No More Learning

41 (#61) ##############################################

CHAPTER IV
OLD ENGLISH CHRISTIAN POETRY
ONLY two names emerge from the anonymity which shrouds
the bulk of Old English Christian poetry, namely, those of
Caedmon and Cynewulf; and, in the past, practically all the
religious poetry we possess has been attributed to one or other
of these two poets. But, as we shall see, the majority of the
poems to be considered here should rather be regarded as the
work of singers whose names have perished, as folk-song, as
manifestations of the spirit of the people in the same sense in
which the tale of Beowulf's adventures embodied the aspirations
of all valiant thegns, or the epic of Waldhere summarised the
popular ideals of love and honour. The subject of the Christian
epic is, indeed, for the most part, apparently, foreign and even,
at times, oriental : the heroes of the Old and New Testaments,
the saints as they live in the legends of the church, furnish the
theme. The method of treatment hardly differs, however, from
that followed in non-Christian poetry; the metrical form, with
rare exceptions, is the alliterative line, constructed on the same
principles as in Beowulf; Wyrd has become the spirit of Pro-
vidence, Christ and His apostles have become English kings or
chiefs, followed, as in feudal duty bound, by hosts of clansmen;
the homage paid to the Divine Son is the allegiance due to
the scion of an Anglian king, comparable to that paid by Beowulf
to his liege lord Hygelac, or to that displayed by Byrhtnoth on
the banks of the Panta; the ideals of early English Christianity
do not differ essentially from those of English paganism. And yet
there is a difference.
The Christianity of England in the seventh and eighth
centuries, and the Latin influences brought in its wake, which
inspired the poetry under discussion, was a fusion, a com-
mingling, of two different strains. Accustomed as we are to date
the introduction of Christianity into England from the mission
of St Augustine, we are apt to forget that, prior to the landing


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42 Old English Christian Poetry
of the Roman missionary on the shores of Kent, Celtic missionaries
from the islands of the west had impressed upon the northern
kingdoms, the earliest home of literary culture in these islands,
a form of Christianity differing in many respects from the more
theological type preached and practised by St Augustine and his
followers. Oswald, the martyr king of Northumbria, had been
followed from Iona, where, in his youth, he had found sanctuary,
by Aidan, the apostle of the north, to whose missionary enterprise
was due the conversion of the rude north Anglian tribes. The
monastery at Streoneshalh, or Whitby, for ever famous as the
home of Caedmon, was ruled by the abbess Hild in accordance
with Celtic, not Roman, usage ; and though, at the synod of
Whitby in 664, the unity of the church in England was assured
by the submission of the northern church to Roman rule, yet
the influence of Celtic Christianity may be traced in some of
the features that most characteristically distinguish Christian
from non-Christian poetry. It would, for instance, be hard to
deny that the depth of personal feeling expressed in a poem
like The Dream of the Rood, the joy in colour attested by the
vivid painting of blossom and leaf in The Phoenix and the
melancholy sense of kinship between the sorrow of the human
heart and the moaning of the grey cold waves that make The
Seafarer a human wail, are elements contributed to English
poetry by the Celts. St Columba had built his monastery on
the surf-beaten shores of the Atlantic, where man's dependence
on nature was an ever-present reality. The Celtic monastery was
the home of a brotherhood of priests, and the abbot was the father
of a family as well as its ecclesiastical superior. The Christian
virtues of humility and meekness, in which the emissaries of
the British church found Augustine deficient, were valued in
Iona above orthodoxy and correctness of religious observance;
and the simplicity of ecclesiastical organisation characteristic of
Celtic Christianity, differing from the comparatively elaborate
nature of Roman organisation and ritual, produced a simple
form of Christianity, realdily understood by the unlettered people
of the north. It is the personal relation of the soul to God the
Father, the humanity of Christ, the brotherhood of man, the
fellowship of saints, that the Celtic missionaries seem to have
preached to their converts; and these doctrines inspired the
choicest passages of Old English religious poetry, passages worthy
of comparison with some of the best work of a later, more self-
conscious and introspective age.


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Changes wrought by Christianity
43
This subjectivity is a new feature in English literature; for
most non-Christian English poetry is epic. Beowulf is a tale of
brave deeds nobly done, with but few reflections concerning them.
At rare intervals, scattered here and there throughout the poem, we
meet with some touch of sentiment, a foreboding of evil to come, a
few words on the inexorable character of fate, an exhortation to
do great deeds so that after death the chosen warrior may fare
the better, occasionally a half-Christian reference to an all-ruling
Father (probably the addition of a later and Christian hand);
but, as a rule, no introspection checks the even flow of narrative:
arma virumque cano. When Christianity became the source
of poetic inspiration, we find the purely epic character of a poem
modified by the introduction of a lyric element. The hero no
longer aspires to win gold from an earthly king ; his prize is a
heavenly crown, to be won, it may even be, in spiritual conflict;
the glories of life on earth are transitory; earthly valour cannot
atone for the stains of sin upon the soul; the beauty of nature,
in her fairest aspects, cannot compare with the radiance of a
better land; the terror that lurks waiting for the evil-doer upon
earth fades away at the contemplation of that day of wrath and
mourning when the Judge of all the earth shall deal to every
man according to his deeds. The early Christian poet does not
sing of earthly love; we have no erotic poetry in pre-Conquest
England; but the sentiment that gives life to the poetry of Dante
and Milton is not absent from the best of our early poets' attempts
at religious self-expression.
Beyond the fact that his name seems to imply that he was of
Celtic descent, we have no knowledge of the historical Caedmon
other than that to be derived from the often-quoted passage in
Bede:
In the monastery of this abbess (i. e. the abbess Hild at Streoneshalb)
there was a certain brother specially distinguished and honoured by divine
grace, for he was wont to make songs such as tended to religion and piety.
Whatsoever he had learned from scholars concerning the Scriptures he
forthwith decked out in poetio language with the greatest sweetness and
fervour. . . . Many others, also, in England, imitated him in the composition of
religious songs. He had not, indeed, been taught of men, or through men, to
practise the art of song, but he had received divine aid, and his power of song
was the gift of God. Wherefore he could never compose any idle or false
song, but only those which pertained to religion and which his pious tongue
might fitly sing. The man had lived in the world till the time that he
was of advanced age, and had never learnt any poetry. And as he was
often at a feast when it was arranged, to promote mirth, that they should
all in turn sing to the harp, whenever he saw the harp come near him he
arose out of shame from the feast and went home to his house. Having


