Between earth and heaven: Liminality and the Ascension of Christ in Anglo-Saxon literature 9781526110619

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Manchester

Medieval Literature

and Culture

Between earth and heaven argues that Anglo-Saxon authors recognize the Ascension and its theology as fundamentally liminal in nature, as principally concerned with crossing boundaries and inhabiting dual states and places. In teaching the Ascension, authors convert abstract theology into concrete images reflecting this liminality, such as the gates of heaven and Christ’s footprints. Informed in its approach by the anthropological concept of ‘liminality’ and interested in the interactions between conventional theology and religious practice, this study reveals the complex relationships between patristic theology, ‘official’ clerical teaching, spatial rituals, liturgical practices, lay popular beliefs and the doctrinal messages of the Ascension. By examining a range of liminal imagery in Anglo-Saxon literature, Between earth and heaven demonstrates the sophistication and unity of Ascension theology in such diverse sources as Latin and Old English homilies, religious poetry, liturgy and popular religious practices. This study refines our evaluation of Anglo-Saxon authors’ knowledge of patristic literature and theology, their rigorous and innovative maintenance of traditional Christian-Latin teachings, and the process of source adaptation.

kramer

This book will be of interest to scholars and students of medieval religious literature and culture and of the patristic tradition in Anglo-Saxon England. Johanna Kramer is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Missouri

ISBN 978-0-7190-8789-9 Front cover— The Ascension from the Tiberius Psalter © The British Library Board, MS Cotton, Tiberius C. VI, fol. 15r www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk

KRAMJ000.indd 1

Between earth and heaven

Between earth and heaven examines the teaching of the theology of Christ’s Ascension in Anglo-Saxon literature, making it the only comprehensive study of how patristic Ascension theology was transmitted, adapted and taught in Anglo-Saxon England. This book offers a new understanding of the methods of religious instruction and the uses of religious texts in Anglo-Saxon England, capturing their lived significance to contemporary audiences, a frequently elusive aspect of early medieval literary culture.

9 780719 087899

Between earth and heaven Liminality and the Ascension of Christ in Anglo-Saxon literature johanna kramer

07/03/2014 12:13

B E T W E E N and E A R Tpornography H sanctity A N D H E A V E N in medieval culture

Series editors: Bernau and David Matthews Founding seriesAnke editors j. j. anderson, gail ashton This series is broad in scope and receptive to innovation, bringing together a variety of Series founded by: J. J. Anderson and Gail Ashton approaches. It is intended to include monographs, collections of commissioned essays, and editions and/or translations of texts, with a focus on English and English-related Advisory board: Ruth Evans, Nicola McDonald, Andrew James Johnston, Larry Scanlon literature and culture. It embraces medieval writings of many different kinds (imaginative, and Stephanie Trigg historical, political, scientific, religious) as well as post-medieval treatments of medieval material. An important aim of the series is that contributions to it should be written in a The Manchester Medieval Literature and Culture series publishes new research, style which is accessible to a wide range of readers. informed by current critical methodologies, on the literary cultures of medieval Britain (including Anglo-Norman, Anglo-Latin and Celtic writings), including post-medieval already published engagements with and representations of the Middle Ages (medievalism). ‘Literature’ is viewed and in aimagination broad and in inclusive sense, embracing imaginative, historical, political, Language the Gawain-poems scientific, dramatic and religious writings. The series offers monographs and essay J. J. Anderson collections, as The well myth as editions and translations of texts. Water and fire: of the Flood in Anglo-Saxon England Daniel Anlezark Titles Available in the Series The Parlement of Foulys (by Geoffrey Chaucer) D. S. Brewer Language and(ed.) imagination in the Gawain-poems

Greenery: Ecocritical readings of late medieval English literature J. J. Anderson Gillian Rudd Water and fire: The myth of the Flood in Anglo-Saxon England Daniel Anlezark Rethinking the South English legendaries Heather Blurton and Jocelyn Wogan-Browne (eds) The Parlement of Foulys (by Geoffrey Chaucer) D. S. Brewer (ed.) 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.) Greenery: Ecocritical readings of late medieval English literature Gillian Rudd

Between earth and heaven Liminality and the Ascension of Christ in Anglo-Saxon literature JOHANNA KRAMER

Manchester University Press manchester and new york

distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan

Copyright © Johanna Kramer 2014 The right of Johanna Kramer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk Distributed the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA Distributed in Canada exclusively by UBC Press, University of British Columbia, 2029 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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ISBN  978 0 7190 8789 9  hardback

First published 2014

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 in 10/12 Imprint MT by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire

For Marc, Linus, and Conrad ælc man ðe wisdom lufað byð gesælig

Contents

List of figures viii Acknowledgementsix Abbreviationsxii Introduction1 1 Biblical sources, patristic authorities, and the development of Ascension theology 29 2 God’s footprints: material symbolism in the Old English Martyrology and Blickling Homily 11 72 3 Gateway to salvation: Ascension theology in liminal spaces 107 4 Walking towards heaven: boundary rituals, community, and Ascension theology in homilies for Rogationtide 147 5 The liminal Christ in Anglo-Saxon art 201 Afterword 219 Bibliography 223 Index 245

Figures

Figures can be found between pages 202–3 1 Tiberius Psalter, London, British Library, Cotton, MS Tiberius C. VI, fol. 15r (© The British Library Board). 2 Æthelstan Psalter, London, British Library, Cotton, MS Galba A. XVIII, fol. 120v (© The British Library Board). 3 Benedictional of St Æthelwold, London, British Library, MS Additional 49598, fol. 64v (© The British Library Board). 4 Missal of Robert of Jumièges, Rouen, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS Y.6 [274], fol. 81v (Collections de la Bibliothèque municipale de Rouen). 5 Cotton or Caligula Troper, London, British Library, Cotton, MS Caligula A. XIV, fol. 18r (© The British Library Board). 6 Bury St Edmunds Psalter, Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica, MS Reg. lat. 12, fol. 73v (by permission of Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, with all rights reserved). 7 Odbert Gospels of St-Bertin, New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.333, fol. 85r (The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. MS M.333, fol. 85r. Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913) in 1907. Photography by Graham S. Haber, 2012). 8 Bernward Gospels of Hildesheim, ‘Kostbares Evangeliar’, Hildesheim, Dom- und Diözesanmuseum, Domschatz 18, fol. 175v (Foto Marburg/ Dom-Museum Hildesheim /Art Resource, NY).

Acknowledgements

In the development of this project and writing of the book, I crossed paths with many people who contributed both to the finished product and to who I am in a myriad of large and small ways. I am grateful to all of them, even if they are not mentioned by name here. First monographs are frequently revisions of doctoral dissertations. While this is not the case with this book, I nonetheless owe thanks to those who helped shape a portion of this work in its earliest stages and, more generally, my thinking about early medieval literature. Tom Hill, my dear Doktorvater at Cornell University, has accompanied me with patience and given advice for many years now, has always encouraged me, and was kind enough to read the manuscript in its entirety. I owe him more than thanks. Andy Galloway and Danuta Shanzer exemplify what it means to be committed to an intellectual life, for which I admire them greatly. (A special thanks to Andy for some help with Latin.) Oren Falk listened patiently at many a Kalamazoo wine hour, and Jim John and Carol Kaske have not only taught me a great deal, but have also consistently reminded me of what really matters. I am immensely grateful to Fred Biggs, Ginny Blanton, Tom Hall, and Charlie Wright for reading materials and giving advice and encouragement, especially because they had no obligation to do so. Ursula Lenker was my first Old English teacher in Munich in the early 1990s and set me on the path that resulted in this book; I’ll always be glad I took that first class with her. There are many to thank at my academic home, the University of Missouri. I appreciate being housed in a supportive department and being surrounded by accomplished colleagues, especially so many exemplary women scholars. It is a privilege to be part of a community of wonderful medievalists across campus. I am deeply indebted to the members of my writing group, my friends and colleagues Emma Lipton, Rabia Gregory, and Megan Moore, who

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Acknowledgements

spent many hours reading and discussing my materials and made them better; all remaining faults are entirely my own. I am lucky to have a collegial, engaged, and excellent fellow-medievalist in Emma; and Rabia, with her unceasing encouragement and intellectual energy, has proven the best of colleagues – and a hardy road companion to boot. Rebecca Dingo obtained her position the same year I did, and we have listened to each other and fed each other’s families ever since. I am grateful to John Miles Foley, a generous senior colleague and a patient mentor, who welcomed me warmly into the institution; he helped me make some important decisions at a crucial time. I wish we could have shared more time here on laguflode. Devoney Looser has been an exemplary mentor and has given much good advice (and much of her time). Matt Gordon, Noah Heringman, Tim Materer, Pat Okker, David Read, Anne Stanton, Gil Youmans, and the members of the Deutsche Spielgruppe lent support in word and deed at just the right times. Anne Myers and Maureen Stanton made for exceptionally pleasant office mates at two different times. It has been a pleasure to work and learn alongside my wonderful graduate students at the University of Missouri, especially Rebecca Richardson Mouser and Derek Updegraff, who took the plunge as my first advisees, as well as Toby Beeny, Julie Christenson, Peter Ramey, Melissa Range, Claire Schmidt, and others. Everybody in the English Department office makes daily life and work possible with unflappable cheer and professionalism. I thank the outstanding librarians and staff at MU’s Ellis Library. The UM Research Board and Research Council provided financial assistance for teaching release and summer support. Professional life is made possible by a network of colleagues who are willing to read drafts, listen to talks, and give support materially and spiritually in many different ways. It is most fortunate when those colleagues are also friends. Above all, John Sebastian: Lieber John, I am truly grateful for our continuing friendship, your professional expertise, and good cheer (and for reading a large part of the book-in-progress); I look forward to many more years of sharing our professional and personal lives. And also Curtis Jirsa, Ross Leasure, Nicole Marafioti, Leigh Harrison, Kara Doyle, Jimmy Schryver, Bernd Goehring, Libby Maxey, Katherine Terrell, Cynthia Turner Camp, and Kim Zarins. I thank Melody Kroll and Bruce McClure for their generosity and many kindnesses over the years and for always being interested; Teri, almost-dedicatee John, Carly, and Erin Christiansen as well

Acknowledgements

xi

as Elizabeth Chang and Peter, Isaac, Ezra, and Jacob Stiepleman for sharing innumerable meals and improving the quality of life. On the science end of things, the New Kids gatherings helped everyone through the first year on the job. My steady troops back home: Steffi Haug (for everything), Annika Walter-Schantz (for actually being willing to read offprints and even talking to me about them), Marc-Aeilko Aris (the Denninger Straße lives on!), Irene Nickel (for the longest friendship and a warm welcome every time), Amelie Lemke, Sabrina Miseriaud, and Uli HülßeHartmann. Diese langjährigen Freundschaften und beständigen Verbindungen sind lebenserhaltend! Ingrid and Peter Kramer, parents and teachers (by profession and calling), gave me the gift of curiosity, a love for books, and taught me about the Middle Ages from early childhood on. Ich bin Euch zutiefst dankbar. Matthias Kramer shares the foreign life with me and makes me remember home. Rose Ann and David Johnson provided warmth, meals, invaluable babysitting, and so much more. Pinot and Max were there, both almost through to the end. I dedicate this book with love to Marc, without whom it would not have been written for many reasons; and to Linus and Conrad, who both came into the world alongside it. They have all put up with this book for far too long, and each encouraged me in his very own way.

