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Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School
2010 Interlace and Early Britain Joanna M. Beall
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COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
INTERLACE AND EARLY BRITAIN
By
JOANNA M. BEALL
A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2010 The members of the committee approve the dissertation of Joanna M. Beall defended on March 24, 2010.
______David. F. Johnson Professor Directing Dissertation
______Lori Walters University Representative
______Bruce Boehrer Committee Member
______Eugene Crook Committee Member
Approved: Nancy Bradley Warren Committee Member
______Kathleen Yancey, Chair, Department of English
The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members.
ii I dedicate this to My Parents
iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am glad of this opportunity to express my appreciation for the wisdom and patience of all my Committee Members. Thank you, Dr. Johnson, for your high standards as a medievalist, and also for understanding my independence–while always giving the right advice, or asking the right questions, at the right time. Thank you, Dr. Walters, for your knowledge of interlace and your encouragement; and Professor Crook for knowing so much about all things medieval, especially with regard to religion. Thanks also to Dr. Warren and Dr. Boehrer for being helpful and pleasant over the years. My gratitude is also due to Professor Jeremy Smith at Glasgow University, who supervised my MPhil. studies, including the first version of what appears here as Chapter 5, on the Lindisfarne Gospels. You are all wonderful models as scholars and teachers: I hope, in my brief turn, to follow your examples. I am indebted, as well, to the moral support of my family in England, and their encouragement to continue in my studies. I also owe much to a dear friend–Trixie was the best little dog in the world, and she stayed by me through it all: "Little Lamb, God bless thee!"1
1Blake, William. "The Lamb." Songs of Innocence and Experience. Romanticism: An Anthology. Ed. Duncan Wu. London: Blackwell, 1994. 56.
iv TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Tables...... vi
List of Figures...... vii
Abstract...... viii
1. INTRODUCTION...... 1
2. CONTEXT-TEXTILE-TEXT: TRANSMISSION OF INTERLACE TO GREAT BRITAIN...... 8
3. HISTORICAL SURVEY: THE LINGUISTIC AND LITERARY CONTEXTS OF INTERLACE IN EARLY BRITAIN...... 31
4. SCHOLARLY ANALYSES OF INTERLACE IN OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE...... 53
5. INTERLACE AND THE LINDISFARNE GOSPELS...... 81
6. INTERLACE AND ENGLISH STONE CROSSES...... 104
7. INTERLACE AND "THE DREAM OF THE ROOD"...... 131 7.1 The Dream of the Rood...... 154 7.2 The Dream of the Rood (Translation)...... 158 7.3 Outline of Scenes in “The Dream of the Rood,” According to Huppe...... 162
8. CONCLUSION...... 164
APPENDICES
A. GLOSSARY OF TERMS ASSOCIATED WITH WEAVING...... 167
B. TABLES SHOWING DEVELOPMENTS IN WEAVING...... 176
WORKS CITED...... 181
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH...... 193
v LIST OF TABLES
2.1 Weaving in the Stone Age...... 176
2.2 Weaving in the Bronze Age ...... 177
2.3 Weaving in the Iron Age ...... 178
2.4 Weaving in the Roman Era ...... 179
2.5 Weaving in the Post-Roman Age...... 180
4.1 Techniques and Their Purposes in Interlace–After Bartlett...... 78
4.2 Techniques and Their Purposes in Interlace– After Leyerle...... 79
4.3 Techniques and Their Purposes in Interlace– After Vinaver...... 80
vi LIST OF FIGURES
2.1 Illustrations Showing Weaving Patterns from Anglo-Saxon England, and a Weaving Sword...... 28
2.2 Roman Mosaic from Hinton St. Mary, Dorset...... 29
2 3 Map Showing Viking Insurgency and Settlement in Britain and Europe, 700-941 ...... 30
5.1 Map Showing Northern Dioceses 700-850...... 99
5.2 The First St. Matthew Incipit Page of the Lindisfarne Gospels, f. 27r...... 100
5.3 The St. John Incipit Page of the Lindisfarne Gospels, f. 211r...... 101
5.4 Zoomorphic Bronze Mask from Late Shang China...... 102
5.5 Crowned Zoomorph: Bronze Finial from Late Shang China...... 103
6.1 Christ Acclaimed by Two Animals–On Two Crosses...... 125
6.2 The Ruthwell Cross, Engraving After Drawings by Henry Duncan, 1833...... 126
6.3 Illustrations of the Bewcastle Cross by W. G. Collingwood...... 127
6.4 Illustrations of the North Sandbach Cross...... 128
6.5 Illustrations of the South Sandbach Cross...... 129
6.6 Illustrations of the Gosforth Cross by W. G. Collingwood ...... 130
7.1 Map Showing Viking Settlement in 9th-10th Century England...... 163
vii ABSTRACT
This dissertation presents an interdisciplinary approach to the understanding of interlace in Britain, while arguing that the Anglo-Saxons utilized the device as an instrument for uniting British cultures under Christianity. Interlace is firstly defined in terms of weaving; and its inception and evolution into other crafts, including literature, is summarized. The paths by which interlace is known to have reached Britain are thus identified, and reasons for its use are considered. The study then concentrates on development of interlace within the socio-historical and linguistic contexts of Great Britain, which help to identify the characteristics of the genre that emerges. Focus on those elements is refined by analysis and interpretation of interlace in the manuscript art of The Lindisfarne Gospels (BL, Cotton Nero Div, f. 27), and on stone crosses at Ruthwell, Bewcastle, Sandbach, and Gosforth. Finally, the text of the late tenth century poem, The Dream of the Rood, is analyzed as interlace and interpreted under the lens of its religio-political and historical contexts.
viii CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
The Celts who migrated to Great Britain after the Younger Dryas imported materials that can be used for weaving, and they afterwards produced textiles; it is therefore reasonable to suppose that they, and tribes who arrived later, could perceive weaving as a process of creating a single object from diverse threads. This dissertation hypothesizes that the British analogized the principle into other arts including rhetoric and politics; and that as the Anglo-Saxons developed writing in English, they turned interlace to the rhetorical purpose of integrating all British cultures under Christianity. The study supports the hypothesis by seeking to deepen understanding of what interlace is, how it reached Great Britain, and the ways in which the Anglo-Saxons adapted its patterns to their manuscripts, stone crosses, language, and literature. The method used for exploring the claim is interdisciplinarity, a theory described by Julie Thompson Klein, and which provides an integrative framework for scholarship from diverse interests.2 Interdisciplinarity is intrinsic to the historical nature of Anglo-Saxon studies as well as to analysis of interlace on various media; and it is also ideal for a study of interlace which argues that the device itself depicts and participates in integration. The disciplines used throughout the dissertation include Linguistics, in which etymology provides the origin of terms that locate interlace in the art of weaving, but also defines both concepts. References to “interlace,” “knotwork,” and “weaving” are interchangeable in the study unless it is necessary to distinguish between them, for example when embroidery interlaces with a larger weave; and the terms “interlace” and “knotwork” may also refer to patterns that re-present weaving on other artwork. On a larger scale, this study discusses “cultural interlace,” by which I mean the lacing or weaving together of ideas from disparate cultures; through this dynamic, cultures themselves might interweave to form a unit, such as a nation, and the contacts may occur naturally–for example by trade, or during education–or by imposition through empires. Terms used to indicate aspects of interlace include: crossing and intersection, alternation, variation, mixture, juxtaposition, inset, linking, and means of attachment. The Middle English Dictionary Online at the University of Michigan,3 and The Oxford English Dictionary Online,4 are the authorities cited for the definitions,
2 Klein, Julie Thompson. Interdisciplinarity: History, Theory & Practice. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990. I am indebted to Professor David Johnson for guiding me to this theory. 3 “Las.” The Middle English Dictionary. Eds. Hans Kurath and M. Kuhn. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 19522001. Medieval English Dictionary Online. Ed. Frances McSparran. University of Michigan. 2006. Strozier Lib. F.S.U. Tallahassee, FL. 05 Dec. 2009. 1 and they indeed associate the French-based word interlace and the earlier Anglo-Saxon one of weaving. The Glossary attached to this dissertation stems from these sources and provides further English terms that we still use in relation to fabric and weaving, the authority for Anglo-Saxon terminology residing in Bosworth-Toller5 and J. R. Clark Hall.6 The University of Toronto has a project underway to update the Dictionary of Old English, but that is incomplete at the time of writing. Other disciplines that contribute to the discussion are Archeology, the History of Textiles, and Art-History: studies which locate the earliest known manifestations of weaving and identify the earliest applications of interlace to other arts. The disciplines also make it possible to trace transmission of the techniques to Britain. The dissertation also taps the insights of scholars who have produced Theories of Interlace from different perspectives. Some, for example, have sought origins and symbology in art-history; others have studied the device as rhetoric in Old English Literature. The study notes that interlace, the Celtic indigenes of Britain, and the English language, all branched from Indo-European roots–though not necessarily contemporaneously. The discussion thus considers ways in which non-insular languages and cultures contributed to the versions of interlace that developed in Great Britain, and for this it turns to the Theory and History of English Literacy. Studies of this type provide insights that facilitate exploration of the uses of symbolism and literacy among inhabitants who possessed different degrees of literacy in various languages. The Social and Political History of England provides a necessary background for understanding such developments, and the study therefore adduces the viewpoints of British scholars who seek to understand their country; it also uses their knowledge to place interlace in the socio-historical and even the genetic context of British society. The discussion can then approach examples of British interlace as insets in the larger tapestry of the religio-political context that influenced their creation. Theology also contributes by explaining perceptions that underlie imagery in the Christian art which formed part of that context, and the study utilizes the suggestion that theology works as one of three strands. As Stephen Noll argued when discussing the cord in Ecclesiastes 4.12: "Every Biblical text combines historical, literary, and theological dimensions.”7 The insight informs my approach to texts including those from Manuscript Studies. Illuminated Gospels contain some of the earliest examples of interlace max_to_show =10&sort_type=alpha&search_id=buJJ-E0GChs-7671&result_place=1> 5 An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Based on the Manuscript Collections of the Late Joseph Bosworth. Ed. and Enlarged T. Northcote Toller. An Electronic Application on CD-Rom. ver.0.2b. Digitised by Sean Crist et al. 2001-2007. Application by Ondrej Tichy, 2006-7. 2 in Britain, and I consider that the concepts behind their designs are essential to an understanding of interlace from the island. Scholarship from the disciplines referenced includes that of Nils Aberg, which is often considered seminal for the origins and theory of interlace in plastic and manuscript arts. He produced his work in three volumes, much of it while Sweden was under the influence of Nazi Germany: a situation that may account for what I interpret as some denigration of Anglo-Saxons. His main contribution to my work is, nevertheless, from the section on the British Isles, where he theorizes that interlace with breaks was Coptic in origin, and that the Irish introduced it to the English.8 I also adduce other art-historical expertise, for example from the series edited by Rosemary Cramp–a catalogue of all the Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture in England that describes the stones, and in which she categorizes types of interlace.9 Scholarship from the other fields includes that of Michael Clanchy,10 Patrick Wormald,11 and Michael Lapidge,12 all of whom have contributed to knowledge about literacy in early medieval England. Lapidge, especially, has performed valuable research on the school of Theodore and Hadrian at Canterbury, and the glosses produced there.13 Also included is work from the Oxford geneticist Bryan Sykes, who identifies the genetic substructure of the indigenes of Great Britain as Celtic.14 In order to understand something of the early culture of the indigenes, I have relied especially on Barry Cunliffe, a Celticist also from Oxford University.15 Both Celts and Anglo-Saxons maintained traditions of oral narrative before they acquired literacy, as indeed did the Greeks; and John Niles is one scholar who has discussed ring structure as a type of interlace that appears in such traditions.16 For theory of literary interlace, the study turns to Daniel Calder, who ascribes the earliest description of the techniques to a German scholar, Richard 8 Aberg, Nils. The Occident and the Orient in the Art of the Seventh Century. Part I. Stockholm: Wahlstrom & Widstrand, 1943-47; 92-96. 9 Cramp, Rosemary. General Introduction to the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture: Grammar of Anglo-Saxon Ornament. Published for the British Academy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984. 10 Clanchy, Michael T. From Memory to Written Record: England 1066-1307. 2nd. ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000. 11 Wormald, Patrick. “Anglo-Saxon Society and Its Literature.” The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature. Eds Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. 12 Lapidge, Michael. “Gildas’s Education and the Latin Culture of Sub-Roman England.” Gildas: New Approaches. Eds. Michael Lapidge and David N. Dumville. Woodbridge: Boydell, 1984. 27-50. 13 Bischoff B. and M. Lapidge. Biblical Commentaries from the Canterbury School of Theodore and Hadrian. Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Thanks again to Dr.Johnson, who mentioned the importance of the work on glosses. It proved to be a rich vein of information! 14 Sykes, Bryan. Blood of the Isles: Exploring the Genetic Roots of our Tribal History. London: Bantam Press, 2006; 283, 287. 15 Cunliffe, Barry. The Ancient Celts. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. 16 Niles, John D. “Ring Composition and the Structure of Beowulf.” Publications of the Modern Language Association 94.5 (1979): 924-35. 3 Heinzel.17 Adeline Courtney Bartlett further outlined the techniques as the Anglo-Saxons applied them to poetry.18 John Leyerle, however, identified and analyzed zoomorphic interlace and its insets within Beowulf, thereby turning the focus towards the rhetorical purposes of Anglo-Saxon interlace, 19 and Arthur Brodeur, even more specifically, analyzed the technique of variation in that work.20 Eugene Vinaver discussed interlace in French romances, but their Arthurian matter commonly employs material from British Celts, therefore Vinaver describes techniques and effects that pertain to interlace in British culture.21 Bernard Huppe also produced close analyses of specific Anglo-Saxon poems, in which he related syntax and diction to the patterns on Irish manuscript art and what is here defined as interlace.22 English Runes are manifestations of a prototype Anglo-Saxon literacy, and they often appear in association with interlace; R. I. Page, of Corpus Christi College Cambridge, is possibly the greatest authority on these.23 For manuscript studies, Michelle Brown has produced a comprehensive and modern discussion of The Lindisfarne Gospels (BL, Cotton Nero D.iv),24 although the earlier work of Janet Backhouse remains valuable.25 In a discussion of interlace in other medieval manuscripts, Laura Kendrick has alluded to use of knotwork as “a figure for the mystery of incarnation”; and she also sees interlaced designs as “pictorial realizations of the exegetical metaphor of the “knots” of Scripture; that is, the multiplex, associative, “intertextual” ways divinity was supposed to reveal (but still partially conceal) itself in writing.”26 These insights, based especially on works of Gregory the Great and Bede, help to integrate my readings of the texts chosen. 17 Calder, Daniel G. “The Study of Style in Old English Poetry: A Historical Introduction.” Old English Poetry: Essays on Style. Ed. Daniel G. Calder. Berkley: University of California Press, 1979. 1-66 (4; 17). 18 Bartlett, Adeline Courtney. The Larger Rhetorical Patterns in Anglo-Saxon Poetry. Morningside Heights, New York: Columbia University Press, 1935. 19 Leyerle, John. "The Interlace Structure of Beowulf." Interpretations of Beowulf : A Critical Anthology. University of Toronto Quarterly 37 (1967): 1-17. Ed. R. D. Fulk. Bloomington & Indianopolis: Indiana University Press, 1991. 146-67. 20 Brodeur, Arthur Gilchrist. “Variation.” Interpretations of Beowulf : A Critical Anthology. University of Toronto Quarterly 37 (1967): 1-17. Ed. R. D. Fulk. Bloomington & Indianopolis: Indiana University Press, 1991. 66-87. 21 Vinaver, Eugene. The Rise of Romance. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971. I thank Professor Eugene Crook for recommending this source to me. 22 Huppe, Bernard F. The Web of Words: Structural Analyses of the Old English Poems “Vainglory,” “The Wonder of Creation,” “The Dream of the Rood,” and “Judith.” Albany: State University of New York Press, 1970. 23 Page, R. I. Reading the Past. London: Trustees of the British Museum. 1987. 24 Brown, Michelle P. The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality, and the Scribe. London: The British Library, 2003. 25 Backhouse, Janet. The Lindisfarne Gospels. London: Phaidon, 1981. 26 Kendrick, Laura. Animating the Letter: The Figurative Embodiment of Writing from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1999; 87/8. This time my gratitude is due to Professor Lori Walters, who recommended Animating the Letter. 4 The work of four scholars has proved invaluable for interpretation of designs: Jacques Guilman has analyzed the construction and layout of interlace in the manuscripts,27 and three exponents of the iconography of ornament in plastic arts are Eamonn O Carragain,28 Jennifer O’Reilly,29 and Jane Hawkes.30 In addition, Michael Swanton produced the Exeter edition of “The Dream of the Rood” (Cathedral Library Vercelli MS CXVII);31 and his work is like that of O Carragain in providing a rich background against which to consider interlace. Much of the dissertation focuses on the Kingdom of Northumbria: because the area produced the earliest examples of interlace that survive in what is now England. For history and theology contemporary to the place and period, I follow most scholars in turning to the Venerable Bede (673-735 AD), particularly his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. The work pertains to the discussion of interlace in that, as D.H. Farmer observes, “The main theme of the History was the progression from diversity to unity. This was an idea worked out by Gregory the Great, whom Bede admired so much both as a teacher and as the apostle of the English.”32 I would argue that later disunity and re-unification of the area, when it was invaded by Hiberno-Vikings, is further demonstration of the dynamics of cultural interlace. David Rollason, of the University of Durham (UK), provides a present-day perspective that facilitates discussion of the history of Northumbria.33 Oxford University now devotes a website to the writing tablets recently unearthed at Vindolanda; this offers more facts about Northumbria and the Scottish Marches, and so affords up-to-date insight into the levels and use of literacy in Roman Britain.34 I argue that literacy and interlace are related aspects of culture, and they need not have disappeared with the exodus of the Romans; rather, people would have retained an interest in the uses of both forms. Their early 27 Guilman, Jacques. “The Composition of the First Cross Page of the Lindisfarne Gospels:“‘Square Schematism’ and the Hiberno-Saxon Aesthetic.” The Art Bulletin 67. 4 (1985): 535-547. 28 O Carragain, Eamonn. Ritual and the Rood: Liturgical Images and the Old English Poems of the Dream of the Rood Tradition. The British Library Studies in Medieval Culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005. 29 O’Reilly, J. “Patristic and Insular Traditions of the Evangelists: Exegesis and Iconography.” Le Isole Britanniche e Roma in Eta Romanobarbarica. Eds. A. M. Luiselli Fadda and E. O Carragain Rome: Herder Editrice e Libreria, 1998. 49-94. 30 Hawkes, Jane. The Sandbach Crosses: Sign and Significance in Anglo-Saxon Sculpture. Bodmin: Four Courts Press, 31 Swanton, Michael, ed. The Dream of the Rood. Rev. ed. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1996. 2000. 32 Farmer, D. H. “Introduction.” Ecclesiastical History of the English People, with Bede’s Letter to Egbert, and Cuthbert’s Letter on the Death of Bede. By the Venerable Bede. Trans. Leo Sherley-Price, rev. R. E. Latham. Trans. of the minor works, new Intro. and Notes, D. H. Farmer. Rev. ed. New York: Viking Penguin, 1990; 19-38 (27). 33 Rollason, David. Northumbria, 500-1100: Creation and Destruction of a Kingdom. Cambridge: CUP, 2003. 34 Vindolanda Tablets Online. Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents, Director A. K. Bowman; and the Academic Computing Development Team. 2009. Oxford University, England. 30 Nov. 2009. 5 appearance in the culture of the Scottish Marches may have inspired further development of the achievements already manifest in Roman arts, and in development of the peace and unity forced upon Celts by the multicultural Roman Army at Hadrian’s Wall. For information on the similar environment of early Wales and the Welsh Marches, I adduce the work of John Davies, who was a member of the Department of Welsh History at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.35 Reliable description of the physical geography of these areas is scarce; however W. J. King provides details that are relevant to the literature and history of the largest of the islands in the archipelago that is the British Isles.36 The discussion begins by outlining the history of weaving in the West, while noting examples of where the craft extended onto other artefacts–as “ornament.” My summary depends largely on the work of scholars who contributed to The Cambridge History of Western Textiles (CHWT), most of whom have used radio-carbon dating to enhance accuracy in chronology.37 I have tabulated information that specifies interlace designs and applies to cultural exchange, and included that which highlights the development of weaving and its designs in Britain. The discussion then moves towards the linguistic and rhetorical environments that inhered during exacerbations of cultural interaction in the island. The chapters that follow seek to deepen understanding of the rhetorical purposes of interlace in specific texts, which are approached as insets in the religio-political backdrop of Anglo-Saxon England. My analyses of interlace in manuscript and plastic arts provide a new focus on their symbology, because the enquiry considers how the knotwork functioned: both in the texts associated with the media and with respect to British audiences. Scholars have previously discussed the device in light of a few literary texts, including Beowulf, Judith, and The Dream of the Rood. The present study, though, suggests that the British appreciated the technique more widely than has been recognized hitherto, and that specific analysis of interlace provides new insights into the concerns of the people who produced and used the texts. That the concept of weaving underlies the words “text” and “interlace” is key to these understandings: for whether the weave appears on a material object or echoes through diction and alliteration in oral poetry, the appeals of structure, texture, decoration, and symbolism, can lead audiences to contemplate significance deeper than that of mere fashion. My contribution indicates that tribal peoples in Great Britain appreciated intellectual, spiritual, and social concepts in the abstract designs, and the discussion explores what some of those concepts were likely to be. I suggest, ultimately, that Anglo-Saxons used scholarship of the Book–The Bible–to unite the interests of their society under those of Christianity, which came from Rome and the Mediterranean. 35 Davies, John. A History of Wales. In Welsh, 1990; In English 1993. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1994. 36 King, W. J. The British Isles. The New Certificate Geography Series, Advanced Level. London: MacDonald and Evans, 1970. 37 Jorgensen, Lise Bender. “Northern Europe in the Roman Iron Age, 1 BC-AD 400.” The Cambridge History of Western Textiles. Ed. David Jenkins. Vol. 1. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 93-102 (99). (CHWT) 6 Analysis of The Lindisfarne Gospels illustrates this “cultural interlace” by first identifying and then interpreting the integration of cultural effects on the first Incipit page of St. Matthew (f. 27). The discussions of stone crosses show also how Anglo-Saxons used interlace to link their understandings of matters temporal and spiritual; and the dissertation concludes by exploring how the poet displays relationships between Christ the Word and human words in The Dream of the Rood. In so doing, the study suggests that the poet applies the commentary of St. Augustine on the Gospel of St. John the Evangelist, but also that intertextuality links the poem to the arts previously discussed. It is then possible to see how interlace in Great Britain could participate in a program of religio-political integration, and that the device is at least as structural and functional as it is decorative. 7 CHAPTER 2 TEXTILE-CONTEXT-TEXT: TRANSMISSION OF INTERLACE TO GREAT BRITAIN Birds, spiders, and silk-worms are examples of animals that weave, either to trap food or to form protective casings–but we cannot prove that any of them taught mankind to do so; neither can we prove that the skill was a gift to Greek women from Athene, their goddess of wisdom and war.38 The history of weaving confirms that mankind has used the craft, in the fight for survival, to create means of manipulating or responding to the environment–both physical and invisible; the story of interlace in Britain also reflects those responses. The discussion of interlace in this chapter seeks to clarify understanding of the routes by which weaving reached Britain, and of how the techniques developed once there; the section also touches upon the significance of interlace in imagery. Some of that imagery relates to religions of which we know little, and some to Christianity; but I proceed on the assumption that such organizations attempt to mediate between mankind and powers that are beyond control, and that therefore affect survival. In this light, the section and its tables offer a basic review of the history of textile production in its western context, after which the chapter focuses on the development of interlace in Christian and Anglo-Saxon England. Our knowledge of the history of weaving is incomplete, however. John Peter Wild, an historian of cloth-making, explains why lack of evidence dictates the situation: natural fibers decompose unless preserved in a dry climate; or by the chemicals in marshy environments; or by chemicals released from decaying metals.39 Some early textiles have survived under such conditions, and archeology continues to unearth others, as well as evidence of the technologies that produced them. Scholars supplement this knowledge of weaving through the study of arts that incorporate it into more durable media, such as pottery, carvings, metalwork, and literature. The same sources contribute to the present discussion, which mentions the earliest known occurrences, or recurrences, of interlace patterns that reached Britain–especially two- or three-strand cords, checks, stripes,40 diamond and diaper shapes. The appearance of those structures in the weaves of braids, damasks, tapestries, and embroidery is noted; as is that of weaves in diagonal patterns–or twills–because Romilly Allen and Nils Aberg identified the diagonal trend plastic arts of "interlace 38 Jenkins, Ian. “The Greeks.” CHWT 75. 39 Wild, John Peter. “General Introduction.” CHWT. 9-25 (9). 40 See Glossary. Check patterns are intrinsic to the simplest weave: the tabby (see diagram from CHWT 1.11), and diamond patterns are re-orientations or variations of the rectangle. Etymology suggests that stripes may also be considered interlace because the changes of color are reminiscent of cords used in braiding, weaving, or pleating. The sense would derive from the Old English bregdan to move quickly, flash, change color, plait, weave; ON bregtha. 8 with breaks," and attributed the development to Irish Celts.41 The discussion especially notes the relationship between weaving and Celts, because they are the people who settled Britain in Neolithic times. The study treats weaving and interlace as synonyms, but definitions of the word “interlace” can clarify the history and relationships between the two concepts, and they also help to establish the terms that refer to the technique throughout the discussion; for while it seems self-evident that “Interlace” describes patterns in artwork we consider to be Celtic or Anglo-Saxon, the term does not appear in Old English dictionaries. The Glossary appended to this study identifies the equivalent words in Old English as: wefan (to weave), and also cnotta (knot), which we combine with weorc (work; construction; structure) when we call interlace knotwork– that is, a “structure of knots.” The Old English verb, nettian: to ensnare, is also relevant. Clark Hall is among the etymologists who describe nett as “netting, network, a spider's web”; and Bosworth-Toller adds that it also is: “I. a net for fowling, fishing or hunting;” “II. a mosquito net;” “III. a net-work, web.” Bosworth-Toller relates the English term to Germanic cognates: “Goth. nati, O. Sax. netti, O. Frs. nette, O. H. Ger. nezzi,” all of which might indicate that the Anglo-Saxons who migrated to England, in the 5th and 6th centuries AD, were already familiar with this aspect of weaving. The Glossary appended to this study sets out these terms in greater detail, and relates them to an English vocabulary that is still widely used for the processes of weaving. “Interlace,” however, belongs to a later period of French domination. The Middle English Dictionary (MED), places the first English occurrence of “lace” in 1230 AD, in Ancrene Wisse (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge MS. 402). Indicating that “lace” derives from the Old French variants: laz, las, lace, lais; the MED includes the primary definition: 1a.Cord made of braided or interwoven strands of silk, threads of gold, etc; also, a length of such cord; also, the thread of life controlled by the Fates.42 Other entries in the MED extend this definition of “lace”to, for example: 1b. “A piece of cord used to draw together the edges of slits or openings in an article of clothing, or to attach one article of clothing or armor to another; a lace.” The denotations, however, also include characteristics of lace that are less obvious to us nowadays: 1d. “A cord used as a bond or fetter,” or: 4. “A net, noose, or snare”–the latter definition therefore linking “lace” both to Old English nettian (above) and to Latin Laqueus -i, m: a noose, halter, snare–from which the French originated. The Oxford English Dictionary Online (OED) explains the French notion of interlace in terms of the English one of weaving, and it offers later precedents for use of the concept in English. I 41 Aberg, Nils. The Occident and the Orient in the Art of the Seventh Century. Part I. Stockholm:Wahlstrom Widstrand, 1943; 70-76. 42 “Las.” MED Online. University of Michigan. 2006. Strozier Lib. F.S.U. Tallahassee, FL. 26 Jan. 2010. 9 include them here in some detail because the history of weaving will show that these features of interlace in fact originated much earlier. The OED explains the following on the verb "to interlace:" Etymology: entrelace, a. F. entrelace-r (OF. -ier), f. entre- (ENTER-, INTER- 1) + lacer to LACE.] 1. trans. To unite two (or more) things by intercrossing laces, strings, or threads; hence, to connect or bind together intricately; to entangle, involve, mix up. [Earliest example dated c. 1374: CHAUCER Boeth. III. pr. xi. 82 (Camb. MS.) “The hows of dydalus so entrelaced that it is vn-able to be vnlaced.”] 2 a.. To draw two series of threads, withes, or other things, across each other, passing each alternately above and below the other, as in weaving; but implying a simpler and less elaborate arrangement than interweave. [Earliest example dated 1523.] b. fig. To intermix with constant alternation; to alternate; to interweave [Earliest example dated 1576] 3. To interweave one thing or set of things into another; to introduce as by interweaving; to insert, interpolate. Chiefly fig. or transf. Obs. [Earliest example dated: 1532] 4. To cross, vary, or diversify a thing with interwoven or intermixed elements; to intersperse, mingle, or mix with. Chiefly transf. and fig. [Earliest example dated 1531] 5. a. intr. for refl. To cross each other intricately, as if woven together; to lie between each other in opposite directions, like the fingers of the two interlaced hands. [earliest example dated 1596]. b. To mix oneself up, to become entangled or involved. Obs. rare. [Earliest example dated c. 1380.]43 Section 1, above, cites a reference by Chaucer to the maze, or puzzle, a characteristic that Clark Hall attributes to the Old English cnotta, and for which Chapters 3 and 7 find precedents in Old English Literature. We see, otherwise, that the OED and MED include shades of meaning that have developed within the concepts of uniting strands of various kinds into one fabric, and of using them to join objects together. The dictionaries also specify terms such as: crossing, alternation, variation, mixture, means of attachment, and their application to forms of netting–a word which, we have seen above, clarifies the relationship between interlace and entrapment. The history of weaving supports the suggestion by Wild that netting is the hand-worked and 43 “Interlace.” The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989. Oxford English Dictionary Online. Oxford University Press. Strozier Lib. Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL. 19 Feb. 2008. 10 immediate ancestor of mechanized weaving.44 Netting also has religious affiliations, however, and Wild identifies one of the earliest examples as a ceremonial headdress in: An important collection of Neolithic sacred objects including basketry, matting, cordage, and very fine netting [which] was found stored in a cave in Nahal Hemar, Palestine, on the Dead Sea. The collection has been dated to ca. 6,500 BC by radio-carbon.45 Historians locate the earliest evidence of closer weaving to the Paleolithic Near East, the first known fabric being linen that appeared in Turkey ca. 6,000BC.46 I believe it significant for the discussion that the development coincided both with the earliest migrations of Turkish farmers to the Balkans, and with the rising of seas that freed the British Isles from Europe, ca. 6,500-6,000 BC. Bryan Sykes designates one set of these farmers, who migrated across the northern shores of the Mediterranean and towards the Atlantic seaboard, as “Oceanic.” Some of them arrived as the first Celtic settlers in Ireland, possibly between 5,500 and 2,500 BC. Another “Land” group moved towards the Baltic and the North Sea.47 The evidence does not suggest that these Celtic migrants took weaving with them from the beginning; nevertheless, they took the farming techniques that would enable its later appearance. Wild relates the development of fabric production to farming; that is, to the first indications of sheep-rearing and cultivation of flax seeds, which occurred ca. 8,000 BC. Neither flax seeds nor sheep confirm the existence of textiles, though; and he dates the first known woven artefacts, in the Dead Sea collection mentioned above, to fifteen hundred years later.48 The growth of skills took time, and Wild inclines to the view that people in the Near East began to produce tabby linen on ground looms sometime later than 4,000 BC, 2,000 years after the first linen appeared in Turkey.49 He cautions, further, that the evidence “suggest[s] an industry already well established in that region, but one which was not necessarily the progenitor of the industries developing in prehistoric Europe.”50 Joan Allgrove-McDowell argues that both farming and the industry spread south and west to Egypt; for she believes that hunter-gatherers who cultivated flax there (ca. 6,000 BC) used seeds from the Levant, because: “Wild flax was not indigenous to Egypt.” McDowell dates the earliest linen production in Neolithic Egypt to ca. 5,500 BC, noting that, at that time, women span the fiber for cloth-making. Portable, horizontal ground looms were used in this area up to 1,550 BC, and these 44 Wild “Anatolia and the Levant c. 8000-3500/3300 BC.” CHWT 42. 45 Wild “Anatolia and the Levant in the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods, c.8000-3500/3300 BC.” CHWT 39-48 (42). 46 The Stone Age: ca. 8000-3500/3300 BC; cf. Table 2.1, also. 47 Sykes 138-40; Davies 1; also Sykes 141/2, and 156. 48 Wild 42, Ill. I. 49 Wild 40-42 (CHWT). 50 Wild 10 (CHWT). 11 allowed weavers to move between supplies of materials for their craft.51 The production of textiles thus diversified from farming, the source of subsistence and materials, towards indirect means of survival through trade, which supplied a larger market with clothing and furnishings in varying degrees of luxury. Both Pontic and Iranian regions have histories of a luxury trade in Chinese silks. It is therefore relevant that Claudia Brown and other sericulture historians cite archaeological finds which confirm that weaving existed in China by 5,000 BC and silk-weaving from 4,000 BC.52 Wild notes that Byzantines wove silk twills from Chinese fibers even after “Justinian obtained silk-worm eggs from travellers [sic] from central Asia,”53 ca. 552-4 AD; so we see that the contribution of China continued throughout the period under discussion. Artefacts from Prehistoric Europe may indicate independence of developments in the Middle East, especially as Lise Bender Jorgensen identifies the oldest woven object in Europe, a cord from Lascaux, as “Paleolithic.” She is vague about the dates of bast fishing-nets from Finland and Germany, placing them in the “ninth or eighth millennium BC or an early part of the Mesolithic.”54 Perhaps lack of evidence is due to the Younger Dryas; for in the similar latitudes of Scotland and northern England, as Sykes points out, only nomads–hunter gatherers–of the period left traces such as microliths.55 The presence of nets, though, lends merit to the comment of J. G. D. Clark, that: “[W]hatever the factors that have led men to traverse the seaways of Atlantic Europe, it seems safe to assume that the routes were first opened up by men intent on catching fish.”56 The earliest remnants of textiles from Scandinavia, of ca. 4,200 BC, are later Mesolithic clothing and basketry from Denmark; the weaves are in willow bast and include knotless netting, couched buttonhole stitch, knitting, and netting.57 The northern textiles, though, are simple in contrast to fabrics from the Lake Dwellings of Switzerland, where loom weights indicate that warp-weighted technology was used from about 4,000 BC, and the weaves include knotless netting, basketry, and 51 Allgrove-McDowell, Joan. “Ancient Egypt, 5000-332 BC.” 31; 33; 48 CHWT. 52 Brown, Claudia, ed. The Amy S. Clague Collection of Chinese Textiles. Phoenix: Phoenix Art Museum, 2000, 16. Brown here quotes Zhao Feng. Zhixiu zhenpin: Tushuo Zhongguo sizhou yishu shi / Treasures in Silk: An Illustrated History of Chinese Textiles. Trans. June Lee. Hong Kong: ISAT/Costume Squad, 1999, 38-9. 53 Wild. “The Later Roman and Early Byzantine East, AD 300-1,000.” 140-153 (141; 143) CHWT. The Emperor Justinian reigned 527-65 AD . 54 Jorgensen . “Europe: The Stone Age c. 2000 BC.” CHWT 52-70 (53 Lascaux; 54 nets). She defines Paleolithic as 10 to 15,000 years ago (53). 55 Sykes 148; 243; 282. He dates theYounger Dryas, a later Ice Age, to BC 9,000-8,000, observing:.“The sea was frozen right down to northern Spain, and the plains of northern Europe reduced once again to barren and inhospitable tundra,” 138-9. 56 Clark, J. G. D. “The Economic Context of Dolmens and Passage Graves in Sweden.” Markotic, V. ed. Ancient Europe and the Mediterranean. Warminster: Arts and Phillips Ltd., 1977; 35-49. Qtd. in: Mercer, Roger J. [f/n 18 cont’d] “The Early Farming Settlement of South Western England.” Neolithic Settlement in Ireland and Western Britain [NS]. Eds. Ian Armit, Eileen Murphy, Eimear Nelis and Derek Simpson. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2003; 59. 57 Jorgensen 54; 55. 12 some tabbies in linen. Decoration includes stripes, brocade, and embroidery. Jorgensen comments, nevertheless, on the absence of wool in Switzerland, suggesting that although Neolithics had introduced domesticated sheep into that area, they might not have been fleece-producing animals.58 Indeed, Wild indicates that the first such fleece, even in the Near East, appeared only ca. 3,000 BC.59 Jorgensen identifies the earliest known fragment of thread from Britain as Neolithic and from Cambridge.60 If we accept the logic of the relationship between farming and weaving, the dearth of textiles from Stone Age Britain is unsurprising because, as Sykes indicates: farmers only began settling the islands in Neolithic times.61 Study of early British husbandry supports the statement, and Dr. Anne Tresset notes that “Domestic animals seem to appear en masse in southern England around 3,800/3,700 BC (in calendar years).” She also maintains that goats and sheep had “no wild progenitors [...] in Britain and Ireland (nor are there in Europe), so these two species must have been imported.”62 Further evidence of sheep in Britain appears at Northton, Isle of Harris (Outer Hebrides, ca.3360-2910 BC),63 signifying that both farming and the animals had then reached the north of the islands. Archeologists have found flax seeds in the south. They are from ca. 4,310-3,705 BC, at Hembury Fort, Devon; 64 and from the similar settlement at Windmill Hill [Avebury, Wiltshire];65 and while, at this stage, the plant may merely have provided food or linseed oil, the presence of both flax and sheep farming confirms that Neolithic immigrants to Britain had imported the resources for weaving fabric. Wild indicates that, during the Bronze Age which followed, Palestine and Syria exported linen to Mesopotamia where, contemporaneously, sheep-farming and wool production became industries, and some sheep were bred for woolly fleeces.66 Tabby weaves predominated; and there were ground looms, but by 2,500 and 2,000 BC, warp-weighted looms had appeared in Troy and Palestine, respectively. The late appearance of the advanced looms suggests the possibilities that: i) the technology could have originated in Switzerland and ii) knowledge of the technology was traveling. It does appear, overall, that cloth and its manufacture moved in more than one direction: not only did exchange with China continue but, as Wild mentions, the trade extended between 58 Jorgensen 55-57. 59 Wild 40. 60 Jorgensen 55. 61 Sykes 282 62 Tresset, Anne. “French Connections II: of Cows and Men.” Neolithic Settlement in Ireland and Western Britain. Eds. Ian Armit, Eileen Murphy, Eimear Nelis and Derek Simpson. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2003. 18-30 (19; 20; 24). [NS]. 63 Murphy, Eileen & Derek Simpson. “Neolithic Northton: A Review of the Evidence, The Early Farming Settlement of South Western England.” [NS]. 101-111 (104; 109). 64 Mercer, Roger J. “The Early Farming Settlement of South Western England.” [NS]. 56-70 ( 67). 65 Gibson, Alex. “What Do We Mean by Neolithic Settlement?” [NS]. 136-145 (139). 66 Wild 40/43. cf Table 2.2: Bronze Age (c 3500-1100 BC). 13 “Mesopotamian cities and Asia Minor.”67 McDowell describes a fashion for kilts in Bronze Age Egypt (1,600-1,100 BC).68 This further indicates the spread of interlace across cultures. Although we presently associate the pleated garments particularly with Irish and Scottish Celts however, “Oceanic” Neolithics had not taken kilts across the Balkans and beyond the northern Mediterranean, and Sykes considers the Celts of western Britain unrelated to those “who spread south and east to Italy, Greece and Turkey from the heartlands of Hallstadt and La Tene [...] during the first millennium BC.”69 As most commentators including Sykes warn, indeed, the presence of a model in a place does not reveal how it got there.70 Similarly, Jorgensen mentions the appearance in Bronze Age Denmark of checks,71 a pattern we know on kilts as plaid, and which is also unlikely to have arrived there with the first “Land” Neolithics. The presence of plaids and kilts could intimate, for example, that later Celts or Middle Easterners interacted with northern peoples, or that each produced their own pattern. Etymology shows, however, that we use the Scandinavian word for the styles (see Glossary). We are fortunate that the ruling classes of the Near East were literate and left records of how their culture used weaving.72 McDowell can consequently describe how clothing reflected social classification in Egypt: aliens wore colors while wore white linen; and foreigners probably wove the first wool because Egyptian religion forbade use of animal fibers.73 Egyptians also recorded their practices in writing and tomb paintings, thus we know that the “Ceremonial dress of deities, royalty and the priesthood” displayed color and decoration; and McDowell suggests that ancient tradition dictated this exception.74 Such cases evidence continuation of the early associations between religion and weaving; in addition, we see the influence of the craft extending to other arts, notably writing. Jorgensen points out that most textiles from Bronze Age Europe are of vegetable fibers, probably flax. She identifies the first woollen textile as mixed with vegetable fiber, the sample being discovered near the Elbe, inside a flint dagger of 2,400 BC; and she thereby infers that sheep had reached the area. The presence of loom weights suggests that weaving had arrived. A remnant of twill from Lichtenstein might represent the earliest in Europe, the number of samples increasing after 800 67 Wild 46 (Troy and Palestine); 47 (extension of trade). 68 McDowell 36-9. Kilts are here considered representatives of interlace because of: I) the associated plaid or check pattern– which is an enlarged representation of woven or crossed threads; and ii) pleating and its etymology: cf “Plait” Chambers. Also, OE: “plett,” a fold [From Latin plecta a hurdle] Bosworth-Toller and Clark Hall. Latin: “ plexus -a -um,” braided, plaited {from Latin Plecto; and Greek} Cassell’s. 69 Sykes 281 (first-century Celts). 70 Sykes 145. 71 Jorgensen 61. 72 Wild 43; 47. 73 McDowell 37; 30. 74 McDowell 30; 37. 14 BC .75 Although no British textiles seem to have survived the period, evidence of weaving remains in a Late Bronze Age spindle whorl from Plumpton Plain, Sussex.76 Some knowledge of weaving had certainly reached the island by 2,000 BC, for ceramics survive which were patterned with cords. The artefacts were left by the Beaker people–whom John Davies describes as migrants “to Britain from the estuaries of the river Rhine, but whose culture contained elements which may have originated in the steppes of southern Russia [ . . ].” Davies also claims that weaving had reached Wales by 1,400 BC.77 Comparison of the information in Table 2.3 reveals that, during the Iron Age (ca. 1100-539 BC), twill weaves became common across Mediterranean and European cultures, which suggests that the techniques underlying the diagonal patterns could have been widely known. Another aspect of interlace appears late in the era, in a weave from the Crimea that Wild describes on "[...] shaded bands in which a rainbow effect has minutely graduated colour changes in the wool weft."78 While modern audiences may not easily recognize this as interlace, we saw above that Old English and Old Norse associated braiding and the impressions of such color changes.79 The history so far shows that cultures interacted and exchanged their knowledge of weaving, however cultures show signs that they themselves interlaced in the Iron Age, especially as empires formed and attempted to unite many cultures under the power of one. Evidence of cultural exchange appears on Persian designs that Wild observes from the Scythian tombs at Pazyryk, north of the Black Sea; and in the growing of cotton, an Indian plant, in Assyria.80 Assyria would dominate the Middle East from 900-625 BC, and it conquered Northern Israel in 722-721 BC.81 Prior to this, Egypt had subjugated the Israelites ca. 2,000-1,200 BC;82 and the Jews recorded that experience in the Book of Exodus, which also tells of Hebrew sheep-rearing, spinning, and weaving.83 We know, therefore, that the people of Israel resisted the imposition of Egyptian culture, retaining their own 75 Jorgensen. “Europe: Bronze Age, c.2000-c.700 BC.” CHWT. 57-62 (61; 57, the wool. 62, the twill– Jorgensen dates this as “thirteenth century BC;” it is in her Bronze Age section, so perhaps is a misprint and should read 1,300 BC). 76 Wild 12 Illustration I.2 (b)(CHWT). The period is BC 1400-400, i.e. Later Bronze Age to Iron Age. 77 Davies 12, 13. 78 Wild 103 “The Hellenistic World, 323 BC- 31 BC.” CHWT. 102-103 (103). 79 Chapter I. Pg. 8 f/n 40; and Glossary. 80 Wild “The Achaemenid Persians, ca. 550-330 BC.” 52; “The Neo-Assyrians and Neo-Babylonians ca. 1100-539 BC.” 49. “Cotton” cotton tree: an Indian tree, Bombax malabaricum. Chambers. 81 Cook, William R, and Ronald B. Herzman. The Medieval World View: An Introduction. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004; 6. 82 Noll 10. 83 Unless otherwise stated, all Biblical quotations in this dissertation are from the Douay-Rheims translation: The Holy Bible: Translated from the Latin Vulgate. Rev. Bishop Richard Challoner, A.D. 1749-1752. London: Baronius Press, 2003. 15 when they left Egypt with “sheep and herds and beasts of divers kinds” [12:38]. Exodus explains that their religion required them to sacrifice calves, rams [29:1], and a paschal lamb or kid [12:5]. They provided their tabernacle with “curtains of fine twisted linen, and violet and purple and scarlet twice dyed, diversified with embroidery,”84 [26:1]. The rules specified: “Thou shalt make loops of violet in the sides and tops of the curtains, that they may be joined to one another,” which was to be accomplished with “rings of gold” [26:4; 6]. Other curtains must be woven of goat hair and joined with brass buckles [7-10]; and we learn also that the women span flax as well as goat hair [35: 25-26]. The people provided garments in linen for Aaron, their priest: the ephod having a woven border at the neck and a hemline decorated by fabric pomegranates that alternated with golden bells “that the sound may be heard, when he goeth in and cometh out of the sanctuary” [28: 32-35]. They inscribed the names of the tribes of Israel on the “rational” of his tunic [28:29]; and when Beseleel [37:1] constructed the garment, he did so “With embroidered work: he cut thin plates of gold, and drew them small into threads, that they might be twisted with the woof of the aforesaid colours,” [39:3]. The techniques specified in the Book of Exodus, then, illustrate how early our conceptions of interlace manifested themselves. For by including: weaving decorated with embroidery; alternation; variation or diversification; loops and means of attachment; mixture; and variation of color–the practices of the Israelites match the definitions at the beginning of this chapter. I suggest that inscription should now be included in the list, as it appears on fabric consistently throughout the history of interlace. In addition, we see here that it contributes to the three strands mentioned by Noll–history, theology, and literature.85 The historical and theological dimensions of writing also survive for us in the pagan context of the Etruscan Linen Book, where text appears in black ink on linen, and cinnabar was used for rubrics and dividers. The Zagreb Museum claims the ‘book’ to be: [A] manuscript with the longest preserved text in the Etruscan language, and simultaneously the only preserved example of a linen book in the entire classical world. The book is something like a liturgical calendar, with dates cited and religious precepts relating to sacrifices offered to individual deities.86 Although doubt remains as to whether the linen originated in Etruria or Egypt, L. B. Van der Meer notes that recent analysis of the script indicates it was "almost certainly written in Perugia or in its 84 cf. Hatto, A. T. “Snake-swords and Boar-helms in Beowulf.” English Studies. Vol. 38. Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger,1957; 145-160. Hatto observes that the Latin rendition in Ex. 26.1 is “variatas opere plumario;” he says, “Opus plumarium and ars plumaria refer to brocade work,” and he cites Bosworth-Toller for the OE glosses of bleocræfte ('embroidery') ; wyndecræft ('An art of weaving') . He also opines that in the latter, “it is contrasting colour-patterns (of silver, or gold, and colours) upon the weave that are important,” (152). 85 Noll 10. 86 “Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis.” The Archaeological Museum, Zagreb, Croatia. The Etruscan Collection. 2009. 30 Nov.2009. 16 region, between ca. 200 and 150 BC."87 The Iron Age sites at Hallstatt and La Tene have yielded textiles of triple cords in colors.88 Once more a religious affiliation of interlace seems likely: as A. T. Hatto observed, “It is now fully recognized that animal and vegetal motifs in the art of pre-literate and early civilised peoples may have origins deeply embedded in their religious and magical beliefs.”89 The same cultures also influenced metalwork. Cunliffe describes designs that include trumpets and peltas as well as the vegetal style of scrolls, curls, and interlace on a 4th/3rd century sword scabbard from the Thames at Standlake (Oxfordshire). He clarifies that “The basketry cross-hatching on the upper mount is typically British.”90 The British Museum holds other objects, such as the Battersea Shield, which was retrieved from the River Thames, “where,” they note, “many weapons were offered as sacrifices in the Bronze Age and Iron Age.”91 Scholars do not know what beliefs led these people to leave artefacts in watery places. However, the museum explains further of the patterns on the objects: “Early Celtic art features stylized faces and entwined plant ornament; even precise patterns such as those on the bronze Battersea Shield reveal owl-like faces.”92 The nature of the vegetal symbols is again obscure, and Cunliffe writes of a “complex pattern of values and beliefs” associated with a Celtic head cult. He suggests “Perhaps, here, too, we are seeing the shifting shapes of Celtic mythology where visions appear and disappear and nothing is quite as it seems.”93 He also associates the cult with power, noting that: “[T]o own and display a distinguished head was to retain and control the power of the dead person, which was the inheritance of the lineage.”94 The Witham Shield provides an even more striking example of a stylized head, set above interlace.95 Although interlace appears on metal, no fabric survives from Iron Age Britain; loom weights from Winnall Down, Hampshire, indicate nevertheless that the people practiced weaving.96 87 Turfa, Jean M. Rev. Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis. The Linen Book of Zagreb. A Comment on theLongest Etruscan Text. By L. B. van der Meer. 2008.05.37; 23. Bryn Mawr Classical Review. 08 Nov. 2009. 17 Luxury fabrics survive from everywhere in the Classical world, however, and Romans continued to import both silk and silk fiber, weaving damask from the latter.97 As Rome developed its empire, Wild observes, “The conquered peoples, whether Celtic or Celt-Iberian, were absorbed at varying rates into the Roman administrative and cultural system, but in some spheres, such as clothing and textiles, they retained their individuality.” Part of that originality appears in stripes and checks, woven in colored wools, Wild commenting further that: “Contemporary authors associated the Celts with striped and check-patterned clothing, and the archaeological evidence supports them.”98 The northern Germanic areas remained free of Roman domination, and the tables in Appendix B show their textile technology developing slightly later than that in the conquered areas. Wild indicates, though, that even when industrial centers within the empire became urban, they remained close to the producers of raw materials. Also within Romanized Europe, different areas bred their own sheep, but those derived from Greek stock yielded the finest wool.99 Roman Britain followed the same pattern of integration of resources and weaving. Wild suggests that “the predominantly brown Soay100 of St. Kilda may mirror the upland peasant farmer’s stock in the north-west provinces, while the grey or white Orkney may resemble an early type of Roman improved animal.” He also believes that Britain was a “less-developed province” in which “weaving...was still largely a domestic craft carried out by women on a part-time or seasonal basis,” but that larger groups existed at places such as Vindolanda.101 Such sites have yielded the earliest samples of British textiles; and Vindolanda–near Hadrian’s Wall, Hexham, and the Tyne Gap–was ideally situated for commerce. It lies near what is still sheep-farming country in both Scotland and England; and it is a nodal point, accessible by sea and river (the Tyne flows east, and the Irthing west), and by a natural land route that runs westward through the Pennines between Corbridge and Carlisle.102 There the very landscape presents interlace. Wild records, too, that wool combs of iron from the period have been found in East Anglia,103 so practice of the craft extended between Vindolanda and London. British weaving and religion also interacted during the occupation: a Christian church has been unearthed at Vindolanda, although Rollason suggests that it indicates only the religion of the commander, who was unlikely to be British.104 Neither do we know who commissioned the fourth 97 The Roman Era is here considered as: c 31 BC to 400 AD; cf Table 2.4. 98 Wild “The Romans in the West, 600BC to AD 400.” CHWT. 77-93 (79; 88/89). 99 Wild 79. 100 “Soay,” An Outer Hebridean breed of sheep. Chambers. 101 Wild 84. 102 King 266. Rollason 50-51. 103 Wild 80. 104 Rollason 111. 18 century Roman mosaic at Hinton St. Mary, in Dorset, but the tableau surrounds a central Chi-Rho device set behind a probable head of Christ. Frames of interlace echo both the circularity of the central frame and the shape of the chi cross. Corded or braided strands also frame other panels: four are quarter sections in the corners, each containing a head–perhaps of an evangelist; and four are semicircles depicting a chase, or hunt.105 The overall theme thus appears to be evangelical. The Romans withdrew from Britain early in the fifth century.106 Cook and Herzman describe the ensuing period as including: the fall of Rome to Germanic tribes; tensions between Rome and Byzantium; and the loss of Byzantine territory to Muslims in the seventh and eighth centuries.107 Wild observes that information about textiles in Mediterranean areas remains, but is incomplete because documents, mosaics, and “official art,” record the clothing and fashions of the upper classes, but ignore technology and simpler lifestyles.108 Romans and Byzantines continued to weave, though; and in this period production of interlace as decoration seems to have become more deliberate. Wild notes that the Romans had produced damask silks in “simple geometric patterns” as early as ca. 250 AD, but in the later empires geometric interlace decorated woven bands for clothing; in addition, Byzantines adopted a diaper design in the fifth and sixth centuries.109 The Byzantines, especially, continued to weave luxury fabrics in silk and to produce thread in precious metals.110 Trade and cross-cultural influences continued, despite contention about control of the silk routes to and from China, on which issue, McDowell points out, both Parthian (211-224 AD) and Sasanian Empires (224-642 AD) “successfully waged war against Rome and Constantinople.”111 Wild indicates that the two latter powers obtained wool from Anatolia, Syria, Greece and Egypt; and they used goat hair, camel hair, and mohair. They imported linen cloth directly from Egypt and, later, indirectly through the Syrians.112 After the sixth century, they imported cotton from southern and western Mediterranean areas; and in the eighth and ninth centuries, they used Sasanian themes in their designs: the Royal Hunt and “the senmurv, a mythical winged creature which appears on numerous textiles.”113 The appropriation of pagan mythology by Christian powers may give us pause; however 105 Campbell, James, ed. The Anglo-Saxons. New York: Penguin, 1991, 12. Illustration 7. [AS] 106 Table 2.5 covers the period from 300-1000 AD; while this isLate to Post-Roman and Early Byzantine, in Britain it also includes the Viking Age of 750-1066. 107 Cook & Herzman 92-93. 108 Wild 140/141. 109 Wild 148; 146; 147, respectively. 110 Wild 142. 111 McDowell 153. 112 Wild 141; 151. 113 MacDowell 155: explains that the senmurv, a chimera of bird and dog, belonged to the Zoroastrians who believed that it “roosts in the Tree of Seeds between Heaven and Earth bringing rain and fertility to humankind.” They considered it a creation of Ahura Mazda. [“Ahura Mazda.” Creator of the universe aka Ormuzd. Chambers; “Zoroaster.” Ahura Mazda was the spirit of light and good. OCEL]. 19 McDowell, too, refers to a Byzantine “polychrome silk with nimbed”114 birds, noting its similarity to the designs on Sasanian metalwork. She confirms that Sasanian designs survived, even when their silks did not: “Their iconography of kingship, hunting and battle, expressed in semi-heraldic imagery, also appealed to the feudal societies of early Islam, Christian Europe and T’ang China.”115 We saw above, on the fourth century mosaic from Dorset, that a hunting motif could already be adapted to the concept of Christian evangelism: the imagery extending to the hunt for souls; and we know also that Christians signify sanctity by the nimbus or halo. Once more, then, we see how ideas associated with weaving also served to interlace cultures at the hub of Mediterranean trade; and they did so in association with religious sponsors. The draw-loom appeared in the Near East early in the Arab period,116 and the variation in technology contributed to an increased output of textiles, factors that Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood indicates may have resulted in “the diversification of decorative techniques.”117 Gold thread embroidery was common, and Eastwood notes: “During the Islamic period the emphasis gradually changed to the use of colour in stripes, bands, checks, etc.”118 Other techniques included the painting or embroidering on fabric of scripts like kufic.119 The continued appearance of script as a form of interlace adds further weight to the suggestion already inherent in the "Linen Book" and in the ephod of Exodus: that relationships between weaving, writing, and religion, existed continuously. They now did so across cultures. Eastwood makes several points about the socio-economic importance of weaving in the Near East and Mediterranean areas. She says: “Furthermore it would appear that many, if not the majority, of the people living in this region were involved in some manner with the manufacture of and trade in textiles.”120 She also indicates that the relationship between trade and religion continued: “Islamic textiles, especially those in silk, have been found in considerable quantities in cathedral and church treasuries throughout Europe, and appear to have been regarded as both exotic and valuable items.”121 We have already noted the necessity of simpler cloth for clothing and furnishings, and Eastwood points out that: “Material was also used outside the house, for example as horse trappings, awnings, 114 “Nimbus”: a cloud or luminous mist encircling a god or goddess.” Chambers. Latin “nimbus” cloud, downpour, shower, bright cloud or splendour surrounding a god, in post-classical Latin also saint's halo, perh. related to nebula. OED Online. 18 Apr. 2008. 115 McDowell 157/8. 116 Vogelsgang-Eastwood. “The Arabs, AD 699-1000.” CHWT. 158-165 (163). 117 Vogelsgang-Eastwood 161. 118 Vogelsgang-Eastwood 160-161. 119 cf Eastwood 161/2; (Ill. 3.26; 3.27). 120 Eastwood 159. 121 Eastwood 165. 20 travelling tents and covers for goods.”122 Perhaps sails and banners were important, especially as the age of Viking piracy advanced. In this respect, Eastwood considers: “It is also worth noting that a number of Islamic textiles which eventually reached Scandinavia were copied and re-copied in various media until the designs became an accepted part of the Scandinavian artistic repertoire.”123 It seems entirely possible, then, that Viking and Arabic influence on Britain began even earlier, in the period referenced by Aberg when he observed that a Germanic style of interlace reached England–but not Gaul–from Scandinavians and Franks of the early seventh century. He states that this interlace, which was zoomorphic, developed more strongly in England and Scandinavia than elsewhere, adding: “During the course of the 7th century the Nordic development frees itself entirely from the Mediterranean interlace compositions, the free animal motif there being again finally restored.”124 Although Viking expansion had begun by AD 700, the Viking Age is generally considered to have lasted from about 800-1050. Fabrics found at Birka, on the Baltic coast of Sweden, confirm not only the significance of the cloth trade itself, but also the importance to Vikings of a port at which trade routes converged. The routes continued through the Baltic, to Novgorod and thence to the Volga; and then further–to the Dnieper, the Black Sea, Constantinople, and Trebizond.125 R. I. Page refers to the same routes, along which Vikings traveled as traders, mercenary soldiers, or even as pilgrims to Constantinople, and recorded their stories in runes, on stone or other artefacts.126 Even before the Vikings began to colonize Britain, cross-cultural trade there stimulated increase in production and diversification of design. Accounts of Frisian cloth attest to communication between England and Frisia, as do the Anglo-Frisian runes which arrived in the fifth century.127 Penelope Walton Rogers explains that, ca. 450-650, earlier Anglo-Saxon migrants to the eastern and southern lowlands of Britain had eschewed towns, producing textiles, for their private use, from small farms. The domestic self-sufficiency is reminiscent of that Jenkins noted of the later Iron Age, when Roman and Greek households kept sheep and produced wool for their own use, even though professional cloth production had begun in the towns.128 It also recalls the customs mentioned above as existing in Britain when the Romans arrived. Anglo-Saxons later expanded their system into village workshops that produced wool and linen; and Rogers, suggesting that women did this work, cites linguistic evidence of Old English words in the feminine form: spinster, webster, dyster, folster, lister, and semester. Samples of the interlace these people produced in Britain survive and 122 Eastwood 164. 123 Eastwood 165. 124 Aberg III, 72; 76. 125 Gilbert, Martin. The Routledge Atlas of British History. 4th ed. New York: Routledge, 2007; 10. 126 Page, R. I. Reading the Past. London: Trustees of the British Museum. 1987; 48/9, 45. 127 Page 32. 128 Jenkins 71, 75 (CHWT). 21 include a three-colored diamond patterned braid, found at St. John’s College, Cambridge; and some brocades remain from Kent, Essex, and Buckinghamshire, which interweave gold thread and other fibers.129 Penelope Rogers observes the same association between the English Church and expensive textiles as those described above, in Europe. As part of this, English nuns produced embroideries: opus anglicanum. Mildred Budny and Dominic Tweddle identify the earliest extant works as “scraps of wool twill decorated with coloured embroidery found (along with other textile fragments) in amuletic boxes from seventh-century graves, such as those at Kempston in Bedfordshire.”130 Larger and more famous are the gold and silk embroideries on linen, which survive at Maaseik in Belgium. Budny and Tweddle judged these to be from southern England and of the late eighth or early ninth centuries. They analyzed the pieces and concluded: The linking or combination of different categories of ornament–with a mixture of interlace, foliate and animal elements, places the embroideries within the phase of Anglo-Saxon art exemplified by works in different media, such as the Priors Barton shaft, the Brunswick casket [walrus ivory], the Bologna ring and the Canterbury Bible.131 Budny and Tweddle date the stole, maniple, and girdle from the shrine of St. Cuthbert at Durham from 909-916. Their opinion derives “from the inscriptions embroidered at the ends of both stole and maniple,” which indicate that the Queen Aelflaed (d. before 916) ordered the work from Frithestan, Bishop of Winchester.132 The relationship between writing, weaving, and religion remains evident. As the Anglo-Saxon period matured, designs in interlace proliferated and developed in all media, and runic text could be associated with interlace: the 2-strand cords that frame the panels of the whalebone Franks Casket (8th century) exemplify this. Leslie Webster notes that the carvings depict “scenes from Roman, Jewish, Christian, and Germanic tradition.”133 This, I argue, comprises cultural interlace; it had been present throughout the history of weaving, but now it manifested itself in conjunction with an interlace pattern–as if the artists were aware of a dynamic that drew several cultures into a unit. Similar interlace appears on stone crosses such as the 8th century Ruthwell Cross, which are discussed later in this study; and it is worth noting that some Pictish stones in Scotland, which show 129 Rogers 125-7 (CHWT). 130 Budny, Mildred, and Dominic Tweddle. “The Maaseik Embroideries.” Anglo-Saxon England, 13. New York: CUP, 1984; 65-96. 131 Budny and Tweddle 84. 132 Ibid 85. 133 Webster, L. “The New Learning,” Item 70: The Franks Casket. The Making of England: Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600-900. Eds. Leslie Webster and Janet Backhouse. London: British Museum Press, 1991; 101-103. [W&B] 22 interlace, are also of these dates.134 Nils Aberg, considered that Irish Celts copied the technique of reproducing such interlace, with breaks and knots, from Coptic sources in Egypt, perhaps in the sixth century, or certainly by the mid-seventh century AD. He noted that the Irish subsequently made the most significant contribution to its proliferation and appearance in English artefacts.135 While later evidence affirms Irish influence, however, Rosemary Cramp mentions that Adcock (1974) considers metalwork and classical or Coptic sources as “decorative parallels,” not as models for the designs; instead, “She sees the development of interlace through the use of “made” patterns in leather, metal, or woven strands.”136 This dissertation, in its concentration on netting and weaving as prototypes, plainly leans to the same view. In addition, weaves in diagonal patterns – or twills – are consistent with the diagonal trend in “interlace with breaks,” that Romilly Allen and Aberg identified: in both cases the displacement occurs when a woven strand misses its sequence and changes direction. At the very least, then, British weavers knew enough to recognize the dynamic of the design; there is every possibility that they also knew how to produce it. Whatever the origin of the patterns that developed in England, therefore, I suggest that practitioners of the various crafts– be they men or women–must have shared an appreciation of both the designs and the ability to engineer them: a respect that was intellectual and continued, most often, to have spiritual associations. Metal objects decorated with interlace designs appear throughout the period too, the Sutton Hoo burial (ca. AD 620s) having preserved some of the most perfect examples, such as a gold belt buckle, and enamel and gold shoulder-clasps.137 A contemporary hoard recently unearthed from Mercian territory shows similar interlace; and at least one item has a Christian inscription, the religion having been established in Anglo-Saxon England during the seventh century.138 Many commentators consider such metalwork to have influenced the patterns on illuminated manuscripts like those of Durham, Monkwearmouth/Jarrow, and Lindisfarne, which originated between the seventh and eighth centuries, and Chapter 5 provides further discussion of The Lindisfarne Gospels. Leslie Webster cites the close relationship between manuscript art and metal-work of the early ninth century.139 Michelle Brown similarly specifies that the Tiberius Bede (BL Cotton MS Tiberius C. ii) parallels the finds in the Trewhiddle (Cornwall) hoard in decorative characteristics such as “beast-heads, 134 “Pictish Stones Search Facility.” University of Strathclyde: Statistics and Modelling Science. Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland. 06 Dec. 2009. 23 independent beasts and grotesques, [...] use of interlace in white against a black ground [cp niello]”; or the way in which the “bow of the exhibited initial b resembles a disc-brooch in its design.”140 The Viking era in Britain disrupted but also interwove with the Anglo-Saxon period, the invaders eventually obtaining a foothold in the north and northeast. Rogers observes that, by the time the Vikings had established themselves at York (ca. 876-1000/1050 AD), larger estates probably had their own workshops, which “would have been staffed by bondwomen [. . .] although a male fuller and a male seamster are also mentioned in later documents.”141 Workshops at Coppergate in the city of York wove from imported silk, but Rogers argues that Vikings also influenced the English to produce fabrics associated with what is here considered interlace, including: Birka twill; a Scandinavian type of honeycomb weave; “silver wire embroidery;” and a twill patterned by combining diverse threads into “a dark warp and a pale weft.”142 Rogers also suggests that Viking trade routes to the East were under secular control, which resulted both in the variety of fabrics, and in an availability and use of rich fabrics to people outside the religious and ruling classes.143 Viking culture influenced the Anglo-Saxons in other arts also. Richard Hall has noted that excavations of Viking York revealed a trend in stone-carving, ca. 900, that applied traditional animal interlace, but often now in chains, to new forms such as hogback stones; similar changes were also applied to coinage.144 In contrast, Anne Savage suggests that the southern parts of England responded to the Roman and French styles entering that area.145 By the early eleventh century the Ringerike style had started to develop in the south, however. Savage defines it as a: Viking interpretation of the Winchester art forms with which it seems to have co- existed [...] Ringerike forms are lighter and the animal decoration is combined with foliage itself derived from the Winchester models. Ringerike was too imitative to have much influence on contemporary English art, and even Cnut preferred and encouraged the Winchester artists.146 The Winchester School produced manuscripts which, Savage claims, incorporated “dignified, solid, naturalistic figures and a lively, delicate line used to express emotion and movement– ultimately derived from the ‘late antique’ art of Greece and Rome.” To Frankish art style, Winchester “added 140 Brown, M. P . “The Mercian Supremacy: item 170,” 215-7. (W&B) 141 Rogers Penelope Walton. “The Anglo-Saxons and Vikings in Britain, AD 450-1050,” 124-132. (CHWT). 124-132 (129). 142 Rogers 130. She notes “These diamond twills continued in use into the thirteenth century and represent one of the few fabrics to survive transition from the Anglo-Saxon period into Norman and later medieval times.” 143 Rogers, 131-132. 144 Hall, Richard. “A Kingdom Too Far: York in the Early Tenth Century. “Edward the Elder: 899-924. Eds. N. J. Higham and D. H. Hill. New York: Routledge, 2001. 188-199 (194-5). 145 Savage, Anne, ed. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. London: Phoebe Phillips/Heinemann, 1982; 156. Illustrations of interlace on pages 130-1. 146 Savage 156. 24 brilliant colours, ornamentation and patterns.”147 It was then, a unification of cultural effects. After Anglo-Saxons had accepted Christianity into their culture in 597AD, they developed their literacy and literature also. Chapter 4 details the structures that comprise literary interlace, but it is appropriate to mention here that the poet who recorded Beowulf in the later Anglo-Saxon period used many terms that reflect the integration of weaving with other arts. A. T. Hatto analyzed some of the diction in the poem that relates weaving to the patterns on swords, especially those that incorporate reptilian designs. He attributes a pagan tradition to, for example, the kenning that describes a sword as atertanum fah (Beowulf 459), which he interprets as “ 'gleaming with serpent-osiers (of gold, interlaced as in basketry).' ” He relates the serpent imagery to Skaldic poetry, where “not only swords but throwing-spears and arrows too were 'snakes' and like some swords may well have been ornamented with snakes for magical and then traditional reasons.”148 Runic inscription (1687ff) decorates the hilt of another sword that is represented by the noun brodenmæl (1616; also brogdenmæl, 1667), which is generally glossed as a 'damascened sword.'149 Hatto again cites the etymology mentioned above: brogden, broden is the past participle of bregdan 'to move quickly to and fro (as for example a weaver's shuttle), 'to brandish', 'to draw (a sword)', 'to weave', 'to braid' (which is its surviving modern English form). He concludes that here “We have to do with swords of which an outstanding feature is decoration of interwoven type resembling chain-mail.”150 Building on this observation, it is notable that Bosworth-Toller also assigns to mæl the meaning II: “a mark, sign, cross, crucifix,” which I suggest may hint at Christian perception beneath the pagan concept of a decorated sword or hilt that is also cruciform by nature. Professor Eugene Crook has also observed that the weaving and flashing aspect of sword use refers to physical function, as when the weapon weaves between the ribs of victims.151 Form followed function in more than etymology then, and Anglo-Saxon sword structure reflected the same principle. Herbert Maryon showed that what is usually glossed as a ‘damascened’ sword owes its decoration to the structure and welding of the iron, and he therefore refers to the weapons as 147 Savage 130/1. 148 Hatto 150. Mitchell, Bruce and Fred C. Robinson, eds. Beowulf. Malden, Mass: Blackwell, 1998. “Atertanum” ‘poisoned twigs.’ Swanton, Michael. “Ambiguity and Anticipation in “The Dream of the Rood.” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen/Bulletin of the Modern Language Society 70 (1969): 407-425 (408). “fah” ‘hostile.’ This could, then, also read as: “hostile with poisoned twigs.” 149 Mitchell and Robinson. Beowulf. “brogdenmæl.” 150 Hatto 114. 151 Crook, Eugene. Verbal discussion and note to the author, March 24, 2010. 25 “pattern-welded.”152 Like weaving and the Celts–metalworking is Indo-European in origin. This time it is in the sense that although iron smelting began in Asia Minor ca. 3,000 BC, the process optimized in India. In 327 BC, Alexander the Great took samples to the Middle East from the sub-continent, which then continued to supply the smelted metal to the Mediterranean. Maryon notes: “Diocletian (AD 245-313) founded his armament factories at Damascus, and Syria became famous for the fine weapons it produced, though the steel which it used for them was not of Syrian but of Indian origin.”153 Maryon is precise about terminology however, pointing out that ‘damascene’ patterns of the late Middle Ages inhere in the metallurgy of steel from Hyderabad; but they differ from earlier pattern-welding, or even from inlay.154 Iron-age Celtic swords had been weak and failed against sturdier Romans models, so Celtic smiths had developed a new process for reinforcing the weapons, after the Romans withdrew. The type known to the Beowulf poet was therefore pattern welded, as Maryon describes it: Pattern welding is a method of strengthening and decorating the blades of iron or steel weapons by welding into their fabric strips of iron and steel, variously twisted, coiled, folded, or plaited. 155 Such a sword was discovered at Sutton Hoo, and Paul Mortimer commissioned a replica from Patrick Barta of TEMPL Historic Arms. The process also involved insetting the hilt with garnets, and the handle with bone.156 Interlace informed the structure of Anglo-Saxon swords, in short; and it is clear that the poet of Beowulf was aware that his writing employed techniques related to weaving, metalwork, and religion. The history of weaving and interlace patterns shows that, from the earliest times, cultures developed individual iconographies of interlace that related to their socio-economic, military, or religious concerns–many of which involved some aspect of protection or survival. “Nevertheless,” as Wild says, “ the greatest stumbling block remains our inability to shed our modern preconceptions and enter the mind of the ancient spinner and weaver.”157 Cloth and cloth-making remained part of everyday life, for both men and women, in ways that most of us 152 Maryon, Herbert. “Pattern-Welding and Damascening of Sword Blades: Part 1Pattern-Welding” Studies in Conservation 5.1 (1960): 25-37. Ibid. “Pattern-Welding and Damascening of Sword Blades: Part 2 The Damascene Process.” Studies in Conservation 5. 2 (1960): 52-60. My thanks to Dr. Johnson for reading my draft and pointing out this structure and the references used here. 153 Maryon 52 (“Part 2"). 154 Maryon 52; 54. 155 Maryon 25 (“Part 1). 156 Mortimer, Paul, Rev. “TEMPL Historic Arms Sutton Hoo Sword.” 2003-2009. myArmoury.com: A Resource for Historic Arms and Armour Collectors. 14 Jan. 2010. 26 can no longer imagine; and the Roman period further increased the importance of weaving and interlace to all western cultures. We see, though, that the greatest flowering in British culture occurred after the Roman domination. The present section has shown ways in which that growth related to Arab expansion, and later to a combination of Christianity and the influence of Viking colonists on trade. As this study continues, therefore, it reviews the factors that encouraged the interlace of cultures within Britain, as well as of interlace designs in Old English art, rhetoric and literature. Once the Anglo-Saxons converted to Christianity, part of the development would rely on the vast estates where monasteries bred stock that supplied materials to workshops, scriptoria, and schools; but Laura Kendrick supplies another clue when she observes “A knot was a crossing, a “crux”–inevitably, then, a figure of the cross.”158 This dissertation goes further and builds on the principle that the cross is the basic unit of interlace: for no weave occurs without the crossing of threads. Whatever its earlier religious affiliations, then, interlace held particular significance for Anglo-Saxon Christians, who left literary, theological, and historical records that can help us to decipher the abstract art. 158 Kendrick 8 27 Figure 2.1: Illustrations Showing Weaving Patterns from Anglo-Saxon England, and a Weaving Sword.159 159 Wild “Introduction,” CHWT provides the illustrations as follows: a) Page 23, Ill. I.14, where the editors explain: “On the left is a weaving draft, on the right a diagram showing how the warp threads are displaced,”; b & c) Page 21, Ill. I.11; d) Page 17, Ill. I.7, which identifies the sword as being from Spong Hill, in East Anglia. 28 Figure 2.2: Roman Mosaic from Hinton St. Mary, Dorset (British Museum).160 160 This image was acquired from 29 Figure 2.3: Map Showing Viking Insurgency and Settlement in Britain and Europe, 700-941161 . 161 Gilbert Map 10: “Viking Expansion in Europe 700-941." All data here are from Gilbert; backdrop modified by J. Beall; any errors are mine. 30 CHAPTER 3 HISTORICAL SURVEY: THE LINGUISTIC AND LITERARY CONTEXTS OF INTERLACE IN EARLY BRITAIN The history of languages and literacy in what is now England presents an interlacement in which the diverse cultures of Celts, Romans, and Germanic tribes repeatedly met, crossed, ran parallel, and diverged–until Anglo-Saxon Christians began to unite them and to analogize the interweaving of cultures in the fabric of their rhetoric. The weave of Old English rhetoric contributed to a wider literacy that empowered communication between the inhabitants of Anglo-Saxon England and their rulers and, simultaneously, united the cultures of the English and Celts under Christianity. The previous chapter has shown that the people of Anglo-Saxon England shared an understanding of the principles of weaving; and it seems reasonable to suppose that they were, therefore equipped to recognize the dynamic Farmer identifies when he says that Bede moved “from diversity to unity” in narrating The Ecclesiastical History of the English People (EHEP). In that history, Bede sees Latin as the overarching purveyor of doctrine (I.1 45), but he also recognizes the need for the Church to mediate by preaching to the people; and he was among those who accomplished this by translating Scripture into English, so encouraging preaching in the vernacular. While this chapter suggests that recognition of the need continued to grow after Bede died (735 AD), the section also explores an inter-weaving of cultures that I call “cultural interlace.” Such interlace had been underway even before Bede used Latin to integrate his history: from a variety of sources and about diverse sets of people.162 While the chapter refers to the origins of these cultural strands, it is chiefly concerned with those that reached Anglo-Saxon England and contributed to religious and political unity there. It is axiomatic that linguistic and rhetorical traditions manifest aspects of the cultures that produce them; this section therefore reviews and seeks to clarify ways in which various languages contributed to the fabric of a new English literacy that evolved from classical, Hebrew, and insular cultures. The insular traditions were oral–as well as pragmatic in depending on runes or trade, and the discussion notes contributions from the Celtic languages that arrived first in Britain; from Latin, which the Romans imposed between 43 and ca. 407 AD; 162 Farmer 24-5: mentions contemporary sources from Anglo-Saxon and Ionian churchmen, some of whom provided access to the letters of Pope Gregory. Bede 340-41 (“Letter to Egbert” EHEP): explains that the laity should learn sacred texts and prayers in their own language as should trained teachers of religion, who know Latin. The biographer and monk Cuthbert tells that Bede liked to recite English poetry, and also that he translated, for the benefit of his students, the Gospel of St. John and “The Book of Cycles” by Isidore (358-9). 31 and from the Anglo-Saxon and Viking languages, which were the last to reach Britain. It is a story of continuous interweaving, but we see that the strands ultimately united and flourished for the main purpose that Bede identified: Christian learning and its propagation. The languages involved are most likely to have been related early in their histories: linguists hypothesize that they all stemmed from the “Centum” branch of Indo-European [IE].163 Cable and Baugh summarize the theories about the origins of I-E, noting that it probably developed in “the district east of the Germanic area stretching from central Europe to the steppes of Southern Russia.”164 Chapter 2 has already shown that movement through and from that area took place when Turkish farmers migrated in the ninth and eighth centuries BC, but we do not know whether the languages left the Indo-European homelands contemporaneously, or how long they stayed in the Pontic and Balkan areas, or how much they changed while there.165 Sykes, however, interprets genetic analysis as indicating that the Neolithic farmers diverged there about 8,500 years ago into “Land” and “Oceanic” groups, the first Celtic settlers from the “Oceanic” faction arriving in Ireland between 7,500 and 4,500 years ago, where they joined Mesolithics already there. The resulting DNA evidence reveals “a mixture of Iberian and European Mesolithic ancestry that forms the Pictish/Celtic substructure of the Isles.”166 The Celts, then, arrived in Britain at different times and possibly some went there by overland routes, which factors could have contributed to the differences between the Celtic languages of the archipelago. These earliest inhabitants were pre-literate and took to Britain oral traditions in which they wove narrative and mythology from history; and, in view of the common origins, the tradition probably stemmed from prototypes for epic related to those which the Greeks developed into Homeric oral tradition, and which the Romans later appropriated. The absence of early texts from Britain supports these inferences, our earliest sources of Celtic narrative being preserved in eleventh-century manuscripts written by British and Irish scribes. Although Christianity therefore influenced these “scraps of folk tales and legends,”167 Cunliffe observes: It is reasonable to assume that the warrior aristocracy of the Celts, like other 163 Cassidy, Frederic G., and Richard N. Ringler, eds. Bright’s Old English Grammar and Reader. 3rd ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971; 1-2. 164 Baugh, Albert C, and Thomas Cable, eds. A History of the English Language. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1993; 38. 161Baugh and Cable 35; they suggest that the Indo-Europeans were not homogeneous, racially; and “It is customary to place the end of their common existence somewhere between 3500 and 2500 BC.” 165 Baugh and Cable 35; they suggest that the Indo-Europeans wre not homogeneous, racially; and “It is customary to place the end of their common existence somewhere between 3500 and 2500 BC.” 166 Sykes 141/2; 156; 212; 281/282. Cunliffe 25, 155. He notes the traditional view that Ireland was part of a “peripheral” or Atlantic area that became Celtic speaking between ca. 1300 and 600 BC. Sykes 137-8, mentions the presence of Mesolithic hunter gatherers at Sandel, Ireland, about 4,000 years after the last Ice Age. Chapter 2 pg. 11 refers to the Celtic migration. 167 Cunliffe 257; 256. 32 warrior aristocracies throughout the pre-modern world, created and transmitted in ever-changing form a rich oral history in cycles of epic narrative. In suitable gatherings these epics would be recounted by storytellers to an audience keen to hear the deeds of their ancestors unfold and the nature of their gods familiarized through stories of them interfering in the lives of ordinary mortals. Such traditions were important in giving the community its roots and providing models of behaviour: above all they created a sense of identity.168 Cunliffe more specifically cites the eleventh-century manuscript version of the Irish epic TainBo-Cuailgne, which he sees as “perhaps a dim and distorted reflection(,) of a Celtic epic which may, in innumerable different versions, have been told from one end of Europe to the other.”169 The Druids probably preserved this Celtic tradition of narrative and history:170 Julius Caesar (BC 102/100-44) described the priestly class as arbitrators for the Celts in both religious and secular affairs, including their education. While he observed a form of literacy in their use of Greek characters for some pragmatic purposes, Caesar nevertheless portrays memorization as the key to the learning Druids transmitted, and Cunliffe suggests that in so confining knowledge to themselves, they monopolized society and created a demand for their services.171 Literacy and written literature had developed meanwhile in the Middle and Near East, and the skills followed the route westward, through Greece and Rome.172 Chapter 2 has shown that the connection between literacy and weaving appeared early, and several modern studies have indeed focused on images of spinning and weaving in classical literature. Among them, Jane McIntosh Snyder refers to the roots of the tradition when she cites an Italian study by M. Durante: “For a discussion of Indo-European verbs for poetic activity that contain the notion “to prepare with skill” (usually connected with blacksmithing, building, weaving or spinning).”173 Snyder herself, however, studies the Greek incorporation into verse of metaphors about weaving, comparing the art to “a tapestry of words woven together in a controlled design.” Snyder uses 168 Cunliffe 25. 169 Cunliffe 257. 170 Cunliffe 190. He supplies the etymology: Druids “druides, druidae in Latin; druad in Old Irish; dryw (singular) in Welsh), which may mean ‘knowledge of the oak’ or, less likely, ‘deep knowledge.’ 171 Cunliffe 191. cf Caesar. The Gallic War. Trans. Intro. and Notes, Carolyn Hammond. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford: OUP, 1996. 126-7 (6.13-14). 172 The definition of literacy is a subject in its own right; I here refer to literacy as the ability to write and read texts. 173 Snyder, Jane McIntosh. “The Web of Song: Weaving Imagery in Homer and the Lyric Poets.” The Classical Journal 76. 3 (1981): 193-196 (193, f/n 2). She cites M. Durante. “Ricerche sulla preistoria della lingua poetica greca. La terminologia relativa alla creazione poetica," Atti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Classe di scienze morali, storiche, critiche e filologiche) 15 (1960): 231-49. 33 examples from The Iliad and The Odyssey to show how characters from Homer (9-8th cent. BC), such as Odysseus and Athena, weave their schemes in words; or how Homer presents “Circe weaving a great design while she sings a song.”174 Biblical narrative, commentary, and translation, though, include some of the earliest historical record-keeping, and Bede and Anglo-Saxon England became part of this tradition as their intertextual tapestry grew. Stephen Noll dates the stories of the Patriarchs of Israel to 2,000-1500 BC, and the Books of Exodus and the Law to 1500-1200 BC.175 Chapter 2 has already noted references to weaving in Exodus, however intertextuality is another manifestation of interlace, and Stephen Prickett links the Bible to narratives from Cana, Mesopotamia and Egypt. He comments: “Since much of it appears to have originated as a critical and often hostile commentary on those earlier religious writings, there is a real sense in which the Bible can be said to owe its very origins to intertextuality.”176 Among his examples is the story of the Flood, which he compares to a narrative in “Hurrian, the language of a tribe which seems to have entered the ancient near East from north India around 1600 BC.”177 Intertextuality continued to develop the Hebrew tradition once it was written: the Samaritans of the fifth century BC produced the earliest extant copy of the Pentateuch, or Hebrew Torah; and our first Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, dates to the third century BC.178 Prickett mentions, furthermore, that: Herodotus (ca. 480-ca. 425 BCE), visiting Thebes in Egypt, gazed in awe at the 300 generations of high priests of the temple recorded on its walls, as he realized that such a list went back for thousands of years before the dawn of Greek history.179 Greek rhetoric, though, was woven into the Latin that the Anglo-Saxons would use for studying Hebrew Scripture. Brian Stocks comments: “Romans had little or no native literature of their own; so they imported and adapted what they did not have. Linguists roughly date the earliest dissimilarities between spoken and literary Latin from the second half of the third century.”180 Roman epic thus includes references to interlace, and Virgil (70-19 BC), having modeled his style after Greeks such as Homer (9-8 cent. BC), also incorporates images of 174 Snyder 194-196. 175 Noll 10 176 Prickett, Stephen. “Introduction.” The Bible: Authorized King James Version with Apocrypha. Eds. Robert Carroll and Stephen Prickett. Bibliography, notes, glossary, Robert Carroll. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford: OUP, 1997; xxi. Chapter 2 of this dissertation quotes the Exodus descriptions. 177 Prickett xxi. 178 “The Bible.” OCEL 97. 179 Prickett xviii. 180 Stock, Brian. The Implications of Literacy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983; 20. 34 weaving into his poetry. In The Aeneid, for example, Aeneas wears a cloak woven by Dido; and Circe sings as she weaves.181 Virgil also used Hesiod (eighth century BC) as a model for poetry and mythology, and Theocritus (ca. 308-ca. 240 BC) for pastorals.182 Romans also educated the leaders of their empire in Greek rhetoric: Balme and Morwood mention that ca. 76 BC, when Julius Caesar was “On his way to Rhodes to study rhetoric under one of the leading teachers of the time, he was captured by pirates and held to ransom.”183 Caesar later initiated the occupation of Britain when he briefly invaded in 55 and 54 BC,184 and Romans thus took their rhetoric to Britain. Alan Bowman argues that they recognized: (1) the power of Latin literacy as an instrument of acculturation; (2) the use of literacy by the imperial power as a tool of institutional control through the army; (3) the power of the army and its penumbra to generate written material which promotes the cohesiveness of the institution; (4) the power of individual to generate and control texts beyond the restrictive bounds of a ‘chancery’ or record-office.185 One might say, then, that the Romans used literacy as an aid to uniting disparate cultural elements under the power of Rome. Part of the system involved the writing of records, including history, which may have linked to rhetoric in political campaigns–to persuade or to spread propaganda; and it is possible that they used The Aeneid to these ends. Genealogy may have functioned as part of this interlace: for Balme and Morwood indicate that Julius Caesar (gens Iulia) traced his “descent from Iulus, 181 Vergil. Publius. Bucolics, Aeneid, and Georgics Of Vergil. Ed. J. B. Greenough. Boston. Ginn & Co. 1900. Aeneid. Trans. Theodore C. Williams. Boston. Houghton Mifflin Co. 1910. Perseus Digital Library. Ed. Gregory R. Crane. Tufts University. 1985-2009. The National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. 06 Dec. 2009. 35 son of Aeneas, and ultimately from Venus, Aeneas’ mother.”186 While the claim to Trojan genealogy and use of the Roman epic may be only coincidence, it is also conceivable that, together, they might have seemed to support the right of Caesar to ‘re-unite’ British tribes under Roman rule: for the legend of Celtic origins runs parallel. The Leabhar Gabhala places Irish origins in Scythia, Sykes maintains; and although the text was later recorded by Christians, it probably had descended from oral tradition.187 Certainly, neither Caesar, nor Druids, nor monks knew that modern archaeological and genetic analyses would support both claims to Pontic origins. The Normans would later use a similar ploy when they invented the “history” of the Arthurian legends which, as Professor Crook points out, served to associate Celts and Normans against any remaining Anglo-Saxons.188 It would also serve to divide “English” from other indigenous Celts, and thus prevent them from uniting against the invaders. Michael Lapidge points out that Roman schools also used The Aeneid as a principal model for rhetoric.189 Findings at Vindolanda confirm this, and we now see that while Chapter 2 has associated Vindolanda with the weaving industry, The Vindolanda Website (VW), suggests that The Aeneid was “a 'mission statement' for Rome's role” in Britain, and VW notes that two tablets from Vindolanda record lines from the text.190 The rhetoric and the connection with weaving also extended to the south; for example, Romans depicted scenes from The Aeneid on a mosaic, at Low Hampton in Somerset, which not only frames scenes from the narrative in cords, but also associates the characters with various fabrics and depicts sails on the Trojan ships.191 The presence of interlace is unmistakable, and although we cannot know who commissioned the work or what significance they attributed to the weaving. Dido seems about to clothe herself in the cloak–the imagery therefore connects the craft and the literature, whether or not it refers merely to the protective uses of cloth. As the earliest British Celts left no written history of their own, we owe much of our 186 Balme and Morwood 56. 187 Sykes 131. Such practice could also later have influenced Anglo-Saxons who, John Niles notes, may have originally practiced ancestor worship and sought prestige by deriving their ancestries from gods. cf Niles, John. “”Pagan Survivals and Popular Beliefs.” The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature. Eds. Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. 126-141 (130; 135). 188 Professor Crook. Note on manuscript, March 24, 2010. See also Geoffrey of Monmouth. The History of the kings of Britain. Trans. and Intro. Lewis Thorpe. New York: Penguin, 1966. Thorpe comments: “In short, most of the material in the History really is fictional and someone did invent it,” (“Introduction” 17). 189 Lapidge, Michael. “Gildas’s Education and the Latin Culture of Sub-Roman England.” Gildas: New Approaches. Eds. Michael Lapidge and David N. Dumville. Woodbridge: Boydell, 1984. 27-50 (27-8). 190 “Vindolanda Tablets Online.” Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents. Director A. K. Bowman; and the Academic Computing Development Team. 2009. Oxford University, England. 30 Nov. 2009. 36 knowledge about them to Roman perspectives, including that of Julius Caesar. Balme and Morwood suggest that he recorded his Commentarii de Bello Gallico in order to justify his expansionism to his compatriots.192 Ultimately the work would garner support for his invasion: whether or not Britain was the home and source of Druidism, as Caesar claimed;193 Cunliffe observes that the Druids inspired rebellion against Caesar in Gaul in 53 BC; and against later Roman occupation of Britain by Claudius Caesar in 59 AD; and he infers that Romans may have wanted to contain a cult they perceived “as the unifying force able to galvanize Celtic opposition.”194 If they were such a force, then both they and the Romans seem to have appreciated the dynamics and the usefulness of unifying separate tribes under one power. Julius Caesar had maintained that British Celts engaged in civil wars before the Romans arrived, but that they sometimes united in their resistance to the Romans.195 Among Celts who hampered Roman advance to the north and west were Boudicca (d. 61 AD) of the Iceni in the Midlands, and Cartimandua (43-69 AD) of the Brigantes in the north. Cunliffe observes that consequently, “Much of Wales and the north remained in military occupation.” R. M. Ogilvie records that Agricola made subjugation of Wales his first priority once he became governor in 78AD. He then tackled the north; he knew the island well, having served there twice before, and he continued to campaign against Britain until 84 AD.196 We owe to his son-in-law Tacitus (ca. AD 55–after 115) some knowledge about relationships between the British and the Romans. Tacitus promoted a moral approach to conquest, when he said: “For I think it is a special duty of history to see that virtues are not left unrecorded, and also that fear of disgrace in posterity attends iniquitous words and actions.”197 As Farmer indicates, Bede paraphrased this statement into the Preface of his own history;198 so the strand of this tradition later extended to the Anglian world. The Romans left little of Celtic culture untouched in the areas they conquered–but it was unusual and fortuitous that, in parts of Britain, Celtic culture remained free and would re-assert itself later. Forty-one years after Claudius had first occupied Britain, Agricola won the battle of 192 Balme and Morwood 57. 193 Cunliffe 191. cf Caesar 6.13 (The Gallic War 127 ). 194 Cunliffe 191. 195 Caesar 5.12 (The Gallic War 95). 196 Ogilvie, R. M. “Introduction to the Agricola.” Agricola, Germania and Dialogus.by Tacitus. Ed. G. P. Goold. Agricola. Trans M. Hutton. Rev. R. M. Ogilvie. Germania. Trans. M. Hutton. Rev. E. H. Warmington. Dialogus. Trans. W. Peterson. Rev. M. Winterbottom. Loeb Classical Library 1914. Rev. ed. 1970. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992; 3-24 (9-10). 197 Tacitus. The Annals: The Reigns of Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero. Trans. J. D. Yardley. Intro. and Notes, Anthony A. Barrett. Oxford World’s Classics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008; Book 3.65, 129. 198 Farmer 25-26; n26 p. 37 (“Introduction” EHEP); cf Bede 41, “Preface.” 37 Mt. Graupius on the Moray Firth (84 AD). Rome, however, recalled Agricola at that point. Cunliffe confirms that as the reason why Celtic culture survived beyond the Antonine Wall and in Ireland. The lowlands in the south, especially south-east, nevertheless remained under control of Romans, ruling through local people whom they educated in Latin.199 Thomas Charles-Edwards also refers to their education of children of “local gentry (curiales)” so as to incorporate them through government careers;200 and Tacitus was straightforward about the system, by which Agricola manipulated the subjugated populace into peaceful co-existence: [...H]e would exhort individuals, assist communities, to erect temples, market- places, houses: he praised the energetic, rebuked the indolent, and the rivalry for his compliments took the place of coercion. Moreover he began to train the sons of the chieftains in a liberal education, and to give a preference to the native talents of the Briton as against the trained abilities of the Gaul. As a result, the nation which used to reject the Latin language began to aspire to rhetoric: further, the wearing of our dress became a distinction, and the toga came into fashion, and little by little the Britons went astray into alluring vices: to the promenade, the bath, the well-appointed dinner table. The simple natives gave the name of “culture” to this factor of their slavery.201 Unrest would continue nevertheless, and despite the urbanization of the southern coast of Wales around Caerwent and Carmarthen; and an anonymous biographer of the later governor Hadrian (AD 117-138) included the British in a list of colonials who resisted Roman domination.202 The Romans strengthened their hold through an interlacement of transport, communication, and military organization. They built forts near rivers, at strategic centers like Hereford, Chester, York, Catterick, and Aldborough; and VW notes that some of the sites were centers of local administration.203 The conquerors further linked the places by a network of roads. In the north, Hadrian built his Wall,204 and the road along its western section, later known as ‘The Stanegate,' 199 Cunliffe 256. 200 “Introduction.” Charles-Edwards, Thomas, ed. After Rome. Short Oxford History of The British Isles. New York: OUP, 2003; 2. 201 Cunliffe 256. Agricola. 21. Trans. Hutton and Ogilvie 67. 202 38 runs from Carlisle to Corbridge and through the fort of Vindolanda. Recent archaeology has supplemented our knowledge of literacy and life there, which Bowman dates to between AD 90 and 120.205 Modern commentators often perceive Roman Britain as a primitive outpost at the edge of the known world: not only was it separated from Europe by sea, but London is 895 miles (as the crow flies) from Rome, the place that considered itself the center of the world. Evidence from Vindolanda has shown, though, that both literacy and the book of leaves laced together arrived in northern Britain earlier than anyone supposed. Indeed, VW tells us: The varied uses of writing were so deeply embedded as perhaps to have become unremarkable, an exceptional situation for the ancient world and especially the north-west provinces where literacy levels were otherwise low.206 Hadrian’s Wall was, in fact, a multi-cultural border separating the free Celtic north from conquered Britain, a place where Latin served as the lingua franca for military administration, trade, and education. VW indicates: [...] names of the units stationed on Hadrian's Wall reveal how widely Rome recruited its auxiliary regiments, from Spain, Gaul, Germany, the lands along the Danube, Asia Minor, Syria and North Africa. Both of the principal units identified at Vindolanda, the ninth cohort of Batavians and the first cohort of Tungrians, were recruited from northern Gaul, in a mixed area of 'Germanic' and 'Celtic' peoples, languages and material culture.207 Documents from Vindolanda show that the Roman army kept financial records and duty rosters, and recruited soldiers locally.208 They did not limit their interlacement of cultures to Britain though, and VW notes: Most British auxiliary units were posted to Rome's continental frontiers. They are first mentioned in inscriptions in the mid second century on the German frontier, but recruitment probably began earlier.209 The VW writers believe that possibly “a tutor” taught Latin to soldiers at Vindolanda. Other writers were: clerks; prefects; household members, including women and slaves; junior officers; individual soldiers; and civilian traders; but Bowman notes that the writers at Vindolanda were not Britons.210 They wrote on wax, and on The Vindolanda Tablets, the earliest 205 Bowman 109. 206 39 samples of what the VW commentators believe were “the most widely used type of portable, everyday document in the north-western provinces and perhaps beyond.” 211 The website describes them: The Vindolanda Tablets are thin sheets of wood, pared from young birch, alder, or oak trees; the leaves are usually less than .05 inches thick, and about 8 inches wide by 3.5 inches long. These portable blocks for writing were discovered first at Vindolanda; others were unearthed later at Carlisle and Caerleon.212 Texts were written in pen and ink and, if they were letters, “scored down the middle, folded and the address written on the back of the right-hand half.”213 In addition: Several leaves have matched notches cut in the left and right hand edges, which probably served as anchors for binding strings to tie round the letters. Tie holes also served the same purpose.214 Little evidence of written Celtic remains in “England” and the north-east, but onomastics suggest that the language survived to some extent. According to VW the name 'Vindolanda' itself might have been Celtic, meaning 'white' or 'shining enclosure.’215 In addition, Bowman and Thomas show that the records also include possible Celtic words that had interlaced with Latin, such as: raeda (a transporter or carriage, 185.20-1) and expressions for textiles, including: “bedox (192.2 ) and tossea (192.6 ).” 