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44
Old English Christian Poetry
done so on one occasion, he left the house of entertainment, and went out
to the stables, the charge of the horses having been committed to him for
that night. When, in due time, he stretched his limbs on the bed there and
fell asleep, there stood by him in a dream a man who saluted him and
greeted him, calling on him by name : “ Caedmon, sing me something. "
Then he answered and said: “I cannot sing anything, and therefore I
came ont from this entertainment and retired here, as I know not how to sing. "
Again he who spoke to him said: “Yet you could sing. ” Then said Caedmon:
“What shall I sing? " He said: “Sing to me the beginning of all things. ” On
receiving this answer, Caedmon at once began to sing, in praise of God the
Creator, verses and words which he had never heard, the order of which
is as follows [quorum iste est sensus]: “Now let us praise the guardian of
the heavenly kingdom, the power of the Creator and the counsel of His
mind, the works of the Father of glory; how He, the eternal Lord, originated
every marvel. He, the holy Creator, first created the heaven as a roof for
the children of the earth; then the eternal Lord, guardian of the human
race, the almighty Baler, afterwards fashioned the world as a soil for men. ”
Then he arose from his sleep, and he had firmly in his memory all that he
sang while asleep. And to these words he soon added many others, in the
same style of song, worthy of God. Book iv, ch. 24. (Trans. Miller. )
Bede goes on to narrate how, the matter having been made
known to the abbess, she caused the best scholars to test the
new poet's powers, and how, when it was proved that a divine
gift had, indeed, been bestowed upon the neat-herd, she urged
him to abandon his worldly calling and to become a monk.
Which thing he did, and, progressing in his new vocation,
all that he could learn by listening he pondered in his heart and, ruminating
like some clean beast, he turned it into the sweetest of songs. His song and
his music were so delightful to hear, that even his teachers wrote down
the words from his lips and learnt them. He sang first of the earth's creation
and the beginning of man and all the story of Genesis, which is the first book
of Moses; and afterwards about the departure of the people of Israel from
the land of Egypt and their entry into the land of promise; and about
many other narratives in the books of the canon of Scripture; and about
Christ's incarnation and His passion and His ascension into heaven; and
about the coming of the Holy Ghost, and the teaching of the apostles;
and again about the day of judgment to come, and about the terror of
hell torment, and about the kingdom of heaven, he composed many a
song. And he also composed many others about the divine blessings and
judgments.
While making due allowance for a possible desire on Bede's part
to extol the fame of an earlier contemporary-Bede himself
died in 735—we should remember that Bede is one of the most
careful and trustworthy of historians, and that he lived not far
from the scene of Caedmon's life; it would, therefore, appear
that we have not sufficient reason for rejecting as untrue the
enumeration of Caedmon's literary achievements as given in the
above passage.


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Caedmon's Hymn
45
The hymn was first published in its Northumbrian form? by
Wanley, in his Catalogus historico-criticus (1705), p. 287, as
canticum illud Saxonicum Caedmonis a Baeda memoratum;
and, from that day to this, it has been regarded by the majority
of scholars as the genuine work of Caedmon.
Bede gives a Latin version of the lines, which corresponds very
closely to the original, but which he introduces thus : Caedmon
coepit cantare. . . versus quorum iste est sensus; and, in conclusion,
he reiterates : Hic est sensus, non autem ordo ipse verborum,
as if he had given a merely approximate rendering of his original.
Much discussion has hinged upon the exact meaning to be
attached to the words sensus and ordo, though Bede is evidently
alluding merely to the difficulty of reproducing poetry in prose,
for he continues : neque enim possunt carmina, quamvis optime
composita, ex alia in aliam linguam ad verbum sine detrimento
sui decoris ac dignitatis transferri. The West Saxon version
of the lines is preserved in the English translation of Bede's
Ecclesiastical History, with the introductory comment: "bara
endebyrdnis bis is. ” Now “endebyrdnis” simply means ordo,
and it may be safe to assume that both Bede's Latin version and
the West Saxon version are attempts at translation from the
original Northumbrian.
Bede's detailed enumeration of Caedmon's other achievements
must be held responsible for the attribution to Caedmon of a large
number of religious poems of a similar character, extant only in
West Saxon form, in the Bodl. MS, Junius XI, an opinion which,
in the light of modern critical scholarship, is no longer tenable.
Indeed, no one would to-day seriously maintain even that these
poems are all by one author; it is more likely, as we shall see,
that more than one writer has had a hand in each. But the
fact that it is impossible to claim these particular poems for
Caedmon does not militate against the probability of his having
composed similar, though, perhaps, shorter pieces, which may have
been worked upon later by more scholarly hands. Religious
poetry, sung to the harp as it passed from hand to hand, must
have flourished in the monastery of the abbess Hild, and the
kernel of Bede's story concerning the birth of our earliest poet
must be that the brethren and sisters on that bleak northern
shore spoke “to each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs. "
* See Cambridge Univ. Lib. MS. Kk, 5, 16, Fol. 128.
? Cf. post, Chapter vi.