Abbreviations

ASE ASMMF ASPR BH CASSS CCSL CH I CH II CSASE CSEL DACL EETS es EETS os EETS ss ES HE JEGP MÆ MRTS NM N&Q OEM PhQ PL

Anglo-Saxon England Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records Blickling Homilies Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture Corpus Christianorum Series Latina Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies, The First Series, ed. Peter Clemoes, EETS ss 17 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies, The Second Series, ed. Malcolm Godden, EETS ss 5 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979) Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie Early English Text Society, extra series Early English Text Society, original series Early English Text Society, supplementary series English Studies Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969) Journal of English and Germanic Philology Medium Ævum Medieval and Renaissance Texts & Studies Neuphilologische Mitteilungen Notes and Queries Old English Martyrology Philological Quarterly Patrologiae Cursus Completus Series Latina, ed. J.-P. Migne, 221 vols (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1878–1890)

Abbreviations

PLS TASS TH TOES

xiii

Patrologiae Cursus Completus Series Latina, Supplementum Volumen II, ed. Adalbert Hamman (Paris: Éditions Garnier Frères, 1960) Toronto Anglo-Saxon Series Trinity Homilies Toronto Old English Series

Introduction

et cum haec dixisset videntibus illis elevatus est et nubes suscepit eum ab oculis eorum (Acts 1:9) þy dæge eode seo eorðe on heofon, þæt is se mon ofer engla þrym (Old English Martyrology)

According to tradition, Christ’s Ascension took place forty days after Easter and is part of the divine economy of salvation. It completes Christ’s glorification in heaven, implied by his Resurrection, and his larger redemptive act begun at the Incarnation. An essential event in Christ’s life and of the cycle of the Christian year, the Ascension holds theological, liturgical, and ecclesiastical significance.1 Nonetheless, other Christological events have been given more attention, for example, the Harrowing of Hell, perhaps because this event makes for a more spectacular narrative.2 While the Harrowing is certainly important to salvation history, it does not provide the most useful model for imitatio Christi from the perspective of the individual Christian. A chief teaching of the Ascension is that Christians should imitate Christ and follow him to heaven by faithful living; they are encouraged to imitate his life, his mission, and his Ascension. Examining the literature and religious culture of Anglo-Saxon England, Between Earth and Heaven aims to show that the Ascension plays a central role in salvation history and in the individual Christian’s understanding of how to gain salvation, since it teaches the complete story of salvation history and what it means to be Christian. Patristic authors, foremost among them Augustine of Hippo, recognized the Ascension as a key event without which salvation would be impossible. If Christ had not crossed the threshold into heaven in his dual nature, thus opening heaven to humanity and giving the promise of redemption to all, humans would never have gained the possibility of salvation. In this way, the Ascension symbolically summarizes the entire salvific career of the incarnate Christ.

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Anglo-Saxon authors of homilies, poetry, and hymns recognize not only that this occasion makes redemption possible, but also that, in explaining its liturgical significance, they can lucidly teach essential Christian doctrines. In contrast to other liturgical occasions, there is no formulaic way of preaching the Ascension in Anglo-Saxon England; there are no stock topoi.3 Authors instead adjust the content of their narratives and their exegesis to their own needs, expectations, and frames of reference. Some retell the biblical events, and some describe the physical features of the place of Ascension; some focus on Christ’s arrival in heaven, and others express metaphorically the patristic teachings of this important Christological event. My study draws on the diverse corpus of Anglo-Saxon Ascension materials to trace the reception of patristic Ascension theology throughout the Anglo-Saxon period and examine how authors respond to both the theology and the liturgical occasion. Such an examination refines our evaluation of Anglo-Saxon authors’ knowledge of patristic literature, familiarity with theology and doctrine, and process of source adaptation, and it sharpens the contours of the early medieval teaching programme for the Ascension. This book offers readers a new understanding of the methods of religious instruction and the uses of religious texts in Anglo-Saxon England, capturing the lived significance of these texts to contemporary audiences, an aspect of early medieval literary culture that often proves elusive. At the same time, the treatment of the Ascension here can be taken as a kind of case study that models how one might explore the reception and transmission of patristic theology through teaching about other topics. In this way, this study also contributes to a greater understanding of how AngloSaxon culture responds to Christian-Latin culture. In the case of the Ascension, Anglo-Saxons convert transmitted patristic teachings into imagery focused on boundaries, borders, and barriers to allude to the pivotal moment of the Ascension: Christ’s Entry into heaven. Between Earth and Heaven investigates the teaching of the theo­ logy of Christ’s Ascension in Anglo-Saxon literature. How can different sources take on such diverse forms and yet concern the same religious occasion? What unifies them? What makes them all valid representations of the Ascension and appropriate expressions of its theological meaning? This book answers these questions, arguing that Anglo-Saxon authors recognize the Ascension and its theology as essentially liminal in nature, that is, as concerned with

Introduction

3

boundaries and dual states and dwelling in dual places. In their teaching about the Ascension, authors convert abstract patristic theology into various concrete narrative strategies, images, motifs, and themes that reflect this liminality, which permeates the understanding of the Ascension on each interpretive level. Most immediately, the Ascension is liminal because it takes place across boundaries as Christ ascends from the earth and crosses into heaven. Each central Ascension doctrine also describes a liminal condition: Christ in his nature as God and man is a dual entity – and so is the totus Christus (the Pauline concept of Christ as the Head and Christians as the Body); Christ opens heaven to humanity by crossing the boundary into heaven; after his Ascension, Christ is both present and absent on earth, inhabiting two spaces at once. Finally, the literary images, preaching motifs, and spatial practices performed in association with the Ascension correspond to the liminality of the doctrines they teach and express this theological content in a concretely material way. The concept of liminality In considering an inclusive range of texts and their interactions with the patristic tradition, authors’ didactic goals, and religious practices, I draw on cultural anthropologist Victor Turner’s treatment of social practices as symbolic acts and on his elaboration of the concept of ‘liminality’ as it applies to social rituals. Turner builds on the work of Belgian anthropologist Arnold van Gennep on the rite de passage, that is, the ‘passage from one culturally defined state or status to another’.4 Van Gennep divides a rite of passage into three distinct phases: separation, liminality or margin (or limen), and (re)aggregation.5 In a separate but corresponding set of terms, van Gennep describes spatial transitions as having pre-liminal, liminal, and post-liminal phases, ‘indicat[ing] his basic concern with units of space and time’.6 Extending van Gennep’s work, Turner dedicates much of his attention especially to the theoretical and ethnographic exploration of the liminal phase. He defines ‘liminality’ as a ‘betwixt-and-between condition often involving seclusion from the everyday scene’,7 or, more broadly, as ‘any condition outside or on the peripheries of everyday life’.8 Relying on Turner’s definition of the liminal phase as a ‘betwixtand-between condition’, I assert that such ‘in between-ness’ marks the core doctrines of the Ascension, especially Christ’s dual nature and the totus Christus.

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Turner views liminality both as a phase and a state, an important characterization that points to liminality not only as a ritual process, but also as an event that profoundly changes and defines the nature of those participating in it.9 The Ascension is one such process, which marks a time of exception and of profound transformation for all Christians, as it gains for them the opportunity to reach heaven. Liminality does not only apply to the ritual itself, but also to those participating in it, for those undergoing the ritual’s middle phase (the ‘liminal entities’ or ‘liminal personae’, as Turner calls them) inhabit multiple states: ‘Liminal entities are neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial.’10 These liminal personae ‘evade ordinary cognitive classification, too, for they are neither-this-nor-that, here-nor-there, one-thing-not-theother’.11 This defiance of classification strikingly applies to the liminal entity who undergoes the ritual of the Ascension: Christ is both God and man, both present and absent, both humbled and glorified. Significantly in the context of the Ascension, ‘the most characteristic midliminal symbolism is that of paradox, or being both this and that’.12 In other words, a liminal entity cannot be unambiguously classified as belonging to a single category but always belongs to more than one category or exists in a dual state. Consequently, liminality shares with Ascension doctrines the essential characteristic of being paradoxical.13 Liminality marks a time and a condition apart from normative rules, established hierarchies, and accepted behaviours and provides an opportunity to examine basic assumptions and roles in social groups. In The Ritual Process, Turner states, ‘if liminality is regarded as a time and place of withdrawal from normal modes of social action, it can be seen as potentially a period of scrutinization of the central values and axioms of the culture in which it occurs’.14 The levelling or reversal of social hierarchies during the liminal phase has an important social consequence in that it leads to the creation of communitas,15 that is, a ‘society as an unstructured or rudimentarily structured and relatively undifferentiated comitatus, community, or even communion of equal individuals who submit together to the general authority of the ritual elders’.16 In a communitas, ‘concrete idiosyncratic individuals, … though differing in physical and mental endowment, are nevertheless regarded as equal in terms of shared humanity’.17 Liminality has an equalizing and socializing force that emphasizes the similarities and shared characteristics of the members of the communitas rather than their

Introduction

5

differences and allows them to identify more fully with this newly forged community. Turner also defines this anti-hierarchical force in terms of structure and anti-structure, with communitas having an anti-structural effect: ‘Communitas breaks in through the interstices of structure, in liminality; at the edges of structure, in marginality; and from beneath structure, in inferiority.’18 As a levelling and anti-structural force, the liminal phase allows for the creation of new social roles.19 As I discuss below, the Ascension has exactly such a levelling force and creates a communitas of Christians who all equally belong to the Body of Christ. In its ability to form new social identities, the liminal phase offers the extraordinary potential of exploring alternative possibilities to established norms, a potential also provided by the Ascension and expressed in Anglo-Saxon Ascension narratives. Turner casts this idea in grammatical terms, associating liminality with ‘subjunctivity’ and viewing it as the ‘subjunctive mood’ of a society: Liminal phenomena are centrally integrated into the total social process, forming with all its other aspects a complete whole, and in its specific essence representing the ‘negativity’ and ‘subjunctivity’ of that total process, rather than its ‘positivity’ and ‘indicativeness’; its possibility rather than its actuality, its ‘may be’ and ‘might have been’ rather than its ‘is’, ‘was’, and ‘will be’, or even a via negativa entered by everyone, not just by mystics.20