216 Rollason notes, nevertheless, that “The dominance of English names throughout Northumbria east of the Pennines is extremely striking,” and this supports Bede’s claim that the English controlled that area by his day.217 Linguistics indicate that Celtic religions survived Romanization in “England,” although other evidence suggests that Christianity existed in Wales and Scotland. Cunliffe describes ‘curses’ from third and fourth century Bath, one of which is completely in Celtic; others show Celtic names, their existence displaying a script for writing in the language. Cunliffe also refers to: “–a reality vividly shown by the maintenance of many Celtic religious sites of great antiquity, temples such as Gournay [in France] and Hayling Island and sacred springs like those of Sulis and Coventina in Britain and Sequana in Gaul.” 218 A “pre-Hadrianic” Celtic temple was found 211 40 near Vindolanda, in 2000/2001, but it had been demolished in the second century. Other religious finds there and at Caerleon include seal rings (intaglios), and images of Roman deities such as Minerva.219 Although different religions co-existed in Roman Britain, David Rollason sees little evidence of Christianity in contemporary Northumberland. He nevertheless agrees that the British population may have been Christian, and that an officer at Vindolanda may have kept a church there; and he also notes that archeological evidence supports the claim that a British church had existed at Whithorn, Scotland, before the Anglo-Saxons arrived. According to Bede, Ninian, a fifth-century British monk who had trained at Rome, founded that church after he converted the southern Picts.220 From the south, another possible survival from the period is a chapel or monastery at Glastonbury, which the Saxons chronicled in 658 AD.221 The extent to which Christianity and literacy survived after the Romans left is also debated, but Rollason observes of York that “by 314 there was a bishop, so there must have been some literary activity surrounding the Christian church; there must presumably have been schools for the children and young people of York.”222 It is generally accepted that the religion and literacy continued in Wales, also. To what extent the Romans destroyed Celtic culture in what would become England remains questionable, however. Simon James believes the damage was extensive, and that the AngloSaxons entered an eastern Britain that was: –not a depopulated wilderness, but a land where people had lost, or perhaps rejected, their former cultural identity. Nominally Roman, the population on the land probably had little clear sense of common ethnic identity, beyond their local communities.223 James mentions that archaeology suggests the area remained populated largely by indigenous Celts, an opinion that seems consistent with the genetic evidence from Sykes. Although the ratio of invaders to indigenes may thus have been comparatively low in Northumbria, Celts integrated with the new culture in preference to the Roman. James suggests, then: “As with La Tene art, Anglo-Saxon artefacts are more often local variations on a common theme than foreign 219 41 imports.”224 The interlace of insular cultures was continuous. Cunliffe points out that, as early as the third century, the Irish and Picts had begun invading the west of Great Britain. They attacked through the Barbarian Conspiracy (367AD), when Germanic tribes might also have participated; and the Irish colonized western Wales and Dalriada after the Romans left.225 As the AngloSaxons began to settle, some Celts migrated to Europe; James, however, suggests their establishment of Brittany was not peaceable.226 The tenth-century Annales Cambriae date a Saxon defeat at the Battle of Mount Badon to 518;227 nevertheless, the Anglo-Saxons colonized what became England. Anglo-Saxon culture was at first oral however, and left no records to show precisely how it became dominant. Rollason summarizes three main trends of scholarly opinion as to how this happened, two of which suggest that Britons peacefully ceded power to some of the English. His third model is perhaps the simplest and, in view of genetic evidence, the least likely. Model III: Claims that the English invaded and either destroyed everything British, or “degraded” the indigenes and their organizations.228 The English cannot have “exterminated, [or] expelled” the British if we accept that the substrate DNA has remained Celtic.229 If the British were instead demeaned even more than by the Romans, then they somehow left the English language intact, but reasserted their genetic dominance. This seems unlikely, for an enslaved population. The other two models are possible, and perhaps they could have existed in parallel in different places. Model I: Suggests that, before leaving, the Romans ceded administrative powers to English ‘federates.’230 The precedent lies in fifth-century Europe, where Romans “settled barbarians as federates (that is groups of soldiers retaining their own organization and command), with responsibility for assisting the Roman authorities in warfare;” and scholars extrapolate that federates might have assumed further power when the Romans withdrew.231 One possible example in Britain is at Bamburgh (Celtic Din Guaire232), which archaeological evidence indicates may have “originally been the site of a Roman signal beacon, north of 224 James 112. cf Sykes 283; 286. 225 Cunliffe 263; cf Bede I:1, 47. cf also O Croinin, O Croinin, Daibhi. Early Medieval Ireland: 400-1200. New York: Longman, 1995; 18. He notes Irish emigration to South Wales and the Devonian Peninsula, in the fifth century (18). (EMI). 226 Cunliffe 264. James 114. 227 “Annales Cambriae” OCEL. Also Bede I.16, 64. 228 Rollason 66. 229 Sykes 286. 230 Rollason 65. 231 Rollason 66. 232 Rollason 81; cites Nennius. 42 Hadrian’s Wall and garrisoned by barbarians.” Rollason thus suggests: “Perhaps [...] those barbarians had eventually assumed control, and Bamburgh as a Northumbrian royal centre developed as a result.”233 Based on the preceding discussion on Vindolanda, such ‘barbarians’ could possibly have retained a basic literacy in Latin. In any case, like the ‘Welsh,’ who refused to cooperate with Augustine,234 they would understand the power that inheres in literacy. Model II: Postulates that, during Roman withdrawal, British kingdoms re-established themselves, adopting either Roman administration or their own; however, they subsequently effected a peaceful hand-over to the incoming Anglians.235 Perhaps the prototype for the model is the account which Bede (after Gildas) gives of Vortigern, who invited Anglo-Saxons to help repel Irish and Pictish invaders, ca. 445-7. The British provided land and pay in return for security; but the Anglians then turned against the Britons and allied with the Picts.236 Rollason indicates that Bernicia could have been such a kingdom: archeology has revealed a “pre-Roman Iron Age” fort at Yeavering (from Celtic gafr, “goat”) that was occupied continuously up to the time Bede wrote about Paulinus there. Support may lie in the account from Bede, that Paulinus baptized people ‘from the countryside’–so presumably not just English nobility; and onomastics suggest that the names of the surrounding Northumbrian provinces of Deira (meaning unknown) and Bernicia (possibly “land of mountain passes”) are British.237 Nevertheless, as Rollason explains, the take-over by Northumbria might have been forceful in some cases, and although the dates of the Welsh poem Goddodin, and those in the fourteenth century Book of Taliesin, are not contemporary with Anglo-Saxon times, they could have originated then (Taliesin fl 550); and they depict reciprocal hatred between the British and the English in western Northumbria.238 If any Latin literacy survived in the northeast, between the Roman exodus in 407 and the arrival of the Augustinian mission in 597, it may have been pragmatic rather than scholarly, for there is presently no evidence of it. Support for Model 2, above, lies elsewhere, however. James Campbell notes Latin inscriptions on “some 200 memorial stones dating between the fifth century and the seventh, to survive in the Celtic west”; others are from the Scottish borders.239 The rhetoric of Gildas is another example of the survival. Michael Lapidge, makes the point that 233 Rollason 66, 75. 234 Bede II.2, (EHEP 104-107). 235 Rollason 65/66. 236 Bede 61-3, I.15; Farmer 363 n.P62. 237 Rollason 81-4; cf Bede 132; II.14. 238 Rollason 89; 32-34; 100-2. “Aneirin” OCEL indicates that the author of Goddodin “lived in the second half of the 6th cent. The poem commemorates a British defeat at Catraeth (Catterick, Yorkshire).” 239 Campbell, James, ed. “The End of Roman Britain.” The Anglo-Saxons. New York: Penguin, 1991; 8-19 (22). 43 secular teachers taught sophisticated Latin rhetoric in the sixth century, even though monasteries provided a simpler education.240 He has closely analyzed De Excidio Britanniae, and argues: i) that the Latin is above the level provided in monasteries, and was good enough to qualify Gildas for a career in Roman law courts; ii) that Gildas wrote for an audience knowledgeable enough to appreciate his Latin; and it is therefore possible that: iii) “some facsimile of Roman government was still in operation in his youth.”241 According to Geoffrey Ashe, Gildas studied in Wales, although: “Reputedly, he was the son of a chief in the Clyde area.”242 If so, perhaps better secular education was available in Wales where, as Campbell notes, the sixth-century charters of the Welsh Book of Llandaff are also in Latin.243 The interlace of languages and cultures continued in Wales, where Charles-Edwards observes that British, Irish, and Latin were transforming into Welsh between 500 and 700.244 John Davies asserts that Brittonic Welsh245 was cognate with Latin, and that the oldest inscription in Welsh dates to 700 AD, at a church in Tywyn. He also goes so far as to suggest: “But at some stage, perhaps as early as 600, Welsh began to be written down.”246 None of the early manuscripts survives; however the existence of a suitable script would support the possibility of what Andy Orchard terms “a lengthy written transmission.” He observes: “The widely circulated notion that no Welsh text was written down before the ninth century now seems (to some, at least) unnecessarily pessimistic, despite the absence of direct manuscript evidence before that date.”247 Notable, too, are the characteristics he ascribes to early Welsh verse, for they are similar to those that distinguish Anglo-Saxon in their: “frequent use of decorative devices such as alliteration, rhyme, assonance, and verbal repetition, which are used not only within lines but also to link lines and stanzas together.”248 The second influx of Latin literacy arrived in England when Augustine established Christianity among the Anglo-Saxons at Canterbury in 597. The purveyors of this Latin differed 240 Lapidge Michael. “Gildas’s Education and the Latin Culture of Sub-Roman England.” Gildas: New Approaches. Eds. Michael Lapidge and David N. Dumville. Woodbridge: Boydell, 1984. 27-50 (30/31). Gildas wrote De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae ca. 547. 241 Lapidge 49, 47- i; 49/50 - ii; 49 - iii. 242 Ashe 195. 243 Campbell 22. 244 Charles-Edwards 30. 245 Davies 7: notes that the Anglo-Saxon term 'Welsh' referred less to 'foreigners' than to people who had been Romanized. Orchard 200: disagrees on the dating of the Tywyn inscription, placing it instead at “around the turn of the ninth century.” 246 Davies 70. 247 Orchard, Andy. “Latin and the Vernacular Languages.” After Rome. Ed. Thomas Charles-Edwards. New York: OUP, 2003; 191-219 (199). 248 Orchard 199. 44 from the first, however, in that the mission participated in development of literacy in the vernacular. Andrew Prescott cites “the oldest known document in English” as the law code of Aethelberht of Kent (560-616), of which we have a twelfth century copy: the Textus Roffensis (Rochester Cathedral Library, MS A. 35).249 Scholars question why Aethelbert used English, and Robin Chapman Stacey acknowledges approaches that stress either English inadequacy in Latin or the urge to ape their would-be masters: the Franks. Stacey herself, though, sees “documents as active constructors of hierarchies and relationships rather than as passive mirrors of events,” and she argues the possibility that the use of English declared independence from European powers.250 I support the latter view and would add, again, that the English shared Celtic understanding of the value of literacy for maintaining at least a balance of power within Britain, especially in the face of Welsh literacy; and this would be particularly true if any of the English had retained the Roman presence in Britain as federates. Prescott points out that in order to write in English, scribes developed a system that included runes. He believes, therefore, that some of the scribes may not have come with Augustine and adds: “This suggests that some form of written alphabet may already have been in use in Kent before Augustine’s arrival.”251 The existence of federates would support this possibility; but so does survival of the earliest English runes which, Page has indicated, date from about the fifth century on a bone gaming piece from Caistor-by-Norwich, Norfolk.252 The interlacement of script and the writing of laws also raise a question as to the extent of English, or perhaps only Christian, contact with the Irish at the time. Daibhi O Croinin has remarked upon the development of laws in Old Irish, the Irish having established literacy in their vernacular ca. 600.253 He makes the point that Irish clerics wrote the laws in Christian schools, the only places where there was “access to literacy in the Latin alphabet and the Latin scripts used by Irish scribes when writing both in Latin and in the vernacular.”254 Aethelbert was, therefore, participating in a precedent set by the Irish and the Welsh: a precedent that was both insular and Christian. Whether or not Aethelbert inclined to independence, the Church in England now encouraged use of the vernacular; as Backhouse observes, they understood the need to preach in 249 Prescott, Andrew. “Textus Roffensis.” The Making of England: Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600-900. Eds. Webster, Leslie, and Janet Backhouse. London: British MuseumPress, 1991; 41-2 (W&B). Also Campbell 53, fig 54. Campbell notes that the manuscript “ was in Kent County Record Office, Maidstone, in 1991.” 250 Stacey, Robin Chapman. “Texts and Society.” After Rome, Ed. Thomas Charles-Edwards. New York: OUP, 2003; 220257 (255/6). 251 Prescott 40. (W&B) 252 Page 32. 253 O Croinin 113; 120; 203. (EMI) 254 O Croinin 120-121. 45 the language of the people. Backhouse assumes that the sixth-century Gospels of St. Augustine (CCCC, MS 286), an illuminated manuscript, was one of many texts brought by the mission; it contains insular glosses datable to the late seventh or early eighth centuries.255 The glosses, furthermore, are evidence of the need that Bede had identified–as mentioned above–for Christian scholars to translate the foreign Latin into the language of the people. Bede seems once more not to have been original in his instinct, but to have continued in a tradition of interlaced cultures.256 Pope Vitalian (657-72) had augmented this when he made the Greek Theodore of Tarsus Archbishop (668-90 AD), sending with him another Greek scholar, the African Abbot Hadrian (d. ca. 710) , and the Englishman Benedict Biscop (d.689-90). Biscop brought additional books to England from Rome, and later established the monasteries and library at Monkwearmouth-Jarrow. Prior to this, Vitalian had countenanced other cultural interlace when he received gifts from Constantinople and introduced Byzantine rites and chanters to Rome.257 Theodore and Hadrian ran a school at Canterbury, and Patrick Wormald observed not only that “The Eastern church always approved the use of native vernaculars more than the aggressively Latin west,” but also: Theodore’s school at Canterbury has recently been shown to have spawned a family of glosses which have frequent recourse for vernacular translation, and which are the oldest glosses of this type in Europe.258 Michael Lapidge confirms the work at Canterbury, indicating that commentaries on the Pentateuch and Gospels produced there reference Mediterranean authorities, including Chrysostom; and that the schools maintained the glossaries of Latin words.259 Lapidge went further in corroborating with Bernhard Bischoff to produce analyses of two sets of the glosses, one from Leiden and another from Milan. Some of the study pertains to rhetoric as taught by Greek scholars with whom Theodore is likely to have studied, and which was no longer taught in the Christian context at Rome after the fall of the “worldly” empire; which, as we have seen, had used it for administration. The continuation in Byzantine centers 255 Backhouse 17 (W&B). 256 Backhouse 17 (W&B). cf EHEP 340. 257 “Vitalian.” Oxford Dictionary of Popes. Ed. J. N. D. Kelly. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. 76. [ODP]. Bede234-5, IV.18 refers to Biscop and Monkwearmouth. Several commentators mention that Biscop made five trips to Rome, returning always with books; Bede explained this in Lives of the Abbots, (“Benedict Biscop.” OCEL 87.) He founded the monasteries in 674 and 681 respectively (Charles-Edwards. “Chronology.” 288). Rollason mentions that he used Gaulish masons and glaziers for the project (125). 258 Wormald, Patrick 8 (W&B). 259 Brown 72 (W&B). 46 ensured the survival of classical rhetoric, however. 260 Chapter 4 refers to the glosses in more detail, but in general terms it transpires that indigenous students at Canterbury benefitted from the teaching of these pedagogues who trained clerics to convert Anglo-Saxons and nurture Christianity among them. It is clear that the rhetoric they imparted to Englishmen not only enhanced the survival of the Greek tradition, but also encouraged its development in a new context. Like the glosses themselves, the process involved interlace of languages and cultures. Furthermore, the principle of the literary vernacular so engendered in England returned to Europe disseminated, as Farmer points out, by missionaries like Boniface (680-754) in Germany, and Willibrord (658-739) in Frisia.261 Latin scholarship continued as an overarching influence on all the insular literacies; but, in encouraging them to flourish, the Church differed from earlier Roman hegemony. Latin had advanced in the north when King Oswald brought the Irishman Aidan, to Lindisfarne in 635: so near to Bamburgh and the old literacy at Hadrian's Wall and York. The education then came from Iona; but it cannot be accidental that Theodore later appointed Benedict Biscop to Monkwearmouth-Jarrow where, Brown explains, the monastic scriptoria would supply schoolbooks as well as liturgical and luxury manuscripts.262 Both Canterbury and the northern monasteries were situated at geographical nodes where insular land and river routes intersected with sea routes to Europe; and north and south now became centers at which Greek, Latin, Gaulish, Germanic, Hebrew, and Irish and/or other Celtic traditions met, interacted, and informed an eclectic scholarship within Christianity. In the north, Bede was a product of this new tradition; so was Willibrord, who came from Ripon. Aldhelm, who became Bishop of Sherborne in 705, had studied in Canterbury at the school of Theodore, and he subsequently bequeathed us other examples of the effects of interlacement of literacies. He is especially known for his “Aenigmata,” which later students, like Boniface, emulated. The intertextuality here probably derived from North Africa, Orchard identifying Symphosius as the source, “whose works were brought into Anglo-Saxon England by Hadrian.”263 Michael Lapidge notes that Aldhelm’s prose style was labyrinthine–another form of interlace, as the quote from Chaucer in Chapter 2 (page 10) suggests–and later students worked 260 Bischoff B. and M. Lapidge. Biblical Commentaries from the Canterbury School of Theodore and Hadrian. Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England, 10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. (“Preface” vi-vii; 260 on the disuse of rhetoric in monasteries.). Lapidge adduces evidence from the Canterbury commentaries to suggest that the young Theodore had studied “either at Antioch or at a monastery in the Syrian interior, perhaps Edessa,” (249). 261 Farmer 29 (EHEP). 262 Brown, Michelle P. “Manuscripts,” 73-4 (W&B). 263 Orchard 209. 47 on his De Virginitate, “attempting to unravel its meaning.”264 The interlace of languages affected English at the level of syntax, too: Lapidge observes that Aldhelm’s Latin verse has “a curious ring, which is partially explained by the assumption that he was attempting to follow the conventions of Old English verse (such as alliteration) in his Latin poetry.”265 We have seen, in addition, that alliteration was also in the tradition of Welsh poetry. Cahill points out that Aldhelm had also studied classics in Ireland, so at this point in the discussion it is also interesting that Orchard should identify 'alliterative linking' and accentual stress that had appeared in Irish verse of perhaps the late sixth century. He observes that it “seems both a mnemonic and an ornamental device, and serves to connect consecutive stanzas in an unbroken sequence.”266 Chapter 4 will show that alliteration similarly provided structure for Old English writing. Alcuin of York (ca. 740-804) was another writer and teacher in the new scholarship who had known Irish influence. Cahill points out that “Alcuin’s first master, Colgu, had been Irish, as was his best friend, Joseph, who accompanied him to France and died beside him; and he was succeeded at the court school by the Irish scholar Clement Scotus.”267 Alcuin also returned the old rhetoric to Europe–this time to Charlemagne who, interestingly, had his own agenda for uniting Christians under one power. Alcuin wrote a poem itemizing books in the library at York that had contributed to his own pre-eminence; J. D. A. Ogilvy has listed the authors, some of whom include: Ambrose (CI, vs. 1541, p. 203); Athanasius (CI vss. 1541-2, p. 204); Augustine (CI vs. 1541, p. 203); Boethius (CI vs. 1547, p. 204); Cassiodorus (CI vs. 1545, p. 204); Cicero (CI vs. 1549, p.204); Lucan (CI vs. 1553, p.204); Orosius (CI vs. 1542, p. 204); Pliny (CI vs. 1548, p.204); Priscian (CI vs. 155, p. 204); Prosper of Aquitaine (CI vs. 1551, p. 204); Sedulius (CI vs. 1550, p. 204); Statius (CI vs. 1553, p.204); Virgil (CI vs. 1553, p. 204).268 Ogilvy also refers, in his general list, to Horace, and we will see in Chapter 4 that John Leyerle cites the influence of a commentary, Scholia Vindobonensia ad Horatii Artem Poeticam, 264 Lapidge, Michael. “The New Learning,” 71-73 (W&B). 265 Lapidge 73 (W&B). 266 Cahill 159. Orchard 205-6. 267 Cahill, Thomas. How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe. New York: Doubleday, 1995; 206. Cahill 200: stresses Irish influence in that Aidan was a disciple of Columba. 268 Ogilvy, J. D. A. Books Known to Anglo-Latin Writers from Aldhelm to Alcuin (670-804). Cambridge, Mass: Medieval Academy of America, 1936: under the names. “C I” indicates Carmina Alcuini I, and is followed by page references to Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini, ed. E. Dummler. I. 160-351. 48 in relation to artificial order and interlace in “Beowulf.”269 As suggested above, Bede had been another scholar in this tradition of intertextuality, and Farmer lists some of his un-cited sources as: “Orosius, Pliny and Solinus as well as Gildas and the Life of Germanus by Constantius, ” suggesting further that Bede probably had an unidentified source from Iona.270 We have already seen, too, that Bede resorted to both Tacitus and Gregory the Great. The Viking raids, which continued from the late eighth to the tenth centuries, almost destroyed learning in England. The Scandinavians sacked Lindisfarne in 793 and captured York in 863, probably destroying the library there. Although King Alfred (871-899) limited their settlement to the Danelaw in 878, the invasions recurred, with the help of the Irish, until the establishment of Viking York.271 Scandinavian elements are consequently common in the topography of both the Danelaw and Cumbria, where many Norwegians settled and intermarried. Thus we have Whitby (by= ‘farm’ or ‘town’); Gawthorpe (thorpe = ‘village’); Braithwaite (thwaite = ‘an isolated piece of land’). Cable and Baugh suggest that Anglian and Norse were similar, and there was no difficulty, therefore, in merging the languages.272 The syncretization of cultures manifests itself in the interlaced crosses of the period, which often, in the north, display Viking runes. R. I. Page suggests that they “were used in a bilingual community that mixed the Norse and English tongues.”273 Many British-Viking runes survive in the Isle of Man and, again, Page infers that they signify “a multi-racial society, with Norseman marrying Celt.” The tenth-century stones use Norse inscription, but include Celtic personal names and “the Celtic word kross,” and Page suggests that “the Vikings were presumably politically dominant.”274 King Alfred (871-899) responded to Viking destruction of Anglo-Saxon culture by restoring education, in English, to all free Anglo-Saxons. Some learning had survived in Mercia; as Lapidge points out, the king found scholars there who could help with his program.275Among the texts Alfred considered important to education was De Consolatione Philosophiae, and it is interesting that while Boethius wove sections of poetry and prose within the text of his Latin 269 Ogilvy 46 (although this does not include Ars Poetica.). cf also Leyerle, John. “The Interlace Structure of Beowulf.” Interpretations of Beowulf. Ed. R. D. Fulk. Indianapolis: Indiana UP, 1991; 146-167 (150/1). 270 Farmer 25, 37 (“Introduction,” EHEP). 271 In 876 Harald Halfdane established Viking York–using a third of the Viking “Great Army”: (cf Rollason 212). A second part attacked and shared Mercia in 877; and a third took East Anglia in 880 (Crawford 59). 272 Baugh an.d Cable 90-103. 273 Page, R. I. An Introduction to English Runes. London: Methuen, 1973; 53-54. Print. 274 Page 59. 275 Lapidge, Michael. “The Present State of Anglo-Latin Studies.” Insular Latin Studies: Papers on Latin Texts and Manuscripts of the British Isles: 550-1066. Ed. Michael W. Herren. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1981; 45-82 (55). 49 Preface,276 Alfred presented two versions of translation–one in each form.277 I suggest that the juxtaposition is in a tradition Gernot Wieland has called the geminus stilus, a term he attributes to Hrabanus Maurus (ca. 780-856) who cited Prosper and Sedulius as his models, and for which the original definition involved: “writing on one subject in both prose and verse.”278 Anglo-Saxon practitioners of the skill in Latin included Aldhelm (de Virginitate), Bede (Vita Sancti Cuthberti), and Alcuin (Vita S. Felicis); and Wieland notes that Aldhelm separated ‘high’ and ‘low’ style by placing them in parallel as prose and verse; but then re-uniting them as one work.279 The dynamic clearly describes a form of interlace. It is interesting also that Orchard describes a work, from the Irish tradition of the early seventh century, which includes both forms of composition as well as “metrical prose.”280 Once more, the strands of rhetoric derived from Latin learning, and they would continue throughout insular scholarship, both temporally and geographically. Alfred also sought to stabilize his kingdom by recording and propagating his laws–again in the vernacular. Wormald indicates that this time the Preface referred to Old Testament Law, and the text also mentions the legal tradition of Aethelbert, Ine, and Offa. The Christian king thus awakened in his people both spiritual and legal awareness: as Wormald suggested, ignorance of the law is impossible if it is declared publicly and in the vernacular.281 Wormald also noted that, in the tenth century, Aelfric (ca. 955-ca. 1010) and Wulfstan (1002-23) familiarized the people with the same principles: through their preaching in English. Wulfstan is notable for having written laws for Aelthelred and Cnut;282 and Chapter 4 will demonstrate ways in which both he and Aelfric and Wulfstan applied the rhetoric of poetry and alliteration to their prose homilies. The two preachers continued in a tradition that seems to have survived despite Viking depredations. Orchard identifies the first insular homily, the Irish “ ‘Cambrai Homily’ 276 Wieland, Gernot. “Geminus Stilus”: Studies in Anglo-Latin Hagiography.” Insular Latin Studies: Papers on Latin Texts and Manuscripts of the British Isles: 550-1066. Ed. Michael W. Herren. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1981, 113-133 (113). 277 Mitchell, Bruce, and Fred. C. Robinson, eds. A Guide to Old English. 5th ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992; 226. The editors publish the prose text from Bodleian Library MS 180; and the verse from Bodleian Library MS Junius 12; 227-230. 278 Wieland 127. He uses an image from Aldhelm that prose was like the walls of a building, poetry the roof; and he concludes that the two styles complemented each other: both in the interests of praising God. He also indicates that development of facility in both was an academic exercise in paraphrase. 279 Wieland 125; 114. 280 Orchard 206. He refers to the “so-called ‘Alphabet of Piety’ (Apgitir Chrabaid), attributed to Colman moccu Sailni, abbot of Lann Elo (Lynally), who died in 611.” 281 Wormald 16-18. The later writer was possibly Aelfric (118). 282 Wormald 17.. 50 (composed around 630),” as a composition that owes much to Latin models.283 The point is relevant to my suggestion that development of the vernacular in Anglo-Saxon England ultimately produced a prototype for uniting disparate tribes into a unit, for the insular people shared similar traditions. The attempt at integration was not entirely successful. John Davies comments: The recognition by Welsh rulers that the king of England had claims upon them would be a central fact in the subsequent political history of Wales. There was an attempt to portray the submission as the result of a desire for unity among Christian rulers against the pagan Danes and as a tribute to the greatness of Alfred. Nevertheless, it undoubtedly contained an element of coercion, as is demonstrated by the fate of Idwal ab Anarawd, who raised the standard of revolt and who was killed by the English in 942.284 As Wormald says, however: “[I]t is surely arguable that the English kingdom was ultimately the most successful ‘Dark Age’ state, because it alone effectively harnessed native speech.”285 After the age of Alfred, the state organized English as the language of government and law: not only at a courtly level, but at the interface where a mediating class of literate “gentry” met ordinary people–through the language already familiar to the people.286 As Susan Kelly has said in this respect, “it seems likely that, as in the case of young men intended for the priesthood, education was bilingual and any training in the skills of literacy would begin (and sometimes end) with the vernacular.”287 Patrick Wormald agrees that the church probably produced charters, the “Title deeds of property or privilege.”288 Orchard notes that although some charters were written early, “significant vernacular charters only really begin to appear around the eighth century.”289 Scholars have insufficient evidence to determine the extent to which lay literacy in Anglo-Saxon England participated in this documentation, but Kelly observes: “Nevertheless it seems clear that already by the ninth century the written word had been accommodated within secular 283 Orchard 206. 284 Davies 85. 285 Wormald 19. 286 cf Wormald 19. 287 Kelly, Susan. “Anglo-Saxon Lay Society and the Written Word.” The Uses of Literacy in Early Mediaeval Europe. Ed. Rosamund McKitterick. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990; 36-62 (59; 46). Kelly notes that English appears in many legal documents “From at least the beginning of the ninth century onwards.” Glosses also appear on many manuscripts, necessarily as an aid to translation. 288 Wormald, Patrick. “Anglo-Saxon Society and its Literature.” The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature. Eds. Michael Godden and Michael Lapidge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991; 1-22 (10). 289 Orchard 114. 51 society.”290 It seems likely that the new sophistication of pragmatic literacy could only increase lay interest in Old English literature, especially as that literature participated in oral tradition. The principle extends from that Noll noted in Biblical Literature, of the strength of a three-strand cord: history, literature, and theology.291 Anglo-Saxon Christians included ‘law’ in each of the strands, and the resulting culture proved strong indeed. Wormald indicates the re-emergence of English after Norman subjugation as proof of its strength, and I believe that he is right in saying: “There is an indirect, yet also a real connection between the two facts that England is [was] the world’s oldest continuously functioning state, and that English is now its most widely spoken language.”292 The interlace of cultures and development of English in early Britain laid the foundations for those conditions, and the present section suggests that writers knew they were participating in the formation of a new tradition–if only for their time and place. They understood that different Celtic tribes had fought each other, in early Britain, but had often united against the Romans. They saw how the Romans had imposed unity on this diversity. After the Romans left, the continuing threat of the Picts and Irish split Romanized Britain into factions, which some Britons may have attempted to re-unite under the protection of Germanic tribes. Although the Anglo-Saxons could initially unite neither themselves nor the British, Bede described another movement toward unity under the aegis of Christianity–albeit in Latin. However, if the Church was to convert the illiterate people it had to do so in English. We can only speculate as to how it came about that Celts in “England” participated in this, but it seems possible that the Romans had at least facilitated the process by weakening use of Celtic languages in that area; and it is arguable that the story Bede tells, of the cowherd with the British name, factors choice into the emergence of English as the new vernacular. Caedmon (ca. 680) chose to sing in neither British nor Latin.293 The discussion has shown that English authors, after the arrival of Theodore and his party, produced literature that incorporated interlace through alliterative techniques of linking, and that these were compatible with those already used by the Irish, and by the British in Wales. I believe such rhetorical techniques would appeal not only to an over-class of soldiers and those who had absorbed varying degrees of classical literacy, but also to ordinary people: the ones who practiced the techniques for producing cloth, metalwork, and carvings; and who might observe similar linking, patterning, and iconography in the rhetoric of the religion they now all shared. 290 Kelly 61. 291 Noll 10. 292 Wormald 19. My insertion of [was] recognizes present-day subjugation to Europe. 293 Bede IV.24, 248-51. 52 The point supports Kelly, who discusses the advantages of developing literacy in the vernacular, concluding: “Above all, the value of English lay in its accessibility to a wider public;”294 It thus seems likely that greater availability and use of rhetoric in the vernaculars was a form of democratization and that, through it, writers and scholars consciously participated in the development of the new island culture. Anglo-Saxon rhetoric thus developed as a strand in parallel with other insular traditions and languages, and so it could contribute to the ideal of weaving the inhabitants of the archipelago into cultural unity–even as they retained their individual characters under Christianity. 294 Kelly 56. 53 CHAPTER 4 SCHOLARLY ANALYSES OF INTERLACE IN OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE We recognize texts as 'weaves' by denotation that may have descended from Indo- European analogy of the two concepts, and also by etymology, because the methods used to create textile inform production of texts;295 therefore this study now reviews scholarly analyses of the structures underlying Old English rhetoric. Consideration of the techniques, their literary precedents, and their rhetorical purposes, supports the probability that writers in Anglo-Saxon deliberately used interlace: not only to shape meaning, but also to found a literary tradition that would unite the interests of insular cultures. Much of the interlace discussed in this chapter describes poetry because scholarly analysis on the topic has usually focused on poetry, indeed, most specifically on Beowulf. Also, the techniques are easier to demonstrate and analyze in poetry that has been re-arranged by a modern editor; however, Anglo-Saxon scribes lineated poetry and prose alike on the parchment page. Descriptions in the present section often indicate that the principal difference in forms lay in use of poetic diction and in stress patterns discernible by ear; and Chapter 3 has suggested that much of what was written in the period under consideration–between the eighth and eleventh centuries–was intended to be read aloud to an indigenous audience that was not necessarily literate. We find, accordingly, that poetry and prose intended for the Anglo-Saxon audience share techniques that involve stress and alliteration. Janet Bately has indicated, further: Many of the features admired in late Old English prose are already to be found in the early laws and charters and in the works of the Alfredian period, ‘developments’ being as much the result of changing fashions as of accumulated experience and expertise. Indeed, the two major sources of stylistic influence–Old English poetry and Latin prose–were both available to the literate Anglo-Saxon as models from the time of the conversion right up to the Norman conquest. . .296 The discussion that follows therefore defines literary interlace in terms of Old English poetry, 295 cf Chapter 2 on defining the techniques for creating a united fabric from diverse threads, which include crossing, alternation, variation, mixture, and means of attachment. Chapter 3 mentioned the Indo-European roots of the Greek oral tradition. Also cf “text” : [“...from L. Textus structure, texture, from texere, textum to weave]. Chambers. 296 Bately, Janet. “The Nature of Old English Prose.” The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature. Eds. Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 71-87 (81-2). 54 and then cites some of the applications to prose, particularly the “rhythmical” style developed by Aelfric and Wulfstan. One might argue that interlace is intrinsic to the structure of Anglo-Saxon poetry, a line of which consists of two halflines (a and b) “separated by a caesura and linked by alliteration.”297 I therefore include here a summary of the meter of Anglo-Saxon poetry as Eduard Sievers (1885) systematized it. My outline adapts that of Cassidy and Ringler:298 Rhythmic Types: In the following: / = stressed syllables (arsis) x = unstressed syllables (thesis) \ = secondary or half stress. Types of Halfline (simplified): Type A: (/x /x) [trochaic rhythm] Type B: (x/ x/) [iambic rhythm] Type C: (x/ /x) Type D: (// x\) or (// \x) Type E: (/\ x/) [or /\ xx (Mitchell & Robinson 30)] Hypermetric Lines expand the beginning of a halfline by one or two unstressed syllables (i.e. by anacrusis). Alliteration: occurs on the stressed syllables, thus emphasizing them; it may occur on theses, but that could be accidental. In the first halfline ‘a’- stresses 1 and 2 may alliterate; stress 1 alone may alliterate; stress 2 alone may alliterate. In the second halfline ‘b’- stress 1 is the only arsis and it always alliterates. Rhythmic Stress (ictus): The stress emphasizes the importance of words within the context of the passage: and so contributes to the meaning. Alliteration, therefore, combines with stress in structuring the composition, although the device may also be decorative in its appeal to the ear. Donald Scragg points out further: “In Old English too a half-line is frequently a sense- unit, but the dividing-point or caesura is stressed by a change of rhythm, for example the trochaic pattern might become iambic or anapestic [xx/], as in Beowulf (MS. BL Cotton Vitellius A. xv, 297 C&R 276. 298 C&R 274-287. 55 ff. 94-209): / x / x x x / x x / feasceaft funden, he þæs frofre gebad (7) ([Scyld] was found destitute; he lived to see consolation for that).299 Daniel Calder is among those who credit the recognition of crossed alliteration to the German critic Richard Heinzel (ca.1875). Calder says, “More sophisticated analysis will eventually call this feature “interlace,” however, Heinzel deserves credit for having seen the alternation as deliberate and valid rather than accidental and inept.”300 Some critics also see Heinzel as the inventor of the term “variation.”301 In 1935, Adeline Courtney Bartlett discussed alternation and variation in her study of interlace, and she suggested that although an Anglo-Saxon poem may present the same story in different ways, “Its allusive habit indicates that readers are supposed to know the story already. It must be read for the sentiment and for the ornament.”302 Her work is important to the present study partly because she analogizes tapestry and Anglo-Saxon verse, seeing the latter as “filled with essential but greatly elaborated pictorial groups and, in addition, heavily incrusted with superimposed (or interposed) ornament.”303 In addition, she describes the technique that produces alliterative and chiastic patterns. I have tabulated part of her analysis so as to correlate structure and purpose (Table I a), but Bartlett outlines her description as follows (the stress is mine, throughout): 1. The Anglo-Saxon poets use an Envelope organization of the verse paragraph, in which the end of the passage returns to, in some way repeats, the beginning. 2. The Anglo-Saxon poets elaborate into long rhetorical passages the simple parallel arrangement which is common in sentence parts and in shorter sentences. 3. The longer Parallel passages are sometimes so constructed as to produce an Incremental pattern. 299 Scragg, Donald G. “The Nature of Old English Verse.” The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature. Eds. Michael Godden and Michael Lapidge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. 55-70 (59). 300 Calder, Daniel G. “The Study of Style in Old English Poetry: A Historical Introduction.” Old English Poetry: Essays on Style. Ed. Daniel G. Calder. Berkley: University of California Press, 1979. 1-66 (4; 17). 301 Calder 13. 302 Bartlett, Adeline Courtney. The Larger Rhetorical Patterns in Anglo-Saxon Poetry. New York: Columbia UP: 1935; 303 Bartlett 109. She cites in F/n 6: Ker, W. P. The Dark Ages. (New York, 1904); 335-336. 56 4. The Anglo-Saxon poets tend to use expanded [hypermetric] lines in groups, sometimes employing a pattern of distribution which resembles a bell-shaped curve, and at other times massing the expanded lines at the beginning or at the end of logical groups. 5. Ornamental digressions in Anglo-Saxon poetry are: gnomic, homiletic, elegiac, lyric descriptive, runic and macaronic, and (especially in Beowulf304) narrative. 6. The Anglo-Saxon poets make use of introductory formulas and concluding formulas; and they use dialogue in a thoroughly conventional way.299 Bartlett argues that the Envelope Pattern: “Is a conscious unit, consciously designed.”305I would add that, like all the patterns involving chiasmus and parallelism in Old English, it clearly utilizes the arrangement of halflines. Bartlett provides an example: 25 Þa stod on stæðe, stiðlice clypode 26 wicinga ar, wordum mælde 27 se on beot abead brimliþendra 28 ærænde to þam eorle, þær he on ofre stod: “Battle of Maldon” 25-28.306 Bartlett also provides a diagram to illustrate the chiasmus: a halfline b halfline 25 A B 26 C B 27 (B) C 28 (B) A (Bartlett 10) She points out that the verbal basis of the structure lies in wicinga [“of the Vikings”] and brimliþendra [“of the seafarers:], as well as Þa stod on stæðe and þær he on ofre stod. However, in this analysis A= the shore; B = “the central idea of calling and delivering the message"; C = 304 British Library MS Cotton Vitellius A. XV. 299 Bartlett 107. 305 Bartlett 18. 306 “Then there appeared at the waterside and fiercely shouted out a messenger from the vikings who swaggeringly announced a message fom the ocean-wanderers to the earl where he was standing on the foreshore.” [Trans. Bradley, S.A.J. ed. “The Battle of Maldon.” Anglo-Saxon Poetry. London: J. M. Dent, 1982; 519-528 (520). 57 “the idea of the pirates’ messenger”; and the pattern therefore “Is dependent on verbal agreement of parts and logical unity of the whole,”307 [my stress]. The chi crosses in the diagram, too, illustrate the point made at the end of Chapter 2: for the basis of this weave is clearly cruciform, and therefore appropriate to Christianity. Bartlett defines parallelism as: “A correspondence of rhetorical or syntactical characteristics.”308 In her chapter on such arrangements, she distinguishes between patterns of repetition and of balance. In balance the correspondence involves variation of the members: they are similar, but not identical. One of her examples is from Psalm 23.2: “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters.”309 Parallelism also includes echo, which occurs, for example in Beowulf with wlanc “proud” (341), and wlonc “proud” (331), and for wlenco “out of daring; pride; bravado” (338).310 Bartlett attributes parallelism to Germanic, possibly even Indo-European origins; but when it is antithetical she also relates it to Latin homilies.311 Nevertheless, she follows Hart in recognizing that the Psalms might be the source of chiastic and envelope arrangements; and she lists, from The Paris Psalter, several examples of the patterns.312 A glance at the Jewish Encyclopedia suggests that more recent study of parallelism in the Bible bears out this perception. I. M Casanowicz indicates: “It is now generally conceded that parallelism is the fundamental law, not only of the poetical, but even of 313 the rhetorical and therefore of higher style in general in the Old Testament.” We also know that the Psalms were central to the education and devotions of Benedictine monks, and therefore scribes. As Caroline White observes, in Chapter 18 of the Rule: Benedict advises that all 150 psalms should be recited each week, though he admits that this represents a fall in standards as in the past many recited all the psalms every day), together with readings and prayers form other parts of the Bible.314 307 Bartlett 10. 308 Bartlett 30. 309 Bartlett 33. 310 Bartlett 35. 311 Bartlett 30. 312 Bartlett 25; at 11 f/n 1 cites Hart, Walter Morris. “Ballad and Epic.” Harvard Studies and Notes, XI. Boston, 1907; 200201. The list of psalms translated into Anglo-Saxon includes 66, 69, 83, 102,103, 117, 121, 135, 138, 144. 313 Casanowicz, I. M. “Parallelism in Hebrew Poetry.” 2002. Jewish Encyclopedia.com. 24 March 2010. 58 My description can only paraphrase Bartlett; I suggest, however that she indicates parallelism as the organizing principle underlying not only her category 3, but also categories 4, 5, and 6. Clusters of hypermetric lines, therefore, can be placed in parallel to form outlines and frames, or can form central cores when placed between normal lines.315 Opening and closing formulae similarly work as framing devices, and dialogue can do the same–or provide a “kernel” between the parallel lines. Ornamental digression, too, can form either a frame or its content; and Bartlett notes that, especially when it is elegiac, the dilatatio provides both sense and decoration. She adds, “Often the weaver need not have used so large an ornamental inset, even if one be disposed to grant that any such inset was, at that point, judicious.”316 She is, nevertheless, clear that most “episodic” insets are functional, as in Beowulf: Not only are they not interpolations, they are not even mere ecphrasis. Sigemund and Heremod are example and warning to Beowulf; the necklace is a property of the hero; Thryth describes Hygd by the method of contrast; the prophecy of the Heathobard-Dane feud is not unnaturally evoked by the mention of Freawaru’s betrothal.317 The same is true of homiletic insets; it is worth noting, though, that Bartlett considers runic and macaronic insets to be decorative.318 They occur in cryptic settings and in riddles, however, and I think it reasonable to suppose that the incorporation of these unconventional elements– specifically: Anglo-Saxon orthography, its symbolism, and Latin diction–encourage habits of mind that are associative and creative, as well as logical. They would, therefore, provide suitable exercise for the training of writers, interpreters, and preachers. In light of the present discussion, also, it is possible to see such appropriations from diverse literary traditions as a means of weaving together aspects of different cultures, under the influence of Christianity. Bartlett analyzed the structures that contribute to interlace, and later scholars expanded on the effects of the rhetoric. Arthur Brodeur, for example, does so when he discusses variation in Beowulf.319 Writing twenty-four years after Bartlett, he defines variation as: “ . . . [A] double 315 Bartlett 62-71; 67. The examples she cites that contain hypermetric lines at the core are: Boethius 25: 37b-53; Christ 868-899; Genesis 2399-2418. 316 Bartlett 80. 317 Bartlett 88. 318 Bartlett 84-85. As examples of runic variation she includes “the four Cynewulf signatures (Christ 707-808a; Elene 1256b-1270a; Fates of the Apostles 96-106; and Juliana 703b-711a); “The Rune Poem”; “The Lover’s Message”; Riddles 20 and 65, as well as fragments of Riddles 75, 25 (7b-9a), 43 (5b-15a), 59 (14b-15), 91 (3-7); “Salomon and Saturn” (84-140); and “Waldere A” (29b-32a). She identifies the only “macaronic passage combining Anglo-Saxon and Latin in one line” as “Phoenix” 667-677; and she mentions “Summons to Prayer” as containing “Greek as well as Latin words, and the arrangement is irregular, not verse by verse.” 319 Brodeur, Arthur Gilchrist. “Variation.” Interpretations of Beowulf: A Critical Anthology. Ed. R. D. Fulk. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1991. 66-87. 59 or multiple statement of the same concept or idea in different words, with a more or less perceptible shift in stress,” this varies specificity and areas of emphasis; and it can involve parallelism.320 Brodeur echoes Bartlett in believing that as the concepts accumulate details they also augment affect;321 indeed, he claims: “The primary vehicle of emotion is variation.”322 Brodeur also recognizes variation as decoration, claiming that: “In both parts of the poem there are many variations which have no other function than that of an ornament of style.”323 Brodeur nevertheless considers that some variations develop meaning. In discussing reiterations of the reactions of Hrothgar to the depredations of Grendel, he suggests: “The consequences are, first, an increasingly developing awareness in the listener of the tragic situation; secondly, a deepening perception of the universality of its meaning; thirdly, appreciation of a continuous texture in the dramatic narrative.”324 I believe, further, that Brodeur describes a crucial step in the creation of interlace from variation when he says: “It may indeed [...] carry over from scene to scene; even from one structural block of the poem to another.” He adds, “The emotion thus communicated may dominate a long narrative passage; it may provide the point of departure for a new train of consequent action.”325 Brodeur, then, moves the hermeneutics of variation in interlace away from both decoration and affect–and towards action. In the essay, “The Interlace Structure in Beowulf,” John Leyerle adds: “When variation on two or more subjects is combined, the result is stylistic interlace, the interweaving of two or more strands of variation.”326 Leyerle, rejects the concept of decorative digression, though, maintaining: “There are no digressions in Beowulf.”327 He insists, rather, that interlace: a structure of variation, juxtapositions, parallelisms, reversals, and intersections, produces a tightly woven narrative in which “relations between events are more important than their temporal sequence.”328 In addition, Leyerle compares the structure of Beowulf to the designs on Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, stone crosses, and other artefacts. The analogy depends on the “knotwork” produced when narrative strands “plaited together to form a braid or rope pattern [. . .] are turned 320 Brodeur 66-7. 321 Brodeur 71. 322 Brodeur 74. 323 Brodeur 86 324 Brodeur 75. 325 Brodeur 72. 326 Leyerle, John. “The Interlace Structure of Beowulf.” Interpretations of Beowulf: A Critical Anthology. Ed. R. D. Fulk. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1991. 146-167 (149). The essay was reprinted, by permission, from The University of Toronto Quarterly 37 (1967); 1-17. 327 Leyerle 156. 328 Leyerle 156. 60 back on themselves to form knots or breaks that interrupt the linear flow of the bands.” Here he describes what Chapter 2 identified as interlace with breaks, which can include both reversals and juxtapositions of ends and beginnings. I notice that this is especially evident in a honeycomb weave, for example. Leyerle refers to interlace with knots, though, as found in sculpture and manuscripts, and he analogizes the knots as narrative “episodes,” whose themes link the parts of the design into a whole.329 Leyerle exemplifies this by observing that four episodes (knots) relate the Fall of Hygelac to the life of Beowulf. During the episodes and the stories told within them, the audience interprets, without intrusion from the narrator: I) juxtapositions; ii) recurrences of human behavior (repetitions) and iii) circularity of time. Leyerle models such interpretation by suggesting: The references to Sigemund and Heremod, after Beowulf kills Grendel, foreshadow Beowulf’s later career as a king. He kills a dragon, as Sigemund did, and leaves the Geats to suffer national calamity, as Heremod left the Danes to suffer fyrenthearfe (14), “terrible distress.”330 Leyerle also shows how the parallel arrangements of strands and episodes allow for the possibility of allegory. Relating the structure of Beowulf to zoomorphic interlace in manuscripts like The Lindisfarne Gospels,331 he compares the lacertine strands to monsters and dragons in the poem. He suggests, for example, that the method leads to perception of Grendel as a symbol: “He is an eoten, or “eater,” and swallows up the society he visits almost as if he were an allegorical figure for internecine strife.” To show how this allegory weaves into the larger tapestry of the poem, Leyerle traces the theme about Monsters as it links to others of: Internecine Strife; Visits to Halls; Women as Binders of Society; and Treasure.332 Intersection of strands within the narrative affords different views of the themes. Leyerle provides an example when he considers a theme of: "conflict between the personal glory of a hero and his responsibility to the common good," and suggests that the poet leaves audiences to draw parallels between two historical realities: the battle at Nechtanesmere (685 AD), and the battle mentioned in the poem–of Hygelac in Frisia.333 In the former, as AngloSaxons would know, the Picts had avenged themselves for the actions of King Edwin, who had quelled their rebellion in AD 671-3. Ecgfrith and Northumberland subsequently lost both the overall war and 329 Leyerle 146-148. Leyerle observes that “Interlace designs go back to prehistoric Mesopotamia;” and he references, for an account of the origins of the designs: Aberg, N. F. The Occident and the Orient in the Art of the Seventh Century. Stockholm: Wahlstrom & Widstrand, 1943-1947. Part. I. The British Isles. 