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46
Old English Christian Poetry
The most important of the religious poems at one time
attributed to Caedmon are Genesis, Exodus, Daniel.
From the point of view of the historian of literature, Genesis
is the most interesting of these. It is a poetical paraphrase of
the first of the canonical books in the Old Testament, extending
to the story of the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham. The poem
opens with the praise of the Creator in a style recalling the
lines quoted by Bede. The poet then proceeds to relate the revolt
and fall of the angels (which, according to ancient theology,
necessitated the creation of man to fill the vacant place in
heaven), and then the creation of the earth, in accordance with
the opening chapters of the Vulgate. At this point we have a
repetition of the first motif, the fall of the angels ; Satan, in
anger at having fallen from his high estate, avenges himself on
God by tempting man; and the rest of the narrative proceeds
in accordance with the Biblical narrative.
Attention had been drawn to metrical and linguistic peculiarities
distinguishing the second version (Genesis B) of the fall of the
angels and the temptation (II. 235–851) from the rest of
the poem; but it remained for Sievers to point out that this
obviously interpolated passage was borrowed from a foreign
source, that the structure of the alliterative lines resembled
that in vogue amongst continental Saxons and that the voca-
bulary and syntax were now and again Old Saxon, not English.
Relying upon the accuracy of his observation in detail, he then
hazarded the bold conjecture that these lines were an Anglicised
version of a portion of an Old Saxon paraphrase of the Old
Testament, long lost, composed by the author of the Old Saxon
paraphrase of the New Testament, commonly known as the
Heliand. This brilliant conjecture has since been confirmed
by the discovery in the Vatican library of portions of the Old
Saxon original, which dates from the latter part of the ninth
century. One of the Old Saxon fragments so found corresponded
to a passage in the Old English Genesis. Caedmonian authorship
is, therefore, rendered impossible for the interpolation, and the
scholarship of the author seems to preclude the possibility that an
unlearned man was the author of the rest of the poem, though
Caedmon's hymns may have been familiar to, and used by, the
writer. It matters little whether we assume the interpolated
passage to be the work of an Old Saxon monk resident in
* Cf. the Latin Praefatio prefixed to the Heliand.


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Genesis
47
England, but unable to dissociate himself entirely from native
habits of speech, or whether we look upon it as a somewhat
imperfect translation from Old Saxon by some Old English monk
whom professional duties—we need only think of Boniface-had
brought into contact with the learning and literature of the
continent. At any rate it is an early, and a pleasing, instance
of the fruitful exchange of literary ideas between two great
nations.
The relative age of the two poems is a matter still under
discussion Genesis B cannot have been composed earlier than
the second half of the ninth century, since we know that the author
of the Heliand, upon whose work it is based, wrote in response to
a command from king Lewis the Pious; but we have hardly any
data for determining whether it is earlier or later in date of
composition than Genesis A. Its author, like the author of the
Heliand, apparently made use of the works of bishop Avitus of
Vienne, the medieval Latin poet.
Genesis A contains not a few passages illustrative of that
blending of heathen and Christian elements which is characteristic
of Old English religious poetry. The description of Old Testament
fights shows that the spirit of the author of the Battle of Finns-
burh is to be found beneath the veneer of Christianity. And,
on the other hand, the description of the dove, seeking rest
and finding none, could only be the work of a Christian poet.
The tenderness of feeling for the dumb creation, and the joy in
“rest after toil” which it expresses, are due to Christian influences
upon the imaginative powers of an Old English scop
Genesis B contains some fine poetic passages. The character
of Satan is admirably conceived, and the familiar theme of a
lost paradise is set forth in dignified and dramatic language
not unworthy of the height of its great argument. In the
dark regions and “swart mists” of Hell, Satan and his host,
swept thither by the Lord of Heaven himself, indulge in a
joy that is purely heathen, in contemplating the vengeance
to be taken on the race that has supplanted them in the favour
of God.
Exodus is a paraphrase of a portion only of the book from
which it takes its name, i. e. the passage of the Israelites through
the Red Sea and the destruction of the Egyptians. Part of the
For a discussion of the possible relation between the Satan of Genesis B and the
Satan of Paradise Lost, of, Stopford Brooke, Early English Literature, vol. a,
pp. 101 ff. and Morley, English Writers, vol. II, p. 109.
hand, the at the ven
and findino


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#8
Old English Christian Poetry
poem? , in which the ancestors of the Israelites are enumerated and
described, is, possibly, the work of a second poet, as it is simpler
in style than the body of the poem, and the theme is not entirely
relevant; there is certainly a break after 1. 445. The distinctive
feature of the poem is the beauty and vigour with which martial
scenes are depicted. Here again, the feeling of the old epic
writers, under another guise, is clearly apparent. Not even in
Judith or The Battle of Maldon do we find more successful
attempts in dramatic grouping; the din and clash of battle, though
no actual battle is described, the war-wolf and the raven greedy
for prey, the heaving of the shields, the brandishing of battle-bills,
recall the martial tone of the best war-poetry of our battle-loving
ancestors. The author of Genesis A writes as though afraid to
depart even from the wording of his original; the author of
Exodus, possessed by the lust for word-painting, draws upon an
exuberant imagination steeped in reminiscences of brave blows
and doughty deeds, not even nominally Christian.
The poem entitled Danid need not detain us. After a
historical introduction, for which the poet is not indebted to his
source, he versifies selected portions of the book of Daniel? The
poem has one new feature. The author uses his material for
homiletic purposes and inculcates certain moral virtues : for
instance, the duty of humility and obedience to the will of God.
Daniel is transmitted in the Junian codex. A portion of the
subject, dealing with the episode of the three children in the fiery
furnace, is transmitted also in the Exeter Book, in a short poem of
75 lines called Azarias, in which are the beautiful lines descriptive
of the change wrought by the appearance of the angel of the Lord:
Then 'twas in the oven when the angel came,
Windy cool and winsome, to the weather likest
When is sent to earth in the summer tide,
Dropping down of dew-rain at the dawn of day3.
Three minor poems, originally thought to be one, and by
Grein called Crist and Satan, should be mentioned here,
since, by reason of their being transmitted in the codex MS
Bodl. XI, they, together with the three more important poems
just discussed, have been attributed to Caedmon. The first of
them deals with the subject of the Fall of the Angels, the second
with Chrisť s Harrowing of Hell and His resurrection, together
with a brief account of His ascension and coming to judgment,
1 Ll. 362_-445.
• Up to chapter v, 22.
8 Stopford Brooke's version.


