James Paz - 9781526115997 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/04/2021 03:02:37AM via free access i NONHUMAN VOICES IN ANGLO- SAXON LITERATURE AND MATERIAL CULTURE James Paz - 9781526115997 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/04/2021 03:02:37AM via free access ii Series editors: Anke Bernau and David Matthews Series founded by: J. J. Anderson and Gail Ashton Advisory board: Ruth Evans, Nicola McDonald, Andrew James Johnston, Sarah Salih, Larry Scanlon and Stephanie Trigg The Manchester Medieval Literature and Culture series publishes new research, informed by current critical methodologies, on the literary cultures of medieval Britain (including Anglo- Norman, Anglo- Latin and Celtic writings), including post- medieval engagements with and representations of the Middle Ages (medievalism). ‘Literature’ is viewed in a broad and inclusive sense, embracing imaginative, historical, political, scientific, dramatic and religious writings. The series offers monographs and essay collections, as well as editions and translations of texts. Titles Available in the Series The Parlement of Foulys (by Geoffrey Chaucer) D. S. Brewer (ed.) Language and imagination in the Gawain- poems J. J. Anderson Water and fire:The myth of the Flood in Anglo- Saxon England Daniel Anlezark Greenery: Ecocritical readings of late medieval English literature Gillian Rudd Sanctity and pornography in medieval culture:On the verge Bill Burgwinkle and Cary Howie In strange countries: Middle English literature and its afterlife: Essays in Memory of J. J. Anderson David Matthews (ed.) A knight’s legacy: Mandeville and Mandevillian lore in early modern England Ladan Niayesh (ed.) Rethinking the South English legendaries Heather Blurton and Jocelyn Wogan- Browne (eds) Between earth and heaven: Liminality and the Ascension of Christ in Anglo-Saxon literature Johanna Kramer Transporting Chaucer Helen Barr Sanctity as literature in late medieval Britain Eva von Contzen and Anke Bernau (eds) Reading Robin Hood: Content, form and reception in the outlaw myth Stephen Knight Annotated Chaucer bibliography: 1997– 2010 Mark Allen and Stephanie Amsel Roadworks: Medieval Britain, medieval roads Valerie Allen and Ruth Evans (eds) Love, history and emotion in Chaucer and Shakespeare: Troilus and Criseyde and Troilus and Cressida Andrew James Johnston, Russell West- Pavlov and Elisabeth Kempf (eds) Gesta Romanorum: A new translation Christopher Stace The Scottish Legendary: Towards a poetics of hagiographic narration Eva von Contzen James Paz - 9781526115997 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/04/2021 03:02:37AM via free access iii Nonhuman voices in Anglo- Saxon literature and material culture JAMES PAZ Manchester University Press James Paz - 9781526115997 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/04/2021 03:02:37AM via free access iv Copyright © James Paz 2017 The right of James Paz to be identifi ed as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 5261 0110 5 hardback ISBN 978 1 5261 1599 7 Open Access First published 2017 This electronic version has been made freely available under a Creative Commons (CC-BY- NC-ND) licence, thanks to Open Access funding from The University of Manchester. A copy of the licence can be viewed at https://creativecommons. org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third- party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Typeset by Out of House Publishing James Paz - 9781526115997 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/04/2021 03:02:37AM via free access v For my parents James Paz - 9781526115997 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/04/2021 03:02:37AM via free access vi James Paz - 9781526115997 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/04/2021 03:02:37AM via free access vii Contents List of figures viii Acknowledgements ix Introduction: On Anglo- Saxon things 1 1 Æschere’s head, Grendel’s mother and the sword that isn’t a sword: Unreadable things in Beowulf 34 2 The ‘thingness’ of time in the Old English riddles of the Exeter Book and Aldhelm’s Latin enigmata 59 3 The riddles of the Franks Casket: Enigmas, agency and assemblage 98 4 Assembling and reshaping Christianity in the Lives of St Cuthbert and Lindisfarne Gospels 139 5 The Dream of the Rood and the Ruthwell monument: Fragility, brokenness and failure 175 Afterword: Old things with new things to say 216 Bibliography 221 Index 233 James Paz - 9781526115997 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/04/2021 03:02:37AM via free access viii Figures 1 Gold hilt plate from the Staffordshire Hoard (© Birmingham Museums Trust) 51 2 Franks Casket, front panel (© The Trustees of the British Museum) 99 3 Franks Casket, right panel (© The Trustees of the British Museum) 111 4 Franks Casket, left panel (© The