In an essay that employs Turner’s concepts of liminality and structure/anti-structure to read marginal drawings in illuminated medieval manuscripts, Kathleen Ashley explains, ‘the liminal or antistructural is in the “subjunctive” mode, the mode of “what if.” It is a fantasy mode, capable of exploring or performing possibilities other than those conventionally authorized.’21 Liminality opens up possibilities for an alternative, radically new life, one that could not have been imagined before entering the liminal phase. In its subjunctive mood, liminality makes it possible for the communitas to see what can be; it lays all possible paths open and, at times, these alternative paths are taken.22 The Ascension, as a liminal event, operates in the subjunctive mood and creates the opportunity for an alternative future, in this case, the possibility for redemption, a promise made by Christ to all humans in ascending and entering heaven. Given the definition of ritual liminality and the conditions that it describes, this anthropological concept can usefully be applied

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to the study of texts and, in particular, to a combined study of the theological, literary, visual, and liturgical formulations of the Ascension as well as to cultural practices associated with its feast day. The Ascension, I contend, is a liminal ritual, which functions by the same principles and has the same effects on those participating as the social rituals described by Turner. He has been criticized for his overly universal application of liminality to social and other phenomena.23 I, however, apply his ideas to culturally specific content in terms that emerge from the Anglo-Saxon corpus itself. I neither explore liminality in all of its possible meanings and forms (such as boundaries of landscapes, bodies, or other narrative spaces), nor do I apply it to the larger Old English poetic corpus. Applied to Anglo-Saxon religious culture, liminality as an analytic tool usefully bridges theology, literature, and praxis and thus allows moving between such diverse cultural expressions as a Latin hymn, vernacular homilies, spatial rituals prescribed in a charm, and Rogationtide processions, all of which are articulations of the theological and communal meanings of the Ascension. The liminal approach uncovers connections between diverse texts, which remain invisible when they are secluded into traditional generic or other fixed categories, such as heroic verse, vernacular religious poetry, anonymous homilies, or post-Benedictine Reform preaching, a practice still prevalent in the study of early medieval English literature. My anthropologically informed approach to the liturgical and homiletic source materials in which this study is grounded reveals the function of religious texts and practices both as theological instruction and in their social and historical settings. The value of applying anthropology to medieval texts, including Anglo-Saxon literature, has been amply demonstrated, but such readings of Old English texts have typically focused heavily on poetry, especially secular, heroic poetry.24 A goal of this book is to demonstrate the value that an anthropologically informed approach can have in relation to religious practices and to AngloSaxon texts with non-heroic subject matter, yielding a more accurate understanding of the role of the Ascension in Anglo-Saxon religious literature and culture. The liminal theology of the Ascension Liminality is not only a useful concept through which to read Anglo-Saxon texts and images; the Ascension is itself liminal at its very core as an event that takes place between earth and heaven,

Introduction

7

as the two epigraphs to this chapter make clear. Its theological teachings are also liminal in both concrete and symbolic senses and, as I explain in this section, they share specific features with social rituals. The Ascension is liminal in a concretely spatial sense: the ascending Christ crosses the boundary between earth and heaven, and his actions thus straddle two spaces. This is important for Ascension texts for two reasons. First, this means that the Ascension is not an instantaneous event but a process – an extended journey – and this journey from earth to heaven can be narrated and dramatized. Second, the crossing of the threshold, the limen, to heaven is a moment that becomes a narrative focal point because it can encapsulate the significance of the Ascension from a theological perspective. Two Anglo-Saxon texts that seize on this opportunity are Bede’s hymn for the Ascension and Trinity Homily 19, both of which focus closely on Christ’s crossing into heaven. The central figure of the Ascension, Christ, is liminal in several aspects that are important to the theology of this event: in his dual nature, as the totus Christus, and through his simultaneous presence and absence after ascending. In his dual nature as Deus-Homo, Christ mediates between the immaterial divine and his material humanity, inhabiting a both/and condition. His very person is permanently betwixt-and-between. Corresponding to his paradoxical nature, he can both fall between categories and belong to several categories at once. Similarly, as the totus Christus – Christ as Head and Christians as his Body – he is liminal because, after ascending, he is present both in heaven and on earth and dwells in two places at once. As Head, he has ascended from earth but his Mystical Body is not yet fully in heaven. Christ also dwells spiritually in two places, following his promise to the disciples that he will remain with them, even after having physically ascended (Matt. 28:20). This continued spiritual presence and simultaneous physical absence also represent a both/and state. It is important to remember that all of these basic Christological doctrines encompass at their core a contradiction, a paradox, which Turner calls the ‘most characteristic midliminal symbolism’.25 In other words, Christ’s most central characteristics are liminal. The Ascension is, in Turner’s term, a ritual of status elevation, in which ‘the ritual subject or novice is being conveyed irrever­ sibly from a lower to a higher position’.26 During the Ascension, Christians experience such a status elevation. The crux here is, of course, that Christians do not actually undergo the biblical Ascension; Christ does. If the Ascension is a ritual, as I claim it is,

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then Christ is the ritual subject, the liminal persona undergoing the ritual of the Ascension and crossing the limen. He is the one who makes the transition from earth to heaven, even when only imagined in a narrative. Consequently, Christ, as the liminary, should be the one who is changed by the process; but he does not, of course, change states or status. The situation is further complicated in that Christ is a liminal figure to begin with. He is both God and man. As God, he is eternal and immutable and a change in status or state would be wholly anathema to a correct understanding of his divine nature. However, in his dual nature also lies the key to recognizing the Ascension as a ritual of status elevation, for it is not entirely true that nothing changes: Christ’s human nature does become elevated, both literally and in status. When he introduces his human nature into heaven, he exalts humanity, granting it a status not previously experienced by any human. This important doctrinal idea of glorified humanity is an essential part of Ascension teaching and is, as will be discussed in Chapter 1, most succinctly expressed by Gregory the Great in his Gospel Homily 29 in the phrase humanitas exaltata (‘exalted humanity’). Furthermore, when Christ enters heaven, he not only exalts humanity in the form of his own human nature, but also acts as part of the totus Christus. When the Head enters heaven while the Body remains on earth, the Ascension has occurred yet remains incomplete. The fundamental change is that redemption is now made possible, with Christ’s border-crossing move profoundly affecting all those who belong to his Body. In this way, Christ (the Head) acts on behalf of all Christians (his Body); he acts as a proxy for his human members, and through his liminal move, they change. The ones that undergo the transition, then, are Christians (via the human nature of Christ), but the change in state, which they so desire, depends entirely on Christ crossing the boundary into heaven. In this capacity, the Ascension is a ritual of status elevation for Christ’s human substance and for all Christians. The totus Christus, in which Christians become subsumed into the Body of Christ, also reflects the anti-structural force of the Ascension in that it levels distinctions between humans and makes them all equal Christians, the joint adherents of a single faith, who all believe in one God in three persons and who now all equally have the opportunity to ascend to heaven. As all Christians are equal brothers and sisters in Christ, a communitas is forged. This aspect of the liminal state – the equality of all Christians before God – is, in fact, a basic tenet of faith. At the same time, in the

Introduction

9

Ascension, structure and anti-structure are played against each other. As Kathleen Ashley says about anti-structure and its relationship to structure, ‘Even more important than its contrast to the structural, however, is the interplay between them. Structure and anti-structure exist in a dialectic, in which the antistructural provides a realm for playing upon or with the elements of the structural.’27 This interplay becomes apparent with the Ascension when we consider that it both creates a permanent communitas and affirms an eternal hierarchy. A hierarchical Christian structure is established and confirmed at the conclusion of the Ascension with Christ’s arrival in heaven and his enthronement and glorification as celestial king. There is no doubt about who the eternal ruler is. Consequently, there is both a dissolution of hierarchy (equality of all Christians; all are redeemed and can enter heaven) and a confirmation of hierarchy (Christ is king and all humans are his subjects). As Turner also states, some aspects of liminal states can become permanent and this applies here.28 The effect of the Ascension is that all Christians belong permanently to a communitas at the same time as Christ is eternally king over all Christians in a fixed hierarchy. Owing to the dialectic between structure and anti-­structure, therefore, liminal rituals can incorporate contradictions.29 Hierarchy and unity can coexist and, in a way, lose their contradictory character, as is the case with the Ascension. We may also look at the contradictions resulting from the Ascension in conjunction with other paradoxes at the heart of Christianity, for example, an omnipotent God who allows himself to be killed or a God who dies and still lives, and recognize that much of Christianity is betwixt-and-between, neither/nor, both/and. This is precisely the state that one expects to result from a liminal ritual. As a consequence of the complex effects of the Ascension, individual Christians also find themselves in a liminal state in several respects. Most immediately, Christians are affected because they are part of the totus Christus. While Christ the Head has crossed the boundary into heaven and has made possible the redemption of humankind, the actual fate of individual Christians still hangs in the balance and is decided by how they live their lives. That is why Christ’s Ascension only promises redemption but does not guarantee it. Therefore, because they are both already safe in heaven and still have to work for their personal salvation, Christians remain in a liminal state in life. This ambiguity between safety and peril is, for example, the dominant theme in the final section of Cynewulf’s Christ II (lines 850–66), which depicts life as a sea journey with

10

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the goal of sailing into the safe harbour of heaven. As part of the totus Christus, the Head has already safely reached heaven, but the Body has yet to follow and remains in danger of not succeeding. Consequently, human existence unfolds in a state of liminality, which is not solved until Judgement Day when the effects of the redemptive promise, the opening of heaven, and the rewards of faithful living will come to final fruition. Given all this, when all Christians annually celebrate the Ascension, listen to homilies, and walk in processions during Ascension week, they witness both the eternal events of Christ’s Ascension and the as-of-yet undecided moment of their own ascension and salvation. This means that much is at stake for them in the Ascension. It represents both a risk and an opportunity. The liminal state of the Ascension between risk and opportunity is precisely the subjunctive mood posited by Turner, and, therefore, I assert that the Ascension operates in the subjunctive mood. It is the ‘What if?’ moment, in which all possibilities are open: it can have a positive or a negative outcome, and it falls on all Christians to ensure a successful conclusion. Patristic sources develop the perception of the Ascension as an opportunity for redemption, particularly Augustine in the concept of the totus Christus, about which more will be said in Chapter 1. Augustine clearly sees in the Ascension the potential of what can be. As Christ the Head reaches heaven, he shows Christians what and where they ought to be also. The Body will follow the Head, but until then, the Ascension remains incomplete and believers have to contribute to its eventual completion through virtuous living. If Christians contribute to this goal successfully by living faithfully and without sin, then the promise of ‘what might be’ – redemption – will be turned into a permanent state. The Ascension is therefore the liminal moment that lays open the ultimate structure that ought to be reached. Collectively, these are the core principles that the Ascension stamps on believers, of which they are reminded and which they have to affirm each year at the celebration of this feast day.30 The temporarily undecided outcome of the Ascension is an additional consequence of the subjunctive mood. This uncertainty grants Christians a certain amount of agency, since it gives individuals choices about how to live. Most importantly, however, it imposes on them the kind of personal responsibility for fulfilling the redemptive promise that Augustine speaks of in his sermons, when he says that, if we are to celebrate the Ascension in the