330 Leyerle 152/3. 331 Leyerle 147; 157 on reversals. 332 Leyerle 152, 154, 155 ( cf 157 on allegory). 333 Leyerle 153. 61 the territory.334 Stanley Greenfield similarly examined the historic associations of the Frisian raid, and argued that parallels between the 'heroic' actions of Hygelac and Beowulf reveal that heroism ultimately results in the demise of the Geatish nation.335 The audience, however, receives the Hygelac story piecemeal, from the viewpoints of the poet (2349b-2399a), Beowulf (2325-2515), and Wiglaf’s Messenger (2910b-3000).336 Leyerle concludes that, in light of the intersections and parallels so produced: “The Hygelac episodes show the social consequences of rash action in a king and they become more frequent as the dragon fight develops.”337 What becomes clear is that, through this method of narration, the audience is free to interpret–to derive meaning from the logic of the poetry, without being told what to think. They must engage their own intellects to see that everything is relevant to something else in the tapestry. This view of Anglo-Saxon interlace accords with the claim of Peter Dronke, [T]hat at the heart of the mediaeval rhetorical tradition, in some of its central texts, there existed a profoundly functional approach to artistic expression, a refusal to see the problem of style divorced from that of meaning, an unequivocal condemnation of verbal ornament and display for their own sakes.”338 Bernard Huppe demonstrates the perception further in his study of interlace, The Web of Words, where he provides readings of four Old English Poems: Vainglory, The Wonder of Creation, The Dream of the Rood, and Judith. He bases his interpretations on close analysis of syntax, frames, and introductory phrases–elements of interlace that Bartlett had described–but he also scrutinizes diction and the ways in which variation of words, word forms, and symbolism, participate in antithesis and parallelism and contribute to the development of meaning.339 In addition, he further classes the rhetorical units as follows: half-lines, which are as described above; clausules, which he describes as clusters of half-lines; they can be simple or compound, and function like the modern subordinate clause (xviii). periods; Huppe says: “The period makes a single complete statement and may consist of two or more clausules, simple or compound–”(xix). 334 Rollason 41-42. 335 Greenfield, Stanley B. “Geatish History: Poetic Art and Epic Quality in Beowulf.” Interpretations of Beowulf: A Critical Anthology. Ed. R. D. Fulk. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1991; 120-126 (121). 336 Greenfield 121. 337 Leyerle 153. 338 Dronke, Peter. “Mediaeval Rhetoric.” The Mediaeval World. Literature and Civilization. Vol. 2. Eds. David Daiches and Anthony Thorlby. London: Aldus, 1973. 315-346. (317). 339 Huppe, Bernard F. The Web of Words: Structural Analyses of the Old English Poems “Vainglory,” “The Wonder of Creation,” “The Dream of the Rood,” and “Judith.” Albany: State University of New York Press, 1970; xiii-xxi; and 64-112. 62 verse paragraphs; he says: “the verse paragraph consists of one or more periods together making a fully developed statement” (xix). Huppe acknowledges that “Adeline Bartlett has shown the considerable frequency of employment in the verse paragraphs of such elements of design as envelope and parallel pattern, etc. These elements of design are also extended frequently to the structure of periods," (xx) ! parts or scenes; which he sees as consisting of clusters of verse paragraphs (xix). While Huppe describes interlace in ways the above discussion has identified, he identifies also the important point that alliteration and stress combine with allusiveness in developing themes; observing that, as a result, “The rhetorical structure of an Old English poem is complex, involved, and yet at bottom clear and rational.”340 In The Rise of Romance (RR), Eugene Vinaver had preceded Leyerle by producing another important analysis of interlace.341 RR deals with French epic tradition about the knights of Charlemagne (742-814 AD), and with later French Romances, but it also supplements insight into the techniques and interpretation of interlace; I have therefore tabulated some of the analysis to facilitate comparison with Bartlett and Leyerle. RR demonstrates, in addition, how interlace develops analogy and so encourages understanding: I) by consideration of the interactions of two views of the same thing; and ii) by drawing parallels not only through the narrative and the realities of history and geography, but also through symbols. Analogy, therefore, relates to symbolism, and Vinaver explains that successive prefigurations, such as “warnings, premonitions, and symbolically similar manifestations of human destiny” (my stress), can elicit foreboding, or even thought.342 As we saw above in relation to Hygelac’s raid and the expected demise of the Geats, Leyerle and Greenfield both show the effect of historical comparisons to be proleptic. Perhaps the sense of prescience also owes something to the reversals that Leyerle saw as “inherent in the structure” because, as we saw in weaving and “interlace with breaks,” reversals disrupt sequence. In narrative, the re-positioning that juxtaposes events from different times invites comparison of their significance.343 In turning the ends of strands towards their beginnings, reversals also imply circularity, and that is one reason why ring structure can be a type of interlace; and scholars of ring structure describe the same effect. 340 Huppe. “Introduction” xxiii-xxi, (xvi). 341 Vinaver, Eugene. The Rise of Romance. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971. Leyerle 156: also observes that Vinaver had already shown that “Entrelacement was a feature of prose romances, especially those in the Arthurian tradition,” and he refers to f/n 16 “Form and Meaning in Medieval Romance,” The Presidential Address of the Modern Humanities Research Association (1966). 342 Vinaver 101-2. 343 Leyerle 154-5, 157. 63 H. Ward Tonsfeldt agrees with J. R. R. Tolkien on the dynamic of reversal in Beowulf: “It is essentially a balance, an opposition of ends and beginnings;” and the structure is “static.” For Tonsfeldt, each ring of narrative presents “a microcosm of the whole work. Each involves “static presentation of events, repetition of significant details, and the framing of a central key detail." Within this structure, details from a past or present incident vary those of a second event, and so reflect some common idea or theme: for example, disaster.344 Thus, “ring structure not only arranges the details of the episode to develop its theme, but connects the episode to the main narrative in a way that makes the connection and its implicit comment quite clear.”345 Ward. Parks suggests also that digressions link the rings and their themes and so enable the narrative to progress.346 Scholars of ring structure, then, recognize similar arrangements to those already identified: the rings work in parallel arrangements, and the juxtapositions develop allusiveness and mental association. Parks illustrates a frame and ring structure in Beowulf thus: A The Danes lie down to sleep 1251 B Grendel’s avenger still survives 1255-58 C Grendel’s mother remembers her misery 1259-60 X The family history of Grendel’s mother 1260-76 C The Sorrow of Grendel’s mother 1274-1278 B Grendel’s mother wants to avenge her son’s death 1278 A The Danes lie sleeping 1279-80.347 John Niles provides a macrocosmic view of the same structure in the poem: “(A) introduction, (B) fight with Grendel, © celebrations, (D) fight with Grendel's dam, © celebrations, (B) fight with dragon, (A) close.” Niles relates the ‘kernel’ of this structure [D - the underwater fight] to the Iliad, the Aeneid, the New Testament, and to the Gospel of Nicodemus: because both Odysseus and Aeneas descended to the Underworld, and the Christian story includes the Harrowing of Hell.348 Allusion, and so interlace by intertextuality, is therefore a distinct possibility for this ‘kernel,’ given the place of the Aeneid in British education and the Christian context of Beowulf. It seems, then, that similarities of theme could render such diverse traditions compatible, 344 Tonsfeldt 448. 345 Tonsfeldt 451. 346 Parks, W. “Ring Structure and Narrative Embedding In Homer and Beowulf.” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 3.89 (1988): 237-251(250). 347 Parks 249. 348 Niles, John D. “Ring Composition and the Structure of Beowulf.” Publications of the Modern Language Association 94. 5 (1979): 924-35 (930). 64 although the question of how ring structure came to inform Old English poetry remains open. Niles observes that ring composition structures the Old Testament Jacob cycle; so that is one possibility.349 Parks and Tonsfeldt also cite another in the argument of J. A. Notopoulos: that Homeric techniques of ring structure originated in oral narrative.350 S.A.J. Bradley infers from Tacitus: “[... A]mong the early Germanic peoples poets were the sole formal keepers of their nation’s history–a function which probably continued with increasing importance once the Anglo-Saxons had become immigrants to Britain, and even after the Church had introduced the Roman alphabet and the scriptorium.”351 Chapter 3 noted the same continuity of ancient oral tradition in the Druidic culture of the Celts, but suggested further that, by retaining such individual traditions while drawing on those of the Church, the developers of insular literacies deliberately produced their own cultural tapestry. Anglo-Saxon manuscripts that have survived to the present day are products of this rhetorical interface; and while the Roman Church continued to use Latin in writing and teaching, it moved towards incorporation of the vernacular in areas where the new clerics would mediate with indigenes, as we have seen in the writing of Laws, homilies, histories, and charters. Chapter 3 showed that the Church helped to produce the first pragmatic prose in English–the Law Codes of Ine (688-726) and of Aethelberht of Kent (560-616)–of which, incidentally, the first item interweaves secular and Church interests by referring to “[Theft of] God’s property and the Church’s.”352 Among the first prose texts in English are the vernacular glosses and the commentaries associated with Canterbury: pedagogical texts which, by their nature, interlace both Latin and English. Michael Lapidge has related the major set of Anglo-Saxon glosses to the School of Theodore and Hadrian at Canterbury and to the biblical commentaries produced there on the Pentateuch and the Gospels.353 The commentaries, he explains, “represent the lecture notes of anonymous students recorded from the viva voce explanations given by the two masters;” in addition, the glossaries “show that Theodore and Hadrian gave instruction in books of the Bible other than the Pentateuch and gospels (the subjects of the present biblical commentaries), as well 349 Niles 924. He cites: Fishbane, Michael. "Composition and Structure in the Jacob Cycle (Gen. 25:19-35:22)." Journal of Jewish Studies 36 (1975); 19-32. 350 Tonsfeldt 443-4; Parks 237-239. cf Notopoulos, J. A. “Continuity and Interconnection in Homeric Oral Composition.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 82 (1951): 81-102 (98). 351 Bradley, S. A. J., ed and trans. Anglo-Saxon Poetry. London: J. M. Dent; xiv/xv. 352 Attenborough, F. L., ed. and trans. The Laws of the Earliest English Kings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922; 5. 353 Lapidge, Michael, ed. “Foreword.” Studies in Early Mediaeval Latin Glossaries. By W. M. Lindsay. Varorium Collected Studies Series, CS467. Brookfield, VT: Ashgate Publishing Co; 1996. xvi-xvii. 65 as a wide range of other patristic and grammatical texts.”354 Another set of glosses from Germany references the latter texts, and the main Leiden Glossary (Leiden, Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit, Voss. Lat. Q. 69, 20r-36r) “itself consists of forty-eight batches of glosses, or chapters;” the entire group, however is of “some twenty glossaries all containing some version [...] of the batches of glosses contained in the Leiden Glossary itself.” Lapidge suggests that when the entire set of texts has been analyzed and recorded in detail: “it is possible that the Canterbury school of Theodore and Hadrian will emerge from its present obscurity to be considered as one of the most influential sources of exegetical thought in the early MiddleAges.”355 Description of the use of glosses in monastic schools indicates that the word-lists both contributed to and derived from monastery word-collections: that is monks and their librarians may sometimes have been the first to gloss some manuscripts marginally, but they otherwise transcribed and copied translations for words from previous glosses: either from their own manuscripts or from those they had obtained from other libraries. Ultimately, each establishment amassed its glosses, and maintained its own “dictionaries” for the purpose of instructing its students.356 We might consider the interests of the Canterbury teacher to be interdisciplinary, for Lapidge indicates that they include such diverse subjects as “medicine, philosophy, rhetoric, metrology and chronology;” but he observes, most importantly for the present discussion, that the commentaries often explain scripture in terms of Greek rhetoric–something that exegetes at Antioch had done. Lapidge illustrates this with examples from the tradition of “Theodore of Mopsuestia who used the rhetorical devices of epopoeia and prosopopeia in his commentary on The Psalms in order to facilitate his historical exegesis.” Adducing such evidence to identify Theodore as the “Canterbury Commentator,” Lapidge suggests that the Archbishop, who probably began his career at Antioch or Edessa, had also studied some rhetoric at Constantinople, where the curriculum derived from the work of an “early third-century rhetor Hermogenes,” and included “such subjects as rhetorical invention and the forms of a successful speech.” The Leiden Glossary, which is now in Germany but acknowledged to have originated at Canterbury, reflects interest in another Greek rhetor, Cassiodorus.357 Thus the school 354 Bischoff B. and M. Lapidge. Biblical Commentaries from the Canterbury School of Theodore and Hadrian.” Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England, 10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994; 173. (T&H). 355 Lapidge 173-4: Leiden; 175-6: the group; 179: the probable significance of the school. (T&H). 356 Lapidge “Preface” v-xi; 17 on the final ‘amassing’ into ‘dictionaries,’ (Lindsay). 357 Lapidge 249: on the education and interests of Theodore; 259: on Antiochene rhetoric and Mopsuestia; 260-61: Hermogenes, Theodore and Constantinople; 261-2: cites lines 18-88 of Ch. xxviii of the Leiden Glossary as being “entirely of Greek rhetorical terms for figures and tropes extracted from the Expositio psalmorum of 66 produced rhetoricians from the tradition that we know had informed Roman rhetoric, but with an added concentration on philology that Lapidge identifies as Antiochene.358 I suggest that the bias, which would extend from Canterbury to all the monasteries for whom they supplied scholars and preachers, would have sharpened sensitivity to words and their meanings: to wordplay and polysemy. This would accord with the forms of variation that were already part of the oral tradition in England. Scragg, for example, explains some Anglo-Saxon “poetic diction” as compound words that allowed the poet to manipulate stress as well as meaning. Some of these, such as fyrgenbeamas “mountain trees” (Beowulf 1414), are hapax legomena and Scragg admits the possibility that poets invented them as their contexts demanded. Sometimes compounds appear also as phrases, such as a description of God as tyres brytta ‘distributor of glory’ (Judith 30) which allows antithetical reference to the tyrant Holofernus as morðres brytta ‘distributor of murder’ (90). Scragg uses this example to suggest: “It was this ability to transfer epithets from heroic concepts to religious ones that encouraged the use of traditional verse forms for Christian purposes.” Other words in the poetic lexicon occur frequently as kennings, which Scragg defines as “metaphorical” and “descriptive terms, often periphrastic.” His example, from Beowulf 1012, is: “sincgyfan ‘giver of treasure,’ a reference to the pervasive image of the comitatus ... that is, a body of men who vow total loyalty to a lord in return for gifts.”359 Once more we see a concept –“lord”–that enables heroic/Christian association and variation. In Britain, then the study of words can only have enhanced development of techniques by which concepts echo and re-echo within texts, utilizing alliteration to help link them and so interlace themes–and vernacular techniques themselves–into the cohesive unit of a Christian work. The techniques were especially appropriate to works that would appeal to the ear, whether in poetry or prose. Indeed we find, in Anglo-Saxon prose, many of the same characteristics discussed above for poetry: parallel and chiastic arrangement of clauses, variation and allusion, analogy and allegory. Alliteration, stress, and rhythm all augment and develop these arrangements. Recognizing the devices as “patterns of sound,” Bately includes in the list items that closely resemble “poetic” diction”: “... [V]erbal parallelisms, such as the repetition of a word-stem or word-ending and the use of balanced phrases or clauses, are also commonplace features, along with the use of word-pairs that are either synonymous or closely related in meaning.”360 Thus, I argue, echoes and paranomasia weave meaning into the fabric of poetry or prose: the technique constitutes interlace at a verbal level. Cassiodorus” (261-2). (T&H) 358 Lapidge 245. (T&H) 359 Scragg 65-66. 360 Bately 83. 67 Little prose in Old English survives from the period succeeding the Canterbury productions, and most commentators attribute the lack to Viking depredations; however, the raids also contributed to the dissemination of English texts to Europe. Orchard indicates that the mission of Boniface, too, contributed to the depletion of English resources–of both books and scholars–a situation which did not improve until the time of Alfred. Orchard notes the few texts that survived in the somewhat less maritime Mercia, such as “the Old English Martyrology (a series of brief extracts on individual saints, following the order of the year), the Life of Chad, and the Letter of Alexander to Aristotle.”361 The next collection of prose survived after the inception of Alfred’s eighth-century program to reinstate literacy which, as we saw in Chapter 3, produced laws and many translations, including the Preface to the Cura Pastoralis of Pope Gregory, with its interlace of poetry and prose. Another work attributed to Alfred, as Marsden explains, is the prose translation of the first fifty Psalms, which is now in The Paris Psalter (MS. Bibliotheque Nationale fonds latin 8824), the remaining one hundred Psalms being in poetry.362 Orchard comments further that the prose style of Alfred: “.... employs a wide range of rhetorical devices evidently drawn from both written (Latin) and oral (native) traditions.” The king begins his “Preface” in the style of a Latin letter, but: “...[H]e also employs a number of patterns of alliteration, doublets, wordplay, and other techniques familiar from vernacular Old English verse [...] he even uses a technique found also for example in some early Welsh poetry, where it is described as ‘incremental repetition’: the repetition of words and phrases at the beginning of successive stanzas (or in this case paragraphs).” Orchard believes the inspiration to have been Old English poetry rather than Latin anaphora;363 though I think we should also remember that Alfred experienced Welsh influence, for example through Asser. The extant versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (MSS A - H364), also have insets of poetry, and date from the late ninth century. Cassidy and Ringler indicate that the tradition may have begun as entries in the margins of Easter tables, in Latin, recording major annual events; but historical record in the vernacular took over the Chronicles in the ninth century, possibly as 361 Orchard 210 (Boniface); 214 (Mercian texts). 362 Marsden 116-7: notes that the surviving text is a late eleventh century copy of the original, and that it contains “a Latin text in adjacent columns, though it differs somewhat from the one that must have been used by the translators.”. 363 Orchard 215-216. 364 Mitchell, Bruce, and Fred C. Robinson, eds. A Guide to Old English. 5th ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992; 142: 251.1. cf: C&R 135-137; they list 5 main MSS: A. CCCC 173 (Parker Chronicle); B. BL Cotton Tiberius A. vi; C. BL Cotton Tiberius B. I; D. BL, Cotton Tiberius B. iv; E. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 636 (Peterborough Chronicle) . The Battle of Brunanburh took place in 937 AD; the location is uncertain. 68 part of the reform program under Alfred, and the record-keeping continued in one–the “Peterborough Chronicle”–until 1154. Five of the manuscripts include a version of the Anglo Saxon poem, The Battle of Brunanburh;365 and The Battle of Maldon survives in Bodleian MS. Rawlinson B. 203, as a copy from Cotton MS Otho A. xii.366 The interlacement of poetry and prose returns the discussion to the geminus stilus mentioned in Chapter 3. Wieland extends his analysis to include Aelfric (ca. 955-1010), who was a translator and exegete of Biblical texts, as well as a writer of homilies and alliterative prose. Wieland concludes: “Perhaps Aelfric brings the geminus stilus to its logical conclusion in these works: rather than two works on the same subject, one in verse and one in prose, he writes only one in which he combines both styles.”367 Thus, instead of juxtaposing the two forms in parallel, or of using one to frame the other, Aelfric plaited them together. Peter Clemoes describes the sentences as typically having pairs of phrases–usually two accented elements that are linked by alliteration. He also exemplifies how, by adapting the allegorical method of Gregory the Great, Aelfric uses analogy to illustrate the story in which Christ stands and heals a blind man before moving on into Jericho: Hwæt is þæs Hælendes stede, oððe hwæt is his fær? (What is the saviour’s standing, or what is His moving?) The response: He ferde ðurh his menniscynysse, and he stod þurh þa godcundnysse. (“He moved through His humanity, and He stood through the divinity.’) The stress is mine, showing that alliterations of ‘H’ and ‘f” are notable, but that the crossed alliteration at stede/stod and fær/ferde is especially so: both cases involve polyptoton, a form of variation. The alliteration also stresses the incremental repetition of “hwæt is” and “He ferde ðurh/ he stod þurh;” and further parallelism highlights the wordplay/variation in the antithesis of ‘menniscynysse’ and ‘godcundnysse.’ Clemoes interprets the catechetical structure as reflecting “the two contrastive narrative features of stopping and walking.” He observes: Moreover the referential order of the Gospel narrative, in which Christ’s walking precedes His stopping, is reversed in the question but restored in the answer. A 365 Cassidy, Frederic G., and Richard N. Ringler, eds. Bright’s Old English Grammar & Reader. 3rd ed. 2nd Corrected Printing. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971; 162-167, 135-137. [C&R]. cf Marsden, Richard, ed. The Cambridge Old English Reader. Cambridge: CUP 2004; 86. See also Gransden, A. Historical Writing in England c 550-c 1307 1974; 32-41; also Garmonsway, G. N. ASC. Rev. ed. London 1954; xix-xxv. The Battle of Maldon, in Essex, occurred in 991 AD. 366 Whitelock, Dorothy, ed. Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Reader In Prose and Verse. Rev. Dorothy Whitelock. 15th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967; 116. 367 Wieland, Gernot. “Geminus Stilus: Studies in Anglo-Latin Hagiography.” Insular Latin Studies: Papers on Latin Texts and Manuscripts of the British Isles: 550-1066. Ed. Michael W. Herren. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1981; 113-133 (126). 69 criss-cross patterning thus binds the allegorical process together as a spiritual whole. The stylistic basis which is essential to this is a formal correspondence between parts. Clemoes, explains further: “Aelfric believes that episodic gospel narrative is in an allegorical relationship with general spiritual concepts, in this case Christ’s union of the human and the divine and the operation of his humanity and divinity towards us.”368 Clemoes is concerned with the relationship to music and rhythm and does not here designate the technique as interlace, however he relates the rhetoric to Cicero, who said: “multo maiorem habent apta vim quam solute (‘things that are bound together have much more force than things that are loose’).”369 The discussion reflects the view of Vinaver above, which showed how interlace facilitates analogy; and, further still, the manifestation of divinity through humanity illustrates the insight achieved by Kendrick, when she described “the multiplex, associative, “intertextual” ways divinity was supposed to reveal (but still partially conceal) itself in writing.”370 Although Bately considers that prose writers did not use poetic diction, it is clear that metrical prose shares some of the structure of poetry, and the linking by alliteration is reminiscent of that already witnessed in Irish and Welsh traditions.371 Late tenth-century Christian writers, then, clearly retained insular traditions despite losses while under attack, and Bately indicates: Aelfric certainly knew and used works by Alfred and his contemporaries, and Wulfstan was apparently responsible for the glosses in an early copy of the Pastoral Care. The rhythmical prose of Aelfric and Wulfstan was foreshadowed in earlier homilies in, for instance the Vercelli Book, while Byrhtferth had as one of his sources Aelfric’s De temporibus anni.372 Wulfstan, Archbishop of York, also demonstrates familiarity with both insular and Latin tradition when, in his most famous homily–“Sermo Lupi ad Anglos,” he cites Gildas.373 Wulfstan wrote in both Latin and English, his vernacular works including a number of 368 Clemoes, Peter. Rhythm and Cosmic Order in Old English Christian Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979; 18-19. He cites: The Homilies of th Anglo-Saxon Church. The First Part containing the Sermones Catholici, or Homiles of Aelfric. Ed. B. Thorpe, I (London 1844).156, line 33-158, line 10; and 11-12. The Biblical citation is: Luke 18.35-43; 18.1: Christ, about to enter Jericho, stands to heal the blind man; and then walks through to the city. 369 Clemoes 24. Cites Cicero. Orator. The Loeb Classical Library. Lxviii. 228. 370 Kendrick, Laura. Animating the Letter: The Figurative Embodiment of Writing from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1999; 87/8. 371 Ochard 199 (Welsh); 206 (Irish). 372 Bately 82. 373 Wulfstan. “Sermo Lupi ad Anglos.” (Cotton MS. Nero A.I in the British Museum, ff. 110 ff). Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Reader in Prose and Verse. 15th ed. Rev. Dorothy Whitelock. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967. 85-93 (92, line 176). 70 homilies as well as laws produced for Kings Aethelred (ca. 968/9-1016) and Cnut (ca. 995-1035). The “Sermo” is usually dated to 1014, and a section appears below, demonstrating the techniques often attributed to Wulfstan, such as those Bately mentions: rhythmical alliteration, which appears in: “series of two-stress phrases;” use of the “intensifiers”– “ever,” “greatly,” “widely,” etc; and parallel arrangements of syntax and vocabulary.374 Clemoes suggests: “His practice is more likely to have been an extension of the occasional rhythm of earlier English prose than a direct debt to poetry.”375 Wulfstan wrote: Ac soð is þæt ic secge, / þearf is þære bote / for þam Godes gerihta / wanedan to lange / innan þysse þeode / on æghwylcan 35 ænde, / & folclaga wyrsedan / ealles to swyþe, / & halignessa syndan / to griðlease wide, / Godes hus syndan / to clæne berypte / ealdra gerihta / & innan bestrypte / ælcra gerisena / & wydewan syndan fornydde /on unriht to ceorle / & to mænege foryrmde / & gehynede swyþe, / & earme men syndan / 40 sare beswicene / & hreowlice besyrwde, / & ut of þysan earde / wide gesealde / swyþe unforworhte / fremdum to gewealde /& cradolcild geþeowede / þurh wælhreowe unlaga / forlytelre þyfþe / wide gynd þas þeode / & freoriht fornumene / & þrælriht genyrwde / & ælmæsriht gewanode / &, hrædest is to 45 cweþenne, / Godes laga laðe / & lara forsawene; / & þæs we habbað ealle / þurh Godes yrre / bysmor gelome, / gecnawe se þe cunne; / & se byrst wyrð gemæne, / þeh man swa ne wene, / eallre þysse þeode, / butan God beorge.376 (But what I say is true: there is need for that penance because the dues of God have diminished too long in every region within this land, and the laws of the people have worsened all too greatly, and sanctuaries are too widely violated, and the houses of God too cleanly robbed of all tithes and stripped within of all that is seemly, and widows are wrongly compelled into marriage and too many are impoverished and completely humiliated, and poor men are sorely deceived and cruelly defrauded and are sold far and wide out of this homeland, completely uncondemned, given up to the power of foreigners; and infants enslaved for petty theft by means of cruel distortions of justice, widely throughout this nation, and the rights of freemen are taken away and the rights of slaves restricted and the rights to alms diminished and, in short, the laws of God 374 Bately 84. 375 Clemoes 21. 376 Wulfstan 87 (ll. 33-48). cf Clemoes 22; I have used his punctuation, as he says: “to relate it to the syntax,” and I have stressed to the tironian signs for the same reason. The translation is mine. 71 are hated and his doctrines rejected; and therefore we all are often subject to disgrace, through the anger of God, let him perceive it who can; and this calamity will become common to all this nation, although one may not think so, unless God delivers [us].) The “Sermo” is set in the socio-historical context of an England harried by Vikings; and Wulfstan, seeming to relate the destruction to the imminence of Doomsday, urges the English look to their own Salvation: because their backsliding surpasses even that of the Britons from whom they won the country (cf lines 176, ff).377 Inset within the larger tapestry of words, the section above is both decorative and functional, and it takes the form of a verse paragraph: a single period of the kind identified by Huppe in his analysis of interlace.378 A thesis frames the structure by parallel references to God, and it argues the need to atone for perversion of what is due to Him (Godes gerihta, 34) “... unless He delivers us (God beorge, 48).” The prepositions for þam “because” and butan “unless” form an envelope within which Wulfstan details offenses that occasion the need. The list, as Clemoes observes, constitutes “a single subordinate clause.”379 It is a series of phrases and clausules that depend from “because” in a chain formed by syndetic parataxis. The chain, as we have seen, lies between references of what is due to God (34), but which also frame the description of corruption that results from the laws of men (folclaga wyrsedan, 35) when they ‘reject the laws and lore of God’ (Godes laga laðe / & lara forsawene, 45). Alliteration and echo here highlight the theme of “law” and contrast the laws of God and men; in addition, to an audience who “can hear” and remember, the alliterative echo of folclaga /forsawene extends to resonate with the similar sounds of the verb sawan, “to sow, disseminate.” Wulfstan therefore links to, and intensifies, his earlier theme that God punishes people for their sins: that is, they reap as they sow; and the same suggestion attaches to the Gildas citation at the end of the homily. This period/inset, then, serves as a node or intersection for that theme.380 Variation of riht throughout the section modifies base meanings like “right, 377 The Sermon begins: Leofan men gecnawað þæt soð is: ðeos worolde is on ofste and hit nealæcð þam ende (1-2). [Beloved men, know that which is true: this world is in haste and it nears the end]. Wulfstan confirms the Apocalyptic reference by suggesting referring to the future arrival of AntiChrist (4). 378 Huppe xviii-xx. At xvi Huppe compares the syntax of the poetry to ‘a maze’ - his subject is ‘The Web of Words.’ 379 Clemoes 23. 380 cf lines 9-13, where Wulfstan asserted: ...dæghwamlice man ihte yfel æfter oðrum, and unriht rærde and unlaga manege ealles to wide gynd ealle þas geode, And we eac forþam habbað fela byrsta and bysmara gebiden, and gif we ænige bote gebidan scylan þonne mote we þæs to Gode ernian ... [daily they added evils upon one another and promoted injustice, and many abuses of law, all too widely throughout all this land, and we also therefore have suffered many injuries and insults; and if we are to experience any relief then we must earn this from God ...]. The Gildas reference is: An þeodwita wæs on Brytta tidum, Gildas hatte. Se awrat be heora misdædum, hu /hy mid heora synnum swa oferlice swyþe God gegræmedan, þæt He let æt nyhstan Engla /here heora eard gewinnan, and Brytta dugeþe forðon mid ealle (176-9). There was a learned man, in the time of the Britons, called Gildas. He wrote about their misdeeds, how through their sins they angered God so very excessively that He well nigh allowed the English army to conquer their land, and so the entire host of the Britons. 72 straight, and justice,” and it shows through the compounds: freoriht, þrælriht, ælmæsriht (43-4) that rights fail to materialize for different types of people when riht is corrupted to unriht (wrong, injustice, 38) and laga to unlaga (injustice, violation of law, 42). Thus although Wulfstan may not adduce a stock of poetic diction, he applies the principle of variation to a legal lexicon, and so presents a strand–or theme–that distinguishes between good and bad laws, right and wrong, justice and injustice. Clemoes notes that “The references to specific abuses give cumulative actuality to the general proposition enclosing them.”381 So too, I would add, does the repetition of the conjunction “and”–which is woven into the section seventeen times; and so does use of intensifiers in series: the to’s, and the prefixes for-, and be-, and ge- which stress and re-stress the extent, duration, and degree of the crimes being committed. Triple repetition of wide (widely), swyþe (very much, exceedingly), and ealle (all), reinforces the effect, especially in conjunction with references to the echoic earde and þeode, the ‘country’ and ‘homeland’ that should provide justice and security against the invaders. Wulfstan unifies his theme into a dense verbal and syntactic weave, and so produces an intense, even urgent, affect that is designed to motivate the audience to action. As Clemoes puts it, “His forceful denunciation of the abuses of English society is meant to emphasize a moral message.” Clemoes, discussing the rhythmical aspect of the pattern, adds also that “the regularly rhythmed language is emblematic of the divinely ordained moral order with which our social evils are in conflict.” This study has described interlace, too, as analogizing the spiritual and physical worlds. Here it does so through syntactical rhythm, through clashing and reverberation of diction, and by framing the kingdom and law of England within the Kingdom and Law of God. Clemoes says similarly: My claim is that, literary artists as they [Aelfric and Wulfstan] were, they gave their prose an abstractly conceived rhythmical structure in order to extract from language itself the regular, patterned relationships which they and their contemporaries believed were ubiquitous in a divinely created universe, and which they believed were common to the immaterial and the material and were the apprehensible manifestation of ideal truth.382 Bately considers that Old English prose-writers used the structure but not the diction of poetry–although some applied imagery and enlivened translations by using language that would appeal to the insular imagination: thus they resorted to maritime imagery, and concrete, practical 381 Clemoes 23. 382 Clemoes 22; 23; 24, respectively. 73 comparisons.383 An example occurs at the beginning of the “Sermo” discussed above, when Wulfstan uses litotes to highlight the intensity of the remedy the English require if they are to redeem themselves: and to miclan bryne wæter unlytel, gif man þæt fyr sceal to ahte acwencan (‘and for a great conflagration not a little water, if one is to quench that fire at all’ 18-19) A contemporary of Aelfric and Wulfstan, Byrhtferth of Ramsey, seems also to have practiced geminus stilus, for Bately observes that he interlaced “simple and flamboyant styles; and flowery poetic prose and scientific discourse.” Byrhtferth was a Benedictine monk who was also a teacher, as evidenced by his “Enchiridion, a manual composed ca. 1011 in both Latin and English, whose primary purpose was to instruct pupils about computus, but which also included discussion of figures of speech and numerology.”384 He seems, then, to have continued in a Latin tradition, but one that retained the interdisciplinary elements practiced at Canterbury in the seventh century. The wide range of literature produced in late English schools also extends intertextuality to an incomplete translation of Apollonius of Tyre, which Philip Goepp has described as “the earliest-known version in a European vernacular” of a ‘Romance’ that probably originated in Greece, but now survives only in Latin manuscripts. Goepp comments on the faithfulness of the translation to the original, but notes that the “greater discursiveness and simplicity of the English tends to bring the action closer to the reader.”385 Leyerle discussed one other influence of Roman rhetoric on interlace, when he identified the latter with artificial order as defined in the Scholia Vindobonensis, a text that may have been produced by Alcuin, or his students. This commentary on the Ars Poetica of Horace refers to the technique of beginning a narrative in medias res: “[A]s does Virgil in the Aeneid when he anticipates some things which should have been told later and puts off until later some things which should have been told in the present.” 386 It is possible, even probable, that the producers of the Scholia knew the Ars Poetica itself, and a review of the poem reveals that Horace addresses “order” in the Aeneid thus: 387 383 Bately 85. 384 Bately 85-6 on style; 73 on purpose and content. 385 Goepp, Philip H, 2nd. “The Narrative Material of Apollonius of Tyre.” English Literary History 5. 2 (1938): 150-172 (150 the origin; 172 the English translation). 386 Leyerle 151. He explains: “The Scholia is an 8th century commentary on Horace’s Ars Poetica, which Josephus Zechmeister associated with Alcuin or his school” (iii). Leyerle cites: Scholia Vindobonensia ad Horatii Artem Poeticam, ed. Josephus Zechmeister (Vienna, 1877); 4-5. 387 Leyerle 152 (achronicity and association). Horace. The Art of Poetry: A Verse Translation with an Introduction by Burton Raffel (AP) . With the original Latin text of Horace’s Ars Poetica. Prose Trans. and Biographical Note, James Hynd. Notes, David Armstrong. Afterword W. R. Johnson. New York: State University of New York Press; 1974. 74 As to order, what gives it excellence and appeal, unless I am mistaken, is this: that in the poem he proposes an author should say now what requires to be said now, should put most things off and omit them under the demands of the present, embrace this, scorn that.388 The technique encourages juxtaposition and achronicity, and therefore freedom of mental association, as Leyerle recognized. Horace is also consistent with other characteristics of interlace when he speaks of mixing and separating things appropriately so as to produce a unified work, one that is: “simple in material, single in form.”389 The discussion in this chapter suggests that decorative insets in Anglo-Saxon poetry are ways of presenting various perspectives on a single topic, thus contributing both to unification and to development of themes. W. R. Johnson offers a present-day commentary on this aspect of variation in AP: Horace’s poem is simple only in the sense that it makes sense; it has admirable unity, and that unity is supplied by incredible and audacious variations. What Horace is telling prospective poets is: learn the art of variation after you have learned how to play the scales.”390 Johnson also notes how Horace responds to disagreements about the roles of art and nature in poetry: the poet suggests extending those attributes to include genius on the side of art, and hard work on that of nature.391 Horace concludes: “You find that, as the subject varies, it calls for the help of one or the other and reconciles the two [art and nature] without trouble.”392 The conflict between genius and discipline in literary work has parallels in the interlacement of cultures, and Nils Aberg infers such conflict between Anglo-Saxon, Classical, and Irish approaches to the plastic and manuscript arts. He thus describes insular decoration and animal interlace as “overloaded,” applying the epithet especially to “the most magnificent” example, the Book of Kells, which he dates to ca. 800. He claims that the “restless dynamics” of the Celts conflicted with Classical restraint and balance, and that English students of zoomorphic interlace brought similar “orderliness and precision” to the work, and “balance and sobriety” to the decoration; and he views the effects as combining and reconciling in the Kells and Lindisfarne manuscripts. The conclusion Aberg reaches, though, is that Irish and Germanic animal interlace had developed separately until they met in Northumbria; and that: “from the 388 Horace 33, 42-45: “ordinis haec virtus erit et venus, aut ego fallor,/ ut iam nunc dicat iam nunc debentia dici,/pleraque differat et praesens in tempus omittat;/hoc amet, hoc spernat promissi carminis auctor.” Trans. Hynd 45, sect. 16. 389 Horace 32; 23: “ simplex dumtaxat et unum.” Trans. Hynd 44, sect. 9. 390 Johnson 78 (AP). 391 Johnson 77 (AP). 392 Horace 40-41; 408-411 (410-411). “... alterius sic/ altera poscit opem res et coniurat amice.” Trans. Hynd 60, sect. 129. 75 very beginning the Irish style stands out as the superior and the influencing element, before which the Germanic elements retire.”393 However accurate Aberg may be about plastic arts, his perception clearly does not extend to the literature of the Anglo-Saxons, which did not retreat from the Irish. The evidence suggests, rather, that they developed their tradition in parallel with those of the Celts. As we have seen above, it seems possible that the writers who followed Theodore, Hadrian, and Bede may have learned from other models, like Horace, how to reconcile the conflict between discipline and emotion; and perhaps they would agree with Johnson that: “Freedom and discipline are more or less the same thing after you have learned to fly.”394 In their case, that might mean: ‘once Celts and Anglo-Saxons both understand how to apply the techniques of knotwork.’ Horace in fact comments on the interweaving of literary cultures, and on reinforcing the power of a nation by use of rhetoric. He initially upholds Greek examples for rhetoric, exhorting his writer: “You should return again and again, day and night, to the models offered by the Greeks.”395 He continues, though: Our poets left nothing untried; and not the least glory was won by those who dared to depart from the path of the Greeks and to celebrate national achievements, those who produced Roman comedy of both types–refined and common. And Rome’s power would be felt not less in its language than in its courage and success in war, if our poets, one and all, did not balk at the labor and time required in giving a work finish. 396 If the Romans were encouraged to emulate the Greeks, then surely the people who had successfully evaded Roman conquest–Anglo-Saxons, Scandinavians, the Irish, and some Britons–would recognize that their traditions already had elements by which they too could augment secular power: through achievement in vernacular literature? The foregoing analyses suggest that they aimed for such achievement by combining their literary resources and traditions under the scholarship of the Church. I believe they did so by weaving together the techniques from different cultures as described above. Since, as Lapidge has observed, “no 393 Aberg I.107, 110, 118-119. 394 Johnson AP 78-79. 395 Horace 37, 268-269: vos exemplaria Graeca/nocturna versate manu, versate diurna.Trans. Hynd 54, sect. 85. 396 Horace 38, 285-288: “nil intemptatum nostri liquere poetae,/nec minimum meruere decus vestigia Graeca/ausi deserere et celebrare domestica facta,/ vel qui praetextas vel qui docuere togatas./ nec virtute foret clarisve potentius armis/quam lingua Latium, si non offenderet unum/quemque poetarum limae labor et mora.” Trans. Hynd 55, sects. 90, 91. David Armstrong explains: “Fabulae praetextae, tragedies on Roman historical themes; togatae, comedies with Roman, instead of conventional Greek New Comedy, settings,” 68, note 90. 76 schools of rhetoric were still functioning in the Latin West during the seventh century,” it seems likely that Anglo-Saxon education continuously developed a precedent first encouraged in the schools of Theodore the Greek educator and Archbishop, and Hadrian, the African Abbot.397 By juxtaposing and interweaving insular and Mediterranean traditions, the English not only wove the separate strands into one Christian fabric, they also acted as an intersection: from which they contributed to the survival and growth of rhetoric in Christian Europe. As Thomas Cahill remarked of the relationship between Anglo-Saxon and Irish scholars, “If Christians of different tribes had in all ages cooperated with one another as did these men and women, the world would be a very different place.”398 397 Lapidge 261 on the Latin West; on the English schools cf Bede, “Preface” 42; Farmer, “Introduction” 29. 398 Cahill 202. 77 TABLE 4.1: Techniques and Their Purposes in Interlace–After Bartlett. Technique Purpose Envelope organization of verse paragraphs To frame or bind logical units (19). using: Repetition of (1) words, or (2) ideas, or (3) words and ideas that enclose the unit (9). Chiasmus (19). Parallel Groups: elaborate simple parallel To “give the effect of close similarity of sentences into longer passages. A Parallel form”(30). group has two or more parts that are balanced Vary, augment, and emphasize the original in structure or phraseology (30). thought (31). Subdivisions include: Repetition, (a variation or echo; -- “not exactly apposition,”) (31; 30-33). Relate thoughts (or pictures)to each other Balance: the members differ in -- content - (33). form a pair or series (33). Antithesis (31). Parallels create contrasts (not agreements) of types or logic (46, 48). Incremental Pattern (49-61): Narrative Cumulative force (47). To repeat, vary, progression in a series -- of up to five amplify, or reinforce the original thought (49, parallel steps; each step is a logical unit 57). repeating, varying, or amplifying the first cf: Beowulf 702 ff; Judith 199 ff. (49). Rhythmical Pattern: Clustering of Expanded Logic and rhetoric build to a climax; [hypermetric] lines) (62-71). gradually decline to conclusion (63). A)In a pattern of distribution -- which Purpose obscure. Suggestions include: I) resembles a bell-shaped curve (63). organizing principle is emotion not rhetoric; B) Massed at beginnings or ends -- ii) poet was a singer and the pattern is for of logical units (68). breathing; iii) pattern misunderstood: C) In “interlaced parallels”(65). -- inherited from earlier Saxon culture (68-71). Ornamentation: “like arabesque motif in a curtain or carpet” (65). Decorative Inset Decorative; Gnomic, homiletic, lyric, [Ornamental Digression] (72-90) didactic, elegiac, runic, macaronic descriptive, narrative (109). Introductory formulas. Concluding [Provide frame] Introductory. Explanatory, formulas. Dialogue (91-106). homiletic, summary. Overall Purpose: Production of pictures and spaces in a tapestry; decorative, non-narrative feeling; to elicit emotions (108, 110, 113). 78 TABLE 4.2: Techniques and Their Purposes in Interlace–After Leyerle. Anglo-Saxon Beowulf Technique Purpose Strands of theme and narrative connect Overall Purpose of Interlace Technique: one section of narrative to another to Produce an overall design made up of narrative “episodes” complete an overall design (148). (148). Understatement (152). Inherent in interlace structure. Leyerle associates this with juxtaposition, absence of authorial commentary, etc (152). As a form of irony, it fits well with what Leyerle identifies as “the major theme of Beowulf, “the fatal contradiction at the core of heroic society” - the hero as the seeker of individual glory vs “a king who acts for the common good, not for his own glory” (152/3). Juxtaposition (152) Allow audience to interpret without intervention by narrator; Reveal the meaning of coincidence; show– without telling the related significance of incidents. (152). Themes cross and juxtapose: give tension and force (156) Repetition (152) e.g. Show recurrences of human behavior (152). Circular structure; circularity of events Enable juxtapositions and reversals (152). in time (152) Reversals inhere in the structure (157): Juxtapose: beginnings and endings; victories and defeats [either in circularity, or in ‘bending (157). back’ of strands] Intersections (153) Present the viewer with different viewpoints on narrative or theme (153). Complex interconnections (156) Reveal “interwoven coherence” [and] “resonances” [of meaning] (156). (Complex) artificial order: begins in Produce interlace structure (for narrative poetry) (151). medias res and order of events is ‘Complex’ from plicare: to pleat, fold. atemporal (151) Leyerle suggests this might indicate that Beowulf was for private (not public) readers(151). Render relations between events more important than temporal sequence (156). 79 TABLE 4.3: Techniques and Their Purposes in Interlace–After Vinaver. 13th Century French Technique Purpose Interweaving of themes. Overall Purposes of Interlace Technique: and units of narrative. Provide unity and diversity as well as growth. Present character as driven by Destiny. Aesthetics and Ornament. Entertain and fascinate (91/920). Juxtaposition of analogous incidents. Clarify and explain details (105). Repetition. Add depth; interaction of different incidents - of tragic pattern (83/4). intensify and foreground tragedy (85). Cyclic: narrative threads in curves, spirals, Give “movement and depth” - sense of “potential and entwined vegetation (77). infinity,” unending growth (78). Amplificatio (74/5; 85). Provide growth (75/6). Digressio. Remind of past events, or anticipate the future. Diversio. Introduce new matter; change themes; provide growth (75/6). Analogy. Deepen significance by interaction and resonance -presenting material on 2 levels: (101/2). multiple approaches. Achieve credibility (100). -“Historical” and Geographical Arrive at knowledge and understanding. detail like real chronicle. Induce awe by comparing real with supernatural -combine fiction and chronicle. (95). Induce emotional response: e.g. foreboding (101). Provide verisimilitude (111). Provide similarity to contemporary hagiographies. Symbolism (105). Connect natural and supernatural; enables analogy (105). Combination of atemporal and Provide causal order within narrative (99). chronological storylines. 80 CHAPTER 5 INTERLACE AND THE LINDISFARNE GOSPELS It is reasonable to suppose that study of the readership, authorship, and use of the Lindisfarne Gospels (BL, Cotton Nero Div) can contribute to understanding of the culture for which the manuscript was produced. The present section therefore suggests that we can derive such insight about intellectual and social responses to the Gospels if we identify and interpret some of the clues in the script, illustration, and various kinds of space surrounding the text. This chapter discusses the factors in terms of interlace, because that is a salient characteristic of the Lindisfarne Gospels (LFG) which, like all texts, provide an intersection between their producers and audiences. The approach is to survey cultural factors informing the context and provenance of the manuscript and then to consider how such concerns interlace within it. Michael Clanchy, however, made an important point about our position, as we try to understand Anglo-Saxon England: Everything to do with writing in medieval Christendom had a potential transcendent significance, and this creates difficulties for the modern historian asking utilitarian questions and looking for representation of actual daily life in medieval images.399 Although anachronism darkens the view, Christians today study the same Bible, and we retain insight into the traditions by which it presents the relationship between mankind and God. This section therefore turns on the role of Christianity in post-Roman Northumbria, where codices like LFG were made, used, and glossed into English; and it explores the intellectual dynamics between the theology and literacy of the Christian producers of the Codex and the interests of Anglo-Saxons, who transmitted their culture by oral and visual means. The discussion accomplishes this first by general consideration of provenance, context, and codicology of the manuscript, and then by closer analysis of the illuminated Latin script, the interlace, and the English gloss. As the latter elements are typically present in the Generationis Page of St. Matthew’s Gospel,400 analysis of this page sharpens the focus of the study.401 The first objective in contextualizing the manuscript and the events leading to its 399 Clanchy, Michael. From Memory to Written Record: England 1066-1307. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993; 118. 400 “The Lindisfarne Gospels.” London BL., Cotton Nero D. IV. F27 (cat 9). Lindisfarne Gospels, The. The British Library, London. 05 Dec. 2009. 81 production is to establish date and provenance; and in fact both are approximations. Although tradition dates the manuscript to AD 698, Michelle Brown argues that it was probably produced ca. 710-25.402 Of the possible origins of LFG, one is Ireland; three, however, are in Great Britain: Iona, Monkwearmouth-Jarrow, and Lindisfarne. Scholarly opinion therefore favors sites which are near the Scottish Marches and Northumbria. Brown concedes that Lindisfarne, the traditionally accepted provenance, is most likely.403 History shows that influences on the area continued to be cosmopolitan in range even after the Roman occupation, and that the Anglo-Saxons at Lindisfarne and Bamburgh had links to Canterbury as well as to Ireland, Scotland, Gaul, and Rome. The society included both pagans and Christians, often from mutually hostile tribes: Pictish, Irish, and British Celts; and the Anglo-Saxons contended for survival against them and each other. Some of their warrior and scholar kings, however, acted to unite the tribes under Christianity: that is, they practiced cultural interlace. Chapter 3 evidenced pre-Anglian Christianity at Vindolanda and also at Whithorn, in Scotland, where Ninian had founded the Candida Casa ca.401 AD; and by the time Bede wrote, Whithorn was a province of Bernicia. After the Romans left, the Irish had colonized the Solway Plain, north of Dumbarton, ca.500 AD; the area was named Dalriada after them. Further north, ca.565 AD, an Irish Prince, Columba (521-597) converted the northern Picts and founded a monastery on the Island of Iona.404 Furthermore, Brown adduces onomastics to suggest that, to the east, Eccles (near Coldstream) “lying inland from Bamburgh on the middle Tweed, may signify an earlier Christian presence in the vicinity of Holy Island itself.”405 To the south, in central Northumberland, Roman troops at York had proclaimed Constantine Emperor in AD 306, significance lying in his introduction of religious tolerance through the Edict of Milan in AD 313; he discouraged the persecution of Christians pursued by Diocletian (284-305).406 Bede records the disruptive effects of Arian and Pelagian heresies on sub-Roman Britain ca. AD 324 and 394 respectively), and he notes also the backsliding of Christians after the Roman exodus.407 402 Brown, Michelle P. The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality, and the Scribe. London: British Library, 2003; 7, 84. 