Trustees of the British Museum) 115 5 The Ruthwell monument, north (now east) side, upper and lower stones: vine scroll and runic inscription (© Corpus of Anglo- Saxon Stone Sculpture, photographer T. Middlemass) 199 6 The Ruthwell monument, north (now east) side, lower stone: vine scroll and runic inscription (© Corpus of Anglo- Saxon Stone Sculpture, photographer T. Middlemass) 200 The author and publishers are grateful to all of the institutions and individuals listed above for permission to reproduce the images for which they hold the copyright. James Paz - 9781526115997 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/04/2021 03:02:37AM via free access ix Acknowledgements My initial ideas for this book took root in 2008, when I was still based at King’s College London. I was extremely fortunate to find an excellent mentor in Clare Lees: her support and enthusiasm for imaginative research, balanced with insightful criticism and com- mitment to high scholarly standards, have played no small part in the successes of this book. I acknowledge any of its shortcomings as my own. Sarah Salih and Robert Mills (now at UCL) also deserve thanks for providing helpful insights and suggestions on work in progress, and I am very grateful to Catherine Karkov (Leeds) for reading and commenting on an earlier version of this book. The Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies (CLAMS) provided me with an intellectual home for over four years, as well as with a warm and friendly testing ground for new ideas. Our Old English reading group kept me focused on the language and poetry of my primary texts. I would like to thank the tight-knit cluster of Anglo- Saxonist postgraduate students who participated in this group, some of whom are now lecturers and tutors at King’s or other institutions: especially (but not exclusively) Carl Kears, Hana Videen, Josh Davies, Kathryn Maude, Rebecca Hardie and Victoria Walker. I acknowledge my alma mater, Aberystwyth University. Special thanks are due to Diane Watt, now at the University of Surrey, whose classes in Old English first stimulated my interest in this field and whose advice was crucial in making the step from under- graduate to postgraduate study. My spell as a lecturer at the University of Leeds (January to July 2014) was brief but I shared fruitful conversations with Alaric Hall and his (former) doctoral student, Helen Price, whose own work on ecomaterialism and Old English poetry I found very illuminating. Since September 2014, I have been lecturing full- time at the University of Manchester. The collegiality and support of my new colleagues have enabled James Paz - 9781526115997 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/04/2021 03:02:37AM via free access newgenprepdf x x Acknowledgements me to balance teaching and research duties and helped me to set- tle into my role as an early career academic while completing my first book. I am especially thankful to my fellow medievalists, Anke Bernau and David Matthews, for their welcoming attitude and sound mentorship. Of course, research is not separate from but always informed by teaching. Therefore, I acknowledge the many undergraduate students who have studied Old English under me at Manchester to date: particularly those who signed up for my third- year, research- led course on Anglo- Saxon ‘Things that Talk’. Their thoughtful responses in class and often exciting writ- ten work prompted me to rethink certain aspects of this book in productive ways. I am indebted to the anonymous peer reviewers for Manchester University Press, whose observations, queries and criticisms of the first draft of this book have helped me to refine its structure and writing style and to tighten and refresh its theoretical framework. The most important thanks of all are owed to my family, par- ticularly my parents, who steered me through many moments of academic and personal self-doubt. I hope that I have repaid your faith in me. James Paz - 9781526115997 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/04/2021 03:02:37AM via free access 1 Introduction: On Anglo- Saxon things How many things, Files, doorsills, atlases, wine glasses, nails, Serve us like slaves who never say a word, Blind and so mysteriously reserved. (Jorge Luis Borges, ‘Things’)1 Næfre hio heofonum hran, ne to helle mot, ac hio sceal wideferh wuldorcyninges larum lifgan. Long is to secganne hu hyre ealdorgesceaft æfter gongeð, woh wyrda gesceapu; þæt is wrætlic þing to gesecganne. [It never reaches heaven, nor to hell, but it must always live within the king of glory’s laws. Long it is to say how its life- shape spins on after- wards, the twisted pattern of fate; that is a wondrous thing to speak.] (Exeter Book Riddle 39)2 Anglo- Saxon things and theory Things could talk in Anglo- Saxon literature and material culture.