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Cynewulf
49
the third with Christ's Temptation. Only the first is complete,
All three, probably, belong to the end of the ninth century and
all have a homiletic tendency. The second has been compared
with the Crist of Cynewulf, with which it is linked by virtue of
theme as well as by style. The description of the last judgment
suggests the more impressive picture of that event contained
in Crist, and the Harrowing of Hell recalls, and can sustain
comparison with, examples of later more elaborate treatment of
the same subject. By their religious fervour, and by their ap-
parently ruder form, it is possible that these poems are nearer to
the original body of Caedmon's work than the poems previously
discussed.
The finest of all the poems erroneously attributed to Caedmon
is the fragment entitled Judith. As there seems to be ground
for supposing that this beautiful fragment, worthy of the skill
of a scop whose Christianity had not sufficed to quell his martial
instincts, his pride in battle and his manly prowess, is of later
date than has been thought by certain historians, it is dealt with
in a later chapter of the present volume.
Turning to Cynewulf and the poems that may be, or have
been, attributed to him, we are on somewhat safer ground. The
personality of the poet is, indeed, wrapped in an obscurity
hardly less deep than that which hides Caedmon. The only
truth at which we can arrive concerning him is that he must be
the author of four well-known poems, since he marked them as
his own by the insertion of his signature in runes. Conjecture
has been busy to prove that he may have been identical with
a certain abbot of Peterborough, who lived about the year 1000.
But this hypothesis has ceased to be tenable since we know that
the West Saxon transcript of his poems, the only form in which
the accredited ones are preserved, cannot be the original ; more-
over, the abbot invariably spelt his name Cinwulf. Equally
impossible is the theory that he was Cynewulf, bishop of
Lindisfarne, who died in 781 or 783. The latter lived in
troublous times, and nothing we know of his life agrees with
inferences we may reasonably draw from autobiographical
allusions in Cynewulf's poems. A theory that the author was
certainly of Northumbrian origin was, in the first instance, based
upon an erroneous interpretation of the first riddle in a col-
lection of Old English Riddles long attributed to him. Dietrich
gave the solution as Coenwulf, the supposed Northumbrian
form of the name Cynewulf. But, apart from the fact that
E. L. I. CH. IV.


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50
Old English Christian Poetry
syllabic riddles are not known in Old English literature, we
must remember that, on the four occasions when the poet
spelt his own name, he used one or other of two forms, i. e.
Cynewulf or Cynwulf. Both these forms must go back to an
older one in which the medial e appeared as ¿. In Northumbria,
this medial i became e, roughly speaking, about 800; in Mercia
the transition was practically accomplished by 750. This fact
lends colour to the hypothesis of Wülker that Cynewulf was a
Mercian, a theory which A. S. Cook has adopted in support of a
conjecture of his own, namely, that the poet was a certain
Cynulf, an ecclesiastic who was present, as his signature to a
decree proves, at a synod held at Clovesho in 803. The synod
was an important one, in so far as at it the archbishop of
Canterbury was recognised as primate of the English church.
Cynulf's signature, following close upon that of the bishop of
Dunwich, leads A. S. Cook to the further assumption that he
was a priest in the diocese of Dunwich, where he would have
ample opportunity for studying those sea-effects, the description
of which is characteristic of his poetry. Whether or not Cynewulf
is to be identified with this ecclesiastic, there is no doubt
that the assumption of Mercian origin would do away with
one or two difficulties which the assumption of Northumbrian
origin in the narrower sense leaves unsolved. During the latter
half of the eighth century, Northumbria was, politically, too
troubled to be a “kindly nurse” of letters, though, on the other
hand, it might be asserted that the political unrest of Northumbria
may be reflected in the melancholy nature and “autumnal grace"
of Cynewulf's poetry. Again, though there is no doubt that a Mercian
origin would facilitate the transcription of the poems into West
Saxon, yet we have West Saxon transcripts of other originally
Northumbrian poems, a fact which affects the value of geographical
arguments of this nature.
The most valid, albeit negative, argument against taking the
term Northumbrian to mean simply non-West Saxon, hence,
possibly, Mercian, is that we have no definite evidence for the
existence of a Mercian school of poetry, such as the development
of a poet like Cynewulf seems to postulate. His undisputed work
is of too mature a character to seem to be the spontaneous product
of a self-made singer, unfostered by literary society. Moreover,
he excels more especially in descriptions of the sea and the sea-
coast, a point in which a dweller inland might easily have been
deficient. Notable in this respect are Elene, which we know to be


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His Personality
51
his, and Andreas which is very possibly his. The following lines,
for instance, must, surely, be the work of one whose daily life had
been spent in contact with the sea :
Over the sea-marges
Hourly urged they on. . . the wave-riding horses.
Then they let o'er Fifel's wave foaming stride along
Steep-stemmed rushers of the sea. Oft withstood the bulwark,
O'er the surging of the waters, swinging strokes of waves 1,
Further, assuming Guthlac B to be by Cynewulf, we may note
the fact that the fen-journey of the original has been transformed
into a sea-voyage, and this would appear to tell against an East
Anglian authorship.
The final result of much discussion seems to resolve itself
into this : that Cynewulf was not a West Saxon, but, probably,
a Northumbrian, though Mercian origin is not impossible; and
that he wrote towards the end of the eighth century. This latter
point will find further support when we proceed to discuss the
individual poems.
We know nothing else concerning Cynewulf with any degree of
certainty. We infer from the nature of his poetry that he was of
a deeply religious nature, but it is hazardous to deduce the
character of a poet from his apparently subjective work; we
learn that he lived to an old age, which he felt to be a burden;
that, at some time of his life, he had known the favour of
princes and enjoyed the gifts of kings; he must have been the
thegn or scop of some great lord, and not merely an itinerant
singer or gleeman, as some critics have beld. He was a man
of learning, certainly a good Latin scholar, for some of his work
is based upon Latin originals. Critics are not agreed as to
the period of life in which he occupied himself with the compo-
sition of religious poetry, nor as to the chronological order of his
works. Some scholars assume that, after leading until old age the
life of a man of the world, and attaining some distinction as an
author of secular poetry-of which, by the way, if the Riddles are
rejected, we have no trace-he became converted by the vision
described in The Dream of the Rood, and devoted himself ever
afterwards to religious poetry, the last consummate effort of his
poetic powers being Elene. There are two drawbacks to this
theory, the first being that we cannot base biographical deductions
with any certainty upon a poem like The Dream of the Rood, which
we have no historical grounds for claiming as Cynewulf's; the
· Stopford Brooke's version.
• See p. 58.
4–2