Introduction

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right way, we must ascend with Christ. In order to gain salvation, Christians do not, of course, have a choice, but they must follow Christ; they must complete their own ascension and affirm the hierarchical structure that acknowledges Christ as Head and king and saviour and all Christians as Body, as subjects, and as the saved. I mentioned above that in the annual celebrations of the Ascension, Christians both witness Christ’s Ascension and anticipate their own. This conflating of time is an important aspect of many liturgical celebrations, which take place in the present to commemorate past events and anticipate future ones. The annual liturgical celebrations of the Ascension, and the narratives and homilies that tell of it, all visualize, make present, and re-enact the Ascension, thus collapsing biblical, present, and eternal time. The Ascension reminds participants of the ‘drama’ that is unfolding in front of them in scriptural readings, a hymn, or a homily, and this is physically enacted in processions for Rogationtide, which end at the church entrance in imitation of Christ’s arrival at the doors of heaven. The Ascension links past, present, and eternal time and prompts participants to ponder the biblical event and their own role in it. This kind of temporal ambiguity is typical for liminal phenomena in general, for ‘We are presented, in such rites, with a “moment in and out of time,” and in and out of secular social structure, which reveals, however fleetingly, some recognition (in symbol if not always in language) of a generalized social bond that has ceased to be and has simultaneously yet to be fragmented into a multiplicity of structural ties.’31 Given all this, I view the Ascension as taking place on the threshold, the limen, between biblical history, salvation history, the annual liturgical cycle, and individual faith.32 In the Ascension, historical time and divine time intersect, both at the moment of the biblical event, as the incarnated God withdraws from his earthly mission, and in the annual celebration of the Ascension in remembrance of the events of larger salvation history. Ultimately, the liminal moment of the Ascension serves the creation of a (new) normative state for Christians, one that becomes the guiding principle and the ultimate goal in life: to work towards the fulfilment of the redemptive promise, to follow the Head to heaven, to dwell eternally with Christ. The radically new thing about the Ascension as a liminal ritual is that, while it affirms a hierarchical structure of the members of its ‘society’, it does not establish a previously extant structure but a wholly new order. In this new order, Christianity distinguishes itself historically

12

Between earth and heaven

from Judaism and the Christian Church is founded. In this new order, Christ has entered heaven as the Messiah and has eternally accepted his dual nature. In this new order, heaven is opened to humanity, and Christians are redeemed and can participate in the Ascension through their own actions in order to dwell with Christ in eternal glory. In larger theological terms, the Ascension as liminal reflects the fundamental transition from Old Testament to New Testament thinking.33 While in Old Testament thinking, birth and death mark the outer limits of human life, Christianity dictates that life itself is liminal, that it is a transitory phase that leads to resurrection and an eternal afterlife. This reflects a radical redefinition of the human condition and of thinking about the significance of this life on earth versus what lies beyond it. The idea of life as a liminal, transitory phase and the liminality of the Ascension as depicted in AngloSaxon texts express this new notion of humanity. This book’s main concern is to examine the different ways in which Anglo-Saxon authors (and artists) choose to teach Ascension theology as liminal in the terms just laid out. The concept of liminality functions as a means through which to read the Ascension from a theological as well as from a literary critical perspective. It helps us analyse the doctrines that authors teach and the rhetorical strategies used to teach them.34 Liminality is a particularly fruitful way to read texts because it allows us to discuss jointly and on equal footing vernacular poetry, Latin and Old English homilies, theology, liturgical rituals, popular religious lay rituals, and art by uncovering the formal and conceptual parallels between abstract theology and the concrete images chosen to teach it, between the spatial rituals of the liturgy and the doctrinal messages of the Ascension. Thus, it brings out the theological essence of the Ascension and, especially, the diverse ways in which Anglo-Saxon poets, homilists, theologians, and artists express this essence deliberately and forcefully in a multiplicity of voices. Between Earth and Heaven contends that Anglo-Saxon Ascension literature draws on material imagery, established social practices, and the concept of liminality to teach complex theology to mixed lay and religious audiences. Employing literal aspects of the Ascension (such as Christ’s footprints, the gates of heaven, or a re-enacted journey towards heaven), authors make the abstract dimensions of a more strictly intellectual (and less visual) theology concrete through imagery and symbol. This method of teaching Ascension theology through material images and tangible

Introduction

13

aspects of the Ascension is ultimately modelled on Christ’s teaching through his post-Resurrection physical manifestations in the gospels. The abstract – and liminal – tenets of patristic Ascension theology are taught in Anglo-Saxon writings and art both as theology and through concrete, spatial imagery in texts (Christ’s footprints and the gates of heaven), in visual sources (Christ’s feet), and in the practices performed in association with the Ascension (Rogationtide processions). At the same time, sermons instructed participants (lay and religious) in prayers and rituals that commemorate and re-enact the Ascension, representing their own salvation. In these ways, Anglo-Saxon writings reformulate the abstract ideas of patristic Ascension theology to link faith and practice. The examination of material imagery, the use of patristic teachings, and liminality demonstrate the sophistication and unity of Ascension theology in the diverse sources that make up the Anglo-Saxon Ascension corpus. The Ascension in Anglo-Saxon literature Anglo-Saxon authors had a fondness for the Ascension, as evinced by the notable range of texts that survive for this occasion, forming a sub-corpus that spans genres and the entire Anglo-Saxon period and that was intended for widely differing audiences and settings. The sources at the centre of this study either depict the place of the Ascension or directly narrate the biblical Ascension story or events closely linked to it.35 In the Old English Martyrology and Blickling Homily 11, the focus of Chapter 2, the footprints of Christ at the place of Ascension function as a material symbol for Christ’s dual nature and his physical absence but spiritual presence. Bede’s hymn on the Ascension and the twelfth-century Trinity Homily 19, examined in Chapter 3, use the motif of the gates of hell and heaven to draw attention to Christ’s crossing of boundaries and the moment of salvation when he enters heaven. The Latin and Old English homilies for Rogationtide and Ascension discussed in Chapter 4, when read in conjunction with liturgical practices for Rogationtide and field rituals such as the Æcerbot Charm, show both the rich diversity of Anglo-Saxon religious culture and the common reliance of Ascension preaching on patristic theology, lay customs, and secular beliefs to convey the significance of the liturgical occasion. Visual representations of the Ascension quite literally show Christ as a liminal figure crossing into heaven, providing illuminating parallels between art and literature in teaching

14

Between earth and heaven

Ascension theology (see Chapter 5). As these brief references alone already show, the Ascension is unusual in Anglo-Saxon literature – and early medieval vernacular literature more generally – because of the exceptional variety of the surviving materials.36 The diverse literature written for the Ascension invites a comprehensive assessment of this Christian feast day in Anglo-Saxon literary and religious culture. Although individual works have received some scholarly attention, these remarkable texts have yet to be studied as a group. The diversity of the narratives makes them useful models to explore the intersections of patristic theology, the rhetorical strategies and didacticism of homiletic literature, and popular religious practices and beliefs. Offering the first examination of how patristic Ascension theology was transmitted, adapted, and taught to Anglo-Saxon audiences, this study connects theology with both ‘official’ clerical teaching and lay rituals to show that the Anglo-Saxon corpus richly testifies to a vernacular understanding of theology, to the rigorous and innovative maintenance of traditional Christian-Latin teachings, and to the process of converting patristic theology into concrete teachings for lay and religious audiences. Between Earth and Heaven engages collectively with texts that are not usually discussed together because of their different languages, genres, times of composition, presumed compositional occasions, and, especially, their perceived relative aesthetic values and rhetorical achievements. This study thus challenges the persistent critical binaries of Latin and vernacular, attributable and anonymous prose, clerical and lay practices, and homiletic prose and religious poetry. The Ascension as a focus for analysis, as the centre of a network of texts, practices, and traditions, provides the unique opportunity to demonstrate the extraordinary richness, diversity, and both innovative and traditional nature of Anglo-Saxon religious lite­ rature and culture. Eager for knowledge and stimulation, AngloSaxon authors absorbed the varied materials they encountered for their own purposes and, in their texts, reflect not only the settings and audiences for which these were composed, but also their social and cultural values. This characteristic modus operandi makes the Ascension corpus – and Anglo-Saxon religious literature at large – so complex, interesting, and worth examining. Despite its centrality to Christian doctrine, the Ascension has been neglected in scholarship, both in literary criticism of the early English Middle Ages and in religious history and theology. While Douglas Farrow has argued for the importance of the Ascension to the contemporary Church, its importance to Anglo-Saxon England

Introduction

15

remains unrecognized and largely unexamined.37 Over the years, only individual Ascension texts have garnered critical attention, most notably Blickling Homily 11 and Christ II, Cynewulf’s famous Ascension poem.38 The almost exclusive focus on Christ II as a representative text has skewed the overall impression of the place of the Ascension in Anglo-Saxon literature. It has especially obscured what the larger corpus has to offer and what is typical in treatments of the Ascension rather than what stands out. Cynewulf is rightly celebrated for his poetic skill, but an appropriate assessment of Ascension writings does not merely revolve around artistry.39 Alongside such an outstanding poem as Christ II exist texts that might not all be ‘great literature’ but that show more accurately how the majority of authors represented – and thus how the majority of Anglo-Saxons received – the Ascension and its theology. The neglected works give insight into the common celebration of the Ascension in Anglo-Saxon England as well as the cultural valences and social practices associated with it. Furthermore, Cynewulf’s approach to teaching Ascension theology differs from the concrete, materially grounded, and spatially conceived imagery used to teach it in most Anglo-Saxon literature and art. Although Cynewulf is informed by the same patristic theology as other authors, his approach to it is more cerebral and theoretical. For example, his poem shares with other sources the central message to imitate and follow Christ. In contrast to them, however, he does not focus on concrete aspects associated with the biblical Ascension (like Christ’s footprints or his arrival in heaven) but stresses that Christians need to follow Christ with the mind – as Augustine also preaches in his sermons – so that the body can follow eventually. To Cynewulf, it is essential to realize a spiri­ tual ascension now. Therefore, he presents a model for mental activity that can help accomplish this spiritual ascension and lead Christians to heaven long before a physical ascension. He develops this model by means of the extended metaphor of ‘the sea of this life’, which compares the instability of human life to ships being tossed on a stormy sea (lines 850–66). In contrast to the texts and images at the centre of this book’s analysis, Cynewulf does not present a truly materially grounded teaching of Ascension theology in that he does not use concretely definable spaces as the basis for his narrative. While he employs a spatial metaphor, it is linked neither to the scriptural Ascension narrative nor its exegesis.40 Cynewulf does not envision the Ascension as taking place in