403 Brown 8; 396. 404 Bede 47: I.1; Aberg 9, f/n 13 cites Kenney, J. F. The Sources for the Early History of Ireland. NY: Columbia UP, 1929; 423. Farmer believes Columba was not so influential; and, “According to Adomnan (Abbot of Iona 679-704) there were some Anglo-Saxon monks at Iona in Columba’s day before 597,” (EHEP, f/n P148, page 368. cf “Columba.” Oxford Dictionary of Saints. Ed. D. H. Farmer. Oxford: OUP, 1987.) 405 Brown 17. 406 Bede 54/5: I.8. Cook, William R. and Ronald B. Herzman. The Medieval World View: An Introduction (C&H). 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004; 54, 91. 407 Bede 54-5, I.8; 56, I.10; and 61-2, I.14. “Sylvester I” [314-35] ODP 28: The Nicene Creed pronounced “the Son ‘one in being’ with the Father” in rejection of “the teaching of Arius that he was a creature, inferior to the Father.” “Innocent I” ODP 37 discusses Pelagius. cf “Pelagius ca. 354-419." The Oxford Companion to English 82 Some scholars, too, argue that paganism continued among the British, 408 and we do not know whether Christianity continued at Lindisfarne; however, Chapter 3 of this study mentions that Germanic federates could have retained Bamburgh as a stronghold or signal station, and they were probably pagans.409 The earliest Northumbrian king Bede mentions, however, is Ida (AD 547-559);410 and the later Anglo-Saxon settlers brought an influx of paganism. Literacy in runes, too, may have arrived with the Anglo-Saxon settlers: Chapter 3 mentioned that the earliest runic inscription in England is probably fifth century and Danish. Runes had certainly reached Lindisfarne by 698, when monks carved them into the coffin of St. Cuthbert, to identify the figures of Christ, Matthew, Mark, and John; Roman characters flagging St. Luke and other figures.411 The interlacing of scripts that began at Canterbury to allow transcription of English phonology had, then, already reached Northumbria, and it would appear also in LFG. Such blending of Christian and pagan literacies in a sacred book reflects the approach to conversion that Gregory the Great sanctioned in 597, when he approved the adaptation of pagan shrines into Christian churches.412 The re-conversion of Northumbria began when Paulinus, who had been sent to Britain by Pope Gregory, became the first Bishop of York (AD 625-633). He brought with him from Canterbury the daughter of Ethelbert of Kent, as bride for Edwin (ca. 616-32), thus uniting the interests of two Anglo-Saxon tribes. Brown indicates that Gregory wanted “a second metropolitan see” at York;413 and Edwin was baptized in 627, Paulinus proceeding then to evangelize the kingdom until Edwin was killed in 633.414 Rollason notes that, after Edwin died, “His two successors, Osric who ruled Deira, and Æthelfrith’s son Eanfrith who returned from exile in the north to rule Bernicia, reverted to paganism.”415 The next son of Æthelfrith to reign was Oswald (ca. AD 633-642), however; and he and his half-brother Oswiu (ca. 642-670) Literature. Ed. Margaret Drabble. 6th ed. Oxford: OUP 2000.[OCEL]: states that Pelagius was a British monk called Morgan, who “denied the doctrine of original sin,” believing that mankind chooses goodness out of free will, without grace. 408 Rollason 117 n.14 cites: Blair, John. “Anglo-Saxon Shrines and their Prototypes.” Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 8 (1995): 1-28; Ross, Anne. Pagan Celtic Britain: Studies in Iconography and Tradition. London: Routledge, 1967; Thomas, Charles. Christianity in Roman Britain to AD 500. London: Batsford, 1981. 409 Rollason 66; 75. 410 Bede 326, V.24. 411 Page, R. I. Reading the Past. London: Trustees of the British Museum. 1987; 9, 42. 412 Bede 92: I.30. 413 Brown 78, n. 11. 414 Rollason 118. Bede 131, II.14. 415 Rollason 119. See attached Genealogy from Farmer 380 (EHEP). 83 became Christian while exiled and growing up in Iona. They therefore restored the status of Christianity and, in 635, Oswald extended the Irish-Celtic element to the east coast by bringing Aidan and his disciples from Iona to establish a monastery at Lindisfarne.416 The king thus began to stabilize a Christian matrix, uniting the cultures in his kingdom under one religion. Later, and further south, a disciple of Aidan, Chad, would seat his Bishopric at Lichfield from AD 669-672.417 Thomas Cahill views such expansion as part of a “spiritual invasion” by the Irish, observing: “Nor was Lindisfarne the only launching pad for the Irish monks: they were on good terms with the British Celts and began to set up bases in the western territories as well.”418 The hegemony of Anglo-Saxon Christians ensured that more strands of cosmopolitan culture interlaced on the coast near Bamburgh, from which Lindisfarne is visible. It was during the reign of Egfrith (r.670-85, son of Oswiu), that Benedict Biscop (AD ?628-89) established two more Christian foundations nearby: at Monkwearmouth (AD 674) and Jarrow (AD 681). He had, however, begun amassing libraries as early as AD 665. Brown notes: So Benedict collected books from Italy, where he may also have acquired Byzantine tomes, from Gaul and presumably also from southern England, bearing in mind that he served for a time as abbot of St. Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury where the school of Theodore and Hadrian flourished. After Benedict died, Abbott Ceolfrith continued to build the libraries in the area.419 Strands of insular culture still contributed to the fabric of Northumbria. Charles-Edwards suggests that the defeat and death of Egfrith at Nechtanesmere (AD 685) set the stage for a Pictish-Irish comeback; and certainly King Nechtan’s correspondence with Abbot Ceolfrid, ca. AD 710, reflects subsequently happier relations between Picts and Northumbrians.420 Although the Synod of Whitby (AD 664) ensured the dominance of Roman rather than Celtic orthodoxy, Irish influence persisted in Northumbria, and doubtless supplemented interest in the libraries. Janet Backhouse points out that Aldfrith (ca. 685-705), had returned from exile in Ireland to succeed Egfrith: and Aldfrith spoke Irish; remained friendly with his teachers and Adamnan of Iona; and encouraged Latin scholarship.421 Precedents from these influences could have prompted the production of a codex such as 416 Bede 140-147, III.1-3. 417 “Chad Gospels, The.” Lichfield Cathedral: Lichfield Cathedral Inspires, Cathedral Treasures. 2005-2009. Arka Design. 05 Dec. 2009. 84 LFG. Among the possible sources for intertextuality, Brown and Backhouse cite: 1) Codex Usserianus Primus (Dublin, Trinity College Library MS 55; late 6th or early 7th century).422 2) Cathach of St. Columba (Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, MS s.n; 6th or early 7th century). 3) Book of Durrow (Dublin, Trinity College Library MS 57; post 660s A.D.).423 In addition, other Gospel Books were being produced in the insular context, two of which Brown attributes to Irish or Columban inspiration: 1) Durham Gospels [DG] (Durham Cathedral Library, MS A,II,17; approx. contemporary with LFG).424 Backhouse identified this as “the first such work from an English centre to display interlace patterns and to be executed in several colours.” [Yellow, orange, green and blue.]425 2) Echternach Gospels (Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, MS lat, 9389); which are contemporary with DG, but could have been produced in Frisia.426 In addition, possible influences from European Codices include:427 1) Codex Grandior - Possibly by Cassiodorus. (Illustrated). 6th century.4282. 2) Novem Codices - Possibly by Cassiodorus. (‘Old Latin’). 6th century. 3) The Septuagint - Vulgate, by St. Jerome transmitted via Cassiodorus and Hadrian. Italian Gospelbook with Neapolitan Pericopes.429 While Brown considers the Septuagint to be the main exemplar for LFG,430 she believes that Monkwearmouth and Jarrow subsequently produced other books, including the Codex Amiatinus. Like LFG, these codices adapted outside sources; however, Brown indicates that they were all based on the Vulgate of Jerome, and she argues that he and Pope Damasus (r.366-384) promoted translation of the Gospels into vernacular languages. She says: The prefaces to the Gospels known as the Monarchian prologues (that 422 Brown 230; item 2 also.. 423 Backhouse 36. 424 Backhouse, Janet. The Lindisfarne Gospels. London: Phaidon, 1981; 36, It. 5. 425 Backhouse 111. 426 Brown 55; 30. 427 Brown 63. 428 Brown 155: Cassiodorus ca. 485-580; a Roman Senator who founded the Vivarium on his own estate. Ceolfrith probably brought a copy of Codex Grandior (not extant) to Wearmouth-Jarrow; the Gospels are believed to have been Vulgate, other NT in Old Latin. 429 Brown 34. 79 n 41; Cites Bischoff B. and M. Lapidge. Biblical Commentaries from the Canterbury School of Theodore and Hadrian. Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England, 10. Cambridge: CUP, 1994; 133 n. 1; 158-60. 430 Brown 55, 63, 158. 85 summarized conventional wisdom concerning the authorship of the four Gospels), which are embedded in the arguments preceding each of the Gospels in Lindisfarne, reinforced the idea of committing oral tradition to writing, stating as they do the authority from whom each evangelist heard their Gospel.431 The Prologues, then, seem to indicate a precedent for Hadrian and Theodore, who had encouraged writing and preaching in the vernacular.432 However, the vernacular gloss to LFG was added only in the tenth century; and the scribe of LFG, therefore, seems to have needed to find other ways to appeal to his contemporary audience. It is axiomatic that the Bible is essential to the preaching of Christianity, and missionaries may have seen that it held relevance for a Northumbrian audience. Patrick Wormald suggests that use of the Book “gave Anglo-Saxons a warrant for a sincere change in their faith without a revolution in their society,” because the Old Testament “was the story of another tribal people with a special relationship to the God of Battles.”433 Although Gospel books contain the New Testament, this discussion will show that LFG interlaces with the Old Testament; and missionaries in Great Britain certainly addressed warriors who expressed themselves orally, and in military and visual arts–like metalwork–rather than Latin literacy. Patterns of interlace could interest such an audience. Further still, the members of Northumbrian audiences spoke a variety of languages and engaged in other occupations such as sheep and cattle farming, and in the domestic weaving industry.434 They thus could provide skills, as well as parchment and other materials, for constructing the manuscript. Neil Ker describes LFG as containing 258 folios of 340 x 250 mm, and as having the general layout: Written space 235 x 190 mm. Two cols. Of 24 lines. Quires of 8 leaves. Hair normally outside all sheets. Pricks to guide ruling on the outer pair of bounding lines in each margin. Ruling often on both sides of the leaf. Latin text written between a pair of ruled lines. Binding of A.D. 1853, set with silver and polished stones. MS. in Anglo-Saxon majuscule of s. viii in., described by Lowe 1935, no.187. OE gloss of s.x.435 On the lacing together of the quires, Brown observes: The Lindisfarne Gospels is now sewn upon five cords, and the sewing holes 431 Brown 156-159. 432 Ch. 4 pg. 46ff. cf. Wormald 8 (W&B). 433 Wormald, Patrick. “Anglo-Saxon Society and its Literature.” The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature. Eds. Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. 1-22 (6-7). 434 Rogers 129 (CHWT). 435 Ker, N. R. Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon. Oxford: Clarendon, 1957; 216. [The size translates as: 13.386" x 9.843"] 86 would tend to suggest that this is likely to have been the original arrangement: sewing on supports with five sewing stations (the points at which the sewing needle penetrated the gutter of the quire to allow it to loop round the cord), kettle stitches (the long stitches which took the needle from the upper and lower sewing stations to the endbands) and endbands (or headbands, additional cords at head and foot which were oversewn to consolidate the spine and prevent insect penetration). There are some small additional adjacent holes which suggest that the placing of the sewing stations was initially laid out with dividers. Brown believes that ‘Coptic’ sewing technique was never used on the manuscript.436 The sewing of the quires shows that the producers used their own needlecraft and did not rely on outsiders for learning the skill. This, along with the prickings, parchment arrangement of “hair side out,” and script, all confirm the insular origin of the manuscript. The large size and number of pages both suggest contents of sufficient significance to the producers to justify the slaughter of a large number of calves for reasons other than food and clothing; and the intensive work, time, and care involved in production of the codex supports that observation. The existence of Anglo-Saxon majuscule informs us of sufficient insular literacy for its development; however, the origin of the script is Roman, like the Latin of the text; and the Anglo-Saxon adaptation indicates a tendency, noticeable throughout this discussion, for insular culture to incorporate external systems for its own purposes. The survival of LFG, through Viking invasions, the Norman Conquest, and the Dissolution of the Monasteries, bespeaks a tradition of valuing the manuscript, a suggestion confirmed by the richness of its nineteenth century rebinding. The contents of the Codex, as described by Janet Backhouse, include a variety of styles: A Cross Carpet Page; Saint Jerome’s Letter to Pope Damasus; Saint Jerome’s Commentary on Matthew; an Explanatory Letter of Eusebius to Carpianus, and sixteen consecutive pages of decorated Eusebian canon tables. Preceding each Gospel is: an Introduction, a list of liturgical readings, and another of festivals appropriate to passages from the Gospel; a Miniature of the Evangelist; a Cross Carpet Page; and an Incipit or Initial Page, of which St. Matthew’s Gospel has two. The second, the Chi-Rho Page, announces the birth of Christ.437 The tenth century Northumbrian glossator translated the Latin text into the literary vernacular of a later insular audience. This suggests that a sufficiently large or powerful audience required translation into English, and not in a Scandinavian language, Irish, Welsh, or Pictish. As Chapter 4 showed, Lapidge has determined that glosses were used as references for students and translators in monastery schools. Demand for glosses to this manuscript may, 436 Brown 205-6. 437 Backhouse 17, 33. 87 therefore, have increased if the monastic community grew during the tenth-century Benedictine reforms. Brown has suggested, also, that “promotion of Old English” in the area may have participated in resistance against Viking expansion during the reign of Eric Bloodaxe (d. 954); and it is possible that the glosses could also indicate support for the kingdom of Wessex and its “agenda of translation as an essential adjunct to unification and national spiritual wellbeing.” Such support could have been politically expedient in view of the vulnerability of the monks of St. Cuthbert, near the Scottish border. Barbara Crawford notes that, by 1000 AD, the Irish had crossed from Dalriada to incorporate central and eastern Scotland: “into Pictland and up the Great Glen into Moray and Ross.” While this had the advantage of a strengthening resistance to Vikings, she continues: They had subsumed the Pictish kingdom and engineered–unwittingly or deliberately–the collapse and disappearance of Pictish language and culture, although the joint kingdom of the Picts and Scots was probably based on remnant Pictish institutions. The area, which would eventually be recognized as “the medieval kingdom of the Scots,” was described as Alba “ca. 900.”438 It is in this context then, that Brown mentions: “Bishop Aelfsige and Aldred accompanying Kenneth, King of Alba, to Wessex, perhaps as diplomatic mediators and presumably with the intention of safeguarding the community of St. Cuthbert’s interests in negotiations concerning the English/Scottish frontier zone.”439 The tenth century Colophon (f. 259r), names the producers of the book. Brown translates, conceding that the attributions might be accurate:440 Eadfrith, Bishop of the Lindisfarne church, originally wrote this book, for God and for St. Cuthbert and – jointly – for all the saints whose relics are in the island. And Æthelwald, Bishop of the Lindisfarne islanders, impressed it on the outside and covered it– as he well knew how to do. And Billfrith, the anchorite, forged the ornaments which are on it on the outside and adorned it with gold and with gems and also with gilded-over silver– pure metal. And (I) Aldred, unworthy and most miserable priest, [He] glossed it in English between the lines with the help of God and St. Cuthbert [...].441 Brown suggests, though, that Billfrith might have applied his skill, in the Coptic 438 Crawford. “The Vikings.” (After Rome) 41-71 (44). 439 Brown 85: mentions that the community was very small until the reforms; 98: refers to the political situation. cf Ch.4 on Lapidge. 440 Brown 114, 208. 441 Brown 103-4. 88 tradition, to a case for the manuscript rather than to a binding.442 Either way, the value of the metal and jewels described manifests the reverence in which the clerics held their legacy of the Word of God; and it invites comparison with the armor within which the Anglo-Saxon warrior enclosed his breast and heart. The chest was also where the scop locked the wordhord (or breosthord) for his tribe; and we have seen that Druids had also prized a tradition of esoteric learning for the Celts. The Levites, though, had kept the Law of Moses in the Ark of the Covenant, as St. Paul reminded the Hebrews: And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of all; (4.) Which had the golden censer and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant; (Epistle to the Hebrews 9. 3-4). In all these examples, words, wisdom, and history, were viewed as community treasures, and along with Judaeo-Christian theology they became intellectual meeting points for the audiences of LFG–whether their cultures were oral or literate. The foregoing remarks about LFG offer suggestions as to its cultural appeal and interlacement with Christian theology: and analysis of the St. Matthew Generationis page of the Codex (f. 27) further supports the argument. Wormald comments that genealogies interested English Christian society because it was aristocratic; Rollason indicates, though, that the houses of Deira and Bernicia were among the Anglo-Saxon nobility who traced their origins to the pagan god, Woden.443 John Niles has shown that Christians recognized such characters early, without crediting divinity to them: “Instead, they euhemerized them: they identified them as real human beings, and thus they yoked them into history and into the Christian worldview.”444 At this intersection with paganism, Christian art presented the Germanic tribes with another perspective; as Jane Hawkes has explained: “The significance of the genealogy of Christ thus highlighted in the manuscripts was the demonstration it was perceived to offer of Christ’s human and divine descent.”445 While St. Matthew traced Christ to Abraham, the Book of Genesis traces all human descent beyond that, through Noah to Adam;446 and Niles mentions that by the ninth century the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle extended West-Saxon lineage through Woden to Noah, thereby relating the nobility to Christ–as well as integrating them into the Christian family.447 442 Brown 208. 443 Wormald 7. Rollason 114: on genealogies and Woden. 444 Niles, John. “”Pagan Survivals and Popular Beliefs.” The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature. Eds. Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1991; 126-141 (135). 445 Hawkes 120. 446 Matt. 2; Genesis chapters 4 through 11. 447 Niles 135. 89 Since LFG was a monastic book, some of the audience would understand the Latin text, and the symbolism of the design would also resonate for them because it enhances the theology of the words. Although the lettering seems at first more decorative than decipherable, the richness of the illumination parallels the significance of the binding: as a physical manifestation of spiritual value. To achieve this, the artist used the Columban technique of diminuendo, added gilding, and further adapted the handicraft techniques by applying Hiberno-Saxon interlace: an abstract patterning that decorates: I) the shapes of the Great Letters (LIb); ii) the background frame of the plain e and r of Row One; iii) the outer frame of the design; and also, iv) forms horizontal bands in which are set Rows Two and Three of the text. The script of St. Matthew f. 27 begins above the framed text. There, a cross that is also a chi-rho symbol is followed by Ihs, and Χρs (Christ. Jesus Christ). Latin text in half-uncial characters introduces the Gospel writer, Mattheus homo, thus stressing the symbol of St. Matthew: “the man.” Brown indicates that St. Ambrose had suggested the symbol could be a reminder of Christ Incarnate.448 The facsimile of the Codex explains that here, as at the beginning of each Gospel, the top line was originally in powdered gold. Gold leaf appears elsewhere on the page: in the tail of the I, six circular patches are gilded, as are two triangular patches at the tops of L and b;449 and although the gilding is incomplete, it indicates the precious quality of the text. As Wormald observes, decoration of this kind “reproduces the motifs hitherto used by smiths to adorn the weapons and jewellery of a warrior elite.”450 Such ornament also parallels that of textiles and embroidery (especially opus anglicanum), where gold threads were woven into textiles produced for monastic and aristocratic markets.451 The introduction continues at top right, within the frame that surrounds the main text, where rubricated script in two rows reads: incipit evangelii/genelogia mathei (The genealogy of the gospel of Matthew begins). The decorated script of the page reads: LIBER GENERATI/ONIS IH(es)U/ XRI (CHRISTI) FILII DAVID FILII ABRAHAM (The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Matt: 1.1).452 The text proceeds from the left with three interlaced great letters: LIB, which continue into the first line as the word LIber; the I stretching within the left side frame for the full length 448 Brown 346. 449 Codex Lindisfarnensis 271. O’Reilly 161 (AA): Attributes the first evidence of diminuendo to the Cathach of Columba (early 7th or late 6th century). 450 Wormald 2-4. 451 Rogers 129 (CHWT). 452 Matt. 1.1; The Holy Bible: Translated from the Latin Vulgate, Diligently compared with the Hebrew, Greek, and Other Editions in Divers Languages. The Old Testament: First Published by the English College at Douay, A.D. 1609; and The New Testament: First Published by the English College at Rheims, A.D. 1582. Revised by Bishop Richard Challoner, A.D. 17491752. London: Baronius Press, 2003. 90 of the page. The verse then continues in Insular Majuscule, the undecorated letters ER being outlined in black and set into a band of interlace that extends between the bowl of the b and the right frame. This interlace, woven between horizontal edgings of red dots, is zoomorphic, ribbon-like, and splashed with patches of red, green, brown, and yellow. Thereafter, under ber, are three lines of black-filled lettering: Row 2 GENERATI ––––3 ONISIhU ——4 XRIFILIIDAVIdΦLIIAbRahAM The artist applied diminuendo from top to bottom of the page, although the first e and the t of GENERATIONIS are smaller than the other letters in Row 2, and are not disciplined by sequence, uniformity, or ruled guidelines. That is: e is enclosed in G; T hangs suspended–like a Greek Tau cross–between A and I; furthermore, O is rhomboid in shape; S forms two triangles; and h has a hooked upper seriph, which Brown attributes to Greek epigraphy, and of which (elsewhere, on a b) another critic has said: “That loop is typical of a Christological monogram of the chi-rho, which simultaneously acts as both the sign of the Cross and the abbreviated name of Christ, and is frequently alluded to on early Christian monuments.”453 Here, the seriph echoes that on the cross at the beginning of the page, as well as that on the chi-rho symbol of Row 4. Abbreviation also diminishes words–the IhU of Row 3 shortens “Ihesu,” as XRI in Row 4 does “Christi.” In Row 4, “Jesus” is again abbreviated as IHU; while the second “son” appears as ΦLII [Greek phi + LII = filii]. The Anglo-Saxon “ger” rune for “j,” replicates Φ; and perhaps the audience might have recognized this as meaning “the fruitful time of the year’ or “harvest.”454 Those accustomed to weaving words in Roman script would notice that in both instances of filii the IIs sit above one another to the right of the Ls and almost transform them into Us; but the serifs from the As of “David” and “Abraham” extend to prevent this. In “David” the A is contained above V and within the D, for the letters are not uniform or consecutive; and the final round-backed d is of insular minuscule–which had developed in Ireland. In short, the script is multicultural. The diminuendo on this page also provides a perspective on time: the smallest name, “Abraham” (Row 4), is the most historically distant. The letters of the name divide into two rows, AbRa sitting above hAm; the left foot of each A touching the preceding letter. The foot of 453 Krasnodebska-D'Aughton, Malgorzata. "Decoration of the In Principio Initials in Early Insular Manuscripts: Christ as a Visible Image of the Invisible God." Word & Image 18 (2002): 105-22 (106). 454 Page, R. I. An Introduction to English Runes. 2nd ed.. Rochester, N.Y: Boydell and Brewer, 1999. 40. April 15, 2010. 91 the bottom A stretches into the space of the preceding h, while its top serif curves to echo the arch of the h; and the ‘lower case’ a of AbRa remains attached to the break in the frame. The letters, then, link: to each other and the frame. In Rows 2 and 3, the black letters seem cushioned; they almost float between lines of Celtic spirals that interconnect to suggest waves. Like the letters, the spirals are set against bands of interlace– most like lace– where red dots delineate a lattice pattern, each lozenge of which contains central dots (three–a trinity; or one); and the lozenges are often set in a chain pattern we will see replicated on the Sandbach crosses. Red dots, which signify many things, also outline the letters; in this case they may indicate Mediterranean influence on the design. Nils Aberg believed dot-contouring to have originated in the “East,” though he did find it in decorated initials on the Dioscourides alphabetical plant list. There, some similarity extends to LFG as letters in the text have “dotted animal motifs at the bases, in one case a cuttle-fish, in the other a dolphin.”455 Dots in the insular context also relate to patterns on metalwork; once again, though, I would point out the relationship to embroidery where, on the underside, a pattern appears in dotted outline. Needle-workers in the audience of LFG would know that, from the ‘wrong’ side, only the tracery of a finished design is visible. Such viewers might therefore infer that neither a congregation nor a scribe can perceive or re-present the complete plan of God; indeed, it is presumptuous to believe one can–and I offer this as one possible explanation for the incomplete sections and ‘disorderly’ letters that occur throughout LFG. A rebuke from God supports the suggestion and once more links the Gospel with the Old Testament: 1 Then the Lord answered Job out of a whirlwind and said: 2 "Who is this that wrappeth up sentences in unskilful words? [...] 4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if thou hast understanding.” (Job 38.1, 2, 4) From the viewpoints of warriors or embroidresses, in addition, red dots on skin must signify blood: a comparison that connotes both the wounds of Christ and the Eucharistic imagery of His Body and Blood. The symbolism of lozenges or rhomboids is important here too, and it applies to interlace throughout this dissertation; Jane Hawkes explains: As the cross fills and divides the field into four quadrants, symbolizing the breadth and length and depth and height of the Love of Christ (Eph. 3:18) so too does the rhombus that fills and quarters the field of decoration. The nature of this geometric shape, however, is such that its mathematically symmetrical 455 Aberg I. 92, 81. 92 appearance (that potentially incorporates the cross in the intersecting lines joining its angles) has the capacity to signify the cosmic dimension of the divine order and authority informing the fourfold harmony of the universe.”456 This explication also highlights the significance of the cross in interlace for, as noted in Chapter 2, the Christian emblem, and therefore its connotations, underlies the production of all interlace. On this Incipit page, the majuscule lettering–some in rhomboid shapes, as we have seen–forms decorative insets against the background of laced rhomboids. Plain, jewel-like coloring (red, yellow, and green) in-fills some of the shapes, so suggesting enamel on metalwork, appliques in embroidery, or the colored glass that Benedict Biscop had used for the stone church at Monkwearmouth- Jarrow.457 As in the E and R of Row 1, the seriphs of G and S end in the plumed heads or beaks of birds, which thus emerge from words into interlace. The whole suggests the power of the Word to create and to form flesh. In all the Incipit pages of LFG, the text breaks the interlaced frame at the bottom right, and again at top left; in all but the incipit page of Luke, the initial capitals also break the frame at the bottom left. On Matthew f. 27, the stylized, zoomorphic heads of the letters ‘LIb’ irrupt at top left, and the sword-point of I breaks the interlace at bottom left; the heads of lesser zoomorphs (crowned with stylized horns) branch from the broken frame with expressions that readers must interpret for themselves. However, Eamonn O Carragain indicates that images of Christ and the Beasts, on the Ruthwell and Bewcastle crosses, might suggest that all lesser kings must ultimately give way to Christ.458 The frame of the Matthew Incipit f. 27, in LFG, could well reflect this notion, whether the interlaced word ‘Liber’ symbolizes the irruption of Christ Incarnate into, or from, the world, or both: Christians maintain that those events changed the world by liberating mankind from Original Sin. The smaller heads give way to the word L-I-b-E-R, which suggests a triple pun: as the Latin can mean “book,” or “free,” or also “wood” in the sense of “the inner bark of a tree.” Such wood was used at Vindolanda for writing tablets, and is therefore related to words. In the context of the Gospels, wood formed the Cross of Christ: it signifies Christ, whom St. John identifies as the Word.459 Brown links the idea of ‘freedom’ to imagery in the Matthew portrait page (f. 25b) and to the unity of the Old and New Testaments by recalling Matthew 5.17, in which Christ asserts that He came to fulfil the Law of Moses; as Brown says: “Belief in Christ entails keeping the Law: 456 Hawkes, Jane. The Sandbach Crosses: Sign and Significance in Anglo-Saxon Sculpture. Bodmin: Four Courts Press, 2002. 99. 457 O’Reilly 145-6 [AA]. 458 O Carragain, Eamonn. Ritual and the Rood. Toronto: The British Library and University of Toronto Press, 2005; 294. 459 John 1.1-5. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” 93 the Ark contains that hidden wisdom and the Gospels reveal it.”460 I extend this interpretation to suggest that the word “LIbER” reflects those same themes and further illustrates the freedom Brown cites from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews: We have then complete freedom to go into the Most Holy Place by means of the death of Jesus. He opened for us a new way, a living way, through the curtain–that is, through his own body. We have a great high priest in charge of the house of God. So let us come near to God with a sincere heart and a sure faith, with hearts that have been purified from a guilty conscience and with bodies washed with clean water.”461 (Hebrews 10. 12-22) The many crosses incorporated in the design of Lib participate in multivalent imagery. Viewers could not miss that the formation of the L and I might allude to a sword, a weaving sword, or a cross: perceptions would depend on the observers who, whether or not they were monastics, might have also have been warriors, weavers, farmers, scribes or other clerics, all of whom were united in the presence of this Christian Book. On closer contemplation they would see, where L and I intersect, a cross-shaped panel containing four interlaced birds–who might be the evangelists; and, at the junction of L and b, they would see interlace that forms a blue cross– with a red center. As Christian audiences contemplate LIb, linked as a Trinity, they cannot fail to remember that the Incarnation and Passion of Christ offer salvation to humankind, and to recognize their duty in nurturing and propagating His Word, which bursts from the page before them. This interpretation suggests that the imagery of the Matthew Incipit parallels that of the Matthew miniature (f.25b) as Brown perceived it, in that: “Both Scripture and hagiography thereby urge the living out of the message, to instruct the faithful, by imitation, to make of themselves God’s sanctuary.”462 In size, sequence, and sense, the last (Christ) in this genealogy becomes First, and the first (Abraham) last; the emblem of death generates Life; and the Word, represented by many crosses, interlaces into flesh, not least because the words are part of the flesh that is vellum. The iconography thus illustrates the dynamic that, when the Word (here the crossed L and I) leaves a gospel page as verbal utterance, it re-incarnates itself in the congregation. The seed is sown, and the generative cycle continues even as it is harvested–an impression supported by the Φ rune. When the Word leaves LFG, it also reaches into the observer through the eyes staring from great letters like those in the syllable Lib–which consists of stylized, Germanic zoomorphs. On closer examination, the circles remind us of Celtic motifs: peltas which contain triskeles or 460 Brown 360. 461 Brown 362. 462 Brown 361. 94 trumpets. Viewers might also recognize Christian applications of these as, respectively, shields (of faith), symbols (of Life), or harbingers (of Doomsday).463 Furthermore, the circles give the impression of whirling or flashing light, and in this way may refer to the evangelists, as Ezekiel foresaw those propagators of the Word: “and the appearance of the wheels was to the sight like the chrysolite stone:” (10.9); “And as to their appearance, all four were alike: as if a wheel were in the midst of a wheel” (10.10). “And their whole body, and their necks, and their hands, and their wings, and the circles were full of eyes, round about the four wheels” (10.12). The symbols are then differentiated from the wheels: 14 And every one had four faces: the first face was the face of a cherub, and the second face was the face of a man, and the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle. 15 And the cherubims were lifted up: This is the living creature that I had seen by the river Chobar.464 As Jennifer O’Reilly points out, St. Jerome links the Old and New Testaments in the Plures Fuisse, the preface to the Gospel of St. Matthew: for he connects the Ezekiel vision to that of St. John (Rev. 4.7-8), where the creatures appear as a lion, a calf, a man and an eagle; and Jerome relates the figures to the evangelists.465 The apposite image appears with each evangelist portrait in LFG, thus referencing the Old Testament and its representation of the evangelists as a unit (ff. 25b; 93b, 137b, 209b). The great initials in the St. Matthew incipit are like three living creatures in one: from this viewpoint the interlacement provides figural representation of the Trinity. Within or from this, faces are discernible at the heads (and feet), just as they are in some of the vegetal Celtic interlace described in Chapter 2.466 Brown, as well, relates zoomorphic interlace in LFG to Germanic Salin II style, and illustrates her comparison with the seventh century Faversham buckle.467 However, the faces also resemble those on ancient Chinese bronzes, especially the zoomorphic masks that adorn artefacts ranging from harness tackle to ritual vessels.468 I argue 463 Brown 381, informs us that the swastika was an ancient symbol of life found in Egyptian and Roman art: it is the design underlying the Celtic triskele. St.Paul to the Ephesians: 6:13-17 describes the armor of Christians; and Matt. 24.31 tells us, for the Second Coming: “And he shall send his angels with a trumpet [...]” 464 Douay-Rheims; Ezekiel 10: 14-15. Ezekiel 1 records the same vision, but as the faces of man, ox, lion, and eagle (1.10). 465 O’Reilly 170 (AA). 466 Chapter 2, page 17. 467 Brown 333-4. Fig. 145. 468 Rawson Jessica. Chinese Bronzes: Art and Ritual. London: British Museum Publications, 1987. See Figures 5.4 and 5.5 for examples of such masks. On the use of ritual masks in ancient Chinese culture, cf also Yang, Liu, and Edmund Capon. Masks of Mystery: Ancient Chinese Bronzes from Sanxingoui. Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2000; 37-38. Yang indicates that probably Chinese “masks represent the spirits of dead forebears,” (38). “In a ritual ceremony, to put on a mask representing a mythological figure or spiritual force is to become that figure or 95 the merit of this perception given the combination of the contemporary trade in Chinese silks, and the Byzantine influence on Anglo-Saxon scholarship, through Hadrian and Theodore; and also considering how the Byzantines had incorporated other pagan designs (Sasanian) into Christian schemata, as described in Chapter 2.469 In LFG the heads, crowned as they are by stylized zoomorphic horns, and touched with gold, also seem suited to a royal iconography and genealogy that might appeal to the aristocrats of Bamburgh. All the techniques of interlace that encourage such mental association are here: juxtaposition, insets, parallelism, reversals, connections, variation, intersections and chiasmus, and symbolism. As a result, layers of meaning break through layers of framing, like branches or buds from a tree–or perhaps from the Root of Jesse. Indeed, the coloring is like the cross-section of a newly cut tree: for the main frame of the page and the great initials are outlined in black, inside which is a dull ivory that the facsimile commentators say was “originally a bright yellow.”470 Within the outlines, as in the main frame, abstract interlacing alternate with rectangles inhabited by contorted and entwined animals and birds–the whole interlace being imprisoned within the zoomorphs whose heads emerge from the frame. However, the initials have an additional outer layer–a triple row of red dots that differentiates them from the frame they cut through, and binds them to the other letters and words in the text. A viewer who meditates on the page might suppose that the Cross and the Word are freeing some of the prisoners from the power of the lesser zoomorphs in the frame. This page, alive with abstract and zoomorphic interlace, suggests that meditation rather than legibility could have been the main purpose for the original readers. Mary Carruthers discusses similar monastic books intended for community reading or display. The more one looks at the designs, she says, the clearer the fragmentary detail becomes, until finally “contemplation forges a meaningful pattern.”471 In this way, spirituality links with oral-visual appeal; and the page demonstrates how words, their depiction, and the materials used in the manuscript depend on each other for meaning. As we see, their orchestration in LFG provides an experience for readers of any language, whether or not they are literate. force. A magico-religious transformation is brought about by wearing a mask” (37). In addition, “All representations of ancestors are the media through which the forebears speak to the present generation” (38). Yang also relates ancestor worship to the symbolism of regeneration of plants through seeds, which he says “is common to all ancient agricultural societies” (38); he cites Andreas Lommel, Masks: Their Meaning and Function. Trans. Nadia Fowler. London: Paul Elek Books, 1972. All these points have parallels in the present discussion of the genealogy of Christ, the mystery of His Incarnation, and the spreading of His gospel; especially since the page includes the “fruitful” ger rune. 469 Chapter 2 pg 19-20; cf McDowell 157-8 (CHWT). 470 Codex 237-8. 471 Carruthers, Mary. The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture. Cambridge: CUP, 1990; 254-5. 96 The tenth-century Northumbrian gloss, though, is understandable only to someone who is literate in the Anglo-Saxon that emerged after the time of King Alfred. We know that the glossator, Aldred, was at Chester-le-Street, where the Gospels were housed in AD 883: ninety years after Lindisfarne had been sacked by Vikings (AD 793). He expressed a dedication for his work on each gospel; and Backhouse suggests that one motive for writing the gloss was to facilitate his acceptance into the community.472 We have already hypothesized as to the use of the gloss, which is sometimes marginal and sometimes interlinear, and contrasts with the original in being plain script. Perhaps, in addition, it was an aid to reading, if the new, non-monastic congregation, was literate only in English. Perhaps it was to help a priest who knew little Latin to read to that congregation, which may still have been orally and visually oriented. In either case, Latin was not sufficient or preferable, and cultural change required use of Old English for the reading. That the glossator freely desecrated a venerable book may mark linguistic assertiveness. Clanchy recognizes that copying or reading from holy Scripture in general was “an act of worship in itself.”473 Bede explains a more specific application of this practice when he mentions a visitor to Monkwearmouth-Jarrow from Pope Agatho in AD 680: “Abbot John taught the cantors of the monastery the theory and practice of singing and reading aloud, and put into writing all that was necessary for the proper observance of festivals throughout the year.”474 Jane Hawkes has identified some occasions particular to genealogies: [. . .] Matthew’s gospel (1:1-16) was sung as part of the western monastic celebrations of Matins at Christmas, while that set out in Luke’s gospel (3:23-38) was sung as part of the secular liturgies of Epiphany.475 Such uses of Gospel books refer to an element of drama that remains part of Church liturgy, and of the congregational participation that integrates the doctrine into society. It is profitable, therefore, to consider the ‘theaters’ in which the books participated. We noted above that glass windows in the churches Biscop and Wilfrid built would echo the illumination in manuscripts, and the parallel would surely compound the effect of analogy described by Eugene Vinaver, in which “mystical reality becomes palpable to the senses.”476 Chapter 4 has already referred to this function of interlace in literature, but here was a practical 472 Backhouse 16-17. 473 Clanchy 109. 474 Bede 234, IV.18. 475 Hawkes 120; at f/n 56 she notes also: “Sermons on the genealogy of Christ, such as that by Augustine, were reserved for Christmas. See also Schiller 1917a:12-15.” 476 Vinaver, Eugene. The Rise of Romance. Oxford: OUP, 1971; 100-101, and f/n 1. Vinaver cites St. Augustine De Genesi ad literam, iv.28 and also Etienne Gilson. The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy, 100. 97 application of the technique; furthermore, the added approaches of reading and chanting from the Gospel books, under the high roofs,477 would combine with liturgy to enhance the effect and to guide the congregation to thoughts that transcended temporality. Carruthers relates imagery in churches to the temporal sense of representation. That is: because the Latin repraesentare, “to represent,” derives from praesens: “present in time,” imagery can re-present memories.478 We have seen from St. Matthew’s Generationis page that the same is true of illuminated interlace, because the designs can lead viewers to recall familiar themes, associate them with religious texts, and meditate on the juxtaposed meanings. Thence, the experiences of church, liturgy, and a book like LFG, would expand temporally and spatially as audiences generated further thoughts and took them from the ‘theater’ of worship. The evangelists who thus propagated the Word of God also encouraged intellectual exploration: backward to pagan and Judaeo-Christian origins; outward to the worlds of war, farming, weaving, and monasteries; inward to meditation; and forward to action.479 Our interpretation of LFG remains anachronistic, and I have suggested the impossibility of judging how much we can deepen our understanding. Nevertheless, this discussion has revealed that audience response to the interlace on the page of a Gospel book could be instrumental in weaving the fabric of a new culture from diverse origins: by uniting the strands in light of Christian teaching. 477 O’Reilly 145-6 (AA). 478 Carruthers 221-2. 479 Vinaver 81. 98 Figure 5.1: Map Showing Northerly Dioceses in Great Britain, 700-850.480 480 Gilbert Map 9: “The Church 700-850.” Modified by J. Beall to show northern and cross locations, but retaining the diocesan boundaries defined by Gilbert. Any errors are mine.. 99 Figure 5.2: The First St. Matthew Incipit Page of the Lindisfarne Gospels, f. 27r (British Library).481 481 Backhouse 43. 100 Figure 5.3: The St. John Incipit Page of the Lindisfarne Gospels f.211r (British Library).482 482 Backhouse 57. 101 Figure 5.4: Zoomorphic Bronze Mask from Late Shang China (ca. 1200-1100 BC). 483 483 This photograph is copied from: Yang, Liu and Edmund Capon. Masks of Mystery: Ancient Chinese Bronzes from Sanxingdui. Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 79. 102 Figure 5.5: Crowned Zoomorph on Bronze Finial from Late Shang China (ca. 1200-1100 BC).484 . 484The photograph is copied from: Yang and Capon 91.(Art Gallery of New South Wales). 103 CHAPTER 6 INTERLACE AND ENGLISH STONE CROSSI.ES This section argues that interlace on stone crosses participates in an iconography which the Anglo-Saxon Church and rulers directed towards the people, through the Cult of the Cross. In so doing, governments invoked the conciliatory power of the Cross in order to unite diverse cultures–in recognition of the humanity and divinity combined in Christ, and in acceptance of His dominion over all earthly rulers. The Ruthwell, Bewcastle, Sandbach, and Gosforth Crosses survive in borderlands where, between the eighth and tenth centuries, cultures contended against each other. I suggest that the use of crosses reveals the centrality of Christian power there, and that we can deepen our understanding of how the concerns of the people interacted with the monuments if we analyze the role of interlace in the iconography. The discussion therefore adduces information about the politics involved as well as about the Cult of the Cross; and it references Biblical and art historical scholarship to support my assertion that interlace participates in and, often, integrates the iconographic scheme. The argument turns on the perception that the cross is the essential unit of interlace. As definitions in Chapter Two and the Glossary indicate: a weave results only when threads cross and when intersections pass above and below each other.485 The process of weaving, furthermore, produces a fabric united from diverse threads, and I suggest that the Christian symbol, being intrinsic to the process, analogizes this power to unify. Scriptural authority for associating the power with peace-weaving rests with St. Paul: 19 Because in him, it hath well pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell; 20 And through him to reconcile all things unto himself, making peace through the blood of his cross, both as to the things that are on earth, and the things that are in heaven. (Col. 1) The high crosses under discussion all stand in borderlands that were associated with Northumbria. The eighth century Bewcastle Cross is a few miles north of Hadrian’s Wall, and the slightly later Ruthwell Cross is less than thirty miles to the east, on the north coast of the Solway Firth.486 The two ninth century Sandbach Crosses are in the Welsh Marches, close to the 485 cf Chapter 2, page 10, 27. 486 Swanton, Michael, ed. The Dream of the Rood. New ed. Exeter: Exeter University Press, 1996; 11: Indicates that Ruthwell is ca. 17 ft. 4 ins. high (5.28 m) . Bewcastle is 14ft. 6ins. (without head): Page, R. I. Runes and Runic Inscriptions. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1995; 47. Gosforth is 15 ft. according to the website. N. Sandbach is 15 ft. 9 ins. (Hawkes 149 “4.8m”); S. Sandbach is 10 ft. 6 ins (Hawkes 164 “3.2m”). 104 borders of Mercia, Wales, and Northumbria; and the tenth century Gosforth Cross stands near the Northumbrian coastal plain, between Ruthwell and Sandbach.487 The Bewcastle and Ruthwell monuments are the most nearly contemporary with the gospelbooks discussed in the last chapter, and the locations of the crosses–in and adjacent to the diocese of Lindisfarne–488 suggest that similar influences and motivations could have prompted their production. The history that follows indicates that, once more, Anglo-Saxon and Irish churchmen sought to unite the interests of the cultures in the area. The producers of the Ruthwell and Bewcastle crosses were in Northumbria, where Anglian power declined after the death of Egfrith at Nechtanesmere (AD 685); but the Christian scholar-king, Aldfrith (ca. 685-705), had remained friendly with Adomnan, Abbot of Iona (679- 704). As Michelle Brown has observed: From the end of the seventh century onwards there are signs of a new irenic atmosphere of reconciliation and collaboration pervading the thought of many of the leading ecclesiastical figures of Northumbria and Ireland.489 Brown suggests also that, from the beginning of the eighth century, Lindisfarne and Monkwearmouth-Jarrow designed their Christianity: [T]o maximise [sic] the benefits of a new culture which was fully integrated into the Christian Oecumen (an eternal fellowship transcending individual traditions and which celebrated a new confidence and acknowledged all of its formative influences).490 Adomnan again favored the project, and Brown sees the bishopric of Lindisfarne as contributing to: ”[A] measure of unification within the northern territories traditionally held by the Picts and the British kingdoms of Strathclyde and Rheged, which had been annexed by Anglo-Saxon Northumbria or which needed to be diplomatically stabilised as neighbours.”491 These, then, were the producers of the crosses, and the audience to whom the iconography was directed; and because the Cross is the Christian symbol, it is significant that the influence of the Church on the area became especially evident when Eadberht reigned (737-58) and his brother Egbert was Archbishop of York (735-66). David Rollason believes that although 487 Hawkes, Jane. The Sandbach Crosses: Sign and Significance in Anglo-Saxon Sculpture. Bodmin: Four Courts Press, 2002, 137. Hawkes suggests dates of early and slightly later 9th century for N & S Sandbach, respectively. cf also O’Carragain (213; 284) who dates Ruthwell between 730 and 735, and Bewcastle slightly earlier, in the first half of the eighth century (36). 488 Gilbert, Martin. The Dent Atlas of British History. 2nd ed. London: J. Dent Ltd. 1993; 9. 489 Brown 34. 490 Brown 8. 491 Brown 9. 105 secular power destabilized as the eighth century progressed, the power of the Church increased at York. Indeed, he suggests that the continued unity of Northumbria owed much to the Church at York.492 Perhaps the Cult of the Cross could escalate in Northumbria because Christian York remembered its connection to Constantine493–who began the cult, as Eamonn O Carragain says, “in the name of the victory-sign he saw in the sky” before his battle at Milvian Bridge in 312.494 New sensitivity to the Second Commandment against image-making might also have contributed to strengthening of the cult in the eighth century–for, as Brown notes: “In the 720s the iconoclast party erected a tablet above the great gate of the imperial palace in Constantinople recording the substitution of a cross for the figure of Christ.”495 Northumbrian artefacts of the era thus symbolized Christ, of whom images appear only later. The Ruthwell Cross displays one image that O Carragain suggests was added in the late eighth century;496 and a crucifix appears on the ninth-century Sandbach Crosses; but the depictions occur only after 769, when several synods and councils had allowed veneration, not adoration, of images.497 Jennifer O’Reilly explains that Constantine had a fragment of the True Cross preserved in the Church of the Holy Cross in Rome,498 his mother, Helena, having purportedly discovered it at Jerusalem in 326.499 O Carragain notes, however, that the relic was taken to Constantinople to preserve it from Arab invaders, in 635:500 the very year in which, Bede tells us, Oswald set up a wooden cross before his victory at Heavenfield, thus instigating a parallel cult. O’Reilly sees the new Anglian cult as extending beyond the temporal: The story is not simply of a new Constantine, but of the extension to the ends of the earth of Christ’s spiritual empire, more lasting than the might of imperial Rome, whose monumental remains now littered the landscape, –near Hadrian’s Wall, as Bede recounts.501 Other factors seem to have contributed to the development of the cult in eighth-century Northumbria. O’Reilly mentions that, during the reign of Aldfrith, Adomnan had circulated the 492 This was the same Egbert to whom Bede had written, complaining of declining morality in the monasteries owned by aristocrats. Cf. Rollason 164; Bede.“Bede’s Letter to Egbert.” EHEP 337-351. 493 Chapter 5 pg. 82. 494 O Carragain, Eamonn. Ritual and the Rood: Liturgical Images and the Old English Poems of the Dream of the Rood Tradition. London: The British Library and University of Toronto Press, 2005; 231. 495 Brown 74. 496 O Carragain 2111-214. “Hadrian I” ODP 96-97. 497 “Hadrian I” ODP 96-97. 498 O’Reilly 151 (AA). 499 Swanton 43. N.4 cites Ambrose PL, xvi. 1463, or Rufinus, PL, xxi. 475-7. 500 O Carragain 192. 501 O’Reilly 151 (AA); cf Bede 144-5, III.2. 