat, and serves to explain why they are reduced to their unhælu. Nonetheless, as discussed in Chapter One, the Anglo-Saxons generally tended to refer to unhal people by their specific impairments or illnesses. As a result, this aspect of the curative corpus is reflective of a more general practice, which suggests that unhal people’s social identity might have been largely bound up in their unhælu.

Insofar as the curative corpus depicts unhal people at all, it characterizes them as passive and obedient patients, who accept the sometimes unpleasant or painful treatments that the leech offers. For instance, Læceboc Book 1 describes how a paralysed man should be bathed with a hot poultice “þe hwile þa he mæge aræfnan” (as long as he can endure it), and then with water in which red ants have been boiled, and which is still

“ongemethatum” (exceedingly hot).79 This remedy sounds more like a form of torture than a cure, yet it suggests that the unhal man should not only submit to it but also endure it as long as he is able to stand it. Although this characterization of unhal people as passive and submissive may be a product of the curative corpus’ nature, it still suggests that they were expected to comply with the leeches’ orders and accept their treatments,

79 Leechbook III 47 (ed. Cockayne, 2:338). As discussed in Chapter One, lyftadl is paralysis, where lyft may refer to weakness or perhaps to air, if the Anglo-Saxons believed it was caused by flying venoms.

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however torturous. Indeed, they might have wished to do so, if they believed the remedies would bring about a cure. Ælfric’s homily, with its vivid description of people screaming under the scalpel or the cauterizing iron, only confirms this impression with its depiction of compliance in the face of significant pain.

The Category of Unhælu

As I conclude this chapter, I wish to consider how the curative corpus presents and constructs unhælu as a category – that is, what it reveals about the types of conditions that were included in the concept of unhælu, and what distinctions may have been made between them. In Chapter One, I observed that the lexical evidence suggests that the

Anglo-Saxons did not make a strong distinction between illness and impairment, but rather may have differentiated between temporary and permanent conditions, and acquired and congenital ones. In what follows, I wish to consider whether the curative corpus bears out this initial impression, and thereby to provide a more precise reconstruction of the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of impairment and disability.

Unfortunately, the corpus contains very little material on the Anglo-Saxon theory of unhælu, and we can only access it indirectly through the practical remedies that are provided. For this reason, I intend to approach the question of definition from three angles. Firstly, I shall consider the organization of the curative texts, as it provides the most direct evidence of how the Anglo-Saxons classified and categorized health conditions. Secondly, I shall analyze the treatments that the remedies prescribe and search for significant patterns within them on the principle that different types of

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conditions most likely would have been treated differently. Lastly, I shall examine what conditions are included in and excluded from the text; if some are present and others are absent, it would suggest, at minimum, the existence of two broad categories of conditions. None of these metrics is perfect, but, when taken together, they should give us a reasonable sense of unhælu as a category.

Beginning with the organization of the curative works, the Anglo-Saxons generally adopted the traditional Classical system, which starts with the head and proceeds downwards to the toes.80 Læceboc Books 1 and 2, which together constitute

Bald’s Leechbook, both follow this head-to-toe order, with Book 1 covering external conditions and Book 2 internal ones.81 Læceboc Book 3, which originated separately from Bald’s Leechbook, also adheres to this order, but not the division between external and internal disorders. In contrast, the Lacnunga begins with the usual head-to-foot arrangement, but abandons it within twenty entries and becomes “a rather chaotic assemblage of remedies.”82 Consequently, within these three major compilations, the

Anglo-Saxons seem to have been fairly consistent in their use of the Classical system, and it is difficult to determine the extent to which the organization of these works reflects indigenous beliefs or foreign learning, although the latter seems much more plausible. At the very least, though, the organization of these works implies that the compilers of the manuscripts agreed with their Classical sources that the structure of the body was more

80 The Medicina de quadrupedibus and the OE Herbarium are exceptions, as they organize their remedies by the animals or plants from which the cures are derived. 81 Cameron remarks that this division between external and internal disorders is unique in medieval medicine. Anglo-Saxon Medicine, 42. 82 R. D. Fulk and Christopher M. Cain, A History of Old English Literature (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003), 156.

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salient than the characteristics of the conditions that it experienced. Within a section delimited by a body zone, injuries, illnesses and impairments are often intermixed. For instance, Læceboc Book 1 offers, in succession, remedies for a bleeding nose, a head- cold, sore lips, a twisted mouth from a stroke, a swollen gullet, and a harelip.83 The lack of differentiation within this grouping suggests that the compilers did not distinguish strongly among injuries, illnesses, and impairments, but considered them all to be states that negatively affected the body and that called for treatment.

This impression is supported by the treatments themselves, which, for the most part, do not seem to differ greatly for injuries, illnesses, and impairments. Regardless of the condition, they are generally treated with some kind of herbal remedy, sometimes in combination with an incantation, prayer, or ritual. For instance, in Læceboc Book 1, a headache is treated with oil in which dill blossoms have been seethed, while a skull fracture is treated with butter in which woodruff, woodmarch, and ground-ivy have been been boiled.84 The same type of remedy – herbs in a greasy base – is used for both of these very different conditions. Likewise, the same remedy may be prescribed for multiple, distinct disorders. For example, Læceboc Book 3’s remedy that describes a

“dust drenc” (dust drink) for the yellow disease promises that it is effective against a range of other conditions:

he is god wiþ ælcre liman untrumnesse 7 wiþ heafod ece 7 wiþ ungemynde 7 wiþ eagwærce 7 wiþ ungehyrnesse 7 breost wærce 7 lungen adle 7 lenden wærce 7 wiþ ælcre feondes costunga.

83 Leechbook I 9-13 (ed. Cockayne, 2:54-56). 84 Leechbook I 1.8 and 1.14 (ed. Cockayne, 2:20-24). The compilation provides other remedies for these conditions, but they also involve the application of herbs and other natural substances, such as honey and egg yolk.

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(It is good against every impairment of the limbs and against head ache and against dementedness and against ear pain and against hearing difficulties and breast pain and lung impairment and loin impairment and against all temptations of the devil.)85

The remedy suggests that the same combination of seeds administered in the same way will be effective against a wide range of conditions, including illnesses and impairments.

If all of these states were treated in the same way, it is likely that the Anglo-Saxons did not make strong distinctions between them in other respects.

Even so, the treatments within the corpus display some minor trends, which are too weak and infrequent to be described as patterns. Specifically, conditions that have clear proximal causes, such as injuries or age-related disorders,86 seem more often to include physical or dietary therapies as ancillaries to the usual herbal medicine. In contrast, conditions that are attributed to elves and similar entities seem more often to involve the additional performance of rituals or charms, and to include religious elements, such as prayers, the application of holy water, or the use of the host. That said, the corpus contains many exceptions to these tendencies, and they should not be taken as anything like a general rule; they are a slight trend at most. Yet, they may suggest the

Anglo-Saxons considered these two types of conditions categorically different. More specifically, they might have associated conditions caused by age and injury with the

85 Leechbook III 12 (ed. Cockayne, 2:324-25). From the remedy, a “dust drink” appears to be a mixture of various seeds, ground into dust and added to ale. 86 Even if the Anglo-Saxons did not understand the exact causes of age-related conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, these conditions’ prevalence during old age would have probably led them to identify age as their proximal cause. I discuss the Anglo-Saxons’ understanding of age as a time of decline in Chapter Seven.

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human world, and conditions brought about by malevolent entities with the non-human realm. Such an interpretation seems to be lent credence by how conditions such as

ælfsogoþa or dweorh-riding are associated with liminality, transgression, and violation, while conditions such as injuries are not. In general, though, the organization of the corpus and the nature of the treatments suggests that the Anglo-Saxons did not make strong distinctions between impairment, illness, and even perhaps injuries.

Nonetheless, the curative corpus is selective in its choice of health conditions for which it provides remedies. It tends to focus on conditions that are acquired and often temporary, and exclude those that are congenital and permanent.87 It offers almost no remedies for impairments such as blindness or deafness, and the few remedies that it includes seem to be intended for the treatment of degenerative disorders. For instance,

Læceboc Book 1 appears to include a number of remedies for deafness, which it treats together with earache and other otological conditions:

Læcedomas wið eallum earena sare 7 ece 7 wið earena adeafunge . 7 gif wyrmas on earan synd oþþe earwicga . 7 gif earan dynien . 7 earsealfa fiftyne cræftas.... Wiþ earena sare genim gate geallan drype on þ[æt] eare, meng wið cu meoluc gif þu wille. Wið earena deafe, genim hryþeres geallan wiþ gæten hland gemenged gedrype gewleced on þ[æt] eare. Wiþ þon ilcan gif earan willen adeafian oþþe yfel hlyst sie. genim eofores geallan fearres geallan buccan geallan gemeng wiþ hunig ealra em fela drype on þ[æt] eare.

(Remedies for all pains and aches of the ears, and against deafening of the ears, and if wyrmas or earwigs are in the ears, or if the ears ring, and fifteen recipes of earsalves.

87 It is important to note that not all permanent conditions are congenital, and vice versa. The same is true of temporary and acquired conditions.

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Against ear pain, take goat’s gall, drip in the ear, mix with cow’s milk if you wish. Against deafness of the ears, take ox’s/cow’s gall mixed with goat’s urine, drip it made lukewarm into the ear. Against the same, if the ears will grow deaf or hearing is bad, take boar’s gall, bull’s gall, male goat’s gall, mix even measures of all with honey, drip in the ear.)88

Although the remedies specify deafness, the overall context suggests that the text is not dealing with a permanent, severe hearing impairment, but rather with the partial loss of hearing that might be caused by illness, obstructions in the ear, or even age.89 Deafness, in this set of remedies, is associated with ear ache, with bad hearing, or with gradual deafening. This impression seems to be confirmed by the details of the treatments. As

Cameron notes, the mixture of animal fluids would have flushed out the ears and helped to clear out any obstructions, and also would have helped to relieve the pain, especially if they were warmed.90 Although we should be careful of inferring too much from remedies that seldom take physiology into account, this prescription suggests that the remedy is intended to treat hearing impairments that come from illness or blockage, and that potentially cause pain. It does not seem to be intended for permanent, congenital deafness.

The absence of such permanent, congenital impairments in the curative corpus has a relatively straightforward explanation. Specifically, the remedies in the corpus are intended to cure or at least ameliorate unhælu, even if they might not have achieved much

88 Leechbook I 3.1, 3.5, 3.6 (ed. Cockayne, 2:38, 40) 89 The same is probably true of the ungehyrnesse “hearing difficulties” mentioned in the remedy for the yellow disease, but I do not have enough information to be certain. If it does refer to permanent, congenital deafness, it would be very much an exception in the corpus. 90 Cameron, Anglo-Saxon Medicine, 13.

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success in practice. Congenital, permanent impairments were untreatable by ordinary, human means,91 which placed them outside of the leeches’ and the curative corpus’ ambit. As a result, the Anglo-Saxons seem to have placed permanent and congenital conditions into one category, and temporary and acquired conditions into another category, according to what curative options they permitted. This distinction suggests how central the idea of healing was to the Anglo-Saxons’ concept of unhælu, as they largely divided up the category of unhælu according to whether conditions could be cured by human means or not. That is, they conceived of unhælu in terms of how the body could be made normative, instead of how it was not normative.

Summary of the Anglo-Saxon Concept of Unhælu

Although this chapter has not considered the Anglo-Saxon curative corpus in its entirety, it has focused on the compilations that offer the most insight into the concept of unhælu, and thereby permits us to draw some specific conclusions about how the Anglo-Saxons understood this concept. For the most part, the curative corpus, as represented in this chapter, confirms the initial impressions of my study of the Old English lexicon. In particular, it suggests that the Anglo-Saxons did not have conceptual categories that were comparable to the present-day concepts of illness and impairment. Rather, they considered illnesses, impairments, and even perhaps injuries to be fundamentally similar forms of unhælu, which could be treated in almost identical ways. Yet, within this overarching category of unhælu, they drew certain important distinctions. Specifically,

91 As Chapter Five discusses, such impairments could be cured by God and the saints.

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they differentiated conditions on the basis of whether they were permanent and congenital, or temporary and acquired. As this suggests, they thought about different forms of unhælu partially in terms of the possibilities for healing. At the same time, they also seem to have distinguished between conditions of proximate and non-proximate causes, which they tended to associate, respectively, with the human and the non-human domains. From this preliminary reconstruction of the category, it should begin to be evident that the Anglo-Saxon concept of unhælu has crucial differences from the present- day notions of impairment and disability. In the following chapter, I develop this reconstruction further by considering another crucial site for thinking about unhælu: the

Anglo-Saxon law-codes that offered bot to some unhal people, but also created other unhal people through its system of juridical mutilation.

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Chapter 4: The Anglo-Saxon Law-Codes

Compensation and Mutilation

The Anglo-Saxon law-codes reveal the existence of a complex ideological relationship between the law and unhælu.1 On the one hand, the law compensated unhal people who

1 At the outset, I should note that critics have contended that the Anglo-Saxon law-codes are a partial and an inadequate representation of Anglo-Saxon legal practice, which depended on oral tradition and which was only poorly recorded in written form. Most notably, Patrick Wormald claims that the law-making process was primarily oral, and “[m]any of our texts are […] something in the nature of minutes of what was orally decreed rather than statute law in their own right.” “Æthelred the Lawmaker,” in Ethelred the Unready: Papers from the Millenary Conference, ed. David Hill, British Archaeological Reports, British Series 59 (Oxford: Archaeopress, 1978), 48. Moreover, Wormald argues that the law-codes were primarily propagandistic documents that were most concerned with “the image which Germanic kings and their advisers, Roman or clerical, wished to project of themselves and their people; an image that might be immediate and political, or abstract and ideological.” “Lex scripta and Verbum regis: Legislation and Germanic Kingship, from Euric to Cnut,” in Early Medieval Kingship, ed. P.H. Sawyer and I.N. Wood (Leeds: University of Leeds Press, 1977), 130. If so, these texts might only provide us with a very partial and perhaps idealized construction of unhælu. Wormald’s deprecation of the written record, however, has been challenged by later scholars. Simon Keynes concurs that the Anglo-Saxon kings’ oral proclamations were likely to be the source of the laws, but argues that concerted efforts were made to preserve and circulate those laws in written form. “Royal Government and the Written Word in Late Anglo-Saxon England,” in The Uses of Literacy in Early Medieval Europe, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 226-57. David Pratt goes even further in arguing for the value of the written record during Alfred’s reign, as he claims that the written word was an essential part of Alfred’s legislative process and his assertion of authority. The Political Thought of King Alfred the Great, Cambridge Series in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series 67 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 214-18; and “Written Law and the Communication of Authority in 10th-century England,” in England and the Continent in the 10th Century: Studies in Honour of Wilhelm Levison (1876-1947), ed. David Rollason, Conrad Leyser, and Hannah Williams (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), 331-50. Likewise, the laws’ ideological purpose does not preclude the law-codes from having a practical function. Carole Hough has recently argued that the “ideological inspiration of the law-codes […] need not impact the functionality of the law itself,” and the laws were “operational and […] extended deep into the heart of the Anglo-Saxon countryside.” “Naming and Royal Authority in Anglo-Saxon Law,” in Kingship, Legislation and Power in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Gale R. Owen-Crocker and Brian V. Schneider (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2013), 213, 216-17.

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had been injured and mutilated at the hands of others by ordering their assailants to make financial reparations. Through these measures, it provided a different and perhaps complementary form of bot to that of the curative corpus. As I shall demonstrate in the opening section of the chapter, legal bot addressed forms of unhælu that the læcas could not or did not, and attempted to make them good.2 Yet, as I shall also show, this legal bot, as a selective intervention, was not primarily intended to remediate the individual, but rather to restore the community. That is, the law codes intervened in cases where unhælu was the result of illegal violence or negligence, primarily in order to mitigate its consequences for the kin-group and the community to which the unhal person belonged.

On the other hand, the law used unhælu as a disciplinary measure, as it prescribed the amputation of body parts as a punishment for particularly severe crimes. Employed in this way, unhælu itself could serve as a form of bot, as it allowed people to make restitution for their crimes, and prevented the possibility of recidivism by both removing the offending body part and marking out the person as a potential criminal. Consequently,

For the sake of simplicity in this chapter’s arguments, I treat the laws as if they were indicative of actual legal practice. For my purposes, it does not matter greatly whether the laws were primarily practical or ideological. If they were practical, they show how the law responded to and used unhælu. If they were ideological, they show how the lawmakers thought the law should respond to and use unhælu. Both possibilities serve to reveal the Anglo-Saxon construction of unhælu, which is my main focus in this chapter. 2 Several lexical studies give a more precise definition of what bot means within the law-codes. Frederick Pollock’s study seeks to define the precise meaning of bot as a term used for a legal penalty, and to distinguish it from wer and wite, the two other words commonly used for fines imposed by the court. He argues that, while wer is the value of a man’s life according to his rank and wite refers to a penal fine due to the king or another public authority, bot is a more general term that covers compensation of any kind. Anglo-Saxon Law (London: Longmans, 1893), 259-60. Arthur Bartels’ study, likewise, focuses on its specific use within the mutual contracts used to end a feud. He concludes that bot, which he glosses as “Linderung, Heilung auf Abhilfe” (relief, healing or remedy), is the payment made to the injured party in compensation. “Rechtsaltertümer in der angelsächsischen Dichtung” (PhD diss., University of Kiel, 1913), 106. Although these studies seem to reach different conclusions, they are dealing with distinct legal situations – that is, compensation and contracts – and so do not contradict each other.

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in the following section, I shall explore the practice of juridical mutilation and its consequences for unhal people, whose similar physical appearances might have caused ignorant onlookers to judge them as criminals.

At the same time as the law compensated some unhal people and created others, it excluded yet others from its ambit. The law-codes specify that people with total hearing and speech impairments are the legal responsibility of their father who has to make bot on their behalf. This stipulation potentially has profound implications for the social identity and status of unhal people, which I shall examine towards the end of the chapter.

The Personal Injury Laws and Compensation

I begin by considering how the law-codes compensated unhælu that was the result of violence or negligence, since, as Irina Metzler notes, “[c]ompensation covers by far the largest section concerning disability in medieval legal sources.”3 Indeed, within the

Anglo-Saxon corpus, we find two sets of laws that cover personal injuries. The law-codes of Æþelberht of Kent and Alfred of Wessex both contain a series of laws that prescribe bot for wounds, amputations, and other mutilations that affect both appearance and functionality. Both of these codes demonstrate a profound concern with providing compensation for personal injuries, which might arise from deliberate violence or from negligence. Roughly half of Æþelberht’s and Alfred’s laws are devoted to personal injury

3 Irina Metzler, “Reflections on Disability in Medieval Legal Texts: Exclusion – Protection – Compensation,” in Disability and Medieval Law: History, Literature, Society, ed. Cory James Rushton (Newcastle-Upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013), 27.

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tariffs,4 which suggests that such injuries were an important legal issue at different times and in different places. Æþelberht’s Kentish law-code dates from his reign in the seventh century and is the earliest extant Anglo-Saxon law-code,5 although it survives only in the

Rochester Book that dates from c. 1125.6 Alfred’s Wessex domboc comes from the late ninth century,7 and is comprised of a collection of legal codes, including a preface of

Mosaic and apostolic law, the laws of his predecessor Ine (who ruled 688-726 CE), and the king’s own law-code.8 Unlike Æþelberht’s code, it survives in multiple manuscripts and is better preserved than any legal text preceding Henry I’s Coronation Charter; the earliest surviving manuscript is thought to be the Parker Manuscript, CCCC 173, which was copied in Alfred’s capital of Winchester less than a century after he set his laws.9

Given this textual history, these two law-codes offer us a sense of the legal ideology and practice of two different courts, separated by both time and space. As a result, they provide us with two perspectives on the Anglo-Saxon concept of unhælu as it is expressed in the personal injury laws.

4 For Æþelberht, see William Ian Miller, Eye for an Eye (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 113. For Alfred, see Todd Preston, King Alfred’s Book of Laws: A Study of the Domboc and Its Influence on English Identity, with a Complete Translation (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2012), 7. 5 Patrick Wormald, The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the Twelfth Century, vol. 1, Legislation and Its Limits (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999), 93-94. Wormald notes that this law-code was originally anonymous, lacking the prologue identifying the author that the later codes have. Nonetheless, based on evidence in Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica and the later Kentish law-codes, scholars have been able to identify it with confidence as Æþelberht’s legislation. Ibid. 6 The Rochester Book is, more fully, Rochester Cathedral Library, MS A.3.5. The Rochester book contains a rubricated phrase assigning the code to Æþelberht, but it is clearly a later scribal addition. 7 Wormald dates Alfred’s domboc to 893. Making of English Law, 286. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge, however, suggest a date in the late 880s or earlier 890s. Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources (London: Penguin, 1983; repr. 2004), 39 and 163. 8 Wormald, Making of English Law, 265-67. Alfred claims that he includes the laws of Offa and Æþelberht, but the textual evidence does not bear out his assertion. Ibid. 9 Ibid., 163-65; Oliver, Body Legal, 23.

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Hierarchy of Impairments in the Personal Injury Laws

As I have already mentioned, Æþelberht’s and Alfred’s law-codes both employ a type of lex talionis in which the assailant or his kin-group makes financial recompense to his victim.10 The amount of compensation varies according to the location, severity, and visibility of the injuries, and according to whether they were deliberate or accidental.11 In many cases, though, bot is set at a significant enough sum that we may wonder whether people in the lower socioeconomic classes would have been able to pay it, even with the assistance of their kin-group.12 To offer some specific examples, Æþelberht’s code prescribes the highest fine for removal of the gekyndelice lim “generative member,” i.e. the penis or the testicles.13 This injury is compensated at the steep sum of three times wergild,14 which, according to Stanley Rubin, means that the exact sum would have

10 This type of lex talionis stands in contrast to the Old Testament principle found in Exodus 21 of an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. Alfred includes a vernacular version of the Old Testament verses in the introductory section where he sets out Mosaic law: “Gif hwa oðrum hys eage ofdo, selle his agen fore: toð fore teð, honda wið honda, fet fore fet, bærning for bærninge, wund wið wunde, læl wið læle” (If anyone removes the eye of another, let him give his own in return: a tooth in return for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot in return for a foot, burning in return for burning, a wound for a wound, a mark for a mark). Liebermann, 1:33. Af. El. 19. Yet, the inclusion of these verses in the domboc should not be read as an indication that they formed a part of Anglo-Saxon law, and that mutilation was a routine punishment for injuring or maiming another person, although it was reserved for other crimes. As Pratt asserts, there can be no question of the Mosaic excerpts actually applying to Alfred’s kingdom; instead, they were included to offer a sense of how the law would look if it were not tempered by Christian principles of mercy and forgiveness. Political Thought, 231-32. In the Sermon on the Mount, as related in Matthew 5, Christ abolishes the principle of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and instead commands his followers to turn the other cheek. Alfred does not go as far as Christ in ordering his people to forgive those who injure and mutilate them, but he does replace the corporeal punishment with financial recompense in most cases. 11 Although almost all the laws cover injuries due to deliberate violence, Alfred’s law-code includes an example of a law prescribing compensation for a negligent injury, in which a man carries a spear over his shoulder and accidentally stakes another person on it. In this case, the law sets the bot at a lower rate than it would be if it were deliberate. Liebermann, 1:68. Af 36-36,1. Here and elsewhere, I use Liebemann’s standard abbreviations and system of numbering for the law-codes and the laws that they comprised. For a discussion of this law, see Metzler, “Reflections on Disability,” 33-34. 12 I consider the question of exactly how substantial the fines would have been later in the chapter. 13 Liebermann, 1:7. Abt 64. 14 Ibid.

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varied according to the social status of the castrated man, as wergild for a thegn was higher than that for a ceorl, which, in turn, was higher than that for a slave.15 It sets the next highest fines for removal of the eye and the foot, at fifty shillings each.16 By way of contrast, Alfred’s law-code reserves the highest fine for an injury to the geweald (lit. power, strength) at the top of the neck that results in “laming.”17 This injury is valued at a hundred shillings, which would have been half a Wessex freeman’s wergild.18 It also establishes a somewhat lesser fine of eighty shillings for removal of the lower leg, the amputation of the arm together with the hand, a wound to the shoulder, and castration of the testicles.19 It may be helpful to sum up this information in a table:20

15 Stanley Rubin, “The Bot, or Composition in Anglo-Saxon Law: A Reassessment,” Legal History 17 (1996): 144-54. 16 Liebermann, 1:5, 7. Abt 43, 69. 17 Liebermann, 1:88. Af 77. As the law specifies that the geweald is at the top of the neck, Liebermann sensibly suggests that the geweald is the top of the spinal column. Ibid., 3:63. 18 Lisi Oliver, The Body Legal in Barbarian Law (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011), 117. 19 Liebermann, 1:84, 86. Af 65-66, 68, 72. 20 This table draws on Oliver’s more extensive tables. Body Legal, 249, 260.

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Æþelberht Alfred

Injury Injury Fine (% Fine (% Wergild) Wergild) Most Severe Castration Damage to 100s (50%) ~300s (300%) geweald, resulting in mobility impairment.

Next Most Severe Removal of Amputation 80s (40%) 50s (50%) eye of lower leg

Removal of Amputation foot of arm with hand

Shoulder wound

Castration

Table 3. Schedule of Most Severe Injuries and Associated Fines

By the logic of the lex talionis, the highest fines were reserved for the greatest losses, and therefore indicate which forms of unhælu the Anglo-Saxons believed to be the most severe, although the law-codes are dealing with a specific, limited subset of injuries and impairments – namely, those identifiably inflicted by other humans – and therefore may exclude some conditions that were considered equally detrimental but were not caused by human violence or negligence. For this reason, it is important to trace tetndencies within the hierarchy of personal injury laws, and consider the underlying construction of and assumptions about unhælu that they reveal.

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Consensus exists between Æþelberht’s and Alfred’s laws that castration and amputation of the lower leg were among the worst impairments. Likewise, they may differ slightly on the priority they assign to the eye- and shoulder-wounds, but they both still fine them at a high rate. Æþelberht’s laws assess laming of the shoulder at thirty shillings,21 while Alfred’s laws set bot for the eye at sixty-six shillings, six and a third pennies.22

Nonetheless, Æþelberht’s and Alfred’s personal injury tariffs have important differences between them. Firstly, Æþelberht’s laws do not seem value the arm very highly: the bot for an arm wound is only six shillings, and it does not mention any penalty for amputation of the arm or the hand, although it specifies fines for each of the fingers.23

Lisi Oliver suggests that this absence implies that the Kentish code locates the source of arm injury at the shoulder, especially since it regulates not only wounds to the shoulder but also to the clavicle.24 Nonetheless, Oliver’s explanation does not seem wholly satisfactory, since it does not account for cases where the lower arm is amputated at the elbow. We have no real way of determining why Æþelberht’s law-codes do not cover such impairments; the absence may not even be a deliberate omission, but rather a reflection of the partial nature of the written laws, which do not represent the totality of

Anglo-Saxon legal practice. Secondly, Alfred’s law-code is the only Germanic code that legislates injury to the geweald, which suggests that it is either an idiosyncratic concern

21 Liebermann, 1:5. Abt 38. 22 Ibid., 1:86. Af 71. 23 Ibid., 1:6. Abt 53-53,1, and 54-58. 24 Oliver, Body Legal, 134.

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or a response to a particular case.25 It may be notable in this respect that the law governing injury to the geweald is separated from the other personal injury laws within the manuscript, and is found at the end of the section that covers Alfred’s laws, which may suggest that it was a later inclusion.

The Personal Injury Laws’ Construction of Unhælu

These law-codes’ hierarchy of impairments reveals some of the presuppositions at the core of the Anglo-Saxons’ concept of unhælu, which can best be explored through an analysis of the conditions that Æþelberht and Alfred concur are most serious – that is, castration and amputation of the lower limbs. I begin with castration, which, in

Æþelberht’s code, is valued at three times the wergild and therefore is presented as more serious than death. Oliver argues that this three-fold wergild is intended to compensate the castrated man for the children that he cannot father, and that it takes into account the value of their lives.26 Likewise, Jay Paul Gates observes that Æþelberht’s reference to the penis as the gekyndelice lim “generative member” emphasizes its importance in reproduction, and therefore suggests that the law is primarily concerned with the loss of that function.27 If a man did not already have children, he would be deprived of an important resource for multiple stages of life.28 As Oliver comments, children shared in their parents’ labor and almost certainly supported them in old age, so that a man who

25 Ibid., 117. 26 Lisi Oliver, The Beginnings of English Law (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 99. 27 Jay Paul Gates, “The Fulmannod Society: Social Valuing of the (Male) Legal Subject,” in Castration and Culture in the Middle Ages, ed. Larissa Tracy (Woodbridge: D.S. Brewer, 2013), 142. 28 Ibid.

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was unable to reproduce would have been less economically productive, and become a burden on more distant relatives or the community when he was no longer able to work.29

Consequently, castration was an impairment that potentially damaged the well-being of the entire community. It had social consequences not only during the individual’s lifespan, but also into future generations, since, as Gates notes, it made a man unable to

“reproduce his social function (a thegn producing future thegns, a churl future churls) and thus contribute to the security of the larger society.”30 Likewise, it deprived him of heirs to carry on his family line and inherit his goods, which might serve to explain why the amount of compensation was dependent on a person’s social status. As Rubin argues,

“[i]t would have been uppermost in their minds that the loss of virility and fertility would always constitute a far more serious genealogical handicap for a member of the noble class whose chances of parenthood might consequently be put in grave jeopardy.”31 In short, castration damaged the productivity and security of the community, and disturbed the transition from one generation to another in multiple ways.32

29 Oliver, Body Legal, 134. This emphasis on productivity is still evident in the present day, as disabled people are often judged by their capacity to be productive citizens. 30 Gates, “Fulmannod Society,” 142. 31 Rubin, “The Bot,” 151. 32 It remains a controversial debate whether or not the wergild for castration took into consideration elements of shame, embarrassment, or castration anxiety. Mary P. Richards raises the possibility that the compensatory damages may have reflected the “factors of shame and embarrassment that such a wound might involve.” “The Body as Text in Early Anglo-Saxon Law,” in Naked Before God: Uncovering the Body in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Benjamin C. Withers and Jonathan Wilcox (Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2003), 105. Gates, however, is adamant that the three-fold wergild “should not be interpreted as some kind of castration anxiety or compensation for lost masculine identity,” since he claims that there was no particular shame attached to being unable to procreate, and clothes would conceal the absence of a penis, making it an invisible impairment. “Fulmannod Society,” 141-42. I am not convinced that being involuntarily childless carried no shame, especially given the social and economic consequences of having no children; however, a full discussion of this issue is beyond the scope of the dissertation.

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At first glance, the amputation of the limbs seems to present a much more straightforward case than castration. If a man lost a limb, he would have been unable to participate effectively in the agrarian labor that was fundamental to the Anglo-Saxon economy, and that ensured the community’s well-being and prosperity. As Christopher

Dyer has shown, agriculture was the primary source of food and wealth for the Anglo-

Saxon people, and so it was crucial for as many people as possible to be as productive as possible.33 Without an arm, a man would have found it much harder to dig the soil, harvest crops, or tend to animals, especially given what we know about contemporary farming practices. For instance, the calendar illustrations in Cotton Julius a. vi show

Anglo-Saxon farmers using multiple two-handed implements, such as ploughs, spades, axes and flails.34 Even if a person with one arm could have adapted to these implements, his productivity would have been greatly reduced. Without a leg, he would not have been able to move or balance without considerable difficulty, since only the most primitive of prostheses – crutches and so-called “cripple’s stools” – were available to people with mobility impairments. In short, he would have been much less economically productive than he was before, both in supporting himself and his community.

Nonetheless, the kings’ calculation of bot for the arm might have involved other factors than my functional analysis suggests. While the high bot for the loss of limbs primarily would have reflected the loss of the essential functions that they represented, it

33 Christopher Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages: The People of Britain 850-1520 (New Haven: Yale UP, 2002), 13-43. 34 David Hill, “Prelude: Agriculture Through the Year,” The Material Culture of Daily Living in the Anglo- Saxon World, ed. Maren Clegg Hyer and Gale R. Owen-Crocker (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2011), 9-22.

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also might have accounted for the stigma that people with such injuries potentially would have faced. One of the most common penalties for theft involved the amputation of the hand or the foot, with the result that people who had lost those limbs in non-juridical ways might still have been marked as criminals, and faced suspicion from those around them. With that said, I shall postpone the remainder of this discussion until I examine juridical mutilation, as the stigma involved with certain amputations needs to be understood in its full legal context.

Although I have addressed the two most significant injuries, I wish to consider briefly why Alfred’s laws include shoulder wounds among the most severe impairments, since they do not seem equivalent to amputation of the limbs or castration. The text offers an indication of why they might have been valued so highly, when it specifies that bot should only be paid “gif se mon cwic sie” (if the person is alive).35 This clause suggests that they tended to be fatal in the majority of cases. Indeed, we may think of Grendel as the most famous recipient of a shoulder wound in Anglo-Saxon literature, an injury that resulted in his slow and painful death. Even if people survived the initial injury, they were likely to be left with significant impairments. Æþelberht’s laws imply that shoulder wounds frequently resulted in some form of mobility impairment in the arms or the upper body, when he provides bot “gif eaxle gelæmed weorþeþ” (if a shoulder is lamed).36 In other words, Alfred’s laws might have placed shoulder wounds in a similar category to injury to the geweald, which had comparable, if more severe, consequences for the

35 Liebermann, 1:84. Af 68. 36 Ibid., 1:5. Abt 38.

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person. Consequently, the steepness of the fine seems to be based on the possibility of death and mobility impairment, the latter of which would have had similar economic consequences for people and their community to amputation of the limbs.

As the foregoing discussion suggests, the hierarchy of impairments is largely based upon economic logic, although castration has the secondary complication of heredity. From this observation, we can draw some initial conclusions about the Anglo-

Saxon concept of unhælu. As discussed in my introduction to the dissertation, Simi

Linton offers a typology of the various ways in which societies structure the participation of disabled people, which includes the category of economic and social liability, where the disabled person is viewed as an unwelcome drain on resources or a distraction from more important needs.37 The economic logic that informs the personal injury laws’ hierarchy of impairments suggests that the Anglo-Saxons perceived some unhal people as economic liabilities, who were less able to contribute to the prosperity and security of the community. Yet importantly, the law-codes do not present these unhal people as social liabilities who consume community resources that could be better employed elsewhere.

Rather, they are based in the assumption that they are victims of violence or negligence, and that they merited the financial compensation that they received.

Functionality in the Personal Injury Laws

Although economic logic appears to have dictated which impairments were considered the most profound, the Anglo-Saxons used functionality more generally as a principle to

37 Linton, Claiming Disability, 45-51.

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determine how much bot an injury should receive, which suggests in turn that functionality was crucial to their concept of unhælu. The tariffs governing injury to the fingers offer a helpful if complicated example of this principle, since the Anglo-Saxons drew extremely fine distinctions among the value of each finger, and their lexemes for their fingers often encode what they believed their functions were. Æþelberht’s and

Alfred’s laws differ on the values that they assign to each finger and on the hierarchy they set up between them. Æþelberht’s tariffs value the thumb at twenty shillings, the little finger at eleven shillings, the index finger at nine shillings, the ring finger at six shillings, and the middle finger at four shillings.38 Those of Alfred set bot for the thumb at thirty shillings, the ring finger at seventeen shillings, the index finger at fifteen shillings, the middle finger at twelve shillings, and the little finger at only nine shillings.39

In table form, then, Æþelberht’s and Alfred’s hierarchies are as follows:

Order by Descending Value Æþelberht Alfred

1 Thumb Thumb

2 Little finger Ring finger

3 Index finger Index finger

4 Ring finger Middle finger

5 Middle finger Little finger

Table 4. Ranking of Fingers in Personal Injury Laws

38 Liebermann, 1:6. Abt 54, 54,2-54,5. 39 Ibid. 1:82. Af 56, 57-60.

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The hierarchy in Æþelberht’s laws is easy to explain, since it corresponds to how physiologically useful the fingers are. As Oliver explains, the thumb (þuma) is the most valuable digit, since it is responsible for our manual dexterity and fine motor control; it allows us to grip and manipulate tools.40 It is followed by the little finger (lytla finger), which allows us to cup liquids, and assists in wielding spears and swords as it supports the weight of the weapon and serves as a crucial pivot for raising its point.41 The index finger is next in order of worth, since it allows for activities that require a finer grasp and also helps to propel thrown weapons.42 Its Old English name – scytefinger “shooting finger” – associates it particularly with the archery that would have been part of warfare and hunting; contrary to what we might expect, it was not the finger used to draw back the bowstring, but the finger used to support the arrow.43 The middle and ring fingers are of much lesser importance. The middle finger, which in Old English is the middelfinger or midlesta finger “midmost finger,” plays a supportive role in throwing, and so it contributes to activity but is not primarily responsible for it. The ring finger helps in cupping, grasping, and stabbing, which Oliver concludes gives it an edge in usefulness.44

Its Old English name goldfinger, though, foregrounds its social function, and, according

40 Oliver, Body Legal, 143. The Old English þuma is suggestive of its shape rather than its function. The þum- stem refers to thickness or swelling, and is a cognate of the tum- in ModE “tumescent,” which derives from Latin tumeo, “I swell,” via the inceptive or inchoative form of the present participle. 41 Ibid., 144-45. 42 Ibid., 145-46. 43 Ibid., 148. As Oliver discusses, the evidence suggests that shooting practices were variable, but that the Anglo-Saxons probably used three fingers to draw back the strings of military bows. Ibid. 44 Ibid., 146. For readers of Isidore, these two fingers would have had additional functions indicated by their etymology: the middle finger – impudicus “shameless” – was used to accuse a person of sodomy, and the fourth finger – medicus “curative” – was used by doctors to scoop up eye-salve. Etym. 11.1.71 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.).

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to Gale R. Owen-Crocker, may indicate that it was the finger on which rings were worn.45

In Anglo-Saxon graves, skeletons are most often found with rings on their fourth finger, which would support this interpretation.46 Thus, in Æþelberht’s tariffs, bot appears to be congruous with function in a manner that suggests how central functionality was to the

Anglo-Saxon concept of unhælu.

Nonetheless, Alfred’s hierarchy is more idiosyncratic and suggests that he was influenced by non-physiological considerations. In identical fashion to Æþelberht, his tariffs assign the highest bot to the thumb, as we would predict. Surprisingly, though, the laws value the ring-finger after the thumb, which makes little sense physiologically.

Oliver explains this valuation as a “punitive surcharge for the loss of the finger which can show marital or economic status by the wearing of the ring.”47 Although this explanation is compelling, we should acknowledge that it is not strongly supported by archaeological evidence. As Elisabeth Okasha notes, “little is known about the wearing of finger-rings, or indeed any other sort of ring, in Anglo-Saxon England.”48 According to Owen-

Crocker, the limited evidence suggests that finger rings might only have been worn by a few, high-ranking people, and served as a marker of elite status, since“[f]inger rings have more often been found in graves of unusual richness than in those of average wealth.”49

In some cases, these rings might have been given as a marriage token, but it was “not

45 Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Dress in Anglo-Saxon England (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984; repr. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2004), 200. 46 Ibid., 90. 47 Oliver, Body Legal, 153. Alfred uses goldfinger, which requires no translation, in his law-code. The alternative Old English lexeme is læcefinger, which seems to be a translation of the Latin (digitus) medicus. 48 Elisabeth Okasha, Women’s Names in Old English, 94 49 Owen-Crocker, Dress in Anglo-Saxon England, 90.

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common practice to wear a wedding ring.”50 Moreover, for most of the Anglo-Saxon period, finger rings were generally worn by elite women and rarely by elite men,51 unless those men were bishops and bore episcopal rings. Nonetheless, in the ninth century when

Alfred set down his law-codes, some men appear to have worn rings,52 and this fashion trend might be reflected by Alfred’s schedule of personal injury laws. Consequently, the archaeological record suggests that rings might have served as a mark of elite status, and, on rare occasions, as a mark of martial status. Yet, as Owen-Crocker acknowledges, the archaeological evidence may not be wholly representative, as people might have bequeathed rings to relatives rather than being buried with them.53 As a result, Oliver’s explanation of the high valuation of the goldfinger remains the most plausible answer, and so Alfred appears to be taking the body’s social functionality into account in his laws.

As a result, this aspect of the law-codes suggests that Alfred and the other lawmakers understood that, as Metzler argues, “disability need not be caused by an actual physical impairment, but can be a culturally perceived disadvantage.”54 She adduces as evidence another Alfredian law that prescribes bot of thirty shillings for a case in which an assailant cuts off an innocent ceorl’s hair as an insult.55 Metzler suggests that short

50 Ibid. 51 Okasha, Women’s Names, 94; Owen-Crocker, Dress in Anglo-Saxon England, 90, 126, 146, 208-209, 270. 52 Owen-Crocker, Dress in Anglo-Saxon England, 200. 53 Ibid., 94. 54 Metzler, “Reflections on Disability,” 34. 55 Liebermann, 68. Af 35,3. A ceorl is a member of the lowest class of free men, who, in legal texts, is defined as being a tenant or proprietor of less than five hides of land, and having a wergild usually equivalent to one-sixth of that of a thegn. DOE, s.v. “ceorl.”

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hair would have been an embarrassing disfigurement in an age of “long-haired kings,” and therefore would have put the person at a social disadvantage.56 As a result, the high bot is compensating for a disability that arises not from a loss of physiological functionality, but a (temporary) loss of cultural prestige.

Equally strange is the extremely low bot that Alfred’s laws assign to the little finger in relation to the other digits, as they place it below even the middle finger. We cannot know with any certainty why this finger is valued so far below its physiological worth, although we may speculate that the laws were reflecting a general cultural belief that the little finger was unimportant, which was not supported by lived experience.57

Unlike the scytefinger or the goldfinger, the digit’s vernacular name, lytla finger “little finger,” does not assign it a particular function, and literally minimizes it. As I explore in the following section, Alfred’s law-codes take aesthetics into consideration when assigning bot for an injury, and he might have thought that its small size meant that its loss constituted less of a disfigurement. This possibility is, however, undercut by the fact that the little finger’s absence would have been very visible in a society where the handspan was a standard unit of measurement.58 Likewise, its Latin name, auriculus, suggests only the most trivial purpose: scraping wax and dirt out of the ear (auris), according to Isidore’s Etym.59 This general deprecation of the little finger might have influenced Alfred’s devaluation of it. Whatever the actual cause, the valuation of the

56 Metzler, “Reflections on Disability,” 34. 57 Alfred, at least, would have had some experience with how the little finger helped people to wield weaponry, since Asser’s biography notes that he fought against the Vikings. Asser, DRGA, ch. 52 (40-42). 58 Oliver, Body Legal, 145. 59 Etym. 11.1.71 (ed. Lindsay, Etym.).

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little finger demonstrates that the law-codes took more than simple, physiological functionality into account when determining the severity of injuries, and imply that the

Anglo-Saxon concept of unhælu comprised more than the loss of physical functionality through illness or impairment.

Aesthetics in the Personal Injury Laws

In particular, the Anglo-Saxon law-codes weigh functional considerations against aesthetic ones, so that amount of bot also depends upon how an injury damages a person’s appearance. Alfred’s laws that provide bot for damage to the sensory organs serve as an excellent illustration of this principle, as they show how the tariffs balance ability and appearance in prescribing fines. For instance, his laws that govern injury to the eyes read:

Gif mon men eage ofslea, geselle him mon LX scill 7 VI scill 7 VI pæningas 7 ðriddan dæl pæninges to bote. Gif hit in ðam heafde sie, 7 he noht geseon ne mæge mid, stande ðriddan dæl þære bote inne.

(If one strikes out a man’s eye, let him give 60 shillings and 6 shillings and 6 pennies and a third part of a penny as bot. If it [i.e. the eye] is in the head, and he cannot see anything with it, let a third part of that remain in bot).60

Consequently, the law privileges the eye’s appearance over its functionality when deciding how serious an injury to the organ is. A missing eye is compensated at three times a blinded eye, even though neither of them would be able to see, and therefore involve the same loss of functionality. Interestingly, however, the opposite is true of bot

60 Liebermann 1:80. Af 47-47,1.

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for injuries to the ear: the removal of an ear is fined at thirty shillings, but the loss of hearing is fined at sixty.61 This discrepancy should not be taken as evidence that the

Anglo-Saxons privileged hearing above sight, since the eye is still valued above the ear.

Rather, it indicates how the aesthetics of disfigurement affected the Anglo-Saxon’s sense of how severe impairments were. That is, a missing ear could be concealed relatively easily with hair, especially given that, at least in the tenth century, the male Anglo-

Saxons seem to have worn their hair short in the front and long in the back, rather like a modern mullet.62 The same hairstyle would have made a missing eye impossible to hide.

This concern with appearance is evident throughout the law-codes, as visible wounds are generally compensated at double the rate of hidden ones, with the obvious exceptions of the eyes and the ears. Alfred’s laws state that, if a wound is covered by the hair or by clothing, the bot is halved. They read:

Gif in feaxe bið wund inces lang, geselle anne scill. to bote. Gif beforan feaxe bið wund inces lang, twegen scill. to bote.63

61 Ibid., 1:78, 80. Af 46-46,1. The law may be referring to a total loss of hearing, which would be a more profound impairment than a loss of binocular vision in a culture that was largely dependent upon oral communication, and which would explain the much higher fine. Even if this is true, though, it is noteworthy that the intactness of the eye lessens the bot paid for the loss of sight, while the intactness of the ear is irrelevant to the bot for loss of hearing. 62 In Ælfric’s letter to Brother Edward, he complains about the youth imitating Danish hairstyles and going around with “ableredum hneccan and ablendum eagum” (bared necks and blinded eyes) – presumably hair cut short at the back and long in front. Consequently, we can infer that the Anglo-Saxons of the time wore their hair short at the front and long at the back. In Mary Clayton’s introduction to her edition, she makes the point that hairstyles were an important marker of ethnic identity, so it is perhaps likely that male Anglo- Saxons during the period had variations on the same style. Ælfric of Eynsham, “Letter to Brother Edward: A Student Edition,” ed. Mary Clayton, Old English Newsletter 40, no. 3 (Spring 2007): 41-42. For a more general discussion of hair as a marker of ethnic and religious identity in the early Middle Ages, see Philip Shaw, “Hair and Heathens: Picturing Pagans and the Carolingian Connection in the Exeter Book and Beowulf-manuscript,” in Texts and Identities in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Richard Corradini, Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 12 (Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2006), 351- 56. 63 Liebermann, 1:78. Af 45-45,1.

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(If a wound in the hair is an inch long, give one shilling as compensation. If a wound in front of the hair is an inch long, [give] two shillings as compensation.)

Æghwelcere wunde beforan feaxe 7 beforan sliefan 7 beneoðan cneowe sio bot bið twysceatte mare.64

(For every wound in front of the hair and in front of the sleeves and beneath the knee, the compensation will be twice as much.)

These increased fines suggest that disfigurement carried stigma of some type. Oliver characterizes them as insult surcharges, and suggests that they are intended to compensate for the embarrassment caused by the disfigurement.65

It is worth asking why disfigurement might have been embarrassing, and how it might alter a person’s social identity. Just as in the present day,66 the Anglo-Saxons might have found disfigurement to be ugly and off-putting,67 and shown discomfort around people with obvious deformities. Nonetheless, this explanation does not seem to be sufficient. Disfigurement would have been reasonably common in the Anglo-Saxon period, and certain of the wounds covered by the law-codes are extremely minor. For instance, even in the present day, few people would find an inch-long scar on a person’s face particularly noteworthy, let alone repellent.68 In Anglo-Saxon England, a culture in which more people were directly involved in violence and warfare, such minor facial

64 Ibid., 1:84. Af 66,1. 65 Oliver, Body Legal, 184. 66 Robert Newell, Body Image and Disfigurement Care (New York: Routledge, 2013), 55-75. 67 Miller, Eye for an Eye, 118. Miller briefly suggests the possibility that the Anglo-Saxons found deformities ugly, but, to my knowledge, criticism has not yet produced a comprehensive study of ugliness in Anglo-Saxon culture, which is another lacuna in the scholarship that needs to be filled. 68 As a point of comparison, many present-day celebrities, such as Tina Fey and Harrison Ford, have larger scars on their faces without seemingly incurring any stigma for it.

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scars would have been insignificant. Indeed, for warriors, they might have been a badge of honor. Consequently, it is hard to believe that the law-makers were motivated primarily by the potential ugliness of disfigurement.

Instead, the law-makers might have considered how scars, wounds, and missing body parts could act as signs of shame. As I have already mentioned, the Anglo-Saxons would have associated certain types of disfigurement with juridical mutilation, and so people with those deformities potentially would have borne the stigma of criminality.

Moreover, as William Ian Miller notes, disfigurements that were incurred as a result of violence would have served as a permanent, highly visible reminder that a person had lost a fight, or had been the victim of a violent assault.69 They would have been very literal marks against a person’s honor and prowess, and his kin-group’s reputation.

Yet, at the same time as the laws reveal the existence of stigma towards disfigured people, they also suggest that the lawmakers attempted to mitigate its effects, albeit only for those people who were maimed in an act of criminal violence or negligence. That is, the personal injury laws recognize that such people would have been stigmatized by their communities, and that the stigma might have been as damaging as the injury, since they set bot at twice the rate. The two-fold bot, however, does not acknowledge that the stigma per se is unjust, or work to dissipate it any way. Indeed, the lawmakers might have wished to preserve the stigma around disfigurement as part of the exemplary function of juridical mutilation, which I shall discuss later in this chapter. Instead, the two-fold bot suggests that the lawmakers considered stigmatization to be a normal reaction to

69 Ibid.

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disfigurement, as they treated stigma as an expected consequence of mutilation and factored it into their calculations of bot, which made it akin to the inevitable loss of functionality that occurs with loss of a limb.

Functions of the Personal Injury Laws

As this approach to managing stigma may suggest, the personal injury laws did not aim primarily at improving the situation of injured and impaired people. That is, bot should not be understood as a form of welfare that was intended to support these particular unhal people, and thereby mitigate the economic burden that they placed on their kin-group or community. The fines for the most severe impairments were substantial, but they would not have been enough to support people for the remainder of their lifetime. It may be helpful to illustrate this point in quantitative terms. As I discussed earlier in the chapter,

Alfred’s laws set the bot for damage to the geweald at one hundred shillings, which is the highest fine in his law-codes. It is impossible to determine the precise modern equivalent of this sum, based on the scanty economic information that the Anglo-Saxon corpus provides. Nonetheless, we can gain some sense of how far one hundred shillings would have gone in supporting an adult man or woman, based on two clauses in Ine’s law-code that appear to specify upkeep for a child.70 The first law deals with the fostering of a foundling:

70 Ine and Alfred would have used a shilling worth the same amount of pennies; Æþelberht would not have, which is why I have chosen not to discuss one of his laws. The Anglo-Saxon shilling was worth a variable amount of pennies depending on the region. It was four pennies in Mercia, five in Wessex, and probably twelve in Kent. Philip Grierson and Mark Blackburn, Medieval European Coinage, vol. 1, The Early Middle Ages (5th - 10th Centuries) (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007), 157.