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Between earth and heaven

c­ oncretely imaginable spaces; he is not preoccupied with aspects of the real place of the Ascension, for example Christ’s footprints, which appear in the Old English Martyrology and Blickling Homily 11.41 Unlike Bede and the Trinity homilist, he does not develop in detail Christ’s arrival at concretely imagined gates of heaven – a real place from the perspective of faith – or instruct audiences on how physical movement through space, like the processions performed at Rogationtide, both imitates and anticipates the journey towards heaven. Between Earth and Heaven centres on the material and spatially conceived teaching of Ascension theology in the majority of Anglo-Saxon sources that has been obscured by the attention to Cynewulf’s poem. Imagining the Ascension and its theological significance in real places and spaces is far more typical in Anglo-Saxon writings than his sophisticated and fascinating, but quite different, mental model. Although I concern myself only peripherally with Christ II, I draw on scholarship on this important poem, both in regard to the study of motifs and sources42 and of structural and formal issues.43 Not exclusively concerned with either the formal analysis, the source study, or the iconography of Anglo-Saxon texts, I build on this previous work to reveal specific aspects of Ascension narratives with a conceptually broader approach. Unlike scholarship on Christ II, I examine Anglo-Saxon representations of the Ascension as collective practices dedicated to the same liturgical occasion, from the perspective of their rhetorical intent, and within their cultural and historical contexts. Scholars have not had much interest in these materials as that which they were chiefly intended to be: texts about Christ’s Ascension.44 In contrast to the formal focus of other scholarship on the Ascension, this study privileges theology and praxis, pointing especially to the importance of anonymous homilies that skilfully teach and practise theology but that are often still undervalued. For example, Joyce Hill has found that, in anonymous homilies, ‘Complex theological issues … which Ælfric readily tackles in the course of his exegesis, are rarely discussed, and although an authority may be cited from time to time, there is no sense that a tradition is being deliberately articulated and consciously transmitted.’45 While many anonymous homilies might be less inclined to discuss theology in the terms that Ælfric does, some homilists were certainly knowledgeable of it and interested in teaching it. Moreover, anonymous homilists can be demonstrated to follow both the patristic tradition and the rhetorical strategies of highly

Introduction

17

accomplished predecessors. For example, the author of Trinity Homily 19 employs Psalm 23 in a way similar to Ambrose and Bede to depict Christ’s arrival at the gates of heaven. In drawing attention to the theological sophistication and rhetorical accomplishments of ‘average’ preaching in vernacular sources, which are still frequently eclipsed by the works of such famous authors as Ælfric and Wulfstan, I follow up on Clare Lees’ warning against the simple dichotomy of ‘known writers’ versus ‘unknown (anonymous) texts’.46 As a contribution to the thriving scholarship on Anglo-Saxon vernacular prose writings, Between Earth and Heaven reads comparatively the didactic strategies in a range of homilies by both anonymous and known authors.47 Between Earth and Heaven also pushes beyond the confinements of prose study by arguing for increased cross-generic and intertextual readings that acknowledge more fully the sophistication and multiformity of patristic theology, the extent of its transmission, and the intermingling of traditions in Anglo-Saxon religious literature.48 By establishing a dialogue between theology and practice, between clerical teachings and lay practices, I show that vernacular works, including anonymous homilies, pursue their larger didactic goal of teaching Ascension theology with complexity and t­heological rigour, rather than identifying homiletic techniques only in isolated texts, as most past scholarship has done. The texts, practices, and beliefs associated with the Ascension all form a subtle continuum within Anglo-Saxon religious culture and cannot, therefore, easily be labelled as either ‘popular’ or ‘orthodox’. Instead, they blend these categories by combining native beliefs about the natural world and Christian-Latin theo­ logy or by expressing patristic doctrines through liturgical spatial rituals, which, in turn, have parallels in popular lay practices. For example, the use of Christ’s footprints in Anglo-Saxon Ascension materials results from a confluence of patristic Latin learning, the epistolary and travel writing genres, folk beliefs, and the vernacular homiletic tradition. While scholarship has recognized this merging of multiple traditions for secular verse (especially heroic poetry and charms), my study shows that religious prose also exhibits such rich blending. Following Karen Louise Jolly’s definition of elf charms as ‘middle practices’, resulting from a mingling of Christianity and native Anglo-Saxon culture, I view homiletic texts as ‘middle practices’ and draw attention to the ways in which formal literature can belong to both conventional religion conveying orthodox theology and to popular experience.49

18

Between earth and heaven

An examination of Anglo-Saxon texts based on their didactic strategies, success at teaching theology, and blended cultural influences allows us to evaluate both celebrated and neglected texts more even-handedly and in a new light. One result is that it moves us away from aesthetically based judgements that reflexively privilege a poem such as Christ II over texts by less skilled writers. Traditional evaluations of Anglo-Saxon literature judge Cynewulf an excellent poet and Bede an erudite, accomplished theologian, but an anonymous homilist as unsophisticated and pedestrian. While the literary and intellectual achievement of figures such as Bede, Cynewulf, or Ælfric must be immediately acknowledged, it is also legitimate to consider the corpus of Anglo-Saxon Ascension material in its own right. Taking such an approach, this study leads to new answers and new recognitions about the relative value of individual texts. Thus, for example, while the footprint motif has been perceived as naive, it merges perfectly – and intentionally – with patristic theology. Authors’ presumed didactic skills and accomplishments do not necessarily align neatly with traditional aesthetic or intellectual judgements that call one writer a gifted poet or a brilliant theologian and another an insufficiently sophisticated homilist. Anglo-Saxon authors, even when they do not produce ‘great literature’, are knowledgeable and sophisticated in their own way. They may not make the most conventional narrative choices, or present the official theology of an occasion exactly as Gregory or Bede or Ælfric do, but they are aware of the importance of the Ascension and its core doctrines, reflect carefully on them, and find their own ideal forms of teaching them. Chapter 1 of this book is concerned with the history and character of the theology of Christ’s Ascension. It traces the history of Ascension theology from its scriptural roots to its patristic elaborations and to its transmission in Anglo-Saxon England, presenting those doctrines and themes that become most relevant to insular authors. The history of Ascension theology shows that Anglo-Saxon authors make deliberate and innovative choices in how they present the inherited patristic theology to their contemporary audiences. Scripture lacks concrete information on the Ascension, and its theology was gradually developed by patristic writers, most prominently Justin Martyr (c.100–65), Ambrose of Milan (c.340–97), Augustine of Hippo (354–430), Leo the Great (pope 440–61), and Gregory the Great (c.540–604). Drawing on New and Old Testament passages, these Church Fathers isolate the significant themes reflected in Christ’s last moments on earth

Introduction

19

and elaborate them into the official teachings on the Ascension: ascending in his dual nature, Christ opens heaven to humanity and is glorified as king in heaven, resulting in his physical absence but also continued spiritual presence on earth. Belonging to the totus Christus, Christians strive to accomplish their own ascension at the end of time and to fulfil the redemptive promise of Christ’s Ascension. As these Ascension doctrines move into Anglo-Saxon England, however, the motifs and devices by which they are taught are not all adopted from patristic writings; they derive from diverse sources and take on diverse forms, even as their theological message remains grounded in patristic teachings. Two Old English Ascension narratives – the entry for Ascension Day in the Old English Martyrology and Blickling Homily 11 – are fascinated with the footprints left behind on the Mount of Olives by the ascending Christ. These texts depict the footprints’ spectacular nature, especially their miraculous ability to reconstitute daily, despite being spoiled by worshipping pilgrims. In the footprints, the rhetorical goals of religious literature and popular practices intersect: they are a popular motif into which orthodox theology could be integrated. Chapter 2 contends that both the martyrologist and the Blickling homilist recognize the importance of liminality to Ascension theology and use the footprints as the perfect vehicle to convey this. In contrast to their Latin source (Adomnán’s De Locis Sanctis), the vernacular authors give the footprints a theological inflection, so that they thus become the carrier of doctrinal content. For example, they are a concrete representation of Christ’s dual nature: the incarnate Christ left visible, even tangible prints, while the recurring miracles at the place of Ascension are proof of his divinity. A liminal motif, Christ’s footprints mediate between biblical history and contemporary Christian practices, the earthly realm and the heavenly home. Furthermore, the footprints are used to appeal to a broad audience by invoking popular religious beliefs, in a way similar to the Rogationtide homilies. By connecting various traditions and beliefs, the footprints teach the meaning of the Ascension as a historical, annual, and communal event as well as an invisible, eternal, and soteriological event. Chapter 3 examines the ways in which Anglo-Saxon authors construct spatial relationships to establish symbolic relationships between three major Christological events: the Ascension, the Harrowing of Hell, and Christ’s Entry into heaven. Two texts foreground these spatial relationships: Bede’s hymn for the Ascension (Hymnos canamus gloriae) and Homily 19 for Ascension Day in

20

Between earth and heaven

the early Middle English Trinity Homilies. Bede and the Trinity homilist treat the connection of the Ascension to the Harrowing and Christ’s Entry as a central theme and structuring device, re­ cognizing that liminality is what unites the three events: they all take place across spaces (earth into hell, earth to heaven, outside heaven into heaven). The authors use this shared liminality to create theological meaning, especially through the image of the gates of heaven. Similar to the footprints or the Rogationtide processions, the gates of heaven become the spatial symbol through which the Ascension doctrines of the totus Christus, Christ’s dual nature, and the exaltation of humanity are visualized and taught. While the gates of heaven are not an actual location that can be viewed and revered or circumambulated during a liturgical celebration, it is nonetheless a space that is wholly concretely imagined by Bede and the Trinity homilist. The concreteness of the gates also conveys the overarching impact of the Ascension on salvation history, as it focuses attention on Christ’s crossing into heaven, the very moment of salvation. Analysing individual Rogationtide and Ascension homilies – both Latin and vernacular – Chapter 4 moves from the formal preaching of theology to the spatial practices of Rogationtide liturgy to popular beliefs about boundaries and the earth. These diverse sources show how abstract Ascension doctrines become converted into concrete images – and even into spatial practices – for preaching to mixed audiences and that an entire set of concurrent cultural beliefs can be solicited in support of teaching conventional theology. These intracultural interactions show the mutually supportive functions of formal, clerically driven elements of religious culture (homilies, liturgy) and unconventional, lay elements (field rituals, popular religious practices and beliefs). Despite their diversity of forms and settings, all of these aspects of Anglo-Saxon religious culture contribute, for those listening to and participating in them, to the understanding of the significance of the Ascension. Thus, Rogationtide homilies also belong to the programmatic teaching of Ascension theology, evinced by the close thematic connections between Rogationtide and Ascension homilies as well as by the formal parallels between the boundary-related practices performed during Rogationtide and the liminality of the theology itself. Both Rogationtide homilies and Ascension imagery can, in turn, be linked to rituals for the fertility of the land (for example, the ‘Charm for Unfruitful Land’), with which they share formal and conceptual features.

