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ProQuest Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. SANCTIFYING HISTORY: HAGIOGRAPHY AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF AN ANGLO-SAXON CHRISTIAN PAST DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Cynthia Wittman Zollinger, M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2002 Dissertation Committee: Professor Nicholas G. Howe, Adviser Approved by Professor Lisa J. Kiser Professor Karen A. Winstead Adviser English Graduate Program Professor Christopher A. Jones Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 3059353 ___ ® UMI UMI Microform 3059353 Copyright 2002 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT The Anglo-Saxon literary tradition reveals a widespread desire to situate England’s local history and customs with the patterns of universal Christianity. Dominant among the texts that survive from the period are saints’ lives, spanning Latin and Old English, poetry and prose. Sanctifying History: Hagiography and the Construction o f an Anglo-Saxon Christian Past explores the ways in which Anglo- Saxon authors such as Bede, Felix, the anonymous poets of Guthlac A and B, Cynewulf and Tilfric draw upon existing hagiographic traditions to articulate and explore England’s place in the patterns of Christian time. These writers rewrite and reffame inherited narratives of sanctity, in the process crafting a synthesis between the newly- minted Christian history of a convert nation and the historical and theological traditions of the Christian faith. The literary interest in ancestral history offers a means by which the lessons of the past can be used to invigorate a Christian present. The first chapter of this dissertation examines the writings of the Venerable Bede. His Ecclesiastical History o f the English People (731 C.E.) was the first work to offer the English a coherent narrative of a national past, providing the foundation for a local tradition of Christianity. The career of the saint that Bede constructs through figures such as Germanus and Lupus, Gregory the Great, and Aidan unites the disparate ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. elements of England’s Christian history into a reenacted paradigm of conversion. This exemplary pattern finds its final fulfillment in Cuthbert, England’s national saint whose career reconciles these potentially divisive traditions. The second chapter focuses on Guthlac, a seventh-century Mercian hermit whose life survives in both Felix’s Vita sancti Guthlaci and in two Old English poems, Guthlac A and B. While the Latin legend presents the English saint as a historical figure influential in the cultural and political interests of his time, the Old English poems situate the saint within the framework of salvation rather than local history. These versions o f the legend reveal a change in the use of the past from commemorative and ideological to devotional and pedagogical, a shift that broadly reflects the Old English poetic interest in eschatology. The third chapter continues this exploration into Old English verse hagiography by focusing on two Cynewulf poems, Fates o f the Apostles and Elene. Both of these poems bring the missionary age of the Christian Church into an Anglo-Saxon setting, finding in the past the patterns of spiritual life. Cynewulfs epilogues model the act of reading this past, an act echoed in the events of Elene as the poem’s characters engage in the process of interpreting and reconciling the threads of history into the substance of spiritual truth. Fates and Elene present a fragmented vision of the past that finds unity in the Christian narrative, a vision that offers important insight into the imaginative reconstruction of Anglo-Saxon history. The final chapter examines the vision of Christian tradition reflected in the sermons of /Elfric. His Catholic Homilies (c. 990 C.E.) offer a primer of salvation history and Christian time from its birth in Genesis to its completion at Judgment Day. As in Elene, Ifric displays a concern with establishing Christianity’s claim on its Old Testament past, and seeks to articulate the iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. place o f new converts in this historical tradition. England’s own conversion is included through Gregory the Great and Cuthbert, saints whose lives brought the Anglo-Saxons within the boundaries of the Roman Church. Moreover, /Elfric’s sermon collection incorporates these assembled narratives of the Christian tradition into the framework of contemporaneous Anglo-Saxon devotion, locating in the legends and texts of the past spiritual instruction for the present. This project as a whole addresses the various ways in which Anglo-Saxon writers worked to create visions of sanctified history. These hagiographic works offer narratives in which the universal exemplars and patterns of Christian history are integrated into the social institutions and literary genres of Anglo-Saxon England, and the literary text of the saint’s life creates a sympathetic bond between the past and the values of the present. In this way the study of hagiography illuminates the Anglo- Saxon transformation of the cultural past. iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I can owe no one greater thanks than my dissertation director and adviser, Nicholas Howe. As a teacher and a scholar he has been a source of inspiration to me, and I have benefited immeasurably from his insight and guidance. I am very grateful for his always generous encouragement and support. 1 also owe a great debt of gratitude to the members of my committee, Lisa Kiser, Karen Winstead and Christopher A. Jones. Their invaluable comments and suggestions have led me to think about my work in new ways. I would like to thank Christopher Highley, Roberta Frank and Lisa Stepanski for writing on my behalf. I am also grateful to Joseph Lynch for his help in developing this project, to Charles Wright for his response to my discussion of Cynewulf s Elene , to Stacy Klein for the many conversations that have improved my work, and to Thomas Head for his willingness to share his knowledge of hagiography with me. My dissertation was supported in part by the Corbett Fellowship awarded by the Department of English at Ohio State University. Sections of this project were presented at the Plymouth State College Medieval Forum and at the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University, and I would like to extend my thanks to the audiences of those sessions. Finally, on a personal note, I would like to express my gratitude to George Zollinger for his unflagging patience, enthusiasm, and support. v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. VITA June 30, 1971 ..................................................Bom - Toledo, Ohio 1993................................................................ A.B. English, Kenyon College 1993-1995....................................................... Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of English, Ohio State University Summer, 1994 .................................................. Institut Lyonnais, Lyon, France 1995-1996 Writing Consultant, The Writing Center, and Graduate Administrative Assistant, Folklore Archive, Department o f English, Ohio State University Spring, 1996.................................................... Editorial Assistant to Lisa J. Kiser (editor), Studies in the Age o f Chaucer Summer, 1996................................................. Medieval Institute, University of Notre Dame Spring, 1997.................................................... Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of English, Ohio State University 1997.................................................................