106 depiction of a pilgrimage at Jerusalem that included Golgotha and the Holy Sepulcher.502 O Carragain observes that similar ritual pilgrimages for Good Friday had developed in Rome “in emulation of the worship of the Holy Cross at Jerusalem and Constantinople;” and he suggests that Pope Sergius (687-701) responded by reviving the Roman Cult of the Cross. O Carragain adds that “Wilfrid of York and Acca of Hexham visited Rome together in 703.”503 It was in this cultural climate that some of the earliest stone crosses in Britain appeared at Hexham, near Heavenfield.504 Clerics at Lindisfarne, York, Hexham, and Whithorn appear to have encouraged the Cult of the Cross where it would appeal to the Irish and Anglians as well as to Celts and Picts. Although the popularity of crosses extended throughout Britain, Michael Swanton notes, “The remains of some one and a half thousand survive–most of them in Northumbria. Many others made of wood have certainly decayed.”505 Crosses were neither the first standing stones, though, nor the only ones that had functioned communally. Megaliths had existed in Britain and Ireland since approximately 4500 BC.506 By 3500 BC British Celts had proliferated the neolithic meeting-places we call henges, two of which still survive in Northumbria: at Thornborough in the Vale of Pickering; and at the Devil’s Arrows near Boroughbridge, which Bowman and Thomas identify as the former capital of the Brigantes.507 Sykes is among the critics who mention, furthermore, that between the fourth and seventh centuries AD, the Picts had produced monuments in carved stone, of which approximately 200 survive in the north and east of Scotland and Orkney.508 Stone crosses could thus inter-weave local traditions and Christianity in communal ways like those Chapter 5 suggested for LFG, and it is probable that Celts were amenable to the adaptation of stones for Christian purposes. The existence of Pillar Stones supports the suggestion by presenting a transition. Insular Celts had developed them during their conversion to Christianity; and William Stevens followed J. R. Allen in noting that the stones 502 O’Reilly 150 (AA). 503 O Carragain 189, 192, 230, 231. 504 Rollason 192-95 describes the instability; the influence of York: 207-8. 505 Swanton 47. 506 Sykes, Bryan. Blood of the Isles: Exploring the Genetic Roots of our Tribal History. London: Bantam Press, 2006; 58 and 143. Sykes believes the mesolithic monuments to be “a purely Atlantic phenomenon, owing nothing at all to the Mediterranean world,” and possibly related to ritual burials like that of the Red Lady of Paviland. 507 Neolithic Monument Complex Of Thornborough, North Yorkshire. University of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. 2003. Historical Studies. In Association with English Heritage. 05 Dec. 2009. 107 often display a rough cross or inscription.509 Stone crosses succeeded such monuments. Michelle Brown describes the first, in either Britain or Ireland, as that raised at Lindisfarne on the death of Aethilwald (740)–the same bishop whom Aldred credited with the “sewing and covering” of LFG.510 Elizabeth Coatsworth has recognized, at Whitby and the monastery of Hilda, a surviving cross which dates from 657.511 The details above support the argument that authorities in Lindisfarne/Northumbria initiated a program for peace within their multi-ethnic environment. Referring especially to the audience at Ruthwell, which was probably monastic, O Carragain describes the effect as “co- existence as part of an integrated synthesis.”512 For them, he says, “The cross provided a visual paradigm of the unity, centred [sic] on Christ’s victory over death, behind the diversity of community life.”513 Perhaps some community members were also familiar with traditions at nearby Whithorn which, Rollason records, became “a Northumbrian bishopric by the early eighth century at the latest.” He observes, nevertheless, that a tradition of venerating the British founder Ninian continued through the eighth century;514 and he notes that: “The Ruthwell ‘Paul and Anthony’ panel, a symbol of monastic welcome and hospitality, recalls Adomnan’s friendship with Ceolfrith and suggests close contacts with Iona.”515 In short, because the cultural appeal of crosses was multivalent, they reconciled Roman, Irish, British Celtic, and Anglo- Saxon ideas: they were instrumental in encouraging peace. The iconography and interlace on the crosses support this contention. Both the Ruthwell and Bewcastle crosses exemplify how symbology can contribute to concepts of unity and peace-weaving. Each cross has a panel depicting John the Baptist pointing to the Agnus Dei, below which another panel portrays Christ standing above animals with chi- crossed paws; and it seems that placement of the animals on a Cross, under the Lamb, must signify their recognition of Christ as Sacrifice, and as Redeemer of humanity. O Carragain, however, goes further in explaining that the beasts defer to Christ and recognize Him alone as 509 Stevens, William O. The Cross in the Life and Literature of the Anglo-Saxons. Yale Studies in English. Ed. Albert S. Cook. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1904; 40. 510 Brown 317, 104-106. The cross is no longer at Lindisfarne; it “accompanied the community on its travels and was finally transported to Durham,” (106). It may have been described in 1538 by Leland, but no longer exists. 511 Coatsworth, Elizabeth. “The Cross in the West Riding of Yorkshire.” The Place of the Cross in Anglo-Saxon England. Eds. Catherine E. Karkov, Sarah Larratt Keefer, and Karen Louise Jolly. New York: Boydell and Brewer, 2006; 14-28 (18). 512 O Carragain 57/8. 513 O Carragain 296. 514 Rollason 119; cites Bede [148-9], III.4; Levison, Wilhelm. “An Eighth Century Poem on St. Ninian,” Antiquity 14 (1940): 280-91; MacQueen, John. St. Nynia: With a Translation of the Miracles of Bishop Nynia. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990; and Hill, Peter. Whithorn and St. Ninian: The Excavation of a Monastic Town 1984-91. Stroud: The Whithorn Trust/Sutton Publishing; 1997. 515 O Carragain 57. 108 the Judge of mankind: evidenced by “the globes under the Baptist’s feet” at Ruthwell, and by the inscription on the right-hand frame, which specifies that He is ‘iudex aequitatis’” [‘the impartial judge’].516 O Carragain thus interprets the images as suggesting that “human power structures and racial divisions are evanescent, subordinate to a higher set of values, and subject to Christ’s judgment.” I would add that contemplation of the panels could have encouraged the original viewers in the Scottish Marches to live in light of such concepts, and to transfer their allegiance to the Christ who also ruled their chieftains. The nearby Bewcastle Cross coincides with this suggestion, for the monument is situated within the site of a former Roman camp, and runes identify it as “þis sigbecn,” (this victory- sign).517 O Carragain points out that the Bewcastle Cross symbolizes spiritual and heroic victory, and he describes the overall inscription as commemorative; it seems to form a Liber Vitae to which names of those to receive prayers could be added as necessary. O Carragain also relates the ‘Falconer’ panel to the list, suggesting that the figure holding the bird represents a nobleman who had contributed to the community or the cross. He notes of the scheme: “It implicitly affirms that in the area secular and religious social structures were interdependent and mutually supportive.”518 Both crosses, then, encourage audiences to move outward from them and weave a new cultural tapestry, a dynamic that parallels the function imputed to LFG in Chapter 5. The concept of weaving would be especially significant to audiences in areas of sheep- rearing, like the Scottish or Welsh Marches, where large monastic estates had their workshops. Chapter 2 indicates that weaving infused the lives of such people: the producers and interpreters of the iconography.519 Adcock (1974) thus seems practical when, as Rosemary Cramp says, “She sees the development of interlace in the arts through the use of ‘made’ patterns in leather, metal, or woven strands.”520 In categorizing the types of these patterns, Cramp considers Interlace and Vine-Scroll mostly as separate motifs.521 My discussion counts vine-scroll as a type of interlace, however: because the patterns involve crossing of strands, and also because the symbolism is a variation on the theme of the Cross as a figuration of Christ. That symbolism, as Jane Hawkes has explained, proceeds from the Gospel of St. John, where Christ says: I am the true vine and my father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he will take away: and one that beareth fruit, he will purge it that 516 O Carragain 294. O Carragain applies the same Apocalyptic significance to the globes as to the Sundial at Bewcastle; saying in consequence: “the heavens, like the animals, show forth the glory of God, rather than the glory of earthly powers.” 517 O Carragain 47 (the Roman Camp); 232 (the victory sign). 518 O Carragain 40-42. 519 Chapter 2 p. 28. 520 Cramp xxviii. 521 Cramp xxiv-xxv. 109 it may bring forth more fruit [...] Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; so neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him: the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without [me] ye can do nothing.522 In vine-scroll imagery, the fruit often appears as berries or grapes, which traditionally produce wine. The fruit therefore refers to the redemption of believers: either through the sacrificial body and blood of Christ symbolized by the Eucharist, or through the sacrifice of Christ as the Agnus Dei, at the crucifixion. In inhabited vine-scroll, as Hawkes points out: [T]he plant, that nurtures and provides the animals with food, shelter and protection, ensuring that they grow and ripen, functions pictorially as a potential symbol of Christ, the source of salvation and everlasting life, and of the Church, the preserver of Christianity on earth and the dispenser of the life saving sacraments that maintain Christians and their faith.523 In this symbology, animal and human forms on the scroll can represent the members or the Body of the Church. St. Paul reminds us of their relationship to Christ, the Head (Col. 1): 17. And he is before all, and by him all things consist. 18. And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the first- born from the dead; that in all things he may hold the primacy. Birds are among the forms that inhabit the vine-scrolls on the Ruthwell and Bewcastle crosses, and the scroll on the south face of the North Sandbach cross (NS) also includes one.524 Michael Swanton makes the point that birds often signify the Christian soul, and he also mentions that “The cross traditionally conveys the soul to heaven.”525 The two concepts combine to provide further reason for interpreting vine-scrolls as variations for the Cross and Christ: the overall message remaining that Christ enabled the redemption of Christian souls through his incarnation, death, and resurrection. The message is also that of the Gospels, and in discussing the interlace on the first Carpet Page of LFG (f.2b), Jacques Guilman adduces the theories of W. Horn (1975) to suggest that artists who produced interlace could use measurement and “create ordered forms that appeared to do no less than reflect the divine will.” Guilman suggests: [. . .] –with its central theme the ultimate symbol of Christian truth, elaborated 522 Hawkes 91; cites John 15.1-5. 523 Hawkes 91. 524 Hawkes 85. For ease of reference, this study henceforth utilizes the system Hawkes has devised for discussion of the Sandbach crosses: For the first letter N=the North Cross; S= the South Cross. For the second letter, N, S, E, and W refer to the points of the compass. Thus here, NS= the south face of the North Cross. 525 Swanton 20; and 78 f/n 1. 110 through and surrounded by a labyrinth of convoluted paths, knots, and creatures, [the artist] found the task of giving it final form nothing less than a mystical experience. Guilman argued that this concept of creativity might have later inspired Theophilus, in De Diversis Artibus, to say: "Through the spirit of counsel, you do not bury your talent given you by God, but, by openly working and teaching in all humility, you display it faithfully to those wishing to understand.526 Surely the same technique and purpose lie behind the display of stone crosses and their iconography? Chapter 2 has identified chequered patterns and rhomboids as interlace and indeed, some Christian applications, like the Carpet Page LFG f.2b, project crosses from the inner angles of rectangles. Chapter 5 mentioned similar figures and their potential crosses as alluding to cosmic order and harmony, but Jennifer O’Reilly also relates those concepts to unity: As early as Irenaeus [ca. 131-200] patristic interpretation of the four living creatures as figures of the four Evangelists used the evidence of creation itself, in which the Creator is also revealed, in order to demonstrate the divinely-inspired unity of the Gospel’s fourfold testimony. Irenaeus’s allusion to the divine Artificer who made all things in due proportion and measure is to Wis. 11:21, omnia in mensura et numero et pondere disposuisti.527 The comments above relate to both the Ruthwell and Sandbach crosses where they use the imagery of the evangelists, and to the Bewcastle and Sandbach crosses–which include, and sometimes combine, knotwork and lozenge patterns. Hawkes has pointed out, for example, that the knotwork on the lowest panel on the south side of the Bewcastle cross not only encloses a lozenge design, but also contains a cross-shaped space.528 The same panel shows, in addition, how chains of rhomboids–a form of interlace we observed on the Matthew Incipit page–form chi crosses.529 A cross obviously alludes to the Crucifixion and the salvation it afforded; because the icon is also a figuration of Christ, however, it follows that any cross can symbolize the Incarnation. So, then, must a complex of crosses: a weave, or an interlace pattern. Laura 526 Guilman, Jacques. “The Composition of the First Cross Page of the Lindisfarne Gospels: ‘Square Schematism’ and the Hiberno-Saxon Aesthetic.” The Art Bulletin 67. 4. (1985): 535-547 (546/7). Quotes C.R. Dodwell, tr. Theophilus. London, 1961; 62. 527 O’Reilly, J. “Patristic and Insular Traditions of the Evangelists: Exegesis and Iconography." Le Isole Britanniche e Roma in Eta Romanobarbarica. Eds. A. M. Luiselli Fadda and E. O Carragain. Rome: Herder Editrice e Libreria, 1998. 49-94.( 90). [E&I] 528 Hawkes 101; fig. 3.7. 529 Hawkes 101. Chapter 2 of this study recognized this form of interlace as “the Byzantine diaper design,” of the fifth and sixth centuries (20; 8). 111 Kendrick has indicated that both Gregory the Great and Bede related knotwork to that symbolism through the claim of John the Baptist, “that he was unworthy to untie Christ’s shoelace,” (Luke 3.16); the exegetes interpreting the shoelace as “a figure for the mystery of the incarnation.”530 This symbology combines with that of the vine scroll to throw light on Sandbach SE, where a chain of inhabited lozenges is set within a frame of abstract interlace; for we might now interpret the scheme as a variation on “Christ Incarnate, who, through His all encompassing Love, provides the Tree of Life.” Analysis of interlace in both the Lindisfarne Gospels and stone crosses, then, reveals the union of multiple crosses and interpretations in each design; and it shows how interlace integrates symbolism into coherent messages; so many, indeed, that no single interpretation is necessarily “the only correct solution.” The association of interlace and the Incarnation allows further permutation of the possibilities for symbolism including, again, that of unity. Michelle Brown has observed that, after the Council of Constantinople in 681, “It also became important to stress the unity of Christ’s incarnation, from conception to crucifixion, which were thought to have taken place on the same date–March 25.”531 O Carragain has shown, further, how the iconography on the Ruthwell Cross unites scenes from the Life of Christ that range from the Annunciation to the Crucifixion, so revealing the union of humanity and divinity within Christ.532 This trend, then, suggests that interlace on crosses is an integral part of symbolism that refers to any incident in the Life of Christ Incarnate. The Ruthwell and Sandbach crosses also share the iconography of the evangelist symbols, imagery that, as we saw above, links the crosses to LFG and its counterparts. In both contexts, the evangelist symbols present facets of Divinity and Humanity that unite in Christ. Gregory the Great, in his homilies of 593, confirmed and expanded on the links Jerome (AD 342-420) had identified in Plures Fuisse as being from the Apocalyptic vision of Ezekiel. Jennifer O’Reilly summarizes these: “[T]he man signifies Christ’s humanity, the lion his kingship, the calf or ox his priesthood, and the eagle his divinity.”533 Michelle Brown summarizes another reading according to St. Ambrose: “Matthew [Man] - Christ incarnate; Mark [Lion] – the King of kings who triumphed over death; Luke [Calf] - the immolatory victim and 530 Kendrick, Laura. Animating the Letter: The Figurative Embodiment of Writing from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1999; 87/88. Kendrick cites: Gregory the Great, Quadraginta homiliarum in evangelia 1.20.4 (PL 76:1162B); and Bede, In Lucae evangelium 1.3.16 (PL 92:356A; CCL 120:80). 531 Brown 32. In denouncing the Monothelite heresy, “The Council proclaimed that in Christ the divine and human will were coherently united and that as Christ was incorruptible he never conflicted with the divine will.” 532 O Carragain 88/9. 533 O’Reilly 170 (AA). Elsewhere O’Reilly also notes that Gregory stressed on the redemptive aspect of Christ, “whobecame a man at his birth, a (sacrificial) ox at his death, a (waking) lion at his resurrection and an eagle at his ascension” (E&I 58). 112 high priest of the Passion; John [Eagle] - the triumphant Christ of the Resurrection and Ascension.”534 As O’Reilly further indicates, Jerome argued in his Letter to Damasus (Novum Opus) that the Gospels themselves demonstrate a story of unity stemming from diversity.535 O Carragain suggests that Ruthwell augments this concept: on the first side of the Cross, images survive of St. John and his eagle; the Eagle on a branch;536 and of St. Matthew and his angel. O Carragain suggests, therefore, that the damaged second side probably presented a central image of Christ (maybe Agnus Dei) set between the symbols of SS. Mark and Luke.537 Such imagery could have served a communal function in the Apertio aurium at Lent, a ceremony during which four Gospel-books were carried to the corners of the altar; the meaning of gospels and the evangelist symbols explained; the incipits chanted; and illuminated pages exhibited to the inductees. O Carragain thus stresses that, participating in such rituals: “The second side of the crosshead was designed to make clear the unity of the gospels as well as their diversity.”538 The ceremony also illustrates several points Richard Gameson makes about the function of writing for early audiences: “Manifest to the eye, yet occult in meaning to those who could not themselves read, prominent inscriptions were mysteriously potent;” they create, he adds, a “forceful statement about the mystical power and status of the written, Christian word.” Chapter 2 has already suggested that script is a form of interlace, and the nature of its use in the iconography of gospelbooks and crosses strengthens the suggestion, especially if we consider script another way of making visible that which is invisible, whether it be the Word or human words. Gameson indicates that medieval society was familiar with the concept: “ ‘Letters’ as we are told by Isidore, ‘are symbols of things, signs of words whose power is so great that without a voice they speak to us the sayings of the absent.’ ”539 The Bewcastle and Ruthwell crosses are like the gospelbooks in linking script and 534 Brown LFG 346 535 O’Reilly 170 (AA). 536 O Carragain 145. Here identifies this eagle as “a symbol of Christ whose youth was renewed like the eagle’s in hisResurrection and Ascension; but it is also a symbol of how all Christians participate in the fruits of Christ’s victory.” cf also Brown LFG, 2003; 369-70 and note 239 on p. 174. O Carragain refers to “the first broad side at Ruthwell as ‘the east side’ (itnow faces south), and the second broad side as the west side’(it now faces north.)” (36). 537 O Carragain 143-4. 538 O Carragain 144. 539 Gameson, Richard. “Inscriptions.” The Role of Art in the Late Anglo-Saxon Church. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1995. 72, 76-77; at 92, f/n119 he cites: Isidore. Isidore Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum sive Originum, Libri XX. Ed. W. M. Lindsay. 2 Vols. Oxford, 1911. Bk. 1, Sect. 3, Lines 6-8. ODP 107: Isidore of Seville d. 636. Although Bede did not always consider Isidore reliable, Chapter 3, pg. 31 of this dissertation indicates that Bede translated some of his work (EHEP 358-9, and 377: note by Farmer P.359). 113 imagery, a tradition that Cramp observed may have stemmed from Lindisfarne.540 As in the gospelbooks, too, the iconography and scripts on Ruthwell interlace cultures. Latin tituli frame pictures on the east and west sides of the cross; the panels illustrate the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Crucifixion, and other scenes from the story that originated east of the Mediterranean. Because Christianity had been accepted by northern Britons before the pagan Anglo-Saxons arrived, the images were probably intelligible to the audience: whatever language they spoke; indeed, the style of sculptured panels would have been familiar to those who had seen carvings at the Roman Walls of Hadrian and Antonine. The communities at both Ruthwell and Bewcastle may have done so. Rollason confirms that Bewcastle had been a Roman fort;541 and O Carragain notes not only that Ruthwell had associations with Hadrian’s Wall, but also that archaeological evidence suggests that ‘there was a Christian settlement on this site from the sixth century down to the eleventh.”542 The religious audience O Carragain envisages, then, probably could read Latin, and interpret word and image. Unique to Ruthwell, however, is the intertextual link between the Anglo-Saxon poem Dream of the Rood, which is formed by runic tituli on three borders of the vine-scroll panels on the north and south sides of the cross. The runes would appeal to Germanic members of the community, although R. I. Page has indicated that their arrangement renders them difficult to read, which leads him to ask “What then is the intended audience?” Page concludes that “There was a specialist reading audience, not a general one.” Rather, he suggests, an interpreter who already knew the text guided visitors and recited to them.543 The vine-scroll motif would also appeal to Germanic interests. Richard North has related that imagery to the World Tree, and demonstrated its significance for pagans in Northumbria, suggesting: “Roman vine-scroll could assist the transition from superstition to doctrine.”544 In thus leading diverse viewers to understand Christianity, both vine-scroll and runes assisted cultural interlace. As noted above, Bewcastle and Ruthwell share the iconography of John the Baptist and the Agnus Dei acclaimed by the animals. The design of Bewcastle is otherwise mostly abstract, the interlace encoding the inter-weaving of cultures, the Incarnation, and the dual nature of the 540 Cramp, Rosemary. “The Artistic Influence of Lindisfarne within Northumbria.” St. Cuthbert, his Cult and His Community to AD 1200. Eds. Bonner, Gerald, David Rollason and Clare Stancliffe. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1989; 213-28 (221, 225). This dissertation mentions script as interlace: Ch. 2 pg. 17ff. 541 Rollason 52. 542 O Carragain 54; f/n 212: cites Crowe, Christopher. “Excavations at Ruthwell, Dumfries, 1980 and 1984.” Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Atiquarian Society. Third Series, 1987; 41-2. 543 Page, R. I. “Runeukyndige Risteres Skriblerier: The English Evidence.” Runes and RunicInscriptions: Collected Essays on Anglo-Saxon and Viking Runes. Ed. David Parson. New York: Boydell and Brewer, 1995. 295- 314 (297-8). 544 North, Richard. Heathen Gods in Old English Literature. Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England, 22.Cambridge: CUP, 1997; 290. Qtd. in O Carragain R&R 47. 114 Savior, messages it presents chiefly through vine-scroll, knotwork, and chequer-board: which Richard Bailey indicates as hiding other cross patterns within its design.545 Chapter 2 of this study associates checks with Celtic and Scandinavian traditions, and the image would therefore be familiar to the audience at Bewcastle. Jennifer O Reilly has shown, as well, that counterparts to chequer-board appear at the fringes of the Roman world: on metal shoulder clasps from Sutton Hoo, in the Book of Durrow, and in the eastern tradition manifested in an Armenian gospel book.546 The pattern had long participated in intertexuality then, and the now the runes at Bewcastle and Ruthwell formed another such link. For while the runes at Bewcastle name those memorialized in what O Carragain identifies as a Liber Vitae, the interlace of Christ and the Vine images hope of Salvation and Resurrection for the faithful. The runes at Ruthwell are from DOR, a poem which also expresses a hope that those who have gone before “dwell in glory,” adding: [...] Ond ic wene me daga gehwylce hwænne me Dryhtnes rod, þe ic her on eorðan ær sceawode on þysson lænan life gefetige ond me þonne gebringe þær is blis mycel. (DOR 135-139)547 ( And I look forward, each of my days, to the time when the cross of the Lord, that I once beheld here on earth, will fetch me from this fleeting life, then bring me where there is much bliss ...) Hopes of salvation might have quickened in Northumbrian Christians when the Viking campaigns of the eighth century targeted their foundations at Lindisfarne and Iona.548 Rollason suggests, however, that the invaders concentrated on “Gaul, Ireland and Pictland” during the early ninth century and on Germany and France in the 840s and 850s;549 they overran Repton only in 874. Jane Hawkes dates the Sandbach Crosses to the earlier part of the ninth century.550 Hawkes observes that both crosses “offer a sustained presentation of the celebration of the divine and human nature of Christ, the source of salvation and eternal life,”551 her comment revealing that the iconography at Sandbach participates in a theme discussed throughout this chapter. My analysis leads to the further suggestion that the iconography interweaves cultures in 545 Bailey, Richard N. England’s Earliest Sculptors. Publications of the Dictionary of Old English, 5. Toronto: PontificalInstitute of Mediaeval Studies, 1996; 66. 546 O’Reilly 164 [AA]. She cites, respectively: Dublin, Trinity College MS A.4.5 (57), fol. 21v; and Baltimore, Walters ArtGallery MS W.537, fo. 114v. cf Ch. 2 pg. 18 on the association of Celts and check-patterns. 547 Swanton 100. 548 Crawford 44; lists attacks at Lindisfarne in 793; Iona in 795, 802, 806, and 825. 549 Rollason 212. 550 Hawkes 137. 551 Hawkes 120. 115 ways that could encourage members of the Church–within and without Britain–to unite against a common enemy, the pagan Vikings. Although Hawkes believes the carvings were produced near Sandbach, she found no indication of whether the users were “monastic,” “ecclesiastical,” or “more generally secular.”552 Clues as to use nevertheless remain in location, affiliation, and imagery, and the present chapter shows these factors to be compatible with the art-historical parallels identified by Hawkes. In light of such evidence, I suggest that the location of Sandbach was ideal for cultural interweaving; that affiliation with the diocese of Lichfield augmented the potential for peace- weaving;553 and that imagery on the crosses addresses these interests. The location was conducive to cultural weaving. Lying in the northeast of the Welsh Marches, Sandbach is less than 20 miles from Chester and the River Dee, and so from the sea- lanes to Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Solway Firth, as well as to the passage Crawford mentions: “across the southern Pennines to York.”554 To the north and east lie other Northumbrian areas that included what may have been Celtic ‘Elmet’ and ‘Rheged’ with which, Elizabeth Coatsworth infers, there could have been “a hard-fought and highly permeable frontier.”555 Far to the southwest the Marches connect to the southern shores of the Severn Estuary, and thence to the Devonian Peninsula.556 Sandbach also lies approximately fifty miles north and west of Lichfield, through which Anglo-Saxon Mercia could have effected cultural interlace with all its Celtic neighbors. Although Offa had campaigned against South Wales in 778 and built Offa’s Dyke in 790, Daibhi O Croinin observes that “contacts between Mercia and Wales remained fluid enough.”557 The history of Chad and the Lichfield Gospels suggests a longstanding relationship between Lichfield and Northumberland,558 but it also evidences Welsh contacts. The whereabouts of the Gospels before the tenth century are unknown, but Daibhi O Croinin notes that the manuscript contains glosses in Welsh and Latin.559 Christian scholarship, then, had long superseded some cultural barriers in this area, and it is likely that the Church expected producers and users of the 552 Hawkes 138; 148. 553 Hawkes 15 n2; 145. 554 Crawford 55. 555 Coatsworth, Elizabeth. Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture Volume VIII: Western Yorkshire. The British Academy: OUP, 2008; 17. Coatsworth cites: Higham, N.J. “Northumbria’s Southern Frontier: A Review.” Early Medieval Europe. XIV, pt. 4, 2006, 391-418; and Cox, B. “The Pattern of Old English burh in Early Lindsey.” Anglo-Saxon England,VIII,1994;35-56,(53). 556 King 377. Trewhiddle is near St. Austell, Cornwall. 557 O Croinin, Daibhi. “Writing.” From the Vikings to the Normans. Ed. Wendy Davies. Oxford: OUP, 2003. 169-200(176). 558 Chapter 5 . 559 O Croinin 172-6. 116 Sandbach crosses to utilize Celtic designs to the same end. Hawkes indeed identifies Celtic elements in the iconography of the crosses, noting that “the presence of the scenes appears to have been motivated, not solely by iconographic, logistic or aesthetic reasons, but by the specific cultural associations they carried.”560 Examples are mainly Columban and Cornish, Hawkes considering the chain of inhabited rhombi on SE, and the pendant triangles at the base of the panels, as being in the Trewhiddle style and modeled on metalwork.561 Other elements at Sandbach that parallel insular metalwork include: “the positioning of figures within the variously shaped frames [. . .] the frames themselves, and particularly the large bosses set at the intersections of the lozenges.”562 It is relevant to this discussion that the Glossary definitions include ‘boss’ as a form of interlace or knot:563 the bosses here can therefore be read as emphasizing the all-encompassing quaternity of the Cross, and also as places where the incarnation (symbolized by the interlace) interconnects Divinity and the world. Hawkes identifies further Celtic parallels between the Virgin and Child scenes on NE and the Book of Kells; and between SW and crosses at Iona and Islay. Other Columban imagery includes the figure-of-eight interlace framing this scene on both the Iona and SW crosses, and she notes that “continuing contact” between Irish and Mercian churches, was contemporaneous with the Crosses.564 The evidence also points to foreign influence on Mercia. Hawkes suggests that, under Offa (757-96) and Coenwulf (796-821), Mercians maintained a policy of communication with Charlemagne (768-814).565 She adds that this might have affected the politics of Lichfield, which gained an archbishopric in 787, but lost it in 803; and she believes the policy might explain parallels between artwork from Mustair in Carolingian Switzerland and the Sandbach panels that depict The Road to Calvary (NW), the Transfiguration (NE & SW), and Traditio Legis cum Clavis (NE).566 Hawkes remarks of this iconography: “It is a theophany that has special relevance to the institution of the Church on earth.”567 She reminds us that the Transfiguration specifies union of the human and divine in Christ; that the Traditio bespeaks the righteousness of 560 Hawkes 141. 561 Hawkes 95/6. 562 Hawkes 137. 563 See Appendix sv. 564 Hawkes 142. 565 Cook, William Rand Ronal B. Herzman. The Medieval World View: An Introduction. 2nd ed. NewYork: OUP, 2004; 143-163 [C&H]. Pope Leo III had declared this Frankish king Emperor of Rome in 800 (145). These editors view Charlemagne as a protector of the Church and papacy, but who treated Christianity as the principal means of uniting his own empire (144/5; 148). He established Roman, rather than Gaulish, liturgy as orthodox throughout his empire (C&H 149). 566 Hawkes 144. 567 Hawkes 144. 117 unity under the Church; and that the Road to Calvary represents the humility of Christ in submitting to Incarnation,568 a characteristic that I think is an inherent aspect of His combined humanity and divinity. Hawkes further believes that a possible genealogy of Christ (SS) might contribute to the themes because of “the human and divine nature of Christ on which the Church was founded.”569 I suggest, too, that all such references would remind viewers of their unity under the Church, and could encourage them to weave greater unity–both to resist the heathen and to convert them–themes and motives that consist with those discussed above for the Northumbrian monuments. The Sandbach and Northumbrian crosses also share the symbolism of vine-scroll interlace, Sandbach developing variations through stepped/ladder schemes (NN & SN) and chains of rhombi. On NS, the scroll is unusual in combining with abstract interlace; in including a human among the animals; and in that the ‘inhabitants’ merge either into the vine or the knotwork–a characteristic of all the inhabited interlace at Sandbach. Hawkes suggests that the interconnection implies mutual dependence between participants in Christianity.570 Indeed, if the vine and the abstract interlace it grows from represent Christ–then these figures dwell within Him, and they become the branches of the Vine (John 15: 1-5). The arrangement thus asserts unity of Christ and members of His Church. As the above discussion shows, the chain of inhabited rhombi on SE varies the theme of ascent on the vine; and it does so via a series of chi crosses. Here, the triangular spaces to the sides (suggestive of the Holy Trinity, like those on the Matthew Page of LFG) are filled with figures; and their appendages, too, merge with the frame that nurtures them.. Occupying the top rhombus is a “prancing beast,” which Hawkes sees as a possible figure of Christ, an Agnus Dei; and she relates the rhomboid pattern to the all-encompassing power and “... love of Christ.”571 Another interpretation of the image could stem from that which Bailey attributes to the Fishing Stone at Gosforth, which depicts an encounter between a hart and a snake. Bailey says: Thanks to a combination of information from Pliny’s Natural History about the hart’s traditional enmity for the snake, and passages from Psalm 42 (‘as the hart panteth after the waterbrooks’), this type of encounter had become a conventional 568 Hawkes 142-5. The Transfiguration refers to Matt 17.1-9; Mark 9.2-9; Luke 9. 28-36–in which the Voice [of God] identifies Christ “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye him” (Matt 17.5). Hawkes explains the Traditio as a “scene that illustrates Christ committing the keys of heaven to Peter and the scroll(or book) of the New Law to Paul 56. Peter and Paul appear in both scenes, so reflecting the interpretation of patristic writers that the two were authorized as “the teacher[s] of nations” (61). 569 Hawkes 120. 570 Hawkes 93. 571 Hawkes 101; 166/7 (description of stones); 98/99. 118 symbol for the struggle of Christ and the individual Christian with the Devil.572 The stone below the Sandbach beast is damaged and unreadable however, in view of the overall iconography it is possible that a sinuous beast was once amid the knotwork . We will see that such defeat of Satan is part of the theme this cross presents: that of the nurture and salvation provided by a Church founded because of the Incarnation (seen in the abstract interlaced frame) and the Sacrifice of Christ (signified by all the crosses involved), which defeated Death. We will see that defeat of the Devil also coordinates with the theme of SN. The pattern of stepped rectangles on NN and SN also varies inhabited vine-scroll. Hawkes argues that the scheme represents a ladder like that of Jacob, a version of the Tree of Life by which the souls of the faithful attempt to ascend to heaven.573 Remaining unexplained above both these ladders, however, are winged, interlaced, fork-tongued beasts. Although Hawkes refutes earlier interpretations of them as the “Breath of God,” or the “Descent of the Holy Ghost,” she offers no alternatives. Hawkes explains that those who read the Beast as Paraclete claim the possibility that twelve figures should appear on NN as they do on SN, and they could then represent apostles; but she finds no art-historical sources for such a scheme. The parallel she does identify is the “so-called ‘Temptation’ (fol. 202v.) of the Book of Kells,” in which evil spirits threaten ascent of the faithful.574 I suggest what seems most obvious: that serpentine creatures with forked tongues usually represent the un-Holy Ghost and therefore threaten the ascent of souls. Such an image, furthermore, was appropriate to a Christian world raided by pagan Vikings. The tongues of the two serpents at the top of SN entwine in knotwork, which extends to enmesh the animals in a rhombus that then links to their own tails. The creatures are, therefore, trapped by the symbol that Hawkes elsewhere recognizes as signifying “the divine order and authority informing the fourfold harmony of the universe.”575 The present study suggests that such authority is clearly that described in Rev. 20: 1-3, which specifies that an Angel descended and bound Satan and: “set a seal upon him, that he should no more seduce the nations, ‘till the thousand years be finished. And after that, he must be loosed a little time,” [my stress]. In such a reading, the interlace binding the beasts symbolizes Christ Incarnate; whom Bede, for example, 572 Hawkes 102-3. Bailey, Richard N. England’s Earliest Sculptors. Publications of the Dictionary of Old English Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1996. 90. 573 Hawkes 72/3. F/n 140: Scriptural Authority for the Tree includes St. Paul (Epistle to the Ephesians 3: 17-19); Apoc:22.2; Daniel 4: 7-14; and for the Ladder cf Genesis 28: 12-13. F/n 143: On the Cross as Christ, tree, and ladder cf Augustine, P.L. Homily De Catachysmo ad Catechumenos; 40:696 574 Hawkes 70. 575 Hawkes 99. She cites O’Reilly Jennifer (1998 85; and 89). 119 identified as the Angel when he said: “The Lord, therefore, endued with His Father's power, descends and is incarnate, to wage war with the prince of the world, and when he is bound to spoil his goods.”576 This concept echoes that of the Kells exemplar cited by Hawkes, in which the figure at the top of the ladder (cp NN) is Christ welcoming the faithful after their trials.577 It is also consonant with my suggestion for the prancing animal at the top of SE, who would have won his battle with the serpents. Sandbach NE presents a Crucifixion scene, and here Hawkes considers that the evangelist symbols parallel a type from Trier.578 Above the NE Crucifixion, the sun and moon indicate the cosmic scale of the event, while Mary in a Nativity scene provides a link with the Incarnation.579 The scene also includes Beasts, and so Hawkes classifies it as an Adoration at the Manger, reflecting an interpretation by St. Ambrose that “the beasts in their stalls symbolise [sic] the peoples of the pagan world to be nourished by the abundance of ‘sacred food’ (alimoniae sacrae).”580 The theme links to the Christ and the Beasts panels at Ruthwell and Bewcastle, and could also apply to the figures in the triangles outside the rhomboid chain on SE; and, given the references to evangelism on NE,581 we can see that stress now seems to fall on the need to convert and nurture the heathen. As Hawkes also notes that the figure of St. John, near the Cross, signifies the Apocalypse, I suggest that perhaps the Sandbach scheme coordinates the two themes.582 NW displays a cross below the Road to Calvary sequence. The figures in its upper quadrants are unidentifiable, but below the arms of the icon and extending to the inverted V of its root, is another pair of winged beasts; the animal on the right is the less damaged, and we can see that its tongue and legs are bound into knotwork. This enlacement of lacertine beasts could be coincidental if just one example appeared at Sandbach; but there are three instances, as well as allusions to the Apocalypse. These two animals could, once more, refer to the binding of Satan in Revelation 20.1; or possibly also to his unbinding in 20.7: “And when the thousand years shall be finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go forth, and seduce the nations, which are over the four quarters of the earth ...” I believe that if Mercians by the “sandy 576 “Abyss.” “The Binding of the Devil.” The Explanation of the Apocalypse by Venerable Beda. Trans. Edward Marshall. Book III. James Parker and Co.; Oxford; 1878. 20:1. [OOP]. Explanatio Apocalypsis: By the Venerable Bede. 710-716 AD. 07 Dec. 2009. 120 valley stream”583 were as worldly as Hawkes suggests,584 they saw the dangers around them–nine centuries after Christ–and they could have reacted by thinking in these terms; even as Chapter 4 records that Wulfstan would in 1014.585 For Hawkes, the crosses reflect materialism because the patterns in the iconography replicate those on metalwork.586 The monuments were probably embellished with metal appliques that connected to the cross at the bosses, and while Hawkes attributes such ostentation to Anglo-Saxon tastes, she also acknowledges that allusion to, or use of, metalwork could also reference: “the richly decorated and gem-encrusted crux gemmata of the Apocalypse and, by extension, the future (re)establishment of Christ’s Kingdom on earth at the Second coming.”587 Again, the reading is in keeping with a world in danger of demolition by pagans. At what might have seemed to be the loosing of Satan, all Christendom faced a common enemy: the Vikings had sacked Lindisfarne, Iona, and the Holy Roman Empire. Sandbach, in the 830s, faced those of them who turned on Ireland and western Britain.588 I believe a question remains as to whether the call to unity at Sandbach was military as well as spiritual, and the answer may depend on information we do not have about the date of the crosses in relation to specific developments in the Viking situation. It is clear, however, that the Sandbach icons encourage the evangelizing of pagans. The iconography of the Gosforth Cross presents images that reveal interaction between Viking paganism and Christianity. The Vikings had founded Dublin in 841-2, thence raiding Western Britain until King Alfred (871-99) defeated Guthrum in 878.589 The ensuing treaty required Guthrum to adopt Christianity, a conversion that Barbara Crawford considers was essential for the resolution of cultural differences, and the stabilizing of society.590 Gosforth lies near the coast that faces the Isle of Man, and which therefore provided landing grounds for raiders in the tenth century, and later for Norse colonists.591 As with all the 583 “Sandbach” Institute for Name Studies. University of Nottingham. 2002. Dir. Dr. David Parsons. A Key to English Place-Names: Sandbach: SJ 75 60 Cheshire 'Sandy valley-straem'. OE sand, OE *baece. 02 Feb. 2010. 121 large crosses, it is possible that Gosforth served as a sign-post, or beacon, for travelers; this one may also have offered something of a welcome. The website explains that: “the lower rounded part of the Gosforth Cross is thought to represent Ygdrasil, the Viking World Tree.”592 The monument also depicts several Norse gods, and the website explains the ambivalence of one frame, which may: “[...] either represent the rebirth of Balder, son of Odin and the Viking god of light, or the crucifixion of Christ.” While the pagan scenes would have been familiar to Scandinavians, for Christians the second image refers to Redemption and the rebirth of hope for mankind: because this Tree is also the Cross. It remains to ascertain which interpretation predominates. The “crucifixion” scene includes a soldier impaling his victim with a weapon, so Christian reading of the panel rests on the parallel incident involving Longinus, in Gospel accounts of the Crucifixion (John 19:34).593 William Stevens and, later, Richard Bailey, provide further justification for drawing a Christian parallel, because they identify one of the two women standing by as Mary Magdalene (John 19: 25).594 Bailey interprets both Mary and Longinus as representing “the converted heathen,” referring to the latter as “Longinus, whom tradition saw as (symbolically) blind until the flow of blood from Christ’s side revealed the nature of Christ to him.”595 The Christian reading is less obvious in another panel that both Stevens and Bailey describe. Here Loki, “the Teutonic Prometheus,” effects the first earthquake when he is bound and cannot escape the dripping venom of a snake.596 In light of the understanding of knotwork presented in the present study, that which binds Loki is likely, once more, to indicate that Christ, Incarnate and crucified, overcame evil: at which point also “the earth quaked” (Matt: 27.51). As the drawing made by Collingwood shows (Fig. 6.6), further references to the binding of evil forces occur: for example, a prancing hart stands above another that struggles with a serpent: the imagery I have referenced for Sandbach SE.597 Further still, wolf-like heads emerge from the chains of interlace on all aspects of the tree-trunk. The figures seem refer to the legend later recorded by Snorri Sturluson in the Edda, where the Norse gods bound Fenrir the wolf, son of Loki, to prevent him from killing Odin; and Bailey references that imagery, identifying the battle where Vidar is later “avenging the death of Odin by breaking the jaws of the wolf who had 592 “Gosforth: Gosforth Cross.” English Lakes: An Illustrated Guide to the Lake District: West Coast. 2005-6. 05 Dec. 2009. 122 swallowed his father.”598 If we accept interlace as symbolizing Christ, then He here overcomes evil and pagan forces, presumably as manifestations of Satan. Bailey moves towards a similar reading of the overall imagery. He sees the Viking scenes as paralleling Ragnarok and Doomsday; and also, because the cross presents four horsemen-warriors, he identifies another parallel with the Apocalypse. He concludes that “The message of the Gosforth cross is that pagan narrative can be used to celebrate Christian truth and be shown to anticipate some of its perceptions.”599 The suggestion is compatible with that of Rollason who also specifies that the Viking scenes are from the “end of the gods–the Ragnarok,” and who believes “the theme was either the transition of pagans to become Christians, or the end of the pagan order to be replaced by that of Christ represented by the Crucifixion.”600 Depiction of these possibilities would consist with the requirement of the Guthrum treaty, that Norsemen must accept Christianity. The scheme at Gosforth nevertheless concedes to Viking taste: the similarity between Ygdrasil and the World Tree mentioned above acknowledges the Germanic origins of Scandinavians. Anglians shared those roots, and they understood how the imagery conflates with that of the Cross. Michael Swanton explains: This conception had been common to western thought since the pseudo-Cyprian poem ‘De Pascha’ had ascribed to the cross a vertebral place in cosmography, conceived as a great tree towering to unite heaven and earth, at once identical with the Saviour and church, and embracing all creation.601 At Gosforth, the style of the abstract interlace, too, is Scandinavian: Coatsworth categorizing it as a “multiple ring-chain type” of the Borre style.602 The chain runs the length of the cross-shaft, between the images and the wheel-head, and the ‘vertebral’ nature of the chains is apparent at Gosforth. Interlace thus literally connects all the cultures involved. According to the symbology ascribed to interlace in this chapter, however, and remembering that Anglo-Saxons also euhemerized Viking gods, use of the device at Gosforth suggests that all human souls can aspire to eternal life (represented by circles of the wheel-head and the interlace): but only through the 598 Sturluson, Snorri. Edda: A New and Complete Translation by Anthony Faulkes. London: J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd, 1987. 26-29 (Gylfaginning) 26-29 the provenance and binding of Fenrir; 54 Death of Odin and vengeance of Vidar. See also Bailey 88. 599 Bailey 90. 600 Rollason 254. 601 Swanton, Michael. “Ambiguity and Anticipation in “The Dream of the Rood.” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen/Bulletin of the Modern Language Society 70 (1969): 407-425 (418). Swanton (f/n 2) traces the history of the idea from Augustine, Jerome, Bede, and Alcuin. 602 Coatsworth, Elizabeth. Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Sculpture: Volume VIII, West Yorkshire. Oxford: OUP, 2008; 151, 108. Also cf Rollason 240. He explains the style as a variety found at Borre in Norway, and being of the first half of the tenth century. 123 salvation afforded by the Incarnation and Crucifixion. Rollason observes that the plaitwork, triquetrae, and wheel-head at Gosforth may have come with the Vikings, from their bases in Ireland.603 Once again, the iconography of a cross manifests cultural interlace; but the design falls under the authority of Christianity, which the Viking newcomers accepted and adapted, or may have previously adopted. The Church therefore never lost the power to participate in the development of multiculturalism and peace. This section has shown, then, that the Church and rulers of Northumbria and Mercia used stone crosses as they did manuscripts: to invoke the unifying power of the Cross; and that they wove peace by providing spiritual strength for the newly established union against its enemies, but also by eventually including those enemies in the fabric of their society. Knotwork on the crosses participated in integration by framing, linking, or binding the concepts depicted, and we see also that the abstract device–including the Cross itself–simultaneously analogizes the omnipresent Divinity by revealing it in physical terms. 603 Rollason 242. 124 a) Bewcastle Cross b) Ruthwell Cross Figure 6.1: Christ Acclaimed by Two Animals-On Two Crosses604 604 O Carragain 205, Figure 37. He attributes the photo to Hewison, James King. The Runic Roods of Ruthwell and Bewcastle, with a Short History of the Cross and Crucifix in Scotland. Glasgow: Smith, 1914; Plate XV, BL 7709. d. 24). 125 Figure 6.2: The Ruthwell Cross, Engraving After Drawings by Henry Duncan, 1833.605 605 O Carragain 22, Fig. 12. He attributes the illustration to Duncan, Henry. “An Account of the Remarkable Monument in the Shape of a Cross, Inscribed with Roman and Runic Letters, Preserved in the Garden of Ruthwell Manse, Dumfriesshire.” Archaeologica Scotica: or Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 4. Pt. 2, 1833: 313-26. 126 Figure 6.3: Illustrations of the Bewcastle Cross by W. G. Collingwood 606 606 Thomson, Bishop David. “Bewcastle Cross.” 20 Feb. 2010. 127 a) NN b) NW c) NS d) NE Figure 6.4: Illustrations of the North Sandbach Cross. Images by Jane Hawkes. 607 607 Hawkes. NN: 65/Fig 2.14. NW: 76/Fig. 2.22.. NS: 86/Fig. 2.26. NE: 31/Fig. 2.1 128 a)SN b)SW c)SS d)SE Figure 6.5: Illustrations of the South Sandbach Cross. Images by Jane Hawkes.608 608 Hawkes. SN: 69/Fig. 2.17. SW: 104/Fig.3.8. SS:116/Fig.3.18 SE: 95/Fig. 3.1 129 Figure 6.6: Illustrations of the Gosforth Cross by W. G. Collingwood.609 609 Bailey 86, Fig. 43. He attributes the illustration to Collingwood, W. G. Northumbrian Crosses of the Pre- Norman Age. London: Faber and Gwyer. Repr. Felinfach, Lampeter: Llanerch, 1989. 130 CHAPTER 7 INTERLACE AND "THE DREAM OF THE ROOD” The poem we know as "The Dream of the Rood" illustrates the conciliatory power of the Cross by presenting the image of a cross which towers between heaven and earth: but earlier chapters have shown the cross to be also a figuration of the Word.610 That Word deploys words through the structure of interlace in the poem, where its multiplicity of crosses could have “underpinned” its evangelical message in contributing to a campaign for weaving peace: in an England ruled by Christian kings–under the aegis of the One Almighty God. The authority of St. Paul once again supports theology as to the unifying power of the Cross. He wrote to the Colossians that the Father sent Christ, "Who is the image of the invisible God," adding: "And through him to reconcile all things unto himself, making peace through the blood of his cross, both as to the things that are on earth, and the things that are in heaven."611 Paul explains further that the Crucifixion and Baptism redeem us from Original Sin: And he hath taken the same out of the way, fastening it to the cross: / And despoiling the principalities and powers, he hath exposed them confidently in open shew, triumphing over them in himself."612 This theology also links my claims about DOR and LFG, and suggests some similarity in their rhetorical purposes. For LFG, Paul supports the concept that, on the St. Matthew Incipit page (f27), the zoomorphs who ‘decorate’ the frame could signify lesser kings who suddenly recognize the authority of the Word Incarnate; and these are kings who have imprisoned even lesser creatures, which appear as panels of zoomorphic interlace.613 The interpretation, though, can extend to the St. John Incipit page (f211), where the words "In Principio erat verbum, et verbum erat apud d(eu)m et d(eu)s [erat verbum]’614 are illuminated, and the lesser zoomorphs 610“The Dream of the Rood” [DOR] is Codex CXVII, Cathedral Library, Vercelli, ff. 104v-106. On the Cross as a figure of Christ[the Word] cf Chapter 6 pg. 106. See also Treharne, Elaine. "Rebirth in The Dream of the Rood." The Place of the Cross in Anglo-Saxon England. Eds. Catherine E. Karkov, Sara Larratt Keefer, and Karen Louise Jolly. New York: Boydell and Brewer, Inc., 2006. 145-157. cf also 149/50: Treharne quotes an earlier source for this convention, from the second century Apocryphal Acts of John: "This cross of light is sometimes called the Word by me for your sakes . . ." Text from: Bremmer, Rolf Jr., "The Reception of the Acts of John in Anglo-Saxon England." The Apocryphal Acts of John. Ed. Jan N. Bremmer. Kampen, The Netherlands: Kok Pharos (1995): 183-96. 611 St. Paul. Epistle to the Colossians. cf 1.15 and 1.20. 612 St. Paul, Col 2.14-15 613 Chapter 5 pg. 93; 96. 614 cf Janet Backhouse 55. She translates: "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and God [was the word]." The tenth century Old English interlinear gloss supplies the words: "in fruma wæs word & word wæs godes sunu wæs mid god fæder "(In the beginning was the Word and the Word [that] was the Son of God was with God the Father). 131 of the frame, now without their own crowns (horns), seem happily to contemplate the crowned majuscule initials. The petty kings here enclose panels only of abstract interlace–an analogy for Incarnation–and so could represent powers who accept and nurture the dominion of the Word. The present chapter supports the view that, during campaigns to defeat pagan Vikings and to subjugate the Danelaw, the Wessex dynasty of the ninth and tenth centuries sought similarly to unite England and Wales under one government and one Church. This section suggests further that, in the cause of weaving the new society, the Cult of the Cross provided a further means of activating the power of the Word: by incorporating interlace into the oral traditions of homily and poetry. To demonstrate this, the discussion focuses on interlace in DOR and considers the relationship between the poem and the St. John Incipit. Firstly, though, an overview of the codicological and historical contexts associated with DOR provides insight about the producers of the text and its audience. The manuscript of DOR survives in the codicological context of the Vercelli Book: a collection of Old English homilies and the poems: Andreas, Elene, and The Fates of the Apostles, as well as a prose Life of St. Guthlac.615 Michael Swanton categorizes the language of DOR as "predominantly late West Saxon with a strong Anglian element."616 He indicates that paleographical evidence supports claims for West Saxon origins and a date in the second half of the tenth century,617 and Donald Scragg argues, more specifically, that a Canterbury scriptorium produced the book.618 The evidence, then, suggests a Wessex provenance and use of the codex. The survival of the poem in two areas–Northumbria and Wessex–indicates that it might have been an instrument of the all-encompassing English Church rather, than of any secular faction. Although we cannot know whether the prototype for DOR was Northumbrian or southern, Swanton agrees with most scholars that the DOR runes at Ruthwell may derive from an early version of the poem that was extant in Northumbria ca. 700, and O Carragain supports the views of Rosemary Cramp and Uta Schwab that the Ruthwell inscription is probably contemporaneous with the cross.619 Northumbrian culture was not esoteric, however; as David Rollason says: "Rather it was a more wide-ranging one, an identity which embraced western Christendom at large."620 This study has shown, throughout, that interlace similarly participated in a larger identity; and one reason for suggesting that DOR might also have done so is that 615 Swanton 5 (DOR).. 