Introduction

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Chapter 5 examines how the liminal theology of the Ascension is expressed in Anglo-Saxon visual representations. As I argue, Anglo-Saxon authors and artists recognize the essential liminality of the theological content they teach and, consequently, merge it with imagery that reflects this liminality in form. Anglo-Saxon art invents a particular iconography to teach Ascension doctrines through liminality: the ‘disappearing Christ’. This visual tradition is a distinct way of depicting the ascending Christ, in which the upper half of Christ’s body has ‘disappeared’ beyond the frame of the picture while his lower limbs are still visible. My reading of the Ascension shows that liminality, visualized in the disappearing Christ, already inheres in the underlying theology that conditioned this image. This study refines our understanding of the process of transmission, adaptation, and dissemination of patristic teachings in Anglo-Saxon England; in its focus on Christ’s Ascension, it also leads to a better understanding of a particular liturgical occasion in Anglo-Saxon religious culture. By bringing together patristic theological teachings, formal clerical preaching, and religious and lay practices, all of which belonged to the same vibrant religious culture practised and experienced by Anglo-Saxon Christians, Between Earth and Heaven aims at demonstrating the fruitfulness of continued vigorous study of texts that blend diverse traditions and of the interactions between ‘official’ religious culture and lay practices, Latin and vernacular sources, homiletic prose and religious verse.

Notes  1 The central importance of the Ascension in the life of Christ is clear in Anglo-Saxon literature from texts like Christ I, II, and III (Advent Lyrics, The Ascension, and Judgement Day) and the motif of Christ’s leaps (in Christ II and Blickling Homily 11). In visual art, for example, the Tiberius Psalter and a Cleveland Museum of Art boxwood casket include the Ascension in image cycles of Christ’s life; see Chapter 5 for more on the Ascension in Anglo-Saxon art.  2 The attention paid to the Harrowing of Hell is exemplified by Karl Tamburr’s recent study, The Harrowing of Hell in Medieval England (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 2007).  3 In contrast, Jerome Oetgen, ‘Common Motifs in the Old English Ascension Homilies’, Neophilologus, 69 (1985), 437–45, argues that Anglo-Saxon Ascension homilists ‘drew on a common “hoard” of related motifs’ but choose them according to their own approaches (p. 443).

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 4 Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1969), p. 166.  5 Turner, Ritual Process, pp. 94, 166. Turner cites the three-part division of rites de passage in numerous publications, for example, Turner, The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1967), pp. 93–4; ‘Variations on a Theme of Liminality’, in Secular Ritual, ed. Sally F. Moore and Barbara G. Myerhoff (Assen/Amsterdam: Van Gorcum, 1977), pp. 36–52, at p. 36; ‘Liminality and the Performative Genres’, in Rite, Drama, Festival, Spectacle: Rehearsals Toward a Theory of Cultural Performance, ed. John J. MacAloon (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1984), pp. 19–41, at p. 21.  6 Turner, Ritual Process, p. 166.  7 Turner, ‘Liminality and the Performative Genres’, p. 21.  8 Victor Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974), p. 47.  9 Turner, Ritual Process, p. 167. 10 Turner, Ritual Process, p. 95. 11 Turner, ‘Variations on a Theme of Liminality’, p. 37. 12 Turner, ‘Variations on a Theme of Liminality’, p. 37; emphases in original. 13 Some post-Resurrection biblical scenes support a reading of Christ as an ambiguous figure. For example, in John 20:24–9, the disciples are gathered in a locked room when Jesus enters, suggesting that he is a spirit, but then Thomas, paradoxically, feels his true flesh. 14 Turner, Ritual Process, p. 167. 15 See especially Ritual Process, pp. 167–77. See also pp. 177–8, in which Turner discusses two opposite social models, one of hierarchical structure and one of a homogenized social whole (i.e., what he would call communitas), the latter of which is the model emerging during the liminal phase. 16 Turner, Ritual Process, p. 96. 17 Turner, Ritual Process, p. 177. 18 Turner, Ritual Process, p. 128. 19 Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors, pp. 13–14, explains, ‘In this interim of “liminality”, the possibility exists of standing aside not only from one’s own social position but from all social positions and of formulating a potentially unlimited series of alternative social arrangements.’ 20 Turner, ‘Variations on a Theme of Liminality’, p. 44. Also see ‘Liminality and the Performative Genres’, where Turner says, ‘Most cultural performances belong to culture’s “subjunctive” mood’ (p. 20) and, during seasonal rites, ‘[i]t is as though everything is switched into the subjunctive mood for a privileged period of time … Public liminality is governed by public subjunctivity’ (p. 21).

Introduction

23

21 Kathleen Ashley, ‘Victor Turner in the Forest of Folklore’, Medieval Folklore, 2 (1992), 1–20, at p. 10. 22 See Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors, pp. 14–15: ‘the besetting quality of human society, seen processually, is the capacity of indivi­ duals to stand at times aside from the models, patterns, and paradigms for behavior and thinking, which as children they are conditioned into accepting, and, in rare cases, to innovate new patterns themselves or to assent to innovation’. 23 Turner considers ritual liminality as applicable, for example, to different cultures and societies (Ndembu, India, western Europe); different cultural phenomena (festivals, literature, life crisis rituals, seasonal rituals, pilgrimage, drama, sports); different time periods (African present, European Middle Ages, current North American pastimes). For criticisms and modifications of Turner’s theories, see, for example, John Eade and Michael J. Sallnow, eds, Contesting the Sacred: The Anthropology of Christian Pilgrimage (London: Routledge, 1991), esp. pp. 3–5; Morton W. Bloomfield, ‘The Friar’s Tale as a Liminal Tale’, Chaucer Review, 17 (1983), 286–91; and Caroline Walker Bynum, ‘Women’s Stories, Women’s Symbols: A Critique of Victor Turner’s Theory of Liminality’, in Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion (New York: Zone Books, 1992), pp. 27–51. Despite criticisms, Turner’s ideas continue to stimulate vigorous academic discussion; see, for example, Kathleen M. Ashley, ed., Victor Turner and the Construction of Cultural Criticism: Between Literature and Anthropology (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990); Graham St John, ed., Victor Turner and Contemporary Cultural Performance (New York: Berghahn Books, 2008); and Steele Nowlin, ‘Between Precedent and Possibility: Liminality, Historicity, and Narrative in Chaucer’s The Franklin’s Tale’, Studies in Philology, 103 (2006), 47–67. 24 John M. Hill, The Cultural World in Beowulf (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995), and John D. Niles, Old English Heroic Poems and the Social Life of Texts, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 20 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007) are examples of studies that engage anthropological methodologies. In 1999 a special issue of Philological Quarterly (78.1/2) was dedicated to ‘Anthropological Approaches to Old English Literature’, of which the majority of pieces focused on heroic poetry. A shorter comparative reading of kinship, violence, and narrative structure in heroic literature is Thomas D. Hill, ‘The Confession of Beowulf and the Structure of Volsunga Saga’, in The Vikings, ed. Robert T. Farrell (London: Phillimore, 1982), pp. 165–79. The application of anthropological methods to Anglo-Saxon heroic literature is not surprising, since it typically depicts the rich and complex social world in which an anthropological view is interested. The indisputable strength of this approach is that its inherent interest

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in the social functions of literature invites a contextualized, culturally relevant reading of texts. 25 Turner, ‘Variations on a Theme of Liminality’, p. 37. 26 Turner, Ritual Process, p. 167. 27 Ashley, ‘Victor Turner in the Forest of Folklore’, p. 10. Turner, Ritual Process, p. 129, says about this: ‘There is a dialectic here, for the immediacy of communitas gives way to the mediacy of structure, while, in rites de passage, men are released from structure into communitas only to return to structure revitalized by their experience of communitas. What is certain is that no society can function adequately without this dialectic.’ 28 Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors, pp. 14–15. 29 Turner, Ritual Process, p. 182, comments on such lasting contradictions of Christianity. In reference to the Feast of All Saints, with which the concept of the totus Christus is explicitly associated because the purpose of the occasion is to unite Christ with all of his saints, Turner writes, ‘Here again we meet with the notion of a perfect synthesis of communitas and hierarchial structure.’ 30 This point ties into Turner’s idea that during the liminal phase a society reaffirms its core values. Through ritualistic and repeated events, a society faces its most central cultural beliefs, can analyse its role and relationship to them, and can then, as a community, reaffirm those beliefs (Ritual Process, p. 167). 31 Turner, Ritual Process, p. 96. 32 Cami D. Agan, ‘The Platea in the York and Wakefield Cycles: Avenues for Liminality and Salvation’, Studies in Philology, 94 (1997), 344–67, at p. 354, observes a similar effect of later medieval cycle plays on their viewers. 33 I am indebted to Thomas D. Hill for pointing out this perspective to me. 34 The Ascension has also been viewed through other lenses. For example, Brian Ó Broin, ‘Rex Christus Ascendens: The Christological Cult of the Ascension in Anglo-Saxon England’ (PhD dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2002) has shown that Anglo-Saxon Ascension narratives have much to tell us about the links between the Christological cult of the Ascension and the development of royal iconography. 35 I omit from my discussion secondary sources, such as scriptural commentaries, which interpret the events of the Ascension but do not relay them in an independent narrative. 36 No comparable corpus survives from the continent. The Old Saxon Heliand ends on a fragmentary passage of the Ascension, leaving only a brief description of the event. Otfrid von Weissenburg’s Evangelienbuch includes a more extensive passage but, despite some elaborations, largely remains close to his Gospel sources rather

Introduction

25

than presenting an independent retelling or interpretation of the Ascension. 37 Douglas Farrow, Ascension and Ecclesia (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999). The only extensive consideration is Ó Broin’s unpublished dissertation, ‘Rex Christus Ascendens’. My interest in the material differs significantly from that of Ó Broin, who examines the Ascension in relation to medieval kingship, the development of the kingship cult, and Anglo-Saxon concerns with the regal nature of Christ. 38 For scholarship on Christ II, see notes 42 and 43 below. The Blickling Homilies have most often been examined as a collection, from a codicological perspective, and for their eschatological content; for selected studies, see Milton McC. Gatch, ‘The Unknowable Audience of the Blickling Homilies’, ASE, 18 (1989), 99–115, esp. at pp. 112–14 (on Homily 11); J. Elizabeth Jeffrey, Blickling Spirituality and the Old English Vernacular Homily: A Textual Analysis, Studies in Mediaeval Literature 1 (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1989); Donald G. Scragg, ‘The Homilies of the Blickling Manuscript’, in Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England: Studies Presented to Peter Clemoes on the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Michael Lapidge and Helmut Gneuss (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 299–316; M. J. Toswell, ‘The Codicology of Anglo-Saxon Homiletic Manuscripts, Especially the Blickling Homilies’, in The Old English Homily: Precedent, Practice, and Appropriation, ed. Aaron J Kleist, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 17 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 209–26; Malcolm Godden, ‘The Millennium, Time, and History for the Anglo-Saxons’, in The Apocalyptic Year 1000: Religious Expectation and Social Change, 950–1050, ed. Richard Landes, Andrew Gow, and David C. Van Meter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 155–80, at pp. 156–8; and William Prideaux-Collins, ‘“Satan’s Bonds Are Extremely Loose”: Apocalyptic Expectation in Anglo-Saxon England during the Millennial Era’, in Apocalyptic Year 1000, ed. Landes et al., pp. 289–310, at pp. 293–4. For doomsday and apocalyptic literature in Anglo-Saxon England more generally, see Joseph B. Trahern, Jr, ‘Fatalism and the Millennium’, in The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature, ed. Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 160–71; Milton McC. Gatch, ‘Perceptions of Eternity’, in Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature, ed. Godden and Lapidge, pp. 190–205; and Ananya Jahanara Kabir, Paradise, Death, and Doomsday in Anglo-Saxon Literature, CSASE 32 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). On Blickling Homily 11, see James E. Cross, ‘On the Blickling Homily for Ascension Day (No. XI)’, NM, 70 (1969), 228–40; and Jonathan Wilcox, ‘The Blickling Homilies Revisited: Knowable and Probable Uses of Princeton University Library, MS Scheide 71’, in The Genesis of Books: Studies