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To fundes cildes fostre, ðy forman geare geselle VI scill., ðy æfterran XII, ðy ðriddan XXX, siððan be his wlite.71

(For the fostering of a found child, let six shillings be given for the first year; twelve shillings for the second; thirty shillings for the third; thereafter, according to his appearance.)

The second involves the support of a child whose father dies and whose widowed mother is left to raise him or her:

Gif ceorl 7 his wif bearn hæbben gemæne, 7 fere se ceorl forð, hæbbe sio modor hire bearn 7 fede: agife hire mon VI scill to fostre, cu on sumera, oxan on wintra; healden þa mægas þone frumstol, oð ðæt hit gewintred sie.72

(If a ceorl and his wife have a child in common, and the ceorl passes away, let the mother have and feed her child: let six shillings be given to her for his rearing, a cow in the summer, an ox in the winter; let the kinspeople hold the family home, until he is come of age.)

Read together, these laws imply that six shillings was the minimum amount of income necessary to support a child, but that it was barely adequate for the purpose, since they either increase it substantially in the second year or supplement it with livestock. Ine ruled around the turn of the seventh century, and it is possible that his values would have been outdated by Alfred’s time, although, as Rory Naismith’s discussion of the southern

English kingdoms’ economy in the eighth and ninth centuries suggests, inflation might have been less of a factor in the Anglo-Saxon period, and prices might have risen very slowly.73 Alternatively, they might have been updated when they were copied into

71 Liebermann, 1:100. Ine 26. 72 Ibid., 1:104, 106. Ine 38. 73 Rory Naismith, Money and Power in Anglo-Saxon England: The Southern English Kingdoms, 757-865, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 4th series, 80 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 287-88.

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Alfred’s law-codes. Even if Ine’s sums are archaic, however, they provide us with a baseline to use in a calculation, especially since the cost of living did not appear to decrease in the intervening centuries. Self-evidently, a man costs more to support than a child, and thus, if we work with a conservative estimate of eight shillings a year, Alfred’s highest bot would have supported a man only for about twelve years. As Lee has shown, the median life expectancy of a man in the middle Anglo-Saxon period was around thirty- eight years, which means that the highest bot would have been sufficient for about a third of an average lifespan.74 Obviously, the law-codes are dealing with injuries that are inflicted in adulthood, and so bot would not have needed to cover the average life-span.

Nonetheless, most unhal people would have received substantially lesser amounts in compensation, and some of them would have lived much longer than thirty-eight years, if they survived the initial injury and had appropriate support from their kin-group or community.

If compensatory bot was not intended to provide financial support for unhal people, what purpose did it serve? The Anglo-Saxon law-codes, in general, set up the system of compensation as an alternative to the tradition of feud. As Paul Hyams notes, such a system is intended to prevent vengeance from being “a natural and licit first response to perceived wrongs,” and to restore the honor of the wronged individual and kin-group in a manner befitting their status.75 In other words, it is designed to resolve

74 Christina Lee, Feasting the Dead: Food and Drink in Anglo-Saxon Burial Rituals (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2007), 32. 75 Paul R. Hyams, Rancor and Reconciliation in Medieval England (Ithaca: Cornell University Press), 79- 80. Hyams notes that Alfred’s law-codes also regulate feuds, and provide a licit procedure by which they can be pursued, which encourages people to seek their ealdorman’s aid, and implicitly includes time for people to calm down and negotiate. This aspect of the laws seems to be an acknowledgement that feuds

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conflict in a bloodless, financial fashion. Given this understanding of the law-codes, the personal injury laws seem designed to prevent the type of violent vengeance that would result in more injured and maimed bodies. In other words, they aim to check the growth of unhælu within the community by preventing people from becoming unhal. As I have already established, the Anglo-Saxons’ personal injury laws suggest that they considered certain unhal people to be an economic liability, and so it makes sense that they would have wanted to minimize their numbers. Indeed, such an intervention may have been crucial if injuries and impairments were as prevalent as Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe suggests. She claims:

Mutilation of whatever origin must have been commonplace in daily life, from the twisted limbs and gaping, festering sores presented for healing at holy places, to the casual acts of violence which were the hallmarks of victorious marauders, to the excruciating forensic enactments in compensation for rapes, thefts, adulteries and other crimes outlined variously in the law codes.76

As this sketch of Anglo-Saxon England suggests, the Anglo-Saxons would already have had in their population a significant proportion of unhal people who would have been less economically productive, and who would have required the support of their community or kin-group. Moreover, the Anglo-Saxons would not have had much control over the development of unhælu. They could not necessarily predict and avert accidents. They could not prevent congenital or acquired conditions, and their curative treatments would have been largely ineffective in remediating them. They could not stop the Vikings and

cannot wholly be avoided, but they can be limited and their effects can be restricted. Later law-codes adopted even more stringent measures against feuds. Edmund’s laws, in particular, insisted that wise men should reconcile feuds, and offered a procedure to settle the dispute and bring about peace. Ibid., 80-84. 76 O’Brien O’Keeffe, “Body and Law,” 231-32.

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other marauders from attacking them, although kings such as Alfred and Æþelred II attempted to buy peace through the payment of tribute, which was only temporarily successful.77 In contrast, they could exert some control over the internecine feuds that would otherwise have been a major source of unhælu, and thereby ensure slightly greater social prosperity and stability. Nevertheless, this understanding of the personal injury laws becomes problematic when we take “the excruciating forensic enactments” into consideration. If we accept that the personal injury laws exist to ward off injury and impairment, how do we account for the other laws that amputate limbs and organs as punishment for crimes, and thereby create more unhal people?

Juridical Mutilation

While the Anglo-Saxon laws primarily require offenders to make financial restitution for their misdeeds, they prescribe mutilation as a punishment for certain crimes. For instance,

Alfred’s laws require a person who steals from a church to repay the value of what he took, and lose the hand with which he committed the theft, although he had the option of redeeming it through the payment of wergild.78 They also hold that a person who engages in public slander should have his tongue severed, unless he again is able to pay his wergild.79 In similar fashion, they dictate that a male slave who rapes a female slave should be castrated; in contrast, a ceorl convicted of the same crime would have to pay a

77 Richard Abels, “Paying the Danegeld: Anglo-Saxon Peacemaking with Vikings,” in War and Peace in Ancient and Medieval History, ed. Philip de Souza and John France (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 173-92. 78 Liebermann, 1:52. Af 6. 79 Ibid., 1:66. Af 32.

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fine of sixty shillings, and a bot of five shillings to the female slave’s owner.80 It is noteworthy that all of these laws reserve mutilation for the people who would be at the bottom of the social hierarchy, and allow alternative punishments for people of higher status, which shows how unhælu could be complicated by economics.81 Slaves were castrated for rape, but ceorlas were permitted to pay a fine, presumably because their ability to reproduce was more valuable to them and their community. Likewise, wealthy freemen who engaged in slander or who stole from churches would have had the resources to pay their wergild and keep their body parts, but their poor counterparts would have had to submit to mutilation. Consequently, Alfred’s laws are more willing to compromise the bodily integrity of slaves and poor ceorlas, and therefore suggest that their bodies were considered expendable in a way that the bodies of wealthy freemen, thegns, and other noblemen were not. This aspect of the laws is somewhat strange, as people of lower social status would have made their living through manual labor. Their ability to fulfill this social function might not have been affected by the loss of their tongue or testicles, but, as I have already established, it would have been greatly limited by the loss of a hand. It suggests that Alfred’s laws did not consider as important the personal consequences of mutilation for poor people and for slaves, but instead defined these groups primarily as juridical subjects and used them to enable the production and performance of juridical power.

80 Ibid., 1:64. Af 25-25,1 81 Irina Metzler indicates that this type of inequity is common within medieval law-codes. She states that “[j]uridical mutilation is … a question of status. While the wealthy, powerful, and noble were generally able to make compensation payments, the poor, impotent and, especially in the earlier Middle Ages, unfree were more likely to be subject to violent punishments.” Social History, 26.

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Nevertheless, the other regnal law-codes have fewer provisions for people to escape mutilation. Ine’s law-codes dictate removal of the hand or foot for ceorlas who have frequently been accused of theft, and have finally been caught in the act or provided other evidence of their guilt.82 Likewise, Æþelstan’s laws punish minters who forge coins by amputating their hand and then nailing it to the mint that they used.83 Neither law makes any provision for redeeming the limb with wergild. Æþelstan allows the accused minter to undergo trial by hot iron, but this ordeal almost certainly would have damaged the hand and left it impaired, which does not make it a particularly desirable alternative.84

Moreover, Edgar’s laws appear to have employed even more severe and damaging forms of mutilation, seemingly without respect to wealth or social status. As

Dorothy Whitelock discusses, Edgar’s first law-code no longer exists in any form, but the hagiographies of Swithun attest to the type of practices that the king employed to achieve order and security.85 In the Narratio metrica de S. Swithuno, Wulfstan of Winchester gives a vivid impression of the legal situation at that time:

Precipit interea rex iustus et inclitus Eadgar, quosque minis terrendo malos lex staret ut ista gentis in Anglorum diffuso limite, quo si fur aliquis seu predo ferox inuentus eadem adforet in patria, crudelia dampna subiret: lumine priuatus, miser et caecatus utroque; tortor eique simul nares precidat et aures truncaretque manus plantasque securibus actis,

82 Liebermann, 1:96, 104. Ine 18, 36. 83 Ibid., 158. II As. 14, 1. 84 Ibid. 85 Dorothy Whitelock, “Wulfstan Cantor and Anglo-Saxon Law,” Nordica et Anglica: Studies in Honor of Stefán Einarsson, ed. Allan H. Orrick, Janua linguarum series maior 22 (The Hague: Mouton, 1968), 83-92.

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subtraheretque simul capitis cum pelle capillos, seminecemque uirum poena cruciante peremptum proiceret canibus rabidis exactor edendum, nocturnisque auibus, coruis et edacibus, atque membratim in uacuas caesum dispergeret auras.

(At this time the just and excellent King Edgar orders – for the purpose of deterring criminals by means of threats – that the following law should stand throughout the broad expanse of England, whereby, if any thief or malicious robber were to be apprehended in the same country, he was to undergo cruel injuries: he was to be deprived of sight, wretchedly blinded in each eye; the executioner was then to cut off his nose and ears together, and was to lop off his hands and feet with the blow of an axe and likewise scrape off the hair of his head together with the scalp; and then the executioner would cast the man, barely alive and destroyed through this excruciating torture, to hungry dogs to be eaten, and to nocturnal birds and voracious ravens, and would scatter the mutilated trunk a piece at a time to the four winds.)86

Wulfstan’s description of Edgar’s law suggests that it mandated a painful, progressive form of execution for thieves, in which they are gradually dismembered and then thrown to the dogs and carrion birds. Nonetheless, this description is found at the beginning of a narrative in which an innocent man is mutilated under the law, and restored to wholeness by Swithun.87 Wulfstan describes how the man is blinded, and has his nose, ears, and hands amputated, leaving only his feet and scalp intact.88 As a result, the narrative suggests that Edgar’s law allowed for severe mutilation without actual execution. Metzler

86 Wulfstan of Winchester, Narratio 2.440-52 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 514-15). Wulfstan’s work is a metrical rendering of Lantfred’s prose Translatio et miracula S. Swithuni, which contains a similar, if briefer, description of Edgar’s law. Lantfred of Winchester, Translatio, ch. 26 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 311- 15). 87 Metzler stresses the man’s innocence, and suggests that Swithun’s miracles “provided blanket coverage for a hypothetical miscarriage of justice case.” Social History, 25.Yet, this reading misrepresents Swithun’s interventions in general, as he also assists people who are guilty of the crime for which they have been punished, such as the kinslayer whose punishment I discuss below, or the overseas thief who is caught in the act and sentenced to be hanged. Wulfstan, Narratio 2.266-98 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 506-507) and 2.886-914 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 536-37). 88 Wulfstan, Narratio 2.466-471 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 514-15). The man lives in this fashion for three months before Swithun heals him, which indicates that the punishment was not intended to kill him. Ibid.

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reads it as a “complete list of all the mutilating punishments, bar removal of the testicles, that might be carried out individually,” or, as the narrative shows, in combination with each other.89 Importantly, neither Wulfstan’s description nor his narrative indicates that these punishments were limited to a particular social group, although we may suspect that thegns and other noblemen would have been exempt, if not officially then de facto.

Instead, he states that any thief or robber caught in England would be executed or mutilated, and, as O’Brien O’Keeffe remarks, “praises Edgar’s judicial zeal” in a manner that implies his laws did not leave much room for clemency.90 In short, while Alfred’s laws allowed wealthy freemen to redeem their limbs and organs, the other regnal law- codes provide no escape clause to allow them to avoid mutilation.

Moreover, Wulfstan’s Narratio metrica suggests that juridical mutilation was fairly common during Edgar’s reign. Alan Harding makes the argument that, in the thirteenth century, the popularity of stories in which saints such as Wulfstan of Worcester and Thomas of Canterbury healed criminals whose hands, feet, eyes or testicles had been removed is an indication of the frequency of these punishments.91 Wulstan of

Winchester’s Narratio metrica contains multiple instances where Swithun helps people who have experienced juridical mutilation or similar forms of corporal punishment, or who have become impaired during trials by ordeal. In addition to the innocent man who is severely mutilated, the poem tells of a man whose stomach and limbs were bound in

89 Irina Metzler, Social History, 25. 90 O’Brien O’Keeffe, “Body and Law,” 227. 91 Alan Harding, The Law Courts of Medieval England, Historical Problems: Studies and Documents 18 (London: Allen and Unwin, 1973), 57, quoted in Metzler, Social History, 25.

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iron bands for the murder of a kinsman;92 a slave who carries a red-hot iron bar in his bare hands;93 and a man who is sentenced to be beaten to the point of death and then executed.94 These narratives are grouped together in the poem, and form a kind of thematic unit where the saint sets his divine justice against human justice. Consequently, even though the episodes are not that numerous, they combine to create an impression that juridical mutilation and corporal punishment were common enough during Edgar’s reign that they became a preoccupation in Swithun’s hagiographies.95

Functions of Juridical Mutilation

As this analysis of the law-codes that prescribe juridical mutilation suggests, many

Anglo-Saxon regnal codes made use of this punishment primarily to address theft and other property crimes, and most of them did not provide for alternative modes of punishment such as the payment of wergild. For this reason, we can conclude that the lawmakers felt that the imposition of unhælu served a sufficiently important purpose that it justified the sacrifice of economic productivity and military efficiency. According to scholarship on the subject, juridical mutilation was intended to have both disciplinary and exemplary effects. From a disciplinary perspective, mutilation punishes criminals for their acts, or, perhaps more accurately, forces them to make compensation for them. As

Miller astutely notes, such laws make body parts into a form of money, and have them

92 Wulfstan of Winchester, Narratio 2.266-98 (ed. Lapidge, 506). 93Wulfstan of Winchester, Narratio 2.299-434 (ed. Lapidge, 508-14). 94 Wulfstan of Winchester, Narratio 2.512-679 (ed. Lapidge, 519-27). 95 The same grouping is evident in Lantfred’s original version. Lantfred, Translatio, chs. 24-27.

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serve as quasi-financial bot for crimes,96 an equivalence that is most evident in Alfred’s laws that permit hands and tongues to be replaced with wergild. At the same time, mutilation prevents recidivism in two ways. Firstly, it marks the guilty person as a criminal, and makes them subject to future surveillance. Secondly, it removes the body part with which the crime was committed, and thereby eliminates or at least limits the criminal’s capacity to perform the deed again. As a result, the laws construct body parts as “metonymically responsible agents,” which permit their owners to translate their intent into action, and so bear culpability for the uses to which they are put.97 Significantly, the law-codes stress the body part’s culpability. They prescribe removing “þa hand ... ðe he hit mid gedyde” (the hand with which he did it),98 and “þa hond, ðe he ðæt ful mid worhte” (the hand with which he did that crime).99 Both clauses indicate the hand’s connection to the crime, and thereby its responsibility for its owners’ misdeeds.

This perception of the limbs and organs as metonymically responsible would have been supported by scriptural authority. In both Matthew 18:8-9 and Mark 9: 43-48, Jesus exhorts his followers that, if their hands, feet or eyes cause them to sin, they should remove them and enter into life without them, which again characterizes the body parts as metonymically responsible agents. Although the Anglo-Saxons would not generally have interpreted these teachings literally, and the Gospel passages are not the ultimate source

96 Miller, Eye for an Eye, 31-35. 97 Leslie Lockett, “The Role of Grendel’s Arm in Feud, Law, and the Narrative Strategy of Beowulf,” in Latin Learning and English Lore: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Literature for Michael Lapidge, ed. Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe and Andy Orchard, 2 vols (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 1:375. 98 Liebermann, 1:52. Af 6. 99 Ibid., 1:158. II As 14, 1.

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of the Anglo-Saxon laws,100 they might have provided support for juridical mutilation.

Oliver suggests that, “[f]or an offender who is unable to control his sinful impulses, the temporal law fulfils the command of Christ. The limb which committed the offence is cut off.”101 In other words, the Anglo-Saxons would have understood that juridical mutilation was sanctioned by divine authority, and would have been an appropriately Christian way to punish people.

At the same time, juridical mutilation serves a clear exemplary function. O’Brien

O’Keeffe provides an excellent account of how mutilation performs this role in her discussion of Wulfstan’s Narratio metrica:

Wulfstan Cantor’s emphasis on the efficacy of punishment resides in the spectacle of the mutilated bodies..., which proclaims both the guilt of the bodies and the just power of the king. Unlike Foucault’s liturgy of punishment elaborated in Discipline and Punish, where the spectacle resides in the community’s watching the criminal body being destroyed and thus witnessing both the docility of the body and the prince’s power, the spectacle, as Wulfstan defines it, resides in the show of the altered body itself. Such spectacle is designed to produce post factum knowledge about the body of the criminal as well as remind the onlooker of the king’s punishment and his power. As Wulfstan implies, sight of those mutilations reveals all that need be known about the bodies that suffered it. They are marked, punished, guilty.102

In other words, juridical mutilation furnishes a spectacle to other people in the community who witness the criminal’s amputated limbs and organs, and understand them as markers of personal guilt and of the power of the king to uphold the law. It serves to warn them about what might happen to their own bodies if they choose to break the law,

100 Oliver, Body Legal, 156. 101 Ibid., 174. 102 O’Brien O’Keeffe, “Body and Law,” 227.

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and therefore promotes peace and order within the community.103 Wulfstan’s poem shows how this process might have worked:

Exploratores siluarum densa peragrant, predonesque locis inuestigantur opacis, et membris caesi prebent spetacula plebi. Perculerat terrorque animos formidine cunctos: detestanda manus fuit et consumpta latronum.

(The king’s agents search through the depths of the forest and robbers are sought in hidden recesses, and those who are dismembered provide a public display. And terror seized all hearts with trepidation: the loathesome congress of thieves was eradicated.)104

In these lines, Wulfstan clearly demonstrates juridical mutilation’s exemplary power. The king’s agents make the thieves into a public spectacle by dismembering them, and so create enough terror in the minds of potential criminals that they cease preying on people.

This exemplary dimension of Anglo-Saxon law is also evident in its occasional prescription that the severed limb of the criminal be displayed. For instance, as I have already mentioned, Æþelstan commands that illegal minters should have their severed limb attached to the mint that they used for forgery.105 This law makes the criminal’s body testify doubly to his guilt and the potency of the law. That is, it uses both the rotting hand on the forge and the limb’s absence on the body as spectacles to exemplify the consequences of crime.

103 Lockett, “Grendel’s Arm,” 376. 104 Wulfstan of Winchester, Narratio 2.457-61 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 514-15). 105 Liebermann, 1:158. II As 14,1.

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At this point, we may observe an unlikely parallel between juridical mutilation and the personal injury laws. As I have demonstrated, the personal injury laws take into consideration function and aesthetics in determining bot for various types of wounds and impairments. Likewise, juridical mutilation depends upon functionality and aesthetics for its various effects. Specifically, the disciplinary effect of mutilation depends in part on depriving the body of certain functions that are located in its parts. Indeed, defining the various body parts as metonymically responsible agents means defining them in terms of the particular criminal function that they perform, whether it is rape, theft, or forgery. In contrast, the exemplary effect of mutilation depends upon altering the aesthetics of the body. It involves taking a presumably normative body and stripping away its parts, so that it becomes a spectacle to shock and terrify other people. In this way, juridical mutilation is a distorted mirror of the personal injury laws, and suggests that functionality and aesthetics were at the very core of the Anglo-Saxon concept of unhælu.

As these parallels suggest, juridical mutilation might have created a problem for people who became impaired or disfigured in other ways. O’Brien O’Keeffe argues that

“juridical mutilation produces a body about which things may be known,” and that the

“spectacle of such a body continually announces both crime and punishment.”106 Yet, the body of a man who has lost a hand in warfare or an accident does not look different from the body of a man who has had it removed for theft, which raises the question of whether the Anglo-Saxons usually read absent limbs and organs as markers of guilt, and whether

106 O’Brien O’Keeffe, “Body and Law,” 230.

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unhal people who had impairments that could have come from juridical mutilation would have been stigmatized as criminals.

Mary P. Richards suggests that, in the early Anglo-Saxon period (i.e. the seventh to the ninth centuries), the mutilated body would not have primarily signified guilt and its punishment. Instead, she claims that the law-codes mainly portray the material body as victim, and treat its wounds as proof of a crime.107 In support of her argument, she examines the injury tariffs that I discussed at the beginning of the chapter, and shows how they enable the examiners to read evidence of an assault off the body and thereby determine appropriate compensation.108 If Richard is correct, the early Anglo-Saxons would have assumed that unhal people were victims instead of criminals, which means that their disfigurements would not have carried the stigma of criminality. Nonetheless, I would argue that any analysis of Ine’s personal injury schedules needs to be counterbalanced by an awareness of his use of juridical mutilation. As established in the previous section, juridical mutilation is most effective when it serves a disciplinary and an exemplary function, and the presupposition disfigured people were victims instead of criminals would have blunted much of its power. Consequently, it seems unlikely that the law-codes would have discouraged stigma in the case of, for example, a missing hand or foot.

Nonetheless, Richards acknowledges that “the meaning of punishment written on the body no doubt was understood in the earlier periods,” and that, by Alfred’s time, the

107 Richards, “Body as Text,” 97-98. 108 Ibid., 97-104.

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law-codes themselves are cognizant of how mutilation might be read as a marker of criminality.109 She argues that Alfred’s laws set such high bot for the eye, tongue, hand and foot not only because they represent the loss of an essential function, but also because their absence is associated with juridical penalties.110 As a result, “part of the victim’s restitution could be intended to address any potential confusion with criminal punishment,” although she does not specify how precisely that might work.111 As she suggests later, the public assignment of compensation alone would provide a guide to the proper interpretation of the body as victim,112 and so it is unclear to me why additional money would be needed to dispel the stigma of criminality. As I argued earlier in this chapter, it seems more likely that the additional bot recognized the stigma and attempted to compensate the injured person for it, but did not dispel it in any meaningful way.

Moreover, Richards claims that the personal injury tariffs served to address stigma in another way. She argues that the arbitration process involved the medical examiner inspecting the wounded person’s unclothed body in the presence of the arbitrator, the accused, and perhaps the two parties’ friends or kinsmen, in order to establish the precise nature of the injury.113 This inspection would serve “as a means of protection for victims,” since “the presence of witnesses, along with the procedure itself, insures that the nature of the wounding is known publicly and is understood not to result from officially-sanctioned punishment.”114 In other words, these witnesses’ oral

109 Ibid., 113. 110 Ibid., 111. 111 Ibid. 112 Ibid., 114. 113 Ibid., 104. 114 Ibid., 114.

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testimony would serve to preclude the possibility of stigma, which again suggests that the

Anglo-Saxons would have read certain impairments and deformities as marks of criminality.

Consequently, at least from Alfred’s reign onwards, it seems likely that unhal people who had the types of impairments associated with juridical mutilation would have faced some stigma of criminality. Unfortunately, as Metzler remarks, the historical record is reticent on this subject,115 and the law-codes are our only real witness to this phenomenon in the Anglo-Saxon period. Metzler provides examples from the post- conquest period of people obtaining official letters and certificates that attested to the non-judicial cause of their mutilation, which suggests that they would have been stigmatized as criminals and needed to avert that possibility.116 To my knowledge, no similar material exists from the Anglo-Saxon period to corroborate the impression given by the law-codes, yet, by themselves, the laws strongly suggest that people with certain forms of unhælu would have been stigmatized as criminals. Consequently, juridical mutilation would have had profound implications for the social identity and lived experience of many unhal people.

Legal Status of Unhal People

While the laws indirectly affected some unhal people’s social status, other people’s unhælu determined their legal status. As Lee remarks, Alfred’s law-code contains a

115 Metzler, Social History, 29. 116 Ibid., 30-32.

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stipulation that makes it “seem that people with physical impairments were disabled from attaining full adult status in Anglo-Saxon England.”117 The stipulation reads:

Gif mon sie dumb oððe deaf geboren, þæt he ne mæge synna onsecggan ne geandettan, bete se fæder his misdæda.118

(If a person is born dumb or deaf, so that he may neither deny nor confess his sins, let his father make bot for his misdeeds.)

This law makes the father legally responsible for any crimes that his deaf or dumb son might commit, which would put an adult son in the same position as a minor. The law- codes suggest that the Anglo-Saxons considered male youths to be adults at the age of ten or, later in the period, twelve; before that, they seemed to bear no legal culpability for their crimes.119 Likewise, the responsibility for deaf or dumb adults’ crimes were shifted onto their father, and they carried no personal responsibility for them. In this way, their physical impairment may be viewed as a disability in the modern sense, as it would have deprived them of access to an important social arena.120

Although these parallels are suggestive, they do not necessarily imply that people with physical impairments were disabled from full adult status. Firstly, the law only applies to people who are born deaf or dumb. It is worth noting that these impairments often might have been coupled together in the Anglo-Saxon period, since people who could not hear also would not have been able to communicate in any effective way, given

117 Lee, “Disease and Disability,” 162. 118 Liebermann, 1:58. Af 14. 119 Ine claims that a youth of ten may be held responsible for a theft. Liebermann, 92. Ine 7, 2. Later, Æþelstan states that no thief may be spared, unless he is under twelve years of age, which suggests that he is not considered culpable for his crimes until that point. Liebermann, 150. II As. Inscr. 1. 120 Cf. Metzler, “Reflections on Disability,” 24.

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the absence of widespread literacy or a developed sign-language, both within and outside of the legal context. Consequently, the law is designed to address a situation in which a person has no real ability to communicate, and therefore is unable to confess or deny his participation in a criminal act. Irrespective of the extent to which the Anglo-Saxon legal system relied upon oral or written sources,121 Anglo-Saxon trials themselves would have involved a great deal of oral communication, as they would have required the accused to speak on his innocence or guilt, provide testimony about what happened, and undergo interrogation.122 People who were unable to hear or speak would not have been able to participate in this process. As a result, the law seems designed to protect deaf and dumb people from unfair trials, and yet also allow their accusers to pursue justice through the law so that they did not resort to extra-legal violence. The father, then, would have served as a proxy who could be trusted to have the unhal person’s best interests in mind. Thus, the law addresses a specific problematic situation, and so should not be taken as a general indication of the social status of unhal people.

Nonetheless, even if the law is primarily a pragmatic response to a legal problem, it raises the question of whether the Anglo-Saxons placed deaf and dumb people in a special category, and considered them to be more child-like, developmentally delayed, or simply outside of language, which was a mark of reason. Historical precedent exists for such a category. Martha Rose has shown that, in the Greco-Roman world, “[d]eafness ... was perceived not as a physical handicap, but as an impairment of reasoning and basic

121 See footnote one in this chapter. 122 For a thorough overview of the judicial process and procedure, see Oliver, Body Legal, 26-71.

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intelligence.”123 Such a belief, however, does not seem to be attested in Anglo-Saxon

England. On the contrary, the hagiographies depict deaf and dumb people who are in control of all their cognitive faculties, negotiate long journeys to visit the saints’ shrines, and cooperate with other unhal people, as we shall explore in the next chapter.

Bot Reconsidered

As I conclude my examination of the law-codes, I wish to return to the question that I raised at the beginning of Chapter Three, where I asked what, if any, relationship existed between the compensatory bot that the laws provided and the curative bot that the leeches offered. As I discussed, the Anglo-Saxons referred to both curative remedies and compensatory fines as bot, which may suggest that they believed that the two interventions had important commonalities, or that they complemented each other as responses to unhælu. As Metzler notes, Oliver makes an interesting observation about the relationship between curative and legal texts in general.124 Specifically, Oliver remarks:

[N]o legal collocations include medical treatises. Several medieval treatises – such as the Anglo-Saxon Lacnunga or the texts known as Bald’s Leechbook – suggest healing techniques for various illnesses which must be cured by a specialist in herbal medication. The laws, however, consider injuries which can only be cured by surgical intervention. While the medical treatises address infection and cure, the legal stipulations pertain to fractures of the skeletal system and the legal responsibility for inflicting such damage. The first cases involve disability caused by nature; the second wounds caused by human aggression. The manuscript record indicates that these two approaches towards physical infirmity shared a temporal rhetorical space, but did not overlap in contemporary written codices.125

123 Martha L. Rose, The Staff of Oedipus: Transforming Disability in Ancient Greece (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003), 66. 124 Metzler, “Reflections on Disability,” 27. 125 Oliver, “Body Legal,” 24-25.

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Oliver’s scheme is a slight oversimplification. For one, the curative corpus includes surgical techniques for conditions such as harelips and gangrenous limbs, and provides remedies for wounds and amputations caused by human aggression or negligence. For another, the laws cover injuries that clearly cannot be cured by any means, such as dismemberment and castration. They also do not offer a response to all forms of human aggression, such as warfare. Oliver is correct, however, in observing that the curative corpus primarily concerns itself with illnesses and impairments caused by non-human forces, while the legal corpus addresses injuries and impairments caused by other humans. In this way, they may initially appear to be complementary systems that work together to address different types of unhælu that arise from different sources.

Such an interpretation becomes problematic, however, when we remember that the laws and the leeches had distinct goals. As I have established, the leeches sought to restore the integrity of individuals, and the laws to preserve the stability and prosperity of their broader community. Indeed, the law’s emphasis on maintaining order meant that the body itself could become bot, and be used as currency to compensate for a crime. These different aims may explain why the curative and legal texts do not overlap within codices, even though they share the same rhetorical space as responses to unhælu.

Likewise, when coupled with this separation of texts, they may suggest that the Anglo-

Saxons considered compensatory and curative bot to be fundamentally dissimilar responses to unhælu, which may not have complemented each other in any meaningful

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way.126 In this case, the shared lexeme would acknowledge that both curative remedies and legal restitution are an attempt to make good an aspect of unhælu, but would not indicate any deeper similarities between them.

Nevertheless, even if curative and compensatory bot worked as complementary interventions (which seems unlikely), they did not form a complete response to unhælu as it existed within Anglo-Saxon society. They excluded people who were born with congenital impairments or who developed permanent ones through illness, people who were injured in accidents, and people who were wounded in war. As a result, these two interventions would have done nothing to help the majority of unhal people in the community. In the next chapter, I explore the options that would have been available to the people whom curative and legal bot did and could not help, as I consider how the church and especially the cults of the saints responded to unhælu in a much more comprehensive fashion, and used unhal people to further their work.

126 This separation of legal and medical texts is not present within all of the Germanic traditions. For instance, the Old Frisian law-codes contain a version of a medical treatise about fetal development, which was used to determine the legal status of the unborn child for purposes of compensation. Marianne Elsakkers, “Her anda neylar: An Intriguing Criterion for Abortion in Old Frisian Law,” Scientiarum Historica 30 (2004): 107-54. The Anglo-Saxon corpus includes a similar treatise, but it is found in a collection of prognostics. R. M. Liuzza, Anglo-Saxon Prognostics: An Edition and Translation of Texts from London, British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius A.iii (Woodbridge: D.S.Brewer, 2010), 57.

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Chapter 5: Hagiographies

Unhal Supplicants and Unhal Saints

In the previous two chapters, I have examined how the Anglo-Saxons’ curative and legal systems responded to unhælu and attempted to make it good, and what those responses reveal about unhælu as a concept. In the process, I have established that neither the leeches nor the laws offered any assistance to people who had permanent, congenital impairments that had not arisen from criminal violence or negligence, and that were severe enough to impact their life functions. As I shall show in this chapter, such people were largely dependent upon the charity of the community and the church, which primarily took the form of economic support, but which also involved help with daily living.

While the church provided charity to unhal people, it also offered them access to another mode of healing – that is, divine healing. The cults of the saints, in particular, promised miraculous healing to the supplicants who came to their shrines, and, in turn, made their reputation off of the cures that they were able to effect. Consequently, the available accounts give the impression that unhal people were as likely to make a pilgrimage to a shrine as they were to consult a leech, and, in many cases, they would have explored both options. These healing miracles were recorded in the shrines’ record

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books, which often later became the basis of their saints’ hagiographies. For this reason, this chapter focuses on the genre of hagiography, as it examines the hagiographers’ depictions of how the church provided charity and cures to unhal people, and uses these depictions to delineate the complex relationship between the saints and the unhal people that developed a result of these ecclesiastical interventions.

Yet, as I examine the hagiographies, I also wish to move beyond the limiting concept of intervention, which presupposes that unhælu is only a deviant state that needs correction. Instead, I wish to consider unhælu in the terms advocated by the social model of disability – that is, not as a condition requiring remediation, but as a way of living in a society that is almost inevitably structured with abled people in mind.1 Hagiography provides us with a rare opportunity to conduct this sort of investigation, since it contains an unusual amount of sociological information about the lives of common people. Irina

Metzler has shown that saints’ lives are a rich source for the lived experiences of people with impairments in the Middle Ages, since they provide a wealth of incidental detail about the unhal supplicants who visit the saints’ shrines, in order to emphasize the power of the saints by showing the difference that they make in the lives of the faithful.2

Unfortunately for our understanding of the lives of unhal people, the Anglo-Saxons seem to have placed less importance on the collection of miracle stories than the Anglo-

Normans did, with the result that we have relatively few compilations of this sort, and

1 For instance, see Rob Imrie’s notion of design apartheid. “Oppression, Disability, and Access in the Built Environment,” in The Disability Reader: Social Science Perspectives, ed. Tom Shakespeare (London: Cassell, 1998), 129-46. 2 Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe, 153-54.

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they date from early and late within the period.3 We have no extant collections of healing miracles dating from between 800-950 CE, when the Viking invasions were at their peak and monasteries were being destroyed across the island.4 Nonetheless, the limited number of these collections that we have available to us still contain valuable material about how people acquired impairments, how they lived with and managed them, how they were treated by their communities and each other, and how they went about seeking the help of the saints. This type of material is found in almost no other text in the corpus, and certainly not in such a direct, narrative form.

At this point, however, I need to address a potential objection. That is, hagiography is a highly conventional and stylized genre, which is more concerned with representing the saints in a way that would have been appealing to readers. These readers would have largely been the same elites who produced them, and who would have used them to affirm their own identity as the saint’s clientes and, more often, to respond in an authoritative manner to competition from other cults. Because these shrines were in competition with each other for patrons and foot traffic, they would have wanted their saints to be as broadly appealing as possible. The more appealing they could make their patron saint and his or her miracles, the more revenue they would receive. Consequently, as Rachel Anderson expresses it, “hagiographical narrative often seems suspended in a timeless medium: historical and personal particularities of saints tend to be smoothed

3 Rachel Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate: Miracle Stories and Miracle Collecting in High Medieval England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 47-49. 4 Ibid., 47.

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away in an effort to render the appeal of a saint as ecumenical as possible.”5 For this reason, we should be careful not to presuppose that any of the narratives offer us unvarnished historical facts.

Even so, I would suggest that the Anglo-Saxon compilers of the miracle narratives would have had a particular interest in preserving facts in a somewhat accurate manner, given how people were recognized as saints within Anglo-Saxon England.

During the early Middle Ages, canonization was an informal process that happened at the local level, and depended largely on public acclaim, or on royal or ecclesiastical recommendations.6 The diocesan church simply would have added the new saint to the local catalog of saints, and thereby permitted Christians to venerate him or her.7

Consequently, the saints’ canonization was a product of their popular appeal, and, in turn, their appeal was largely a result of their miracles. As Michael Lapidge explains:

The essential criterion for the creation of a new saint was the efficacy of his relics. If a man or woman were known to have lived a holy life (or better perhaps: not to have lived an evil life), and, after death, to have accomplished miraculous cures through his relics, the saint could be received straightaway into the liturgical observance of the local church which first recognized the efficacy.8

5 Rachel Anderson, “Saints’ Legends,” in A History of Old English Literature, ed. R. D. Fulk and Christopher M. Cain (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), 134. 6 André Vauchez, La Sainteté en occident aux derniers siècles du moyen âge d’après les procès de canonisation et les documents hagiographiques (Rome: École française de Rome, 1981), 13-67. 7 Ibid., 13-67. 8 Michael Lapidge, “The Saintly Life in Anglo-Saxon England,” in The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature, ed. Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2013), 253.

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If a saint’s recognition depended primarily on the miracles that his or her relics performed, the shrines would have a vested interest in recording specific and accurate details of the people healed, in order to sustain a reputation for authenticity.

Moreover, the hagiographies would have little reason to provide a falsified depiction of the lives of unhal people. They might have exaggerated their desperation and dependence in order to magnify the glory of the saint who healed them, and advertise his or her transformative power to potential supplicants. Yet, they could not have departed too far from the reality of unhælu that the Anglo-Saxons observed. If they were too extreme, people might have doubted their validity, or wondered about the applicability of the saint’s miracles to their own lives, neither of which the shrine would have desired. As a result, we can conclude that the hagiographies offer a reasonably realistic account of unhal people’s lives, and so permit us to reconstruct their lived experiences.

Nevertheless, the hagiographies’ representation and use of unhælu become more complex when we factor in Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s observation that the saints may be infirm, and that their bodily infirmity may function as a marker of their sanctity.9 The saints’ unhælu has many sources: it may come as a trial from God or the Devil, it may be a consequence of torture or martyrdom, or it may be self-inflicted to preserve more valued traits such as virginity. Whatever its source, it complicates the hagiographies’ depiction of unhælu, as it means that they simultaneously construct impairment as an undesirable impediment that people should wish to cure and as a desirable marker of

9 Jeffrey J. Cohen, Medieval Identity Machines, Medieval Cultures 25 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), xix-xx.

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holiness that should be welcomed. As a result, I wish to examine the vitae of the saints themselves in order to better understand this multifaceted construction of unhælu.

This focus on the lives of unhal people and unhal saints has implications for my methodology in this chapter. Since I need to attend to the details of the hagiographies to reconstruct these lives, I shall be examining a deliberately restricted selection of texts, and providing close readings of them. As discussed above, the Anglo-Saxon miracle collections come from either the extreme beginning or the end of the period, and so it makes sense to select a representative from each stage in order to achieve greater coverage. From the earlier period, I will primarily discuss Bede’s eighth-century Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (hereafter, EH). Bede was particularly prolific in composing hagiographical texts, and the EH, which combines history and hagiography, offers the fullest and most diverse set of miracle narratives of all his works. Moreover, the Anglo-Saxons appear to have held the EH in particularly high esteem, since the work was translated into Old English, perhaps under the auspices of the Alfredian translation project.10 From the later period, I will work with Lantfred of Winchester’s tenth-century

Translatio et miracula S. Swithuni (hereafter, Translatio), which was briefly introduced in the previous chapter. As Rachel Koopmans discusses, Lantfred’s Translatio is the

“only ... miracle collection surviving from late Saxon England that fully justifies the term,” as its forty chapters are almost all concerned with Swithun’s miracles, some of

10 Although Ælfric attributes the Old English Bede to Alfred, scholars agree that Alfred himself could not have translated the text, because it is written in the Mercian dialect. Godden, “Did King Alfred?,” 3. Nonetheless, that does not preclude him from being involved in its production in a more indirect fashion, perhaps as the person who commissioned it.

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which Lantfred claims to have witnessed.11 It “stands alone in giving us a wealth of specifics about individual supplicants and their miracles.”12 Lantfred’s work also seems to have been much admired, as Wulfstan of Winchester versified the entire collection, and Ælfric produced a Latin synopsis of it and then translated that synopsis into Old

English.13 Consequently, Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica and Lantfred’s Translatio emerge as the best candidates for examining the lives of unhal people and the church’s multiple responses to unhælu.

The System of Charity as a Response to Unhælu

Before I discuss these specific texts, however, I wish to address the Anglo-Saxons’ provision of charity towards unhal people in a more general fashion. Henri-Jacques

Stiker suggests that, throughout the Middle Ages, “the disabled person” was “someone to stimulate charity” through the giving of alms that served as tangible proof of the donor’s

Christian love or compassion.14 As he argues, disabled people were viewed as a “part of creation,” and their disability was not “intrinsically associated with sin, fault, culpability, or with the anger of the gods, or with non-integratable difference,” as it might have been in earlier periods.15 As previous chapters have established, the Anglo-Saxons shared those views: they seem to have considered even the monstrous births and races part of

God’s creation, and, for the most part, did not hold people responsible for their unhælu,

11 Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, 49. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. 14 Henri-Jacques Stiker, A History of Disability, trans. William Sayers (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1999), 77. 15 Ibid.

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but considered them to be victims of human and non-human assaults. (Juridical mutilation and its associated stigma are, of course, notable exceptions.) Consequently,

Stiker argues that disability constituted “a difference to be loved, helped, aided, furthered.”16

The Economic Status of Unhal People

Stiker’s analysis is reductive, as it collapses all disabled people into one monolithic group, and suggests that all of them would have required charity, which is an oversimplification of the situation throughout the Middle Ages. Certainly, as Metzler discusses, many poor people would have had physical impairments of some kind, although not all physically impaired people would necessarily have been poor.17 Within the Anglo-Saxon period, archaeological evidence supports the impoverished status of people who had forms of unhælu that affected their ability to work. Christina Lee discusses the specific cases of a twenty-year old man missing his left arm and shoulder at

Kingsworthy, and a middle-aged woman with a severe malformation of the shoulder at

Butler’s Field, both of whom were buried with nothing in their graves.18 Lee argues that the “lack of grave goods may indicate that these people owned nothing, or that, at least in death, their lives amounted to nothing,” since such goods serve as a kind of “biography” of the dead person.19 In other words, they had no property or particular status within the community, and so were not memorialized in any specific way. Nonetheless, as she is

16 Ibid. 17 Metzler, Social History, 154. 18 Lee, “Disability,” 26. 19 Ibid.

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careful to note, their lack of grave goods might equally have been a result of their poverty, their impairment, or perhaps even both.20 It is important to stress that these people’s poverty did not necessarily proceed from their impairments, although their unhælu would have made it harder for them to work, and thereby improve their economic situation.

If people were already part of the affluent elite, their unhælu would not necessarily have compromised their wealth or their status. Lee presents the case of a woman who had been deaf in at least one ear as the result of a congenital condition, and who was buried with a box of an unspecific material and copper alloy vessels – that is, lavish grave goods that indicate her elite status.21 If she were deaf in only one ear, her relatively minor impairment would not have affected her ability to fulfill her social role, and she would have been able to lead a life that was not much different from that of other women of her class. Her partial deafness certainly would not have affected her ability to reproduce, which would have been her most important social function. Yet, even if she were deaf in both ears, her kin-group would have had the resources to care for her, and provide a comfortable lifestyle for her. She would have been their responsibility, in much the same way that the law made a deaf or mute person his father’s responsibility. Either way, this woman’s impairment would not have had placed her among the ranks of the poor, and she would not have been dependent upon her community’s charity. In short, a person’s experience of impairment and their reliance upon the system of charity seem to

20 Ibid. 21 Ibid.

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have depended greatly on their social class. Many unhal people would have been among the poor, and their unhælu would have exacerbated their poverty; however, their unhælu alone would not have determined their social and economic position.

Indeed, it is debatable whether unhal people constituted a special group among the poor in the Anglo-Saxon period. As Metzler discusses, such a distinction was evident in the later Middle Ages, which classed people with impairments that made them unable to work as “the worthy poor” and set them in contradistinction to abled people who refused to work.22 It was much less apparent in the earlier period, which tended to class unhal people among other debiles, such as the widowed, the orphaned, the old, and the otherwise needy.23 In other words, the Anglo-Saxons seem to have considered unhal people to be worthy recipients of charity, but not necessarily more worthy than other needy groups.

For the most part, this charity took the form of almsgiving, which was carried out both privately by individuals and institutionally by the church.24 As Rory Naismith notes, the aim of almsgiving was always to support the poor, and not to change their status.25

Generally, the sums of money given to the poor were small, and were often given out in conjunction with parcels of food, which signals that they were intended for subsistence and not much more.26 Moreover, the “spiritual benefits to the donor of alms were every bit as important as the material assistance received by the destitute,”27 and were stressed

22 Metzler, Social History, 162-63, 165-69. 23 Ibid., 156. For a discussion of debiles, see Chapter One of this dissertation. 24 Metzler, Social History, 155. 25 Naismith, Money and Power, 283. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid.

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even more within the literature of the Anglo-Saxon period. For instance, the minor poem

Alms-giving, which is found in the Exeter Book, takes the form of a brief simile that likens almsgiving’s effect on the wounds of sin to water’s effect on fire:

Efne swa he mid wætre þone weallendan leg adwæsce, þæt he leng ne mæg blac byrnende burgum sceððan, swa he mid ælmessan ealle toscufeð synna wunde, sawla lacnað.28

(Just as he may quench the raging flame with water, so that it, bright [and] burning, can no longer damage the city, so he [i.e. the alms-giver] removes all the wounds of sin, treats the soul, with alms.)

This poem suggests that the Anglo-Saxons sought to improve the state of their own souls through supporting impoverished people in their community, which suggests that they had a distinct notion of charity. According to Eric Gerald Stanley, the Anglo-Saxons had a social conscience, but it differed in essentials from the kind that is evident in present- day charitable efforts, some of which take as their starting point the beneficiary’s right to social security.29 Instead, the Anglo-Saxons engaged in charity because they believed it was beneficial for their souls, and an effective means to ensure their salvation.30 As

Stanley expresses it, “[t]hey were zealous in laying up treasure in heaven for themselves, and they hoped to do so by giving worldly treasure to those in need.”31

28 Alms-giving 5-9 (ASPR 3, 223). 29 Eric Gerald Stanley, “Did the Anglo-Saxons Have a Social Conscience Like Us?,” Anglia 121, no. 2 (April 2007): 264. Stanley considers a wide range of sources, including the vernacular lexicon, multiple homilies, the Peterborough Chronicle, the OE Boethius, etc. 30 Ibid., 238-64. 31 Ibid., 264.

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This conception of charity sets up an unusual relationship between the poor and their benefactors. That is, while the poor depended on their benefactors for survival in this world, their benefactors also depended on the poor for salvation in the next world. In short, the two groups existed in a kind of symbiosis. For the poor who included unhal people in their numbers, this symbiosis means that they would have been viewed as performing a vital social role, since they enabled the work of salvation. As Christina Lee remarks, they would have been perceived as catalysts of all kinds of good and instruments of virtue.32 Yet, it also meant that the community would have had very little incentive to improve the economic and social situation of destitute people in any substantial fashion, since, without the poor, almsgiving would no longer be possible. In the absence of a sense that everyone deserves basic social security, people would not have felt that it was necessary to give the poor more than they required to survive, hence the small sums of money and the parcels of food. Consequently, when we think of charity as an intervention from which certain unhal people would have benefited, we need to bear in mind that they usually would have received very little money from their benefactors, which would have been enough for subsistence but not much else. It would not have been comparable to any of the present-day forms of welfare in the United States.

Moreover, the system of charity was not always consistent. In some cases, people were extremely generous and supported unhal community members in ways that went beyond simple subsistence. In others, though, they failed to provide them with the economic and social assistance that they needed, and abandoned them in precarious

32 Lee, “Disability,” 35.

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situations. In what follows, therefore, I examine the lives of unhal people, as depicted in

Bede’s EH and Lantfred’s Translatio, in order to demonstrate the range of assistance that they received from their communities, and from the church and its saints. I focus on both charity and cure as the two types of intervention that these hagiographies present.

Bede’s Depiction of the Lives of Unhal People in the EH

In the EH, Bede presents the history of England from Caesar’s conquest in 55 BCE through to his present in about 731 CE, with a particular focus on the development of

English Christianity. As part of that focus, he narrates the lives of the saints who fostered

Christianity on the island, and the miracles that they worked, which frequently involved healing various forms of unhælu. For this reason, Bede’s EH is a rich source of material about the unhal people who seek healing from these saints. In particular, Bede’s account of the miracles of Saint John of Beverley, Bishop of York, offers a great deal of specific detail about how unhal people lived, and were treated by their community, perhaps because of his proximity to the source. Unusually, Bede had first-hand knowledge of

John of Beverley, since, while John still had been bishop of Hexham, he had ordained

Bede first as a deacon and later as a priest.33 Bede completed his EH only ten years after

John’s death, and so was looking back at events in the fairly recent past.34 He mentions several eye-witnesses to John’s deeds who acted as his sources for some of the accounts:

Berhthun, John’s deacon at Hexham who became abbot of the monastery the bishop

33 Susan Wilson, The Life and After-Life of St John of Beverley: The Evolution of the Cult of an Anglo- Saxon Saint (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003), 46. 34 Ibid., 46.

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founded; and Herebald, a favored member of John’s household who became abbot of a monastery on the banks of the Tyne. This gesture suggests that Bede believed that it was important to establish the truthfulness of his narrative, and with presenting a version of events that people would find credible. As Alan Thacker remarks, Bede was concerned with the accurate recording of events, and “was fastidious in his endeavour to assess his sources and to represent accurate and truthful information,” although his representation of events was colored by his agenda as a Christian scholar and exegete.35 Consequently, given Bede’s proximity to the events and his reputation for accuracy, we can work from the assumption that his account of John of Beverley offers a reliable impression of what the lives of people with unhælu would have been like.

The first story Bede relates about John is perhaps the most fascinating. In it, John heals a youth who is unable to speak, and whose bald scalp is covered with scabs and scales from a skin disease.36 This youth appears to be entirely dependent upon John for support: he visits John to receive alms, and, later, lives on his property in a hut that the bishop has constructed for him during Lent.37 Bede explains that John’s Lenten custom was to find “pauperem aliquem maiore infirmitate uel inopia grauatum” (some poor person who was either seriously infirm or in dire want), so that he could spend that time with the bishop and his followers, and benefit from their charity.38 Lent, in general, was a time of almsgiving in the Anglo-Saxon church, but John far exceeds this custom by

35 Alan Thacker, “Bede and History,” in The Cambridge Companion to Bede, ed. Scott DeGregorio (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 188. 36 Bede, EH 5.2 (456-57). 37 Bede, EH 5.2 (456-59). 38 Bede, EH 5.2 (456-57; trans. Latham, 268).

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taking in the unhal man, having a shelter built for him, and providing him with a daily allowance. John’s generosity functions as a marker of his sanctity within the story, and so it suggests that, while some unhal people would have received charity of this magnitude, it would have been rare.