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52
Old English Christian Poetry
second, that it is difficult to assume that a man advanced in years
could have composed so large a quantity of religious poetry as,
even after the most rigid exclusion of the unlikely, we are com-
pelled to attribute to him. Other critics hold that The Dream of
the Rood was followed immediately by Elene, and that all other
Cynewulfian poems were written later. If that be so, the poet's
art must have undergone very rapid deterioration, for all the other
poems attributed to him are inferior to Elene and The Dream.
The poems marked as Cynewulf's own by the insertion of runes
are Crist, Juliana, The Fates of the Apostles and Elene. Crist is
the first poem in the codex known as the Exeter Book, a manuscript
I preserved in the cathedral library at Exeter. The first eight pages,
and, consequently, the opening portion of Crist, are missing.
The
manuscript probably dates from the eleventh century and is,
apparently, written throughout by one and the same hand.
Juliana is contained in the same book, and, of other poems
attributed to Cynewulf, and certainly belonging to his school,
Guthlac, Andreas and The Phoenix will be mentioned below.
Crist falls into three clearly defined parts, the first dealing with
the advent of Christ on earth, the second with His ascension, the
third with His second advent to judge the world. The second part
contains Cynewulf's signature in runes? The unity of the poem
has not remained unquestioned Scholars have brought forward
linguistic and metrical arguments to prove that we are dealing not
with one but with three poems; that source, theme and treat-
ment differ so greatly as to render the assumption of a common
authorship for all three incredible, and to reduce us to the necessity
of denying authorship by Cynewulf to any but the second part,
which is signed by him. Almost the best argument brought forward
by these iconoclastic critics is the undoubted fact that Cynewulf's
signature occurs, as a rule, near the conclusion of a poem, not
in the middle, and that it does so occur towards the end of the
second part. A further valid argument against the unity of the
poem might be derived from the theme of the second part.
This deals with Christ's reception in Heaven after His sojourn on
earth, and only by some stretch of imagination can the event be
looked upon as parallel to His twofold coming on earth. Yet
critics have discovered a link with the first part in a passage
definitely referring to Christ's first advent, and the references to
the last judgment in the runic passage have been regarded as an
ure occurs, as critics is the unest argument
1 Ll. 797 ff.
' LI, 586—599.


## p. 53 (#73) ##############################################

Crist
53
anticipation of the third part. The question is a nice one and is
not, at present, capable of solution. If we assume the unity of the
poem, Cynewulf is, undoubtedly, the author; if we deny it, we are
confronted with the further difficulty of determining the authorship
of the first and third parts. From a literary point of view,
Crist is, perhaps, the most interesting of Cynewulf's poems. It
illustrates fully the influence of Latin Christianity upon English
thought. The subject is derived from Latin homilies and hymns :
part I, the advent of Christ, seems to be largely based upon the
Roman Breviary, part II upon the Ascension sermon of pope
Gregory, part III upon an alphabetic Latin hymn on the last
judgment, quoted by Bede in De Arte Metrica. In addition, the
Gospel of St Matthew and Gregory's tenth homily have furnished
suggestions. Yet the poet is no mere versifier of Latin theology.
We are confronted, for the first time in English literature, with
the product of an original mind. The author has transmuted the
material derived from his 'sources into the passionate out-pourings
of personal religious feeling. The doctrines interspersed are, of
course, medieval in tone : one of the three signs by which the
blessed shall realise their possession of God's favour is the joy they
will derive from the contemplation of the sufferings of the damned.
But, for the most part, the poem is a series of choric hymns of
praise, of imaginative passages descriptive of visions not less
sublime than that of The Dream of the Rood.
Crist is followed immediately in the Exeter Book by the poem
entitled Juliana. This is an Old English version of the Acta 8.
Julianae virginis martyris. The proof of Cynewulfian authorship
lies, as has already been said, in the insertion of his name in runes.
The martyr is supposed to have lived about the time of the emperor
Maximian. She, of course, successfully overcomes all the minor
temptations with which she is confronted, including an offer of
marriage with a pagan, and, finally, having routed the devil in
person, endures martyrdom by the sword.
Equally insignificant considered as poetry, but of the utmost
importance as a link in a chain of literary evidence, are the lines
known as The Fates of the Apostles. The title sufficiently indicates
the contents. The poem is preserved in the Vercelli Book, a codex
containing both verse and prose, and, for some unknown reason, in
the possession of the chapter of Vercelli, north Italy. The first
ninety-five lines, which follow immediately after the poem called
Andreas, occupy fol. 52 b53b. They were considered an anony-
mous fragment until Napier discovered that a set of verses on


## p. 54 (#74) ##############################################

54
Old English Christian Poetry
nature in The Faire
as, the poem imeitional plea in fe
fol. 54 a, which had hitherto been assumed to have no connection
with the lines preceding them, were, in reality, a continuation of
the lines on fol. 53, and that they contained the name of Cynewulf
in runes. The authenticity of Fata Apostolorum was, thereby,
raised above dispute; but the gain to Cynewulf's literary reputation
was not great.
Yet critics, anxious to vindicate the claim of our greatest pre-
Conquest poet to whatever poetry may seem worthy of him, have
tried to twist the occurrence of Cynewulf's signature in The Fates
of the Apostles into an additional plea in favour of his authorship
of Andreas, the poem immediately preceding it in the Vercelli
Book. This poem deals with the missionary labours of St Andrew,
and is based, probably, upon a lost Latin version of a Greek original
(in Paris), the II pákers 'Av&péov kai Mardalov. St Andrew is com-
manded by God to go to the assistance of St Matthew, who is in
danger of death at the hands of the Mermedonians, cannibal
Ethiopians. He sets out in a boat manned by our Lord and two
angels. Having landed safely, he becomes of great spiritual comfort
to the captive, but is himself taken prisoner and tortured. He de-
livers himself and converts the Mermedonians by working a miracle.
The distinguishing feature of the poem, which links it with
passages in Beowulf and The Seafarer, is the skill with which
its author gives expression to his passion for the sea. Andreas
is a romance of the sea. Nowhere else are to be found such
superb descriptions of the raging storm, of the successful struggle
of man with the powers of the deep. It illustrates, moreover, in
an unusual degree, the blending of the old spirit with the new.
St Andrew, though professedly a Christian saint, is, in reality, a
viking: though crusader in name he is more truly a seafarer on
adventure bent. The Christ he serves is an aetheling, the apostles
are folctogan-captains of the people--and temporal victory, not
merely spiritual triumph, is the goal.
Could it be proved that The Fates of the Apostles is merely an
epilogue to the longer poem preceding it, the adventures of one of
the twelve being related in greater detail than is vouchsafed to them
treated collectively, we should be enabled to attribute with greater
certainty than is otherwise possible the poem of Andreas to
Cynewulf, an author of whom, on aesthetic grounds, it is not
unworthy. Its authenticity would then be vouched for by
the runic signature contained in the shorter poem. This hypo-
thesis is, however, more ingenious than convincing. The poem
Andreas, as it stands, lacks, indeed, as definite a conclusion as many