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in the Scribal Culture of Medieval England in Honour of A. N. Doane, ed. Matthew T. Hussey and John D. Niles, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 97–115. 39 For one representative study concerning Cynewulf’s literary art, see Alexandra Hennessey Olsen, Speech, Song, and Poetic Craft: The Artistry of the Cynewulf Canon (New York: Peter Lang, 1984). 40 The ‘sea of this life’ metaphor may, however, have been inspired by the phrase non simus parvuli fluctuantes in Eph. 4:14, a passage commonly cited in patristic literature in connection to the Ascension. 41 The only hint of this is in an earlier passage (lines 494–5) when he imagines Christ as ascending ‘through the temple roof’, but he does not link this reference to any doctrinal content. 42 Quellenforschung has provided excellent models for further research. See, for example, the classic studies by Albert S. Cook, The Christ of Cynewulf (Boston: Ginn, 1900), pp. 115–69, who was the first to consider the sources of Christ II in detail; Peter Clemoes, ‘Cynewulf’s Image of the Ascension’, in The Cynewulf Reader, ed. Robert E. Bjork, Basic Readings in Anglo-Saxon England 4 (New York: Routledge, 2001), pp. 109–26; George H. Brown, ‘The Descent–Ascent Motif in Christ II of Cynewulf’, in Cynewulf Reader, ed. Bjork, pp. 133–46; and, more recently, Thomas D. Hill, ‘The Anchor of Hope and the Sea of this World: Christ II, 850-66’, ES, 75 (1994), 289–92; Charles D. Wright, ‘The Persecuted Church and the Mysterium Lunae: Cynewulf’s Ascension, lines 252b–272 (Christ II, lines 691b–711)’, in Latin Learning and English Lore: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Literature for Michael Lapidge, ed. Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe and Andy Orchard (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), II, pp. 293–314; and Robert E. Bjork, ‘The Symbolic Use of Job in Ælfric’s Homily on Job, Christ II, and the Phoenix’, in Latin Learning and English Lore, ed. O’Brien O’Keeffe and Orchard, II, pp. 315–30. 43 One structural issue is the seemingly violated chronology of narrative events in Christ II; see Chapter 3, note 6. 44 Ascension homilies have most often been discussed for reasons other than their immediate subject matter, and, overall, the critical biblio­ graphy on the Ascension in Anglo-Saxon England remains modest. Existing studies lack depth of analysis and consideration of the Ascension corpus as a whole. Only Jerome Oetgen has focused specifically on Old English Ascension writings; see Jerome Oetgen, ‘The Trinity College Ascension Sermon: Sources and Structure’, Mediaeval Studies, 45 (1983), 410–17, and Oetgen, ‘Common Motifs’. In the latter comparative study of the four extant vernacular Ascension homilies, Oetgen identifies a general difference between Ælfric’s CH I.21 and Blickling Homily 11, on the one hand, and Trinity Homily 19 and Tristram III, on the other. According to him, the former two are much more exegetical and analytical, while the latter are more

Introduction

27

descriptive and parenetic (p. 438). As my study shows, these sources, especially the anonymous homilies, are considerably more complex than this binary assessment suggests. 45 Joyce Hill, ‘Reform and Resistance: Preaching Styles in Late AngloSaxon England’, in De l’homélie au sermon: histoire de la prédication médiévale, ed. Jacqueline Hamesse and Xavier Hermand (Louvain-laNeuve: Université catholique de Louvain, 1993), pp. 15–46, at p. 21. For other assessments of anonymous homilies as rhetorically and intellectually inferior, see Robin Ann Aronstam, ‘The Blickling Homilies: A Reflection of Popular Anglo-Saxon Belief’, in Law, Church, and Society. Essays in Honor of Stephan Kuttner, ed. Kenneth Pennington and Robert Somerville (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977), pp. 271–80, at p. 272; and Oetgen, ‘Trinity College Ascension Sermon’, p. 411. 46 Clare A. Lees, ‘Working with Patristic Sources: Language and Context in Old English Homilies’, in Speaking Two Languages: Traditional Disciplines and Contemporary Theory in Medieval Studies, ed. Allen J. Frantzen (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1991), pp. 157–80, at p. 163. While Lees made her comment some years ago, it still largely applies. Studies of well-known homilists such as Ælfric and Wulfstan can provide useful models for studying anonymous homilies. For example, Mechthild Gretsch, Ælfric and the Cult of Saints in Late Anglo-Saxon England, CSASE 34 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), richly contextualizes Ælfric’s work in contemporary intellectual activities. I similarly situate anonymous homilies between cult practices, different forms of religious expressions, and other texts, but additionally emphasize popular religious and lay practices. An example of recent work on the anonymous homilies is Robin Norris, ed., Anonymous Interpolations in Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, Old English Newsletter Subsidia 35 (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2011); and also see note 47. 47 The interest in prose writings was significantly spurred by the appearance of the groundbreaking editions by Paul E. Szarmach, ed., Vercelli Homilies IX–XXIII, TOES 5 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981); Joyce Bazire and James E. Cross, eds, Eleven Old English Rogationtide Homilies, King’s College London Medieval Studies IV (London: King’s College London, 1989); and Donald G. Scragg, ed., The Vercelli Homilies and Related Texts, EETS os 300 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). Some homily collections have still not been critically edited or exist only in outdated editions, such as the Blickling and Trinity Homilies. For influential and recent publications on vernacular prose, see Paul E. Szarmach and Bernard F. Huppé, eds, The Old English Homily and Its Backgrounds (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1978); Paul E. Szarmach, ed., Studies in Earlier

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Old English Prose: Sixteen Original Contributions (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1986); Aaron J Kleist, ed., The Old English Homily: Precedent, Practice, and Appropriation, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 17 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007); Samantha Zacher and Andy Orchard, eds, New Readings in the Vercelli Book, TASS 4 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009); and Samantha Zacher, Preaching the Converted: The Style and Rhetoric of the Vercelli Book Homilies, TASS 1 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009). 48 Many prose studies still do not engage in cross-generic readings. For instance, in Zacher and Orchard, eds, New Readings in the Vercelli Book, none of the individual contributions crosses the prose–verse boundary to discuss the manuscript’s poems and homilies jointly. 49 Karen Louise Jolly, Popular Religion in Late Saxon England: Elf Charms in Context (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), pp. 1–5.

1 Biblical sources, patristic authorities, and the development of Ascension theology

The books of the New Testament reveal little about the Ascension beyond establishing it as a Christological event: Christ assembles his disciples and somehow disappears from before their eyes. This reticence can make the richness of later developments seem surprising. The sparse biblical sources nonetheless provide basic themes for the Ascension that invite the creativity of the early Christian theologians who interpreted them. In their postResurrection accounts, the New Testament books focus most on the physical manifestations of Christ and the commissioning of the apostles, laying the foundation for essential doctrines that are later developed more formally in patristic literature. Among those central teachings, the doctrine of the dual nature of Christ is an important tenet in earlier scriptural and patristic literature and becomes most prominent in Anglo-Saxon writings on the Ascension. Christ ascends as both God and man, the condition that also leads to the opening of heaven to all humanity, as he enters heaven having permanently accepted his human nature. Patristic authors also emphasize Christ’s physical absence but continued spiritual presence on earth as a consequence of his Ascension. Although Christ’s physical absence requires faith, according to scripture, he is still physically present during the forty days after Easter, producing a tension between seeing and believing. After the Ascension, Christ is already in heaven while his followers remain on earth until they earn heaven for themselves. According to the doctrine of the totus Christus, Christ in heaven is the Head and all Christians on earth are the members of his Body, striving to be united with the Head at the end of time. As patristic authors stress, each Christian bears personal responsibility for ascending, a demand that can be fulfilled by moral living. This suggests that the doctrines of the Ascension have immediate and personal consequences in Christians’ daily lives while also centrally focusing on

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the duality of Christ: as God and man, as absent and present, spanning earth and heaven, and linking Christians as Body to Christ the Head. In the Anglo-Saxon sources, I argue, this essential duality of Christ is spatially conceived as an effective way of teaching humans about Ascension theology as well as about faith, the imitation of Christ, moral action, and spiritual responsibility. As the patristic sources lay out, Christ’s Ascension and dual nature as God–man demonstrate the human potential for salvation. These doctrines invite Christians to follow in Christ’s footsteps, allowing them to recognize that they, too, can ascend to heaven. Insular authors imagine Christ’s Ascension as taking place concretely in space. Consequently, they depict the duality of Christ in concrete, material imagery, which models how humans can make themselves Christ-like through faith, powerfully drawing them into the narrative of their own salvation. By becoming part of Christ through spiritual participation in the Ascension, believers can understand both the theological and the personal, soteriological significance of the Ascension. This chapter begins with an identification of the basic Ascension motifs that are introduced, if only incipiently, in scriptural sources. In three sections, I examine the contributions of patristic authors to the development of the theological and thematic content of the Ascension. In particular the writings of Ambrose of Milan, Augustine of Hippo, Leo the Great, and Gregory the Great were seminal in establishing the complex, orthodox theology and the themes that would become standard in Ascension materials for centuries to come. For each patristic source, I select those themes and doctrines that especially prepare the materialist and spatially conceived treatment of the Ascension that Anglo-Saxons preferred in their preaching and teaching. Many of the themes set out in patristic sources clearly had great appeal to Anglo-Saxon authors, since they avidly adapted them for their own writings. A central argument of this book is that in Anglo-Saxon culture, the patristic theology of the Ascension is manifested in both theo­ logy and praxis. It appears in the theological teachings of AngloSaxon hymns, homilies, and other religious literature as well as in the concrete, spatial imagery of writings on the Ascension and in the processions performed during Rogationtide. Anglo-Saxon sermons for Ascension week instructed participants (lay and religious) both on relevant doctrines as well as in prayers and rituals that commemorate and re-enact the Ascension and thus represent