Indeed, if we read against the grain of the narrative, a much bleaker picture emerges of the lives of certain unhal people. As I have established, John removes the youth from the village where he is living and builds a dwelling for him on the church’s property. We are also told that the youth is pauper “poor, destitute,” which means that he lacks the financial support of his kin-group or his community.39 Taken together, these details strongly suggest that the community has failed to care for this youth, and has perhaps made him into a pariah because of his absence of speech and his skin condition.

Interestingly, even John houses the youth in a separate hut on his land, which seems to preserve that extant division. He seems prepared to allow the youth to live on his land, but not take him into his household, as we might expect from his desire to have a sick or needy person with him during Lent. By way of contrast, as I discuss below, he offers the youth a place within his household after he is cured.40 As a result, the narrative establishes a persistent separation between the unhal youth and the people with whom he lives.

This separation may be the result of concerns about contagion, rather than a stigma attached to unhælu in general. The youth has a highly visible skin condition, and

39 Bede, EH 5.2 (458-59). 40 Ibid.

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the people around him may have been afraid that he would infect them, if they came into contact with him. In particular, they may have been worried about leprosy, which was present (if not prevalent) in seventh-century England, and which would have been a fear prompted by multiple skin conditions, given the absence of precise diagnostic techniques.

As Carole Rawcliffe notes of the later Anglo-Saxon and post-Conquest period, “[m]ost of the presumed lepers were probably disfigured by scorbutic sores and skin diseases such as scabies, erysipelas, psoriasis and eczema; and without proper care would have displayed distressing – if often treatable – symptoms.”41 Consequently, the village’s and the saint’s segregation of the youth may be a result of a specific stigma surrounding supposed leprosy, which would be justifiable in a situation where it was both incurable by available means and contagious.

Yet, this interpretation becomes more complex when we consider that archaeological evidence suggests that lepers in the seventh century did not necessarily face segregation and marginalization. Lee discusses the case of a young woman buried at the cemetery of Barrington, Edix Hill, Cambridgeshire (dated to 500-650 CE), whose skeleton shows obvious signs of leprosy, but who was given a lavish bed burial.42 As Lee remarks, the care afforded this girl and the wealth of her burial is “indicative of a much more inclusive attitude towards disease in early Anglo-Saxon England.”43 As this

41 Carole Rawcliffe, “Medical Practice and Theory,” in A Social History of England, 900-1200, ed. Julia Crick and Elisabeth van Houts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 72-73. 42 Christina Lee, “Changing Faces: Leprosy in Anglo-Saxon England,” in Conversion and Colonization in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Catherine E. Karkov and Nicholas Howe (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2006), 66 43 Christina Lee, “Forever Young: Child Burial in Anglo-Saxon England,” in Youth and Age in the Medieval North, ed. Shannon Lewis-Simpson (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 30.

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evidence suggests, the early Anglo-Saxons did not necessarily stigmatize and marginalize lepers; rather, their treatment of them might have depended upon their social class.

Wealthy lepers who were part of the elite might have enjoyed a degree of inclusion and care that poor lepers did not. In other words, the youth’s social status may be militating against him more than his actual unhælu, and may make John’s charity even more exceptional.

Nonetheless, John does not only provide charity to the youth, but also cures him.

On the second Sunday of Lent, the bishop has the youth come to him. John asks him to show his tongue to him, and then makes the sign of the cross over it. He then commands him to say some word, such as gae “yes.” The youth immediately says the word, after which the bishop has him repeat phonemes, syllables, words and sentences.44 As M. L.

Cameron notes, this treatment may begin with a blessing, but, after that, it seems remarkably similar to modern speech therapy.45 Even more interestingly, after restoring speech to the youth, John sends him to a physician to have his scurfy head treated, with the result that he grows a beautiful head of curly hair. He is not directly involved in curing the skin condition, as we might expect from a saint. Consequently, John’s healing of the youth seems to involve a combination of divine intervention and human medicine.

This two-pronged approach is similar to the multiplicity of healing methods found in the curative corpus, and confirms that the Anglo-Saxons made use of all the options available to them, yet it is strange that it is being employed by a saint who has access to divine

44 Bede, EH 5.2 (458-59). Colgrave and Mynors’ edition states that John has the youth say gae, but, in the Anglo-Saxon context, it was more likely he had him say gæ. 45 Cameron, Anglo-Saxon Medicine, 27.

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healing and who uses it to cure the youth’s more severe impairment. It is difficult to know what is suggested by this detail, especially in a work that aims to demonstrate

God’s power. It may be implying that certain conditions are more properly cured by humans than by God, or that healing also needs to take place within the human community that has marginalized the youth in order to ensure his reintegration into it.

Once the youth is healed, he talks for an entire day and night, revealing the secrets of his thoughts and wishes to the people around him.46 This response offers insight into his experience of unhælu. Before he is cured, he is in a situation where he simply cannot communicate in the absence of speech. He has no way of making his thoughts and wishes known, and so he lacks the ability to exercise his agency in any meaningful way. Indeed,

Bede narrates how the bishop ordered the youth brought to him (“adduci praecipit episcopus”), which suggests the extent to which he was subject to other people’s wishes, however kind and benevolent.47 The youth’s outpouring of words reveals his earlier frustration and sense of constraint, and shows his desire to order his life for himself.

Significantly, perhaps, the narrative ends with him making a choice. Bede explains that he chooses to return to his village, although, as mentioned above, the bishop offers him a place in his household.48 This conclusion seems to support the interpretation that he was previously made unwelcome in his community, and that he was stigmatized and excluded in some way. He lives with the bishop not out of desire, but out of a lack of other

46 Bede, EH 5.2 (458-59). 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid.

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alternatives. He ultimately desires integration in his community, and is able to achieve it after he is healed.

The two stories following John’s healing of the mute youth serve as a contrast to it, in that we have unhal people who receive the necessary support from their families or their broader communities. In the first story, John heals the daughter of Abbess Hereburh, who seems to have followed her mother into the convent.49 The daughter, Cwenburh, has been bled on an inappropriate day of the lunar cycle, and her arm has become swollen to the point where the pain has placed her life in jeopardy.50 Hereburh is distressed by her daughter’s condition, as she loves her greatly and also plans to make her abbess after her.

She entreats John to heal her, although the bishop initially has reservations about whether he will be successful and has to be convinced by the abbess.51 In this case, Hereburh’s care for her daughter is shown by her persistence in persuading John to heal her. It is her support as much as the saint’s intervention that brings about Cwenburh’s cure. Likewise, in the second story, John heals Puch’s wife, who has been suffering for forty days with a condition that has kept her confined to bed.52 According to Bede’s source Berhthun, people have not been able to carry her out of her room for three weeks.53 Consequently, we can infer that she would have required a great deal of care, both to give her

49 Bede, EH 5.2 (460-61). 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid. 52 Bede, EH 5.2 (462-63). Significantly, forty days and forty nights, and forty years years are the traditional periods for trials and hardship in the Bible. To cite just a few of many examples; Noah’s flood lasted forty days and nights (Genesis 7:12); Moses spent forty years in the desert (Acts 7:30); Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years (Numbers 14:33-34); Jesus was tempted for forty days and nights (Matthew 4:2); and Jesus remained on earth for forty days after the resurrection (Acts 1:3). 53 Ibid.

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nourishment and deal with her bodily functions. She seems to have been provided that care, either by the kin-group or the broader community. As is the case with Hereburh,

Puch has to convince John to have dinner at his house and give him his blessing,54 which again makes his support an important factor in his wife’s cure. In both cases, John demonstrates an odd reluctance to cure these unhal people, and is dilatory in bringing healing to them. His behavior is perhaps best explained as a sign of his humility, his own lack of pride and surety in his sanctity.

When we compare these two individuals with the youth who has a speech impediment, we may notice some points of difference that deserve further exploration.

Firstly, Cwenburh and Puch’s wife appear to be members of the elite. Puch is a thegn, which means that he and his kin would have a great deal of temporal wealth and power.

Likewise, Hereburh is an abbess, which places her high up in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and also suggests that she comes from a noble or even royal background.55 By way of contrast, the mute youth seems to be part of the poor and the powerless, and so has no real resources on which he can draw. Once again, wealth appears to insulate people from the worst consequences of profound unhælu.

Secondly, Cwenburh and Puch’s wife are both women, and so hold a different and often more dependent position in Anglo-Saxon society.56 I am not arguing that their sex

54 Ibid. 55 Katrinette Bodarwé, “Abbesses,” in Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia, ed. Margaret C. Schaus (New York: Routledge, 2006), 2. 56 The critical debate around the position of women in Anglo-Saxon society is too complex to be summarized in a footnote, and interested readers should consult the wide range of texts on the subject. In recent years, see Diana Wood, ed., Women and Religion in Medieval England (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2003); Lisa M. Bitel, Women in Early Medieval Europe, 400-1100 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); and Clare A. Lees and Gillian R. Overing, Double Agents: Women and Clerical Culture in

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is the reason why they receive support and the mute man does not, but rather that it may have altered their experience of unhælu. Significantly, both narratives emphasize the women’s social roles, in that, after they are healed, they offer their visitors a drink.

Cwenburh asks for a drink to be brought to her and Berhthun, and Puch’s wife rises from her bed and serves her guests in imitation of Peter’s mother-in-law.57 Apostolic parallels aside, Anglo-Saxon women seem to have been responsible for preparing and dispensing drink, and so the women resume their feminine duties on being cured, duties which involve them in serving men.58 Thus, Bede seems to be marking off the women as a separate group, and emphasizing their different social position. This tendency may be true of the EH in general. Stephanie Hollis argues that Bede’s hagiography “represents a form of social actualization of the view that women constitute a separate and inferior class.”59 If women were a dependent and lesser group in Anglo-Saxon England, their dependence in unhælu might have been less remarkable and less socially damaging, even if it prevented them from carrying out their roles. It would not have brought about an alteration in their social identity in the same way as it might have for adult freemen. This

Anglo-Saxon England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001). I am most convinced by Barbara Yorke’s argument that Anglo-Saxon women tended to be dependent upon their male kinsmen, but that, under the right circumstances, they could become “social men,” and wield a great deal of power and influence. Nunneries and the Anglo-Saxon Royal Houses (New York: Continuum Books, 2003), 6. Likewise, Yorke suggests that men could become “social women,” particularly if age or unhælu rendered them dependent. Ibid. 57 Bede, EH 5.2 (460-65). 58 C. J. Arnold notes that some Anglo-Saxon women’s graves contained perforated spoons, which appear to have symbolized their role in preparing, controlling the supply of, and serving drink. An Archaeology of the Early Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms (New York: Routledge, 1997), 94. 59 Stephanie Hollis, Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church: Sharing a Common Fate (London: Boydell & Brewer, 1992), 8.

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argument may apply more to Puch’s wife than Cwenburh, who, after all, is being groomed to become a future abbess and therefore to wield almost masculine authority.

Another miracle that John performs offers a different perspective on the issue of dependence. Bede relates how John heals a young servant, perhaps a slave, who works for a man called Addi.60 In similar fashion to Puch’s wife, this boy has become ill and lost the use of his limbs, and Addi’s household seems to be caring for him, although their lack of optimism is revealed by the fact that they have already built a coffin for him.61

Their care for him may arise from affection for him, or, if he were a slave, a desire to protect a potentially valuable investment. Although male, he is in a similar social position to the women, on account of his age and his servitude. Consequently, he is doubly within the dependent category on account of his youth and his social status, and so has less prestige to lose from being unhal as well.

It may be useful to map these social positions on a spectrum in order to illustrate them:

Dependent Independent ------Slaves Poor unhal men Elite unhal men Adult freemen Children Freewomen Elite freewomen Poor unhal freewomen Elite unhal freewomen

Figure 2. Spectrum of Dependent and Independent Social Positions

60 Bede, EH 5.2 (464-65). 61 Ibid.

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Obviously, this spectrum presents a simplified model of the social situation, and the positions of the groups on it are only an approximation. For the sake of conceptual clarity, I have limited the group of unhal people to those whose unhælu would noticeably impact their life-functions, and prevent them from carrying out their daily tasks – that is, the type of people whom John of Beverley cures. People with less severe forms of unhælu probably would have been in a similar position similar to their hal counterparts, although they might have faced stigma based on the Anglo-Saxons’ generally negative perception of unhælu. Moreover, in constructing my spectrum, I have conceived of dependency in the most general fashion, and so have attempted to factor in economic dependency, legal dependency, and functional dependency.62 If I separated out these three criteria and mapped them independently, I would end up with three very different spectra, but they would be less helpful for picturing the social situation in general.

Given this totalizing approach, it may be helpful to articulate the logic behind my placement of the various groups on the spectrum. Slaves were property, and so would have been entirely in the power of their masters. Children of freemen, although not property, were in almost as dependent a position, as they would have relied upon their kin-group for sustenance and for legal representation. Likewise, poor unhal freewomen needed the help of their community to live, and the help of any male relatives to exercise their legal rights.63 Poor unhal men had access to the law, but were at the mercy of their community and their church for the basics of survival. As I have established, power and

62 By functional dependency, I mean a reliance on another person to carry out basic life functions. 63 For women’s dependent position in Anglo-Saxon Law, see Bitel, Women in Early Medieval Europe, 72- 73.

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prosperity insulated people from many of the negative consequences of unhælu, and, while wealthy unhal freemen and women might have needed help to carry out their life functions, they would not have been in a very different legal or economic position to their hal equivalents. The most independent groups, then, were adult freemen and, to a lesser degree, elite adult freewomen, such as queens and abbesses, who would have wielded more power than ordinary men, and so would have achieved an almost masculine degree of autonomy.

This spectrum illustrates why a person’s social identity might have had an effect on his or her experience of unhælu. David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder assert that disability is an aspect of identity that cuts across all other social categories, and is capable of making any person into the Other.64 That is, regardless of people’s gender, class, age, sexuality, or ethnicity, they can become impaired, and their impairment by itself may affect how other people perceive and treat them, assuming that they do not conceal it. I would suggest that unhælu functioned in a similar fashion, in that anyone could have become unhal, and their unhælu would have transformed their social identity. For adult freemen such as the mute youth, their unhælu would have caused them to move from a position of independence to one of dependence, and thereby experience a profound change in status. For freewomen such as Puch’s wife, and boys (or slaves) such as Addi’s servant, it could only have caused them to become more dependent, which, given their

64 David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis: Disability and the Dependencies of Discourse (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2000), x.

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existing dependence, would have been be a far less significant shift. It would have intensified, rather than transformed, their existing social position.

Lastly, to return to our initial comparison between the mute youth and the two women, it may be significant that his unhælu is short-term and theirs is long-term. While the youth has been unable to speak since birth, Cwenburh has only recently become unhal and Puch’s wife has been in bed for just over a month.65 As a result, the women’s families and communities would not yet be experiencing the exhaustion and frustration that comes with long-term care-giving.66 They would not yet have given up hope of a cure, as evidenced by how persistently and adamantly they persuade John to help their relatives. Their support may have diminished as the years passed, if neither had died and

John had not intervened. In the present day, this type of psychological response to long- term caregiving has been termed caregiver syndrome, but it is highly debatable whether the Anglo-Saxons would have experienced it in the same way, or whether it would be operative in Puch’s wife of Cwenburh’s cases. Puch is a thegn, and so would have had servants or slaves to care for his wife. Likewise, Hereburh is an abbess, and would have had subordinate nuns to care for Cwenburh. As a result, they would not have had the burden of caring for their family members themselves. Even in cases where unhal people were not members of the elite, however, their families might not have experienced the same degree of caregiver syndrome, since they would have expected that they had to care for unhal and elderly family members, and would not have felt that they had been forced

65 Bede, EH 5.2 (460-65). 66 I am grateful to Christopher Baswell for this suggestion.

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into a role that they did not want. They might have been tired from the work of caring, frustrated at the unhal person’s lack of improvement, and depressed by any declines in their health, but they would not have not felt that their identity was compromised in the same way that people might in the present day, or have experienced the stress of trying to balance caregiving with a demanding career and other responsibilities.

Summary of People’s Experiences of Unhælu

As Bede’s account of John of Beverley indicates, unhal people in the early Anglo-Saxon period had highly variable experiences of unhælu, depending on their social class and perhaps on their type of illness or impairment. Some were integrated within their households and communities, and received diligent care from them. Others, though, were marginalized, and left destitute and desperate. This evidence suggests that people would have been largely dependent on their own resources to manage their unhælu and its consequences. The system of charity by itself would not have done very much to improve their situation.

Likewise, unhal people’s resources and their relationship with their community would have affected the range of available options that they had for carrying out daily tasks. Bede’s EH includes a number of stories that recount how unhal people develop strategies for travelling between places, usually from their home to the shrine of the saint or another sacred site. Members of the wealthy elite seem to have made use of their servants to reach their destination. Bede narrates how the blind wife of a thegn visits a tomb at Hildilid’s convent that contains multiple relics, and has her maidservants lead her

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there by hand.67 This arrangement involves complex social dynamics: the woman relies upon her servants to reach the tomb, but she has a great deal of social power over them, and so they are far more dependent upon her. It is a similar situation to a present-day disabled person paying for a caregiver, whom they can give orders and fire if they are unsatisfactory.

By way of contrast, unhal people outside of the elite would have relied on the help of people who were not in their employ, and whom they did not control. Bede recounts how people use a cart to transport a paralysed girl to the place where Oswald died, and where others have been healed.68 This story shows that people with severe mobility impairments did have options for moving from place to place, but that they generally would have been dependent upon their kin-groups and communities to exercise them. In Bede’s account, the girl reaches the tomb safely and is healed, but, as Lantfred’s

Translatio will reveal, not all unhal people had such reliable guides, or such easy journeys.

Perhaps for this reason, some unhal people trusted to their own devices, and made their way between places by themselves, sometimes with the help of primitive mobility devices. In one of Cuthbert’s miracles, Bede tells of a monk Baduthegn who has a sudden seizure and experiences paralysis on one side of his body. Baduthegn uses a staff to make his way home and then onto the shrine of Cuthbert, where he is healed.69

Obviously, Baduthegn’s mobility impairment is less severe than that of the paralyzed girl,

67 Bede, EH 4.10 (362-63). 68 Bede, EH 3.9 (242-45). 69 Bede, EH 4.31-32 (444-45).

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as it only affects one side of his body and he is still able to walk, albeit with the assistance of a prosthetic staff. As a result, he has more options for moving between places than the girl does, and is able to maintain his independence in a way that she is not. Consequently, once again, people’s experience of unhælu seems to depend both on their social class, and on the nature of their impairment.

Unhal People in Lantfred’s Translatio

Up until this point, I have considered what Bede’s EH shows us about the lives of unhal people in the early Anglo-Saxon period. Now, I would like to turn my attention to the later period, and compare the situation of unhal people in Lantfred’s Translatio.

Lantfred’s work dates to the years 972-974 CE, and was written within a few years of the translation of Swithun’s relics, at the request of the monks of the Old Minster where the saint’s relics were kept.70 Lantfred was a Frankish monk who was resident at the Old

Minster, and claims in his work that he bore witness to some of the miracles he records.71

If this claim is true, he would have been writing about events that he experienced in his very recent past. Lantfred’s hagiography focuses on the miracles that Swithun performed after his death on 2 July 863 CE and mostly after his translation on 9 July 971 CE,72 so the text is looking back at events most of which happened only a few years earlier.

Consequently, because of Lantfred’s proximity to his material, it seems likely that the

70 Lapidge, Cult of St Swithun, 218, 247. 71 Lantfred, Translatio, ch. 4 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 286-87). 72 Lapidge, Cult of St Swithun, 4.

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work offers an accurate impression of what the lives of unhal people were like during the tenth century.

Although over two hundred years separate Bede from Lantfred, the lives of unhal people do not seem to have changed much during that period. Lantfred suggests that most unhal people relied upon their kin-group and larger community for assistance in carrying out daily tasks. As in Bede’s EH, Lantfred reveals how heavily people with certain types of unhælu had to rely upon others when they needed to travel. For instance, they had to ask able-bodied people to carry them if they were unable to walk, or to act as their guides if they were unable to see. However, as already mentioned, Lantfred shows the problems inherent in this arrangement, since the abled people do not always prove themselves worthy of the trust placed in them. For instance, Lantfred tells of a blind man whose guide leaves him on the side of the road in a fit of anger:

Vir etiam degebat quidam in prouincia Anglorum que uocatur Hunum, caecus spatio septem annorum. Is dum haberet preuium ductorem (sicut oculis priuati habere solent) qui eum uel ad ecclesiam duceret uel ubicumque illi necesse foret, et deinde domum reduceret quandocumque uellet; tempore quodam iratus ductor nimium longe ab hospitio reliquit caecum.

(A certain man also lived in that region of England which is called Hunum, who had been blind for the space of seven years. This man had a guide to lead him about (as people who are deprived of eyesight are accustomed to have) who would take him either to church or to wherever he needed to go, and then would take him back home whenever he wished; but on a certain occasion the guide became exceedingly angry and abandoned the blind man far from his lodging.)73

73 Lantfred, Translatio, ch. 18 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 300-301).

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The blind man prays to God in the name of Swithun, and his eyesight is restored, allowing him to find his way home on his own. Nonetheless, the story reveals how dependent blind people would have been on their guides, and how their guides sometimes might have left them in dangerous situations. If the use of guides were as common as

Lantfred’s aside suggests, many blind people might have found themselves in this type of predicament, and not had recourse to a miraculous solution. Significantly, Lantfred does not specify why the guide abandons the blind man. He states that he is angry, but does not give the cause of his anger. It may be that blind man says or does something to offend him, or that the guide is simply tired of his demands, since he seems to be at his service whenever he needs to go anywhere.

An identical situation occurs elsewhere in the Swithun narratives. Three blind women from the Isle of Wight ask their neighbors to take them across the sea to

Swithun's shrine, only to be abandoned by them when they eventually reach England. As

Lantfred narrates:

In illis diebus tres mulieres in Vectam caecae degebant insulam; una lucem corporeis numquam conspexerat oculis, duae uero per spatium erant cecate nouem annorum. Quae dum audirent ad tumbam sancti presulis cecos illuminare et per uirtutem Domini nostri Iesu Christi infirmos quosque curare, rogauerunt cognatos earum et affines quatinus extra predictam eas ducerent insulam (quas undique undis oceani est circumsepta), unde facilius quiuissent peruenire ad locum in quo quiescebat somate Christi presul. Cumque extra insulam expositae et fluitarent absque ductore, et penitus ignorarent quid agere possent, clemens conditor creaturarum, misertus inopiae earum, contulit eis quendam uirum ductorem mutum aetate circiter uiginti annorum.

(In those days three blind women were living on the Isle of Wight; one had never seen the day-light with her own eyes, and the other two had been blind for a period of nine years. When they heard that blind people could have their sight restored and sick people of all sorts could be cured at the tomb of the holy bishop

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through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, they asked their kinsmen and neighbours to take them off the aforementioned island – which is surrounded by the waters of the ocean on all sides – whence they could more easily get to the place in which the bishop of Christ lay in the body. And when they had been set ashore on the mainland, and were wandering about without a guide, and had no idea of what to do, the merciful creator of all creatures, taking pity on their helplessness, provided them with a certain mute for a guide, a man of about twenty years of age.)74

Lantfred does not explicitly state that the women are deserted by their neighbors, yet that seems to be the strong implication. Although Lantfred has the women asking their neighbors to take them across the ocean, they seem to desire or require some further assistance from them. Lantfred emphasizes their confusion and their helplessness, which suggests that they have not made other arrangements and did not anticipate being left alone to fend for themselves. From this, we can infer that they expected their neighbors to help them once they arrived, and the neighbors reneged on their part of the deal, perhaps because they thought that providing further help would be too troublesome or time- consuming.

Given this, the conclusion to the narrative becomes significant. The women pray to God and, because of Swithun’s merit, God sends them a mute man as a guide. The four people proceed to the shrine together and are healed when they arrive. This turn of events is fascinating, as it shows unhal people helping each other and working together to achieve a common goal. Later in the narrative, we have an almost identical situation, where a blind woman and mute woman cooperate in order to get to Swithun’s shrine: the

74 Lantfred, Translatio 5 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 288-89).

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blind woman asks for directions, and the mute woman guides them.75 These two narratives raise the intriguing possibility that individuals with impairments might have had a nascent sense of community in the Anglo-Saxon period, and have supported each other in the face of hostility and indifference from their abled peers. Metzler discusses how, in the later Middle Ages, beggars, especially those who were blind or mobility impaired, formed associations that attempted to fit into the urban guild structure, and that emphasized the solidarity of its members and mutual aid in times of need.76 To my knowledge, no such formal associations existed in Anglo-Saxon England, and yet

Lantfred’s account suggests that unhal people might have informally cooperated in mutually beneficial ways.

Moreover, as is the case with Bede’s EH, Lantfred’s work shows unhal people’s frequent economic dependence upon their church and their community. To cite just one example, Lantfred tells of a young man with curvature of the spine who travels from

Somerset to Winchester to seek alms in the name of Christ.77 He is clearly destitute and desperate, and seems to lack any support from his own community.78 He makes the ninety-mile journey between Somerset and Winchester on crutches, which suggests that he has no-one to take him in a cart or by another means, and that he badly needs even the paltry sum of money he would get in alms in order to survive.

Interestingly, Lantfred reveals another reason why unhal people might have become destitute, beyond being born into the ranks of the poor, or being unable to

75 Lantfred, Translatio, ch. 21 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 304-305). 76 Metzler, Social History, 179-80. 77 Lantfred, Translatio, ch. 37 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 331-32). 78 Ibid.

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contribute physical labor to the largely agricultural economy. That is, they may have spent a great deal of money attempting to find a cure for their unhælu. Lantfred tells of a man from London who was lame in both feet, and who travelled to various shrines across

England in the hope of healing. St Augustine of Canterbury heals one of his feet, but his other remains impaired, and, as a result of his pilgrimages, he has used up almost his entire fortune.79 Interestingly, Wulfstan’s metrical version implicates the leeches who have treated the man, rather than the shrines that he has visited. Wulfstan explains that the man has summoned a number of physicians and paid out a great deal of his wealth to them, but they have all been unsuccessful in helping him.80 Between them, Lantfred and

Wulfstan seem to be targeting their two major competitors for patrons and income: shrines to other saints, and leeches. Their accounts show these competitors to be largely ineffective and, worse, actively harmful, since they compromise the man’s economic position and therefore his independence. In other words, they are advertising how

Swithun’s shrine offers superior healing to the other options.81 Nonetheless, despite this obvious bias, Lantfred’s and Wulfstan’s versions of events show two ways that unhal people might have spent a lot of money on looking for a cure. They might have spent it travelling to the shrines and giving the saints appropriate gifts, or on paying physicians to come to treat them. As I established in Chapter Three and will explore in more depth later in this chapter, the Anglo-Saxon unhal role might have demanded this sort of active and constant quest for a cure, and encouraged the expenditure that came with it.

79 Lantfred, Translatio, ch. 17 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 296-98). 80 Wulfstan, Narratio 1.17 (482-83). Wulfstan might have been influenced by Mark 5:25-29, which tells of a woman who has bled for twelve years and spent almost all her money on doctors. 81 I discuss this point in more depth later in this chapter.

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The Life of Æþelsige the Hunchbacked Cleric

In contrast to these narratives of dependence, though, Lantfred shows people with disabilities making a living for themselves or, at least, fulfilling a normative social role.

He includes the tale of a hunchbacked cleric named Æþelsige, who is severely deformed and crippled by his condition. Lantfred introduces him in these terms:

gibber quidam ab exordio natiuitatis Æþelsinus nomine commorabatur in quodam uiculo regis qui ab ipsius Aþeluuarabyrig nuncupatur incolis. Is, dum propter ingentem gibbum caput gestaret demersum ferme usque ad genuculum, Wintoniam ut adiret audiuit per somnium, ad quam dum ueniret, medicum reperiret peritissimum per cuius ualeret medicamentum recipere santitatis beneficium.

(a certain man, hump-backed from the day of his birth, named Æþelsige, lived on a certain royal estate which is called Alderbury (Wilts.) by its inhabitants. During the time when this man used to keep his head bent downwards nearly to his knee because of his great hump, he heard in a dream that he should go to Winchester, and that when he arrived there he would discover a highly-skilled physician through whose medication he could receive the benefit of sound health.)82

According to Lantfred, Æþelsige appears to have been raised in a minister at Alderbury and to have received minor orders, since the hagiographer says that he received “gradum

... clericatus” (the rank of clerical office) from the monks who raised him.83 The

82 Lantfred, Translatio, ch. 2 (266-67). 83 Ibid. As Christopher A. Jones has suggested to me, Lantfred’s description of Æþelsige’s background seems somewhat improbable. Reformed, Benedictine minsters – the type that Lantfred and Wulfstan would have recognized as authentically monastic - would have rejected a candidate such as Æþelsige on the basis of his impairment, since, as we observed with Bishop Æþelstan in Chapter One, members of the clergy could not have any physical deformities. As a result, Alderbury was probably unreformed at the time. Even then, though, it is doubtful whether an unreformed minster would have admitted Æþelsige to minor orders, or whether they would have just allowed him to live among them out of charity. More research is necessary.

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implication is that the monks take him in out of charity, since it places emphasis on the severity of Æþelsige's deformation and the extent of his suffering, and the monks’ desire for him to be able to live amongst them. Yet, it does not say that he was offered a sinecure or that his duties were necessarily different from his able-bodied peers. Lantfred refers to him frequently as a “clericus,” which suggests that the hagiographer perceives his clerical work as a part of his social identity. Lantfred does not specify precisely what his tasks would have been, but we know that the minor clerical orders in the period consisted of the ostiarius, who was the door-keeper; lector, who read from the Old

Testament prophets and the New Testament epistles; exorcista, who recited prayers to expel evil spirits; and the acolutha, who helped serve at the altar and administer the

Eucharist.84 Even with his severe hunchback, Æþelsige would be able to perform many of these duties, since they would not make strenuous physical demands of him. In particular, since he was raised as part of the minster, he presumably is literate, and so would be able to fill the office of lector.

As the story progresses, Æþelsige sees in a dream that his condition will be cured if he travels to Winchester, and leaves the estate at Alderbury. When he arrives at the town, he is taken in by a wealthy moneyer (i.e. a person who mints money) who cares for him at his own expense. This man’s attitude towards Æþelsige deserves comment.

Lantfred describes their relationship in these terms:

Quam mox ut fuerat ingressus, benignissime est susceptus a quodam trapezeta humanitus, apud quem mansit ter binis mensibus. Qui adeo prefatum dilexit

84 Michael Lapidge, “Clergy,” in The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Michael Lapidge et al., 2nd ed. (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2014), 109.

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egrum pro dilectione conditoris rerum ut, si quando iret ad conuiuium, fecisset eum deferri secum: si prope, suorum manibus seruulorum; sin autem longe, suauium aminiculus equorum, non posse asserens semet percipere cibum absque languido iocundum.

(As soon as he had entered the city, he was generously taken in by a certain moneyer in a most kindly way, with whom he remained for six months. The moneyer, as a result of his love for the creator of all things, loved the sick man in question to such an extent that, if on some occasion he were going to a banquet, he arranged to have him brought with him: if it was nearby, at the hands of his servants; if, however, far away, with the help of gentle horses, asserting that he could not consider food as delightful in the absence of the sick man.)85

It is hard to know precisely what to make of this relationship as Lantfred describes it. On the surface, the moneyer's decision to take in Æþelsige is presented explicitly as an example of his Christian piety and charity, as he reveals his love for Christ through his love for his neighbor. At the same time, though, the moneyer clearly feels genuine affection for Æþelsige. He seems to value him not only as an opportunity to live out his faith but also as a companion of sorts, as he insists on bringing him to social events.

Consequently, Lantfred presents the moneyer’s relationship with and treatment of

Æþelsige in the most positive light.

Nonetheless, from a present-day perspective, the relationship between Æþelsige and the moneyer seems considerably more problematic, because of the power difference exercised within it. The moneyer treats Æþelsige almost as a servant or a pet, expecting him to conform to his whims and entertain him. Most tellingly, the moneyer insists on

Æþelsige being present at his meals at home and carried to his banquets abroad, as he refuses to eat without him. This insistence is presented as a sign of his affection, but it

85 Lantfred, Translatio, ch. 2 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 266-67).

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also reveals that the moneyer holds all of the power in the relationship, and has a high degree of control over the other man’s life, treating him almost as a source of dinner-time entertainment. We may see here the shadow of the court jester or fool, the individual with the extraordinary body or face who is kept for the amusement of the able-bodied, although we have little evidence for this practice in Anglo-Saxon England.86 This impression is only strengthened by the moneyer’s apparent desire to display him to others, when he insists on bringing him to all of his social engagements. At this moment of the narrative, then, we may observe a return to the discourse of dependence that characterizes the depiction of unhal people elsewhere in the work.

Significantly, the text does not describe Æþelsige's feelings towards his host in any explicit way, an omission which suggests that his opinion of the nummarius is almost irrelevant, and that his role in the relationship is simply to be the passive recipient of the abled man's charity. This impression is only strengthened by the few clues about

Æþelsige's feelings towards the nummarius which we can glean from his dialogues with him. In Lantfred’s text, Æþelsige refers to the moneyer as “pater” (father) twice. 87 In

Wulfstan’s version, Æþelsige address the moneyer as “pater ... venerande” (venerable father) and “nutritor amande” (beloved provider).88 Wulfstan's choice of epithets requires

86 To my knowledge, the closest analog to a court jester is the þyle, as represented by Unferþ in Beowulf. Yet, while the þyle seems to have a jester’s license to speak freely and even insultingly, he does not appear to have had an extraordinary body, or been made physically ridiculous in any way. The Beowulf-poet does not mention Unferþ having any impairments or deformities, or being the butt of any jokes other than Beowulf’s reciprocal taunting about his inability to stop Grendel’s attacks and his fratricide, which have nothing to do with unhælu. See Norman E. Eliason, “The Þyle and Scop in Beowulf,” Speculum 38, no. 2 (April 1963): 267-84; and James L. Rosier, “Design for Treachery: The Unferth Intrigue,” PMLA 77, no. 1 (March 1962): 1-7. 87 Lantfred, Translatio, ch. 2 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 270-71). 88 Wulfstan, Narratio 1.2.298, 325 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 426-27).

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particular attention, since they imply the existence of a strongly paternalistic relationship between the two men. Æþelsige considers the moneyer as a father and a provider, which suggests that he conceives of himself as a junior and a dependent. The use of the gerundive in both epithets is equally important, indicating obligation or desert as it does.

Æþelsige is not simply saying that he venerates and loves the moneyer, but that the other man is worthy of love and veneration in general, presumably because of his charitable deeds. Consequently, it seems to be an expression not only of his personal feelings but also of a social obligation. Through these terms, then, we see Wulfstan delineating what seems to be a standard social relation at the time. That is, able-bodied people had a

Christian responsibility to show charity to unhal people, and those unhal people were meant to respond with appreciation. In other words, unhal people were meant to recognize their dependence, and be grateful to those upon whom they were dependent.

Nonetheless, Æþelsige’s identity is defined by his impairment not only in his relationship with the moneyer, but more generally within the narrative itself. Insofar as he has an inner life, it seems to be devoted to grief over and prayers for his condition.

Wulfstan, in particular, tells of the “strumosi ... preces, fudit quas corde gementi” (the hunchback's prayers, which poured from his grieving heart), which suggests a kind of obsessive, all-consuming preoccupation with his impairment.89 In the same way, both

Lantfred and Wulfstan refer to him largely by his impairment (much more often than they call him clericus), so that it becomes his primary, identifying characteristic. As with the curative corpus’s reduction of unhal people to afflicted body parts, their naming practice

89 Wulfstan, Narratio 1.2.232 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 422-23).

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equates Æþelsige with his impairment, and makes it the most important part of his social identity.

Nonetheless, as the story proceeds to its conclusion, Æþelsige’s identity and his relationship with the moneyer become more complicated. Wulfstan tells of how the moneyer loses a large and valuable knife, which is made of gold and embossed with a great deal of silver. He intends to ask Æþelsige whether he has seen it, but, every time that he is in the man's presence, he forgets about it. It transpires that the cleric receives a vision about where the dagger is being held, which he reveals to the moneyer on the same day that he is healed.90 The hagiographies present this miracle as a form of recompense for the moneyer’s charity, and so evidence of God’s divine justice.

Even so, it seems significant that both miracles involve the hunchbacked cleric in some way: he is the recipient of the one, and the conduit for the other. This detail effectively alters the power dynamics between the two men, so that the moneyer is now dependent on Æþelsige for access to the saint's power. It restores the balance of power between the two men, and grants Æþelsige a measure of authority over spiritual matters.

Revealingly, the moneyer is initially incredulous about the vision; he accuses the cleric of lying to him and of speaking nonsense. Æþelsige has to convince his host of the validity of his dream, which is ultimately confirmed by his rediscovery of the knife.91

Consequently, Æþelsige seems to be more receptive to divine revelation, more willing to trust in God and act on faith, than the other man is. It is only through his intervention that

90 Lantfred, Translatio, ch. 2 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 268-73). 91 Ibid.

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the moneyer is able to experience the miracle at all, and come to greater faith in and awareness of God. Thus, while the moneyer may have more power in the secular realm,

Æþelsige emerges as someone with greater divine authority, which is the more important domain in hagiography. Significantly, after this exchange, the moneyer offers to have his servants carry the cleric to the saint’s shrine, and he replies that he would rather travel on foot, since he feels as if a partial cure has come on him. This response is a clear assertion of independence, and underscores his newfound parity with the moneyer.92 In sum, the story of Æþelsige reveals to us the manner in which disabled people were often placed in positions of dependence, and yet found ways to achieve independence. Based on this story, this negotiation may have involved the distinction between secular and sacred space, with the latter seeming to offer more possibilities for self-determination to disabled people.

At the same time, Lantfred’s narrative about Æþelsige shows that unhal people were not necessary viewed as morally culpable for their impairments. Lantfred explains that Æþelsige was born a hunchback, and does not attribute any particular moral significance to his condition.93 If anything, Lantfred shows him leading a blameless life in the service of God. Equally, Æþelsige’s hunchback does not appear to be a sign of virtue, although it may be tempting to interpret it as a mark of humility. Lantfred presents it solely as a negative physical condition, and does not appear to treat it as a symbol or metaphor for Æþelsige’s inner state. Indeed, Æþelsige’s desire to be rid of the

92 Ibid. 93 Lantfred, Translatio, ch. 2 (266-67).

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impairment and Swithun’s healing of it would both be problematic if it were a mark of the cleric’s humility, since it would mean that they worked to cure a virtue.

Consequently, Æþelsige’s physical difference seems to be morally neutral.

Causes of Unhælu

In general, Lantfred’s miracle collection demonstrates a keen interest in the causes of unhælu, and it provides a remarkable degree of insight into Anglo-Saxon beliefs about how people came to be unhal. For the most part, Lantfred identifies causes of unhælu that parallel the etiologies of the medical texts – that is, he attributes some forms of unhælu to human actions (such as accidents or juridical mutilation),94 and other forms to non-human assaults (such as elf-attacks). He also attributes still other forms of unhælu to the intervention of God or of Swithun. As a result, it would be redundant to work systematically through the causes that he identifies, and discuss them at length. Instead, I wish to examine a few of the more interesting stories that show how people become unhal, and think through their implications for the Anglo-Saxon construction of unhælu.

In the first story that I wish to consider, Lantfred tells how a wealthy citizen of

Winchester is paralyzed after an encounter with a trio of Furies along the road.95 On his

94 I discuss juridical mutilation in Lantfred’s Translatio and Wulfstan’s Narratio in Chapter Four. I provide examples of the other kinds of etiologies in the following discussion. 95 In the Classical tradition, the Furies or Erinyes are deities of vengeance who pursue, torture, and kill people who have committed terrible sins. These Furies, however, seem to be distinct from those of the Classical tradition, as the citizen of Winchester has not committed any evident sin. Lapidge identifies these Furies as hægtessan in his notes on Lantfred’s work, based largely on the “First Cleopatra Glossary,” where the word hægtessan is used to gloss erenis (= Erinyes). Cult of Swithun, 275. Christopher A. Jones considers the literary and folkloric influences that underpin Lantfred’s depiction of these Furies, and suggests that Lantfred does not adopt any definitive conclusion about their nature, as they seem to draw on beliefs about elves, fairies, Fates, and other non-human females. “Furies, Monks and Folklore in the Earliest Miracula of Saint Swithun,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology (forthcoming).

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way to his horse fields, this citizen meets two naked, pitch-black Furies. These women attempt to get him to listen to them, but he calls on God and flees from them. They are unable to catch him, but a third Fury who has been hiding behind a nearby hilltop appears. She differs from her sisters since she is gigantic in size, shiningly white, and clad in snow-white garments. She folds her tunic into three plaits and tries to strike him with it, but only succeeds in catching him with the blast of air from it. When this wind touches him, he falls to the ground, paralyzed on his right side.96

On reading this narrative, we might be struck by the fact that that the citizen of

Winchester does everything right in the situation, and yet is unable to prevent himself from becoming paralyzed. He does not give into the Furies’ sexual temptations,97 but he calls upon Christ to save him and he tries to flee from them. We would expect these measures to be efficacious, yet he is still attacked by them and becomes impaired. This detail implies that there is no moral culpability on the part of the citizen of Winchester.

Rather, he is struck down by the Furies in spite of making the correct spiritual choices.

This story indicates that the Anglo-Saxons did not necessarily view unhælu as a consequence of sin. If it is any indication, both the pious and impious alike seem to be equally susceptible to unhælu. Instead, it draws a sharp distinction between the ordinary

Christian and the saint. The ordinary Christian is unable to fend off demonic attack, but the saint is able to cure its effects, which serves as a testimony to Swithun's exceptional powers.

96 Lantfred, Translatio, ch. 3 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 275-87). 97 For a discussion of the sexual nature of the Furies’ temptations, see Jones, “Furies.”

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Moreover, the story sets up a strong association between unhælu and Otherness, which we observed operating in the curative corpus. As discussed above, unhælu is capable of cutting across all social categories, and transforming people’s social identity.

The case of the citizen of Winchester illustrates this point well. He has what Mitchell and

Snyder term an “unmarked identity,” in that he is white, male, English, Christian, and presumably heterosexual.98 He is normative in every single way, yet, when he encounters the Furies and becomes paralyzed, he becomes other as he takes on qualities of the dead.

Lantfred describes him as being “ceu cadaver exanime” (like a lifeless corpse),99 and

Wulfstan calls him a “seminecem languore grauari” (half-dead man afflicted with suffering),100 which positions him within the liminal space between life and death, but aligns him more with the otherness of death. Significantly, the Furies are also presented as Other within the narrative. Lantfred describes the two Furies whom the citizen first encounters as “geminas … mulierculas, haud ullo cultu preditas nullisque uestibus septas, uerum teterrimo corpore nudas ac furuis crinibus horrendas, Tysiphoneisque uultibus infectas atque infernali nequitia ac ueneno armatas” (two female creatures – not decked out in any finery nor covered up with any clothing, but rather naked to their foul skin and terrifying with their swarthy hair, blackened with faces like Tisiphone and armed with hellish wickedness and poison),101 and “Ethiopissas fuligineis coloribus inopertas, nudis corporibus” (undressed Ethiopians with their sooty colouring and their naked bodies).102

98 Mitchell and Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis, x. 99 Lantfred, Translatio, ch. 3 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 276-77). 100 Wulfstan, Narratio 1.3.579 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 438-39). 101 Lantfred, Translatio, ch. 3 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 274-75). 102 Lantfred, Translatio, ch. 3 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 276-77). For monsters’ association with transgressive forms of Otherness, see Cohen, “Monster Culture,” 3-20.

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As a result, they are multiply marked as other by their femaleness, their foreignness, their otherworldliness, and their blackness. Consequently, in a parallel manner to the curative corpus, Lantfred’s account seems to express a fear of infectious, contaminating

Otherness, which must be corrected and controlled by the saint’s intervention, and which is expressed through the trope of unhælu.

Later in the hagiographies, we find another narrative about a French woman who becomes disabled after she fails to make the sign of the cross over her mouth when she yawns at the darkest hour in the dead of night. The consequences of this omission are severe, as she is seized by a foul demon who dislocates her jaw and detaches her lips from one another.103 In contrast to the citizen of Winchester, this woman seems to bear some responsibility for her condition, although it is hard to consider her truly culpable.

She may be forgetful in failing to perform the apotropaic ritual, but she does not appear to be sinful. Consequently, this particular cause of unhælu requires further examination.

The bizarre Solomon and Saturn Pater Noster Prose, which recent scholarship connects to Dunstan and the monastery at Glastonbury, offers some useful insights into the logic behind the French woman’s affliction.104 One particularly striking section tells of the mouth's vulnerability to demons in ways which are reminiscent of the story in the hagiography:

Ond ðonne ðæt deofol swiðe wergað, hit seceð scyldiges mannes hleten oððe unclæne treow, oððe gif hit meteþ ungenodes mannes muð ond lichoman, ond hit

103 Lantfred, Translatio, ch. 33 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 322-23). 104 Daniel Anlezark, ed. and trans., The Old English Dialogues of Solomon and Saturn (Woodbridge: D.S.Brewer, 2009), 54-56.

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ðonne on forgietenan mannes innelfe gewiteð, ond ðurh his fell ond ðurh his flæsc on ða eorðan gewiteð, ond ðanon helle westen gespyrreð.

(And when the devil greatly tires, it seeks a guilty man's cattle or an unclean tree, or, if it comes across an unblessed man's mouth or body, then it goes into the forgetful man's bowels and goes into the earth through his skin and through his flesh, and from there seeks out the wasteland of hell.)105

While no part of this obscure and esoteric work can be interpreted with any degree of certainty, it seems likely that these lines are attempting to supply an explanation for various blights and diseases in both the human and the natural world. This reading would account for the inclusion of people, animals and plants, since they are all susceptible to sudden illness. Irrespective of whether we accept this reading or not, the Solomon and

Saturn Pater Noster Prose quite clearly presents the mouth as a weak spot in the body's defenses, and a potential entry point for demons. As importantly, the text presents that weakness as arising out of forgetfulness by describing the individual in question with the phrase “forgietenan mannes” (forgetful man). This same adjective could equally be applied to the woman who fails to sign herself with the cross.

Given this, it may be significant that the mouth is a liminal space, just like the road on which the Furies accost the citizen of Winchester. It meditates between the outside world and the inside of the body, and allows food to enter and speech to exit.

Like the other orifices, it is a break in the boundaries of the body, and therefore an area where the body is most vulnerable, since it allows for excessive consumption or improper speech. Importantly, the Anglo-Saxons seem to have conceived of the body in terms of

105 Anlezark, ed. and trans., Solomon and Saturn Pater Noster Prose, in The Old English Dialogues of Solomon and Saturn, 74.

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containment or enclosure, if we think of poetic kennings for it such as banhus “bone- house,” bansele “bone-hall,” or bancofa “bone-chamber.”106 The orifices were openings in that enclosure, which were necessary for a variety of physiological and social functions, but which needed to be carefully regulated to ensure that nothing entered or left the body that should not. Consequently, in this particular case, unhælu seems to be the consequence not only of demonic powers but also of the body's own inherent susceptibilities, for which the individual needs to compensate through vigilance and even ritual behavior. Once again, we may see a parallel with the curative corpus, which evinces anxiety about how people are under constant attack by a hostile world, and are largely powerless in the face of it.

In contrast to these cases of demonically-caused impairment, Wulfstan ascribes unhælu to God's intervention within his account of one of the miracles. Both he and

Lantfred tell of a man who lost his eyesight on the day of Easter, but they attribute his blindness to different causes. Lantfred claims that the impairment is the result of a vague

“casu accidente” (unfortunate circumstance).107 Wulfstan, however, claims that the man became blind “dictante tremendo / iudice, qui pensans aequo discrimine cuncta / hunc domat aduersis, hunc prosperitatibus ad se / adtrahit” (all at the command of the awesome judge who, weighing out all things with a balanced judgment, subdues one man with

106 Recently, Anglo-Saxon scholarship has paid attention to the mind as bodily enclosure, as evident in Lockett, Anglo-Saxon Psychologies; and Britt Mize, “The Representation of the Mind as an Enclosure in Old English Poetry,” Anglo-Saxon England 35 (2008), 57-90. Antonina Harbus discusses the body as an enclosure briefly in Cognitive Approaches to Old English Poetry (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 2012), 32-38. Nonetheless, as the title of her work suggests, it is not her main focus. More work remains to be done on this topic, and on the Anglo-Saxon conception of the body in general. 107 Lantfred, Translatio, ch. 36 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 328-31).

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adversities, draws another to him through fortunate circumstances).108 These lines explicitly present the man's blindness as God's way of bringing about his obedience, and ensuring his salvation. Here, Wulfstan is making an argument similar to that of Gregory’s

Cura pastoralis, which presents illness and impairment as a means of encouraging repentance, and of restraining people from committing sins.109 Wulfstan, likewise, suggests that God is taming or curbing the young man by making him blind, and so ensuring his spiritual health through physical impairment.

Moreover, Lantfred tells of how God punishes people with impairments for impious and improper behavior. In one account, Swithun visits an unnamed smith in a dream and asks him to send word to bishop Æthelwold that he wishes his body translated to Winchester. When the smith is reluctant to do so, since he is concerned that people will think him a liar and a madman, he develops an extreme illness, and it is only alleviated when he carries out Swithun’s wishes.110 In another account, a woman experiences an unspecified illness, and makes a vow to God and Swithun that, if she is cured, she will bring lavish gifts to the Old Minster and spend a night in vigil at Swithun’s tomb. She receives the healing that she desires, but reneges on her promise to the saint. After some time, she experiences a recurrence of the disease on the way to a wedding, and realizes that she is being punished for her earlier impiety. She is appropriately penitent and has herself taken to Swithun’s tomb, where she is cured for a second time.111 Unusually, then, both narratives present unhælu as a consequence of sin – that is, of failing to carry out

108 Wulfstan, Narratio 1.39.1064-67 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 544-45). 109 See Chapter Two of this dissertation for a discussion of this aspect of the Cura pastoralis. 110 Lantfred, Translatio, ch. 1 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 260-65). 111 Lantfred, Translatio, ch. 9 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 290-93).

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divine instructions or to honor a holy vow. These narratives’ presentation of unhælu as a punishment or a corrective for sin is unusual in the Anglo-Saxon corpus, but reveals that it was an interpretation of illness and impairment that was available, at least late in the

Anglo-Saxon era. In short, while the Anglo-Saxons do not generally seem to have considered illnesses and impairments to be consequences of sin, they did understand certain, rare instances of unhælu in this way.

Moreover, it is worth mentioning that, in the case of the woman, Lantfred has an extremely practical reason for presenting impairment as a punishment for sin: the woman has not paid the Old Minster for the healing that she has received, despite her promises of gifts. It is unsurprising that the monks of the Old Minster would wish to discourage this type of economically disadvantageous behavior, and suggest that divine healing can be as easily retracted as it is given. As a result, divine healing in the Anglo-Saxon period might be viewed as a kind of transaction, in which the saints provide healing, and for which they or their shrines receive some benefit in return. As this story illustrates, this benefit is often economic. Yet, as the next section will show, it also may be more intangible or indirect. It may involve the saints and their shrines using their healing ministry to build their reputation, or else to establish the Christian faith and its doctrines. In order to illustrate how the relationship between the saints’ shrines and unhal people worked, I wish to place Bede’s EH and Lantfred’s Narratio in dialog with each other, which necessarily means leaving behind the chronological discussion of the previous sections and moving onto a more topical analysis.