## p. 55 (#75) ##############################################

Elene
55
i
other poems possess; there is, for instance, no finit or "amen"
to denote the end, but, unfortunately for the inventors of the
hypothesis, The Fates of the Apostles does not lack a beginning;
nor are St Andrew's labours omitted from the general review of the
good works done by the twelve, which might possibly have been
expected had the author of The Fates of the Apostles also been
the author of the longer history of St Andrew. There is more
ground for accepting a theory originated by Sievers with regard
to the last sixteen lines of the fragment containing Cynewulf's signa-
ture, discovered by Napier. In the opinion of Sievers these sixteen
lines would not only be an inordinately lengthy conclusion to
so short a poem as The Fates, but they are superfluous in so far
as they are a mere repetition of the lines which had preceded
the runic passage. He would, therefore, wish to see in them the
conclusion of some lost poem of Cynewulf, and only accidentally
attached to The Fates of the Apostles. Upholders of the theory
of the Cynewulfian authorship of Andreas might be able to
claim them as the missing conclusion to that poem, and the fact
of their being attached to a piece of undoubtedly Cynewulfian work
might strengthen the attribution of Andreas to our poet. But,
after fully weighing the arguments on either side, we must confess
that the evidence so far forthcoming does not suffice for a satis-
factory solution of the question.
Elene is, undoubtedly, Cynewulf's masterpiece. The subject is
contained in the Acta Sanctorum of 4 May. Grimm also referred
to the same subject as occurring in the Legenda aurea of Jacobus
a Voragine. It is impossible to decide whether the legend first
reached England in a Latin or in an older Greek form. The story is
that of the discovery of the true cross by Helena, the mother of the
emperor Constantine. The search carried to so successful a con-
clusion was instituted by the emperor in consequence of the famous
vision, the sign of a cross in the sky bearing the inscription in hoc
signo vinces. Much history hangs upon this tale. Its immediate
importance for us is that the conversion of the emperor by this
means became the starting-point for the adoration of the cross: the
symbol which had hitherto been one of ignominy became one of
triumph and glory. The festival of the exaltation of the cross was
established in the western church in 701, in consequence of the
supposed discovery in Rome of a particle of the true cross. This
event is duly recorded by Bede in De sex aetatibus saeculi,
the news having, no doubt, been brought to England by abbot
Ceolfrid, who was in Rome at the time. At any rate, if this event


## p. 56 (#76) ##############################################

56 Old English Christian Poetry
be considered too remote to have influenced Cynewulf's choice of
a subject, we may remember that he probably lived through a
part of the iconoclastic controversy which raged from 726 to 842,
and which contributed perhaps more than anything else to an
increased veneration of the cross. Indeed, the poetry of the cross
in England has been regarded as the first-fruit of the impetus given
to its worship by the condemnation of the worship of all other
symbols. The two festivals of the cross, the invention on 3 May
and the exaltation on 14 September, were both observed in the
old English church.
p Cynewulf's poem on Helena's search for the true cross is
contained in fourteen cantos or "fitts. ” It is written in a simple,
dramatic style, interspersed with imaginative and descriptive pas-
sages of great beauty. The glamour and pomp of war, the gleam of
jewels, the joy of ships dancing on the waves, give life and colour
to a narrative permeated by the deep and serious purpose of the
author. The fifteenth fitt, superfluous from the point of view of
the story, is valuable as documentary evidence bearing on the
poet's personality. It contains not only his signature in runes, but
is a "fragment of a great confession,” unveiling to us the manner
of the man to whom the cross became salvation.
“I am old,” he says, “and ready to depart, having woven worderaft
and pondered deeply in the darkness of the world. Once I was gay in
the hall and received gifts, appled gold and treasures. Yet was I buffeted
with care, fettered by sins, beset with sorrows, until the Lord of all might
and power bestowed on me grace and revealed to me the mystery of the
holy cross. Now know I that the joys of life are fleeting, and that the
Judge of all the world is at hand to deal to every man his doom. ”
Two useful deductions may be made from this passage. In the
first place, the poet was evidently advanced in age when he com-
posed this poem, a point already alluded to; in the second, he
ascribes his conversion to a true understanding of the cross. In
other poems, notably Crist, Cynewulf reveals an almost equal
veneration for the symbol of man's redemption.
But the poem which, above all others, betrays the spirit of
tender yet passionate veneration, of awe and adoration for "the
wondrous cross on which the Prince of glory died,” is The Dream
of the Rood. It is transmitted to us in a West Saxon form in the
Vercelli Book, and portions of it are to be found carved in runes
on the Ruthwell cross in Dumfriesshire? . The poem is now
1 In addition, there is out upon the cross an inscription which was interpreted to
mean “Caedmon made me," and, upon this supposed signature, was based the
attribution of The Dream of the Rood to Caedmon. The inscription, it decipherable at