616 Swanton 9. 617 Swanton 1. 618 Scragg, Donald. "The Nature of Old English Poetry.” The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature. Eds. Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991; 55-70 (57) 619 Swanton 39-42; O Carragain 52-53 agrees with Cramp on this; but notes that R. I. Page disagrees. 620 Rollason 170. 132 Bernard Huppe has demonstrated how the poem is structured by what this study has explained as interlace.621 Another reason is that the work relates to overarching liturgical, Biblical, and patristic traditions. As O Carragain argues: "The Dream is a classic example of the ancient Christian tradition of thinking theologically by means of inventing original narratives."622 The poem could have been used and developed elsewhere than Northumbria, therefore, and analysis of dialect forms within the extant text led Swanton to opine: "The small number of early West Saxon forms might indicate at least one intermediate version, perhaps stimulated by Alfred's acquisition of important cross relics in 885."623 That Alfred showed interest in the Cults of the Cross and St. Cuthbert is also significant, because he affected the outlook of his descendants during their campaigns against the Danelaw. Rollason views Northumbrian culture as continuing throughout the Viking hegemony in the area. He hypothesizes that councils of indigenous Archbishops and aristocracy continued to govern while Vikings “disposed of” Northumbrian kings and fragmented the kingdom,624 and that the process of Christianization still proceeded throughout the area.625 The new Northumbria included areas in the northeast that were not under Viking authority: one was ruled by a House of Bamburgh, and another by what appears as the 'liberty' of St. Cuthbert in 883. It is relevant, though, that King Alfred probably later granted similar sanctuary rights to Durham; and that Athelstan might have confirmed them for the Community of St. Cuthbert, because the grants indicate that Wessex power extended into that area of the Danelaw.626 Rollason records further: Alfred is supposed to have attributed his victory at Edington [AD 878] to Cuthbert's intercession and to have recommended his son Edward the Elder [AD 899-924] to venerate the saint. Athelstan [AD 924-939] is said to have visited the shrine and to have made rich gifts, Edmund to have visited the shrine, and Cnut [AD 1016-1035] to have given the wide estate of Staindrop to the community.627 621 Huppe, Bernard F. The Web of Words: Structural Analyses of the Old English Poems “Vainglory,” “The Wonder of Creation,” “The Dream of the Rood,” and “Judith.” Albany: SUNYP, 1970; xiii-xxi; and 64-112. 622 O Carragain 331. 623 Swanton 39. 624 Rollason 244 625 Rollason 230. 626 Rollason 244-9. See also 272-3, where he describes a ‘liberty’ as a place of sanctuary for those accused of criminal activity; and discusses the Wessex interests in the area. See also Hall, David. "The Sanctuary of St. Cuthbert." St. Cuthbert and His Community to AD 1200. Eds. Bonner, Gerald; David Rollason, and Clare Stancliffe. Rochester, NY: Boydell, 1989; 425-436 (430-1). (SC) 627 Rollason, David. "St. Cuthbert and Wessex: The Evidence of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 183." St. Cuthbert, His Cult and His Community to AD 1200. Eds. Gerald Bonner, David rollason, and Clare Stancliffe. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1989; 413-424 (413). Rollason refers to Historia de sancto Cuthberto, the History of St. Cuthbert. Volume I of Symeonis monachi Opera omnia ed. T. Arnold, RS (2 vols; London, 1882-5); 14-19, 25-8 and 32, and above, pp. 389-95 and 404-11. 133 As Michelle Brown observes: "The community of St. Cuthbert seems to have been 'doing its bit' to keep the region 'English' and the promotion of Old English may have been a part of this."628 In so promoting the language, the community would have continued a tradition of their region. Brown reminds us that translation of religious works into English began earlier; for example: "Bede was engaged in translating St. John's Gospel, for the good of his soul and for those of all people, on his deathbed (dictating to an assistant) in 735"; and she adds that, in his gloss to that gospel, "Aldred confirms Bede as one of the sources of his scholarship."629 The process of translating into the vernacular also extended to the program Alfred had outlined in his "Preface to the Cura Pastoralis of Gregory the Great" (Bodleian Library, Hatton MS 20). There the king wrote to his bishops: Forðy mē ðyncð betre, gif iou swæ ðyncð, ðæt wē ēac sume bēc, ðā ðe nīedbeðearfosta sīen eallum monnum tō wiotonne, ðæt wē ðā on ðæt geðīode wenden ðe wē ealle gecnāwan mægen, ond gedōn, swæ wē swīðe ēaðe magon mid Godes fultume, gif wē ðā stilnesse habbað, ðætte eall sīo gioguð ðe nū is on Angelcynne frīora monna, ðāra ðe ðā spēda hæbben ðæt hīe ðæm befēolan mægen, sīen tō liornunga oðfæste, ðā hwīle ðe hīe tō nānre ōðerre note ne mægen, ōð ðone first ðe hīe wel cunnen Englisc gewrit ārædan.630 (Therefore it seems better to me, if it seems so to you, that we also should translate some books, those that are most necessary for all men to know, into that language that we can all understand, as we can very easily do with God's help, if we have the peace, so that all the youth of free men who are now among the English people, of those who have the means, may be set to a task of learning, so long as they may not be of any other occupation, until the time that they know well how to read English writing.) The texts of the Vercelli Book follow this precedent of bringing wisdom to the people: they preach Christian doctrine in English, not Latin. It is also noteworthy that Alfred considered ‘peace’ a necessary environment for the endeavor. The Wessex dynasty may well also have prioritized the reinforcement of power through language–a lingua franca–in emulation of the Romans, a dynamic discussed throughout Chapter 4. It seems, in addition, that these rulers had every reason to understand the place of interlace in the Cult of the Cross: especially as the Northumbrians had used it to reconcile diverse cultures establish peace, and convert pagans. The visits of these kings to north-eastern Northumbria 628 Brown 97. 629 Brown 96; 97. 630 Alfred the Great. "Preface to the Cura Pastoralis of Pope Gregory the Great." A Guide to Old English. Eds. Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson. 5th ed. Cambridge, Mass: Blackwell, 1992. 205-207, lines 54-61.(Mitchell and Robinson). 134 suggest that they probably knew LFG; in any case, they certainly knew St. John's Gospel. It is thus reasonable to suppose that they consciously combined the Cult with the interlace in their Germanic rhetoric–their oral tradition of alliterative poetry, following a precedent modeled, for example, by Aldhelm. It is similarly possible that Alfred extended use of the device into the literary program in Wessex, especially as his "Preface" mentions the bishops Asser and Plegmund – two men whose origins point to their probable knowledge of interlace. Asser was Welsh, Mitchell and Robinson explain, and he "became Bishop of Sherborne and wrote a Latin biography of King Alfred"; "Plegmund was a Mercian who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 890."631 Whether or not these churchmen encouraged the tradition of interlace in Wessex, the following analysis indicates that, by the late tenth century, the Church at Canterbury applied it to DOR. This study has already viewed intertextuality as a form of interlace,632 and the Vercelli Book illustrates this codicologically, not only by binding together a variety of texts in poetry and prose, but also by including texts about the Cross: Elene, and DOR. Scholars also attest that DOR refers to various sources from the larger Christian context. They have identified allusions to Scripture, by which the poem develops its themes. Elaine Treharne, for example, examines the theme of rebirth, tracing its sources to Patristic literature that includes the Apocryphal Acts of John and Cyril of Jerusalem's “Letter to Constantine.”633 Michael Swanton is among those who discuss the eschatological aspects of the poem, and his references include a hymn of St. Ephraem of Syria and the Apocrypha.634 Eamonn O Carragain suggests the liturgy of the Vatican Mass "Adnuntiatio Domini et Passsio Eiusdem" as a source for the theme of Incarnation and Passion.635 Rosemary Woolf has been especially influential for her exposition of communicatio idiomatum (communion of properties) in the poem, a principle which Pope Leo I (AD 440-61) took from Alexandrian teaching and used in his “Tome,” where he sought to resolve the 631 Mitchell and Robinson 207 f/n 70-2. The editors note: The first Bishop of Sherborne (705) had been Aldhelm (ca. 639-709)– who had been known for his riddles, and whose Latin work also shows Irish influence. This is mentioned in Chapter 3, as is the Welsh tradition of interlace. The Mercian tradition has has already been mentioned in Chapter 5 in relation to Chad of Lindisfarne and Lichfield, and in Chapter 6 on Stone Crosses, especially Sandbach. 632 Chapter 3 pg. 37. 633 Treharne, Elaine. "Rebirth in "The Dream of the Rood." The Place of the Cross in Anglo-Saxon England. Eds. Catherine E. Karkov, Sara Larratt Keefer, and Karen Louise Jolly. New York: Boydell and Brewer, Inc., 2006; 145-157. cf also 149-50, where Treharne cites both these texts as possible sources for the concept of the cosmic cross of light. 634 Swanton 64 f/n 2: cf 2 Esdras 5; p. 66: the Gospel of Peter, which combines the cosmic cross with paronomasia. At 75 f/n 2 Swanton refers to a hymn of Ephraem Syrus, "whose writings," David Johnson says further, "were instrumental in establishing early medieval Judgement Day iconographical conventions,” (Payne, 1976:331). cf Johnson, David. "Old English Religious Poetry.” Companion to Old English Poetry. Eds. Henk Aertsen and Rolf H. Bremmer Jr. Amsterdam: VU University Press, 1994. 159-187 (179). 635 O Carragain 355. 135 Monophysite controversy.636 Bernard Huppe revealed a theme in which DOR presents Christian life as a pilgrimage towards the Heavenly Home;637 he also produced a close analysis of the interlace, the “web of words,” in the poem, and Chapter 4 includes a summary of his description of that structure in Old English poetry. For ease of reference, this discussion follows the scenes of DOR as Huppe outlined them; I have, therefore, shown the structure at the end of this chapter. My discussion of interlace in DOR highlights the evangelical aspect of the poem, which renders it an instrument for soldiers of the one Almighty King, and therefore suitable for every individual in Wessex and Northumbrian audiences: be they military or religious. The analysis shows how the poet enables development of themes by techniques described in Chapter 4: antithesis, juxtaposition, intersection, variation, allusiveness, and analogy; and by parallelism and framing, the forms of which are often chiastic when applied to the alliterative half-line. The study focuses through development of the concepts “Word” and “Cross” in the poem, showing how they provide an interlacement that provokes both thought and action in response to the Gospel of St. John, particularly according to the commentary by St. Augustine.638 Tractate 2 of that commentary concentrates on the "In Principio" section of the Gospel, relating it to the wood of the Cross which, Augustine maintains, provides passage between this world and the heavenly homeland: "For no one can cross the sea of this world unless carried by the cross of Christ."639 Augustine states also that Christ became incarnate so that men could first see Him, and then act as "witness," a doctrine that suggests, overall, how individuals can participate in their own redemption–by evangelizing their faith. Augustine continues, "Thus he showed that it was for the sake of men that he wanted himself to be clearly revealed to the faith of the believers by his lamp, so that his enemies might be confounded by the same lamp."640 I interpret Augustine as thus expressing a requirement for evangelism to strengthen the faithful and to confute the pagan; and the Cross in DOR commands the Dreamer to bear such witness: as part of the Way of the Cross (beacen) that appears to him DOR 6, 21, 83; 95-100). The command exemplifies the prosopopeia by which the poet of DOR presents words 636 Woolf, Rosemary. "Doctrinal Influences on "The Dream of the Rood." Art and Doctrine: Essays on Medieval Literature. Ed. Heather O'Donoghue. London: The Hambledon Press, 1986. 29-48 (32 ff.) “Leo I (440-61)” ODP: explains that the Tome was a letter from Leo to Flavian, Bishop of Constantinople 13 June, 449; ODP 44 describes communicatio idiomatum as explaining how Christ Incarnate incorporated both human and Divine Natures. 637 Huppe xiii-xxi; and 64-112. 638 Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo. Tractates on the Gospel of John. Trans. John W. Rettig. Washington, D.C: Catholic University of America Press, c.1988. 639 This image of the Cross is also relevant to the "Andreas" text in the Vercelli Book: where God provides the saint with a ship, in which he crosses stormy seas while conversing with "The Lord of angels, Saviour of men (290)." Translation from: Bradley, S. A. J. ed. and trans. Anglo-Saxon Poetry. London: J. M. Dent, 1982; 110-153. 640 Augustine Tr. 2. 67(3); 68.9. 136 that purport to be spoken by the Word; so it is logical, even necessary, that the poet should derive his representations of the Word from the Bible, which is also known as the Word of God. John is the evangelist who discusses the Word: he identifies the Word as the Creator, saying, "All things were made by him," (John 1.1-3). Augustine enlarges on the first chapter of John, to the effect that it was the Word who came to mankind, incarnate from the Beginning, and who allowed Himself to be crucified in order to: Manifest Divinity by appearing as man (64/5 (4)); Exemplify humility (64.(4)); Kill Death (74): and bring Redemption and Salvation to the fallen race of mankind–so showing the way for us to return to the Heavenly Homeland (64ff). The present analysis indicates that this is the plot of DOR; and because the message shares the concerns presented in the visual arts already discussed, the poem, too, reflects the religio-political aims of those who produced the interlace. As the beginning of the chapter suggests, the key to the claim lies in recognition of the Cross as the figuration of Christ, who is also the Word. A second key, however, lies in the parallel understanding that–because the cross is the basic unit of weaving–interlace in words analogizes His Divinity. This poet thereby presents an image of Divinity in the Wood, but also re-presents the abstract part of the concept in the fabric of his text: crosses infuse the text and symbolize the invisible Word while holding together the construction of words. Such a poem, furthermore, is both a physical and spiritual metaphor for the process of Creation: in which the poet analogizes the principle of John 1.2, "All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made." Saint Augustine expands: (But) God constructs while infused in the world. He constructs while situated everywhere. He does not withdraw from anywhere; he does not direct the structure which he constructs as someone on the outside. By the presence of his majesty he makes what he makes; by his own presence he governs what he has made. He was, then, in the world as the one through whom the world was made. For "the world was made through him, and the world knew him not."641 St. Paul had similarly explained this aspect of creation: "For the invisible things of him are clearly seen from the attributes of the world, being understood by the things that are made. His eternal power also and divinity, so that they are inexcusable."642 The poet also specifies the infusion of the Word in Creation by describing the state of the Cross, which is beg(e)otan "sprinkled" or "infused" with gold and/or blood (7a, 48/49), thus appearing alternately in glory or as gallows. It is a concept that echoes the gilding and red dots on the St. 641 Augustine 69.(2); [quotes John 1.10]. 642 St. Paul. Rom. 1.20-22. 137 Matthew page of LFG; and, as Huppe said, this Cross is both “triumphant” and “the cross of suffering”;643 it manifests “the mystery of Redemption, the triumph of mortification.”644 I suggest further that in so presenting Christ the Word as both Divine and human, the flashing of both image and verbal antitheses analogizes communicatio idiomatum. The infusion of the Word in Creation is also manifest in verbs that refer to weaving and clothing: the Cross is bewunden–"wrapped" or "entwined" with light (5b); (ge)gyred, gegyrwed, or gyredon - "adorned" or "dressed" with gold, treasure, gold and silver (16a, 23b, 77a). The Word Incarnate ongyred–symbolically "prepared" or "stripped" Himself of man-made clothing: before he ascended the Cross and quit the garment of flesh bestowed by God (39a). Gems bewrigene (fr. bewreon) "cover" or "clothe" His Cross (17a) as clouds do His corpse (53a). It is a list in which analogy develops through polyptoton, variation, and antithesis; and by the echoes set up between concepts, as words connect meanings and effect coherence in the verbal textile. Using these techniques, the dreamer allows us to discern that the poem itself is the creation of a man who responds to the call of the Cross: to evangelize the narrative of Volition, Fall, and Redemption; that is, to "reveal" or "uncover"–onwreon it with words (95-100). Nouns for weaves or textiles work similarly to weave the Cross into Creation. The Tree is wædum geweorðode “honored by clothing” (15a) and wendan wædum “[seen] to change clothing”(22a). Commentators speculate as to what clothing might be intended, “But,” Swanton points out, “the most straight-forward reference would seem to be to the ritual shrouding of crosses with a veil or pall on good Friday to be dramatically revealed with the Resurrection services of Easter Sunday.”645 These are like the weeds of mourning still worn by widows. Another such noun, sceat, means "sheet, covering, cloak, or garment,” and is usually translated in DOR as "corner" or "surface." The word appears as sceatum (8a) where gems meet the surface of the earth; and the gems there, being faegere, provide a link with the spirits who were fægere þurh forðgesceaft "fair from the beginning of Creation," or “throughout Creation.” (10a)– those who, in antithesis to the reordberend, “speechbearers” (3a), exercised willpower so as not to Fall. Repetition of sceatum (43a), at the Crucifixion scene, provides further contrast to this fairness when the Word ascends the gallows that wills itself not to bend or fall to the same earth (42b). Yet the situation is also a paradox, for while the Crucifixion shows the vileness of mankind, the acts of Christ and the Cross exceed heroism or fairness: because the resolution of the paradox–Redemption–epitomizes Grace. In the interim, the Cross has seen the sceatas (polyptoton) “surfaces” of the earth quake (37a) as God their Creator approached the cross 643 Huppe 76. On gilding and red dots in LFG see Chapter 5, pgs. 90/92. 644 Huppe 75. 645 Swanton 110, note 15. 138 created by men. Interlace as a process of Creation/creation thus allows us a glimpse of cosmic dimensions: through a dream vision that spans space and time, and by the sublimity of antitheses. The gems on the cross are also attributes of interlace in their function as decorative insets (7b, 16b), and they parallel the knots in manuscript or woven fabric, or the bosses that enabled the connection of metal to stone crosses. The gems in the poem alternate with bloody wounds: they are placed where Christ was nailed to the Cross. The gems are also at points of connection between the Creator and His creation, including at the surface of the earth (7b-8a), and there are five on the eaxlegespanne (9a). Swanton indicates that the translation for the latter word is usually “shoulder beam”; however, the component gespanne means “that which links or stretches.”646 In light of the present discussion the term could then refer to the junction of the beams in forming the interlace that is the Cross, and the jewels would then would work as Huppe pointed out, because "The Passion explains the mystery of the interweaving of radiance and suffering, communicato idiomatum."647 The gems on the cross, therefore, also analogize the Christian paradox that contains its own solution–Redemption: where evil is transmuted to good, and Death becomes Eternal Life. They represent points where a thesis of spiritual glory (gold and gems 7)648 meets an antithesis of wounds caused by nails (46a) and arrows (62b) and there–through the synthesis of sacrifice–the Son-Word redeems mankind. In DOR, intensified verbs that are also homonyms frame and interlace the lines that illustrate synthesis (“they drove dark nails through me”) and sacrifice in the Crucifixion scene: þurhdrifan hi me mid deorcan næglum; || on me syndon þa dolg gesiene; —and standan steame bedrifenne;|| eall ic wæs mid strælum forwundod. (46 & 62) Steame bedrifenne “‘drenched,’ ‘soaked’ with blood, ” and forwundod both produce echoes, furthermore, and so can remind the audience that the dreamer, like all mankind, is synnum fah, and forwunded mid wommum ('stained with sins'/'badly injured with wounds' 13b/14a). Swanton adduces evidence from glosses to indicate that fah also indicated ‘hostile’ or ‘proscribed’, while womm can connote ‘noise or harbinger of terror,’ meaning, by extension, that: “Not only is this considered to be in some way appropriate to dreams, it is a feature of war, winter, Doomsday and Hell.”649 In these lines, also, the intensifier for, in forwunded, also implies that the wounding 646 Swanton 107, note 9. 647 Huppe 76. 648 Swanton 52 cites a precedent for this perception from the Egbert Pontifical: “radiet hic Unigeniti Filii tui splendor divinitatis in auro, emicet gloria passionis in ligno, icruore rutilet nostrai mortis redemptio, in splendore cristalli nostrae vitae purificatio,”[my emphasis]." cf H. A. Wilson, The Benedictional of Archbishop Robert (London, 1903), p. 184." 649 Swanton, Michael. “Ambiguity and Anticipation in ‘The Dream of the Rood.’ ” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen/Bulletin of the Modern Language Society. 70 (1969): 407-425 (408-9). 139 occurred 'previously'; which could remind the audience that all mankind is stained and wounded by its willful fall through Original Sin. The concept therefore functions with the repetition of synnum in framing the Vision and Narrative (at 13b and 99b), and it anticipates the moment in the Exhortation: when the Cross commands the dreamer to reveal the news of Redemption from that fall: [...] mancynnes||manegum synnum ond Adomes ealdgewyrhtum. (99-100) The instruction, contained in lines 95-100, echoes still further with the introduction to the poem (1-3). As Swanton points out, "The Apocryphal Gospel of Peter, for instance, tells of a cross towering into the skies that at the Resurrection is given a divine errand to preach to those that sleep."650 The Cross in DOR fulfills this mission: the first people to appear in the poem are 'speechbearers' who are in bed, and presumably asleep, for they participate no further in the Vision (syðþan reordberend|| reste wunedon! 3). That is reasonable in the midnight context of the narrative (2); however, men who sleep are deaf and mute; further still, reste can also mean “grave.” These sleepers therefore represent those who are oblivious, if not spiritually dead, to the vision of the Maker who gifted them with speech. Perhaps the Dreamer exemplifies the audience Augustine addressed: “My beloved people, exercise your understanding; for he came to weak minds, to wounded hearts, to the vision of bleary-eyed souls. He had come for this reason."651 It is significant, consequently, that the treow appears at night, leohte bewunden (5b)–because that is how St. John said Christ came to the world that was oblivious of Him: "And the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it."652 The reason unbelieving mankind is in darkness, and is darkness, Augustine explains further, is because of the Fall; and that is why the Light came to the world: "For if man had not departed from that light, he would not have to be enlightened."653 John Rettig, who translated the Tractates, notes: The Latin metaphor contains a play on words that is untranslatable; Latin cadere, "to fall," and occidere, "to fall down," or, for heavenly bodies, "to set," and the derivative nouns, casus and occasus. The enlightening God never stops shining on men; but a person's sin blocks out that light and, so to speak, God the sun sets on that person who then is darkness and not light.654 650 Swanton 66, f/n 2: cites Harnack, A. Bruchstucke des Evangeliums und der Apocalypse des Petrus. (Leipzig, 1893), 11. 651 Augustine 66.7. 652 John 1.5. 653 Augustine 66/7.3. 654 Rettig 2.67. (2) Footnote 20. 140 From this we may understand why the Cross in DOR should appear so unstable when it ought to symbolize the epitome of constancy and safe transportation. The fault lies in the eyes of the beholder: the sins of the Dreamer darken and obscure his view even as the Cross reveals the consequences of those sins. The very flickering of the Cross (18-23), then, is interlace as variation, and it encourages us to exercise our perception and to develop understanding. Through this poem, we can discern that the apparition of the Cross-Word works as a lamp (a beacon) that helps the Dreamer and his audience clear their perceptions. For although Christ described John the Baptist as "a burning and shining light,"655 Augustine explained that the original Light was Christ himself (the Word), and: "In him was life, and the life was the light of men."656 He shows that the Cross fulfills the same function: (4) And even the man with poor eyesight sometimes embraces this cross. And he who does not see from afar where to go, let him not depart from that [cross], and it will lead him over.657 DOR, like St. John's Gospel itself, clearly needs explication. Proceeding on the principle that the poet analogizes the Word through the words and crosses of the text, therefore, it is useful to consider his variation of the words for "cross" and to note that, from the beginning, they signify the symbol as Truth, Light, and the Way - that is, as Christ, the Redeemer. The Vision (1-23) introduces most of the words the poet will use for the Cross. They are: treow (4b, 14b, 17b); beam (6a, 13a); beacen (6b, 21b); and engel (9b). It is not, the dreamer asserts, the gealga (“gallows”: of a criminal, 10b). The other terms all have meanings that can deepen our understanding of the nature of the cross. Thus while the cosmic treow (on lyft lædan|| 5a) is “more rare than any other” (4b), a “tree of Glory” (14b), the “tree of the Ruler” (17b), and the “tree of the Saviour” (25b)–the word treow also means “truth, fidelity, trust, and promise.” Knowing that this is the Word, the individual can therefore recognize it as Truth, and place faith in the promise of Redemption that it carries. A beam is both a beam of wood and a beam of light; therefore this tree also represents the Light. When compounded into sigebeam (13a, 127) the tree becomes a light or sign of Victory; and we will see that the poem develops that concept as victory over the death occasioned by Original Sin, the death already symbolized by the sleepers. As beacen, “beacon,” the Cross is again the sign of enlightenment, and a guiding light towards victory; while as an engel, or 'angel' it is also a messenger, a holy spirit of and from the Lord. The towering celestial Cross, then, appears in sublime contradistinction to the sleeping speechbearers; and the Dreamer is, for us, 655 Augustine Tr. 2. 66.7; cites Jn 5.35. 656 Augustine 67/8; cites Jn. 1.4. 657 Augustine 62.(4). 141 the individual one–chosen as a spokesperson among men. The Narrative (24-77) uses the verb hleoðrian (“to speak”) to introduce the Cross as a speaker. The past tense hleoðrode (26b), however, includes another word for Cross –rod, and thus synthesizes the characteristics of Cross and Word into communicatio idiomatum. Use of rod also frames the description the central scene of the Crucifixion (44a, Rod wæs ic aræred; and 56b, Crist wæs on rode), once more stressing the synthesis. In discussing the use of rod, it is noteworthy that the poet uses this Anglo-Saxon word for “cross,” but never applies the Celtic- Norse word kross. It is possible that this, like the gloss in LFG, implies linguistic assertion or political dominance; but it may simply have been inherited with an older, Northumbrian version of the poem. It is rhetorically purposeful, however, that the word rod would echo the name of the Anglo-Saxon rune–rad [R], which means “road,” or “way.” We encounter yet another aspect of the Word-Tree at the beginning of Scene II, before the Crucifixion scene begins. The dreamer tells us: Ongan þa word sprecan || wudu selesta (27) St. Augustine also uses the word 'wood' when he discusses the Crucifixion. He proceeds from John 1.1 and asks: But why was he crucified? Because the wood of his lowliness was necessary for you. For you had swollen with pride and had been cast forth far from that homeland; and the way has been washed out by the waves of this world, and there is no way by which you can cross over to the homeland unless you are carried by the wood.[...] But you, who cannot in any way yourself walk on the sea, be carried by the ship, be carried by the wood!658 The consonants of wudu and word alliterate and the words echo, which would be obvious to an audience of oral poetry, especially; the words therefore hint at the synthesis of properties of the Wood that is the Word and the Way. The Cross-Word in DOR thus appears as the Way, the Truth, and the Light. Humanity, in contrast, displays little brilliance. Men, as feondas (fiends or enemies, 30b), single out and cut the tree down from among others at the holtes on end (the edge of the wood, 29b); and here the poet begins a parallel that he continues throughout DOR, because the phrase echoes wealdend (53, 67, 111, 121, 155) , and although the weald component means "ruler" and "Lord," the word also refers to “weald–a wood or forest” (17). The wordplay has several functions. Swanton observes that weald also connotes ‘power’ and, consequently, “this could be seen to anticipate both the intermediate role of the cross, representative of the great power of 658 Augustine 64 (3). 142 nature (37-8), and at the end its transformation from tree to eternal emblem of heavenly authority (80 ff).”659 In view of Augustinian doctrine, the polysemy also suggests the infusion of the Lord into His Creation, and it stresses His Omnipresence. That context highlights the contrast with a fallen perception of creativity: the blindness that leads men as feondas (30b) simultaneously to deprive the Word-Tree of its "root" and its "voice" (stefn, 30a), and then to use their own voices to command it to kill other men for "spectacle" (31a). The audience of DOR enjoys further dramatic irony when mortal "speechbearers" bear the Eternal Word to what they think will be its death. That they carry the tree on their shoulders (eaxlum, 32a) echoes the previous reference to eaxlegespanne (9a), and only the enlightened in the audience, or those who have meditated on the poem, will recognize the paradox by which ‘speechbearers' (3) ensure that their mortality will become eternal Life: Bæron me ðær beornas on eaxlum, || oððæt hie me on beorg asetton, gefæstnodon me þær feondas genoge. || (32-3) As they re-root the tree on that hill, we may suspect that willful men, the fallen ones, are unwitting agents of God. The end of the word-frame around the crucifixion scene (beorg, 32b–50a), in which the concepts of ‘bearing’ and ‘enduring’ are also linked, confirms the suspicion: Feala ic on þam beorge || gebiden hæbbe wraðra wyrda. (50-1) where wyrda means “events,” but also hints at “destiny” or “fate.” By stressing the placement of the Wood on the hill (beorg), the poet illustrates the spiritual insight of this one, chosen tree and confirms it when the Cross–at first sight–recognizes Christ as Lord: [. . .] || Geseah ic þa Frean mancynnes efstan elne mycle || þæt he me wolde on gestigan. (33-4) St. Augustine had explained, with respect to men of vision, like John the Baptist and John the Evangelist: They were able to do this, the mighty minds of the mountains; they have been called mountains whom the light of justice especially illumines. They were able; and they saw that which he is. For John saw and said, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."660 The perceptiveness of the Cross on the hill parallels that of John the Evangelist who is believed also to have witnessed the Crucifixion–along with Mary; and the poet will juxtapose the 659 Swanton 410-11 “Ambiguity and Anticipation.” 660 Augustine 63 (2). 143 Cross and Mary further at holmwudu (91a)– “wood [or ‘trees’] on the hill;” or, as we have interpreted it above, the “Word” on the hill.661 There he parallels the special quality of the one woman and the one tree chosen by God from among their kinds. St. Augustine points out that each man, too, must maintain an ability to recognize the continual presence of God; He is still here, and no one must fall away again: If you have caused your fall, he causes his setting for you; but if you stand upright, he is present to you. But you have not stood upright: recall from where you have fallen, from where he who fell before you cast you down. For he cast you down not by force, not by compulsion, but by your own will. For if you did not consent to evil, you would stand upright, you would remain enlightened. [My stress]662 In this view, the narrator of DOR once more highlights the shortcomings of men by ironic contrast: the Cross did not cause its own fall–men felled it just as they felled themselves (29a). As the Word approaches, furthermore, the Cross exercises volition and stands–in obedience to His will: þær ic þa ne dorste || ofer dryhtnes word bugan oððe berstan, || (35-6) Further still it has the will-power to refrain from vengeance in kind, it does not fell the enemy: [...] || Ealle ic mihte feondas gefyllan, || hwæðre ic fæste stod. (37-8) The triple repetition of this courage, steadfastness and strength is one of the best known parts of the poem. Bifode ic þa me se beorn ymbclypte. || Ne dorste ic hwæðre bugan to eorðan, feallan to foldan sceatum. || Ac ic sceolde fæste standan. (43-3) The third refusal to fall follows rapidly, and the repetition–at the center of a hypermetric group–intensifies the drama: Rod wæs ic aræred. || Ahof ic ricne cyning, heofona Hlaford; || hyldan me ne dorste. (44-5) Restraint still characterizes the strength, though: [...] ||Ne dorste ic hira nænigum sceððan Bysmeredon hie unc butu ætgædere.|| [...] (47-8) The properties of Wood and Word had been united when Christ was nailed to the gallows (46a), 661 cf Jn 19.26-7. Swanton glosses holmwudu as “wood on the hill.” Line note: “a powerful oblique reference to the gallows of Golgotha (cf beorg 32) the wood on the hill now made into a towering symbol of victory,” (132). 662 Augustine 67. 144 so Christ and the Cross now act together. St. Augustine considered why the Word might have withstood the insults. (2)Was it because he could not? Obviously he could. For what is greater, to come down from a cross or to rise up from the tomb? [...] (3) But he endured the insulters; for the cross was taken up not as a demonstration of power but as an example of suffering. There he cured your wounds where so long he endured his own; there he healed you of eternal death...663 Now we may understand why the Dreamer depicts himself as forwunded mid wommum (14a): he is a Son of Adam, and he may have further compounded that Fall during this life. Like all mankind, he suffers both mortality and the threat of spiritual death. Almighty and Eternal God cannot die, however. To stress this, the poet interlaces and varies the idea of His death with the theme of the "Fall" by presenting the Crucifixion from a viewpoint familiar to Anglo-Saxons: the Fall of a King: [...] || Weop eal gesceaft, cwiðdon cyninges fyll. || Crist wæs on rode. (55-6) As this discussion has already intimated, in addition, death in DOR appears as sleep. Rosemary Woolf explains the convention: The author of the Dream of the Rood similarly does not speak of Christ's death: the climax of the poem is simply, Crist waes on rode [Christ was on the Cross], and His death is thereafter described as a sleep, in terms which with cathartic effect suggest exhaustion, release, and temporary rest.664 The poet uses this concept to create a word-frame that interlaces with the reste (3b) of the speechbearers in DOR: [...] ||ond he hine ðær hwile reste [...] ||Reste he ðær mæte weorode (64b; 69b) Contained within the envelope created by reste, men mimic their Creator by creating a moldaern (“earth-urn” 65b) for the Word–where they unwittingly echo and contribute to the creation of life for themselves. As St. Augustine said: "there he healed you of eternal death." He added later: [B]ecause he cured [us] we see. For this, namely, that "the Word is made flesh and dwelt among us," became a medicine for us, so that since we were blinded by earth we might be healed by earth." 665 663 Augustine Tr. 3: 77. 664 Woolf, Rosemary (42-43). Woolf cites the authority of Augustine In Joannis Evangelium Tractatus cxxiv P.L. xxxv 1952; and also recommends a study by M. B. Ogle. "The Sleep of Death. “Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, X (1932). 81-117. 665 Augustine Tr. 3: 77.(3); and Tr. 3: 81.3. 145 The mourners at the Crucifixion do not realize that they are helping Christ to bury death; however the Anglo-Saxon audience would have recognized the reference during the Peroration (Scene III, 78-121): Deað he þær byrigde, || hwæðere eft dryhten aras mid his miclan mihte || mannum to helpe (101-2) Huppe, too, noted of Paragraph ii: "Period 2 [101-9] begins with wordplay on byrigde, 101, "tasted," "buried,” which suggests a characteristic antithesis; in tasting death and in his burial, Christ buried (i.e. conquered) death."666 St. Augustine had mentioned the precursor to burial when he related the concept to the Gospel of St. John: “And because he came in such a way that by his flesh he might extinguish the faults of the flesh and by his death he might kill death, it was therefore effected in you that, because "the Word was made flesh," you could say, "And we saw his glory," (My stress).667 This is what the Dreamer partly saw, and what he tries to reveal to us. Shortly after the burial of Christ, the Cross endures the “event/fate” of its second felling: [...] || þa us man fyllan ongan ealle to eorðan; || þæt wæs egeslic wyrd! (73b-4) This time men re-root the Word/wood into a deep pit (75a), from which "friends" will resurrect and clothe it in gold and silver: freondas gefrunon, ...... gyredon me || golde ond seolfre (76-77) Gyredon here is both the antithesis to the action of the Warrior Christ (ongyrede 39a), and the result of His heroism–for the gealgan heanne (“high gallows” 40b) is now transformed into the syllicre treow (4b) as it first appeared to the Dreamer. In that manifestation of the Word, the Angel-Messenger practiced and exemplified evangelism. Scene II, the Crucifixion, is the node or eaxlegespann of the poem–an intersection from which the interlaced themes extend to the other scenes. The themes relevant to the present discussion are clearly those of the Fall, Creation, Redemption, and Evangelism; and we have seen that contributory themes include Volition, which the poem shows is necessary to ensure Redemption, as is Humility. The theme of the Fall develops in Scene II as an echo of its anticipation in Scene I (1-3; 10a). The theme of Creation, Gesceaft, similarly branches out to the rest of the poem; and so it reiterates the communion between God and Creation as well as the eternity of both. This is clear when Scene I situates the negative assertion about the gallows between uses of gesceaft. 666 Huppe 104. 667 Augustine Tr. 2. 73/4.(2); Jn. 1.14. 146 [. . .] ||Beheoldon þær engel dryhtnes ealle fægere þurh forðgesceaft.||Ne wæs ðær huru fracodes gealga, ac hine þær beheoldon ||halige gastas, menn ofer moldan, || ond eall þeos mære gesceaft. (9-12) The crucifixion scene itself is set between Scenes II and III, and framed by repetition of line 12: [. . . ] || wide ond side menn ofer moldan, || ond eall þeos mære gesceaft gebiddaþ him to þyssum beacne. || [...] (81-83) By variation, then, we see Creation behold the Messenger (12 ), weep at the Gallows (55), and pray to the Beacon (82). The engel though, the Cross in its manifestation as a Holy Messenger who exemplifies the will not to fall, is echoed by the unfallen spirits in Scenes I (10a) and III (106b) and, in the latter it connects the foregoing men to Judgment Day. There, in the future–as Man sees it–the Ruler will judge each one, according to his or her deserts–choices. The alliteration and assonance of wile, geweald, gehwylcum echo to accentuate the point: on domdæge ||dryhten sylfa, ælmihtig god, ||ond his englas mid, þæt he þonne wile deman,||se ah domes geweald anra gehwylcum || swa he him ærur her on þyssum lænum || life geearnaþ. (105-109) Here also anra gehwylcum “each individual” closes a frame with the parallel “æghwylcne anra” “each one of those ...” who can be healed by the Cross || ond ic hælan mæg æghwylcne anra || þara þe him bið egesa to me. (85-6) At the heart of this envelope structure lie references to the two models of strength we have already noted: Mary who was unique among women, and the cross unique among trees (94; 91). The thread of englas and eternal, unfallen, spirits continues to the end of Scene IV and a vision of Glory in the Native Land of the Son (150-156): anwealda ælmihtig, || englum to blisse ond eallum ðam halgum || þam þe on heofonum ær wunedon on wuldre, || þa heora wealdend cwom, (153-155) The Son–the One Almighty God–who is victorious is also the Word; therefore–in light of John 1.1–the poet returns us full circle to the Beginning and provides a figure of eternity. The double references to weald highlight recognition of the power of the Creator, which the Dreamer had hinted about at wealdes treow (17b) and at Doomsday (wealdend, 111b); but now we 147 comprehend the infusion of power not only in the forest–but throughout Eternity. The Cross had recognized this when men did not, after the Crucifixion: [...] || Geseah ic weruda God þearle þenian. (51-2) For although the God of Hosts is þenian “stretched out” on the cross, in another sense he is “very much” extended: infused throughout Creation. Bosworth-Toller observes that þearle “tends to become an adverb of degree, rather than one of manner or quality,” so that the meaning becomes “very, very much, exceedingly, excessively.”668 Several Biblical precedents allow this possibility. As Richard Gameson has pointed out in another context, Jeremiah 23: 24 provides the reference: “Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord.” Gameson notes that this also calls to mind Matthew 28.18: “Data est mihi omnes potestas in caelo et in terra,” [All power is given to me, in heaven and in earth]; but that the idea simultaneously evokes the words of the Sanctus of the Mass: “Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua,” and of the Te Deum “Pleni sunt caeli et universa terra honore gloriae tuae.”669 Thus I suggest that the Cross here sees the glory of Christ extend to fill all heaven and earth. St. Augustine argued that Christ submitted to the Crucifixion in order to demonstrate humility–through his humanity;670 and the Crucifixion scene in DOR also develops a theme of humility which interlaces with the second half of the poem. The Cross, for example, demonstrates humility when it bends to deliver Christ to the warrior friends. Sare ic wæs mid [sorgum] gedrefed,|| hnag ic hwæðre þam secgum to handa, eaðmod elne mycle. || Genamon hie þær ælmihtigne God, ahofon hine of ðam hefian wite.|| (59-61) It would be difficult to appreciate the juxtaposition of eaðmod “meek, humble” and elne “zeal, courage, strength” were it not for the conflicting doctrines of dyo- and monothelitism.671Through sensitivity to those concepts we witness the humility of the Divine Word, and the Will–the courage and restraint–required to accomplish the mission of Redemption while in human form. The poet would have been sensitive to the controversy but, as Woolf suggests, avoids 668 “þearle:” An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Based on the Manuscript Collections of the Late Joseph Bosworth. Ed. T. Northcote Toller. An Electronic Application on CD-Rom Ver. 0.2b. Digitised by Sean Crist et al. 2001-2007. Application by Ondrej Tichy, 2006-7. 148 participating in it by relaying the narrative in prosopopoeia.672 The Cross sees Christ as both God and man; the interlace thus leaves the audience to draw their own conclusions on the nature of His will. Two instances of elne mycle occur within a chiastic frame of Genamon (30b; 60a “they seized,”), and each is associated with the idea of removal from a root or trunk. The first refers to the seizure of the cross from its stefn (“voice/root”) and the second to the seizing of Christ (the Word) from the Cross. Within that frame, the Cross stands firm because he sees that Christ will ascend: efstan elne mycle || þæt he me wolde on gestigan. (34) Use of 'wolde' in this line underscores the will of Christ, as man and as Word, in ascending the gallows-tree, but it also echoes with 'wood' (wudu). The concepts of 'wood' and Word begin to fuse in this part of the narrative, and their association with 'Will' models what is required of each individual if we are to participate in redemption from the Fall. Huppe viewed this section similarly, but in terms of oxymoron: The verb and adjective [hnag/eaðmod] (bowed, humble) provide a set of meanings antithetical to the adverbial phrase [elne micle] (very bravely). The effect of the oxymoron and the use of elne mycle is to remind the reader of the dilemma of the cross when Christ approached it elne micle, "very bravely," 34. The cross desired in humility to bow and to fall bravely upon its Lord's enemies, but it stood fast, and with a higher fortitude of obedience, accepted its humiliating gallows role. The Lord had embraced the cross, and now the Lord will be separated from it, but the separation, too, the cross accepts humbly and with fortitude (elne micle) in imitation of its master.673 The third echo of elne mycle (123) occurs just after the end of Scene III, when the voice and light of the Cross have departed from the Dreamer, Gebæd ic me þa to þan beame || bliðe mode, elne mycle, || þær ic ana wæs (122-3) ... and he proceeds to pray to the beame with “joy” and great "zeal" or "courage"; that is, he directs words from this world towards the Word. The interlace reveals a human "speechbearer" (3a; 89b) who at last turns the gift of language in the direction of good instead of evil. As Richard Marsden has observed of this sequential use of elne mycle, "it becomes a paradigm for the evangelical dynamic of the poem and forces us to ask what 'heroic' action is in a Christian 672 Woolf 48. 673 Huppe 94. 149 context."674 It also provides the answer, which accords with Chapter 7 of the Rule of St. Benedict, who sets out twelve steps of humility for ascending Jacob’s Ladder to “ ‘the perfect love of God, which casts out all fear,’ (1 John 4.18).”675 The Peroration of Scene III explains the vision. Referring to itself as beacne (83a) “a beacon, sign,” or, as we have seen–a lamp–the Cross reiterates the sublimity of its relationships to suffering and glory. It explains its role as the healer of Original Sin, and therefore of Death: þrowode hwile. || Forþan ic þrymfæst nu hlifige under heofenum, || ond ic hælan mæg æghwylcne anra, || þara þe him bið egesa to me (84-6) St. Augustine had said similarly: "[...]by the nativity itself he made a salve by which the eyes of our heart may be wiped clean and we may be able to see his majesty through his lowliness."676 The parallel with Mary and the Nativity is well attested, for the tree and she both bore Christ–at the beginning and end of His Incarnation, respectively. Among the scholars who discuss this, O Carragain has ascribed the doctrine which relates the Latin echo: virgo/virga (/branch) to a text from Isaiah 11: 1-5: And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse/and a flower shall rise up out of his root/And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.(Et egredietur virga de radice Iesse, Et flos de radice eius ascendet, [...]).677 This passage relates to the tree-imagery discussed thus far, and it enriches the significance of the ambiguous references to 'voice' and 'root' (stefn) in the Old English of the poem. The significance will be highlighted when the cross instructs the dreamer to preach (95-100); but we see further irony in the chiastic frame that reminds us of the (reordberend 'speechbearers' 3a and 89b), this time contrasting the deadened men and the one for whom life is renewed; this is accompanied by the contrast between the gallows, wita heardost ‘cruellest of tortures,’ and the syllicre treow ‘most wonderful tree’ that last appeared at 4b: Iu ic wæs geworden || wita heardost, leodum laðost, || ær þan ic him lifes weg rihtne gerymde, || reordberendum. Hwæt, me þa geweorðode || wuldres ealdor (87-90) Here the tree has cleared the way through the forest; an inversion of the view of mankind–who 674 Marsden, Richard, ed. The Cambridge Old English Reader. Cambridg: CUP, 2004; 193. 675 White 22-26. 676 Augustine Tr 2:73.16. Rettig f/n 41 observes that many codices read 'through his humanity.' 677 O Carragain 108. 150 believes he must clear the trees to make a rihtne (“straight”) way through the world. Yet again, the poem is teaching mankind that we can use trees for that purpose if, as Augustine recommends, we use the Cross as a ship for travelling to the heavenly home! Another intertextual allusion to Isaiah links to this part of the poem through John's reference to evangelism: "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord," (John 1.23).678 The Adjuration of the Cross (95-121) requires the dreamer to do the same–not least because Doomsday (105a) stands between each individual human and final Redemption. References to Judgment Day are now clear, although they have been implicit throughout the poem: Swanton points out that it is prophesied that trees will bleed, on that day, which also was expected to begin at midnight, like this poem.679 When the poem moves into its final image in Scene IV (122-156), the poet reiterates many of the words for “Cross” that he used earlier. Now, though, he does more than look, he responds in words and action: he prays to the beam 122a; he hopes to honor the sigebeam (127) for the rest of his life; and he hopes that the rod (131, 136) will both protect and carry him home–to the native land and feast among the saints–essentially because Christ suffered on the gealgtreowe (146a) to redeem men. We have seen throughout this analysis that, like the diction, themes and images continually link to the beginning of the poem; it thus is no accident that the final image returns us full circle to eternal glory, the hoped for telos of the dreamer–and for each individual in his audience. It is probable that they, like him–the beorn (42a) and hæleð whom the Cross addresses (78a and 95b)–were of a noble and military class. His friends might well have died in fighting for a Christian England; and such a dreamer might have suffered and inflicted physical wounds, as well as spiritual ones. Certainly, the tone of the poem has become noticeably more military towards the end, where Christ appears as a victorious prince and warrior–consolidating the impressions that have gone before. The dreamer thus celebrates Redemption as a successful military campaign (150-156), a concept first intimated when the geong hæleð (“hero” 39b) ascended the Cross. It now resonates that feondas (“enemies” 30, 33, 38) who were also beornas (“warriors” 32a), transplanted the Tree; and that beornas buried him. Indeed, the poet reminds us that Christ the Drihten (es) (a “lord”–earthly or heavenly–136, 140, 144) and Wealdend (155) returns to his kingdom as the anwealda almihtig "the one almighty ruler" (153),680 Almighty 678 Isaiah 40.3: Prophesies the Redemption, and advocates “The voice of one crying in the desert; Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God.” 679 Swanton 65; he cites Christ 1174-6, and Apocrypha 2 Esdras V.5 “And blood shall drop out of wood, and the stone shall give his voice, and the people shall be troubled.” On the midnight aspect, Swanton 75 cites the contemporary Christ III, 867-89. 680 My stress, translation from Bradley 163. 151 God, who returns to His ethel, or native land (156). It is surely a scene that would have appealed either to warriors or to preachers, who had campaigned to preserve England, and to unite it in peace under the rule of that God. As I have shown by highlighting the use of “an,” throughout my discussion of the poem, the author of DOR has also stressed that each individual must exercise will and take responsibility for him or herself, as Mary did among women, the Cross among trees and indeed, the dreamer among those who rested on the night of the vision. These exemplify how an individual can benefit all mankind–but the poet does not explain this to the audience, who already know the ‘historical’ cases. Each hearer must interpret the parallels alone, just as he will face God alone. The contrast of each Anglo-Saxon individual with eternal God is indeed sublime; and perhaps that is why the dreamer, praying ‘alone,’ requires courage as well as zeal, as did Christ and the Cross in achieving their greater mission in the human world. The poet has also analogized the integration of individuals at a tribal and cultural level, for he has woven some effects from other insular cultures into the fabric of his narrative. When the narrative returns the Word to the Beginning, for example, the circle is reminiscent of the wheel-head crosses that we have already seen may have come from Ireland with the Vikings; and the multiplicity of inter-connecting circles (word-frames, or envelopes) echoes the “vertebral” structure of the Borre interlace. Swanton suggests that the jewels “at the corners of the earth,’ also indicate the “World Tree,” as we have already seen it in Chapter 6, especially in relation to the Gosforth Cross and the integration of Viking culture into Anglian Christianity.681 Further, Swanton derives another meaning for the other emblems of synthesis in the poem, the “dark nails,” 46.’ He observes: “If it is right to link OE deorc with the Celtic forms: O Irish derg, Gaelic dearg, Manx jiarg, then ‘red, bloody’ might represent a further, and perhaps more expected sense at this point.”682 At the same time, especially with the return of Christ to his Kingdom, the poet has drawn a parallel between temporal power and Omnipotence, a comparison which, I suggest, provides sufficient contrast to argue for the wisdom of a united acquiescence to the will of God, similar to that depicted in the St. John Incipit page of LFG. We saw earlier that St. Augustine suggested that fallen humanity needs intellectual challenge in order to participate in its own salvation.683 This analysis has illustrated that the poet who contributed this version of DOR to the Vercelli Book provided such exercise in a learned and sophisticated tradition of vernacular rhetoric; at the same time, he followed the imperatives 681 Swanton 418 (“Ambiguity and Anticipation)”. 682 Swanton 424 (“Ambiguity and Anticipation”). He bases the philology on, e.g: B. Dickins and A. C. Ross. The Dream of the Rood. London: Methuen, 1954; 23. 683 Augustine 66.7. cf pg. 140. 152 of his own vision, as well as those of St. Augustine and John the Evangelist: about the use of words in the campaign for Redemption. That campaign sought to strengthen the interests of the individual through Christianity, that is, to weave them into the greater fabric of not only the nation, but also of Creation. 153 7.1: THE DREAM OF THE ROOD 684 I [I] Hwæt! Ic swefna cyst || secgan wylle, f. 104v hwæt me gemætte || to midre nihte, reordberend || reste wunedon! [ii] Þuhte me þæt ic gesawe || syllicre treow on lyft lædan, || leohte bewunden, 5 beama beorhtost. || Eall þæt beacen wæs begoten mid golde.|| Gimmas stodon fægere æt foldan sceatum; || swylce þær fife wæron uppe on þam eaxlegespanne.|| Beheoldon þær engel Dryhtnes ealle, fægere þurh forðgesceaft.|| Ne wæs ðær huru fracodes gealga. 10 Ac hine þær beheoldon || halige gastas, men ofer moldan,|| ond eall þeos mære gesceaft. Syllic wæs se sigebeam, || ond ic synnum fah, forwunded mid wommum. || [iii] Geseah ic wuldres treow, wædum geweorðode, || wynnum scinan, 15 gegyred mid golde; || gimmas hæfdon bewrigene weorðlice || wealdes treow. Hwæðre ic þurh þæt gold || ongytan meahte earmra ærgewin, || þæt hit ærest ongan swætan on þa swiðran healfe. || Eall ic wæs mid sorghum gedrefed. 20 Forht ic wæs for þære fægran gesyhðe.|| [iv] Geseah ic þæt fuse beacen wendan wædum ond bleom; || hwilum hit wæs mid wætan bestemed, f. 105r beswyled mid swates gange,|| Hwilum mid since gegyrwed. II [I] Hwæðre ic þær licgende || lange hwile beheold hreowcearig || Hælendes treow, 25 oððæt ic gehyrde || þæt hit hleoðrode. Ongan þa word sprecan || wudu selesta [ii] " Þæt wæs geara iu, || (ic þæt gyta geman), þæt ic wæs aheawen || holtes on ende, astyred of stefne minum.|| Genaman me ðær strange feondas, 30 geworhton him þær to wæfersyne, || heton me heora wergas hebban. Bæron me ðær beornas on eaxlum, || oððæt hie me on beorg asetton, gefæstnodon me þær feondas genoge. || [iii] Geseah ic þa Frean mancynnes efstan elne mycle || þæt he me wolde on gestigan. Þær ic þa ne dorste || ofer dryhtnes word 35 bugan oððe berstan, || þa ic bifian geseah eorðan sceatas.|| Ealle ic mihte feondas gefyllan, || hwæðre ic fæste stod. Ongyrede hine þa geong hæleð, || (þæt wæs God ælmihtig), strang ond stiðmod; ||gestah he on gealgan heanne, 40 684 Swanton, M. ed. The Dream of the Rood. New ed. Exeter:University of Exeter Press, 1996; 93-101. This text is that published by Swanton, however I have modified it to reflect Scenes and paragraphs as described by Huppe. Any errors are mine. 154 modig on manigra gesyhðe, || þa he wolde mancyn lysan. Bifode ic þa me se beorn ymbclypte.|| Ne dorste ic hwæðre bugan to eorðan, feallan to foldan sceatum.|| Ac ic sceolde fæste standan. Rod wæs ic aræred. || Ahof ic ricne cyning, heofona Hlaford; || hyldan me ne dorste. 45 [iv] Þurhdrifan hi me mid deorcan næglum; || on me syndon þa dolg gesiene, opene inwid-hlemmas. || Ne dorste ic hira nænigum sceððan. Bysmeredon hie unc butu ætgædere. || Eall ic wæs mid blode bestemed, begoten of þæs guman sidan, || siððan he hæfde his gast onsended. Feala ic on þam beorge || gebiden hæbbe 50 wraðra wyrda. || Geseah ic weruda God þearle þenian. || Þystro hæfdon bewrigen mid wolcnum || Wealdendes hræw, scirne sciman; || sceadu forð eode, wann under wolcnum. || Weop eal gesceaft, 55 cwiðdon Cyninges fyll.|| Crist wæs on rode. [v] Hwæðere þær fuse || feorran cwoman to þam æðelinge. || Ic þæt eall beheold. Sare ic wæs mid [sorgum]685 gedrefed,|| hnag ic hwæðre þam secgum to handa, eaðmod elne mycle.|| Genamon hie þær ælmihtigne God, 60 ahofon hine of ðam hefian wite.|| Forleton me þa hilderincas f. 105v standan steame bedrifenne;|| eall ic wæs mid strælum forwundod. [vi] Aledon hie ðær limwerigne,|| gestodon him æt his lices heafdum beheoldon hie ðær heofenes Dryhten, || ond he hine ðær hwile reste, meðe æfter ðam miclan gewinne. || Ongunnon him þa moldaern wyrcan 65 beornas on banan gesyhðe; || curfon hie ðæt of beorht stane, gesetton hie ðæron sigora Wealdend. || Ongunnon him þa sorhleoð galan earme on þa æfentide; || þa hie woldon eft siðian, meðe fram þam mæran þeodne; || reste he ðær mæte weorode. [vii] Hwæðere we ðær [h]reotende || gode hwile 70 stodon on staðole, || syððan [stefn]686 up gewat hilderinca; || hræw colode, fæger feorgbold. || Þa us man fyllan ongan ealle to eorðan; || þæt wæs egeslic wyrd! Bedealf us man on deopan seaþe. || Hwæðre me þær Dryhtnes þegnas, 75 freondas gefrunon, ...... gyredon me || golde ond seolfre. III [I] Nu ðu miht gehyran, || hæleð min se leofa, þæt ic bealu-wara weorc || gebiden hæbbe, sarra sorga. || Is nu sæl cumen 80 þæt me weorðiað || wide ond side menn ofer moldan, || ond eall þeos mære gesceaft, gebiddaþ him to þyssum beacne. || On me Bearn Godes þrowode hwile. || Forþan ic þrymfæst nu hlifige under heofenum, || ond ic hælan mæg 85 æghwylcne anra || þara þe him bið egesa to me Iu ic wæs geworden || wita heardost, 685 Swanton 97. Sorgum supplied from the Ruthwell text. 686 Ibid. stefn supplied by Kluge. 155 leodum laðost, || ærþan ic him lifes weg rihtne gerymde, || reordberendum. Hwæt, me þa geweorðode || wuldres Ealdor 90 ofer holmwudu, || heofonrices Weard! Swylce swa he his modor eac, || Marian sylfe, ælmihtig God || for ealle menn geweorðode || ofer eall wifa cynn. [ii] Nu ic þe hate, || hæleð min se leofa, 95 þæt ðu þas gesyhðe || secge mannum, onwreoh wordum || þæt hit is wuldres beam, se ðe ælmihtig God || on þrowode for mancynnes || manegum synnum ond Adomes || ealdgewyrhtum. 100 Deað he þær byrigde, || hwæðere eft Dryhten aras mid his miclan mihte || mannum to helpe. He ða on heofenas astag. || Hider eft fundaþ on þysne middangeard || mancynn secan on domdæge || Dryhten sylfa, 105 ælmihtig God, || ond his englas mid, f. 106r þæt he þonne wile deman, ||se ah domes geweald, anra gehwylcum || swa he him ærur her on þyssum lænum || life geearnaþ. Ne mæg þær ænig || unforht wesan 110 for þam worde || þe se Wealdend cwyð. Frineð he for þære mænige || hwær se man sie, se ðe for dryhtnes || naman deaðes wolde biteres onbyrigan, || swa he ær on ðam beame dyde. Ac hie þonne forhtiað, || ond fea þencaþ 115 hwæt hie to Criste || cweðan onginnen. Ne þearf ðær þonne ænig || anforht wesan þe him ær in breostum bereð || beacna selest. Ac ðurh ða rode sceal || rice gesecan of eorðwege || æghwylc sawl, 120 seo þe mid Wealdende || wunian þenceð." IV [i] Gebæd ic me þa to þan beame || bliðe mode, elne mycle, || þær ic ana wæs mæte werede. || Wæs modsefa afysed on forðwege, || feala ealra gebad 125 langung-hwila. || Is me nu lifes hyht þæt ic þone sigebeam || secan mote ana oftor þonne || ealle men, well weorþian. || Me is willa to ðam mycel on mode, || ond min mundbyrd is 130 geriht to þære rode. ||Nah ic ricra feala freonda on foldan. || Ac hie forð heonon gewiton of worulde dreamum, || sohton him wuldres Cyning, lifiaþ nu on heofenum || mid Heahfædere, wuniaþ on wuldre. || Ond ic wene me 135 daga gehwylce || hwænne me Dryhtnes rod, 156 þe ic her on eorðan || ær sceawode, on þysson lænan || life gefetige ond me þonne gebringe. || Þær is blis mycel, dream on heofonum, || þær is Dryhtnes folc 140 geseted to symle, || þær is singal blis, ond he þonne asette || þær ic syþþan mot wunian on wuldre, || well mid þam halgum dreames brucan. || [ii] Si me Dryhten freond, se ðe her on eorþan || ær þrowode 145 on þam gealgtreowe || for guman synnum. He us onlysde || ond us lif forgeaf, heofonlicne ham. || Hiht wæs geniwad mid bledum ond mid blisse || þam þe þær bryne þolodan. Se Sunu wæs sigorfæst || on þam siðfate, 150 mihtig ond spedig, ||þa he mid manigeo com, gasta weorode, || on Godes rice, Anwealda ælmihtig, || englum to blisse ond eallum ðam halgum || þam þe on heofonum ær wunedon on wuldre, || þa heora Wealdend cwom, 155 ælmihtig God, || þær his eðel wæs. Key: Upper case Roman numerals denote Scenes described by Huppe.687 Lower case Roman numerals denote paragraphs described by Huppe. 687 Huppe, Bernard F. The Web of Words: Structural Analyses of the Old English Poems “Vainglory,” “The Wonder of Creation,” “The Dream of the Rood,” and “Judith.” Albany: SUNYP, 1970; 65-73. 157 7.2 THE DREAM OF THE ROOD (Translation) I Listen! I will relate the best of dreams, and what I dreamt at midnight when speech-bearers remained asleep. It seemed to me that I saw the most wonderful Tree 5 extend into the air, wound about with light, the brightest of Beams. All that Beacon was suffused with gold. Beautiful gems flashed out at the surfaces of the earth, there were five also on the shoulder-beam. All who are fair throughout eternity beheld the messenger of 10 the Lord, there. Indeed, it was not the gallows of a criminal. Moreover, holy spirits gazed on it there, men throughout the earth, and all this glorious creation. The Victory-Light was wondrous; and I was stained with sins deeply wounded with sins. I saw the Tree of Glory, exalted with robes, shining brilliantly, 15 adorned with gold. Gems had worthily covered the Tree of the Ruler; yet, through that gold I could perceive the former hostility of wretched men–when it first began to bleed on the right hand side. I was thoroughly afflicted with sorrows. 20 I was fearful before that beauteous sight. I saw that Beacon, ready to die, change its apparel and its color: at times it was wet through with moisture, drenched with the flow of blood; at times adorned with treasure. II Nevertheless, lying there a long time, I gazed, sorrowful, at the Tree of the Savior 25 –until I heard that it spoke. Then the most noble Tree began to say the words: “It was very long ago, (I remember it still), that I was felled at the edge of the forest, removed from my root. Strong enemies seized me there, 30 made me into a spectacle then for themselves, commanded me to bear up their criminals. Then the warriors carried me on their shoulders, until they set me on a hill. Many evil men made me fast, there. Then I saw the Master of Mankind hastening with great courage, when he intended to climb up on me. Then, there, I dared not, against the word of the Lord, 35 bend or break. Then I saw the surface-coverings of the earth quake. I could have felled all the fiends; nevertheless, I stood fast. Then, the young man prepared himself, (that was God Almighty), strong and resolute. High-souled in the sight of many, 40 He ascended the lofty gallows, where He willed to redeem mankind. I trembled when the warrior clasped me; yet I still dared not stoop to the ground, 158 fall to the surfaces of the earth–because I had to stand fast. I was the Rood raised up. I held up the mighty King, 45 Lord of the Heavens. I dared not give way. They pierced me through with dark nails; the wounds are visible on me, the open, malicious wounds. I dared not injure any of them. They mocked us two, both together. I was thoroughly wet with blood shed from the side of that hero, after he had sent forth his spirit. On that hill I endured 50 many terrible, fateful events. I saw the God of Hosts stretched out to a great extent. Darkness had covered with clouds the corpse of the Savior, the bright radiance. Shadow went forth, dark under the clouds. All creation wept. 55 They mourned the fall of the King. Christ was on the Rood. Nevertheless, noble men hastened from afar to that Prince. I saw all that. I was sorely distressed with sorrows, yet I bowed down against the hands of the warriors, humble and willing. Then they seized Almighty God, 60 lifted Him from that grim torment. Those warriors left me to stand steeped in moisture; I was thoroughly wounded with arrows. They laid the limb-weary one down there. They placed themselves at the head of His body, where they gazed on the Lord of Heaven; and He rested Himself there for a time, weary after the great conflict. Then the warriors began to build an earth-urn for Him, 65 within sight of the instrument of His death. They carved that from shining stone and set therein the Ruler of Victories. Desolate, they began to sing a dirge for Him there, in the evening-time; then they wished to travel back, sorrowful, from that glorious prince. He remained there with a small band. We, however, stood there weeping for a good while, 70 in our place. After the voice of the warriors departed, the corpse grew cold, the fair dwelling-place of the soul. Then someone began to fell us all to the ground; that was a terrible fate! The man buried us in a deep pit. Nevertheless, retainers of the Lord, 75 friends, sought me out there ...... they adorned me with gold and silver. III Now you can hear, my beloved warrior, that I have endured the pain of evil men, of sore sorrows. Now the time is come 80 that they honor me, far and wide. Men throughout the earth, and all this glorious creation, pray to this Beacon. On me, the Son of God suffered for a while. Because of that, I now tower glorious under the heavens, and I can heal 85 every one of those who is in awe of me. Once I was made the cruellest of tortures, most hated by people, until I cleared the right way of life for them: for the speech-bearers. Behold, then! The Prince of Glory, the Guardian of the Kingdom of Heaven, 90 159 honored me above the forest on the hill! Just as He, Almighty God, also honored his mother Mary herself, before all people, Above all woman-kind. Now, I command you, my beloved warrior, 95 that you report this vision to men, uncover with words that it is the Beam of Glory, that on which Almighty God suffered for the many sins of mankind and Adam’s deeds of old. 100 He tasted death there; nevertheless, the Lord soon arose, with His great might, as a help to men. He then ascended into the heavens. He will come here again to this middle earth, to seek out mankind at Doomsday: the Lord Himself, 105 Almighty God–and together with His angels. Because, at that time, He who has the power of judgement will judge all individuals as they will have earlier merited for themselves, in this fleeting life. No one there can be unafraid 110 about the Word that the Ruler will say. He will ask, before the many, where the man may be who, for the name of the Lord, would taste of bitter death, as He previously did on the Rood. And then they will be afraid. And few think 115 what they will undertake to say to Christ. But no one need be very frightened then who bears before him, on his breast, the best of signs. Because through that Rood every soul who seeks to dwell with the Ruler shall come to 120 the Kingdom from the earth-way.” IV I prayed then, to that Tree, with a joyful spirit, with great zeal, when I was alone with little company. My spirit was urged forward to the journey ahead; I endured, in all, many 125 times of weariness. There is now hope of life for me, in that I may go fully to honor the Victory-Beam alone, more often than all men. The will for that is great in my mind, and my hope of protection is 130 directed at that Rood. I do not have many powerful friends on earth. Because they went forward from here, from the joys of the world–they sought the King of Glory for themselves– they now live in the heavens with God the Father. They dwell in glory. And I look forward 135 each of my days to the time when the Rood of the Lord, that I once saw here on earth in this fleeting life, will fetch and then bring me where there is much bliss, 160 joy in the heavens. Where the army of the Lord is 140 seated at the feast, there is perpetual bliss, and He will then set [me] down where I may afterwards dwell in glory, among the saints, to partake fully of joy. May the Lord be a friend to me He who here on earth previously suffered 145 on that Gallows-Tree for the sins of men. He redeemed us and gave us life, a heavenly home. Hope was renewed, with glory and with joy, for those who there [previously] suffered burning. The Son was victorious on that expedition, 150 mighty and successful. When He came with a multitude, a host of spirits, into the Kingdom of God– the One Almighty Ruler–to delight among the angels and all the saints, those who in the heavens first dwelt in glory: then their Ruler, 155 Almighty God, came to where his native land was. 161 7.3 OUTLINE OF SCENES IN "DREAM OF THE ROOD" ACCORDING TO HUPPE688 Scene I (1-23)...... Vision I. 1-3...... Introduction ii. 4-14a...... Creation views the Cross iii. 14b-21a...... Beacon iv. 21b-23...... Recapitulation Scene II (24-77)...... Narrative of the Cross I. 24-27...... Transition from Vision ii. 28-33a...... Preparation of Cross iii. 33b-45...... Ascent of Cross iv. 46-56...... Crucifixion v. 57-62...... Descent from Cross vi. 63-69...... Entombment of Christ vii. 70-77...... Entombment and Resurrection of Cross Scene III (78-121)...... Peroration and Exhortation of the Cross I. 78-94...... Peroration and Explanation of Vision ii. 95-121...... Adjuration: Cross suggests evangelism Scene IV (122-156)...... Dreamer's Prayer to the Cross and Christ I. 122-144a...... Address to the Cross ii. 144b-156...... Prayer to the Cross 688 Huppe xiii-xxi; and 64-112.. The outline is derived from the text provided by Huppe: any errors are mine. 162 Figure 7.1: Map Showing Viking Settlement in 9th-10th Century England.689 689 Gilbert 12. The map is by Martin Gilbert. 163 CHAPTER 8 CONCLUSION The tradition of English Literature and its interlace survived after the Normans destroyed Anglo-Saxon England–and it did so at least partly because of the association with Scripture. John the Scot (ca. 1266 or 1270-1308) would later consider the maze, or puzzle of doctrine, ascribing "Daedalus-like twists and turns" to the Holy Spirit when it challenges the intellect with the "concatenated" text of Scripture. He says: Non enim alio modo sanctorum prophetarum multiplex in divinis intellectibus contextus potest discerni, nisi per frequentissimos no solum per periodos, verum etiam per cola et comata transitus ex diversis sensibus in diversos, et ab eisdam iterum in eosdem per occultissimas crebrissimasque reversiones.690 (For in no other way may the complicated text of the holy prophets, in their divine intelligence, be explicated—except by very frequent transition from various senses to others, not only from one sentence to the next and back again from these to those by the most secret and repetitive returns). The words recall the descriptions of interlace seen in this study, and they indicate its continuity in Latin, but the definitions in Chapter 2 illustrate that association of interlace and English also continued. The interdisciplinarity of the foregoing discussion, though, indicates that both Latin and English are only strands in an ancient technique that was shared by many forms of art. It is clear that interlace in Old English participated in a larger identity than each of its component parts–except for weaving itself. The point may not be immediately obvious to us in the twenty-first century: the decoration of crosses with carved interlace virtually ceased with the advent of the Normans–although later monuments like the Cenotaph would vary the function of standing stones; and we no longer use interlace to decorate cruciform weaponry. Our relationship with embroidery continues, but the process is often mechanized and the product is seldom valuable; and unless we are professional weavers, most of us are far removed from the process that our ancestors encountered every day. Our perceptions of the skills have changed, then; and the knowledge we apply to interpreting them is limited by our place and time. We have moved from manuscripts to Microsoft, and the World-Wide Web–in all its secularity–appears as an original concept rather than an adaptation. When we try to understand these matters as they were in the past though, we necessarily 690 John the Scot. “De Divisione Naturae 5.” Patrologia Cursus Completus, Series Latina. Paris: J. P. Migne, 1841-64; 122:1010AB. Quoted and translated by Kendrick 254, Note 60. 164 turn first to specialists in individual disciplines; and perhaps ancient people did the same, when interpreting their oral cultures and their imagery. However, their use of interlace suggests that they appreciated the antiquity and diversity behind the designs, and the present study has begun to explore how we can do the same. As Klein put it, the approach of inter-disciplinarity helps to show, “How knowledge and information move across disciplines.”691 It is helpful that rhetoric about the interdisciplinary approach runs parallel to the techniques of interlace. Klein remarks: The tendency to describe knowledge in the language of natural organic properties is pervasive in the discourse because it directs attention to “links,” “symmetry,” convergence,” “conjuncture,” “interactions,” “interfaces,” and “integration” itself. Interdisciplinary work is described as a natural mediation along “intercultural,” “interdependent,” “interstitial,”“intersectional,” and “interdepartmental” lines. Problems anthropomorphically elude the “grasp” of a single discipline and “refuse” to stay within boundaries. Ultimately the cumulative effect of the organic metaphor is to assert interdisciplinarity’s “natural” place and “inherent” need in a predominantly geopolitical environment.692 Precisely. The method has a precedent in literary theory, which often discusses networks. Klein suggests that Edward Said saw “Orientalism” as a network of interests brought to bear upon “the Orient.”693 He later added that a variety of approaches to his subject had “been used in ways that cannot be understood if discipline is isolated from discipline, or interpretation from history and political purpose.”694 This dissertation, indeed, has sought to integrate history and political purpose in order to interpret the use of interlace in early Britain and Anglo-Saxon England. As Chapters 5 and 6 indicate, the project built upon the suggestions of scholars like Michelle Brown and Eamonn O Carragain, who had already observed that the crosses and manuscripts of Northumbria seemed to participate in an ecumenical program of Christian unity.662 In further integrating scholarship on the symbology of the artefacts, the present study has deepened that perception to show how the Church and political leaders of the era could have used imagery of the Cross, and its inherent part in interlace: in order to promote peace through political and religious unity.695 In focusing further on rhetoric, the study has suggested that Anglo-Saxon England played a unique role in preserving classical rhetoric, incorporating it into insular and 691 Klein 81. 692 Klein 81. 693 Klein 188. She cites: Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon, 1978. 694 Klein 188. She cites: Said, Edward. “Orientalism Reconsidered.” Cultural Critique, 1 (Fall 1985): 89-107. 695 Brown 8-9. cf. Chapter 5 . 165 vernacular culture, and disseminating it by returning scholarship to Europe: all acts that interlaced diverse cultures and united them under Christianity. The dissertation has also begun to explore the possibility that the Kingdom of Wessex continued that policy in attempting to unify disparate tribes and areas–in an England partly settled by Vikings. Analysis of The Dream of the Rood indicates also that, in the way Horace had recommended, Anglo-Saxons had begun to achieve a rhetoric of power with which to augment their military strength.696 The role of religion remained integral, though, as it was with the very first interlace. A large body of Anglo-Saxon literature and manuscript art remains from which we might achieve new insights about the concerns of people who produced and used interlace in English. I believe that the later and larger tapestry also has much to reveal through the recognition of interlace, and much insight to offer about our literary, religious, and political heritage, as well as those of others. Perhaps such an approach can also sharpen perceptions about the political uses of interlace in the present-day context. 696 Horace 38, 285-288. Trans. Hynd 55, sections 90, 91. cf Chapter 3 . 166 APPENDIX A GLOSSARY OF TERMS ASSOCIATED WITH WEAVING B Bast: n phloem; inner bark, {Chambers: OE baest; Ger Bast}. Bind: vt To make fast with a band or bond; tie or fasten together; restrain; fix; sew a border on; bandage or tie (up); fasten the sections together and put a cover on (a book); oblige by oath or promise; hold or cement firmly. vi to become bound; restrict free movement, {Chambers: OE. bindan. OFris., ON. binda (Sw. binda, Da. binde)}. Braid: vt to plait, intertwine; arrange in plaits; thread, wind about or through; trim, bind, or outline with braid. vi change colour or appearance, {Chambers: OE bregdan ; ON bregtha. Bosworth Toller: bregdan: I. v. a. To move to and fro, vibrate, cast, draw, drag, change**, bend, weave. II. v. n. To turn into. The examples given for change** and II involve change of color. Clark Hall: also includes–to move quickly; bend; shake; 'braid'; knit; join together. Change colour; vary; be transformed. Bind; knot; move; flash. Bring up (a charge); scheme; feign; pretend. Draw breath; breathe. } C Canvas: n a coarse cloth made of cotton, hemp or other material; open weave material on which embroidery or tapestry is worked, {Chambers: Lat: cannabis, fr. Gk. kannabis hemp}. Check: n a pattern of cross lines forming small squares as in a chessboard; any fabric woven with such a pattern. adj divided into small squares by crossing lines, {Chambers: OFr eschec, eschac, originally in the chess sense, through Ar. from Pers. shah king}. Complex: n a collection of units forming a whole. adj composed of many parts; not simple or straightforward; intricate; difficult. vt Complicate: to combine into a complex, {Chambers, L: com: with plicare: to fold. Cp. Complicate, complicity}. *Complico -are -avi -atum, to fold together, fold up. TRANSF., confused, intricate. {Cassells, Lat.} *Complector -plecti -plexus, dep. (Cum/plecto) to embrace, to clasp. LIT., to embrace, encircle, surround, encompass TRANSF., (1) to hold fast, master 167 (2) to attach oneself to, esteem (3) of the mind, to embrace, grasp, comprehend (4) to unite in oneself or itself; esp. to include, of speech or writing (cf Cicero). {Cassells, Lat} *Complexio -onis, f: (complector), connection, combination. TRANSF., (1) in rhetoric: a short summary of the whole matter; a period. (2) in logic: a, the statement of a syllogism; b, a dilemma: Cic. {Cassells, Lat}. *Complexus -us, m: (complector), an embrace. TRANSF., (1) affection, love (2) in discourse, connexion: Quint. {Cassell’s Lat}. Context: n the parts of a piece of writing or speech which precede and follow a particular word or passage and may fix, or help to fix, its true meaning; associated surroundings; setting, {Chambers: L contextus, contexere, from con and texere, textum to weave}. Cord: n a string composed of several strands twisted or woven together; in present-day use now restricted to small ropes, and thick or stout strings; formerly applied more widely. {F. corde, string of a musical instrument, string, rope, cord: L. chorda, Gr. gut, string of a musical instrument (made of gut) OED Online, accessed 2/20/08; 12:17 p.m.}. Cross: n a gibbet of the type used by the Romans formed by placing two pieces of wood transversely to each other; when capitalized refers to the Cross of Christ, the Christian symbol; “any object, figure or mark formed by two parts or lines transverse to each other.” vt to make the sign of the cross upon or over; mark with a cross; cancel by marking with a cross or by drawing lines across; lay a thing across another; set (things) across each other; place crosswise; to lie or pass across. vi intersect, {Chambers: [...] ON Kros, from L crux, crucis. Neither Bosworth-Toller nor Clark Hall includes an Anglo-Saxon word “cros”.}. D Diaper: n linen or cotton cloth with a square or diamond pattern; the pattern itself; a pattern not colored, but woven in, for ornamentation of textiles; paving in a checkered pattern. {Chambers: OF diaspre, from LL diasprus, from Byzantine Gr diaspros from dia through, and aspros white.} Dye: n tinge, stain; a coloring liquid. vt to stain, give new color to, {Chambers: OE deag, deah from deagian to color. Clark Hall: hue, tinge, 'dye.' }. 168 F Flax: n the plant Linum; the fibers of the plant, which are woven to make linen cloth, {Clark Hall: OE flaex; fleax: 'flax,' linen. Bosworth-Toller: also include fleax-æcer a flax-field; and fleax-line a cord for hanging flax on.}. G Goat: n a horned ruminant animal of Europe, Asia and N Africa, related to the sheep; (in pl) the wicked (Bible). {Chambers and Clark Hall: OE gat, she-goat}. H Hypha: n (pl hyphae): a thread of fungus mycelium, {Gr. Hyphe web; According to OED Online, not used in English until the nineteenth century. Accessed 02/19/08 at 12:53 a.m.; Chambers: vt: hyphainein cognate with OE wefan; ON vefa; Ger weben: to weave} I Implicate: vt to involve; to entangle; to imply, show to be, or to have been, a participator; to entwine, enfold. n a thing implied. adj. intertwined, {Chambers: L implicare, -atum, from in, in and plicare, -atum or -itum, to fold}. Intertext: n in literary theory, a text evaluated in terms of its relation (e.g. by allusion) to other texts, {Chambers}. Intertexture: n interwoven state, {Chambers} J Junction: n a joining, a union or combination; a place or point where (...) lines meet, {Chambers}. *Iugo, iugare [Latin]: To bind together, connect, couple *Iungo, iungere, iunxi, iunctum to join, unite, connect, {Cassells Latin}. K Kilt: n a short pleated skirt, usu of tartan, traditionally worn by Celts; any similar garment. vt to tuck up skirts, pleat vertically, hang, (archaic), {Chambers: Scand cf Dan kilte to tuck up; ON kilting a skirt}. Knit: vt (knitting; knitted; or knit) to form (wool, etc) into network by needles; to intertwine; to unite closely, to draw together; to form into a knot (archaic); to tie together (archaic). vi to knit something {Chambers: OE cnyttan; & cnotta, knot. Bosworth-Toller: cnyttan, to tie, bind, knit. B-T suggests the Sanskrit cognate nah, to bind, tie.} 169 Knitch: (dialect) n a faggot, a bundle of wood, etc tied together, {Chambers: OE gecnycc bond}. Knittle: n a small line made of two or three yarns twisted with the fingers (naut); (in pl) the halves of two yarns in a rope, {Chambers. Clark Hall OE: cnyttels sinew, string}. Knot: n interlacement of parts of a cord or cords, rope, ribbon, etc. formed by twisting the ends around each other and then tightening the loops thus formed; a piece of ribbon, lace, etc.folded or tied upon itself as an ornament; anything like a knot in form; a bond or union; a tangle, intricacy, problem, or difficulty; a complex of lines, mountains, etc; the base of a branch buried in a later growth of wood; a node or joint in a stem; hard lump; a concretion; a swelling; a knob; a boss; a bud; a hill (dialect); a clump or cluster. vt to tie a knot, unite closely; make by knotting. vi to form a knot or knots; to knit knots for a fringe, {Chambers: OE cnotta; Ger. Knoten, Dan knude, L nodus}. Bosworth Toller: cnotta, a knot, fastening, knitting; nexus; and offers a verb: to loosen. Clark Hall adds: a knotty point, a puzzle. Knotwork: n ornamental work made with knots; carving or decoration in interlaced forms, {Chambers}. L Lace: n a string or cord for passing through holes, e.g. to tie up a shoe or garment etc; a delicate ornamental fabric made by looping, knotting, plaiting or twisting threads into a definite pattern. vt to fasten with lace, put lace or laces into; intermingle; intertwine, {Chambers French; from L laqueus}. *Laqueus -I, m: a noose, halter, snare. TRANSF: a trap {Cassells Latin}. Lattice: n a network of crossed laths or bars, also called latticework; anything of a similar pattern; a window with small, esp. diamond-shaped panes set in lead, {Chambers: Fr lattis, from latte a lath. Clark Hall OE: laett f. (pl. latta) beam, ‘lath.’}. Linen: n cloth made of flax, {Cassells Latin: Linea ae, f. a linen thread, string}; {Clark Hall OE: Lin n. flax, linen, cloth, napkin, towel}. Loom: n a machine for weaving; a tool; an instrument, {Chambers and Clark Hall: OE [ge]loma] tool, instrument, article of furniture}. N Net: n an open fabric, knotted into meshes; a piece of such fabric used for catching prey, retaining hair, etc; machine-made lace of various kinds; a snare; a plan to trap or 170 catch someone or something; a difficulty. vt to form into a net or network; to mark or cover with a net or network; to fish with nets; to form by knotting threads into meshes; also vi to capture. vi to form a net or network {Chambers: OE net, Du net, Ger. netz. Clark Hall: nett netting, network, a spider's web. Bosworth-Toller: I. a net for fowling, fishing or hunting; II. a mosquito net; III. net-work, web (Goth nati, O Sax netti, O Frs. nette, O. H. Ger. nezzi).} *net-gearn net-yarn; string for making nets (B-T); knitting yarn (Clark Hall). *nettian to ensnare. P Plaid: n a long woollen cloth, worn over the shoulder, usu in tartan as part of Highland dress, or checked as formerly worn by Lowland shepherds; tartan. adj like a plaid in pattern or colors. Also: n plaiding a strong woollen twilled fabric, {Chambers: Perh Gaelic or Scottish plaide a blanket}. Plait: n a braid in which strands are passed over one another in turn; material so braided; a braided tress; a pleat (rare). vt to braid or intertwine; to pleat (now rare), {Chambers: from L: plico -are -ui and -avi -atum and -itum to fold, to fold together}. Also {Cassells, Latin:} *plicatrix -icis f: one who folds clothes. *plexus -a -um braided, plaited {(from Latin Plecto; and Greek)}. Pleat: n any of several types of fold sewn or pressed into cloth; a plait or braid (rare). vt to make pleats; plait or intertwine (rare), {Chambers: from plait. Bosworth-Toller and Clark Hall OE: plett, a fold [From Latin plecta a hurdle]}. R Repp: n a corded cloth (also reps or Rep), {Chambers: Fr reps, perh from Eng ribs}. Rope: n a stout twist of fibre. vt to fasten, bind, enclose, mark off or catch. vi to form into a rope, {Chambers: OE rap; ON reip}. S Sheep: n (pl sheep) a beardless, woolly ruminant animal of the goat family (genus Ovis), {Chambers: OE scëap}. Shroud: n cloth used to wrap a corpse; a winding sheet; garment, clothes (obs); enveloping or protective covering. 171 vt to enclose in a shroud; cover, envelop; hide. vi to take shelter, {Chambers: OE scrud; ON skruth, clothing, gear, from Gmc base skraud-, skreud-, skrud, cut; also: shred}. Silk: n fiber from the larva of a silkworm moth; similar fiber from another insect or a spider; a thread, cloth, clothing made from such fibers, {Chambers: OE seolc, silk [fr L sericum: Chinese]}. Spatula: n a broad, blunt, flexible blade or flattened spoon, {Chambers: L spatula, spathula, dimin. of spatha from Gr spathë a broad blade}. *Spatha -ae, f: a wooden instrument for stirring or mixing, a spatula, an instrument of similar shape used by weavers. a broad two-edged sword without a point: Tacitus. {Cassells Latin}. Spin: vt to draw out and twist into threads; to draw out a thread as spiders do; to form by spinning. vi to practice the art or trade or perform the act of spinning; to rotate rapidly; to whirl. n the act or result of spinning, {Chambers: OE spinnan; Ger spinnen}. Stripe n a band of color; striped cloth or pattern; a strip. vt to make stripes on; mark with stripes, {Chambers: ON strip striped fabric}. T Tabby: n a coarse waved or watered silk fabric {Chambers: Fr tabis appar. from ’Attabiy, a quarter in Baghdad where it was made};{ CHWT: “The simplest weave is a tabby or plain weave in which the weft passes under and over one warp thread (1/1 warp/weft (20)}; {Clark Hall: taber a weaving tool?; tenterhook?}. Tapestry: n ornamental textile used for curtains or for covering walls or furniture, made by passing colored threads or wools through a fixed-warp fabric; anything like a tapestry in being intricate and with many closely interwoven elements (fig), {Chambers: Fr tapisserie from tapis a carpet, from LL tapetium, from Gr tapetion dimin. of tapes, -etos, prob of Iranian origin}; {Chambers and Clark Hall: L. tapete, perhaps through OE taeppet or taepped: figured cloth, tapestry, carpet}. Tape: n material woven in long narrow bands; a strip of such material, used for tying up, connecting, etc. {Chambers and Clark Hall: OE taeppe tape, fillet}. Tapet:(Spenser) n a piece of tapestry, {Chambers and Clark Hall: L. tapete, perhaps through OE taeppet or taepped: figured cloth, tapestry, carpet}. Tent: n (obs) an embroidery or tapestry frame, {Cassells, Latin: *Tendo, tendere, tetendi, tentum and tensum, to stretch, stretch out, extend, spread. TRANS: could include literary meanings of to string, or even to present}. 172 Text: n the words of a book, poem, etc; a book of such words; the main body of matter in a book; the exact wording of a book or piece of writing as opposed to a translation, paraphrase or revision; a short passage from the Bible taken as the ostensible subject of a sermon, quoted in authority, displayed as a motto, etc; a theme, {Chambers}. *Texo, texere, texui, textum: to weave {Cassells: Latin} LIT: of cloth TRANSF:(1) to twine together, intertwine, plait; to put together, construct, build. to compose of speech or writing. Noun or participle as substantive: *Textum -I, n. LIT: woven cloth, a web. TRANSF. (1) any material plaited or put together; a fabric, texture, style (Quint) of written composition. *Textilis -e: (texo) woven, textile; also plaited as subst. *Textile -is, n. a woven fabric, a piece of cloth. *Textor -oris, m: (texo) a weaver. *Textorius -a -um: (textor) of weaving. *Textrinum -I, n: (textor) weaving. *Textrix -tricis, f: (f. of textor), a female weaver. *Textura, -ae, f: (texo), LIT: a web, texture. TRANSF: a putting together, construction. *Textus -us, m: (texo) a web; hence texture, structure. TRANSF: mode of putting together, connexion; Quint. Textile: n a woven fabric; fibre; yarn, {Chambers: L. Cp text and texture. See also textilis from texere, textum}. Texture: n general quality, character or tenor. Structural impression resulting from the way that the different elements are combined or interrelated to form a whole; the manner of weaving or connecting; [archaic: anything woven, a web]. vt to give a certain texture to, texturize, weave, {Chambers: L textura web; from texere, textum: to weave}. Thread: n a very thin line of any substance, esp linen or cotton, twisted or drawn out; several strands of yarn twisted together for sewing; a filament, a fibre; a continuous connecting element in a story, argument, etc. vt to pass through; to fit or supply with a thread. vi to twist, {Chambers: OE thraed; cf also Clark Hall: ðræd, ‘thread’; ðrāwan ‘to turn, twist, curl [‘throw’]}. 173 Twine: n a twisted cord; string or strong thread; a coil; a twisted stem or the like; an act of twisting or clasping. vt to wind, coil, wreathe, twist, encircle, to make by twisting. vi to wind, coil, twist, rise or grow in spirals {Chambers}. {Clark Hall twin n double thread, twist, ‘twine,’ linen-thread, linen}. Twill: n woven fabric showing diagonal lines, the weft yarns having been worked over, on, and under two or more warp yarns, {Clark Hall: twilic double, woven of double thread}. Twist: vt to twine; to unite; to form by winding together; to form from several threads; to wind spirally; to wring; to distort; to force, pull out of natural shape, position, etc. vi to twine; to coil; to move spirally or tortuously; to turn aside; to revolve; to writhe. a thing twisted or formed by twisting; a cord; a strand; thread; silk thread; warp yarn, {Chambers: OE twist, rope}. V Vexillum n (pl vexilla): the series of barbs on the sides of the shaft of a feather; a Roman standard; a vexillation (company under one vexillum; a scarf on a pastoral staff, {Chambers; Cassells: L veho vehere vexi vectum to carry, to convey}. W Warp n the threads stretched out lengthways in a loom to be crossed by a woof (also fig ); a twist, shift or displacement to a different or parallel position within a (usu conceptual) framework or scale, etc. vt to twist out of shape; turn from the right course; distort; to pervert; arrange (threads) so as to form a warp; entwine (obs); lay (eggs) or to bring forth (young). vi to be twisted out of shape; become perverted or distorted (fig); swerve; move with effort, or on a zigzag course, {Chambers: OE weorpan, werpan to throw, cast; ON verpa}. Weave: vt to make (cloth, tapestry, basket-work etc.) by crossing threads, strands, strips, etc. above and below one another; to interlace; to depict (figures, a story, etc) in woven-work; to combine, mingle, or work together into a whole; to introduce an ingredient or element into something; to construct, fabricate, or contrive. vi to practice weaving. n the structure or texture of woven fabric, {Chambers OE wefan; ON vefa; Ger weben; cognate with Gr hyphe a web, and hyphainein to weave}. Web: n structure of threads spun by a spider to entrap insects; that which is woven; the skin between the toes of waterfowl, etc; in birds, the vexillum of a feather; anything like a 174 cloth web in its complication, or a spider’s web in its flimsiness or power to entangle; a plot, snare, intrigue or fabrication. vt to envelop or to connect with a web. vi to make or weave a web, {Chambers: OE webb; ON vefr.} {Clark Hall: web, webb n. ‘web,’ weft: woven work, tapestry. cf : *webba m. weaver; *webbeam m. weaver’s beam; treadle of a loom. *webbestre f. female weaver. *webbgeweorc n. weaving. *webbian to contrive, devise. *webbung f. plotting, conspiracy. *webgerēðru np. weaver’s tool. *webgerod n. weaver’s implement. *webhōc m. weaver’s comb. *weblic pertaining to a weaver. *websceaft m. weaver’s beam. *webtāwa m. thread, line. *web-tēag f. weaving-thread. *webwyrhta m. fuller.} Weft: n threads woven into and crossing the warp; thread carried by a shuttle (woof); web. vi (rare) to form a weft, {Chambers: OE weft, wefta; related to wefan; see weave}. Wind: vt to turn, to twist or coil; to (cause to) encircle or enfold; to traverse, by turning and twisting. vi to twist; to move or go by turns and twists, or deviously; to meander, {Chambers: OE windan; cf Gr wenden, ON binda, Gothic windan; cf wend, wander}. Woof: n weft; thread for a weft; texture, {Chambers: ME of, with w added by association with warp, etc (of being the normal development of OE owe, from on and wefan to weave)}. Wool: n a modified soft, fine hair that forms the fleece of sheep, goat, yak, etc; this spun into yarn or thread for knitting or weaving; fabric woven from such yarn, {Chambers: OE wall; Gothic Walla, Ger wolde, L vellum}. Y Yarn: n spun thread; one of the threads of a rope, or these collectively, {Chambers: OE gearn thread; ON gearn, Ger gearn}. 175 APPENDIX B TABLES SHOWING DEVELOPMENTS IN WEAVING TABLE 2.1: Weaving in the Stone Age Stone Age Middle Eastern and Pontic Central European Scandinavian and N. Germanic British Pre-8000 BC Lascaux, France: Cord of vegetable fiber, Paleolithic (Jorgensen 53). ca. 8000 BC Syria and W. Iran: First domestication of Finland; and Potsdam Germany: Mesolithic sheep (Wild 40). They also farmed the first Fishing nets made of willow bast. flax, (Wild 40). ca. 6500 Palestine, near the Dead Sea: First woven objects: basketry, matting, cordage, fine netting:“Sophisticated netting and interlacing techniques” characterize a ceremonial headdress, (Wild 42). ca. 6000 Turkey: Earliest linen: part of a shroud from Catal Huyuk, (Wild 40). Egypt (northern): Hunter gatherers cultivated flax (McDowell 31). ca. 5500 Egyptians wrapped mummies in linen, (McDowell 31). ca. 4200 4200 BC Denmark: Willow bast fabric includes knotless netting; couched buttonhole stitch, (Jorgensen 54). ca. 4000 Lake Dwellings, Switzerland; and near Denmark: Knotless netting of lime Etton, Cambridgeshire: A Neolithic Bern: Fabrics of flax and wood basis; bast, (Jorgensen 54). sample of “twine made of basketry; knotless netting; knotted vegetable fibres” exists, fringes; embroidery; brocade–some (Jorgensen 55). striped and fringed, (Jorgensen 55). 176 TABLE 2.2: Weaving in the Bronze Age Bronze Age Middle Eastern and Pontic Greek and Roman Central Europe Scandinavian and N. Germanic British ca. 3500 BC Denmark: Textiles of vegetable fiber; no extant wool or flax (Jorgensen 54/5). ca. 3000 BC Syria/Iran: First “woolly fleece” (Wild 40) .Egypt: Lozenge pattern on a king’s cloak, ca. .2920-2770 (McDowell 37). ca. 2800 BC Egypt: Evidence of pleating (36/37). ca. 2400 BC Near the Elbe: First wool weave in European -mixed with vegetable fibers (Jorgensen 57). ca. 2000-700 BC Egypt: Weaving workshops attached to palaces, c.1800-500–Denmark: Loom-woven temples and estates (McDowell 32). fabric and braids in “coarse tabby” and “a c.1991-1783--Egypt: colored clothes, often primitive wool,” possibly from wild sheep. decorated with geometric patterns and Samples include corded skirts, shirts, caps, “repeating lozenges” (McDowell 37). cloaks, and hairnets. Decoration includes ca. 1600-1100 BC c.1550 Egypt: tomb paintings depict the vertical Greece and Crete: Participated in embroidery; or edgings of fringes, tassels, loom. After this date, also, men took weaving wool trading (Wild 48).Athens: or bronze tubes. Plaid patterns. (Jorgensen over from women (McDowell 31; 34).Egypt: Silk probably imported(Jenkins 57-61). Men wore kilts (McDowell 37). 71). c.1300–Lichtenstein: A possible ca. 1350 BC First Egyptian wool woven: possibly twill weave has been by‘Asiatics’ (McDowell 32/33). identified(Jorgensen 62). ca. 1333-1323 BC Egypt: Kilts in tomb of Tutankhamun. “Egyptian motifs mingle with Syrian and Mesopotamian winged griffins” (McDowell 36/7; 39). Late Bronze Age Palestine: Clothing included “kilts and draped to 1100 BC cloaks for men and off-shoulder long dresses and cloaks for women...with shirts being worn by both sexes”(Wild 47). 177 TABLE 2.3: Weaving in the Iron Age Iron Age Middle Eastern and Pontic Greek and Roman Central European Scandinavian ca. 1100-500 BC Mesopotamia: grew cotton, (Wild 49). Israel: Bred sheep for white wool; grew flax; wove plain, figured, and multi-colored fabric; left “cloth impressions on pottery”; and recorded weaving activities in Exodus, (Wild 51). Phoenicians: made purple dye at Tyre and Sidon, (Wild 51). ca. 900-680 BC Phrygians Wove fine wool and linen; looped pile; 2-color weaves; tapestries with geometric designs. Used warp-weighted looms (Wild 50). ca. 800-700 BC Latium: A boat burial included “wool After 800 BC: “Germany, France, the Netherlands, Denmark: A tabby cloth in chevron twills, woven selvedges, and pile Ireland and Denmark [sic]” Twill weaves in nettle fibers is extant. fabrics (Wild 77). vegetable fibers remain (Jorgensen 61/2). (Jorgensen 62). ca. 700-500 BC c600–Bologna: a bronze rattle depicts Hallstatt: wools and linens in diagonal and diamond . loom- weaving (77). patterned twills; embroideries in wool. Greeks and Romans: used mainly wool; Germany (Stuttgart): braids remain in “complicated women probably wove flax from imported polychrome patterning.” c.700-100 BC–Jutland: wool fiber and made tapestry at home. Sprang France, Spain, Germany, and Austria: braids with clothing in twills, some in was probably woven. colored strands (67). Wool is often in undyed stripes check paterns (Jorgensen Greek vases illustrate loom use, (Jenkins and checks. 62/5). 71-75). Hungary: Checked and striped woollen twill, and sprang hairnetting, (Jorgensen 64/5). c.500–La Tene: tabby, twills, and basket weaves - in flax ca. 550-330 BC Scythian tombs at Pazyryk included Persian fabrics of this date: a 600-300–Etruscans: some linens and and wool, (Jorgensen) 69 tapestry and “a famous knotted pile-carpet with registers of check patterns; later some had woven mounted riders and elks” (Wild 52). borders (Wild 77). ca. 400-100 BC 400-300–Kertch: wool tapestry decoration includes ducks/deer Etruscans: left the ‘linen book,’ “inscribed c.400-200–Sweden: wool Hellenic Period: heads, buds and lotus flowers (Wild 103). bandage dated to c400 BC, now in twill in dogstooth pattern 323-331 Greeks + sheep... migrated to Egypt (Wild 102). Zagreb,” (Wild 77). survives; also in Jutland, Alexander the The Crimea: “A coverlet enlivened with shded bands in which a Throughout the area: Silk more common (Jorgensen 65). Great: 353-323 rainbow effect has minutely graduated colour changes in the wool after Alexander the Great conquered weft.: (Wild 103). eastern areas, (Jenkins 72). 178 TABLE 2.4: Weaving in the Roman Era Roman Era Middle Eastern and Pontic Greek, Roman, and Western European Scandinavian and N. Germanic British From Throughout the area: Trade in fine woollen clothing and rug The Roman Empire: Production of wool and linen: cotton was rare; 1-175 AD–Throughout the area: Vindolanda: Groups traded “...a ca. 31BC common throughout the area; cashmere and mohair may also gold was spun into thread. rough, hand-plucked, un-dyed wool range of locally made and have appeared (Wild 106). Romans prized silk, probably still imported from China (Wild 81/2). was produced on un-weighted imported fabric types” [see Egyptians: Used “resist dyeing” to produce a “light-on- Western Provinces: wove linen, and produced wool especially in looms. Twills were common, illustration 2.11] (Wild 84). dark” effect, (Wild 152). “diamond” (lozenge) and herringbone twills, and in basket weaves some were diamond types (Wild 87). (Jorgensen 94-96). Vindolanda, London, [and Mainz], The Spanish made rope from Esparto grass (Wild 81-82). produced fabric that incorporated Gauls used vegetable dyes; along the Atlantic coast, shellfish purple tapestry bands, the fashion provided purple dyes (Wild 91/2). probably originating in the eastern Celts were associated with stripes and checks in colored yarns. 175-400AD–Scandinavians: Mediterranean, (Wild 88). “The (Wild 88/89). sheared their sheep, and used dog whelk . . . is native to Britain Gaul, Spain and northern Africa: Workshops existed: i) on private weighted looms to produce finer and could have provided a purple estates ii) in urban areas, where they were small and “semi- wools, some with colored dye,” (Wild 91). professional” - wove and sold textiles, (Wild 84) stripesand checks Linens survive. Some textiles and dyes may have ca. 206-220 AD Scythian tombs at Pazyryk contained some Chinese textiles been imported. (Jorgensen 95/6; of this date (Brown 15). 101/2). ca. 250 AD Romans began producing damask silks in “simple geometric patterns” (Wild 148) ca. 300-400 AD c 300 AD– The Western Provinces: State established factories for Late Roman/Early weaving linen and wool (Wild 84). Byzantine 300-400 AD–Northern Greece: Tapestries fragments “woven in purple wool and gold were found in the so-called Tomb of Philip of Macedon, at Vergina...” (Jenkins 71; Wild 106). c 300-500 AD–Greece and Rome: uncut looped pile was sometimes added to drapery fabric. Geometric interlace decorated the front bands of tunics, etc; linen/wool weaves simulated embroidery. Decoration included “human figures drawn from pagan and Christian iconography and animals” (Wild 146/7). 179 TABLE 2.5: Weaving in the Post-Roman Age Post-Roman Imperial Roman/Byzantine Persian and Arabic North, Central, and Western Scandinavian and N. Germanic British Europe ca. 400-500 c 400-500 Throughout the area: “The two beam 224-642 AD Sasanian Germanic: wool tabby; and linens 475 AD - Norway: braids found; also 450-650 AD - England: Anglo-Saxons wove textiles for vertical loom” superseded earlier technology Iran:“developed an in plain, diamond, and rosette fabrics decorated with animal motifs, or personal use and introduced different loom weights and (Wild 151). iconography of hunting, twills; and honeycomb, striped, colored checks and stripes weaving tools. Village workshops produced wool and linen c 400-600 Byzantium: produced silk damask and battle, and banqueting” or checked weaves. (Jorgensen133/34). (Rogers 125). Tabby and twill weaves predominated; there twills on horizontal looms; span gold and silver (McDowell153). They Holland, Frisia [and England]: were diamond and chevron patterns, sometimes in colored thread. Patterns included : “...hearts, swastikas, probably wove from Diamond twills common. The threads e.g. blue from woad and purple from lichen. palmettes and leaves arranged in rows to give a Chinese silk. Other extant weaves indicate advanced Some brocades included gold thread (Rogers 125/7). diaper effect, with or without actual lattice textiles show “geometric" technology (Jorgensen 118/21). divisions,” (Wild 151;149). designs (McDowell 153/5). ca. 500-600 Rome and Byzantium: imported cotton from the Cologne and Marseilles: imported 550-600 AD Scandinavians: imported Mohammed southern and western Mediterranean seaboards fabric from the Eastern Frankish and Alemannic fabrics; linen ca. 570-632 (Wild 141). Mediterranean (Wild 153). commoner (Jorgensen135). ca. 600-700 Rome and Byzantium: imported cotton from the 600-1000 AD Arab Period: Paris: A late Sasanian silk 600-1050 AD, Scandinavians: produced southern and western Mediterranean seaboards Embroidery increased; also includes senmurvs in royal and “Birka” diamond twill in fine worsted c 620's Sutton Hoo: fabrics“decorated with soumak and (Wild 141). patterns in checks, stripes, Zoroastrian iconography (Jorgensen 135). tabbies with a looped pile,” were probably imports (Rogers and bands; brocades, (McDowell 155). 127). damasks and resist dying. State workshops produced 650-850 AD - Durham: St. Cuthbert’s shrine includes silks bands of embroidered texts. imported from Byzantium and the Middle East Women span, at home; ca. 700-800 Throughout the area: Silk patterns included weavers were men 700-900 - Carolingian sites: plain “rows of large, almost contiguous medallions, (Eastwood 160/61). linen tabby and plain twill; some Throughout the area: English nuns embroidered in silk and containing human and animal figures reversed in Egypt: Early European “Spong Hill” type diamond twills gold: opus anglicanum (128). The textile trade probably mirror image over a vertical axis;” Sasanian techniques of nalebinding (Jorgenen 123). Throughout the developed for courtly and monastic markets, (Rogers 129) themes of Royal Hunt and Senmurv; and and sprang appeared here area: A scarce new weave inscriptions woven in Greek (Wild 151; 149) (Wild 151). appeared-“broken twill with Egypt produced flax, but displacement after each two less linen. threads” (Jorgensenson 123). Iran: famed for silk. .850-1000/1050 AD- Coppergate, York: Workshops wove (Eastwood159/60). Throughout the area: manors silk braids from imported fibers. “Birka” twill and silver housed workshops, which were in wire embroidery signify Viking influence. Trade increased longhouses later (Jorgensen via Viking routes; luxury textiles became available to 123/4). many, (Rogers (131/2). ca. 800-1050 800-1050 Scandinavia: Linen widespread. Tabby and twill silks imported at Birka from the Near East: “one is a monochrome- patterned fabric 900-1050- Italians: used water power to drive from China. 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Phil. in Medieval English Language and Literature from Glasgow University, she earned her M.A. in English Literature from F. S. U. in 2002. This dissertation completes her Ph D. in English Literature, in which she has concentrated on Medieval Studies and Old English Language and Literature–where her interests lie. Publication: “Spiritual Gold: Verbal and Spiritual Alchemy in The Pardoner’s Tale and Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale, ” in Medieval Perspectives, Richmond: EKU. Vol. XV, 2000, 35-41. 193