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The Saints’ Opportunistic Use of Unhælu

Within hagiography, the lives of unhal people and the causes of their unhælu are often less important than the function that they can serve. Very often within these narratives, the saints’ healing of unhal people serves a broader religious purpose, often to the point where the unhal people’s individuality and particularity are erased. Most obviously, unhal people provide the saints with an opportunity to demonstrate and prove their sanctity. As much as their militant virginity, their cheerful martyrdom and their resilient bodies, the saints’ ability to heal permanent unhælu reveals their exceptional status, since it shows that are capable of doing what ordinary human leeches cannot.

Lantfred’s Translatio is particularly revealing in this respect, since it shows the inefficacy of medical practice at more than one point, almost certainly to demonstrate that

Swithun could cure conditions that were beyond the leeches’ capabilities to treat, and thereby deprecate potential competitors for the Old Minster’s services. For instance,

Lantfred tells of how Bryhtferth, the prior of the monastery at Abingdon, seeks out medical treatment for his blindness, but the physicians’ medications and cauterization only make his condition worse:

Is dum nimia cecitate cruciaretur, compluribus peractis medicaminibus ustilatum est caput eius duodecim adustionibus – quae nihil ei prorsus profuerunt, uerum multo magis obfuerunt.

(While he was being tormented by this extreme blindness, he went through a good many medicines, and once his head was cauterised with twelve separate searings – which of course did him no good, but rather did a good deal of harm.)112

112 Lantfred, Translatio, ch. 28 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 316-17).

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Ultimately, the prior is healed when he spends a night in prayer at Swithun’s tomb. This passage sets up a clear contrast between the physicians’ human abilities and the saint’s divine ones. The physicians’ most sophisticated and elaborate techniques only make the prior’s blindness worse; Swithun is able to cure him completely in the space of a single night. Consequently, Lantfred shows how Swithun’s capabilities transcend the human and reveal his access to the divine, which is all the more remarkable since he is dead and his body is performing these miracles.

Indeed, Lantfred’s Translatio primarily consists of a series of tales about

Swithun’s healing miracles. This emphasis is perhaps unsurprising, since the saint primarily performed his miracles after his death, and he did not seem to lead a particularly noteworthy life. Lantfred notes that, since no-one knows much about the miracles that Swithun’s prayers performed during his lifetime, he will focus on “ea quae post obitum eius indubitanter sunt peracta ad uiri Dei tumulum” (those things which without any doubt took place posthumously at the man of God’s tomb).113 Consequently,

Swithun’s sanctity and, by extension, the success of his cult depends primarily on his curative powers, his interventions in the lives of countless unhal individuals.

Bede’s EH, however, contains more complex and interesting instances of saints’ making use of impairment. For example, Bede tells of how Germanus heals a blind girl by pressing a bag with the relics of Saint Alban to her eyes, with the result that “statim euacuatos tenebris lumen ueritatis impleuit” (the child’s sight was emptied of darkness

113 Lantfred, Translatio, Prefatory Letter (252-53).

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and filled with the light of truth).114 This miracle is witnessed by her parents and other members of the community, whom Bede explains had been swayed by the Pelagian heresy, i.e. the belief that original sin did not taint human nature, with the implication that people are not wholly dependent on God and the church for salvation. After they witness the miracle, Bede recounts that “post quam diem ita ex animis omnium suasio iniqua deleta est, ut sacerdotum doctrinam sitientibus desideriis sectarentur” ([t]henceforward all erroneous arguments were expunged from the minds of people, who eagerly accepted the teaching of the bishops).115 Here, the young girl’s blindness seems to take on a metaphoric cast, standing for the spiritual confusion of the Pelagian heretics around her.

Bede refers to her eyes being filled with the light of truth, which strongly suggests that more than physical sight is at stake here. As she is cured, so are the people around her.

The miracle works to convict them of the wrongness of their beliefs. In short, we have impairment being put in the service of religion on multiple levels here. The girl’s blindness represents spiritual confusion; its cure enables spiritual enlightenment.

A very similar example may be found in Germanus’ healing of Elafius’ son, who, due to a disease in his youth, has a wasted knee and shrunken sinews. Bede narrates:

adulescentem beatus Germanus sedere conpulit, adtrectat poplitem debilitate curuatum, et per tota infirmitatis spatia medicabilis dextra percurrit, salubremque tactum sanitas festina subsequitur. Ariditas sucum, nerui officia recuperunt, et in conspectu omnium filio incolumitas, patri filius restituitur. Inplentur populi stupore miraculi, et in pectoribus omnium fides catholica inculcata firmatur.

(Blessed Germanus then asked the youth to sit down, and drawing out the leg bent with disease, he passed his healing hand over the afflicted area, and at his touch

114 Bede, EH 1.17 (58-59; trans. Latham, 67). 115 Ibid.

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health swiftly returned. The withered limb filled, the muscles regained their power, and in the presence of them all the lad was restored healed to his parents. The people were amazed at this miracle, and the Catholic Faith was firmly implanted in all their hearts.)116

Once again, this miracle takes place within a context of heresy, which is typical of conversion-era narratives that show the struggle to establish the proper Christian faith. In this case, a small number of people are reviving Pelagianism, and Germanus has been called on to combat their efforts. As with the blind girl, his healing of this boy serves to banish the heresy and restore proper Christian doctrine. Once again, the boy’s mobility impairment seems to have a symbolic dimension. His leg is wasted and weak, and

Germanus causes the limb to regain his strength. In this way, he is also able to strengthen the catholic faith within the community. It can be no coincidence that Bede remarks that

“omnium fides catholica inculcata firmatur” (the Catholic Faith was firmly implanted [lit. strengthened] in all their hearts).117 Here, his reference to strength serves to draw a parallel between the boy’s physical impairment and the spiritual state of his community.

Likewise, Bede describes how Germanus’ healing of the boy restores him to his parents, which is an odd statement. It implies that unhælu has taken the boy away from his parents in some way, even though they presumably have been caring for him. It suggests that his impairment makes him less of a son to them, and that he is lacking in some important way. It may imply that he cannot carry out the social and economic functions of a male child. As discussed in my chapter on the law-codes, children provided

116 Bede, EH 1.21 (66-67; trans. Latham, 71). 117 Ibid.

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labor and looked after their parents in their old age, both of which would be much more difficult with a mobility impairment. It may also suggest that his parents feel some distance from or disappointment in him. Yet, again, this statement is also symbolic.

Christians are often figured as children of God, and so the heretics’ return to the Catholic faith is a return to God the Father from whom their wrong doctrine has separated them. It is a return to their proper relationship with and dependence upon God.

Perhaps the most egregious example of saints making use of unhal people comes in Bede’s account of the controversy over when Easter should be celebrated. Bede tells of how Augustine of Canterbury in 603 CE meets with a group of British bishops and teachers, who are clinging to older Romano-Celtic habits of Christian worship, and whom he wishes to convince that they should update their practices in order to bring them in line with the Roman Church.118 When the British prove recalcitrant, Augustine commands: “Adducatur aliquis eger, et per cuius preces fuerit curatus, huius fides et operatio Deo deuota atque omnibus sequenda credatur” (Bring in some sick person, and let the beliefs and practice of those who can heal him be accepted as pleasing to God and to be followed by all).119 A blind Englishman is led into their midst, and both the British bishops and Augustine attempt to heal him, with predictable results. The British fail and

Augustine succeeds, proving that he has the right of the matter. Once again, we have a strong connection made between blindness and (spiritual) ignorance. As Bede narrates,

118 In particular, Augustine is concerned about their dating of Easter, which is different to that of the Roman Church. 119 Bede, EH 2.2 (136-37; trans. Latham, 105).

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tandem Augustinus iusta necessitate conpulsus flectit genua sua ad Patrem Domini nostri Iesu Christi, deprecans, ut uisum caeco quem amiserat restitueret, et per inluminationem unius hominis corporalem in plurimorum corde fidelium spiritalis gratiam lucis accenderet. Nec mora, inluminatur caecus, ac uerus summae lucis praeco ab omnibus praedicatur Augustinus.

(Then Augustine, as the occasion demanded, knelt in prayer to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, imploring that the man’s lost sight be restored and prove the means of bringing the light of spiritual grace to the minds of countless believers. Immediately, the blind man’s sight was restored, and all acknowledged Augustine as the true herald of the light of Christ.)120

The blind Englishman is able to serve as proof of whose version of Christianity is correct, since he is representative of the pagan masses whom Augustine needs to convert, since the British bishops have been shirking their duty to Christianize the pagan Germanic invaders. Augustine’s healing of the blind man, thus, serves as a symbol of his larger mission. That is, by bringing literal light to a blind man, he indicates the need to bring figurative light to the pagans. Moreover, his cure also shows that his version of the

Catholic faith is the true faith, as it is capable of performing miracles. As a result, it also indirectly serves to correct the ignorance and the failure of the Celtic bishops, and bring them in line with the normative practices of the Roman Church. In a very real sense, the blind man is dehumanized within this piece, as he is made into an abstract symbol of ignorance giving way to enlightenment. More than that, though, he is treated almost as a predictive object, like a rune to be cast in divination or an animal to be inspected in haruspicy. He is brought in front of the conclave, used to demonstrate that a particular set of customs is correct, and then disregarded. We are told nothing about his life before or

120 Ibid.

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after his healing, or about his reaction to being able to see. His healing is only of importance insofar as it proves Augustine right. Again, this type of miracle is a common conversion-era trope in which God proves his strength or expresses his will through a miracle, yet its prevalence does not make it any less dehumanizing.

These three narratives reveal important aspects of the Anglo-Saxon construction of impairment. Firstly, they show how the Anglo-Saxons used impairment as an

“opportunistic metaphorical device” – that is, a device that uses impairment to signify other, usually negative states, but that does not reflect the actual social or political experience of disability in any way.121 If we think back over all three of these instances, they all involve people with real, physical impairments being used as empty, generic symbols for spiritual error, confusion or ignorance, and then being cured in order to address those spiritual concerns. This issue will be addressed in much greater depth in the next chapter, which takes up the issue of unhælu as metaphor.

Secondly, these narratives demonstrate how the saints needed people with people with impairments. To be more precise, saints needed people with problems that they could solve for them, since they made their reputation and established their sanctity through cures. Overwhelmingly, though, the saints’ miracles involve cures, particularly cures of unhal people who have permanent, severe impairments, and who are beyond the ability of leeches to cure. We may ask why cures are so prevalent in the hagiographies, when saints could prove their sanctity in other ways. One possible answer is that the

Anglo-Saxons would have viewed healing as an unqualified good, so that, as a miracle, it

121 Mitchell and Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis, 47.

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would have been entirely uncontroversial, and had broad, ecumenical appeal. The same is not necessarily true of, say, some of Swithun’s miracles, where he frees slaves and criminals, or restores material possessions to wealthy people. They would not have appealed to everyone in the community in the same way, and so might have cost his cult valuable support.

For this reason, the saints’ cults and shrines were equally dependent on unhal people. As Susan J. Ridyard explains, “it was on the performance of conventional curative miracles that any widespread or popular recognition of the cult depended; and widespread and popular recognition brought with it both prestige and wealth.”122 The more people with impairments who were cured at a shrine, the more visitors would come and the more money and other gifts the cult would receive. Thus, people with impairments had an important function to play within the religious system. They, almost uniquely, were able to establish the reputation of the saints, and bring shrines wealth and prestige. Lantfred’s Translatio is particularly revealing in this regard, as it suggests that economic competition existed between the various cults for unhal people and the money and gifts that they might donate to the shrine. Lantfred relates an extremely strange story about a man who visits the shrine of Ælfgifu for a cure, ignoring his wife’s advice that he should seek out Swithun’s help. When he spends time in vigil at the female saint’s tomb, his impairment becomes even worse: a huge and painful tumor develops above his eye.

Once he seeks out Swithun, he is cured of both his blindness and the new growth on his

122 Susan J. Ridyard, The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England: A Study of West Saxon and East Anglian Cults, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: 4th ser., 9 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988), 151.

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forehead.123 From a theological perspective, this narrative makes little sense. Ælfgifu, the mother of Edgar the Peacable who was buried at Shaftesbury Abbey, was a holy and beloved English saint, and the man behaves in a pious and appropriate fashion at her tomb. The man does nothing for which he should be punished. From a business perspective, though, the cult of Swithun is essentially badmouthing the competition at

Shaftesbury, establishing its own greater authority, and showing itself to be a more effective source of a cure. Similarly, in the above-mentioned case of the blind man who renders himself nearly destitute, the shrine of Augustine of Canterbury cures only one foot, and Swithun has to complete the miracle by curing the other.124 In this way, the hagiographies are almost pure propaganda, designed to make the shrine as attractive to unhal people as possible and encourage them to visit it. In a very real sense, this discourse interpellates unhal people and places them in the service of the church.

Unhælu becomes a unique form of capital that the cults of the saints can leverage for their benefit. Consequently, we should be unsurprised that unhal people were so strongly encouraged to seek out the saints. Firstly, the Anglo-Saxons believed that the saints were effective in curing unhal people, and that unhal people should desire a cure, two factors which would have served as strong motivation. Secondly, in an agricultural economy in which many unhal people could not participate in the most normative, masculine, and independent forms of labor, they could still perform a socially useful function and have real economic value by visiting shrines.125 As a result, we may wish to add to our

123 Lantfred, Translatio, ch. 36 (328-30). 124 Lantfred, Translatio, ch. 13 (296-99). 125 Edward Wheatley notices a similar dynamic at play in the post-Conquest period. He argues that the religious model of disability at work in that period “increases the economic utility of people with

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evolving definition of the unhal role that unhal people were expected to seek help from the saints.

Unhal Saints

Yet, we need to be careful of setting up too strong a divide between the saints and the unhal people they cure. In a significant number of cases, the saints and other holy people are either temporarily or permanently unhal, to the point where, as Cohen has noted, bodily infirmity of any kind might have come to serve as a special mark of sanctity.126

For the Anglo-Saxons, one of the prototypical examples of this kind of holy unhælu would have been furnished by the Apostle Paul, who writes in 2 Corinthians 12:1-6 about the “thorn in the flesh” that was given to him in order to keep him humble in the midst of all the revelations and visions that God granted him. The nature of this thorn has been much debated by critics, yet it is likely that it was some form of illness or impairment, as

Paul himself seems to have experienced his condition as “a disability, some kind of functional limitation.”127 Whatever this thorn was, it testified to Paul’s exceptional status, to the visions that he received and yet the humility that he maintained in the middle of them. In this way, Paul exemplifies how illness or impairment might indicate sanctity,

disabilities by keeping them tied to – and perhaps working for – the church as a possible source of a cure.” Stumbling Blocks, 12. This dynamic is also reminiscent of the relationship between medical institutions and people with impairments in the present-day. The medical model may present doctors, therapists and other medical professionals as the experts on whose expertise and treatments sick and disabled people are dependent; however, in reality, the medical establishment is almost equally reliant upon its patients as sources of income, subjects for research, and proof of its expertise. 126 Cohen, Medieval Identity Machines, xix. 127 Martin Albl, “‘For Whenever I am Weak, Then I am Strong’: Disability in Paul’s Epistles,” in This Abled Body: Rethinking Disabilities in Biblical Studies, ed. Hector Avalos et al. (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007), 156-57.

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since he developed his condition specifically because of his intimate relationship with

God, and came to embrace its spiritual benefits.

Gregory the Great and Illness as a Mark of Divine Love

Another prototypical example would have been provided by Gregory the Great, whom

Bede describes in the EH as suffering from terrible illnesses in his youth:

…omni pene iuuentutis suae tempore, ut uerbis ipsius loquar, crebris uiscerum doloribus cruciabatur, horis momentisque omnibus fracta stomachi uirtute lassescebat, lentis quidem, sed tamen continuis febribus anhelabat. Uerum inter haec, dum sollicitus pensaret, quia scriptura teste: “Omnis filius, qui recipitur, flagellatur”; quo malis praesentibus durius deprimebatur, eo de aeterna certius praesumtione respirabat.

(...throughout his youth, to quote his own words, he was often in agony from gastric pain, perpetually worn out by internal exhaustion and frequently troubled by a slow but chronic fever. But in all these afflictions he reflected that holy scripture says: “The Lord scourgeth every son whom he receiveth,” and the greater his worldly sufferings, the greater his assurance of eternal joy.)128

Although Bede specifies that Gregory was ill in his youth, Gregory’s own letters suggest that his health conditions persisted throughout his lifetime. In them, he writes about how his gout and gastric disorders were severe enough to be disabling on occasion, and how he spent long periods of time sick in bed and was not able to be as effective as he might

128 Bede, EH 2.1 (128-29; trans. Latham, 101). Some people’s illnesses and impairments might have provided them with an opportunity to withdraw from civic life and take up monastic orders, but Gregory appears to have been highly successful in his secular career, despite any illnesses he may have had as a youth, and also to have left his career of his own volition. Indeed, according to Gregory of Tours, Gregory’s gastric disorder might have been a result of his excessive fasting, and so begun only after he entered the religious life. Libri Historiarum X 10.1, ed. Bruno Krusch and Wilhelm Levison, MGH Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum 1, Part 1 (Hannover: Hahn, 1951), 477.

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have wished.129 Even so, Bede shows that Gregory understands his impairment as spiritually beneficial, and a sign of God’s love and his eternal salvation. He cites

Hebrews 12:6 in support of this belief. In these brief lines, the author of Hebrews develops a two-fold interpretation of human suffering. On the one hand, he presents suffering as divine discipline. It occurs when people have gone astray and God needs to bring them back into line. On the other, he construes it as a sign of divine love, since it reveals that the people are children of God, if they are subject to his fatherly discipline. If this interpretation seems familiar, it is because Gregory develops an identical argument in the Cura pastoralis where he discusses how the unwell should be admonished.130

Significantly, although the verse from Hebrews presents suffering as a sign of divine discipline and divine love, Bede stresses the latter part of this construction far more strongly. His discussion of Gregory’s illness is bookended by a catalogue of the saint’s copious writings and an account of his many virtuous deeds, including his role in converting the Anglo-Saxons. Consequently, Bede emphasizes Gregory’s supreme sanctity and his imperishable genius in a way that appears to foreclose or erase any possibility of wrongdoing on his part.131 For Bede, Gregory’s illness is a marker of his special relationship with God, rather than a punishment for sin.

In this way, Bede turns Gregory’s impairment into yet another testament to his greatness. Bede introduces his lengthy account of Gregory’s great works and deeds by

129 Gregory the Great, Registrum epistolarum 9.232, ed. Dag Norberg, CCSL 140-140A, 2 vols (Turnhout: Brepols, 1982). For a biographical account of Gregory’s illness, see Straw, Gregory the Great, 143, 145, 185, 197; and Robert A. Markus, Gregory the Great and His World, 12, 92, 149 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 130 See Chapter One. 131 Bede, EH 2.1 (128-29; trans. Latham, 101).

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reflecting on the difficult situation in which he accomplished them, as he notes: “[h]aec quidem de inmortali eius sint dicta ingenio, quod nec tanto corporis potuit dolore restingui” ([m]uch might be said of his imperishable genius, which was unimpaired by even the most severe physical afflictions).132 The clear implication is that, even though

Gregory suffered terribly and was at a physical disadvantage, he still was an extremely effective religious leader. His intelligence and his zeal were so extraordinary that they allowed him to transcend the limitations placed on him by his unhælu, to avoid being wholly disabled by his impairments.

On the surface, Bede’s representation of Gregory seems to parallel the present- day concept of the “supercrip.” As G. Thomas Couser explains, a supercrip is an

“Inspirational Disabled Person, who overcomes impairment through pluck and willpower.”133 Likewise, Joseph Shapiro describes the supercrip as the “flip side of the pitiful poster-child,” and “implies that a disabled person is presumed deserving of pity ... until he or she proves capable of overcoming a physical or mental limitation through extraordinary feats,” at which point she or he is lauded in the media as an inspirational role-model.134 In similar fashion to the supercrip, Bede represents Gregory as a more remarkable and inspiring figure because he is able to achieve extraordinary deeds in spite of his physical condition. Yet, Bede’s depiction of Gregory differs from the supercrip in important ways, which make the supercrip potentially inappropriate as a figure of

132 Ibid. 133 G. Thomas Couser, Recovering Bodies: Illness, Disability, and Life Writing (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997), 207. 134 Joseph Shapiro, No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement (New York: Times Books, 1994), 16.

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comparison. Specifically, Bede does not present him as an object of pity, but rather as an object of grace. His illness marks him out as a beloved child of God who is subject to his discipline, and who should be admired for it. Moreover, Bede’s account of Gregory’s illness does not involve the same narrative of overcoming that is central to the supercrip.

Gregory accepts his illness as God-given and depends upon God for strength, which means that he achieves greatness because of his physical condition, not despite it. In short, Bede makes Gregory’s illness serve as a sign of his sanctity in a manner that is incompatible with the presuppositions that underlie the figure of the supercrip.

Guthlac and Unhælu as Spiritual Freedom

A similar construction of the saints’ unhælu as a marker of sanctity is found within

Guthlac B, a vernacular poem that is recorded in the Exeter Book and that was probably composed by Cynewulf.135 At the end of Guthlac’s life, he experiences a painful and debilitating disease, which is given to him by God and which ultimately leads to his death:

Nolde fæder engla in þisse wonsælgan worulde life leahtra leasne longfyrst ofer þæt wunian leton, þe him on weorcum her on his dagena tid dædum gecwemde elne unslawe. ða se ælmihtiga let his hond cuman þær se halga þeow, deormod on degle domeadig bad,

135 For a convincing corpus-based argument that Cynewulf was the author of Guthlac B, see Andy Orchard, “Both Style and Substance: The Case for Cynewulf,” in Anglo-Saxon Styles, ed. Catherine E. Karkov and George Hardin Brown (New York: SUNY, 2003), 271-306.

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heard ond hygerof. Hyht wæs geniwad, blis in breostum. Wæs se bancofa adle onæled, inbendum fæst, lichord onlocen. Leomu hefegedon, sarum gesohte.

(The father of angels was unwilling to let one free from sins dwell for a long time after that in the life of this miserable world, [one] who with ready courage had pleased him with his deeds, in his works here, during his lifetime. Then, the almighty let his hand go where the holy servant, blessed with glory, waited in a hidden place, bold, austere and strong of mind. Hope was renewed, joy in his breast. The bone-chamber was set afire with disease; the treasure-hoard of the body, secured with inward bonds, was opened. The limbs grew heavy, afflicted by pains.)136

Guthlac’s state of unhælu is obviously different from that of Gregory. Gregory experiences illness as a young man and lives with it for many years. Guthlac, in contrast, faces it just before his death; he only survives seven nights after he contracts the disease.

Moreover, Gregory’s illness explicitly serves a preventative or a disciplinary function, even if Bede is careful to efface any possibility of actual wrongdoing. Cynewulf frames

Guthlac’s unhælu as a reward for his spiritual warfare and austerity, so that it may once again be viewed as a marker of his sanctity. God is pleased with the saint’s deeds, and decides to free him from the misery of earthly life, using adl or disease as his instrument.

The poem offers the striking image of fever consuming the body with fire, and opening up its internal enclosures so that the soul can leave it. Thus, Guthlac’s unhælu functions as a means of separating the soul from the body, of burning away what the poem later describes as a spousal bond between them; body and soul are “sinhiwan tu” or a wedded

136 Guthlac B 945b-957a (ASPR 3, 76-78).

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pair.137 It is a way of allowing him to transcend the body and achieve his heavenly reward.

While Guthlac’s unhælu serves primarily to bring about his death, we should not dismiss the brief time that he spends in this state as insignificant. God could have chosen to end his life immediately, but instead allows him to continue on for a week in illness and pain. Within the poem, this span of time serves as an opportunity for Guthlac to further demonstrate his sanctity. Cynewulf narrates:

He þæt soð gecneow þæt hine ælmihtig ufan neosade, meotud fore miltsum. He his modsefan wið þam færhagan fæste trymede feonda gewinna. Næs he forht seþeah, ne seo adlþracu egle on mode, ne deaðgedal, ac him dryhtnes lof born in breostum, brondhat lufu sigorfæst in sefan, seo him sara gehwylc symle forswiðde.

(He knew the truth that the almighty, the creator, had visited him from above on account of his mercies. He strengthened his mind firmly against the sudden onset of the fiends’ attacks. Nonetheless, he was not afraid, and the virulence of the disease was not painful to his mind, nor [was] the separation of death, but praise of the lord burned in his breast, ardent love [burned] victorious in his mind, which always overcame his every pain.) 138

Guthlac’s reaction to his sudden unhælu marks him out as extraordinary. He recognizes that his disease comes from God, and attributes it to his divine mercy. Because he understands its origin and purpose, he responds with praise and love, and worships God.

137 Guthlac B 969 (ASPR 3, 78). 138 Guthlac B 957b-67a (ASPR 3, 78).

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In the same fashion that we observed in Gregory’s example, he welcomes his suffering as a sign that he is pleasing to God. The poem underscores how unusual this response is, when it clarifies that Guthlac is not afraid and does not find the disease either hateful or painful. The implication is that those emotions would be the typical response to mortal unhælu. Indeed, within the poem, Guthlac’s attendant Beccel feels such emotions, and serves as an implicit foil to the saint. The poem tells us of Beccel that “hygesorge wæg / micle modceare” (he felt sorrow of the mind, great grief of the mind).139 As Antonina

Harbus expresses it, Beccel’s mental response is “emotional, pessimistic and debilitating,” and shows his spiritual confusion about the value of this world compared to the next.140 He is mired in the worldly view of death, unlike Guthlac who has a deeper, saintly perspective on the subject. 141 Guthlac is able to use his discipline and discernment to transcend the fear and pain of mortal unhælu. Cynewulf explicitly states that his praise and love for God overcome all negative emotions. Consequently, Cynewulf draws a parallel between Guthlac’s physical unhælu and his spiritual hælu, so that Guthlac’s failing bodily strength contrasts with but also serves to reveal his steadfast mental strength.142 Guthlac’s understanding of his unhælu as a divine blessing serves to mark out his sanctity, as much as his divinely-caused illness.

139 Guthlac B 1009b-10a (ASPR 3, 79). 140 Antonia Harbus, The Life of the Mind in Old English Poetry (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2003), 108. 141 Ibid. 142 Ibid.

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Etheldreda and Unhælu as Divine Discipline

Nonetheless, a more problematic construction of unhælu can be found in Bede’s account of Saint Etheldreda, the queen who preserves her virginity in marriage and eventually convinces her husband to permit her to enter a convent. Seven years after becoming abbess at Ely, Etheldreda contracts a plague, and develops a large, pustulent tumor under her jaw. According to Bede, she considers this tumor a way of gaining absolution for her youthful vanity, since she used to wear expensive necklaces. As she vividly expresses it,

“dum mihi nunc pro auro et margaritis, de collo rubor tumoris ardorque promineat” ([s]o now I wear a burning red tumor [lit. the burning and the redness of a tumor] around my neck instead of gold and pearls). 143 In contrast to Bede’s Gregory, his Etheldreda interprets her unhælu as a punishment for her earlier sins and a stimulus to do better in the future. The pustulent tumor on her neck mirrors the necklaces that she wore in her youth, down to the redness of the gold and the whiteness of the pearls. At the same time, though, it remains a sign of God’s favor, since the pain serves as a means for her to be absolved of her past vanity, and do penance for it while she remains on earth. Up to this point, she interprets her unhælu in an identical fashion to Gregory.

Bede’s story becomes more complex, however, when we take into account what happened to Etheldreda’s tumor at her time of her death. The physician Cynifrid is called on to drain the tumor under her jaw, which suggests that it may have been an abscess or cyst. Unfortunately, Bede does not specify who solicited Cynifrid’s services, as he records the physician saying: “Iusseruntque me ... incidere tumorem illum, ut efflueret

143 Bede, EH 4.19 (396-97; trans. Latham, 238).

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noxius umor, qui inerat” (I was asked [lit. they ordered me] ... to open the tumor and drain away the poisonous matter in it).144 Cynifrid’s use of the third-person plural suggests that it is not Etheldreda herself who gives the order to have her tumor lanced, although she does not seem to countermand it, assuming that she is in a state to do so.

Nonetheless, the physician’s lancing of the tumor suggests a more mixed perception of the saint’s unhælu. Despite its divine provenance, certain people in Etheldreda’s circle view it as a condition that requires treatment, and seek to alleviate the pain it caused.

Indeed, Etheldreda herself may have reached the point of exhaustion and been unable to endure the pain any longer, since she makes no attempt to stop the treatment. Bede has her speak about the “pondus langoris” (burden of weakness) that she has to bear, although he claims that she welcomed it and felt that she deserved it.145 As we have seen in

Gregory’s case, saints are meant to embrace their suffering gladly and find God’s will within it. Yet, Cynifrid reports that Etheldreda seemed somewhat easier as a result of his treatment, which suggests that he considered his intervention positive since it eased her pain. Bede also does not criticize him for interfering in divine will. This curative intercession seems at odds with Etheldreda’s characterization of the tumor as a welcome punishment, a sign of divine absolution. It strongly suggests that unhælu lent itself to multiple and unstable interpretations, that the same manifestion of it could simultaneously have been a mark of holiness and an undesirable condition in need of a cure.

144 Bede, EH 4.19 (394-95; trans. Latham, 237). 145 Bede, EH 4.19 (396-97; trans. Latham, 238).

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Even more interestingly, when Etheldreda is exhumed many years later, Cynifrid testifies that her body is not only incorrupt, but that the gaping wound from his surgery has also healed so that only “tenuissima ... cicatricis uestigia” (the faintest mark of a scar) remains.146 Just as her unhælu functioned as sign of her sanctity in life, her hælu serves the same function in death. Although this situation may seem paradoxical, both states ultimately testify to the power of God, to his absolute control over the human body and its processes. He can cause the decay of unhælu or halt the decay of death. Whether the body is hal or unhal is less important than whether God is revealed through it. In both cases, God reveals himself by causing the body to deviate from its normative or expected state, from what we might term its unmarked state. In life, hælu is the unmarked state; in death, decomposition. By afflicting the body with a tumor in life and preserving it in death, God makes it extraordinary and so shows his presence through it. The same is, of course, true of unhal bodies that are made hal by the saints, or restored at the resurrection.147

Germanus and Unhælu as Christian Dependence

Another striking example of an unhal saint can be found in Bede’s account of Germanus’ life. He tells how the Devil causes Germanus to fall and break his leg, with the result that he is compelled to rest in a house. A fire breaks out near the saint’s lodgings, and people wish to move him to safety, but he rebukes them and chooses to demonstrate his trust in

146 Bede, EH 4.19 (394-95; trans. Latham, 238). 147 See Chapter Seven.

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God by remaining where he is. His house remains untouched in the middle of the flames.

Bede comments that the Devil acted “ignorans merita illius, sicut Iob beatissimi, afflictione corporis propaganda” (not knowing that his merits, like those of the blessed

Job, would be enhanced by bodily affliction).148 This story presents a different account of a saint’s unhælu, in that Germanus’ mobility impairment is caused by the Devil, rather than by God. In other words, the cause of Germanus’ unhælu is diametrically opposed to the cause of Gregory’s and Etheldreda’s unhælu. Again, this opposition suggests that unhælu was a state open to multiple meanings and interpretations. It could be an impediment caused by the Devil, or a punishment decided by God.

Yet, although Germanus’ impairment begins as a demonic hindrance, it is transformed into an indication of his sanctity. It is a sign of his absolute dependence on and trust in God, when he allows himself to be left in the middle of the flames without any way of escaping under his own power. He is likened to Job who turns his personal tragedy into a testament to his faith, so that it redounds to his credit. Moreover, in similar fashion to Job, Germanus experiences restoration at the end of the narrative. Bede recounts how the saint refuses any treatment for his condition, but sees a person clad in snow-white garments standing by him one night. The vision offers him a hand, and raises him to his feet, from which point his health is restored.149 This miraculous healing confirms Germanus’ dependence upon God, since he rejects human healing and waits for divine aid. As with Etheldreda, it shows God’s total control over the body.

148 Bede, EH 1.19 (60-61; trans. Latham, 68). 149 Ibid.

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In this narrative, Bede presents Germanus’ impairment as a cause of personal helplessness and dependence in a manner which is problematic from the perspective of present-day disability studies. Yet, within the Christian and particularly within the

Benedictine context, the usual terms were inverted. Independence was bad, and dependence was good. Indeed, orthodox views of grace insist that all people are utterly dependent upon God. If Christians believed otherwise, they were heretics guilty of

Pelagianism. Monks were and still are encouraged to be utterly dependent on God, to put themselves wholly in his power and trust in him completely. Perhaps this inversion holds the key to why the Anglo-Saxon authors, many of whom were monks or clerics, sometimes considered unhælu to be a marker of sanctity, even though they generally perceived it as an undesirable state. They might have perceived it as a corporeal manifestation of spiritual dependence.

Unhælu and the Preservation of Virginity

Within a somewhat different category is the unhælu that the saints face in order to preserve the more valued attribute of virginity. The nuns of Coldingham offer the most famous and grisly example, although our earliest version of this story is found in Roger of Wendover’s thirteenth-century chronicle, and so dates from outside the Anglo-Saxon period. Bede does not mention it in his discussions of life at Coldingham, which does not preclude the possibility that their passio was known in the Anglo-Saxon period, and contemporary accounts simply have not survived. In fact, Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg has suggested that this story may have more basis in historical fact than has previously been

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believed, since other information that this chronicle records for the early period is accurate and is corroborated by contemporary sources. She further notes that Roger may have based his chronicle on a lost source from Tynemouth.150 In short, it is a story about

Anglo-Saxons potentially based on Anglo-Saxon sources.

According to the legend, in 870, the monastery at Coldingham was threatened by a Viking army that had a reputation for destroying churches and raping holy women.

When the nuns learned that an attack was imminent, they cut off their own noses and lips in order to deter their assailants and preserve their virginity. The Vikings were disgusted by their self-mutilation, and burnt down the monastery with them inside it, allowing them to die as virgin martyrs.151 Consequently, the nuns’ self-mutilation allowed them to remain whole in a more important sense, as they were able to die as virgines intactae and so received their reward as virgin martyrs. As a result, this story presents a kind of paradox, where the nuns dismember their bodies in order to remain sexually and spiritually intact in the eyes of God.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the hagiographies suggest that the Anglo-Saxon concept of unhælu encompassed a range of complex and even contradictory ideas. On the one hand, unhælu was an undesirable form of difference, which people usually did not bring upon

150 Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg, Forgetful of their Sex: Female Sanctity and Society, ca. 500-1100 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 169. 151 Roger of Wendover, Chronica, sive flores historiarum, ed. Henry O. Coxe, 5 vols, English Historical Society (London, 1841-1844), 1:446.

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themselves or cause through their own sins, but which had a negative effect upon their lives, unless they had the wealth to insulate themselves from its consequences. It altered their social identity and so potentially gave rise to stigma. As part of that change, it potentially deprived them of their independence, and put them at the mercy of their kin- group or their wider community, who did not always help them as Christian charity demanded. Consequently, it called for healing by the saints, especially in those cases where the leeches could not bring about a cure. On the other hand, unhælu was intimately connected with sanctity. It gave abled Christians a chance to work for their salvation by providing charity to their needy and often infirm neighbors, and made disabled ones fit for eternal life through divine discipline. As importantly, unhælu provided the saints with an opportunity to demonstrate their holiness and their access to divine power, and thereby attract pilgrims and their money to their shrines. In this way, unhælu was absolutely necessary to the promulgation and maintenance of the cult of sainthood in Anglo-Saxon

England. At the same time, unhælu served as an indication of sanctity, and testified to the exceptionality of the saints, who had been marked out by God in this way, and yet were still able to accomplish great deeds in spite of or sometimes because of their physical weakness. Both of these discourses appear to have co-existed within the Anglo-Saxon period, and been central to their understanding of unhælu. In the following chapter, then,

I begin by examining how Asser coopts the trope of impairment as a mark of sanctity and uses it to present Alfred of Wessex as a secular saint. Thereafter, I examine how these multiple discourses of unhælu inform the Anglo-Saxons’ use of impairment as metaphor

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in the Old English Soliloquies and Boethius, as I move beyond reconstructing unhælu and the lives of unhal people, and start to think about unhælu’s broader cultural significance.

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Chapter 6: Cultural Uses of Unhælu

The previous three chapters sought primarily to reconstruct the Anglo-Saxon concept of unhælu and to provide an impression of the lives of unhal people. To that end, they focused on how the Anglo-Saxons responded to unhælu: how they worked to remedy it or at least to alleviate its negative effects. This chapter, by shifting the focus to how the

Anglo-Saxons made cultural use of unhælu, broadens the scope of my project’s analysis.

In particular, I consider how the Alfredian texts employed unhælu both to achieve their rhetorical purposes and to serve as a metaphor for complex, often abstract ideas. I have chosen to focus on the Alfredian corpus, since it deals with unhælu in contexts and genres that are not represented in the other chapters. At the outset, it is crucial to acknowledge that this corpus’ presentation and treatment of unhælu is not unified and consistent, as its texts were written for different audiences and different purposes, and were often translations of other authors’ works. This diversity is advantageous, though, as it allows us to trace the various cultural uses to which unhælu was put in the Anglo-Saxon period.

More problematically, however, the Alfredian corpus itself constitutes a vexed textual grouping, as scholars have questioned both Alfred’s involvement in the translation of the works that were traditionally attributed to him, and the authenticity of Asser’s biography of Alfred, De rebus gestis Ælfredi (hereafter, DRGA). I address these

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controversies in more detail in the course of this chapter, but, for the moment, it suffices to say that I accept the historically dominant views that, firstly, Alfred participated in the production of the OE Pastoral Care, the OE Boethius, the OE Soliloquies, and a prose version of the first fifty-five Psalms, and that, secondly, Asser’s biography is genuine and offers an account of the historical Alfred that would have been identifiable to his contemporaries. Even given these controversies, however, the Alfredian texts provide the most useful locus for my examination of unhælu’s cultural uses, since they aptly demonstrate its role both in rhetoric and in metaphor. For unhælu’s role in rhetoric, I discuss Asser’s DRGA, which includes an account of Alfred’s lifelong, chronic unhælu that the king appears to have experienced as disabling. Initially, this biography may seem to be akin to the disability life-writing that is so crucial to the field of disability studies, and to offer insight into the king’s psychological and physical experience of unhælu.

Nonetheless, as Richard Abels reminds us,

[t]he Life of Alfred [as DRGA is known in translation] is not a biography in the modern sense. Asser did not strive for historical accuracy or objectivity. Rather, like Einhard’s Life of Charlemagne, upon which it drew, the Life was meant to be an encomium, a celebration of Alfred’s greatness for the edification of its multiple audiences: the monks at St David’s, the royal court, the king’s sons, and, not least, Alfred himself, to whom the work was dedicated.1

As an encomium, Asser’s biography is frankly propagandistic, and therefore is more concerned with rhetorically producing Alfred as a model king than with writing his actual

1 Richard Abels, Alfred the Great: War, Kingship, and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England (New York: Pearson Education Limited, 1998; repr. New York: Routledge, 2013), 12. Citations refer to the Routledge edition.

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life. The work strives to rhetorically position Alfred as an ideal king, a successful warrior, a brilliant scholar, and a virtuous Christian.2 Among the other strategies that it employs to accomplish this goal, it draws on the hagiographical discourse of unhælu as a marker of sanctity, and uses it to write Alfred as a kind of secular saint and even a Christ- like savior. The first half of the chapter traces this strategy.

For unhælu’s role in conceptual metaphors pertaining to mental and spiritual processes, I examine the OE Boethius and the OE Soliloquies, two of the vernacular translations that many, though not all, scholars would attribute to Alfred’s circle.3 Both of these works use unhælu as a metaphor for the often abstract philosophical ideas that they attempt to teach to their audience. In some cases, the metaphors in the Old English texts are present in the Latin sources, and are carried over into the translation without much alteration. In other cases, though, the metaphors are introduced by the vernacular translator, or are significantly transformed from the source text. The second half of this chapter focuses on these latter cases, since they are places where the translator has explicitly intervened in the text, and therefore are most indicative of Anglo-Saxon beliefs and attitudes towards unhælu.

The Rhetorical Use of Unhælu in DRGA

I begin by examining how Asser’s DRGA uses unhælu as part of its rhetorical strategy.

Before I discuss this biography in more detail, however, I need to address the debate

2 Ibid. 3 As I will discuss in more depth later in this chapter, Alfred almost certainly did not produce the translations himself, but might have supervised other people’s efforts.

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around its authenticity, since any account of its rhetoric needs to consider its kairos and its audience. More specifically, my analysis is based on the assumption that, as an encomium, Asser’s biography produces an idealized version of Alfred for the benefit of his subjects, and therefore constructs his unhælu in a way that would be appealing to them. Yet, this assumption would be invalid if the work were a later forgery, as argued by

V. H. Galbraith,4 and more recently and controversially by Alfred P. Smyth.5 Galbraith suggested that the work contained various anachronisms and that it should be attributed to the eleventh-century Bishop Leofric of Exeter.6 His arguments, however, were convincingly refuted by Dorothy Whitelock, who made a strong case that “Asser’s Life of

King Alfred is simply what it claims to be.”7 Smyth revived the debate about the work’s authorship, when he argued that Byrhtferth, who lived in the late tenth and early eleventh century, had forged the work in order to serve the purposes of the Benedictine reform, and that present-day scholars had perpetuated the deception because of Alfred’s importance to English national mythology.8 Smyth’s arguments were not well-received, with Simon Keynes, in particular, rightly dismissing his claims of an academic conspiracy as “ludicrous,” and claiming that his fundamental case was “contrived, not constructed.”9 Consequently, as the debate stands, we have no sound reason to doubt the

4 V. H. Galbraith, “Who Wrote Asser’s Life of Alfred?,” in An Introduction to the Study of History (London: C.A.Watts & Co, 1964), 85-128. 5 Alfred P. Smyth, King Alfred the Great (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). 6 Galbraith, “Who Wrote Asser,” 85-128. 7 Dorothy Whitelock, The Genuine Asser, The Stenton Lecture 1967 (Reading: The University of Reading, 1968), 21. 8 Smyth, King Alfred, 202-206. 9 Simon Keynes, “On the Authenticity of Asser’s Life of King Alfred,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 47 (1996): 558-59.

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authenticity of Asser’s work, which means that it is able to serve as a reliable witness to

Alfred’s unhælu and a demonstration of the rhetorical use to which his circle put it.

Alfred’s Unhælu as Depicted in DRGA

Early in DRGA, Asser provides the reader with a surprisingly detailed account of Alfred’s lifelong, chronic unhælu. Anton Scharer remarks that, “[a]lthough Asser introduces

Alfred as a great warrior and huntsman, much space is accorded to his illness, suffering, and fear of pain.”10 This emphasis on his unhælu may seem surprising in an encomium designed to present him as an ideal king, and suggests that Asser believed it was necessary or advantageous to include it in his work. On the one hand, Asser might have felt that his audience would know about Alfred’s unhælu and therefore that he needed to address it. On the other, he might have thought that it would be appealing to them. Beth

Tovey argues that he had both of these motives in mind, when she claims that Alfred’s impairments were apparent to those around him, and therefore Asser could not ignore it in his panegyric.11 Instead, she suggests, he chose to bring it to the forefront of the narrative, and make its very severity serve as a sign of Alfred’s greatness.12

To understand the means by which Asser accomplishes this process, we need to think about how he depicts Alfred’s unhælu. Asser narrates how Alfred, as a young man, suffered from ficus, which is normally understood to be hemorrhoids, but which lexically

10 Anton Scharer, “The Writing of History at King Alfred’s Court,” Early Medieval Europe 5, no. 2 (1996): 186-87. 11 Tovey, “Kingly Impairments,” 145. She remarks that his second illness manifests itself in front of a large crowd, and some of those present diagnose it as hemorrhoids, which suggests that they had knowledge of his first illness. I discuss this evidence later in this section. 12 Ibid.

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may also be a sebaceous cyst or even a white spot in the eye.13 Alfred miraculously developed this condition after he prayed to be given an illness that would enable him to resist carnal desires and remain dedicated to God’s service. Importantly, in his prayers, he specified that the disease should not make him “indignum et inutilem in mundanis rebus”

(unfit for and weak in worldly matters).14 That is, he wanted to receive an impairment, but he was also afraid of becoming disabled, and being unable to carry out his duties as a member of the royal household. Despite this request, Alfred’s ficus eventually became so painful that he could no longer live with it and he went to pray for healing at the church in Cornwall where St Gueriir was interred. Specifically, he asked for his ficus to be exchanged for a less severe and debilitating condition that would not disable him. After

Alfred prayed at the church, he was cured of his ficus, but, during his wedding feast, he was gripped by a sudden, severe pain that no doctor could identify or cure, which, once again, makes it appear supernatural. Asser claims that this second disease afflicted Alfred from his marriage at twenty to his death at forty-five, but does not state precisely what it was.15 His biography, however, provides us with the public’s speculation about what happened to the king. Some believed it was a recurrence of his earlier ficus; others, an unknown fever; still others, the work of witchcraft and the devil.16 This gossip does not help to clarify what Alfred’s condition was, but it does reveal that it was publicly known and that his subjects gossiped about it.

13 Pratt, “Illnesses,” 58-59. 14 Asser, DRGA, ch. 74 (56; trans. Keynes and Lapidge, Life, 90). 15 Asser, DRGA, ch. 74 (55; trans. Keynes and Lapidge, Life, 89). 16 Asser, DRGA, ch. 74 (54-5; trans. Keynes and Lapidge, Life, 89).

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For purposes of diagnosis, Asser’s DRGA is not our only testimony to the nature of Alfred’s second condition. Bald’s Leechbook includes a prescription that it claims was sent from the Patriarch Elias of Jerusalem to Alfred, almost certainly along with a collection of the medicines that it recommends.17 This prescription specifies remedies for

Alfred’s various symptoms, and suggests that he experienced abdominal pain, constipation, diarrhea, and chest congestion.18 This information has led scholars to diagnose him with a range of gastric and perianal conditions, including a recurrence of hemorrhoids,19 ano-genital warts,20 and, per the currently favored theory, Crohn’s disease.21

Although such diagnostic speculation may be popular among scholars, it tends to be counterproductive in thinking through the Anglo-Saxon construction of unhælu and mapping its cultural uses. It encourages us to read unhælu through the lens of modern medicine, and thereby moves us away from the Anglo-Saxon understanding of the condition. For instance, when critics describe Alfred’s unhælu as Crohn’s disease, they implicitly characterize it as an idiopathic autoimmune disorder that causes inflammation of the bowels,22 a medical interpretation which would have been meaningless to the

17 Audrey Meaney argues that Elias would have sent the medicines along with the prescription, since none of them would have been easily available in Anglo-Saxon England. “Alfred, the Patriarch, and the White Stone,” AUMLA: Journal of the Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association 49 (1978): 67-70. 18 Cockayne, 2:174. The remainder of the remedy is found on 2:288-89. 19 Pratt, “Illnesses,” 62-63. 20 J.D. Oriel, “Anal and Genital Warts in the Ancient World,” Paleopathology Newsletter 3 (1973): 5-7. 21 G. Craig, “Alfred the Great: A Diagnosis,” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 84 (1991): 303-305; Pratt, “Illnesses,” 72-74. 22 “Crohn’s Disease,” Medline Plus: A Service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health, last modified 13 October 2013, http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000249.htm. An idiopathic disease develops spontaneously or appears to have no obvious cause.

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Anglo-Saxons, and, in some instances, would have been incompatible with how they perceived it. For instance, Alfred and his contemporaries did not view his condition as idiopathic at all. Asser states that Alfred attributes his unhælu to divine intervention and discerned a deeper spiritual purpose to it, while the people around him blame witchcraft and the devil. These interpretations stand in stark contrast to the modern medical diagnosis, and they offer us the most useful insight into how the Anglo-Saxons would have thought about Alfred’s illness.

Indeed, Alfred’s perception of his unhælu (at least as depicted in the biography) is key to understanding Asser’s rhetorical use of it. Asser shows that the king recognized his unhælu as a divine gift, and he encourages his audience to follow suit. According to

Janet Nelson,

[t]he terrible affliction that befell Alfred at his wedding was something to be highlighted in a work written for Alfred and, presumably, his entourage. Asser knew that the episode would make sense to an audience ready to see suffering, and its remission, as divine visitations. Alfred’s public pain, like his private devotions, signaled a special closeness to God.23

Nelson’s argument about the work’s rhetorical purpose is sound, but we can productively expand her idea of its audience. Alfred and his court certainly would have been among

Asser’s audience, but they might not have been the readership whom Asser primarily had in mind. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge have persuasively demonstrated that DRGA was written for a Welsh readership, as their leaders had recently submitted to Alfred, and

23 Janet Nelson, “Wealth and Wisdom: The Politics of Alfred the Great,” in Kings and Kingship, ed. Joel T. Rosenthal, Acta 11 (Binghamton: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, State University of New York at Binghamton, 1987), 34.

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the Welsh had become a significant group among his subjects.24 In this context, Asser would have been even more eager to depict Alfred as chosen by God and therefore as the rightful king of his new subjects. He also would have been anxious to dissipate any concern that the Welsh would have had about Alfred’s unhælu, which was a matter of public speculation, and which potentially could have made him appear weak to them. In order to accomplish these goals, Asser took inspiration from the hagiographical tradition and its unhal saints.

Here, I should stress that I am not claiming that Asser’s encomium should be read as a hagiography. As David Pratt asserts, “royal sanctity was an entirely posthumous phenomenon in Anglo-Saxon England, and, in the case of kings, nearly always acquired through an appropriate manner of death.”25 Alfred would have met neither of these criteria when Asser wrote his encomium,26 and Asser is not characterizing him as a saint in any literal way. Instead, I am arguing that Asser is appropriating hagiographical discourse and putting it to secular use. Specifically, as Jeffrey J. Cohen remarks, Asser uses the common hagiographical trope of bodily infirmity as a marker of sanctity, in order to depict his body as “regnal and saintly because it suffers.”27 In this way, Asser attempts to transform the public perception of Alfred’s unhælu, so that it does not raise any doubts about his fitness to rule but instead demonstrates it.

24 Keynes and Lapidge, Life, 41-42. 25 Pratt, “Illnesses,” 40. 26 Keynes and Lapidge date Asser’s DRGA to 893 CE, since Asser notes that he wrote the work in Alfred’s forty-fifth year. Life, 53; DRGA, ch. 91 (76). 27 Cohen, Medieval Identity Machines, xix.