## p. 57 (#77) ##############################################

The Dream of the Rood
57
claimed as Cynewulf's by probably the majority of English scholars,
though it is possible that he worked on older material. At the
same time, we have none but aesthetic evidence to go upon.
A resemblance has been fancied or detected between the reference
to the cross in the concluding portion of Elene discussed above
and the subject and treatment of this poem. It would be possible
to overrate the value of this coincidence. References to the
cross are frequent in both prose and verse. They need prove
nothing beyond the undoubtedly early custom of the adoration.
At the same time, the two poems have much in common: the
character of the intimate self-revelation contained in each, the
elegiac tone of the reflections on the transitoriness of the world
and the sinfulness of man, the phraseology and syntactical
structure are alike to a degree which makes the Cynewulfian
authorship of both more than probable. The Dream of the Rood
is the choicest blossom of Old English Christian poetry; religious
feeling has never been more exquisitely clothed than in these one
hundred and forty lines of alliterative verse. It is full of imagina-
tive power and enters deeply into the mysteries of sin and of
sorrow. We have no other instance of a dream-poem in pre-
Conquest England, though Bede relates several visions. The poet
dreamt a dream and in it saw the holy rood decked with gems and
shining gloriously. Angels guarded it, and, at its sight, the singer
was afeared, for he was stained with guilt. As he watched, the
tree changed colour; anon it was adorned with treasure, anon
stained with gore; and, as he watched, it spoke, and told the story
of the crucifixion, the descent from the cross, the resurrection.
This conception of the cross as being gifted with power of speech
lends a singular charm to the poem. The address is followed by
the poet's reflection on what he has seen: the cross shall be
henceforth his confidence and help. The concluding ten lines of
the poem seem superfluous and are possibly a later accretion. The
theme concludes with line 146. The characteristic opening of the
all, may have been the sculptor's autograph. In no case could it, apparently, be a
reference to the poet Caedmon, for the language of the poem on the Ruthwell cross is
younger than that of the MS poem, possibly of the tenth century. The decoration of
the cross, also, is thought to be too elaborate and ornate for eighth century work and
can hardly be dated much earlier than the tenth century. See Chapter 11 ante and the
bibliography to that chapter, especially the writings of Vietor and A. S. Cook, The
Dream of the Rood.
A somewhat similar, though very short, example of an inscription in the first
person is preserved on a cross at Brussels :-
Rod is min nama: geo io ricno oyning
baer byfigende, blode bestemed.


## p. 58 (#78) ##############################################

Old English Christian Poetry
poem may be noted. As in Beowulf, Andreas, Exodus and other
poems, the singer arrests the attention of his hearers by the
exclamation : “Hwaet ! ” =Lo, comparable to the “Listneth, lord-
ings” of the later minstrels. The device must have been a common
one in days when the harp was struck at festive gatherings and
the scop urged his claim to a hearing by a preliminary chord.
We must pass on to other poems that have, with more or less
show of reason, been attributed to Cynewulf. Of these, the longest
is the life of the Mercian saint Guthlac. It falls into two parts,
the first, apparently, having been composed during the lifetime of
the anchorite who is the subject of the poem, the second being
based upon the Latin Vita by Felix of Croyland. The main
question that has been discussed has been whether both parts
are by one and the same author or not, and whether Cynewulf
can lay claim to one or both parts. If only one part can be attri-
buted to him it should be part II (Guthlac B). Since the conclusion
to this part is missing, it may, conceivably, have contained Cyne-
wulf's signature in runes. There is no gap in the MS between the
conclusion of Crist and the beginning of Guthlac, and Gollancz
has assumed that the passage commonly read as the conclusion of
Crist (1l. 1666—1694) really forms the introduction to Guthlac.
These lines are, no doubt, superfluous as regards Crist, but they
are yet more unsuitable considered as an introduction to Guthlac,
which begins, quite appropriately, with a common epic formula
“Monge sindon” (cf. the opening of The Phoenix). It would be
better to assume them to be a fragment of some independent poem
on the joys of the blessed.
The death of Guthlac is related in lines full of strength and
beauty. The writer has entered into the spirit of the last great
struggle with the powers of darkness and death, even as Bunyan
did when he related the passage of Christian through the Valley
of the Shadow of Death. The wondrous light that shines over
Guthlac's hut before he dies irresistibly recalls the waving lights
in the sky familiar to every northerner and, when we read that,
at the saint's entry into the heavenly mansions, the whole land of
England trembled with rapture, we feel that, whether Cynewulf
wrote the poem or not, we are in the presence of a poet who does
not lack imaginative power of a high order.
The Phoenix has been attributed to Cynewulf by a large
number of competent critics. The first portion of it is based
upon a Latin poem attributed to Lactantius, and there is some
ground for assuming Cynewulf's acquaintance with that Latin


## p. 59 (#79) ##############################################

The Phoenix
59
author, since a copy of the book was contained in Alcuin's library
at York, and Cynewulf may very well have been a scholar in the
school at York? . The second part of the poem, the allegorical -
application of the myth to Christ, is based on the writings of
Ambrose and Bede. The characteristic feature of the poem is its
love of colour and wealth of gorgeous descriptive epithets.
Especially noteworthy, in this respect, is the description of the
land where the phoenix dwells :
Winsome is the wold there; there the wealds are green,
Spacious spread below the skies; there may neither snow nor rain,
Nor the furious air of frost, nor the flare of fire,
Nor the headlong squall of hail, nor the hoar-frost's fall,
Nor the burning of the sun, nor the bitter cold,
Nor the weather over-warm, nor the winter shower,
Do their wrong to any wight-but the wold abides
Ever happy, healthful there 2.
This passage illustrates not only the feeling of English poets
towards nature, but also the development that took place in
consequence of the influence of Latin letters. The Northumbrian
poets were not unskilled in the depiction of scenes with which
they were familiar; but in The Phoenix we have, for the first time,
a poet attempting, under literary influence, and with an obviously a
conscious striving after artistic effect, to paint an ideal landscape,
the beauty and gentleness of summer climes, the wealth of tropical
nature, the balminess of a softer air, where there shall be no more,
or only a sun-lit, sea, unlike the sullen gloom of the northern
waters.
The conclusion of the poem is of an unusual kind. It consists
of eleven lines in a mixture of English and Latin, the first half of
each line being English, the second half Latin, the Latin alliterating
with the English.
Portions of an Old English Physiologus have also been at
tributed to Cynewulf. Allegorical bestiaries were a favourite
form of literature from the fifth century down to the Middle
Ages. They consisted of descriptions of certain beasts, birds and
fishes which were considered capable of an allegorical significance.
The allegorical meaning was always attached to the description,
much as a moral is appended to a fable. The development of this
form of literature was due to the fondness for animal symbolism
characteristic of early Christian art. Only three specimens of
such descriptions are extant in Old English literature. They deal
with the panther, the whale and the partridge. The panther is
* Cook, Christ, p. lxiv.
• Stopford Brooke's version.