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The Anglo-Saxons inherited this trope from Scripture and especially from the late antique tradition. Scharer argues that “the teaching and example of Gregory the Great” was “in all likelihood the source of the concept of suffering as a sign of the chosen.”28 As

Paul Kershaw notes, Gregorian thought was important to Alfred,29 and two of the four translations with which Alfred is still believed to have been involved are Gregorian works: the OE Pastoral Care and the OE Dialogues.30 Most notably for the purposes of

Kershaw’s argument, Alfred appears to have participated in the production of the OE

Pastoral Care, and might even have been responsible for the actual translation with the assistance of his helpers. Indeed, even Malcolm Godden concedes that, of all the works attributed to him, Alfred is the most likely to have produced the OE Pastoral Care, given its reasonably simple Latin.31 Moreover, as Kershaw notes, the OE Pastoral Care’s preface names Asser as one of Alfred’s helpers, which, if true, suggests that the bishop would have been exposed to its ideas, and therefore could have drawn on them in his biography of the king.32

This Gregorian influence is evident in the way that Asser’s account of Alfred’s unhælu parallels Gregory’s teachings and examples. Firstly, as Kershaw shows, Asser is influenced by the Gregorian idea that “public power, and the prerequisites needed both to

28 Scharer, “Writing of History,” 188. 29 Paul Kershaw, “Illness, Power and Prayer in Asser’s Life of King Alfred,” Early Medieval Europe 10, no. 2 (2001): 216. 30 I discuss the authorship of the OE Soliloquies below when I examine the metaphors within the text. As mentioned in Chapter Two, Wærferth of Worcester is the most likely author of the OE Dialogues. See Godden, “Wærferth and King Alfred.” 31 Malcolm Godden, “Did King Alfred Write Anything?,” Medium Aevum 76, no. 1 (2007): 14. 32 Kershaw, “Illness,” 216.

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attain and maintain it, began with private struggles.”33 His biography depicts Alfred’s unhælu as a struggle that allows him to develop self-control, and thereby equips him to gain control of the state. As Sally Crawford claims, “Alfred’s illnesses demonstrated his extraordinary and heroic power to control himself. Though suffering greatly, his self- control was such that no-one could detect his illness, nor did his illness stand in the way of his great works.”34 Crawford’s claims are only partially supported by Asser’s biography. Alfred’s unhælu might have been undetectable some of the time, especially if it were Crohn’s disease and therefore went into remission; however, it was very apparent on occasion. As discussed earlier, the guests at Alfred’s wedding were able to detect his unhælu, and speculated about what had caused it, which suggests that its effects were visible and that it became a matter of public comment. Yet, even if people knew about

Alfred’s unhælu, they would not have perceived him as disabled by it. Asser is very clear that Alfred’s unhælu does not prevent him from being a great king, scholar, and warrior.

Indeed, he implies that Alfred’s experience of suffering allowed him to develop self- mastery and self-control, and so helped him become fit him to rule.

Asser advances the idea that Alfred’s unhælu allowed him to develop self-control by drawing on another important argument in the Cura pastoralis. As I demonstrated in

Chapter Two, Gregory presents unhælu as a form of divine discipline that cleanses people’s sins and prevents them from doing wrong, and states that people should welcome it as a sign of God’s love. Bede’s account of Gregory in the Historia

33 Ibid. 34 Sally Crawford, “Differentiation in the Later Anglo-Saxon Burial Ritual on the Basis of Mental or Physical Impairment: a Documentary Perspective,” in Burial in Later Anglo-Saxon England c.650- 1100AD, ed. Jo Buckberry and Annia Cherryson (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2010), 96.

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ecclesiastica aptly illustrates this principle,35 as it shows how Gregory’s own ill-health functioned to maintain his Christian discipline, and how it marked him out as chosen by

God.36 Asser’s depiction of Alfred’s unhælu follows this template, as he narrates how

Alfred explicitly develops both conditions in order to curb potential sexual urges, and help him to develop his self-control. As a young man, Alfred is given ficus after he prays to God for some infirmity once he realizes he cannot abstain from carnal urges and will incur divine wrath for acting on them. As a married man, he develops an unnamed condition presumably for the same reason. As Cohen remarks, “it cannot be an accident that the illness which originates as anal hemorrhaging is divinely transmuted at Alfred’s wedding feast, just as he enters into institutionalized heterosexuality.”37 Cohen’s argument, however, assumes two connections that are not wholly supported by the evidence. Firstly, Asser does not suggest that Alfred’s initial ficus is necessarily transmuted into his second, unspecified condition. He remarks that the public speculated that Alfred experienced a relapse, but he does not necessarily endorse that theory.

35 Alfred and his circle appear to have been aware of the Historia ecclesiastica, even though they did not make extensive, direct use of it. See Nicole Guenther Discenza, “The Sources of Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy (C.B.9.3),” Fontes Anglo-Saxonici: World Wide Web Register, last modified 1999, http://fontes.english.ox.ac.uk. It would be convenient to claim that Alfred and his teachers translated Bede’s work into the vernacular and therefore were intimately familiar with it, as Ælfric of Eynshem asserts and generations of scholars believed, yet the evidence weighs against this possibility. While paleographical evidence suggests that the OE Bede was completed by the end of the ninth or beginning of the tenth centuries, neither Alfred nor Asser ever claim responsibility for the translation (as they do with others), the dialect of the work is Anglian and not West Saxon, and the mixed style of the translation points to three separate translators. As a result, some scholars attribute the translation to a separate school in Mercia that may have been inspired by the king’s translation project; others claim that Alfred’s court attracted Mercian scholars who worked on the translation as part of his circle. For an overview of the arguments around the authorship of the OE Bede, see Sharon Rowley, The Old English Version of Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2011), 37-45. 36 See Chapter Five of this dissertation. 37 Cohen, Medieval Identity Machines, xx.

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Secondly, the Anglo-Saxons probably did not connect Alfred’s ficus with sodomy or homoerotic desire, as Cohen implies.38 At most, they might have associated it with carnal sins. Specifically, Pratt notes that the Anglo-Saxons had a tradition of prayers (such as the Irish Lorica and the Mane cum resurrexero) that ask God to restrain a wide range of body parts so that the person would not use them to commit sins. 39 He argues that this tradition would have led people to associate physical impairments with particular sins.40

Since Alfred’s ficus was anogenital, its location might have encouraged its identification with carnal sin, yet it is highly unlikely that it was intended to connote same-sex attraction.41 In fact, I would dispute whether the Anglo-Saxons would necessarily have associated it with carnal sin at all, since, as the foregoing chapters have shown, they did not always draw a connection between unhælu and sin. This discourse existed at the time, as the hagiographies testify; however, it was not as all-pervasive as Pratt suggests.

Consequently, I would argue that, if anything, Asser’s account of Alfred’s second condition is intended to underscore his lack of carnal sin, his exemplary sexual continence.

38 Cohen notes that ficus was sexually suggestive, citing Bruce Holsinger’s study of the word fico in the Divine Comedy. Medieval Identity Machines, xx. It is highly debatable whether the Anglo-Saxons would have shared the connotations that Holsinger identifies in the Divine Comedy, especially since Dante is drawing on Classical writers (such as Martial) who would not have been well-known at the Anglo-Saxon court, and playing with the lexeme fico as a reference to the anus itself and not the hemorrhoids that afflict it. Holsinger, “Sodomy and Resurrection: The Homoerotic Subject of the Divine Comedy,” in Premodern Sexualities, ed. Louise Fradenburg and Carla Freccero (New York: Routledge, 1996), 243-74. Pratt, in fact, specifically rejects this interpretation of ficus, stating that it would be misleading to use its defamatory meaning to support the idea of same-sex desire. “Illnesses,” 66. 39 Pratt, “Illnesses,” 64-66. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid., 66.

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Before thinking about how Asser characterizes Alfred in these terms, we should acknowledge that Asser’s emphasis on Alfred’s sexual continence is strange, since his contemporaries would not have expected it from a king. Pratt notes that earlier ecclesiastical reformers, such as Boniface and Alcuin, might have insisted that a king avoid adultery and concubinage, but, in general, “there is every sign that irregular royal unions continued to be tolerated or even encouraged” in Wessex and other kingdoms.42 In fact, Janet Nelson has suggested that Alfred himself took a concubine and fathered an illegitimate son by the name of Osferth, who, if he were Alfred’s child, did not seem to experience much stigma due to his status, as he rose to significant wealth and power.43

Given this laissez-faire attitude that prevailed, we may wonder why Asser is so insistent on Alfred’s sexual self-control. The most likely answer is once again found in Asser’s use of the hagiographical tradition, in which, even more than unhælu, virginity and chastity are markers of sanctity. As a king, Alfred could not be a virgin without serious political consequences: an important part of his responsibility as a ruler would have been to provide an heir to the kingdom and preferably multiple ones.44 Yet, given the exigencies of his position, he could demonstrate a similar kind of sexual restraint. He could have procreative sex within the confines of marriage, and have the possibility of pleasure precluded by his constant, excruciating pain. Asser’s account of Alfred’s second

42 Ibid., 55-54. 43 Janet Nelson, “Reconstructing a Royal Family: Reflections on Alfred, from Asser, chapter 2,” in People and Places in Northern Europe, 500-1600: Essays in Honour of Peter Hayes Sawyer, ed. Ian N. Wood and Niels Lund (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 1991), 59-61. Nelson’s theory is based on limited evidence, and is not universally accepted. 44 One heir was not necessary enough to secure the line of succession. Alfred himself had three older brothers.

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condition seems designed to lead his audience to that conclusion, as he stresses how

Alfred developed his unhælu at his wedding, presumably before he would have to consummate it and thereby begin to be sexually active. Whether or not the historical

Alfred was a virgin before his wedding, Asser implies that he had not engaged in sexual intercourse until that point, since his first condition was intended to restrain his carnal urges. Consequently, since Alfred was not and indeed could not be a virgin without negative consequences, Asser uses the king’s unhælu to glorify his marital chastity in the absence of his celibacy. In this way, although Asser is not writing hagiography, he is depicting Alfred as a kind of secular saint, and thereby bolstering his authority as rightful king.

Tovey suggests that Asser occasionally gestures towards Alfred being more than merely human, although he never develops this subtext beyond subtle hints.45 Asser describes Alfred as being “multis tribulationum clavis confossus, quamvis in regia potestate constitutus” (transfixed by the nails of many tribulations, even though he is invested with royal authority).46 As part of Alfred’s tribulations, Asser explains that

“gravissima incogniti doloris infestatione incessanter fatigatur, ita ut ne unius quidem horae securitatem habeat” (he has been plagued continually with the savage attacks of some unknown disease, such that he does not have even a single hour of peace). These savage attacks cause Alfred a kind of intense, bodily pain to similar nail wounds.47

Evidently, the Anglo-Saxons would have immediately understood the image of a king

45 Tovey, “Kingly Impairments,” 146. 46 Asser, DRGA, ch. 91 (76; trans. Keynes and Lapidge, Life, 101). 47 Ibid.

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transfixed by nails to be an image of the crucified Christ, a connection which Asser would have been eager for them to make.48 Yet, contrary to Tovey’s claims, it is debatable whether this depiction of Alfred is intended to suggest that he exceeds the saints and becomes more than human, since imitatio Christi is exceptionally common in hagiography. Instead, I would argue that this parallel between Alfred and Christ is another way in which Asser is representing Alfred as saintly.

The Limits of Unhælu’s Use in Rhetoric

Although Asser uses Alfred’s unhælu to present him as a type of secular saint and thereby transform a potential indication of weakness into a mark of authority, we should acknowledge that this rhetoric has certain limitations. As Kershaw notes, “[h]umility and physical infirmity stood at the very opposite of the spectrum of conventional Anglo-

Saxon warrior values, and war leadership remained a key element of Anglo-Saxon kingship until its end.”49 For this reason, Asser’s depiction of Alfred’s unhælu risked raising questions about his fitness to rule, and had to be tempered so that his condition did not seem disabling. After all, if Alfred had been too unhal, he would have been ineligible for the kingship. Asser’s account registers these anxieties, when he discusses how Alfred was concerned that his ficus might appear outwardly, or develop into a condition that would make him “useless and despised.” Alfred’s fears emerge in his prayers at the church where St Gueriir was interred:

48 Tovey, “Kingly Impairments,” 146. 49 Kershaw, “Illness,” 222-23.

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…diu in oratione tacita prostratus, ita Domini misericordiam deprecabatur, quatenus omnipotens Deus pro sua immense clementia stimulos praesentis et infestantis infirmitatis aliqua qualicunque leviori infirmitate mutaret, ea tamen condicione, ut corporaliter exterius illa infirmitas non appareret, ne inutilis et despectus esset. Timebat enim lepram aut caccitatem, vel aliquem talem dolorem, qui homines tam cito et inutiles et despectos suo adventu efficiunt.

(…he lay in silent prayer a long while in order to beseech the Lord’s mercy, so that Almighty God in his bountiful kindness might substitute for the pangs of the present and agonizing infirmity some less severe illness, on the understanding that the new illness would not be outwardly visible on his body, whereby he would be rendered useless and contemptible. For he feared leprosy or blindness, or some other disease, which so quickly render men useless and contemptible by their onslaught.) 50

Beth Tovey notes that Asser’s repetition of “inutilis et despectus” (useless and contemptible) illustrates the social needs of a king, who “must be effective in protecting his realm, and maintain the respect of his subjects.”51 Given these needs, it is significant that Alfred asks for the new illness to be invisible on his body, since, as my discussion of the law-codes explored, deformity seems to have carried stigma with it, and would have harmed Alfred’s prestige. Instead, as Tovey continues by discussing, Alfred’s impairments are able to remain mysterious because they are invisible.52 No-one around him can discern precisely what they are, doctors cannot diagnose or cure them, and “their mystery suggests a supernatural origin that bolsters the claim that they are sent by

God.”53 Their invisibility contributes to their efficacy.

50 Asser, DRGA, ch. 74 (55; trans. Keynes and Lapidge, Life, 89). Caccitatem, which is the form in the manuscript, should be understood as caecitatem. 51 Tovey, “Kingly Impairments,” 145. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid.

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Nevertheless, the invisibility of Alfred’s impairments would have been irrelevant if they were severe enough to disable him. At least in part, Alfred’s fears must have had their basis in Anglo-Saxon regnal custom, which precluded heirs with certain impairments from taking the throne. Although the Anglo-Saxon textual record does not set out this custom in any explicit fashion, it can be inferred from certain historical events. Sarah Foot notes how, per William of Malsmebury, a group of conspirators attempted to blind Æþelstan in the city of Winchester after his father’s death, and remarks that “this imaginative ploy would, if successful, have removed the new king from power on grounds of physical disability, but without making his opponents murderers.”54 Likewise, Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe examines how Harold Harefoot captures and blinds the second son of Æþelred II, Alfred Æþeling, an event which is recorded in the entry for 1036 in the C-text of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 55 O’Brien

O’Keeffe claims that Harold blinds him in order to make him “ineligible for succession.”56 As these two cases illustrate, people’s physical impairments, particularly blindness, could prevent them from taking or holding the kingship.

This custom almost certainly arose for practical reasons, since a king with certain physical impairments would not have been able to carry out the duties of his position. In particular, he would not have been capable of assuming an active role in war leadership, which would have involved commanding the troops in battle and fighting alongside them, and which, as stated above, remained an important aspect of Anglo-Saxon kingship

54 Sarah Foot, Æthelstan: The First King of England (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011), 40. 55 O’Brien O’Keeffe, “Body and Law,” 212-14. For the specific entry, see Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition: MS C (London: D.S. Brewer, 2000), 105-6. 56 O’Brien O’Keeffe, “Body and Law,” 214.

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throughout the period. Asser stresses the importance of the king’s martial role when he foregrounds Alfred’s military prowess in the process of demonstating his suitability as king:

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.

(Indeed, he could have easily taken it [i.e. the kingdom] over with the consent of all while his brother Æthelred was alive, had he considered himself worthy to do so, for he surpassed all his brothers both in wisdom and in all good habits; and in particular because he was a great warrior and victorious in virtually all battles.)57

According to Asser, Alfred’s talent as a warrior and his success in warfare are his best qualifications for kingship. He states that Alfred could have taken over Wessex at any point, and that the people would have welcomed his assumption of authority, which renders the possibility more benign. Asser’s commentary on Alfred’s youth reveals an important aspect of why kings would have needed to be capable warriors. Their kingdoms would have been under threat from other Anglo-Saxon nobles who wished to conquer them, or foreign armies who embarked on raids against them. If a king were not able to protect his kingdom, he would lose wealth, subjects, even potentially his throne.

Consequently, the Anglo-Saxons would have wanted their kings to be great warriors and victorious in almost all of their battles. For obvious reasons, a blind man or a man with

57Asser, DRGA, ch. 42 (32; trans. Keynes and Lapidge, Life, 80-81).

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advanced leprosy simply would not have been effective in the warfare of the time, which is why Alfred fears becoming unhal in those ways.

At the same time, however, Asser stresses the importance of wisdom and virtue for the king, when he claims that Alfred surpasses his brothers in both those respects. The

OE Boethius offers a similar view of kingship, which is drawn from the translator’s highly traditional and conventional conception of what makes a good king.58 To cite just one example, Wisdom advises Boethius’ mind in meter 16 of the prosimetric C-text:

Se þe wille anwald agon, ðonne sceal he ærest tilian þæt he his selfes on sefan age anwald innan, þy læs he æfre sie his unþeawum eall underðyded.

(He who wishes to have power must first strive to control his own mind within, lest it ever be wholly subjected to his vices.)59

In other words, a person in power should strive to achieve self-control and should not give into vice. Instead, they should be guided by wisdom to seek virtue. The multiple stories about bad kings such as Nero, Tantalus and Tityus within the OE Boethius only serve to reinforce this point. Those rulers allow themselves to give into their vices, and bring suffering on themselves and their people as a result. Consequently, it is significant that Alfred excels his brothers in good habits and wisdom, which, as discussed earlier,

58 For a discussion of the changes that translator makes to Boethius’ conception of kingship to bring them more in line with Anglo-Saxon concept of kingship, see Nicole Guenther Discenza, The King’s English: Strategies of Translation in the Old English Boethius (New York: State University of New York Press, 2005), 59-86. 59 OE Boethius metre 16.1-4 (ed. Godden and Irvine, 1:450-51; trans. ibid., 2:141). This quote is from the C-text.

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Asser presents as an inevitable consequence of the self-control and self-mastery that his unhælu teaches him.

Given this understanding of kingship, Asser seems to be engaging in a delicate balancing act in his biography. He uses Alfred’s unhælu as a means of indicating his saint-like virtue and his fitness to rule, yet also insists that his condition is not severe or debilitating enough to prevent him from carrying out his duties as a king. In other words, he shows that Alfred is unhal enough to be righteous, but not enough to be ineffective.

Again, we may witness a parallel with Bede’s depiction of Gregory, where Bede insists on the pope’s vigor and success as a spiritual leader by listing his many accomplishments. Asser makes a very similar move within the biography, when he offers a lengthy catalogue of all the king’s deeds, which include going hunting, directing craftsmen and animal trainers, designing and commissioning treasures, reading books and learning vernacular poems, overseeing the government of his kingdom, attending divine services and Mass daily, offering charity, supporting the clergy and the nobility, and teaching his children.60 At the beginning of the catalogue is inserted a reminder that the king did all of this “inter bella et praesentis vitae frequentia impedimenta, necnon paganorum infestationes et cotidianas corporis infirmitates” (amidst the wars and the numerous interruptions of this present life – not to mention the Viking attacks and his continual bodily infirmities).61 In this way, Asser is able to insist that, while Alfred may have been unhal, he was an energetic and effective ruler, who accomplished an

60 Asser, DRGA, ch. 76 (59; trans. Keynes and Lapidge, Life, 91). 61 Ibid.

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extraordinary amount during his reign, even more than his able-bodied predecessors. By constantly stressing Alfred’s supreme competence, Asser is able to banish any doubts that his unhælu prevented him from carrying out his function as king, or made him “inutilis et despectus” (useless and contemptible) as he feared. 62

Unhælu as Metaphor

Asser’s DRGA demonstrates how the Anglo-Saxons used unhælu for rhetorical purposes, as Asser employs the Gregorian construction of unhælu and the hagiographical trope of unhælu as a marker of sanctity in order to establish Alfred’s authority and his fitness to rule. As a result, the king’s literal unhælu is made to serve as an indication of his inner state, and so becomes an external sign of his virtues. In what follows, I wish to expand on this use of unhælu as an image for other qualities, and examine how the Anglo-Saxons employed it as a metaphor, usually for mental or spiritual states. In order to explore how unhælu is used in this way and what that use reveals about Anglo-Saxon understandings of impairment, I wish to discuss two philosophical texts from within the Alfredian corpus that frequently use unhælu for metaphorical purposes – namely, the OE Soliloquies and the OE Boethius.

The Authorship of the OE Soliloquies and the OE Boethius

Before I am able to delve into the OE Soliloquies’ and the OE Boethius’ use of metaphor, however, I need to address the debate that surrounds their authorship, since it will affect

62 Asser, DRGA, ch. 74 (56; trans. Keynes and Lapidge, Life, 89).

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how I interpret the texts and their relationship to each other. Both of the texts were clearly produced by the same translator, who might have been associated with Alfred’s circle, but was not Alfred himself. As Malcolm Godden explains, the OE Boethius uses the Latin Soliloquia as a source on occasion, while the OE Soliloquies appears to draw on ideas developed in the OE Boethius.63 He continues by noting that both texts are not afraid to develop new arguments in opposition to their source texts, that they use similar argumentative techniques and phrases, and that they share important and unusual ideas such as the pre-existence of the soul.64 Likewise, Paul Szarmach observes that they share verbal similarities and echoes.65 While the evidence strongly suggests that the same translator was responsible for the OE Soliloquies and the OE Boethius, it is much less certain whether that translator was Alfred or was even associated with him. Both works explicitly claim Alfred as their translator in either their preface or their explicit, but such attributions do not mean much in the Middle Ages, where it was common practice to write texts in the name and voice of the king irrespective of his personal involvement with it.66 Indeed, as Godden remarks, Alfred’s likely low level of Latinity and unfamiliarity with the intellectual traditions on which the texts draw would seem to rule him out as the immediate translator, though it would not preclude him from supervising

63 Godden, “King Alfred,” 9. 64 Ibid. 65 Paul E. Szarmach, “Boethius’s Influence in Anglo-Saxon England: The Vernacular and the De Consolatione Philosophiae,” in A Companion to Boethius in the Middle Ages, ed. Noel Harold Kaylor and Philip Edward Phillips (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 254. Unfortunately, Szarmach’s full assessment of the connections between the text is still forthcoming in “Augustine’s Soliloquia in Old English” in the projected Brill Companion to Alfred the Great, ed. Paul E. Szarmach with Nicole Guenther Discenza. 66 Godden, “King Alfred,” 4-8.

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the work and making less direct contributions.67 Nonetheless, Alfred’s involvement with the project may be suggested by the manner in which both translations include original material that seems germane to the concerns of a powerful layman or a king, and therefore may imply royal participation in the project. Godden, however, persuasively argues that an interest in kingship is not unique to works authored by kings, and that the passages on the subject reflect more the perspective of an official, advisor or courtier than a king, especially since some of them are critical of kingship. 68 Perhaps the strongest argument for Alfred’s involvement lies in the lack of alternative authors. As Richard

Wuelcker argues, we have no plausible, alternative Anglo-Saxon author who would have been able to produce the OE Soliloquies and, by extension, the OE Boethius.69 Wuelcker made this claim over a hundred years ago, yet the intervening time has not produced another candidate. Godden concedes the absence of alternative authors, but he does not view it as an insuperable obstacle, especially since he asserts that we do not need to date the OE Boethius and OE Soliloquies to within Alfred’s lifetime.70 Consequently, we are left with the conclusion that Alfred almost certainly was not the translator of both works, but that he might have been involved in their production in a meaningful way, especially in the absence of other better candidates. For my project’s purposes, it is perhaps more important that both works are by the same author and therefore presumably draw on the

67 Ibid., 15. 68 Godden, “King Alfred,” 10-11. 69 Richard Paul Wuecker, “Ueber die Angelsaechsische Bearbeitung der Soliloquien Augustins,” Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 4 (1877), 105. 70 Godden, “King Alfred,” 17-18.

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same understanding of unhælu, so that the two works can be discussed in direct relationship to each other.

Unhælu as a Metaphor for the Dialectic Process in the OE Boethius

The OE Boethius, as its title suggests, is a vernacular translation of Boethius’ De consolatione Philosophiae (hereafter, Cons.). In this influential, late antique text, Lady

Philosophy visits Boethius who is in prison awaiting an unjust execution, and who has become so deranged by grief and self-pity that he has forgotten the true Good. Lady

Philosophy engages Boethius in a dialectic process that is designed to correct his mental disorder and thereby lead him back to knowledge of the Good. The OE Boethius maintains this fundamental structure, but replaces Lady Philosophy with a masculine

Wisdom and has him address Boethius’ mind directly. Therefore, in identical fashion to

Cons., the OE Boethius uses unhælu as metaphor to structure the progression of its dialectic. When Wisdom comes down to Boethius lamenting in his prison cell and inspects the state of his mind, Wisdom diagnoses his mind as unhal. Wisdom asks the mind: “Wenst þu þæt ic nyte þone wol þinre gedrefednesse þe þu mid ymbfangen eart?”

(Do you think that I do not know the disease of the affliction with which you are enveloped?)71 Gedrefednes, which Godden and Irvine translate as “the affliction,” can refer to either a “physical disturbance” or a “mental agitation.”72 The lexeme’s polysemy is important in this context. Wisdom is stating that the mind has been affected by grief,

71 OE Boethius, ch. 5 (ed. Godden and Irvine, 1:249; trans. ibid., 2:8). 72 DOE Online, s.v. “gedrefednes.” The lexeme can also refer to disturbance, confusion, or disorder that has nothing to do with unhælu.

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but he characterizes it as a kind of physical unhælu. He goes on to explain that, when the mind moves away from truth and begins to pursue falsehood, “þonne onginnað weaxan

þa mistas þe þæt mod gedrefað, and mid ealle fordwilmað þa soþan gesiehþe swelce mistas swelce nu on þinum modum sindan” (then there begin to grow the fogs which afflict the mind, and such fogs as are now in your mind utterly confound the true vision).73 The underlying metaphor makes use of the idea of visual impairment, as it implies that these mental fogs are like darkness that spreads across the eyes, which was a traditional image in ancient and medieval literature.74 Thus, we have impairment of vision being used as an image for mental disturbance. Wisdom promises the mind that he will thin the fogs and restore clarity of vision. In sum, the OE Boethius presents

Wisdom’s dialectic as a curative process, through which he restores hælu to the unhal mind.

This diagnostic and curative metaphor comes directly from Cons., where Lady

Philosophy explicitly presents herself as a physician and her teachings as medicine.

Interestingly, this dimension of the metaphor is muted in the vernacular translation.

Wisdom seldom refers to his teachings as leechdoms and never explicitly calls himself as a leech. The closest he comes to presenting himself in these terms is when he explains that he is using the customary language of a leech, saying: “Genog ryhte þu hit ongitst, and þæt is eac tacn þinre hæle, swa swa læca gewuna is þæt hi cweðað þonne hio seocne mon gesioð, gef hi hwelc unfæglic tacn him on geseoð” (You understand rightly enough,

73 OE Boethius, ch. 5 (ed. Godden and Irvine, 1:250; trans. ibid., 2:9). 74 This metaphorical use of visual impairment appears even more strongly later in the work, and I will discuss it in depth at that point.

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and that is also a sign of your health, as it is the custom of doctors that they say when they see a sick man, if they see some unfatal sign in him).75 It is possible that the negative phrasing of “unfæglic tacn” (unfatal sign) suggests something of the pessimism with which Anglo-Saxon leeches’ efforts were viewed and the unlikelihood of their patients recovering from any serious diseases, as established in my foregoing chapter on the curative tradition. By describing positive signs as “unfatal,” Wisdom suggests that most signs were fatal, and most physicians were powerless to produce unfatal ones, which would explain why the translator would be reluctant to align Wisdom with them. Yet, the

OE Boethius later suggests that doctors know best how to recognize illnesses and the skills that need to be used against them, and uses their treatment of sick bodies as an image for God’s treatment of souls.76 The translator took this assertion directly from

Cons., but he did not alter it in any way, which suggests that he did not view it as problematic.

Significantly, the OE Soliloquies expresses even greater confidence in the knowledge and the ability of leeches. Gesceadwisnes tells Agustinus:

Se læca wot gearnor þonne se seoca hweðer he hine gelacnian mæg þe ne mæg, oððe hweðer he hine mæg gelocnian þe myd liðum læcedomum þe myd stiðum. Forðam þu ne scealt to swiðe þe ladian, ne to swiðe seofian after riht. ne sint þa eagan þines modes æalles swa hale swa þu wenst.77

(The leech knows more readily than the sick person whether he can or cannot heal him, or whether he can heal him with gentle remedies or with severe ones. Therefore, you must not defend – excuse, exculpate - yourself too much, nor sigh

75 OE Boethius, ch. 36 (ed. Godden and Irvine, 1:342; trans. ibid., 2:69). 76 OE Boethius, ch. 39 (ed. Godden and Irvine, 1:365; trans. ibid., 2:85). 77 OE Soliloquies, bk. 1 (79-80).

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too much after what is right. The eyes of your mind are not altogether as hal as you believe.)

Agustinus accepts the validity of her words, and concedes that “se læce þe ic wilnige þæt me gehele, he wot hu hala æagan ic habbe” (the læce that I wish would heal me, he knows whether I have healthy eyes).78 Here, the OE Soliloquies articulates beliefs and attitudes that would not seem out of place in the present-day medical model. The leech knows more about unhælu than his patient, and so is able to develop an effective treatment regime. In the metaphor that forms the basis of this passage, the leech is God and knows a person’s spiritual health better than they do. Nonetheless, the implication is that human doctors have a similar level of expertise when it comes to their patients’ physical health.

As a result, we are left with the question why the OE Boethius suppresses the medical dimension of Wisdom’s treatment of the mind, in contrast to Lady Philosophy’s presentation of her dialectic process. The answer might lie in the way that the Old

English translation moves the dialectic onto the mental plane, as it becomes a conversation between Wisdom and Boethius’ mind, rather than Lady Philosophy and

Boethius. The Anglo-Saxons seem to have conceived of mental health impairments in very different terms to the present-day concept of “mental illness,” which might have discouraged the use of metaphor in the new context. That is, in the absence of a concept of mental illness, Anglo-Saxon readers would find it difficult to imagine a leech treating the mind, and so would have suppressed this dimension of Wisdom’s characterization.

78 OE Soliloquies, bk. 1 (80).

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The Construction of Hælu and Unhælu in the OE Boethius

As the OE Boethius conceives of its dialectic as a movement from unhælu to hælu, it implicitly characterizes unhælu as negative and hælu as positive, which is unsurprising given the valuations of the states that we have observed elsewhere. What may be surprising is Wisdom’s high valuation of health, especially given the work’s general disdain of earthly goods. When Wisdom attempts to demonstrate to Boethius’ mind that his situation is not as unhappy and intolerable as he believes, he reminds him that “þu git liofost and eart hal. Hwæt, þæt is sio mæste ar deaðlicra manna, þæt hie libban and sen hale” (you still live and are healthy. Indeed, that is the greatest gift of mortal men, that they live and are healthy).79 Wisdom later modifies his claim to concede that people care more about the well-being of their families than their own lives, but this initial statement remains a powerful assertion of the value of life and hælu, which are paired together in similar fashion to death and unhælu elsewhere.80 He considers them to be the most important gifts that a person can possess, and, together with the family, perhaps the only earthly gifts of any value, given his firm rejection of wealth, fame and power later in the text.

At the same time, Wisdom is acutely aware of the fragility and fleetingness of the body and its hælu. In course of explaining the futility of earthly prosperity to Boethius’ mind, he comments:

79 OE Boethius, ch. 10 (ed. Godden and Irvine, 1:259; trans. ibid., 2:15). This statement has no equivalent in the Latin source, which only talks about the blessings of family. 80 See Chapter Seven of this dissertation.

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Swa swa se heofen is betera and healicra and fægerra þonne eall his innung buton monnum anum, swa is monnes lichoma betera and deorwyrðra þonne ealle his æhta. Ac hu micele þincð þe þonne seo sawl betere and deorwyrðre þonne se lichoma? ...Se wlite þæs lichoman is swiðe flionde and swiðe tedre and swiðe anlic eorþan blostmum…. Ac geþencað nu swiðe geornlice and gesceadwislice smeagað hwelce þæs flæslican god sien and þa gesælþa ðe ge nu ungemetlice wilniað. Þonne magan ge sweotole ongeotan þæt þæs lichoman fæger and his streonþa magon beon afeorred mid þreora daga fefre.

(Just as the heaven is better and greater and fairer than all that it contains except men alone, so a man’s body is better and more precious than all his possessions. But how much better then and more precious is the soul than the body, do you think? ...The beauty of the body is very fleeting and very frail and very like the flowers of the earth…. But think now you men very carefully and consider rationally what these fleshly goods are and the felicities that you now excessively yearn for. Then you can clearly understand that the body’s beauty and strength can be removed by a fever of three days.) 81

In these lines, Wisdom presents the body as precious but ultimately precarious. He does not deny the value of physical beauty and health, but he suggests that they are transient and vulnerable. He likens the body to the flowers of earth, in a clear echo of Job’s lament that a man comes up and withers away like a flower.82 He states that, in only three days, the body can be wasted by a fever, which was perhaps chosen as a form of unhælu that is particularly indiscriminate and out of the individual’s control. Elsewhere, Wisdom speaks about how no creature’s body is weaker than humankind’s, since “[þ]am magon derian þa læstan fleogan, and ða gnættas mid swiðe lytlum sticelum him deriað, and eac þa smalan wyrmas þa ðone mon ægder ge innan ge uton werdað, and hwilum fulneah deadne gedoð” ([t]he smallest flies can injure him, and the gnats with very small jabs, and also

81 OE Boethius, ch. 32 (ed. Godden and Irvine, 1:308-9; trans. ibid., 2:47). 82 Job 14:2.

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the tiny worms who injure man inside and outside, and sometimes almost kill him).83

While Wisdom’s statement is hyperbolic in that many animals experience the same parasitic infections, his rhetorical point is plain. The human body is so vulnerable that it can be afflicted and even killed by the tiniest of creatures: flies, gnats and wyrmas. In sum, physical hælu is a very tenuous state and can be altered in the blink of an eye by minuscule creatures. The lesson that Wisdom wishes to impart is that people should value the soul and the True Good it seeks above the body and the fleshly goods that it makes available. The soul is as eternal and as durable as the body is transient and weak.

From the perspective of modern disability studies, however, it is striking how much this view parallels the notion of temporary able-bodiedness (TAB), a term which was coined by activists in the 1980s and which “reflects the drive to understand disability as a human condition and as something more normal and inevitable than being able- bodied.”84 The term serves to express the likelihood that people will inevitably become disabled through age, accidents, diseases or other circumstances, and so makes an argument for disability rights being human rights in the broadest sense.85 Wisdom’s description of the body as frail and fleeting is reminiscent of the assumptions at the core of temporary able-bodiedness, if not their activist conclusions. He is suggesting that the

83 OE Boethius, ch. 16 (ed. Godden and Irvine, 1:273; trans. ibid., 2:23-24). Although much of this material is in the original Latin source, it is worth mentioning that the translator has introduced the wyrms, presumably to bring it in line with indigenous Germanic beliefs about aetiology. In the Latin, the creatures are flies. Boethius, Cons. 2p6 (ed. Bieler, Cons., 43). 84 Brueggemann, Arts and Humanities, 255. From a present-day perspective, this term may present the inevitably of impairment too strongly, and so Deborah Marks has suggested the alternative term “contingently able-bodied.” Disability: Controversial Debates and Psychosocial Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 1999), 18 85Brueggemann, Arts and Humanities, 8.

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body is fundamentally weak and susceptible to unhælu, and that, at best, hælu is a transient state that can quickly and easily be altered. We will revisit this idea when we discuss Beowulf in a later chapter, since that poem is structured fundamentally around the notion of temporary able-bodiedness. For the moment, though, we need to keep this understanding of the body and physical hælu in mind when we consider the metaphors of unhælu that the text employs.

The Body That Is No Longer a Body

The most striking use of unhælu as a metaphor in the OE Boethius may be found in the passage with which I opened the dissertation, and which I wish to consider in more depth at this point. In this passage, Wisdom explains how everything that exists wishes to exist in a whole and undivided state, and uses the human body in order to illustrate his point:

Ða cwæð he. Wast þu hwæt mon sie? Ða cwæð ic. Ic wat þæt hit is sawl and lichoma. Ða cwæð he. Hwæt þu wast þæt hit bið mon ða hwile þe seo sawl and se lichoma undælde beoð. Ne bið hit nan mon siððan hi todælde bioð. Swa eac se lichoma bið lichoma ða hwile þe he his limu ealle hæfð. Gif [he] þonne hwylc lim forlyst, þonne ne bið he eall swa he ær wæs. Þæt ilce ðu miht geþencan be ælcum þinge, þæt nan ðing ne bið swelce hit was siððan hit wanian onginð.

86 OE Boethius, ch. 34 (ed. Godden and Irvine, 1:326; trans. ibid., 2:59).

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As I discussed in the introduction, Wisdom’s statement about the body only being a body while it has all its limbs is remarkable. It implies that the body ceases to be a body after it loses an arm or a leg, and that it moves into a different conceptual – even ontological – category at that point. He makes the underlying logic of his argument plain in the final line of the passage. Only the whole or complete body can be considered a body. Once it has a part subtracted, it is less than a body and cannot be considered identical with it. On an abstract, mathematical level, this argument makes sense. Two minus one is not two.

On a practical, sociological level, it is harder to know how to interpret it. Does it suggest that people with certain deformities were considered to be in another conceptual category, that their bodies were seen as profoundly different in some way?

This question becomes even more problematic, when we remember that mutilated, deformed and disabled bodies would have been a regular sight in Anglo-Saxon

England around the time of Alfred’s reign. Given the frequency and the savagery of

Viking raids, we can safely infer that the majority of Anglo-Saxons either would have experienced some form of impairment or deformity, or would have known others who did. For the Anglo-Saxons, therefore, Wisdom's analogy would not have been an abstract one; it would have spoken to their own lived experience. This raises the question of how they would have read this section of the Boethius: would they have agreed that the mutilated body is no longer truly a body, or would this idea have been as foreign to them as the Platonic thought that forms the basis of this work and underpins this argument?

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Wisdom's statement about the body which is no longer a body has a firm basis in the Cons., yet it cannot be fully explained away with reference to its source, since the translator changes it in a number of important ways. Lady Philosophy tells Boethius:

ipsum quoque corpus cum in una forma membrorum coniunctione permanet humana uisitur species, at si distributae segregataeque partes corporis distraxerint unitatem desinit esse quod fuerat.

(The very body, too, so long as it remains in one form through the combination of its members, you see a human figure; but if the parts are divided up and separated and the body's unity destroyed, it ceases to be what it was.) 87

The differences between the two versions are subtle but significant. Boethius refers to the complete dismemberment of the body; the Old English translator to the loss of a single limb. Boethius stresses the appearance of the body; the translator the body itself. These differences can partially be explained in terms of the Platonic philosophy which informs

Boethius’ treatise, but which the translator seems either to have understood poorly or to have altered deliberately for an audience unfamiliar with it. In this section, Boethius is drawing upon Plato’s theory of Form, which, simply stated, claims that forms in the material world are imperfect imitations of Forms that exist on a higher plane of reality. If the form of the individual body differs radically from the abstract Form of Body, it can no longer be known as a body, since it is only through the resemblance of form and Form that objects are comprehensible. This dimension is completely absent from the translator’s argument, which raises the question of what epistemological system underlies

87 Boethius, Cons. 3p11 (78; trans. Watts, Consolation of Philosophy, 75).

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it. In cases such as this one where the vernacular translation seems to be an obvious misinterpretation or reinterpretation of the Boethian original, it seems likely that the translator has brought indigenous ways of thinking about the subject to bear upon the text, either deliberately as a means of making it more germane to his audience or unintentionally due to a poor understanding of the original.

That said, we cannot completely exclude the possibility that the translator was drawing on a commentary tradition in his reformulation of this section, although it seems extremely unlikely for multiple reasons. Firstly, the sections where he draws on secondary material are characterized by a noticeable expansion on and explication of the original material, which does not appear to be the case here. Secondly and more problematically, we cannot be certain whether the translator used commentary material at all, as opposed to a small selection of separate texts.88 It is almost impossible to resolve this question in a satisfactory manner because of the unavailability of the commentaries themselves. Most of the glosses in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts appear to come from two major sources: one associated with Remigius of Auxerre and compiled or composed around 906; the other linked to the abbey of St Gall, and dated to the ninth or early tenth century.89 Yet, as Malcolm Godden and Susan Irvine explain, “neither commentary has ever been identified in its original form, or edited or even printed in full; all we have in

88 Joseph Wittig, “King Alfred’s Boethius and its Latin Sources: a Reconsideration,” Anglo-Saxon England 11 (1983): 157-98. 89 Godden and Irvine, OE Boethius, 6. The Boethius in Early Medieval Project at Oxford University is working on making these commentaries, glosses, and annotations more widely available. The Boethius Commentary Project, Boethius in Early Medieval Europe: Commentary on The Consolation of Philosophy from the 9th to the 11th Centuries, last modified 23 February 2010, http://www.english.ox.ac.uk/boethius/.

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print are a few extracts from single manuscripts or a very small group.” 90 Moreover, the latest research suggests that these commentary traditions were not static or monolithic; rather, they exhibited a great deal of variation, so that it is more accurate to think of them as a fluid collection of glosses and scholia that were constantly changed and adapted over the centuries. 91 Thus, the translator may have made use of idiosyncratic material that was available to him but that simply no longer survives.

These limitations make any research into the commentaries tentative and inconclusive at best, yet it still may be worth noting that none of the available commentaries contain any material that would explain the translator’s alterations. The

Remigian tradition, as presented in Edmund Taite Silk’s edition, contains material on 3 prose 11, but it does not provide any glosses on these particular lines.92 Likewise, the E1 manuscript of the St. Gall commentary does not offer much insight into the translator’s choices.93 It is more concerned with expanding on the relationship between the body and the soul, though it does echo Isidore’s etymology for corpus when it explains that

“corp[us] au[tem] d[icitur] eo q[uo]d corruptu[m] perit. Solubile at[que] mortale est”

(Moreover, the body is so called because, when it is undone, it passes away. It is able to

90 Ibid. 91 Ibid., 7-8. 92 Edmund Taite Silk, Saeculi Noni Auctoris in Boetii Consolationem Philosophiae Commentarius (Rome: Papers and Monographs of the American Academy in Rome, 1935). Silk’s edition primarily consists of a revised Remigian commentary that he erroneously attributes to Johannes Scotus Eriugena, but it also includes extensive material from the manuscript Ma, which is considered the most authentic representative of the tradition, and it is corrected against manuscript T. Ma is Cracow, Biblioteka Jagiellońska, Berol. lat 4o, 939, and T is Trier, Stadtbibliothek 1093. 93 The E1 manuscript is Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek 179. Rosalind Love describes it as the best representative of the St Gall tradition. “The Latin Commentaries on Boethius,” in A Companion to Boethius in the Middle Ages, ed Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr., and Philip Edward Phillips (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 116.

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be divided and is mortal).94 In this commentary, therefore, the division of the body is linked with the decay of death in a different fashion to the Anglo-Saxon translation with its emphasis on the loss of a limb. As a result, while we cannot state unequivocally that the translator did not use a commentary to rework this section, all of the extant evidence suggests that it is highly improbable. We are left with two possibilities: the translator did not understand the Platonic philosophy underpinning the Latin original and so offers a garbled account of it, or he used indigenous ideas about unhælu to rework his source’s metaphor in a deliberate fashion.95 While the former seems the most likely, we have to consider the latter as a possibility. That is, if we accept the change in the metaphor as deliberate, we may wonder whether the Anglo-Saxons thought that the body was profoundly altered by the loss of a limb, to the point where it could be considered something other than a body.

Later in the text, Wisdom reprises the image of a body missing a limb in a way which gives further insight into the logic behind the analogy. Once again, he uses this image as a simile for disunity, when he teaches how a people cease to exist as human when they depart from the Good:

Eall þæt þætte annesse hæfð, þæt we secgað þæt sie þa hwile þe hit ætsomne bið, and þa samwrædnesse we hatað god, swa swa an man bið man þa hwile þe sio sawl and se lichoma ætsomne bið; þonne [hi ðonne gesindrode beoð, þonne] ne bið he þæt þæt he ær wæs. Þæt ilce þu miht geþencan be þam lichoman and be his limum. Gif þara hwilc of bið, þonne ne bið hit no full mon swa hit ær was.

94 Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek 179, pg. 152. I consulted images of this manuscript and transcribed these lines. 95 For the Anglo-Saxons’ reception of Platonic thought, see Lockett, Anglo-Saxon Psychologies, 213-22.

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(Everything that has oneness, we say that it is as long as it is together, and that togetherness we call good, just as one man is man as long as the soul and the body are together; when they are separated, then he is not what he was before. You can think the same about the body and its limbs. If any of them is missing, then it is not a complete man as it was before.)96

Interestingly, in this passage, Wisdom offers a different way of understanding the change brought about by the loss of a limb. He does not claim that the body is no longer a body, but rather that the body is no longer full mon or a complete man. We may wonder in which ways the loss of a limb makes a person a partial man or woman. Here, it may be useful to think back to the law-codes governing personal injury which offer partial wergild for the loss of various limbs. The justification for that wergild is presumably that the person is no longer whole, that the kin has suffered the partial loss of a person in some way. Moreover, if we think back to the law-codes’ underlying logic, they are based in the principle that the mutilation of the body causes damage to its functionality and appearance, which needs to be compensated in some way. I would suggest that a similar logic is at work here. If the body loses an arm or a leg, it loses a large part of its functionality, as the high legal penalties for those mutilations suggest. It also becomes obviously deformed in the absence of “normalizing” prosthetics such as artificial arms and legs; the Anglo-Saxons would have had crutches and stools at best. On both the functional and aesthetic levels, then, the person missing a limb is not complete. We can take the argument even further. Since it no longer exactly resembles the body or is able to perform the body’s duties as understood by Alfred’s contemporaries, it becomes

96 OE Boethius, ch. 37 (ed. Godden and Irvine, 1:348; trans. ibid., 2:73).

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something less than or even other than a body on some level. It is highly unlikely that the

Anglo-Saxon audience would have thought of it as being entirely different in an ontological sense, or that they would not have essentially considered it a body.

Nonetheless, they would have recognized the alteration within the body to which

Wisdom refers and have known what he meant when he claims that it is not all it was before.

Unhælu as a Metaphor for Incapacity in the OE Boethius

A similarly problematic instance of unhælu as metaphor may be found elsewhere in the text, where Wisdom attempts to educate about Boethius’ mind about the ability of good and evil people to seek the highest Good, and uses the analogy of two people’s capacity for mobility to illustrate his point. The Old English passage closely follows the Latin original in how it structures its argument, and so it makes sense to provide the passage from the Cons. before I consider how the Old English translator renders it in the vernacular. The Latin original reads:

Ambulandi, inquit, motum secundum naturam esse hominibus num negabis? Minime, inquam. Eiusque rei pedum officium esse naturale num dubitas? Ne hoc quidem, inquam. Si quis igitur pedibus incedere ualens ambulet alius que, cui hoc naturale pedum desit officium, manibus nitens ambulare conetur, quis horum iure ualentior existimari potest? Contexe, inquam, caetera; nam quin naturalis officii potens eo qui idem nequeat ualentior sit nullus ambigat.

(“You will not deny that the action of walking is natural and human, will you?” “No.” “And presumably you have no doubt that is the natural function of the feet?” “No, indeed.” “If, then, one man is able to proceed on foot and goes walking, and another lacks the natural function of the feet and tries to walk on his hands, which may properly be considered the more able or powerful?” “Ask me

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another! No one could doubt that the man who can do the natural action is more able than the one who can't!”)97

The vernacular version is a condensed but reasonably faithful rendition of the equivalent section in the Cons.:

Ða cwæð he. Hwæþer wenst þu nu, gif twegen men fundiað to anre stowe and habbað emnmicelne willan to to cummene, and oðer hæfð his fota anweald þæt he mæg gan, swa swa eallum monnum gecynde wære þæt hi mihton, oðer næfð his fota geweald þæt he mæge gan, and wilnað þeah to farenne, and onginð crypan on þone ilcan weg, hwæþer þara twegra þincð þe mihtigra? Ða cwæð ic. Nis þæt gelic. Se bið mihtigre se ðe gæð þonne se þe crypð, forþam he mæg cuman eð þider þe he wile þonne se oðer.

(Then he said: “What do you think, if two men set out for the same place and have an equal desire to come to it, and one has control of his feet so that he can walk, as it is natural for all men that they can, and the other does not have control of his feet so that he could walk, and nevertheless wants to journey and begins to creep along the same way, which of the two seems to you the stronger?” Then I said: “There is no similarity. He who walks is stronger than the one who crawls, since he can more easily come to where he wants than the other.”)98

Because of the closeness of this translation, we have to be cautious about assuming that this passage reflects ninth-century Anglo-Saxon views, rather than those of the late antique period. That said, the translation is not entirely identical to the original, which suggests that the translator understood it and condensed it for his audience. Indeed, his abridgement of it suggests that he felt it would be intelligible to his readers, since he condenses the argument instead of expanding it and commenting on it, as is his practice when dealing with foreign material. Consequently, we can infer that the attitudes that it

97 Boethius, Cons. 4p2 (92; trans. Watts, Consolation of Philosophy, 89). 98 OE Boethius, ch. 36 (ed. Godden and Irvine, 1:341-42; trans. ibid. 2:69).

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expresses would have been familiar to his readers, and perhaps would have been shared by them.

On examining the construction of the metaphor, it becomes immediately apparent that Wisdom connects hælu with strength or ability, and unhælu with weakness or inability; the hal person is mightier or more able than the unhal one. In Cons., likewise, the person who can walk is more capable than the one who has to use his hands. As the metaphor is framed, it does not express a binary situation where the hal person has the ability to walk and the unhal person does not. Rather, both people seem to be on a spectrum of ability, where one is stronger or more able than the other. The unhal person is still capable of movement, but he creeps instead of walks, and so his locomotion is weaker. We may wonder whether the target of the metaphor is interfering with the source here, since Boethius and his translator would be reluctant to claim that anyone would be completely incapable of seeking the Good.

In contrast to this spectrum, however, Wisdom foregrounds the naturalness of humans walking upright on two feet. He claims that it is natural for all humankind to walk in this manner, even as he acknowledges that not everyone is able to do so. Cons. is even more insistent on the naturalness of that gait, with natura “nature” and naturalis

“natural” occuring multiple times in the passage. The implication is that this form of unhælu results in unnatural behavior, that the unhal body is not only weak but its gait also goes against the natural order, since only animals are intended to walk on all four limbs, and humans are meant to be distinct from animals. Wisdom’s statement becomes even more problematic when we consider his earlier assertion that every creature, apart

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from humankind and some of the angels, is inclined towards its nature and desires to reach its natural state.99 He excludes humankind from this natural constraint on the basis that we have free will, but also suggests that it is negative when we turn away from our nature.100 Returning to the metaphor, Wisdom suggests that we follow our nature in walking on two feet. So, what does it mean that some people lack the capacity to do what is natural, that they are simply unable to follow their nature? As he sets up the metaphor, it is not a question of desire, but of ability. The text resolves this problem to some degree for the target of the metaphor, when it says that good people use the natural means of virtue to pursue the Good while bad people use unnatural means of their own desires, with the result that the good are more effective in their quest. It does not address the troubling assertion that bad people have the inability to change their approach and seek the Good, which sounds like the doctrine of conditional election, and which simply did not exist in the Anglo-Saxon period. More importantly, though, it does not address it for the source of the metaphor, where we are left with the discomfiting implication that people with mobility impairments are less human and more animalistic than people with normative mobility, because they are unable to act in accordance with human nature.