## p. 60 (#80) ##############################################

60
Old English Christian Poetry
complete, there is a gap in the description of the whale, of the
partridge there is hardly sufficient to prove that the bird described
was really a partridge. It is uncertain whether these pieces
were merely isolated attempts at imitation of a foreign model or
whether they formed part of a complete Old English Physiologus.
Two somewhat divergent texts of a Latin Physiologus (B and C),
belonging to the ninth century, have been discovered. The re-
semblance between the Latin text and the Old English is fairly
striking in B where, after twenty-two other animals have been
described, we have the panther, the whale and the partridge ;
probably both Old English and Latin versions are derived from a
common source. The panther, as usual, is symbolical of Christ,
and the whale, which lures seafarers to moor their “ocean-mares”
to it, thinking its back an island, represents the “accuser of the
brethren” and its gaping mouth is the gate of Hell.
The assumption that the first of a series of Old English Riddles,
95 in all, was a charade meaning Cynewulf, or Coenwulf, caused
the collection to be attributed to him. These riddles are trans-
mitted in the Exeter Book. They are closely connected with
similar collections of Latin riddles, more especially one by Aldhelm.
Aldhelm's work is based upon that of the fifth century Latin poet
Symphosius, and Aldhelm was the first English writer to acclimatise
the Latin riddle in England. Forty riddles by archbishop Tatwin,
which were expanded by Eusebius to the number of 100, are also
extant. The author of the Old English riddles derived most of
his inspiration from Aldhelm, but he also seems to have gone
direct to Symphosius and to have made some slight use of the
work of Eusebius and Tatwin.
The theory that the solution of the first riddle was the name
Coenwulf, i. e. Cynewulf, was refuted by Trautmann, in 1883, and,
later, by Sievers, on linguistic and other grounds.
The peculiarly English tone and character of the riddles is, in
some measure, due to Aldhelm's example. For, though he wrote
in Latin, his style differentiates his work from that of the Latin
authors, and accounts for the popularity this form of literature
acquired in England. Furthermore, the author or authors of the
Old English riddles borrow themes from native folk-song and saga;
in their hands inanimate objects become endowed with life and
personality; the powers of nature become objects of worship such
as they were in olden times; they describe the scenery of their
own country, the fen, the river and the sea, the horror of the
untrodden forest, sun and moon engaged in perpetual pursuit of


## p. 61 (#81) ##############################################

The Riddles
61
ul.
each other, the nightingale and the swan, the plough guided by
the "grey-haired enemy of the wood,” the bull breaking up the
clods left unturned by the plough, the falcon, the arm-companion
of aethelings-scenes, events, characters familiar in the England of
that day. Riddle XLI, De Creatura, and Riddle ix, on the Nightin-
gale, which are subjects taken from Aldhelm, may be compared with
the Latin versions to prove how far the more imaginative English
poet was from being a mere imitator, and the storm and iceberg
riddles breathe the old northern and viking spirit. Riddle XXXVI
is also preserved in Northumbrian in a MS at Leyden.
The most varied solutions have, from time to time, been
suggested for some of the riddles, and the meaning of many is
by no means clear. The most recent attempts at a solution of the
first riddle have been made by Schofield and Gollancz. They see
in this short poem an Old English monodrama in five acts, wherein.
a lady boasts of fidelity to her lover, but, during his absence,
proves faithless and lives to endure the vengeance of her husband
in the loss of her child.
We may note, in conclusion, a group of minor poems which have
one characteristic feature in common, namely, the note of personal
religion; they are, for the most part, lyric or didactic in character,
dealing with the soul's need of redemption. Of these, the Death
Song attributed to Bede by his pupil Cuthbert, who gives an
approximate Latin rendering of it', is preserved in a Northumbrian
version in a MS at St Gall and belongs to the same period as
Caedmon's Hymn.
One of the most interesting of the group is the Address of the
Lost Soul to the Body, a frequent theme in later literature. It is
one of the very few Old English poems preserved in two versions,
one in the Exeter, the other in the Vercelli, Book. In the latter
codex is contained a fragment of a very rare theme, the Address
of the Saved Soul to the Body. A poem on the day of doom
is transmitted in the Exeter Book. It is a general admonition
to lead a godly, righteous and sober life after the fashion of many
similar warnings in later literature.
A group of four short poems, of which three are preserved in the
Exeter Book, deal with attributes common to mankind. The Gifts
of Men (Bi monna craeftum)-based, largely, upon the 29th homily
of pope Gregory, and, hence, sometimes attributed to Cynewulf ;
the Fates of Men (Bi manna wyrdum), which, though allied in
theme to the previous poem, differs very considerably from it
1 Epistola Cuđberti ad Cudwinum.


## p. 62 (#82) ##############################################

62 Old English Christian Poetry
in treatment; the Mind of Man (Bi manna mode) and the
Falsehood of Man (Bi manna lease), which may be described as
poetical homilies.
The Riming Poem is a solitary instance of the occurrence in
English poetry of the consistent use of end-rime and alliteration
in one and the same poem. The theme, "sorrow's crown of
sorrows is remembering happier things,” recalls the epilogue to
Elene, but the resemblance is not sufficiently striking to justify
the attribution of the poem to Cynewulf. The metrical form is
an accurate imitation of the Höfudlausn of Egill Skallagríms-
son, which was composed in Northumberland at the court of
Aethelstan.
It is generally thought that gnomic or didactic poetry,
which seems to have been very popular during the Old English
period, had its origin in the religious exercises of heathen times.
Certainly it is well represented in the mythological poems of the
Edda, whether we take the proverb form, as in the first part of
Hávamál, or the form of question and answer, as in Vaf þruðnismál
and other poems. Old English proverbs are, however, almost
entirely deprived of heathen colouring. One collection, amounting
altogether to 206 lines in three sections, is preserved in the Exeter
Book, and another, containing 66 lines, serves as a preface to one
of the texts of the Chronicle.