The metaphor continues beyond Wisdom’s analogy, though. In response to

Wisdom’s question about which person is stronger, Boethius’ mind responds that “[n]is

þæt gelic” (there is no similarity), and goes on to confirm that the hal person is stronger than the unhal one.101 The definite pronoun þæt is ambiguous in this context: is it

99 OE Boethius, ch. 25 (ed. Godden and Irvine, 1:293; trans. ibid., 2:37). 100 Ibid. 101 OE Boethius, ch. 36 (ed. Godden and Irvine, 1:341-42; trans. ibid., 2:69).

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referring to the person or their means of locomotion? Is it saying that the people are fundamentally unlike, or that they move in fundamentally different ways? Either way, the mind’s response is reminiscent of Wisdom's earlier assertion that a body without all of its limbs is not a body at all.

This section also makes the association between moral and physical incapacity that we have frequently noticed elsewhere, as it uses the unhal person’s inability to walk as a metaphor for the evil person’s inability to discern the Good. Consequently, within the metaphor, evil is figured as a kind of unhælu. Of course, as I have established in the foregoing discussion, this metaphoric usage should not be taken as indicating that the

Anglo-Saxons thought unhaelu was necessarily a consequence or a sign of evil, as they made that connection in only a few cases. Yet, it is different from the metaphor of unhælu that structures the whole narrative, where unhælu is used to signify a stage within dialectic beyond which Boethius is expected to move through Wisdom’s curative philosophy. Here, unhælu seems to represent a permanent state of being, an incapacity that the person cannot transcend or overcome in any way.

Disability is employed in a remarkably similar way later in the OE Boethius, where Wisdom once again uses physical impairment as a metaphor for moral incapacity.

In Chapter 38, he uses blindness as an image for people’s inability to discern the Good:

Hwaet, þu wast þaet ða men þe habbað unhale eagan ne magon fuleaðe locian ongean þa sunnan þonne hio beorhtost scinð, ne furðum on fyr ne on nanwuht beorhtes hi ne lyst locian, gif se æppel lef bið. Swa bioð þa synnfullan mod ablend mid hiora yfelan willan þaet hi ne magon gesion þaet lioht þære beorhtan soðfaestnesse, þæt is se hehsta wisdom. Ac him bið swa þam fuglum and þam diorum þe magon bet locian on niht þonne dæg. Se dæg blent and þiostrað hiora eagan, and þære nihte þiostro hi onlihtað. Forþy wenað þa ablendan mod þæt þæt

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sie sio mæste gesælð þæt men seo alefed yfel to donne…. Forþam wenað þa dysgan þæt ælc mon sie blind swa hi sint, and þæt nan mon ne mæge seon þæt hi gesion ne magon. Ðæt dysig is anliccost þe sum cild sie full hal and full æltæwe geboren, and swa fullice þionde on eallum cystum and cræftum þa hwile þe hit on cnihthade bioð, and swa forð eallne [þone] giogaðhad oðe he wyrð ælces cræftes medeme, and þonne lytle ær his midferhðe [weorðe] bam eagum blind, and eac þæs modes eagan weorðan swa ablende þaet he nanwuht ne gemune þæs ðe he æfre ær geseah oððe geherde.

(You know that those men who have weak eyes cannot very easily look at the sun when it shines most brightly, nor even do they like to look at a fire or anything bright, if the eye is injured. So are the sinful minds blinded by their evil will so that they cannot see the light of the bright truth, that is the highest wisdom. But it is for them as for those birds and animals which can better see at night than by day. The day blinds and darkens their eyes, and the darkness of the night makes them light. So the blinded minds think that the greatest felicity is that man is allowed to do evil.... So the foolish think that everyone is as blind as they are, and that no-one can see what they can’t see. That folly is as if a child is born completely sound and completely whole and so fully prospering in all virtues and skills while it is a boy, and so on through all his youth until he becomes excellent in every skill, and then a little before his mid-life becomes blind in both eyes, and also the mind’s eye becomes so blind that he remembers nothing of what he ever saw before or heard.)102

Again, this section of the Old English text has its basis in the Latin Cons., but the translator has altered and expanded on it in significant ways:

Nequeunt enim oculos tenebris assuetos ad lucem perspicuae ueritatis attollere similesque auibus sunt quarum intuitum nox inluminat, dies caecat; dum enim non rerum ordinem sed suos intuentur affectus, uel licentiam uel impunitatem scelerum putant esse felicem…. Quid, si quis amisso penitus uisu ipsum etiam se habuisse obliuisceretur intuitum nihilque sibi ad humanam perfectionem deesse arbitraretur, num uidentes eadem caeco putaremus?

(Their eyes are used to the dark and they cannot raise them to the shining light of truth. They are like birds whose sight is sharpened by night and blinded by day. So long as they look only at their own desires and not the order of creation, they think of the freedom to commit crimes and the absence of punishment as happy things…. Well, are we to join those people whom we have shown to be like

102 OE Boethius, ch. 38 (ed. Godden and Irvine, 1:355-56; trans. ibid., 2:78).

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animals? What about the case of a man who completely lost his sight and even forgot that he ever had it and thought that he had everything that belonged to human perfection; would we who had sight think the same as the blind man?)103

The differences between the Latin and Old English versions are striking. Boethius claims that the evil have disordered eyesight, since they are like birds that see better by night than by day. The translator retains the zoological metaphor in his vernacular translation, but also introduces another analogy based on human impairment, when he argues that the evil are like people who have weak or injured eyes, and therefore cannot look directly at a light source. He also spells out the metaphorical implications in a way that Boethius does not, when he refers to the sinful being blinded by their evil and unable to see the truth. Again, this move serves to foreground human unhælu, and make it a more central part of the imagery within the passage.

This impression is heightened by the manner in which the Old English refers to the man forgetting all that he has seen and heard after his inward and outward eyes are blinded. We may note two important differences here. Firstly, the Latin original depicts the individual as forgetting that he once had the sense of sight; the Old English translation depicts him as forgetting information that he gained through his senses. This change may suggest that the Anglo-Saxons placed a greater emphasis on function than the late antique Romans, since it does not focus on the sense per se but what the sense does. Secondly, the Old English version introduces the sense of hearing, whereas the

Latin work only dealt with sight. This addition is somewhat surprising, since the analogy

103 Boethius, Cons. 4p4 (103; trans. Watts, Consolation of Philosophy, 99).

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has dealt entirely with sight up until that point, and there is no immediate connection between the loss of sight and the loss of hearing, other than their status as forms of unhælu. Admittedly, the translator is dealing not only with the physical eyes but also the mind’s eyes, a conceptual metaphor which I will explore in much more depth when I move onto the OE Soliloquies, which makes more extensive use of it. Nonetheless, this explanation does not seem sufficient to account for this moment of synesthesia within the text. Rather, I would suggest that the translator is deliberately expanding the impairment beyond the sense of sight into the one of hearing, as a means of underscoring the incapacity of those who are unable to perceive the Good. By increasing the scope of the unhælu, he is able to increase the magnitude of their incapacity.

In general, though, this passage seems to be employing unhælu in an almost identical fashion to the earlier one about mobility. It uses blindness as an image for a moral impairment: an inability to perceive the Good or even to be aware of its existence.

This metaphor will be central to Gesceadwisnes’ argument in the OE Soliloquies, and I will pick up this thread in the course of my examination of the later text. For the moment, the similarity between the two passages is deserving of comment, since it suggests that the Anglo-Saxons viewed unhælu as an available and appropriate metaphor for other kinds of incapacity, perhaps because of the emphasis they placed on impairment as a loss of functionality.

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Attitudes towards Unhal People in the OE Boethius

Given this association of unhælu with moral incapacity or deficiency, we should wonder what attitude people are meant to adopt towards the physically or morally unhal.

Significantly, Wisdom tells the mind that he should have compassion on the evil, since that is the suitable response to people who are sick or afflicted: “Ne sceal nan mon siocne

[monnan and] gesargodne swencan, ac hine mon sceolde lædan to þam læce þæt he his tilige” (No-one ought to oppress a sick and afflicted person, but one should take him to the doctor so that he may look after him).104 Once again, we need to note that the translator derives this speech from Cons., where Philosophy tells Boethius:

Nam si uti corporum languor ita uitiositas quidam est quasi morbus animorum, cum aegros corpore minime dignos odio sed potius miseratione iudicemus, multo magis non insequendi sed miserandi sunt quorum mentes omni languore atrocior urguet improbitas.

(For just as weakness is a disease of the body, so wickedness is a disease of the mind. And if this is so, since we think of people who are sick in body as deserving sympathy rather than hatred, much more so do they deserve pity rather than blame who suffer an evil more severe than any physical illness.)105

As elsewhere in the Old English translation, the translator changes the original version in interesting and significant ways. Boethius states that the evil deserve sympathy rather than hatred, since they are essentially sick in mind. The translator retains the medical metaphor and the basic principle that the evil should not be oppressed, but he conceives of sympathy in practical terms. He does not present it as an abstract emotion, but as a

104 OE Boethius, ch. 38 (ed. Godden and Irvine, 1:357; trans. ibid., 2:79). 105 Boethius, Cons. 4p4 (99; trans. Watts, Consolation of Philosophy, 101).

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concrete act of assistance. He suggests that, rather than simply feeling sympathy for the unhal, people should demonstrate their compassion for them in practical terms by taking them to the doctor.

Summary of the Use of Unhælu as Metaphor in the OE Boethius

At this point, I wish to offer a brief summary of how the OE Boethius uses unhælu as metaphor, which I will expand at the end of the chapter after I have considered the OE

Soliloquies. In general, the OE Boethius tends to use unhælu as a metaphor for deficiency. Metaphors of this type structure the work as a whole, and inform its arguments at multiple points. Throughout the work, Wisdom presents the mind’s confusion and lack of rationality as a form of unhælu that he will address through his curative dialectic. Specifically, he pictures it as a form of visual impairment – a cataract- like fogginess that covers the mind and hinders clear thought – which will become important in the context of the OE Boethius and its metaphors of vision. In similar fashion, Wisdom uses unhælu as an image for the philosophical ideas that he develops in the course of his dialectic process. For instance, he treats the body’s loss of limbs as a metaphor for the more general loss of wholeness, which brings about an ontological transformation. In this way, he has physical unhælu, which we should remember literally means “unwholeness,” serve as a concrete image of division and deprivation conceived in the broadest sense. Likewise Wisdom makes mobility impairment stand for people’s inability to seek the highest Good, and visual impairment for their inability to perceive truth. In both of these cases, he uses unhælu to think through people’s moral incapacity.

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More needs to be said about this use of unhælu as a metaphor for deficiency, but I first wish to consider the evidence of the OE Soliloquies before reaching any conclusions.

Unhælu as Metaphor in the OE Soliloquies

For the most part, the OE Soliloquies uses unhælu as a metaphor in a similar fashion to the OE Boethius, which is unsurprising given the close relationship between the two translations. As I have already mentioned, the same translator appears to have been responsible for both works, and to have used the OE Boethius as a source for some added material in the OE Soliloquies. Because the OE Soliloquies is a hybrid work that comprises translated and original material, it may be necessary to give some idea of the work’s complex structure. Ostensibly, the OE Soliloquies presents itself a translation of

Augustine of Hippo’s Soliloquia, his reflection on God and the nature of the soul that he presents as an internal dialog between himself and his reason. In the OE Soliloquies,

Augustine becomes Agustinus, and his faculty of reason takes on the feminine persona of

Gesceadwisnes, which simply translates to “reason, discretion.”106 Yet, although the OE

Soliloquies preserves this dialog format and thereby purports to be Augustine’s thoughts, the work includes a great deal of material that is unique to the vernacular version.

Specifically, Book One offers a free paraphrase of Augustine’s work and remains relatively close to its source, but Book Two introduces substantial innovations, and Book

Three, which does not exist in the Latin source, primarily consists of material from other

106 BT, s.v. “gesceadwisnes.”

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late antique sources.107 My discussion will primarily focus on Book One, which makes the most extensive use of unhælu as a metaphor.

The Conception of Unhælu in the OE Soliloquies

Before I discuss unhælu as a metaphor within the OE Soliloquies, I wish to examine how the work deals with literal unhælu, in order to provide some sense of how it conceives of the state that is the source of its metaphors. Interestingly, the text opens by presenting

Agustinus and, by extension, humankind as lacking the capacity for total philosophical knowledge. Early in the dialog, Gesceadwisnes asks Agustinus: “is þin gemind swa mihtig þæt hit mage eall gehealden þæt þu geðengst and hym bebeotst to healdenne?” (Is your memory so mighty that it can hold all that you think about and you bid it to hold?)108

Agustinus responds: “nese, la nese, ne min ne nanes mannes nis to þam creftig þæt hit mage eall gehæaldan þæt him [mon] befæst” (no, oh no, neither mine nor any man’s

[memory] is so powerful that it can hold all that is committed to it).109 This exchange suggests that the human memory is incapable of preserving all of the knowledge that it gains through study and that it needs in order to do the work of philosophy. Rather, memory is defined by its lack of capacity and its inability to perform its primary function in a perfect fashion. As a result, human memory is fundamentally impaired. This

107 Milton McC. Gatch, “King Alfred’s Version of Augustine’s Soliloquia: Some Suggestions on Its Rationale and Unity,” in Studies in Earlier Old English Prose, ed. Paul E. Szarmach (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986), 17. For the sources of the OE Soliloquies, Malcolm Godden, “Text and Eschatology in Book III of the Old English Soliloquies,” Anglia 121 (2003): 177-209; and Godden, “The Sources of the Soliloquies (Cameron C.B.9.4),” Fontes Anglo-Saxonici: World Wide Web Register, last modified 1999, http://fontes.english.ox.ac.uk/. 108 OE Soliloquies, bk. 1 (49). 109 Ibid. I have amended “me on” to “mon,” as indicated by the square parentheses.

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understanding of human memory is, of course, not unique to the Anglo-Saxons, as the

Old English translator takes this material directly from his Latin source. In turn,

Augustine is almost certainly drawing on Neoplatonic ideas about the descent of the soul and Christian beliefs about the Fall, both of which are associated with the advent of forgetfulness.110

As a result, memory needs to be supplemented or, we might say, prosthetized by writing. Gesceadwisnes advises Agustinus: “befæste hit þonne bocstafum and awrit hit”

(commit it then to letters and write it down).111 Nonetheless, Agustinus lacks the ability to write down all the knowledge that Gesceadwisnes will impart to him. After instructing him to set it down in words, Gesceadwisnes reflects:

ac me þincð þath þeah, þæt þu si to unhal þæt ðu ne mage hit æall awritan; and þeah þu æall hal were, þu beþorftest þæt ðu hæfdest digele stoge and æmanne ælces oðres þinges, and fæawa cuðe men and creftige mid þe, ðe nan wiht ne amyrdan, ac fultmoden to þinum crefte.112

(But it seems to me, however, that you are too unhal, so that you cannot write it all down; and, even if you were completely hal, you need to have a private place empty of all other things, and a few familiar and skillful men with you, who would not hinder you in any way, but who would offer support to your ability.)

According to Gesceadwisnes, Agustinus is unhal, but he does not clarify what form his unhælu takes. The Latin source does not provide any clarification, as Ratio simply notes

110 For Augustine’s understanding of memory and forgetfulness, see Gerard O’Daly, Augustine’s Philosophy of Mind (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 131-51. For medieval conceptions of memory, see Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); and Eric Jager, The Book of the Heart (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). 111 OE Soliloquies, bk. 1 (49). 112 Ibid.

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that Augustine’s health is not up to the task of recording his thoughts in full, which may be a comment either on how ill he was, or how onerous the task of writing was.113 That said, Gesceadwisnes suggests that, if Agustinus were hal, he still would not have the capacity to carry out the task at hand. Part of it seems to be due to the distractions of his current life, but part of it seems to be that he simply does not have the ability to carry it out on his own. He needs his ability supported or, once again, prosthetized by knowledgeable and skilled men. Here, the Old English translation departs from the Latin original, which states that Augustine needs solitude for his work, i.e. isolation from all other people, even potential helpers.114 As Leslie Lockett notes, this change may be in sympathy with Alfred’s need for helpers in his own translation project.115 Yet, within the context of the OE Soliloquies, it suggests that even the completely hal are deficient when it comes to the level of ability and effort required by the work of philosophy.116 They are dependent upon others for assistance, and so they are not fundamentally different from the unhal in this particular context.

This theme of dependence and prosthesis extends further into the passage.

Agustinus laments that he has neither the secluded place where he can be at leisure, nor the help of others to support his own abilities. Gesceadwisnes advises him to pray to God for what he wishes, and to write down his prayer since he will otherwise forget it,

113 Reason asks Augustine: “Sed quid agis, quod valetudo tua scribendi laborem recusat?” (But what are you going to do, since your health protests the labor of writing?). Augustine, Soliloquia 1.1 (ed. Hörmann, 3). 114 Soliloquia 1.1 (ed. Hörmann, 3). 115 Lockett, Anglo-Saxon Psychologies, 361. 116 Wisdom is perhaps being hypothetical when he speaks about people who are completely hal, as it is hard to imagine anyone who does not have some physical limitations, even though they may be relatively minor. Thus, hælu might be considered the total absence of impairment or deficiency.

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underscoring the incapacity of the human memory.117 The implication is that God can supply the support Agustinus needs, as he can prosthetize his deficiencies better than any human aid. Interestingly, within Agustinus’ lengthy prayer, he asks God for physical wholeness:

ic þe befæste mynne lycuman, þat þu hine gehealde halne. Ic nat þeah hwes ic þer bydde, hweðer ic bydde nyttes þe unnittes me sylfum, oððe þam freondum þe ic lufige and me luf(i)að; ne þæt nat hu lange ðu hyne wil hæalne gehealdan.118

(I commit my body to you, that you may keep it hal. I do not know, however, what I ask there: whether I am asking for something useful or useless to me, or to those friends whom I love and who love me; and I do not know how long you will keep it hal.)

This passage is a close paraphrase of the Latin source, which reads: “[c]eterum de salute huius mortalis corporis mei, quamdiu nescio, quid mihi ex eo utile sit vel eis, quos diligo, tibi illud conmitto, pater sapientissime atque optime” (moreover, with regard to the health of this mortal body of mine, for how long I do not know what out of it may be useful to me or those whom I love, I entrust it to you, wisest and best father).119 In both cases,

Agustinus or Augustine evinces a surprising level of skepticism about the value of hælu.

He prays for God to give him health, but he knows it will be temporary, and he is not sure whether it will be useful to him or his friends. We may wonder why he believes hælu might be useless to him and his friends, and, indeed, what his state of hælu has to do with his friends at all. On the one hand, Agustinus may be employing the common trope of

117 OE Soliloquies, bk. 1 (50). 118 OE Soliloquies, bk. 1 (55). Parentheses in original. 119 Augustine, Soliloquia 1.6 (ed Hörmann, 10-11).

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humility by admitting his ignorance in the face of divine wisdom. On the other, he may be suggesting that unhælu has real value, as we have already observed in the hagiographies and Asser’s biography of Alfred. The value of Agustinus’ hælu to himself and his friends is fairly self-evident: if he is hal, he will have more strength for the work of philosophy, and his friends will not have to care for him. In contrast, the value of his unhælu is less apparent. It would arguably be of spiritual benefit to both parties, since, as in Gregory’s case, it might serve as a form of divine discipline for Agustinus, and allow his friends an opportunity to exercise charity.

Nonetheless, Agustinus’ suggestion that unhælu has value might also be a reflection of how the historical Augustine’s unhælu allowed him to pursue his spiritual vocation, as related in the Confessiones. In Book Nine of the Confessiones, Augustine tells of how, after his conversion, he chose to resign from his post as teacher of rhetoric, but postponed telling his students and their parents until the vacation, as he wished to avoid ostentation.120 During that time, he developed chest pains and had difficulty breathing, which he attributed to overwork and which provided him with a pretext to give up his teaching position. As he remarks of this lung condition, “etiam gaudere coepi, quod haec quoque suberat non mendax excusatio, quae offensionem hominum temperaret, qui propter liberos suos me liberum esse numquam uolebant” (I began even to rejoice that this not false excuse was also at hand, which might temper the displeasure of the people, who wanted me never to be free because of their children).121

120 Augustine, Confessiones 9.4 (ed. Verheijen, Confessiones, 134). 121 Augustine, Confessiones 9.4 (ed. Verheijen, Confessiones, 134-35).

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Consequently, the historical Augustine believed that his ill-health allowed him to separate himself from the secular world that had become burdensome to him, and pursue the religious life to which he felt called. It offered him a reprieve from the cares and responsibilities of an adult male, from the social expectations of his community. With that said, we should acknowledge that Alfred’s circle would only have known about these experiences through secondary discussions, if they knew about them at all. The

Confessiones were never widely circulated in pre-Conquest Anglo-Saxon England, and we have no evidence to suggest that Alfred and his helpers read the work.122 So, while

Augustine might have been drawing on his own experiences to inform his prayer, the

Anglo-Saxons would have been more likely to have interpreted his skepticism about health in the more usual Gregorian manner.

Moreover, within the same prayer, Agustinus reflects on value of ugliness within divine creation:

Dryhten, þu þe eall medemu geworhtest and naht unmedemes, þe nis nan gesceaft wiðerweard – þeah hwylc wille, heo ne mæg – ac þu hy hæfst æalle gesceapene gebyrdlice and gesome, and to þam geþwære þæt heora nan ne mæg oðerne mid ælle fordon; ac simle þæt unwlitige wlitigað þæt wlitige.123

(God, you who made all things worthy and nothing unworthy, you to whom no created being or thing is contrary – even if someone should wish to be, it cannot – rather, you have created all of them orderly and united and in such agreement that none of them is able to destroy another completely, but always the ugly beautifies the beautiful.)

122 Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Library, 282; Fontes Anglo-Saxonici Project, ed., Fontes Anglo-Saxonici: World Wide Web Register, http://fontes.english.ox.ac.uk/. 123 OE Soliloquies, bk. 1 (50).

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Indirectly, this passage has profound implications for the work’s conception of unhælu, which encompasses impairments and deformities. In my discussion of the law-codes, I demonstrated that the Anglo-Saxon notion of unhælu encompasses damage to both functionality and appearance, which would mean that certain forms of ugliness would have been included in the category. An individual who was born unattractive by the standards of the time probably would not have been considered unhal, but a warrior who had lost his outer ear to a spear or a nun who had cut off her nose would have been. To this, we might add people such as the hunchback Æþelsige who were born with extraordinary bodies, or who developed conditions such as leprosy that led to profound physical differences. Here, Agustinus suggests that such individuals are part of God’s plan for creation, part of his orderly design of the world and the creatures who inhabit it.

In other words, visibly impaired or deformed people should not be considered unworthy, since they are part of divine creation. Nonetheless, if we remember Alfred’s fear of developing a visible condition that would make him useless and despised, Agustinus’ prayer seems to articulate a philosophical ideal, rather than an Anglo-Saxon reality.

This philosophical ideal has its basis in the Latin original, where Augustine addresses God in the following terms:

Deus, per quem universitas etiam cum sinistra parte perfecta est. Deus, a quo dissonantia usque in extremum nulla est, cum deteriora melioribus concinunt. Deus, quem amat omne quod potest amare, sive sciens sive nesciens. Deus, in quo sunt omnia, cui tamen universae creaturae nec turpitudo turpis est nec malitia nocet nec error errat.124

124 Augustine, Soliloquia 1.2 (ed Hörmann, 4-5).

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(God, through whom the universe, even including its adverse part, is perfected. God, from whom there is no discord up to the end, since the worse things harmonize with the better ones. God, whom each thing loves that is able to love, either knowing or unknowing. God, in whom are all things, to whom nevertheless the ugliness of every creature is not ugly, and its wickedness does no harm, and its wandering does not go astray.)

As with the vernacular adaptation, the Latin original offers a vision of the universe where all of creation is part of a divine plan, and is characterized by perfect order and unity. It suggests that God is able to combine the good and the bad, the beauty and the ugly, the true and the errant in a kind of sonic harmony, as if they are different notes in a single melody. The Old English version provides a sense of what form this harmony might take, as it states that the ugly adorns the beautiful. This ornamental function of ugliness arguably makes it subordinate to and lesser than the beautiful. Ugliness has no purpose in and of itself; it enables the aesthetic appreciation of the beautiful by enhancing its beauty.

Indeed, as Metzler continues by discussing, Augustine goes even further in deprecating ugliness elsewhere in his writings, as he argues that ugliness should be understood as a privation from divine beauty.125

In short, the OE Soliloquies presents unhælu in complex terms. It suggests that, when it comes to the rigors of philosophy, everyone is unhal to some extent. No-one has the memory capacity to store all the knowledge that he may gain, or the stamina to set it down in writing by himself. Admittedly, the work suggests that hal people might be more physically capable of the work of philosophy, since they would be less constrained by bodily limitations. Yet, it undercuts this suggestion when it expresses ambivalence about

125 Ibid., 48.

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the value of hælu, which seems to be based on Augustine’s experiences, as his ill-health freed him from his secular responsibilities and permitted him to pursue spiritual matters.

That is, his unhælu actually allowed him time to carry out the work of philosophy.

Nonetheless, the work is less ambivalent about the type of unhælu that has aesthetic effects. It states that ugliness has a place in creation, but that place is in the service of beauty, which implies that it is a necessary evil. In and of itself, ugliness does not seem to achieve any good in the same way that other kinds of unhælu might.

Unhælu as Metaphor in the OE Soliloquies

Interestingly, the OE Soliloquies’ ambivalence about unhælu does not extend to its use of unhælu as metaphor, since, almost without exception, the work employs illness and impairment as images for negative states. Most significantly, the work develops an extended metaphor that uses visual acuity and impairment to signify people’s varying ability to seek knowledge and understand the truth. This metaphor, which comes from the

Latin source, is explicitly grounded in Neoplatonic theory about how sight enables the acquisition of knowledge. Agustinus sets out this theory in his account of how he learned about geometry:

Ða cwæð heo: hweðer geleornodest þu þe myd þam eagum, þe mid þam ingeþance? Þa cwæð ic: mid ægðrum ic hyt geleornode: ærest myd ðam eagum, and syðþan myd þam ingeþance. ða eagan me gebrodton on þam angytte. Ac siðþan ic hyt þa ongyten hæfde, þa forlæt ic þa sceawunga mid þam eagum and þohte; forði me þuhte þæt ic his mæate micle mare geþencan ðonne ic his mahte geseon, siððan þa eagan hyt ætfæstnodon minum ingeþance. swa swa scyp brincð man ofer sæ: syððan he þonne to lande cymð, þonne forlæt he þæt scyp standan, forþam him þyncð syððan þæt he mæge æð butan faran þonne mid. Eaðre me þincð þeah myd

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scipe on drigum lande to farande þonne me þynce mid ðam eagum buta þara gesceadwisnesse ænigne creft to geleornianne, þeah eagam þær-to hwilum fultmian scylen.126

(Then she said: did you learn with the eyes or with thought? Then I said: I learned it with both: first with the eyes, and then with thought. The eyes brought me to that understanding. But after I had observed it, then I gave up those examinations with the eyes and I contemplated; because it seemed to me that I could contemplate much more of it than I could see of it, after the eyes had fixed it in my thought. Just as a ship carries a man over the sea: after he comes onto land, he leaves the ship behind, because it seems to him that he can travel more easily without it than with it. It seems, however, easier to me to travel with a ship on dry land than to learn any knowledge with the eyes and without reason, although the eyes must provide support on occasion.)

In Agustinus’ response, he lays out the process through which sight leads to the acquisition of knowledge. As he explains, vision leads to contemplation, which in turn leads to knowledge. Importantly, his lexical choices suggest that this process holds true for all kinds of knowledge. Cræft is a remarkably polysemous word, which can refer to a skill, a trade or a craft, wisdom and knowledge, an art or a discipline, and an idea, among its other meanings.127 By using this word, Agustinus implies that, in general, people learn through sight. Self-evidently, this epistemology is ableist, and suggests that people with visual impairments are less capable (if not perhaps incapable) of gaining knowledge, an assumption which comes to underpin the metaphor.

Given the importance of this epistemology to the metaphor, it might be useful to set it out more directly and in more detail than Agustinus does. According to Miranda

Wilcox, the translator is working with an understanding of epistemology derived from

126 OE Soliloquies, bk. 1 (61). 127 DOE Online, s.v. “cræft.” For a discussion of cræft in the Alfredian corpus, see Nicole Guenther Discenza, “Power, Skill, and Virtue in the Old English Boethius,” Anglo-Saxon England 26 (1997): 81-108.

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early medieval Christianity, which adapted it from Neoplatonism.128 As she explains, the simile of the ship is a “straightforward description of the visual-ray theory of vision.”129

In this theory, a ray connects the viewer to the object in a two-way relationship: the soul of the viewer sends out a visual ray, and it absorbs into itself the form of the object, which is then fixed in the memory. 130 The visual-ray theory of vision had an intellectual counterpart in the Neoplatonic epistemology of illumination, so that reason was believed to make “direct contact with intelligible objects in an intellective acquaintance” in similar fashion to how visible objects were accessed through sight.131 As Wilcox describes it, this epistemology of illumination was based on “the phenomenological model of an embodied mental microcosm in which the inner and outer faculties operated simultaneously with

‘correspondent relation’ to produce knowledge.”132 Ultimately, “the entire body came to be viewed as psychosomatic,” so that a body part could equally refer to an aspect of the soul.133 In particular, vision became a model for cognition, and was frequently employed in conceptual metaphors for how the mind worked.134 It became commonplace to speak about the modes eagen (mind’s eyes), a metaphor which is present in the Latin

Soliloquia, but even more prevalent in the vernacular translation.135

128 Miranda Wilcox, “Alfred’s Epistemological Metaphors: eagan modes and scip modes,” Anglo-Saxon England 35 (2006): 179. 129 Ibid., 204-205. 130 Ibid., 205. 131 Ibid., 181. 132 Ibid., 180. 133 Ibid., 180-81. 134 Ibid. 135 Ibid., 202. Wilcox notes that the translator adds eagan modes nineteen times to the text, which is the greatest number of additions in the shortest translation.

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Within the OE Soliloquies, then, Gesceadwisnes uses the metaphor of the mind’s eyes to present the process of cognition. In particular, she speaks about the health and impairment of the mind’s eyes as a means to indicate people’s cognitive capacity. She introduces this metaphor immediately after Agustinus outlines how the eyes and mind work together in the process of acquiring knowledge, which underscores the connection between the visual-ray theory and the epistemology of illumination. She tells Agustinus:

for ðam þingum is ðearf þæt þu rihte hawie mid modes æagum to gode, swa rihte swa swa scipes ancer streng byð aþenæd on gerihte fram þam scype to þam ancræ; and gefastna þa eagen þines modes on gode swa se ancer byd gefastnoð on ðære eorðan.136

(for those reasons it is necessary that you look directly with the eyes of the mind to God, as directly as the ship’s anchor rope is stretched straight from the ship to the anchor; and fasten the eyes of your mind on God just as the anchor is fastened in the earth.)

Here, Gesceadwisnes suggests that the eyes of the mind function parallel to the eyes of the body, as they enable the person to perceive God. Gerard O’Daly provides a helpful overview of Augustine’s theory of how people come to know God, which is largely developed in the Soliloquia, and which underlies this passage in the translation. As

O’Daly explains, Augustine believed that, since God is the light of truth, people are able to apprehend him through their inner vision, and fix an impression of him in their minds, much in the same way that sight works.137 This impression, however, can only be partial and limited. Since God is ineffable, the mind can only touch his eternal wisdom in rare

136 OE Soliloquies, bk. 1 (61). 137 O’Daly, Augustine’s Philosophy, 211-16.

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moments, and can never fully understand it.138 Gesceadwisnes continues by clarifying that reason (i.e. gesceadwisnes itself) constitutes the eyes of the mind, as she claims that

“ic eom ælcum manniscum mode on þam stale þe seo hawung byð þam eagum” (I am in each human mind in the role that vision is in the eyes).139 Consequently, reason functions according to the same fundamental principles as vision, which is the basis of this metaphor.

Yet, as Gesceadwisnes continues by discussing, the eyes of the soul are not always hal, and so incapable of seeing God as clearly as the person looking may desire:

Þare saule hawung is gescadwisnes and smeaung. Ac manige sawle hawiað mid ðam and þeah ne geseoð þæt þæt hi wilniað, forðamþe hi næbbaþ ful hale eagan. Ac se þe god geseon wille, he scel habban his modes eagan hale: þæt is, ðæt he hebbe festne geleafan and rihte tohopan and fulle lufe. gyf he ðonne þa ealle hefð, ðonne hæfð he geselig lif and æce.140

(The soul’s vision is reason and inquiry. But many souls look with them, and yet do not see what they wish, because they do not have completely hal eyes. But he who wants to see God, he must have the eyes of his mind hal: that is, he should have firm faith and just hope and perfect love. If he has all those, then he has blessed and eternal life.)

Just as the body’s eyes may experience visual impairment, the mind’s eyes may be unhal and incapable of true vision. In this case, the unhælu of the mind’s eyes takes the form of an absence of or a deficiency in faith, hope and love. The metaphor becomes a little incoherent at this point, as we may wonder what these virtues have to do with reason. The translator seems to be thinking more about the health of the soul as a whole than the

138 Ibid. 139 OE Soliloquies, bk. 1 (65). 140 OE Soliloquies, bk. 1 (67).

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specific health of the mind’s eyes. Even so, it is not difficult to discern how he is using visual impairment as a metaphor. The unhælu of the eyes indicates a lack of virtue, instead of the perhaps expected lack of reason. The minds in question have reason and are capable of inquiry, yet they are unable to exercise them because they lack the prerequisite virtues. It is a subtle distinction but an important one. It means that we have visual impairment being equated with moral weakness rather than simple incapacity or inability, which parallels the way that the metaphor is used in the OE Boethius. This understanding of impairment is less common in Anglo-Saxon England, but it is obviously not unprecedented, since the law-codes and hagiographies show that unhælu was sometimes associated with criminal guilt or sin. Ultimately, though, it has its basis in the Latin original, which uses the same ocular metaphor of sound and unsound eyes to explain how people can only perceive God by cultivating the virtues of faith, hope and love.

Yet, Gesceadwisnes goes on to complicate this division between people with sound and unsound eyes. She likens God to the sun and suggests that people may see him with their mind’s eyes in the same way as they may look at the sun with their bodily eyes.141 As she emphasizes, though, the mind’s eyes are imperfect and incapable of looking on God for long, just as the body’s eyes cannot stare at the sun for more than a few moments:

næfð nan man to þæs hal eagan þæt he æni hwile mage locigan ongean þas sunnan þe we (h)ær geseoð, and huru þæs ðe læs gyf he hefð unhale. Ac þa þe unhale æagan hæbbað magon beon ieð on þistrum þonne on leohte. Me þincð þeah þæt þe ðince þæt þu habbe hal eagan.142

141 OE Soliloquies, bk. 1 (69). 142 OE Soliloquies, bk. 1 (72).

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(No man has such hal eyes that he can look at the sun that we see here for any length of time, and, indeed, much the less if he has unhal ones. But those who have unhal eyes can be more at ease in the darkness than in the light. It seems to me, though, that it seems to you that you have hal eyes.)

This passage is reminiscent of the opening conversation between Gesceadwisnes and

Agustinus, in which they discuss how his unhælu is an impediment to the work of philosophy, yet establish that even the perfectly hal are inadequate to the task. A similar dynamic is operative in this passage. Gesceadwisnes makes the same distinction between hal and unhal eyes that we witnessed earlier in the text, and suggests that unhal eyes are more comfortable in the darkness. She does not explicitly draw out the metaphor here, but, based on the previous dialogue, we are clearly meant to assume that the same is true of the eyes of the mind as well. If the eyes of the mind are unhal, they would also prefer mental darkness, which presumably refers to spiritual ignorance or even vice. At the same time, though, Gesceadwisnes states that even hal eyes are incapable of looking at the sun for long. To follow the parallel, then, even hal eyes of the mind are incapable of contemplating God at any length, so that weakness and inability are fundamental characteristics of the mind’s eyes. Once again, we are left with the implication that all humankind is impaired to some degree, at least when it comes to higher philosophical and spiritual pursuits, either as a result of the Christian doctrine of the Fall of humankind, or the Neoplatonic theory of the soul’s descent.

As this discussion should suggest, we have a shift in how unhælu is used as a metaphor here and in the passage where Gesceadwisnes first introduces the metaphor. In the earlier passage, visual unhælu is used to indicate a lack of faith, hope and love, which

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means that the mind’s eyes are incapable of seeing God clearly. While that metaphorical usage shades this later passage, unhælu is used here to encode a lack of intellectual capacity, which is not necessarily caused by an absence of the virtues of faith, hope, and love. It is used to reflect the person’s inability to contemplate the divine light, to receive spiritual knowledge. Consequently, the passage expresses the more common Anglo-

Saxon view of disability as a lack of function or a lack of capacity. Perhaps significantly, the Latin original does not include the same distinction between sound and unsound eyes at this point. Ratio simply speaks about how the eyes of the body, even when sound, will often turn away from the sun’s light and seek darkness. As a result, the translator introduces unhælu as a way to think about different levels of functionality or different degrees of ability. His use of this metaphor, therefore, gives us insight into what associations the Anglo-Saxons had with visual impairment and perhaps other kinds of impairment as well. That is, they seem to have linked it with an absence of function, but also an absence of knowledge and intellective ability. Unlike the Latin original which has even sound eyes seeking darkness, the vernacular version specifically has unhal eyes at ease in darkness, which strongly connects visual impairment and ignorance in a similar fashion to the OE Boethius.

Gesceadwisnes returns to this metaphor at the end of the book, where she prescribes a fascinating therapeutic regime to those people who wish to improve the strength of the body’s and the mind’s eyes. Her discussion of this regime is lengthy, but worth quoting in full:

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Ði ne sceal nan man geortriwian þeah he næbbe swa hale eagan swa se þe scerpest locian mæg, þonne se ðe ealra scearpost locian mæg ne mæg þeah þa sunnan selfe geseon swilce swilce heo ys, ða hwile ðe he on þis andweardan lyfe byð. Næfð þeah nan man to þæs unhale æagan þæt he ne mage lybban be þare sunnan and hire nyttian gyf he enyg wiht geseon mæg, buton he stareblind si. …Sume swiðe scearpe and swiðe swotele lociað. Sume unæaðe awiht geseoð. Sume beoð stæreblinde and nyttiað þeah þare sunnan. Ac swa swa þeos gesewe sunne ures lichaman æagan onleoht, swa onliht se wisdom ures modes æagan, þæt ys, ure angyt; and swa swa þæs lichaman æagan halren beoð, swa hy mare gefoð þæs leohtes þære sunnan, swa hyt byð æac be þæs modes æagan, þæt is, andgit. Swa swa þæt halre byð, swa hyt mare geseon mæg þære æccan sunnan, þæt is, wysdom. ælc man þæ hale æagan hæfð, ne þærf he nan oðres laðtewes ne larewas þas sunnan to geseonne butan þære hælæ; gyf he hale eagan hæfð, he mæg hym self hawian on ða sunnan. Gyf he ðonne unhale æagan hæfð, þonne beþearf he þæt hyne man lære þæt he lochige ærest on þone woh, þonne on gold and on seolfor; þonne he æaðe on þæt locian mæg, þonne on fyr, ærðam he ongean þa sunnan locie. Siððam he þonne þat gelæornoð hæbbe, þæt his egan nanwyht þæt fyr onscyniað, hawie þonne on steorran and on monan, ðonne on ðere sunnan scyman, ærðam he on hi selfe locige. And swa ylce hit byð be þære oðerre sunnan þe we ær ymbe specon, þæt is, wisdom.143

(Thus, no one should despair, although he does not have as sound eyes as the person who can see most sharply, when the one who can see mostly sharply of all cannot see the sun itself as it is, while he is in this present life. No one, though, has such unhal eyes that he cannot live by the sun and benefit from it, if he can see anything, except if he is stare-blind…. Some see very sharply and clearly. Some do not see anything with ease. Some are stare-blind and yet use the sun. But just as this visible sun lights the eyes of our body, so wisdom lights the eyes of our mind, that is, our understanding; and the more hal the eyes of the body are, the more they are able to use the light of the sun, just as is also the case with the eyes of the mind, that is, reason. The more hal it is, the more it is able to see the eternal sun, that is, wisdom. Everyone who has hal eyes does not need any other guide or teacher to see the sun except that hælu; if he has hal eyes, he can gaze on the sun for himself. If he has unhal eyes, then he needs to be taught that he should look first on the wall, then on gold and silver; when he can look more easily on that, then on fire, before he should look at the sun. After he has learned that his eyes do not shun the fire, he should then look on the stars and the moon, and then on the suns’ beams, before he should look on the sun itself. And so it is also with the other sun that we spoke about before, that is, wisdom.)

143 OE Soliloquies, bk. 1 (76-78).

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Within this passage, Gesceadwisnes establishes a continuum of visual ability. The two poles consist of total blindness and visual acuity, between which she places vision with difficulties. The underlying logic of the metaphor implies that visual acuity is desirable, while blindness is not. A simple diagram may help to clarify the situation:

UNDESIRABLE DESIRABLE

BLINDNESS ------VISION WITH DIFFICULTIES ------VISUAL ACUITY

NEGATIVE POSITIVE

Figure 3. Spectrum of Vision with Associated Values

Yet, Gesceadwisnes seems confused about whether everyone, regardless of their position on this continuum, can make use of the sun. She begins by stating that there is no-one who has such unhal eyes that he cannot see and use the sun “buton he stareblind si”

(unless he is stare-blind), but then she contradicts herself by specifying that the blind can make use of the sun.144 It is difficult to know what to make of this logical impossibility.

In the Latin original, Ratio makes no reference to blindness, setting up a simple dichotomy between those who can stand the light of the sun and those who cannot.145 It suggests that the Anglo-Saxon translator wished to elaborate on the original and perhaps relate Ratio’s argument back to the more familiar metaphor of blindness as ignorance, but had not fully internalized the logic of the metaphor involving the mind’s eyes and the

144 OE Soliloquies, bk. 1 (77). Admittedly, these two positions are in two separate analogies, but they build upon and are closely related to each other. 145 Soliloquia 1.25 (ed. Hörmann, Soliloquiorum libri duo, 37-38).

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epistemology of illumination. The translator knows intuitively that blind people cannot see and make use of the sun, which is linked entirely with light in the text, rather than heat or any other attribute that blind people could experience; however, he does not want to suggest that anyone is incapable of coming to know God and the Good. Consequently, the source of the metaphor interferes with the target, as the translator’s practical understanding of blindness is incompatible with his philosophical and spiritual argument.

In other words, the reality of the disabled body intrudes into the metaphor and disrupts it in a manner that goes against the normal direction of the metaphor. In general, metaphors work on the assumption that the target exceeds the source. When people compare love to a rose, they evoke all of the qualities that love has in common with a rose, and efface all of those that it does not. Here, visual impairment seems to refuse that sort of effacement, and so resists the translator’s attempt to make it serve as a metaphor.

By way of contrast, Gesceadwisnes’ regime of light exposure, which is essentially identical to the Latin source, privileges the target above the source. She suggests that it is possible for people to move through the continuum of sight towards greater visual acuity by being exposed to brighter and brighter objects. Although Gesceadwisnes claims that this movement is equally possibility for the body’s and the mind’s eyes, it makes much more sense as an metaphor for the process of acquiring philosophical knowledge than as a treatment for weak eyesight. Consequently, the metaphor seems to have been constructed more with the target than the source in mind, which makes visual impairment a rather empty image within this context. The Latin writer and vernacular translator may be using visual impairment as a metaphor for philosophical progress, but they do not

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have actual impairment, its embodied reality, in mind. Nevertheless, the metaphor works because of prevalent attitudes towards impairment. During the late Antique and Anglo-

Saxon periods, as the foregoing chapters have established, impairment was fundamentally viewed as an undesirable deficiency or deviation from a normative state that needed to be managed and corrected. Consequently, impairment lends itself as a metaphor for states that also require remediation, such as ignorance and immorality.

The Relationship Between Physical Unhælu and Mental Unhælu in the OE Soliloquies

Although the OE Soliloquies does not always integrate the embodied reality of unhælu into its metaphors, the work is cognizant of the bodily aspects of illness and impairment, and devotes space to exploring their effects upon the mind’s eyes. During the dialectic process, Gesceadwisnes questions Agustinus about his desire to know God and himself, and Agustinus responds that, while he wishes nothing more intensely, he is troubled by other concerns:

An is þæt ic me ondrede þæt ic me scyle gedælan wið mine freond, ða ðe ic swiðost lufige, oððe hi wið me, oððe for life oððe for deaðe. Oðer þing is þæt ic ondrede untrumnesse, ægþer ge cuðe ge uncuðe. Ðridde is þæt ic ondrede deað.146

(The first is that I fear that I must part with my friends, whom I love most greatly, or they with me, due to either life or death. The second thing is that I fear illness/infirmity, either known or unknown. The third is that I fear death.)

Gesceadwisnes’ response to Agustinus’ fears does not put forward a particularly coherent argument, and therefore it is best presented in paraphrase with appropriate commentary.

146 OE Soliloquies, bk. 1 (70-71).

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She observes that he is sorrowful on account of his health and his relationship with his friends, and remarks that it is no wonder that he is troubled for those reasons.147

Significantly, she treats his fear of ill-health and his fear of death as if they are a single concern, which establishes an intimate connection between the two states, and defines both as the absence of health, instead of, for instance, the absence of health and the absence of life. This connection will be explored in more depth in my final chapter.

Gesceadwisnes continues, however, by asking him whether Agustinus would be happy if his health and friendships were restored, and then rather bizarrely remarks that

“nu þu þa twa hæfst” (now you have those two).148 As a result, Gesceadwisnes both sympathizes with Agustinus’ losses and claims those losses do not exist, which seems to be a deeply irrational move for Reason. Either she miraculously restores Agustinus’ lost health and absent friends between those statements, or the Old English translation has misunderstood the Latin original. In the Latin, Ratio does not claim that Augustine has the friends or the health that he has lost, but, in similar fashion to Lady Philosophy in

Cons., presents his sorrow over that loss as a symptom that his mind is troubled and therefore diseased, so that his mind’s eyes are not fit to look upon God. Ratio goes on to demonstrate that neither health nor friendship is important when set alongside the contemplation of God and divine wisdom. The Old English text is oddly reluctant to make a similar move. Gesceadwisnes attempts to lead Agustinus down a similar path of reasoning to Ratio, but he is resistant to it and keeps offering additional

147 OE Soliloquies, bk. 1 (71). 148 Ibid.

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counterarguments. He never reaches the final point of dialectic, which is accepting the correctness of her argument.149 If Alfred were involved in overseeing the translation, it is possible that he could not imagine a situation where his health and the loyalty of the people around him were not of paramount importance; without either of them, he would no longer be king. Even without Alfred’s involvement, though, Ratio’s assertions seem contrary to the core values of Anglo-Saxon society, which encouraged devotion to the kin-group and the leader, and depended on healthy people to perform agricultural labor and military service. Consequently, I would argue that the vernacular translator attempts to stage the same shift in Agustinus’ perspective that Augustine undergoes, but without any real belief in the argument that motivates it. As a result, the translator has

Gesceadwisnes contradict herself in a remarkably odd and clumsy way.

Gesceadwisnes concludes her response by questioning whether Agustinus’ mental state is fit for the work of philosophy, when she asks him: “wære þu for inwordlice dysig,

þa ðu wilnodest þæt þu scoldest myd swilcum æagum þa hean sunnan gehawian and æac geseon?” (Were you inwardly foolish, when you wished that you should observe and also see the high sun with such eyes?).150 Through this question, she suggests that Agustinus’ fear of bodily infirmity affects the state of his mental eyes, and prevents him from apprehending God. Although she is not explicit about the causality, she seems to be invoking the Boethian argument that, when people focus on transitory and illusory goods, their reason is impaired and unable to perceive the highest Good, which, in the OE

149 OE Soliloquies, bk. 1 (74-75). 150OE Soliloquies, bk. 1 (71).

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Soliloquies, is synonymous with God. Of course, as discussed earlier in this chapter, the

OE Boethius suggests that health, along with family, is the only earthly good of any value, but the OE Soliloquies does not seem concerned with that nicety. Consequently,

Gesceadwisnes suggests that the fear of unhælu may itself become a form of mental unhælu.

Yet, the relationship between the unhal body and the mind becomes even more complex, when Agustinus responds to Gesceadwisnes’ questioning about bodily infirmity. His response focuses on how unhælu itself affects the mind in its pursuit of philosophy:

ne ondrede ic þeah nawiht ða mettrimnesse gyf me nære for ðrim ðingum. An þara ys hefig sar; oðer, deað; þridde, þæt ic ne mage þæt secan, ne hure gemetan þæt ic willnige swa swa ðu me nu witan dydest. Toðæcce me forwyrnde ælcre leornunga. Ac he me ne ofteah ðeah eallunga ðes gemyndes þæs þe ic ær leornode. Ic wene þeah, gyf ic gewislice ongæate þæt þæt ic wilnige to ongyttanne, þæt me þuthte þæt sar swiðe lytel oððe ealles nanwyht ofer ðone geleafan.... Ic leornode þæt Cornelius Celsus ræahte on hys bocum þæt on ælcum men wære wysdom þæt hehste good and untrimnesse þæt mæste yfel. se cwyde me þuhte swiðe soð. Be ðam ylcan þingum se ylca Cornelius cwæð: “Of twam ðingum we sint þæt we sint, þæt ys, of saule and of lichaman; seo sawel is gastlic and se lichaman, eordlic. Ðæra sawle is se besta creft wisdom, and þæs lichaman þæt wyrste þing unhele.” ne þingð me þæt æac nowyht læas.151

(I would not fear infirmity and illness, though, if it were not for three things. One of them is heavy pain; the second, death; the third, that I cannot seek nor indeed find what I wish, just as you now made me understand. Tooth-ache kept me from any learning, but it did not take away entirely the memory of that which I had learned before. I believe, however, if I should understand with certainty that which I wish to understand, that pain would seem little or nothing against that belief.… I learned that Cornelius Celsus explained in his book that, in every person, wisdom was the highest good and infirmity the greatest evil. That statement strikes me as very true. On the same subject, the same Cornelius said: “Of two things we are what we are, that is, of soul and of body; the soul is

151OE Soliloquies, bk. 1 (75).

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spiritual and the body earthly. The best power of the soul is wisdom, and the worst condition of the body is unhælu.” It seems to me that this is also not a falsehood.)

While this passage is a fairly close paraphrase of the Latin original,152 it has some important differences. Firstly, Augustine only states that he is concerned about illness as an impediment to his research; Agustinus adds that he fears pain and death, which shows a greater sensitivity to the embodied experience of unhælu and to the reasons why it might prevent the pursuit of knowledge. Augustine’s concerns treat the mind or soul as the main locus of experience, whereas Agustinus foregrounds the experiences of the body as well. Secondly, Augustine notes that, when he had tooth-ache, he continued to ruminate on his present knowledge in his mind, even though he was unable to acquire any new material for thought. Agustinus simply states that he did not forget anything he had learned, which suggests he was not engaged in philosophical speculation while he was ill.

Again, Agustinus’ account seems to privilege physical over mental experience. He emphasizes the effects of the toothache rather than his continued intellectual activity during that time. In short, the vernacular version is far more grounded in the body than the Latin original, which is rather abstract and cerebral. It is far more concerned with how physical unhælu might hinder mental pursuits, which may be a result of the Anglo-

Saxons having a more corporeal notion of the mind.

Nonetheless, Agustinus’ discussion of Cornelius Celsus’ book offers perhaps the most insightful account of the relationship between the body and the soul, which seems to

152 Augustine, Soliloquia 1.12 (ed. Hörmann, 31-33).

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take on the mind’s role in cognition in this section. This discussion comes almost directly from the Latin original, although Agustinus does not preserve the hierarchy of soul over body that Augustine is careful to establish. As explained by Agustinus, Cornelius Celsus sets up a fascinating relationship between the body and the soul, where spiritual wisdom and corporeal pain are placed on a parallel spectrum to the highest good and the greatest evil, respectively. This spectrum has the effect of putting the body and soul into a close relationship with each other, so that the state of the one is capable of affecting the state of the other. Earlier in this section of the dialectic, Agustinus sets out how this relationship works: bodily illness and infirmity may hinder the soul in its pursuit of wisdom, yet wisdom may allow the body to transcend its pain or at least consider it meaningless.153 As a result, body and soul seem to exist in a kind of mutual, reciprocal relationship, in which the unhælu of the soul is the result of the body’s unhælu, and a person’s failure to live successfully and productively with bodily unhælu is the fault of the soul.

With that said, it is exceptionally unlikely that these ideas about the relationship between the body and the soul were widespread within Anglo-Saxon culture. As Leslie

Lockett has discussed, the OE Soliloquies functions as a conversion narrative where

Agustinus comes to understand about and believe in the unitary soul, the psychological model which informs the Latin source but which the Anglo-Saxons generally did not share.154 She explains that the Anglo-Saxon Agustinus would have first believed the soul was immortal and excluded from mental activity, but the mind was mortal but responsible

153OE Soliloquies, bk. 1 (71). 154 Lockett, Anglo-Saxon Psychologies, 335-39.

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for mental activity and personality.155 Without such a conversion, most Anglo-Saxons would not and could not have believed in this type of reciprocal relationship between the body and the soul (sawol), even if they might have been able to grasp a similar relationship between body and mind. It would have made absolutely no intuitive sense to them. Consequently, this connection between the body and soul is best used to complicate our understanding of the relationship between the body’s eyes and the mind’s eyes. It suggests that this relationship was not wholly metaphorical or psychosomatic, but that it is based in what the text presents as an ontological reality. The body and the soul were intimately connected, and the state of the one could affect the state of the other. As a result, when the OE Soliloquies uses visual unhælu as an image for mental or moral incapacity, it is employing a metaphor, but it is also reflecting what the texts presents as an embodied reality, in which physical unhælu – indeed, even the fear of unhælu – could have a negative effect on the state of the mind and soul.

Summary of Unhælu as Metaphor in the OE Soliloquies and the OE Boethius

In conclusion, the OE Soliloquies employs unhælu as a metaphor in paradoxically both a more limited and yet more extensive fashion than the OE Boethius. That is, it primarily uses unhælu as part of the metaphor of the mind’s eyes, which Gesceadwisnes characterizes as weak or impaired in order to indicate a mind’s intellectual or moral incapacity. Yet, this metaphor of the mind’s eyes pervades the text in a way that the metaphors in the OE Boethius did not, with the possible exception of the metaphor of

155 Ibid., 337.

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Wisdom’s dialectic as a cure, which structures the work but which does not feature in the arguments. Indeed, at points, it appears to transcend its status as metaphor and become a more literal statement of epistemology.

Apart from this major difference, the OE Soliloquies’ use of unhælu is congruent with that of the OE Boethius. As in the OE Boethius, the OE Soliloquies makes visual impairment stand for moral shortcomings, such as the absence of faith, hope, and love.

Likewise, it makes unhælu stand for a lack of intellectual ability, which renders the person incapable of higher philosophical pursuits. Consequently, the OE Soliloquies follows the OE Boethius in how it employs unhælu as a metaphor for deficiency, although it broadens the scope of the target domain beyond moral incapacity.

This use of unhælu as a metaphor for deficiency is similar but not identical to how impairment is often employed in present-day media. As Marilyn Dahl explains, “[i]t has been a convention of all literature and art that physical deformity, chronic illness, or any visible defect symbolizes an evil and malevolent nature and monstrous behaviour.”156 To offer an obvious example, early modern and modern depictions of Richard III make his hunchback both a sign of and a motivation for his evil.157 The Anglo-Saxons might have shared in this convention to some degree, as they occasionally described the devil as

156 Marilyn Dahl, “The Role of the Media in Promoting Images of Disability-Disability as Metaphor: The Evil Crip,” Canadian Journal of Communication 18, no. 1 (1993): 78. For further discussions of this convention, see Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor (New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 1978); and Mitchell and Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis, 95-118. 157 Abigail Elizabeth Comber, “A Medieval King ‘Disabled’ by an Early Modern Construct: A Contextual Examination of Richard III,” in Disability in the Middle Ages: Reconsiderations and Reverberations, ed. Joshua R. Eyler (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010), 183-196; Mitchell and Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis, 101-18.

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having a mobility impairment, which presumably was acquired in the fall from heaven.158

Nonetheless, the OE Boethius’ and the OE Soliloquies’ use of unhælu seems substantively different from this convention. Specifically, it is not bound up in an individual’s characterization in the same way that Richard’s hunchback is, but rather corresponds to moral incapacity in a more direct and impersonal fashion. It does not signal an individual’s particular moral defect, but rather a general moral deficiency. For instance, the OE Soliloquies does not use blindness to suggest that Augustine is spiritually ignorant, but rather to make a broader point about how wicked people cannot seek the good.

Given this metaphorical use of unhælu, it is noteworthy that both the OE Boethius and the OE Soliloquies tend to use visual impairment as a metaphor for moral and intellectual deficiency. Part of this tendency may be a result of how the texts are influenced by the epistemology of illumination, which couples vision and cognition. Yet, part of it may be reflective of a wider cultural trend, which also potentially derived from

Neoplatonic ideas. According to Edward Wheatley, “blindness reached the status of a catachresis” within the religious discourse of the Middle Ages, so that it became the obligatory metaphor for expressing deprivation of moral sight or intellectual perception.159 If these two texts are any indication, visual impairment was already

158 For instance, Andreas describes the devil as “hellehinca” (hell-limper). Andreas 1171 (ASPR 2:35). More work needs to be done on the devil’s impairments and their significance. 159 Wheatley, Stumbling Blocks, 18-19. Here, Wheatley is drawing on Aristotle’s definition of catachresis, which, as explained by Naomi Schor, is “a category of figures that signifies … a necessary trope, and obligatory metaphor to which language offers no alternative, e.g. the leg of a table, the arm of a windmill.” Schor, “Blindness as Metaphor,” Writing in the Realm of the Senses, Special Issue of differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 11, no. 2 (1999): 77.

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approaching that status within Alfredian discourse by the Anglo-Saxon period. Indeed, it is evident even earlier in the Gregorian writings discussed in Chapter Two. Wheatley raises the question of whether this catachrestic meaning affected people’s perceptions of the actual impairments, since religious discourse had such a profound influence on culture in the Middle Ages. Alfredian discourse was much less influential and widespread, and so probably would not have greatly affected the perception of people with visual impairments at the time. Moreoever, the catachrestic meaning of the impairment would have been counterbalanced by the much more common discourse of impairment as a loss of specific bodily functions, as evidenced by the curative and legal corpora.

Consequently, if these metaphors had any influence on the lives of unhal people, it almost certainly would have been very limited. They primarily would have been a part of the repertoire of the literary elite, and served to shape the textual record.

In the final chapter, I examine another discourse in which unhælu was implicated, as I discuss how the Anglo-Saxons characterized death as a form of unhælu and vice versa. This characterization is arguably more than metaphorical, and suggests that they perceived an affinity between these two states. Thereafter, I close the dissertation with a consideration of unhælu in matters of life and death. I discuss how the Anglo-Saxons appear to have viewed unhælu as a natural and inevitable part of the life cycle, and how they also believed it was a state that ended after death once people were reborn into their resurrection bodies.

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Chapter 7: Transient Hælu and Transient Unhælu

It seems appropriate that the final chapter of this dissertation deals with final matters: unhælu in old age, death, and the afterlife. In the present day, people often resist thinking about the connections between impairment, age, and death for various reasons. Firstly, many disabled people wish to prevent any association between disability, decrepitude, decay, and death, which would work against their efforts to present impairment as the normative, neutral state that it should be. Nonetheless, although most disabled people in developed nations are no less healthy than their able-bodied peers, some of them have impairments that are characterized by physical or mental deterioration, and that tend to result in premature death (e.g. multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, post-polio syndrome). If similar diseases existed at the time, the Anglo-Saxons would have had a higher number of people with such impairments, as they would have lacked treatments to remedy the conditions that caused them, or to slow down their progression. If we take just the example of leprosy, which was fairly prevalent in the later Anglo-Saxon period,1 it causes the body to visibly decay and die in a manner that present-day treatments would be able to prevent. Consequently, the Anglo-Saxons’ everyday experience of seeing degenerative disease result in death, and their lesser ability to combat infections, fevers,

1 See Chapter Five of this dissertation for a discussion of leprosy in the period.

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and similar conditions, would have led to a stronger association between unhælu and death, and explain in part why unhælu was never considered a normative state.

Secondly, as Sally Chivers discusses, abled people in the present day are rarely eager to imagine a future in which they become disabled, and so they prefer to cling to the possibility of “healthy aging” – that is, the hope that they can remain abled and independent with a proper diet, regular exercise, and a positive attitude.2 In reality, though, the vast majority of people will experience some degree of impairment in old age, such as sensory, motor, or cognitive impairment.3 This reality finds expression in disability studies’ concept of temporary able-bodiedness, which is the idea that, sooner or later, most people will experience impairment and disability.4 In the Anglo-Saxon period, without the surgical, prosthetic and medical interventions that mitigate age-related impairments, unhælu would have seemed like an even more inevitable outcome as people grew old. Admittedly, far fewer Anglo-Saxons would have reached an advanced enough age to experience the diseases of senescence, yet, in many cases in which people died young, they would have experienced other forms of unhælu, such as diseases, wounds, or injuries. Thus, they also would not have escaped unhælu at the end of their lives. This sense of inevitability is reflected in how the Anglo-Saxon concepts of hælu and unhælu are bound up with the idea of transience. This connection is expressed in two ways – that is, the Anglo-Saxons thought of hælu as a transient state that would give way to unhælu caused by age, violence, or disease, but they also believed that their unhælu was

2 Sally Chivers, The Silvering Screen: Old Age and Disability in Cinema (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011), 20-21. 3 Ibid., 21. 4 See Chapter Six and later in this chapter for explanations of this concept.

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temporary and would not last beyond their lifespan, as God would restore the body to perfect hælu in the afterlife.

Anglo-Saxon Concepts of Transience

Before we can explore how the Anglo-Saxons thought of hælu and unhælu as transient states, we need to understand how they conceived of transience in general. As Christine

Fell remarks, the present-day concept of transience is metaphorically different from its

Anglo-Saxon equivalent, as the modern English lexeme “transience,” which derives from the Latin lexeme transire “to go across,” evokes the idea of a journey.5 For present-day

English speakers, transience is metaphorically bound up in the idea of travelling through space and time, and crossing over from one state to another. The Anglo-Saxons had a similar concept within their poetic stock of transience as a journey, but it was not their default way of thinking about the state. This concept is primarily found in Deor, which tells of a scop – an oral poet and performer – who is rejected by his lord and who finds comfort in the knowledge that all human suffering eventually comes to an end. The scop offers various examples from Germanic mythology of people who experience tragedy, ending each account with the refrain: “Þæs ofereode, / þisses swa mæg!” (it passed over from that; it also can from this!)6 Ofereode has an almost identical semantic force to

5 Christine Fell, “Perceptions of Transience,” in The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature, ed. Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge, 2nd edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 181. 6 Deor 17, 20, 27, 42 (ASPR 3:178-79). This refrain is complicated by its syntax, since it has the genitives þæs and þisses where we would expect nominatives. Kemp Malone proposed that the verb is impersonal and the genitives are genitives of respect, which remains the most common way of interpreting the line. Malone, ed., Deor, 4th ed., Methuen’s Old English Library (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1966). By way of contrast, Bruce Mitchell suggests that they are genitives of the point of time from which, and so

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transire, consisting of a preposition ofer (equivalent to trans “over, across”) and a verb of motion gan (equivalent to ire “to go”).

Although Deor demonstrates that the Anglo-Saxons occasionally used images of motion to express transience, they tended to employ a different metaphoric vocabulary for expressing the same idea of impermanence, inevitably with different conceptual implications. According to Fell, the Anglo-Saxons most often used the word læne, meaning “lent” or “on loan,” to refer to the temporary nature of this life, frequently in contrast with ece “eternal, perpetual” to refer to the eternal nature of the afterlife.7 This word occurs repeatedly throughout the corpus in collocations like þis læne lif, a phrase which is usually translated as “this transitory life” but which more precisely means “this life on loan.”8 This idea of life being on loan seems to have been connected in Anglo-

Saxon discourse with the legal concept of lænland – that is, land which was granted for the duration of one or more lifespans, and which was opposed to the bocland that was granted by charter in perpetuity.9 As Fell remarks, the OE Soliloquies likens earth to laenland and heaven to bocland, a comparison that the work’s translator would have been unlikely to use unless he was certain his audience would understand it.10 Consequently, the Anglo-Saxon notion of impermanence seems to have been primarily understood in terms of temporary possession and habitation, which is somewhat different to the present- day, Western sense of transience as motion. As this suggests, the Anglo-Saxon concept of

the line should be translated as “it passed over from that; it can from this.” Mitchell, Old English Syntax, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985), 1:588. 7 Fell, “Perceptions of Transience,” 181. 8 This collocation occurs twenty seven times in the Old English corpus. DOE Corpus. 9 Fell, “Perceptions of Transience,” 181. 10 Ibid., 181-82.

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transience set up an implicit contrast between the læne lif (life on loan) that was possible in a fallen world and ece lif (eternal life) that was offered by an eternal God. Since life was on loan, people’s hælu was also on loan during their lifespan, and therefore could only be temporary. Nonetheless, since the afterlife was eternal and resurrection was accompanied by the restoration of the body, people’s lifespan was infinitesimally short from the perspective of eternity, and any unhælu that they were experienced was likewise brief and transient.

Moreover, this idea of transient hælu would have found support in Germanic beliefs about the importance of gaining reputation before death. The Seafarer, a vernacular poem found in the tenth-century Exeter Book, articulates a slightly modified version of these beliefs, when it provides the following advice:

Forþon þæt bið eorla gehwam æftercweþendra lof lifgendra lastworda betst, þæt he gewyrce, ær he on weg scyle, fremum on foldan wið feonda niþ, deorum dædum deofle togeanes, þæt hine ælda bearn æfter hergen, ond his lof siþþan lifge mid englum, awa to ealdre, ecan lifes blæd.11

(Therefore, for each man, the praise of the living, of those speaking after, is the best of reputations, so that he should perform, before he must [go] on his way, beneficial deeds on earth against the malice of fiends, bold deeds against the devil, in order that the children of men may afterwards praise him, and his fame may live afterwards among the angels, always and forever, the glory of eternal life.)

11 Seafarer 72-81 (ASPR 3:145).

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As Christine Fell notes, this passage blends together God-centered and human-centered beliefs about the afterlife, which may be viewed as representative of the Christian and

Germanic traditions, respectively.12 While the Christian tradition focused on the soul’s continuation in the afterlife and its eventual rebirth in the resurrection body, the

Germanic tradition insisted on reputation as a path to immortality. Specifically, if people could earn enough fame through their deeds in life, they would be spoken about and remembered after their death. The Seafarer Christianizes this discourse, and suggests that it is important to perform good deeds to earn a reputation not only among future generations but also in heaven, as a part of winning eternal life. Transient hælu was an important element of this discourse around earning a reputation, which stressed that all men only had a brief time to make a name for themselves before they became too old and frail to carry out great deeds. Yet, in contrast to Christian beliefs, the Germanic concept of transient hælu was not balanced by that of transient unhælu, since, if the Norse tradition is any guide, the Germanic tribes did not seem “to develop imaginative and spiritual conceptions of life after death,” or indulge in elaborate speculation about the afterlife.13 They did not have the same beliefs about the restoration of the body that underpin the notion of transient unhælu.

12 Fell, “Perceptions of Transience,” 183. 13 Hilda Roderick Ellis, The Road to Hel: A Study of the Conception of the Dead in Old Norse Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1943; repr. New York: Greenwood Press, 1968), 147.

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Transient Hælu in Beowulf as a Synthesis of Germanic and Christian Ideas

The Germanic concept of transient hælu is articulated at the greatest length and in the most detail within the vernacular epic Beowulf, although we cannot assume that the poem presents Germanic ideas in any direct or pristine way. On the contrary, Beowulf, which was written probably no later than circa 800 CE,14 combines pagan and Christian ideas in an often uneasy synthesis. Although the poem is ostensibly set in pre-Christian

Scandinavia, both the narrator and the characters appear to express broadly Judaeo-

Christian beliefs at multiple points. The narrator’s remarks can be easily explained by his status as a Christian looking back at the pagan past, but the same explanation cannot apply to similar utterances by, say, the characters of Beowulf or Hrothgar. Fred C.

Robinson offers an ingenious solution, when he suggests that the poet sustains a dual consciousness throughout the poem by using polysemous terms that would be meaningful in a pagan or a Christian context, and by suppressing those that would be too indicative of one or the other belief system.15 To offer the obvious example, the poet describes how

Beowulf and his men “[g]ode þancedon” (thanked god), a god whom Beowulf would have understood as one of the pagan deities, but whom the Anglo-Saxons would have perceived at least as reminiscent of the Christian God.16 Through these affinities,

Robinson argues, the poet hoped to make the Anglo-Saxons sympathetic to their

14 In particular, see the dating arguments advanced in R. D. Fulk, A History of Old English Meter (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992); and Michael Lapidge, “The Archetype of Beowulf,” Anglo-Saxon England 29 (2000): 5-41. 15 Fred C. Robinson, Beowulf and the Appositive Style (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1985), 30-31. 16 Ibid., 40. Fulk, Bjork, and Niles’ edition of Klaeber’s Beowulf capitalizes gode, an editorial choice that Robinson criticizes for how it limits the lexeme’s meaning to the Christian God. Klaeber’s Beowulf 227 (10).

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continental cousins whom they might otherwise condemn as non-Christian.17 Although

Robinson’s solution is inspired, it is perhaps a little too neat to account for the untidy synthesis of Germanic and Christian ideas within the poem, and the moments where it clearly privileges one worldview above the other.18 In particular, as I shall demonstrate through the following discussion, the poem offers a very Germanic account of transient hælu, although, in similar fashion to the Seafarer, it is sometimes refracted through a

Christian perspective. In the process, I aim to provide a clearer sense of the concept of transient hælu, and begin to explore its implications for its counterpart of unhælu.

Transient Hælu and Hrothgar’s Aging Body

Within Beowulf, the theme of transient hælu is most clearly expressed through the aging and vulnerable body of Hrothgar. In his prime, Hrothgar was a mighty warrior and a powerful king, who protected and enriched his people through battle. However, by the time that the poem begins, he has grown old and weak. The poem calls him “se gomela”

(the old one),19 “gamelum rince” (the old man),20 and “harum hildfruman” (the grey war- leader),21 descriptors which heavily emphasize his age. Hrothgar feels the loss of his youth and strength intensely, as Beowulf explains to Hygelac:

hwilum syllic spell

17 Robinson, Appositive Style, 11-12. 18 Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson, “Two Views of Beowulf,” in Beowulf: An Edition (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1998), 36-38. For other criticisms of Robinson’s argument, see Edward B. Irving, Jr, “Christian and Pagan Elements,” in A Beowulf Handbook, ed. Robert E. Bjork and John D. Niles (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997), 187-88. 19 Klaeber’s Beowulf 1397 (48). 20 Klaeber’s Beowulf 1677 (57). This phrase is in the dative. 21 Klaeber’s Beowulf 1678 (57). This phrase is in the dative.

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rehte æfter rihte rumheort cyning; hwilum eft ongan eldo gebunden, gomel guðwiga gioguðe cwiðan, hildestrengo; hreðer inne weoll þonne he wintrum frod worn gemunde.22

(the roomy-hearted king sometimes related strange stories in accordance with what is right; the old warrior, bound by age, sometimes again began to mourn his battle-strength in his youth; his heart welled within when he, wise with winters, recalled many things.)

In these lines, Beowulf praises Hrothgar as a generous king with a roomy heart (i.e. a healthy mental state), but he continues by describing him as an old warrior, an epithet that acknowledges both his past deeds and his present weakness. He emphasizes how

Hrothgar mourns the loss of his youthful strength and ability, which perhaps would have allowed him to defeat Grendel and defend his people. Instead, the aged, infirm Hrothgar has become incapable of dealing with the creature in any direct way, and he can only look back to his memories of glory in battle, much to his sadness and regret. As Jordi

Sánchez-Martí notes, Hrothgar may have gained the wisdom that comes with age, but he would much rather have the battle-strength of his youth that would enable him to protect his kingdom.23 As the lexical study back in Chapter One established, the Anglo-Saxons often characterized unhælu in terms of weakness through their use of adjectives such as untrum “weak, infirm” and lef “weak, infirm.” Hrothgar has been weakened and made unhal by age, and therefore he is disabled from performing part of his role as king.

Nonetheless, in similar fashion to other unhal people, he has found alternative means to

22 Klaeber’s Beowulf 2009b-2114 (71-72). 23 Jordi Sánchez-Martí, “Age Matters in Old English Literature,” in Youth and Age in the Medieval North, ed. Shannon Lewis-Simpson (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 220.

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accomplish these duties. Britt C. L. Rothauser argues that Hrothgar continues to have the ability to protect his people, if not through his own physical strength, then through his reputation and his rhetoric.24 He is able to attract Beowulf to Heorot and spur him on to fight the Grendelkin. His skill at kingship compensates for his loss of martial prowess, so that he should be viewed as an unhal king who nonetheless is an effective ruler. Yet, it is evident that he keenly feels the loss of his battle-strength, and mourns his weakened condition.

Beowulf presents Hrothgar’s physical weakness as a natural and inevitable part of the life cycle, even perhaps as a part of the regnal cycle. In a gnomic statement at the beginning of the poem, the narrator shares the following wisdom:

Swa sceal geong guma gode gewyrcean, fromum feohgiftum on fæder bearme, þæt hine on ylde eft gewunigen wilgesiþas, þonne wig cume, leode gelæsten; lofdædum sceal in mægþa gehwære man geþeon.25

(So a young man in his father’s keeping must bring about through good deeds, through splendid gifts of treasure, that close companions still stand by him, people follow him, in old age when war comes; through glorious deeds, one must prosper among one’s people everywhere.)

According to Scott Gwara, the narrator stresses how kingship demands reciprocity, as he teaches that “future kings owe retainers recognition as much as they owe service to their

24 Britt C. L. Rothauser, “Winter in Heorot: Looking at Anglo-Saxon Perceptions of Age and Kingship through the Character of Hrothgar,” in Old Age in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Interdisciplinary Approaches to a Neglected Topic, ed. Albrecht Classen (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2007). 25 Klaeber’s Beowulf 20-25 (3).

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own lords, at least to guarantee loyalty in old age.”26 This reciprocity is necessary to ensure the “stability of the warband relationship and the corresponding strength of the kingdom,” and it is largely dependent upon the extent of the king’s generosity.27 Yet, this discourse has another dimension that Gwara does not explore – that is, the king has only a limited amount of time in which he can amass treasure, demonstrate his generosity, and win the loyalty of his warband. He has to act while he is young and hal, even while he is still in his father’s house, so that his troop will remain loyal to him when he is old and unhal. Although Hrothgar’s life perfectly epitomizes this cycle, the gnomic nature of the narrator’s advice makes it more generic, implying that it is applicable to any male of the ruling classes. It suggests that all of these men have to make the most of their youth, and ensure that they prepare for a time when they will be old and vulnerable. In short, it is wisdom that arises from an awareness of transient hælu.

Likewise, Hrothgar’s “sermon,” the gnomic advice that he offers Beowulf before the younger man departs, depends upon a similar understanding of transient unhælu:

Bebeorh þe ðone bealonið, Beowulf leofa, secg betesta, ond þe þæt selre geceos, ece rædas; oferhyda ne gym, mære cempa. Nu is þines mægnes blæd ane hwile; eft sona bið þæt þec adl oððe ecg eafoþes getwæfeð, oððe fyres feng, oððe flodes wylm, oððe gripe meces, oððe gares fliht, oððe atol yldo; oððe eagena bearhtm forsiteð ond forsworceð; semninga bið þæt ðec, dryhtguma, deað oferswyðeð.28

26 Scott Gwara, Heroic Identity in the World of Beowulf, Medieval and Renaissance Authors and Texts 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 44. 27 Ibid. 28 Klaeber’s Beowulf 1758-68 (59-60).

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(Guard yourself against this pernicious evil, dear Beowulf, best man, and choose what is better for yourself, eternal benefit. Do not be intent on excessive pride, famous warrior. Now the glory of strength is yours for a while; but soon it will happen that illness or impairment or a sword’s edge will deprive you of your power, or the grip of fire, or the surge of the waves, or the attack of the sword, or the flight of the spear, or terrible age; or the brightness of your eyes will diminish and vanish; it will be suddenly that death will overpower you, retainer.)

As Gwara explains, the fatal offense in question is oferhygd, which, in the context of

Beowulf, refers to an almost psychotic level of pride that leads to tyranny.29 Hrothgar warns Beowulf to avoid oferhygd, which the king is concerned might result from his excessive ability, his strength and martial prowess. Gwara suggests that Hrothgar sees in

Beowulf the potential for this type of tyrannical, self-destructive pride,30 and, as I would argue, he employs the concept of transient hælu as a kind of antidote to it. Specifically,

Hrothgar sets out the precariousness and the transience of human strength, which, in a

Boethian fashion, seems designed to remind Beowulf not to value it more than it is actually worth. He reminds Beowulf that, even if he is the prime of his life, he should be aware that he has only a limited period of time to make use of it, and that he is vulnerable to multiple forces outside of his control. He may be maimed or killed in battle; he may fall ill or lose his eyesight; he may drown or be burnt. Even if he manages to survive all of those things, he still will grow old and frail, and thereafter die. In understanding that his life is transient, he should moderate his behavior, avoid developing oferhygd through an obsession with his own strength and ability, and choose the better path of kingly

29 Gwara, Heroic Identity, 181-82. 30 Ibid., 221.

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generosity, so that he earns a good reputation amongst his people. This reputation will shield him in his old age, just as it has with Hrothgar who is able to attract warriors such as Beowulf to defend his kingdom. It also will ensure that he earns the only immortality available to him through fame, which is an even more important consideration within his culture, and which is characteristic of the Germanic understanding of transient hælu.31

Consequently, Beowulf repeatedly emphasizes that everyone will become unhal, and that it is crucial to prepare for that future inevitability by earning a good reputation, which should be understood as a means of mitigating this biological reality, maintaining social stability, and ensuring a kind of afterlife in the memories and stories of future generations.

Beowulf’s life, however, troubles this neat narrative in a number of ways, which is especially significant since scholarship has tended to present him and Hrothgar as parallel figures. For instance, Robinson has shown that parallels between the two narratives extend to the level of language, as the formulas which are used of king

Hrothgar and the young Beowulf in the first part of the poem are transferred to king

Beowulf and the young Wiglaf at the end.32 Likewise, David Herman and Becky Childs argue that their narratives mirror each other in important ways, so that Hrothgar’s life- story serves as a cognitive template for the production and interpretation of Beowulf’s own reign. As they outline, both men establish themselves as successful kings through a combination of heroism, generosity and firmness, and enjoy the loyalty of their thegns for

31 For a solid discussion of the importance of fame to Beowulf, see George Clark, “The Hero and the Theme,” in A Beowulf Handbook, ed. Robert E. Bjork and John D. Niles (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1997), 271-90. 32 Robinson, Appositive Style, 24.

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fifty years, until they are imperiled by a monstrous enemy that fails to accept the norms and mores of the human community it attacks.33

Yet, the two narratives conclude very differently. Where Hrothgar looks outward for aid against Grendel, Beowulf relies upon his own strength and fights the dragon by himself. As Gwara indicates, it is difficult to know how to interpret Beowulf’s decision to face the dragon in combat – that is, whether his choice is reckless or righteous, whether he is demonstrating fatal oferhygd or dying in the manner of a hero.34 Gwara argues that the poet deliberately obscures Beowulf’s ethical motivations, and equivocates about whether he should be read as heedless or heroic at this moment.35 This ambivalence appears to arrive from Beowulf’s ultimately incompatible identities as hero and king.36

John Leyerle offers a neat statement of this incompatibility, when he states: “The hero follows a code that exalts indomitable will and valour in the individual, but society requires a king who acts for the common good, not for his own glory. The greater the hero, the more likely his tendency to imprudent action as king.”37 The implication is that

Beowulf acts more like a hero than a king when he chooses to fight the dragon himself.

He is acting in a way that wins him glory, but dooms his people, who, of course, contribute to their own downfall by placing on Beowulf’s funeral pyre the treasures of the dragon hoard for which Beowulf traded his life. The situation is complicated by the dragon’s attacks on Beowulf’s people and his potential lack of other options, but a full

33 David Herman and Becky Childs, “Narrative and Cognition in Beowulf,” Style 37.2 (2003): 177-202. 34 Gwara, Heroic Identity, 49. 35 Ibid., 48-52. 36 Ibid., 240. 37 Leyerle, “Beowulf, the Hero and the King,” Medium Ævum 34 (1965): 89. Gwara uses Leyerle’s points as a basis for his own argument. Gwara, Heroic Identity, 240.

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assessment of Beowulf’s motives in the dragon fight is beyond the scope of this dissertation.38

Within Beowulf, these roles of hero and king appear to be aligned with various phases of the human life cycle. That is, the poem connects heroism with youth and kingship with age, both through its parallel depictions of Hrothgar’s and Beowulf’s careers, and through its gnomic passages that encourage good deeds in youth to win loyalty in old age. Consequently, Beowulf behaves in a manner that is not only inappropriate to his status as king, but also to his stage of life. He does not follow

Hrothgar’s example of how to manage a threat as an aged king, or heed his advice about the transience of hælu. In this way, he may be demonstrating the oferhygd against which the older man warned him.

Even more significantly, the system of reciprocity that serves Hrothgar well in his old age breaks down for Beowulf. Beowulf brings twelve thegns with him to act as support against the dragon, and potentially to avenge him if he falls in battle; however, only his kinsman Wiglaf comes to his assistance when the tide of battle turns against him.

Despite Beowulf’s past generosity to his retainers, the other eleven men are overcome by fear and flee in disgrace. Wiglaf shames them as dishonorable for leaving Beowulf in his time of need,39 and, as Gwara remarks, he emphasizes that “their fault lies in not having honored the social debt implied in Beowulf’s generous gifts,”40 which should have earned their loyalty. Consequently, Beowulf upholds his side of the reciprocal arrangement that

38 For an excellent discussion of this topic, see Gwara, Heroic Identity, 239-310. 39 Beo. 2864-91 (ed. Fulk, Bjork, and Niles, Beo., 97-98). 40 Gwara, Heroic Identity, 273.

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the gnomic advice advocates, but his men fail to respond by doing their duty by him when he becomes unhal through the dragon’s bite. We may wonder why precisely the system of reciprocity fails in Beowulf’s case. Is it simply that his retainers prove to be weak and cowardly, or is there a more complex explanation for it? Is it because he exceeds the boundaries of his role as king, and therefore causes the system to break down through his actions? Is it because he does not recognize his physical transience, and consider the need to preserve his bodily integrity in the absence of an heir, thereby violating the social contract himself? Or, as Gwara suggests, is it because his expectations of his men are too high and do not take into account their own physical limitations, which would mean they could not kill the dragon, which is an extremely powerful and deadly creature?41 The poem’s depiction of Beowulf and his retainers allows for all of these possibilities.

Interestingly, however, Beowulf’s failure against the dragon is not caused by a lack of physical strength or ability, as we might expect from the poem’s use of transient hælu. Rather, the poet tells us that Beowulf is too powerful for his choice of weapon.

When he strikes the dragon with the sword, its edge fails and its blade breaks against the bone, explicitly because he wields it with too much force:

Nægling forbærst, geswac æt sæcce sweord Biowulfes, gomol ond grægmæl. Him þæt gifeðe ne wæs þæt him irenna ecge mihton helpan æt hilde; wæs sio hond to strong,

41 Ibid., 273-77.

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se ðe meca gehwane, mine gefræge, swenge ofersohte, þonne he to sæcce bær wæpen wundum heard.42

(Nægling, the sword of Beowulf, snapped, failed in the fight, ancient and grey- marked. To him, it was not granted that iron edges could help him in battle; his hand was too strong, he who, as I have heard, overtaxed each sword with a blow, when he bore to combat the weapon hardened in wounds.)

If these lines are any indication, Beowulf has not diminished in might since he was a young man. Instead, he continues to display the same excessive, superhuman strength that he has always possessed, and that has caused him to overtax his swords in the past.

This strength may have helped him against Grendel whom he defeated in hand-to-hand combat, but it hinders him against the dragon since it means he is unable to wield a sword. His hand is too strong, as the poet tells us. At this point, we seem to be coming up against the question of acceptable limits. By the end of their lives, Hrothgar has become too weak and Beowulf remains too strong, and both states appear to prevent them from acting effectively in a moment of crisis. As a result, there seems to be an ideal, normative condition, a level of ability that people should possess, without going above or below it.

Hælu, at least within this poem, may function according to the golden mean.

That said, the situation is not as simple as that formulation suggests. Up until the point of his death, Beowulf’s excessive ability is precisely what marks him out as heroic, and allows him to accomplish the deeds that occupy the first half of the poem. Multiple critics have established his excessive, even monstrous, level of ability, and so I wish simply to rehearse some of the key moments in the poem in which he demonstrates it.

42 Klaeber’s Beowulf 2680b-87a (91-92).

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Firstly, Beowulf is able to defeat Grendel in a wrestling match, since he has “þritiges / manna mægencræft on his mundgripe” (the might of thirty men in his hand’s grip) and rips the creature’s arm out of its shoulder.43 His style of combat in this battle is notably inhuman and even monstrous, as it resembles Grendel’s bare-handed dismembering of his foes more than any human style of fighting. He is able to outwrestle and outmuscle a creature that tears men apart, and beat Grendel at his own game. Likewise, Beowulf is arguably able to dive for hours without air to the bottom of the mere where Grendel’s mother has retreated,44 to swim from Frisia carrying thirty pieces of heavy war-gear, and to engage in a week-long swimming contest against Breca while wearing full armor and carrying a sword.45 Lastly and perhaps most significantly, Beowulf is called an aglæca, which the DOE Online circumspectly defines as “awesome opponent, fearsome fighter” in this instance,46 but which is primarily used to refer to the Grendelkin within the poem.

Given this lexical overlap, the poet seems to be aligning Beowulf with the monsters he fights, and, indeed, he becomes more like them as the poem progresses. As Andy Orchard

43 Klaeber’s Beowulf 379-80 (15). 44 Klaeber’s Beowulf 1495-96 (51). The magnitude of this feat depends on how we understand the notorious crux “hwil dæges.” Robinson suggests that the phrase should be taken as “broad daylight” and that the mere should be viewed as shallow, since Grendel’s mother’s blood bubbles up to the surface almost immediately (his interpretation of “sona,” which may mean immediately but also within a short time). Robinson, “Elements of the Marvellous in the Characterization of Beowulf,” in Old English Studies in Honour of John C. Pope, ed. Robert B. Burlin and Edward B. Irving, Jr (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974), 122. Stanley B. Greenfield challenges this interpretation, and argues that “hwil dæges” has to refer to a substantial period of time, based on other instances of the phrase and on the syntax of that section of the poem. He also suggests that such a reading is consistent with the other elements of the marvelous in the battle between Beowulf and Grendel’s mother, including the light that shines out when he kills her, and the giant sword he is able to wield that no other man would have strength to handle. Greenfield, “A Touch of the Monstrous in the Hero, or Beowulf Re-Marvellized,” English Studies 63, no. 4 (1982): 294-300. 45 Klaeber’s Beowulf 506-58 (19-21). The alternative interpretation is that Beowulf was rowing a boat instead of swimming, since verbs of aquatic motion are ambiguous in Old English. Again, for the full arguments both ways, see Robinson, “Elements of the Marvellous,” and Greenfield, “A Touch of the Monstrous.” 46 DOE Online, s.v. “aglæca.”

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argues, Beowulf may begin “as a member of the courtly world of men, but as the moral imperative diminishes in his three chief battles with monsters, with a corresponding increase in the amount of weaponry he brings to bear, he gradually becomes identified with the figures he fights.”47 Even so, it is Beowulf’s superhuman, even monstrous, abilities that enable him to accomplish the deeds that win him fame as a hero. There is no suggestion that Beowulf’s excessive abilities are deleterious to him or to the people around him until the final scene when they cause him to break his sword.48 Is the poem suggesting that physical, corporeal limits can only be flouted for so long? Is it suggesting that what is appropriate for a hero is not appropriate for a king, who, after all, should be a part of the human realm which he rules? Is it suggesting that even Beowulf’s exceptional hælu is transient, albeit in a different way from Hrothgar’s normative hælu? It may not fail him, but it does lead to him failing in battle.

One answer lies in the way that Beowulf appears to set up a continuum of hælu, which is strongly connected to physical strength and ability within the poem. This continuum is best pictured as a circle, as in the following diagram:

47 Orchard, Pride and Prodigies, 168. 48 Obviously, Beowulf’s slaying of Grendel sets in motion the cycle of revenge where Grendel’s mother kills Æschere; however, that would have been the case however Grendel was slain, and Grendel himself was a murderous and persistent enough threat that he needed to be stopped.

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Normative human strength (ideal) Young Hrothgar

Weakness Controlled superhuman or unhælu strength (negative) (positive) Old Hrothgar Young Beowulf

Uncontrolled superhuman strength (negative) Old Beowulf

Figure 4. Continuum of Hælu and Unhælu

This diagram requires some explication. The poem sets up normative human strength as unambiguously positive, as an ideal for warriors who need to make a name for themselves and for kings who need to defend their people. Within the poem, this type of strength is embodied by the young Hrothgar, and so appears to be available only in the prime of life. By way of contrast, weakness, which is a form of unhælu, is unambiguously negative, since it prevents kings and warriors from carrying out their respective duties. It is represented by the old Hrothgar, and is strongly associated with age, although the poem acknowledges injuries and impairments as other possible causes of it. Superhuman strength is much more ambiguous, and may be positive or negative depending on whether it is under control. When the young Beowulf fights Grendel, he controls his strength. He demonstrates a remarkable degree of precision within the

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combat, as he rips off the limb with which Grendel committed his crimes.49 By way of contrast, the old Beowulf does not or cannot temper his strength when he faces the dragon and breaks his sword against its head, leaving his body as vulnerable as that of the aged Hrothgar, and allowing the dragon to bite his neck. Ironically, then, his superhuman abilities become the source of his defenselessness, which suggests that they are less desirable than normative human strength.

Another possible answer may lie in the way that the poet seems to transfer

Beowulf’s advanced age to his sword. Erin Mullally argues for such an interpretation of the dragon fight, when she claims that “the demise of Beowulf and the destruction of the sword act as a conflation of each individual identity; both are old and neither could survive without the other.”50 She notes that the weaponry symbolizes the body of the warrior, and so the failure of the sword symbolizes Beowulf’s failure.51 The weapon is described as “gomol and grægmæl” (old and grey-marked) at the point when it shatters, two adjectives which seem to emphasize its age and suggest that it failed because of it.52

Indeed, as I have already discussed, the aged Hrothgar is called a “gomol guðwiga” (old warrior), and described as “harum hildfruman” (grey war-leader), so that the poet is drawing on the lexicon and image of age that he has already established. If we accept that

Beowulf’s body and his weapon are conflated at this moment, then we may conclude that

49 For two legal readings of Beowulf’s mutilation of Grendel and the subsequent display of the limb, see David D. Day, “Hands Across the Hall: The Legalities of Beowulf’s Fight with Grendel,” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 98, no. 3 (1999): 313-24; and Leslie Lockett, “Grendel’s Arm,” 1:368-88. 50 Erin Mullally, “Hrethel’s Heirloom: Kinship, Succession and Weaponry in Beowulf,” in Images of Matter: Essays on British Literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. Yvonne Bruce (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 2005), 238. 51 Mullally, “Hrethel’s Heirloom,” 238. 52 Klaeber’s Beowulf 2682a (91).

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Beowulf’s hælu proves as transient as Hrothgar warned, that it is undermined and ultimately destroyed by age. After all, his sword literally breaks into pieces, loses its wholeness when he strikes the dragon; thereafter, he loses his physical integrity when the dragon bites his neck and blasts him with fire.

Nonetheless, even if we do not accept this interpretation, it is noteworthy that the poet still circumscribes Beowulf’s strength in time. When the poet describes Beowulf early on in the poem, he remarks that “se wæs moncynnes mægenes strengest / on þæm dæge þysses lifes” (he was the strongest of humankind with respect to might in that day of this life).53 The poet states that Beowulf is the strongest person alive, but that his strength can only be judged in a very limited, temporal context: in that day of this life.

We may be tempted to dismiss this sort of phrase as metrical or alliterative filler, but it occupies two lines of the poem and therefore appears to be important in its own right.

Indeed, an almost identical collocation appears later in the poem in reference to Beowulf

– “se þe manna wæs mægene strengest / on þæm dæge þysses lifes” (he was the strongest of men with respect to might in that day of this life)54 – which suggests that the poet wishes to emphasize the chronologically-bounded nature of Beowulf’s might. When read together with Hrothgar’s decline, this emphasis suggests a belief that physical ability is always limited, always transient, always subject to the passage of time in some way.

Physical ability is not only connected to temporality, but to corporeality as well.

That is, individuals are able to perform certain functions because their bodies have the

53 Klaeber’s Beowulf 196-97 (9). 54 Klaeber’s Beowulf 789-790 (29).

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capacity to do so. This point may seem obvious, but it has important implications for our understanding of transient unhælu. Perhaps the best example of this attitude may be found in the monstrous figure of Grendel, whose violence depends upon the wholeness of his body, and, in particular, the presence of his arms and hands. Within the poem,

Grendel is primarily shown grabbing and devouring the Danes, before Beowulf puts a stop to him in a grappling contest where he rips off his arm. If we reduce these scenes to the functions he is performing, he is essentially grasping people in one way or another.

Interestingly, therefore, the poem spends a great deal of time focusing on his hands. For instance, while the text largely depicts him as a shadowy, mysterious, nebulous figure, it describes his hands in some detail, making them one of the very few body parts to receive this treatment. We know that, instead of finger nails, he has “style gelicost / hæþenes handsporu” (heathen hand-spurs, most like steel).55 Similarly, as Rolf H. Bremmer, Jr., notes, Beowulf’s fight with Grendel, which offers the most sustained description of the creature in action, places a great deal of emphasis on Grendel’s hands and what Beowulf is doing to them.56 Most importantly, after their battle in Heorot, Beowulf hangs

Grendel’s severed arm and hand from the roof of Heorot for the Danes to see. According to Bremmer, the Anglo-Saxon audience would have understood this display as a sign that justice had been done, and that the criminal had been appropriately punished for his misdeeds.57 Leslie Lockett takes this observation further, noting that, in Beowulf, individual body parts often are recognized as “metonymically responsible agents,” and

55 Klaeber’s Beowulf 985b-86a (35). 56 Bremmer, “Grendel’s Arm,” 127. 57 Ibid.

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therefore that it is particularly suitable that Grendel’s hand is put on display, since it is the same limb with which he seized the thegns and committed his misdeeds.58 Once

Grendel loses his arm, he can obviously no longer grasp the men, and therefore is incapable of performing his primary function within the narrative. In short, his physical ability depends on his corporeal integrity, which is shown to be transient.

This argument has important implications for our understanding of Anglo-Saxon unhælu. As I have already noted, this idea of transient unhælu is strongly reminiscent of the present-day concept of temporary able-bodiedness (TAB). To reiterate the basic precepts of this theory, everyone is only temporarily able-bodied, since we all have the potential to be impaired by sickness, injury or old age.59 This observation clearly has political implications: if we all can be affected by disability, it is in our own best interests to structure our society in such a way that all parts of it are accessible to people with disabilities, or we ourselves may end up being excluded by the ableist structures that we create. As a result, it is a necessary corrective to the modern day belief that able- bodiedness is normative and natural, and that people with disabilities need to minimize and correct them in order to function within society.

The Anglo-Saxons’ concept of transient hælu has obvious similarities with TAB, but it also has significant differences. In similar fashion to TAB, transient hælu is based in the awareness that physical ability and integrity are not permanent, and they can be lost at any moment due to illnesses, injuries, and other uncontrollable events. Consequently,

58 Lockett, “Grendel’s Arm,” 1:375. 59 Brueggemann, Arts and Humanities, 255.

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the concept recognizes that unhælu is a natural and inevitable part of people’s lifecycle, even if it is less desirable and beneficial than hælu. Nonetheless, we should acknowledge that the Anglo-Saxons might have considered some forms of unhælu to be more natural and inevitable than other forms. For instance, they might not have equated Hrothgar’s diminished capabilities due to old age and Grendel’s loss of an arm due to a battle. Aging is a predictable and generalizable stage of life, as evidenced by how the poem’s gnomic passages provide advice for negotiating the movement from youth to age. By way of contrast, Grendel’s loss of a limb is a dismemberment that arises from a particular violent encounter, and that most people will not experience. Yet, Hrothgar’s sermon lists illness, old age, and injury as events that Beowulf may experience and that will deprive him of his strength, which suggests that the poem groups them together as causes of unhælu, and suggests that people will experience at least one of them in their lifetime, even if some are more likely than others.

Nevertheless, the Anglo-Saxon concept of transient unhælu is profoundly different from TAB in an important respect. At the core of TAB is the notion that, since everyone can become disabled, everyone should work to create a society in which no-one is disabled, since he or she will potentially benefit from those changes. This logic is absent from the notion of transient unhælu. Even if the Anglo-Saxons believed that some kinds of unhælu were natural and inevitable, they still felt that it was the individual’s task to manage it, rather than society’s responsibility to accommodate it. As Hrothgar’s sermon and the narrator’s wisdom demonstrate, people were meant to be aware of their transient hælu precisely in order to compensate for it. They were meant to prove

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themselves as great heroes and generous kings, and thereby win the loyalty of others in anticipation of a time when they would be reliant upon their support. Consequently, their awareness of transient hælu does not bring about a meaningful change in the fundamentally ableist nature of their society, unless that change is evident in the implicit social contract that warriors continue serving a king who has shown himself to be worthy of their support in his youth, even if he no longer has the capacity to perform his previous feats.

Although Beowulf provides the clearest articulation of the Germanic idea of transient hælu, we perhaps need to be careful of assuming that the poem represents

Anglo-Saxon views, and that its readers would have shared the same concepts as its characters. Indeed, the poem’s narrator, who is perhaps most representative of an Anglo-

Saxon perspective, distances himself from many of the characters’ beliefs and dismisses them as pagan ignorance. Interestingly, though, he does not make this move with the concept of transient hælu. On the contrary, he articulates an almost identical understanding of transient hælu to Hrothgar, when he provides the gnomic advice about how a man needs to win the loyalty of those around him during his youth. This parallel suggests that, at least in the early period when the poem was probably composed, the concept of transient hælu was still operative, even if it might have taken on more of a

Christian cast in the Anglo-Saxon period.

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Transient Hælu in Other Vernacular Texts

Nevertheless, even if Beowulf is not representative of Anglo-Saxon beliefs, vernacular works from later within the period testify to the popularity and persistence of the concept of transient hælu within the culture. In the previous chapter of this dissertation, I discussed how the OE Boethius makes use of this concept as part of its metaphoric use of disability, when it discusses how the body’s hælu can be destroyed by a brief fever or tiny parasites, and how its beauty is similar to a flower that blooms and withers.60 This work, which is clearly intended for the edification of a contemporary audience, uses the concept of transient hælu to persuade its readers that they need to have their priorities correct: to value the soul and the Good above the body and earthly goods such as power.

Significantly, the OE Boethius focuses on eternal, God-centered reasons for people to be cognizant of transient unhælu and make appropriate alterations to their behavior, in contrast to Beowulf which foregrounds human-centered reasons. This difference exemplifies the change that the discourse undergoes in the Christian context. Yet, the discourse remains remarkably similar in two key respects: that is, the emphasis on the inevitability of unhælu and the need to take personal responsibility for dealing with it.

The OE Boethius may not encourage earning people’s loyalty or amassing treasure, but it does advocate tending to the health of the soul, since the hælu of the body is so tenuous.

We find a similar treatment of old age and the loss of strength in other vernacular literature, as the remainder of this section briefly surveys.

60 OE Boethius, ch. 16 (ed. Godden and Irvine, 1:273); OE Boethius, ch. 32 (ed. Godden and Irvine, 1:308- 309).

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The first example comes from Solomon and Saturn II, a riddling dialogue purportedly between the Jewish king famous for his wisdom and the Prince of the

Chaldeans whose name deliberately recalls the Roman titan. Based on the language of the work, Daniel Anlezark dates it to between the late ninth century and c. 930, and argues that the poet might have been working within the circle at Glastonbury that included St

Dunstan.61 The poem is idiosyncratic in certain respects and is influenced by Irish thought and style, but we have no reason to assume that it does not represent Anglo-

Saxon learning, and that it should not be viewed as part of the Old English wisdom tradition. 62 In short, it is representative of a strand of Anglo-Saxon thought in a way that

Beowulf is perhaps not. Towards the end of the dialogue, Saturn poses the following riddle to Solomon:

Ac hwæt is ðæt wundor ðe geond ðas worold færeð styrnenga gæð, staðolas beateð aweceð wopdropan, winneð oft hider? Ne mæg hit steorra ne stan ne se steapa gimm, wæter ne wildeor wihte beswican, ac him on hand gæð heardes and hnesces, micles ond mætes; him to mose sceall gegangan geara gehwelce grundbuendra, lyftfleogendra, laguswemmendra, ðria ðreoteno ðusendgerimes.

61 Daniel Anlezark, ed. and trans., The Old English Dialogues of Solomon and Saturn, Anglo-Saxon Texts 7 (Cambridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2009), 49-52. Anlezark considers Dunstan to be a possible author for the dialogues, though he notes that his dialect may have been too early. 62 On the work’s Irish influence, see Anlezark, ed. and trans., Solomon and Saturn, 45. On the work’s affinities with the OE wisdom tradition, see Mary V. Wallis, Patterns of Wisdom in the Old English “Solomon and Saturn II” (PhD diss., University of Ottawa, 1991).

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(But what is that strange thing that travels throughout this world, sternly goes, beats the foundations, arouses tears, often forces its way here? Neither star nor stone nor the broad gem, water nor wild beast can deceive it at all, but into its hand go hard and soft, the great and the small. Every year the count of three times thirteen thousand of the ground-dwellers, of the air-flying, of the sea-swimming, must go to it as food.)63

Solomon solves the riddle, answering that the strange thing is yldo “old age”:

Yldo beoð on eorðan, æghwæs cræftig; mid hiðendre hildewræsne, rumre racenteage, receð wide, langre linan, lisseð eall ðæt heo wile. Beam heo abreoteð and bebriceð telgum, astyreð standendne stefn on siðe, afilleð hine on foldan; friteð æfter ðam wildne fugol. Heo oferwigeð wulf, hio oferbideð stanas, heo oferstigeð style, hio abiteð iren mid ome, deð usic swa.

(Old age is [powerful in every respect] on earth. With plundering shackles, capacious fetters, she reaches widely, with her long rope, she subdues all she will. She destroys the tree and shatters its branches, uproots the upright trunk on her way, and fells it to the earth; after that she feeds on the wildfowl. She defeats the wolf, she outlasts stones, she surpasses steel, she bites iron with rust, does the same to us.) 64

In the fashion of all riddles, Solomon and Saturn II’s account of old age is cryptic and metaphoric, likening the life stage to a conqueror, a destroyer, and a ravenous animal.

Yet, once we decode the riddle, it becomes apparent that it expresses the same basic notion of transient hælu that we have observed elsewhere, although it also includes other

63 Sol. and Sat. II 104-13 (ed. and trans. Anlezark, Solomon and Saturn, 84-85). 64 Sol. and Sat. II 114-23 (ed. and trans. Anlezark, Solomon and Saturn, 84-85). I have altered Anlezark’s translation of æghwæs cræftig.

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elements such as death. Saturn, in his riddle, presents old age as an implacable and inevitable force that affects everything in the natural world, whether it exists on the land, in the sea or in the sky. He suggests that it consumes all creatures, describing them as its mos “food, nourishment.” This bestial consumption implies that the body is broken down or torn apart in some way so that it ceases to be hal. This aspect of old age is more strongly encoded in Solomon’s answer, which focuses primarily on its physical effects.

He first speaks about old age as a conqueror, who subdues everything she encounters with shackles, fetters and rope. In the human domain, then, old age seems to place restrictions or limitations on people, preventing them from moving and acting with the same freedom as they did before. Their abilities are curtailed, which is the essential idea behind transient hælu. Next, he describes how old age fells trees and breaks their branches. If we transfer this to the human body, which I would suggest the logic of the metaphor permits us to do, it becomes a clear image of old age dismantling the integrity and verticality of the body, and leaving it unhal and prone. As I mentioned in Chapter

One and will discuss in more depth in the following section, a horizontal posture is often associated with disease, disability and death, so it also may be read as indicating unhælu.

Lastly, Solomon remarks how old age bites iron with rust and does the same to us, although we should note that this last phrase refers to all the preceding actions and not just the one immediately before it. The image of rusted iron again suggests the degeneration of the body, the loss of its wholeness, and the spread of weakness through it. In short, although the riddle is certainly not all about transient hælu, this concept is an important part of the text’s presentation of old age.

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Remaining within the wisdom tradition, Maxims I, found in the Exeter Book, offers similar gnomic advice about old age. The advice reads:

Meotud sceal in wuldre, mon sceal on eorþan geong ealdian. God us ece biþ, ne wendað hine wyrda ne hine wiht dreceþ, adl ne yldo ælmihtigne; ne gomelað he in gæste, ac he is gen swa he wæs, þeoden geþyldig.65

(The creator must be in glory, humankind must be on earth, the young must grow old. God is eternal for us, and events do not change him, and nothing, not illness, impairment, nor age, afflicts him, the almighty; and he does not age in spirit, but he is yet as he was, the patient ruler.)

These maxims set up the dichotomy that we discussed at the beginning of the chapter between the transience of humankind and the earth, and the permanence of God and heaven. It starts with the commonplace observation that the young must grow old, but that God does not age in spirit. Sceal is a forceful modal verb, which suggests inevitability and necessity. The poet is not simply asserting that humans will grow old, but that they must. It is part of their fundamental nature to age. Moreover, as the maxims continue to define God, they implicitly define humanity by way of contrast. When they state that God is unchanging, and is not afflicted by illness, impairment, and age, they imply that humankind does change and does experience such afflictions. In short, these lines express the basic idea of transient hælu: the human body must undergo changes due to age, illness, and impairment, and these changes are invariably negative. As in the OE

65 Maxims I 7-12 (ASPR 3:157).

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Boethius, the underlying message is that person needs to trust in God, who is eternal for humankind and who can allow human beings to transcend their own transience.

The final example comes from Ælfric of Eynsham’s homily on the parable of the vineyard for Dominica in septuagesima. As Sánchez-Martí discusses, Ælfric’s homily

“presents a genuinely Anglo-Saxon view of the ages of man,” which uses the canonical hours as a means of relating the life-cycle to the progress of the solar day. Consequently,

I would argue that, even more than an Anglo-Saxon view of the ages of man, Ælfric presents a deeply monastic and Benedictine view of the topic. To quote just Ælfric’s descriptions of the prime of life and old age:

Ure fulfremeda wæstm. swa swa middæg. for ðan ðe on midne dæg bið seo sunne on ðam ufemestum ryne stigende. swa swa se fulfremeda wæstm bið on fulre strencðe þeonde; Seo nontid bið ure yld. for ðan ðe on nontide asihð seo sunne. and ðæs ealdigendan mannes mægen bið wanigende.66

(Our completed growth [is] like midday, because the sun is rising to its highest point at midday, just as the completed growth is thriving at full strength; the nones is our old age, because the sun sinks at nones and the might of the aging man is waning.)

The metaphoric logic underlying Ælfric’s analogy is straightforward. The zenith of the sun corresponds to people’s greatest vigor and strength in their prime. The setting of the sun corresponds to their loss of strength in old age. The solar imagery suggests that this decline is natural, inevitable and cyclical. Consequently, once again, we have old age being defined fundamentally as a physical decline, as a loss of strength and hælu,67 in a

66 Ælfric, CH II 5 (44). Nones is the ninth hour of the Benedictine liturgy, which is in the middle of the afternoon. 67 Sánchez-Martí, “Age Matters,” 207.

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way that brings us back to the notion of transient hælu. Yet again, transient hælu is being used in a service of a Christian message, as it forms part of Ælfric’s exhortation for people to labor on earth in order to earn the reward of eternal life while they are still able to do so.

As the foregoing discussion has shown, the Anglo-Saxons had a distinct notion of transient hælu that perdured throughout the period. Given its persistence, it is worth considering what cultural purpose it served, and how it was employed within the community. If we think back to Beowulf, the poem evokes transient hælu as a means to encourage men to be generous and loyal, to exhibit proper behavior as defined by its warrior culture. The rewards for such behavior are security in old age and remembrance after death, which is the only type of immortality available in the poem’s Scandinavian cultures. The OE Boethius, Maxims I and Ælfric’s homily exhibit a fundamentally similar pattern, although they place God at the center of the discourse instead of humankind. All three texts use transient hælu to urge people to be good Christians in both faith and action, and to achieve the surety of eternal life. As a result, in both the Germanic and

Christian iterations, the concept of transient hælu works to enforce social mores, and to encourage people to take individual responsibility for their futures. In this way, it aims to ensure social harmony and stability, and to mitigate the negative effects of unhælu on the larger community. Consequently, transient hælu is very different from temporary able- bodiedness, which is about challenging the notion that disability is an individual problem and encouraging a society to make accommodations that all of its members might

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eventually need. Instead of bringing about change, transient hælu works to maintain the status quo.

Death and Unhælu

As I leave behind my discussion of transient hælu and move onto a consideration of transient unhælu, I wish to pause and examine the interstitial state that marks the boundary between them – namely, death. The Anglo-Saxons seem to have conceived of death and unhælu as similar states, which may have been a result of an overlap in the conceptual metaphor HEALTH AND LIFE ARE UP; SICKNESS AND DEATH ARE DOWN.68

Obviously, this metaphor has its basis in embodied experience, as illustrated within the

Anglo-Saxon hagiographies. Within the hagiographies, ill and impaired people are often shown lying in bed or being carried on litters or on carts; likewise, corpses were prone in death and were buried under the ground.69 This conceptual connection is actually encoded in the Old English lexicon: a legerbed (lit. “lying-bed”) can be a grave or a sickbed, while a reste can be a tomb or a bed.70 The Anglo-Saxons also would have had other practical reasons to associate the two. In the absence of effective medical and surgical interventions, they would have observed how often illness and impairment led to death. That is, congenital impairments such as blindness and deafness would not necessarily have carried a higher risk of mortality, but acquired impairments caused by deep wounds, broken bones, or the loss of limbs would have put the person in serious

68 Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 14-15. 69 Ibid., 15-16. 70 Thompson, Death and Dying, 103 and 110.

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danger of infection, which frequently would have ended in death. As a result, the Anglo-

Saxons would have observed a strong causal relationship between unhælu and death, which would have helped to link the two states in their minds.

Death as Sensory Impairment

Nevertheless, in addition to these obvious connections, the Anglo-Saxons seem to have perceived deeper and perhaps more unexpected affinities between death and unhælu.

Particularly notable is the way in which the Anglo-Saxons appeared to link death and unhælu as states in which a person suffered impairment of the senses. In Soul and Body I, the soul berates the dead body, which it once inhabited and whose behavior has condemned it to damnation, saying: “eart þu nu dumb ond deaf, ne synt þine dreamas awiht” (now you are dumb and deaf, and your pleasures are nothing).71 In this line, the soul aligns the dead body with the unhal body. That is, it uses the language of impairment to reflect the body’s inability to participate in any form of communication, or to engage in meaningful actions. Indeed, part of poem’s poignancy lies in how the soul is futilely railing against a deaf and dumb body that is unable to hear or respond to it, that failed to pay attention to it in life and now cannot do so in death. Moreover, the soul lists the horrors that the body is experiencing, as it foregrounds the corpse’s disintegration and the worms that burrow through its flesh.72 The soul’s description of the body’s sufferings suggests that the body retains some power to feel and know, perhaps because of the

71 Soul and Body I 65 (ASPR 2:56). 72 Soul and Body I 105-126 (ASPR 2:57-58).

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continued presence of the mind in the dead flesh. As a result, death is presented less as the end of consciousness and more as a kind of ultimate impairment.73

An even more developed example of this phenomenon may be found in The

Fortunes of Men when the poet describes the ill-fortune of the man who is hanged on the gallows and whose eyes are plucked out by a raven. The poet frames the corpse’s experience explicitly in terms of sensory deprivation:

Sum sceal on geapum galgan ridan, seomian æt swylte, oþþæt sawlhord, bancofa blodig, abrocen weorþeð. Þær him hrefn nimeþ heofodsyne, sliteð salwigpad sawelleasne; noþer he þy facne mæg folmum biwergan, …ond he feleleas, feores orwena, blac on beame bideð wyrde.74

(One must ride the bent gallows, hang after death until his soul-hoard, his bloody bone-dwelling, is broken. There, the raven takes the eyes from his head, the dark- feathered creature tears at the soulless one; nor is he able to ward off that evil with his hands... and, without feeling, despairing of life, he awaits his fate, pale on the tree.)

In the closing lines of this extract, the body on the gallows is described as feleleas

“without feeling,” where fele is a deverbal noun derived from felan “to feel, perceive or touch.”75 Here, the poet stresses that the body lacks the ability for sensory perception, although it still appears to retain some awareness of what is happening to it. This awareness is indicated by how it awaits its fate in a state of despair, or by how it appears

73 In Thompson’s discussion of Vercelli Homily X, she observes that the Anglo-Saxons tended to downplay the transition from life to death, and defer significant eschatological experience to the Judgment Day, with the result that the distinctions between living and dead bodies blur. Dying and Death, 46. 74 Fortunes of Men 34-38, 40-41 (ASPR 3:154-55). 75 DOE Online, s.v. “feleleas.”

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to desire to beat off the raven that takes its eyes.76 Consequently, the hanged body does not seem to be wholly dead, but rather to exist in a liminal space between life and death.

Indeed, the poet seems to present it more than impaired than dead, as he focuses on the parts it has lost, or the functions it is unable to perform – that is, it has no eyes, and cannot move its hands to chase away the bird.

This characterization of the hanged body as more impaired than dead is reinforced by its context within the poem. Specifically, the hanged body seems to parallel two other impaired people whose fortunes are related only a few lines earlier in the poem:

Sum sceal leomena leas lifes neotan, folmum ætfeohtan, sum on feðe lef, seonobennum seoc, sar cwanian, murnan meotodgesceaft mode gebysgad.77

(One must pass his life without the lights of his eyes, grope with his hands. One, injured with respect to motion, sick with a sinew-wound, will lament his pain, mourn his fate with troubled mind.)

The hanged body experiences impairments similar to those of the blind man and the injured man. The blind man lacks the light of his eyes; the hanged body loses its eyes.

The man with a sinew wound has his mobility impaired by his injury; the hanged body is unable to move its arms to beat away the birds. As a result, the hanged body’s experiences appear to differ more in degree than in kind from those of the two unhal people. That is, the hanged body seems simply to be more impaired than they are, rather

76 We may see a parallel to this representation in the Soul and Body I, where the body, perhaps because of the continued presence of the mind in the dead flesh, is conscious of its corruption and decay within the grave, the gluttonous worms that burrow through its flesh and crack its bones. Soul and Body I 108-126 (ASPR 2:57-58). 77 Fortunes of Men 17-20 (ASPR 3:154).

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than to exist in a fundamentally different state. Unlike the body, the blind man is able to use his hands to feel his way through the world, and the man with a mobility impairment is presumably able to move the parts of his body where the sinews are whole. The unhal men have abilities that the corpse does not, but they are all ultimately defined by their lack of ability. In short, the poem seems to present death as an extreme form of unhælu, so that we might imagine the two states existing on a single continuum.

Death and the Lexicon of Unhælu

This affinity between unhælu and death is further suggested by the manner in which the

Anglo-Saxons used the lexicon of unhælu to refer to death. We may find an example of this usage in Genesis A, a poem that recounts the events of the eponymous biblical book and that is included in the late-tenth-century MS Junius 11. In the course of the poem, the poet recounts how women were taken into captivity after the battle against Sodom and

Gomorrah: “Sceolde forht monig / blachleor ides bifiende gan / on fremdes fæðm; feollon wergend / bryda and beaga, bennum seoce” (Many a frightened, pale-faced woman had to go trembling into the arms of a stranger; the protectors of women and rings fell, sick with wounds).78 Although the poet focuses on the women to heighten the pathos of the moment, I am more concerned with their dead protectors, who are described as “bennum seoce” (sick with wounds). The context makes it plain that these men are fatally wounded, which is how Fell translates the half-line.79 They have fallen in battle and are

78 Genesis A 1969-72 (ASPR 1:59). 79 Fell’s translation of the extract is: “Many a frightened, white-cheeked woman had to go trembling into a stranger’s embrace: the defenders of wives and rings fell, fatally wounded.” Fell, Cecily Clark, and

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dying, and are no longer able to protect their kinswomen from abduction and rape.

Consequently, the poem describes fatal wounds and, by extension, the process of dying as unhælu. We should recall from the lexical study that seoc could be used of impairment as much as illness, so that it is a more general word for unhælu than it may appear to modern eyes.

A very similar idea is expressed in the compound feorhseoc “lit. life-sick,” which is used to describe the injured and dying Grendel as he drags himself back to the mere:

“scolde Grendel þonan / feorhseoc fleon under fenhleoðu, / secean wynleas wic”

(Grendel, life-sick, had to flee from there under the fen-slopes, seek his joyless dwelling).80 Even more clearly in this case, dying is being expressed as a form of unhælu, a sickness or impairment that affects the feorh or the life force of the person. Here, we need to remember that the Anglo-Saxons considered the life-force to be enclosed in the body, and therefore to be vulnerable to bodily injuries.81 For instance, Beowulf wears chest armor explicitly to protect his feorh: “Him on eaxle læg / breostnet broden; þæt gebearh feore, / wið ord ond wið ecge, ingang forstod” (On his shoulder lay the woven corslet; it protected the life-force, prevented entry against point and blade).82 As a result, the Anglo-Saxons believed that it was possible for the life-force to be destroyed through the kinds of illness, impairments, and injuries that constituted unhælu, which may help to explain why they characterized dying as a kind of seocnes. In the same fashion as other

Elizabeth Williams, Women in Anglo-Saxon England, and the Impact of 1066, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984), 67. 80 Beo. 985b-86a (ed. Fulk, Bjork, and Niles, Beo., 29). 81 Lockett, Anglo-Saxon Psychologies, 43-50. 82 Klaeber’s Beowulf 1547b-49 (53).

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forms of unhælu, dying affected a particular part of the body (the life force, conceived in corporeal terms), and prevented it from achieving its primary function (sustaining life).

Viewed in these terms, dying emerges as directly parallel, if not identical, to certain forms of unhælu, such as deafness and blindness. It involves a more extreme deprivation of functionality, and has a more intense effect on bodily integrity, both of which place it on the same continuum as unhælu.

Transient Unhælu

Although the Anglo-Saxons perceived an affinity between death and unhælu, they also believed that death marked the end of unhælu, which ceased within the afterlife on the judgment day. In this way, they understood unhælu as a transient state that existed during life, but did not necessarily endure beyond it. It may be worth rehearsing the beliefs that underpinned this understanding of unhælu. Orthodox Christian theology preaches the resurrection of the body in the end times, and presents it as a central doctrine of the faith.83 Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:12-14:

Si autem Christus praedicatur quod resurrexit a mortuis, quomodo quidam dicunt in vobis, quoniam resurrectio mortuorum non est? Si autem resurrectio mortuorum non est: neque Christus resurrexit. Si autem Christus non resurrexit, inanis est ergo praedicatio nostra, inanis est et fides vestra.

(Moreover, if it is preached of Christ that he rose again from the dead, how do certain ones among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, however, then Christ also did not rise again. And, if Christ did not rise again, our preaching is thus in vain, your faith is in vain.)

83 Caroline Walker Bynum offers an excellent survey of the importance of bodily resurrection in the ancient and medieval West, though she does not address the specific example of Anglo-Saxon England in any depth. Walker Bynum, Resurrection of the Body (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).

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The Anglo-Saxons embraced this Christian belief, and expressed it at multiple points within their own works. For instance, Judgment Day I states: “Hwæþre þæt gegongeð,

þeah þe hit sy greote beþeaht, / lic mid lame, þæt hit sceal life onfon, / feores æfter foldan” (Nonetheless, it will happen, even if it is covered by earth, the body with the clay, that it will receive life, animation after the ground). 84 Likewise, Christ III describes the effects of the angel’s trumpets on the dead: “[w]eccað of deaðe dryhtgumena bearn, / eall monna cynn, to meotudsceafte / egeslic of þære ealdan moldan (they will wake from the dead the children of men, all of humankind, terrified from the old earth to that judgment).85 Turning from poetry to prose, Blickling Homily X states that “we sceolan gelyfan synna forlætnyssa & lichoman æristes on domos dæg” (we must believe in the forgiveness of sins and the resurrection of the body on Doomsday).86 Likewise, Ælfric, in his account of the Seven Sleepers, addresses the heresy which denies “þæt ealle men on domes dæg sceolon arisan mid þam ylcan lichaman þe ge-hwa ær her on life leofode”

(that all men must arise on doomsday with the same bodies in which each lived before while alive here.)87 Material culture also provides support for the popularity of this doctrine. Caroline Walker Bynum describes an eighth-century Anglo-Saxon ivory, which shows bodies “at various stages of resuscitation: lying, still wrapped in grave clothes; sitting or standing, entangled in shrouds; fully alive again, with their souls (shown as doves) flying in at the mouth.”88 This disparate evidence suggests that the Anglo-Saxons

84 Judgment Day I 98-100a (ASPR 3:214). 85 Christ III 886-88 (ASPR 3:27). 86 Richard Morris, ed. and tr., The Blickling Homilies of the Tenth Century, 3 vols, EETS o.s 58, 63, and 73 (London: Trübner, 1874), 1:111. 87 Ælfric, LS 23 (2:44). 88 Walker Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body, 191.

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believed in bodily resurrection in a very literal, corporeal way, in contrast to the present day when this aspect of the final judgment is either deemphasized or presented as a metaphor. They believed that they would climb out of the ground in their same bodies, unwind themselves from their shrouds, and face the final judgment in the flesh.

Yet, the Anglo-Saxons believed that people’s resurrection bodies would not necessarily be identical to their mortal bodies. For them, resurrection implied the restoration of the body to an ideal state, one without impairment, illness or advanced age.

In other words, the resurrection body would be a perfectly hal body. This belief has its origins in scripture: Paul teaches that Jesus will reform believers’ lowly bodies so that they are fashioned after the body of his glory,89 and that believers will meet again on the judgment day, as he expresses it, “in virum perfectum, in mensuram aetatis plenitudinis

Christi” (in the perfected man, in measure of the age of the fullness of Christ).90 I would argue that these two verses are the most likely source of late antique and medieval beliefs about the restoration of the body. Irina Metzler, however, places more weight upon Psalm

15:10, in which the Psalmist claims of God that “nec dabis sanctum tuum videre corruptionem” (you will also not give your holy one to see corruption). Medieval commentators understood this verse as a promise that God would not allow his saints to undergo decomposition, hence hagiographies’ insistence on the miraculous preservation of saints’ bodies and the odor of sanctity that they emitted. As Metzler demonstrates, this concept was further elaborated via Peter’s statement that Christ’s flesh did not decay.91

89 Philippians 3:20-21. 90 Ephesians 4:13. 91 Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe, 56.

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Since the Church was a second body of Christ, medieval commentators believed that its members (the believers who made up its limbs) were immune from corruption as well, at least within their permanent resurrection bodies.

Nonetheless, although scripture provided the basis for a belief in the restoration of the body, the doctrine was substantially expanded by Augustine of Hippo, who argues for perfection of the body at the resurrection in a number of his works, most notably De civitate Dei and Enchiridion ad Laurentium seu de fide, spe, et caritate. As Metzler notes, Augustine’s articulation of this belief had a profound influence on medieval theologians, and frequently served as the basis for their own writings on the topic, as opposed to scripture per se.92 In De civitate Dei, Augustine writes:

Resurgent itaque omnes tam magni corpore, quam uel erant uel futuri erant aetate iuuenali; quamuis nihil oberit, etiamsi erit infantilis uel senilis corporis forma, ubi nec mentis nec ipsius corporis ulla remanebit infirmitas.93

(And so everyone will rise again in as large a body as they had or would have had in their youthful prime; although it will not be an impediment at all, even if the form of the body will be infantile or aged, when no infirmity of the mind or the body itself will remain.)

Likewise, in the Enchiridion, he reiterates that “resurgent igitur sanctorum corpora sine ullo vitio, sine ulla deformitate, sicut sine ulla corruptione, onere, difficultate” (the bodies of the saints, therefore, will rise again without any defect, without any deformity, just as they will without any corruption, burden, difficulty).94 He explains that even so-called

92 Ibid., 56. 93 Augustine, De civitate Dei 22.16 (ed. Dombart and Kalb, De civitate Dei, 2:593-94). 94 Augustine, Enchiridion 23 (ed. Evans, Enchiridion, 98).

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“monstrous births” will acquire normative bodies in the afterlife.95 The martyrs are the only exception, as they will retain the physical marks of their suffering on their bodies.

As Augustine explains, “[n]on ... deformitas in eis, sed dignitas erit, et quaedam, quamuis in corpore, non corporis, sed uirtutis pulchritudo fulgebit” (there will not be deformity but dignity in these, and they, although in the body, will shine with beauty of the spirit, not the body).96 In other words, the martyrs’ wounds are badges of virtue, and so will enhance the perfection of their resurrection bodies. Thus, within these two works,

Augustine offers a developed theory of how peoples’ bodies would have been restored during their resurrection.

The Anglo-Saxons would have been acquainted within this Augustinian theory.

In contrast to certain other Augustinian works, the Enchiridion was well-known and widely disseminated within Anglo-Saxon England,97 and its influence is apparent on the

Anglo-Saxons’ own writings about the resurrection of the body. De civitate Dei was much less prevalent, but it was known to and used by certain Anglo-Saxon authors, such as Ælfric whose homilies preach the standard Augustinian line about how the body will be restored. In Dominica I post pasca, Ælfric offers his fullest description of the resurrection body:

Se apostol paulus cwæð þæt we sceolon arisan of deaðe on ðære ylde þe Crist wæs þa ða he ðrowade, þæt is ymbe þreo & ðritig geara; Ðeah cyld forðfare, oððe forwerod mann þeahhwæðere hi cumað to ðære ylde þe we ær cwædon; hæfð þeah gehwa his agenne wæstm. þe he on þissum life hæfde. oððe habban sceolde gif he his gebide; Gif hwa alefed wære oððe limleas on þissum life he bið þonne

95 Ibid. 96 Augustine, De civitate Dei 22.19 (ed. Dombart and Kalb, De civitate Dei, 2:599). 97 Lapidge, The Anglo-Saxon Library, 288

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swa hit awriten is þæt ealle ða þe to godes rice gebyrigað, nabbað naþor ne wom. ne awyrdnysse on heora lichaman. Hwæt sceole we smeagan ymbe ða oðre þe gewítað to ðam ecum forwyrde hwæðer hí alefede beon. oððe limlease þonne hí beoð on ecere susle wunigende.98

(The apostle Paul said that we must arise from death at the same age that Christ was when he suffered, that is about thirty-three years. Even if a child pass away, or an aged man, they will nevertheless attain that age that we said before; yet each will have his own growth that he had in this life or would have had if he had lived to attain it. If anyone were weak or limbless in this life, he will be then just as it is written that all those who belong to God’s kingdom will have neither blemish nor injury on their bodies. What shall we consider concerning those others who will depart to that eternal damnation, whether they are weak or limbless, when they will be living in eternal torment?)

In this homily, Ælfric synthesizes both Paul’s and Augustine’s arguments, as summarized in the previous paragraphs. He begins by elaborating Paul’s oblique statement that people shall be raised in the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ, which he takes as the age at which Jesus was crucified and achieved his purpose on earth. Ælfric specifies that people will be resurrected in bodies that are thirty-three years old, which he explains was

Christ’s age when he was crucified and therefore fulfilled his ministry on earth. Beyond that, his discussion of the perfection of the body closely parallels Augustine’s arguments in De civitate Dei, which ultimately seem to underlie this passage, although Ælfric probably have encountered them indirectly in digests of patristic teaching about eschatology.99 He echoes Augustine’s claims that everyone will be restored to the prime of life, and will have no injuries or blemishes, which is an unambiguous statement of belief in physical restoration and requires no further elaboration.

98 Ælfric, CH I 16 (311). 99 The Fontes Anglo-Saxonici lists Julian of Toledo’s Prognosticum futuri saeculi and the Biblia Sacra as the immediate sources for this passage. Fontes Anglo-Saxonici Project, ed., Fontes Anglo-Saxonici.

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His closing question about what happens to people who are condemned is more intriguing, and it is a pity that he does not answer it in any way. Augustine implies in the

Enchiridion that only believers will experience restoration of their resurrection bodies,100 which evidently causes Ælfric to wonder what will happen to everyone else. His unstated conclusion seems to be that bodily restoration is irrelevant in their cases, since they will already be burning in eternal torment. Any unhælu that they have will be minor in comparison to their suffering. Even so, this aspect of the argument suggests that perfect eternal hælu, the transience of unhælu, is considered an honor reserved for believers, rather than an inevitability for everyone. It is a reward bestowed on Christians for their faith and good works. Consequently, as is the case with transient hælu, it appears that transient unhælu is being employed as a means to encourage correct belief and right behavior. As established in earlier chapters, unhælu was often presented as an opportunity to cultivate Christian virtues, so that it makes sense that the restoration of hælu would be considered a reward for true faith and right behavior.

The Phoenix

Although Ælfric’s homily offers us the clearest articulation of the Anglo-Saxons’ belief in the perfection of the resurrection body, their understanding of it is perhaps most interestingly exemplified by their use of the legend of the phoenix. The phoenix, a mythical bird that hatches again from the ashes of the pyre in which it dies, became a symbol for the resurrection of the body. In Ælfric’s Grammar, he digresses from

100 Augustine, Enchiridion 23, ed. Ernest Evans, CCSL 46 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1969), 98.

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glossing “hic Fenix” to note that “se fugel getacnað urne ærist on ðam endenextan dæge”

(the bird symbolizes our resurrection on the last day).101 The fullest articulation of this legend and its symbolism is found in the possibly late ninth-century vernacular poem,

The Phoenix, which is collected in the Exeter Book, and which draws on several earlier sources. Specifically, the first half of the poem that relates the legend is an adaptation of

Lactantius’ Carmen de ave phoenice, while the second half that interprets it allegorically draws more on the biblical book of Job and Ambrose’s Hexameron.102 The poem opens with a description of the realm in which the phoenix lives and which is clearly meant to be identified as paradise. The poet describes how “nis þær on þam londe laðgeniðla, / ne wop ne wracu, weatacen nan, / yldu ne yrmðu, ne se enga deað / … ne sorg ne slæp ne swar leger” (there is no enemy in that land, neither weeping nor pain, no sign of woe, age nor misery, no painful death ... no sorrow, no sleep, no heavy illness or impairment).103 In other words, it is a place in which unhælu in all of its varieties does not exist. The heavy use of negation in this description is significant, since it defines paradise as the absence of negative experiences and states. In these lines, the emphasis is not on the hælu the person will experience, but on their freedom from unhælu.104 This characterization of paradise gestures towards the concept of transient unhælu, since entrance into that realm implies passing through and out of illness, impairment, age and death, all of which are excluded from its borders.

101 Ælfric, Grammar 12-15, in Ælfrics Grammatik und Glossar: Text und Varianten, ed. Julius Zupitza (Berlin, 1880; repr. with introduction by Helmut Gneuss. Hildesheim: Weidmann, 2003), 70. 102 Blake, The Phoenix, 17-24. 103 Phoenix 50-53, 57-58 (ed. Blake, The Phoenix, 50). 104 Elsewhere, though, the poem’s characterization of the phoenix conveys the attributes of being hal, such as joy, strength, and ability.

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Thereafter, the poem shifts its focus to the phoenix. It narrates that, when the phoenix becomes “gehafgad” (weighed down, i.e. impaired and ill) and “gomol gearum frod” (old, advanced in years),105 it departs for the west and builds a nest out of fragrant plants. It waits for the sun to set its nest on fire, and then burns along with it. The cinders become an apple-like ball, out of which a wyrm hatches. This immature form of the phoenix is interesting, since it means that the bird resembles the wyrmas that devoured corpses and therefore is intimately connected with the death that it overcomes.106 This wyrm develops into a phoenix through a series of metamorphic stages; in the final one, the phoenix regrows its unique plumage and becomes as it once was:

Feþrum gefrætwad swylc he æt frymðe wæs, beorht geblowen. Þonne bræd weorþeð eal edniwe eft acenned, synnum asundrad. 107

([It is] adorned with feathers, just as it was at the beginning, blooming bright. Then the flesh is once again born, all renewed, separated from sins.)

At this point, the poet seems to bring the allegorical level of his narrative to the foreground, as the reborn phoenix becomes the resurrected flesh. Admittedly, “bræd” is an interpretative crux within the poem, since it is potentially hapax legomenon.108 As N.

F. Blake remarks in his edition’s commentary, certain scholars have interpreted bræd as an Anglican form of brid “bird,” but he believes that it is best understood as “flesh,” with

105 Phoenix 153a, 154a (ed. Blake, The Phoenix, 49). 106 For a discussion of wyrmas, see Thompson, Dying and Death, 132-69. 107 Phoenix 239-242a (ed. Blake, The Phoenix, 51). 108 Potentially, since the DOE Online claims that it may be a differently formed noun from the bræde that means roasted or grilled meat. DOE Online, s.v. “bræde, bræd.”

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cognates in Old High German brat, brato “tender meat” and Old Norse bráð “raw meat.”109 Blake suggests that, in the sense of flesh, bræd is anticipating the allegorical interpretation to come, and is indicating the resurrection of the body.110 The DOE Online concurs with his interpretation, as it defines bræd as a noun “referring to the flesh of the phoenix, refined by fire.”111 Thus, the phoenix serves as a symbol of the resurrection body, which will be restored and renewed to face judgment. As the poem then suggests, this resurrection body is the body “swylc he æt frymðe wæs” (just as it was at the beginning), a phrase that seems to indicate the prelapsarian condition before unhælu came into existence with the fall of humankind. The flesh’s separation from sin, which is a result of the purifying fire of the last judgment, guarantees its hælu in this case.

In the second half of the poem, as I have mentioned, the poet offers an allegorical interpretation of the phoenix narrative. This section of the poem provides us with the clearest depiction of the resurrection body. It explains that, just as the phoenix is reborn, humankind will also regain their bodies:

Swa bið anra gehwylc flæsce bifongen fira cynnes ænlic ond edgeong, se þe his agnum her willum gewyrceð þæt him Wuldorcyning meahtig æt þam mæþl milde geweorþeð. 112

(In the same way, each one of the race of men will be surrounded in flesh, peerless and rejuvenated, he who here brings about through his own will that the mighty King of Glory will be merciful to him at that gathering.)

109 Blake, The Phoenix, 73-74. 110 Blake, The Phoenix, 74. 111 DOE Online, s.v. “bræde, bræd.” 112 Phoenix 534b-38 (ed. Blake, The Phoenix, 59).

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The people who are reborn into their resurrection bodies are described as “ænlic and edgeong,” which I have translated as peerless and rejuvenated. Ænlic, though, is a more polysemous word than that translation suggests, and, per the DOE Online, carries with it connotations of beauty, excellence and peerlessness.113 It is the same word used to describe the physical appearance of angels and of exceptionally attractive humans. It suggests that the resurrection body transcends the human norm, that it represents a corporeal ideal that only a few, if any, can attain in life. That is, it implies that the resurrection body is young, beautiful and hal in a way that few mortal bodies are. Once again, the poet states that these resurrection bodies will be “leahtra clæne” (clean of vices),114 which further implicates original sin in the loss of hælu. Yet, despite this body’s peerlessness, despite the fact that it is reserved for Christians as we saw in Ælfric’s homily, the Phoenix suggests that everyone can potentially attain it, provided that they ensure God is merciful to them at the final judgment. It is not a body available only to the saints, but to every Christian who achieves it through his or her will, which presumably means through faith and works. Consequently, everyone who believes in God is able to become hal in the afterlife, regardless of their physical state during life.

The Cultural Significance of Transient Unhælu

At the close of this chapter, I wish to examine what this concept of transient unhælu means for our understanding of unhælu in general. The existence of this concept shows

113 DOE Online, s.v. “ænlic.” 114 Phoenix 518b (ed. Blake, Phoenix, 59).

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that the Anglo-Saxons were highly unlikely to consider unhælu a defining part of their identity, as many disabled people do with their disabilities in the present day. Instead, it suggests that they perceived unhælu as a temporary state, which came from living in a fallen world that had been damaged by sin, and which they had to endure while it lasted.

At best, unhal people could turn their experience of unhælu to the advantage of their souls, and so ensure that they would experience physical restoration when they were resurrected. As a result, they appear to have focused on attaining bodily wholeness in the afterlife, and to have been unconcerned with achieving social change in life, which suggests that they had profoundly different priorities to most disabled people in the present day. Indeed, insofar as unhal people worked for anything while they were alive, it was the sort of physical restoration that they believed God would bring them on the judgment day. Yet, even if unhælu were a temporary state that people hoped would pass, its impermanence did not strip it of its cultural presence and power. It had a real existence within contemporary society, and exerted a real pressure on both hal and unhal people alike. In fact, as this chapter has shown, unhælu’s very transience served to promote social and religious mores, as the hope of restoration encouraged people to believe in

God and lead virtuous lives that would ensure their salvation. In the conclusion to this dissertation, then, I draw together the strands of argument in the preceding chapters, and weave them together into an overall account of the Anglo-Saxon concept of unhælu, which defines what it involves, considers its cultural uses, and thinks about its relevance to disability studies in the present day.

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Conclusion

A close analysis of the Anglo-Saxon textual record has enabled me to provide a detailed account of the concept of unhælu and the lives of unhal people. Neither unhælu nor the lives of unhal people proved to be monolithic. Instead, they were characterized by variety and diversity in a manner that resisted the systematizing drive of my dissertation. Unhælu emerged as a complex concept that shifted according to the context in which it was employed, and the lives of unhal people turned out to be largely determined by their social position. For this reason, it is even more crucial to conclude by thinking about what defined unhælu on the most fundamental level, and what characterized the general perception of unhal people in Anglo-Saxon England.

Unhælu: A Final Assessment

To begin with the basics, the Anglo-Saxons associated unhælu with impairment, illness, and even injury, and did not draw particularly meaningful distinctions between those three states. Any distinctions that they made were on the basis of whether a condition was temporary or permanent, since they were primarily concerned with how unhælu impacted an individual’s functionality. At the same time, though, unhælu encompassed damage to both functionality and aesthetics – that is, impairments and deformities. In this way,

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unhælu resembles Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s concept of the extraordinary body, which presents multiple types of corporeal otherness as being related by people’s perceptions of them. Consequently, unhælu may perhaps best be defined as a bodily state that deviates from the expected corporeal norm, or that is extraordinary without being monstrous or super-able.

This definition of unhælu enables us to perceive how the Anglo-Saxons could understand the state in almost directly opposite ways. Specifically, it shows how they could treat unhælu as a form of deficiency requiring a social response, yet also appreciate it as a sign of sanctity brought about through divine intervention. Indeed, the hagiographies often balance both perspectives at the same time, so that unhal saints such as Germanus and Etheldreda heal and guide unhal people. Likewise, Asser’s De rebus gestis Aelfredi shows how Alfred desires enough unhælu to develop self-control and therefore be a fit ruler, but not too much unhælu, which would make him unfit for the kingship. Unhælu is able to sustain this kind of polyvalence, because it is associated with non-normativity, with being extraordinary in some respect. As a result, it can indicate both the negative exceptionality of a defect, and the positive exceptionality of sainthood.

It simply cannot occupy the neutral, normative ground between them.

Because unhælu is extraordinary, it calls for a social response of some kind. In a tiny minority of cases, almost exclusively involving the saints, this response was admiring. For instance, we may recollect Bede’s praise of Gregory the Great whose unhælu only contributed to his greatness.1 In the majority of cases, the Anglo-Saxons’

1 Bede, EH 2.1 (128-29).

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response was corrective. It involved curing the unhælu, compensating the functional or aesthetic loss caused by the unhælu, or providing charity to the unhal person. Each of these interventions worked to correct unhælu or its consequences in a different way. The saints’ and leeches’ cures self-evidently aimed to restore the wholeness of the person’s body; the law-codes’ compensations sought to maintain the stability of the community; and the church’s charity served to meet the basic requirements of the unhal person and the spiritual needs of their community. In this way, each of the interventions worked to restore or preserve a kind of normativity, whether that was imagined as bodily, social, economic, or spiritual. Consequently, these interventions should be understood as forms of prosthesis, in that they are intended to address various kinds of deficiency and restore them to a state of normalcy.

As these interventions suggest, the Anglo-Saxon’s treatment of unhal people was characterized by a laissez-faire attitude, in which the kin-group and the community provided an at least an adequate level of support for their unhal members. Beyond that baseline level, though, unhal people’s experiences depended upon their social status. In the case where unhal people were members of the elite, their kin-group was able to support them with ease, and provide them with household servants or slaves to take care of their needs. As a result, they did not seem to experience much stigma. Importantly, however, the same did not seem to hold true for kings, whose impairments could make them, in Asser’s phrase, “inutilis et despectus” (useless and despised).2 Yet, kings were an exceptional case, in that their physical health directly impacted the well-being of the

2 Asser, DRGA, ch. 74 (55).

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kingdom. If they were too unhal to carry out their duties, they would have been directly detrimental to their people, and potentially removed from their position of power.

Therefore, unhal kings cannot be viewed as representative of the situation of the elite in any way.

In the case where unhal people were poor, which would have been reasonably common if they could not participate in the largely agricultural economy, they were at the mercy of the church’s and the community’s charity, which was not always as reliable as it should have been. In theory, the system of charity should have supported unhal people at a subsistence level, even if it was not much more generous than that. In reality, though, it did not always provide the support that they needed. Both Bede’s EH and Lantfred’s

Narratio tell of unhal people who are rejected by their communities, or abandoned by people who are meant to care for them.3 These failures of charity suggest that unhal people faced stigma and marginalization, which occasionally overcame the Christian imperative to support the needy.

What was the source of this stigma, though? As Irina Metzler notes, popular stereotypes of the Middle Ages hold that the medieval people necessarily associated impairment with sin, and so any stigma arose primarily from a perception of the impaired person’s moral failings.4 The Anglo-Saxons, however, did not often make this connection, although certain instances of it exist within the corpus. In particular, it is most prominent in the law codes that prescribe amputation as a punishment for crimes,

3 Bede, EH 5.2 (458-59); Lantfred, Translatio, ch. 18 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 300-301); Lantfred, Translatio, ch. 21 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 304-305). 4 Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe, 13.

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thereby implying that the removed body part is culpable for the act, and making its absence a marker of guilt. As a result, impairments that were associated with juridical mutilation – missing hands, feet, and eyes – seem to have been particularly stigmatized.

For the most part, though, the Anglo-Saxons believed that unhal people bore no culpability for their unhælu; rather, they understood unhælu to be the result of largely uncontrollable human factors (violence, accidents), or unpredictable non-human attacks

(by elves, devils). Given this belief system, it seems likely that the stigma attached to unhælu came about for more immediate, pragmatic reasons. In some cases, if the Anglo-

Saxons perceived the particular form of unhælu as contagious, the stigma might developed out of a fear of infection. In others, it might have been because the unhælu indicate a deeper source of shame. For example, the personal injury schedules that legislate higher bot for visible injuries seem designed to address either the aforementioned specter of criminality, or simply the embarrassment of having been bested in combat. They also may suggest that deformity was considered ugly, and therefore was shameful for aesthetic reasons. In most cases, though, I would argue that it arose from a perception of unhal people as potential social and economic liabilities, as is evident in both the law-codes and the hagiographies. Specifically, if people were poor and unable to work, they would not be able to fulfill their expected social and economic roles, but instead would be dependent upon their kin-group or community for support. As a result, they would have had a negative impact on the community’s productivity and stability, and might have incurred resentment because of it. Such an explanation would

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certainly explain why poor unhal people seemed to face more stigma than unhal members of the elite.

Regardless of unhal people’s social status, however, they were expected to seek a cure for their condition, whether they submitted to the treatments of the leeches, or patronized the shrines of the saints. It seems to have been largely irrelevant that the leeches’ remedies were not efficacious, or the saints’ miracle cures were not assured. The

Swithun hagiographies may question the leeches’ skills and disparage other saints’ powers,5 but these observations seem to be more reflective of a desire to malign the competition than a general cultural belief in the inefficacy of their healing options.

Indeed, the OE Soliloquies and the OE Boethius express absolute faith in the knowledge and power of doctors in a way that is very reminiscent of the present-day medical model.6

Likewise, the hagiographies were premised on the belief that their saints performed the miracles that they record, and that they were capable of doing the same for other people.

Consequently, even though the Anglo-Saxons’ curative options were not efficacious or predictable, they appear to have had a surprising degree of faith in them, which suggests that they served important psychological and social needs. Psychologically, by visiting the leeches and saints, unhal people could gain a deeper understanding of their condition, the support and reassurance of other people, and the hope of a cure. Socially, they could show that they desired normalcy and therefore their priorities were in line with those of

5 Lantfred, Translatio, ch. 17 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 296-98); Lantfred, Translatio, ch. 36 (ed. and trans. Lapidge, 328-30). 6 OE Boethius, ch. 39 (ed. Godden and Irvine, OE Boethius, 1:365; trans. ibid., 2:85); OE Soliloquies, bk. 1 (80).

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the rest of the community, and they could also perform one of the few useful roles that were available to even the most unhal individuals – namely, helping to establish the power of the saints and to promote their cults.

In a very real sense, the saints’ cults depended upon unhal people for their success, since their extraordinary bodies allowed an opportunity for the type of healing miracles that established the shrines’ reputation and attracted patrons. They would have found healing miracles particularly valuable, since they were unexceptionable. Few people would have disputed that curing unhælu was positive, and so, as a demonstration of the saint’s power, it would have had broad appeal. The importance of these miracles to the saints’ cults would have contributed to the social pressure on unhal people to seek a cure. Nonetheless, it is crucial to recognize that the cults’ dependence upon unhal people was effaced in the Anglo-Saxon period, in similar fashion to how the medical establishment’s dependence upon sick and disabled people is largely obscured in the present day. Rather, the discourse of miraculous healing presented unhal people as the fortunate recipients of the saints’ grace and mercy, as the only party who received any benefit from the relationship. In this way, the Anglo-Saxons demonstrated a tolerant utilization of unhal people. They relied on unhal people to fulfill a role that they deemed necessary, but they did not acknowledge their need of them. Interestingly, the same effacement of unhal people’s role is not evident in the system of charity, in which the emphasis is on the spiritual benefit that the benefactors will receive as a result of their generosity. This different emphasis might have been a way to mitigate the perception that

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unhal people were liabilities, and instead recast them as catalysts for good deeds, thereby encouraging charity and ensuring greater social cohesion.

Although the foregoing account of the Anglo-Saxons’ concept of unhælu suggests that they did not construct the state in a particularly positive manner, it is crucial to realize that this perspective on it was counterbalanced by the discourse of transient hælu.

Consequently, while the Anglo-Saxons generally thought of unhælu as a negative and undesirable state, they also believed that it was a natural part of the life-cycle, and almost everyone would experience it before they died. This belief may seem contrary to the idea that hælu is normative and people should strive for a remedy, but different life-stages carried different expectations. Young people were expected to be hal; old people, to be unhal. In this way, the Anglo-Saxons thought that unhælu was bound up in the human life-cycle, which had been irrevocably altered and tainted by the Fall. Indeed, they believed that unhælu either ceased or became irrelevant on the Judgment Day, so that it might be viewed as an aspect of human mortality.

Relevance of This Study to Disability Studies

Now that I have provided a synopsis of my study’s findings about unhælu, I wish to consider its relevance for the wider field of Disability Studies. As I established at the outset, Disability Studies is an extremely contemporary field that operates within a present-day activist framework, and so its theory does not lend itself naturally to a study of the deep past. Throughout my dissertation, I have attempted to engage with some of its fundamental principles, and adapt them to the purpose of studying earlier historic periods.

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At this point, though, I would like to adopt the opposite approach, and consider what my project has to offer the field of disability studies.

Firstly, I would argue that it is crucial to recover and chronicle the history of disabled people, especially when, in a somewhat simplistic fashion, that history is imagined to be unremittingly bleak and oppressive. This disability history is valuable in its own right, as it provides a means to recuperate the lives of people who have been overlooked, to reconstruct them to the degree that the textual record permits, and to reclaim them as examples of people negotiating an ableist society. This history also offers us a different way of thinking about disability issues in the present day. It serves to illustrate that disability is a social construct by showing how people in the past conceived of and responded to it in different ways. At the same time, it demonstrates how far back aspects of that construct go, and therefore how deeply rooted they are in language and culture. For instance, the association between disability and sickness that informs the medical model is found at the very beginnings of the English language in lexemes such as adl and seocnes. In this way, as Catherine J. Kudlick suggests, disability history permits us to think through crucial issues that lie at the heart of the humanities.7 For instance, it allows us to consider what constitutes the human norm, and how we can respond ethically to differences from it, given a past that did not always have just and equitable answers to these questions. As a result, disability studies could benefit from taking a broader, historical view.

7 Catherine J. Kudlick, “Disability History: Why We Need Another ‘Other,’” American Historical Review 108 (June 2003): 763-64.

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Secondly and perhaps more pragmatically, disability studies could profit from employing some of the methods and approaches used in this study. In particular, the field lacks an in-depth study of the present-day lexicon of disability, although Simi Linton treats the topic briefly in her monograph. Disability scholars might find it revealing to collect all of the lexemes used for disability and disabled people, consider their denotations and connotations, and track any patterns that emerge from them. In this respect, my first chapter might serve as a model for a much larger, contemporary study.

Future Directions

In sum, this study has laid out the basis of the Anglo-Saxon concept of unhælu, and examined how it was evident in the lives of unhal people, which is a necessary first step in reconstructing impairment and disability in the period. Yet, it should be viewed as a prelude to a much larger project on Anglo-Saxon unhælu, which would include aspects that I have deliberately excluded from this discussion. Specifically, as the introduction suggested, I have confined this study to the examination of “bodily” unhælu, i.e. unhælu that primarily affected the senses and mobility. As a result, this study invites extension into an examination of mental unhælu, which takes into account the mind’s corporeality, its location in the chest cavity, and therefore its interactions with other bodily systems.

Moreover, this study of unhælu has revealed the need for a complimentary examination of hælu, as, to my knowledge, no-one has taken on the task of defining the Anglo-Saxon concept of health in any substantial fashion. Such a study would give a fuller picture of

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the Anglo-Saxon understanding of the normative body, and thereby allow us to approach the extraordinary body from another angle.

At the same time, I have introduced ideas in this dissertation that require expansion, two of which stand out as being of particular interest. Firstly, the Anglo-

Saxons’ conception of the body as a container lends itself to further exploration, especially given their use of similar conceptual metaphors for the mind. Secondly and more importantly, the circular continuum that I introduced in my discussion of Beowulf calls for greater development. As it stands, it simply maps how characters within the poem exemplify different levels of ability and disability, and begins to show points of connection between these states. Although this continuum was sufficient for my argument in its current state, it has potential to be expanded into a more general model of

Anglo-Saxon ability. Specifically, I intend to broaden the continuum so that it covers disability (unhælu), ability, and what I would term superability, and plot the regions that various culturally significant groups would occupy. For instance, saints would potentially occupy both extremes, since their unhælu would also constitute a type of superability, which is suggested by the way that their unhælu is a sign of their sanctity, but also by the way that their often mutilated bodies continue to perform in normative ways. The same would be true of certain humanoid monsters (such as Grendel and various monstrous races), whose bodies might be extremely deformed, but who gain superhuman abilities as a result of it. Such a continuum would allow us to gain a much deeper understanding of how the Anglo-Saxons’ perceived extraordinary bodies in all their forms. Consequently, my dissertation is not only the first step in a much larger research project, but also a map

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to the various directions that my future research and, by extension, the field of Anglo-

Saxon disability studies might take.

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