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their own salvation. We can see this two-sided teaching played out in Ælfric of Eynsham’s sermons for Ascension week. In a sermon for Wednesday in Rogationtide/Vigil of the Ascension (CH II.22, 207, 48–9), he explicitly mentions the doctrine of Christ’s dual nature when pointing out that God glorified Christ such that all of creation, all heaven-dwellers, earth-dwellers, and hell-dwellers, bow down with bent knees to ðam hælendum criste. soðum men. and soðum gode. on ánum háde1 (‘to the saving Christ, true man and true God, in one person’). At the same time, more indirectly but also more concretely, Fursey’s famous vision of heaven that Ælfric presents in CH II.20, a sermon for Rogation Tuesday, reminds listeners that the daily processions they are performing during Rogationtide symbolically enact a journey to heaven and that they thus receive their own glimpse of heaven before death. In this and similar ways, Anglo-Saxon writings reflect the abstract ideas of patristic Ascension theology, but also indissolubly link faith and practice. Modest beginnings: the Ascension of Christ in scriptural sources Only the gospels of Mark and Luke and the Acts of the Apostles include direct accounts of the Ascension, and they disagree on the precise circumstances and possibly even on the fact of the Ascension itself.2 All four gospels report that after his death and Resurrection, Jesus manifested himself several times before his followers.3 Either on the Sunday of his Resurrection (in Mark and Luke) or after the passage of forty days (in Acts), Christ instructs his disciples and commissions them to preach to the peoples of the world. According to Mark, Luke, and Acts, after Jesus speaks to them, he ascends to heaven or is somehow taken from their sight.4 Although the information in the gospels is fairly limited and the accounts differ in important details, the gospel authors associate certain themes specifically with the Ascension and these prepare important Christological doctrines. The most important theme is the insistence on Christ’s true humanity, even after the Resurrection, which is the basis for Christ’s dual nature, the most central Ascension teaching on the part of post-biblical authors. The evangelist John, for example, emphasizes the identity and physical substance of Christ as he descends and ascends in the verse most cited from his gospel in relation to the Ascension (John 3:13):5 Et nemo ascendit in caelum nisi qui descendit de caelo, Filius hominis qui est in caelo (‘And no

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one has ascended into heaven except him who has descended from heaven: the Son of Man who is in heaven’).6 Patristic authors use this verse to distinguish Christ’s Ascension from other biblical ascensions or assumptions (for example, those of Enoch and Elijah) and to support the doctrine of a physical ascension of the incarnated God. The one who ascends and enters heaven is Christ in his human nature and is also the one who previously descended from above, that is, one of the persons of the divine Trinity, thus proving that Christ ascended in his dual nature. Developing the theme of the importance of faith and communal life, Matthew and Mark stress the Great Commission, Christ’s command to the apostles to preach the Word of God across the known world and the founding moment of the earthly Church. Like John, Matthew also omits any direct description of an ascension by Jesus, concluding his gospel with the following passage (Matt. 28:16–20): Undecim autem discipuli abierunt in Galilaeam in montem ubi constituerat illis Iesus. Et videntes eum adoraverunt; quidam autem dubitaverunt. Et accedens Iesus locutus est eis dicens: Data est mihi omnis potestas in caelo et in terra. Euntes ergo, docete omnes gentes baptizantes eos in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti, docentes eos servare omnia quaecumque mandavi vobis, et ecce ego vobiscum sum omnibus diebus usque ad consummationem saeculi. [But the eleven disciples went into Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had directed them to go. And when they saw him they worshipped him; but some doubted. And Jesus drew near and spoke to them, saying, ‘All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and behold, I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world.’]

The final moments of Christ on earth become an occasion for the affirmation of faith. Jesus responds to the disciples’ doubt by commanding them to confirm their belief publicly and convert others. This emphasis on belief, the confession of faith, and the importance of working towards strengthening the Church are themes that will be further developed, for example by Augustine and Leo the Great, as important aspects of the Ascension message. In contrast to Matthew and John, Mark directly mentions the Ascension, but it is subordinated to the preaching assignment given to the disciples.7 Jesus appears to them after the women’s

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visitation to the grave and his first two post-Resurrection manifestations (Mark 16:14–20): Novissime recumbentibus illis undecim apparuit et exprobravit incredulitatem illorum et duritiam cordis quia his qui viderant eum resurrexisse non crediderant. Et dixit eis: Euntes in mundum universum praedicate evangelium omni creaturae; qui crediderit et baptizatus fuerit salvus erit; qui vero non crediderit condemnabitur. Signa autem eos qui crediderint haec sequentur: in nomine meo daemonia eicient; linguis loquentur novis; serpentes tollent, et si mortiferum quid biberint, non eos nocebit; super aegrotos manus inponent et bene habebunt. Et Dominus, quidem postquam locutus est eis, adsumptus est in caelum et sedit a dextris Dei. Illi autem profecti praedicaverunt ubique, Domino cooperante et sermonem confirmante sequentibus signis. [At length he appeared to the Eleven as they were at table; and he upbraided them for their lack of faith and hardness of heart, in that they had not believed those who had seen him after he had risen. And he said to them, ‘Go into the whole world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he who does not shall be condemned. And these signs shall attend those who believe: in my name they shall cast out devils; they shall speak in new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands upon the sick and they shall get well.’ So then the Lord, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God. But they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the preaching by the signs that followed. Amen.]

Here again, the disciples’ doubt sparks the Commission, which is described with additional details not found in the other gospels, further highlighting the importance of this event. The Ascension is mentioned in only one verse, which is surrounded by references to the disciples’ preaching assignment. As with Matthew and John, the Commission stands at the centre of this gospel’s conclusion, thus associating the Ascension closely with preaching. This link is especially appropriate not only because later homilists perceive themselves as following in the apostles’ footsteps, but also because Ascension week becomes a major occasion for preaching in AngloSaxon England. Luke’s two narratives contribute to the repertoire of Ascension themes in two respects: in his gospel, Luke focuses on demonstrating Christ’s humanity and, in Acts, he introduces motifs

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that become stock elements of Ascension iconography (e.g., the cloud, the men in white/angels). Luke’s gospel account ends with Jesus’ final post-Resurrection activities. After his manifestations to the women at the grave and the two travellers to Emmaus, Jesus appears to the eleven disciples. Expressly to prove his bodily Resurrection, he eats broiled fish and a honeycomb, then instructs them on how to understand the scriptures. After telling them to wait in Jerusalem for ‘the promise of my Father’, a brief Ascension scene follows (Luke 24:50–3): Eduxit autem eos foras in Bethaniam et elevatis manibus suis bene­ dixit eis. Et factum est dum benediceret illis, recessit ab eis et fere­ batur in caelum. Et ipsi adorantes regressi sunt in Hierusalem cum gaudio magno. Et erant semper in templo laudantes et benedicentes Deum. Amen. [Now he led them out towards Bethany, and he lifted up his hands and blessed them. And it came to pass as he blessed them, that he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.]

The Ascension here takes place in the familiar setting of Bethany on the Mount of Olives, a location that receives attention in AngloSaxon England in Christ II, the Old English Martyrology, and Blickling Homily 11.8 Christ’s gesture of blessing the disciples also becomes part of the visual iconography of the Ascension, symbolizing that Christ leaves his spiritual presence among the disciples, a theme that Augustine will fully develop in his sermons. Not mentioned in the other gospels, Christ’s ingesting of food vividly proves his bodily existence and thus his humanity – the key fact of the Ascension. Theologically, the most important aspect of the Ascension is that Christ entered heaven in his dual nature, making redemption possible for all humans. While Luke includes elements also present in the other gospels (e.g., Christ’s instruction of the disciples, underscoring their role as preachers), he adds aspects that specifically point to the theological significance of the Ascension. Opening the book on the apostles’ missionary activities, the fullest account of the Ascension appears in Acts 1, which becomes the template for homiletic, literary, and visual uses of the Ascension. It is also the one most influential on Anglo-Saxon authors. After deflecting the disciples’ question about restoring the kingdom of Israel, Jesus promises (Acts 1:8–12),

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sed accipietis virtutem supervenientis Spiritus Sancti in vos et eritis mihi testes in Hierusalem et in omni Iudaea et Samaria et usque ad ultimum terrae. Et cum haec dixisset, videntibus illis elevatus est et nubes suscepit eum ab oculis eorum, cumque intuerentur in caelum eunte illo, ecce duo viri adstiterunt iuxta illos in vestibus albis qui et dixerunt: Viri galilaei, quid statis aspicientes in caelum? Hic Iesus qui adsumptus est a vobis in caelum, sic veniet quemadmodum vidistis eum euntem in caelum. Tunc reversi sunt Hierosolymam a monte qui vocatur Oliveti, qui est iuxta Hierusalem sabbati habens iter. [‘but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be witnesses for me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the very ends of the earth.’ And when he had said this, he was lifted up before their eyes, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing up to heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white garments, and said to them, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up to heaven? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, shall come in the same way as you have seen him going up to heaven.’ Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey.]

In contrast to Luke’s gospel, this account places greater emphasis on the entire occasion, the disciples’ reaction to it, and the promise of the Holy Spirit. Luke includes the expected Commission of the apostles but links it closely to receiving the Holy Spirit and its effect on their ability to preach. Acts establishes the normative iconography of the Ascension in Anglo-Saxon preaching, literature, and art. Aside from Christ and the grouped apostles, the visual elements of the cloud and the two men in white/angels are the most recognizable stock motifs of Ascension depictions. Moreover, verse 11 links the Ascension explicitly to the parousia, when Christ will return appearing the same as when he ascended. This important association again emphasizes Christ’s dual nature and supplies the Ascension with an eschatological significance that elevates its importance in the larger narrative of redemption. Because of this link, both visual and textual sources (for instance, Cynewulf’s Christ II) depict the Ascension and the Judgement as complementary events: one represents Christ’s last moment on earth promising his return, and the other fulfils this promise. From the gospels and Acts, it becomes clear that the Ascension is neither unequivocally accepted nor uniformly narrated in these earliest sources.9 The remaining biblical texts also leave the

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Ascension largely unexplained and under-interpreted; specific Ascension doctrines were not elaborated until patristic times, and the feast day was not fully established until the fourth century at the earliest. New Testament authors offer almost no explicit commentary that might illustrate its significance to Christian history or model interpretation for later readers. One exception to this is the epistle of Paul to the Ephesians, which elaborates the meaning of the Ascension, even if on a modest scale, and provides a first typological reading for it. Paul also associates some new themes with the Ascension that patristic authors eventually formulate into doctrines. Paul’s letter includes one of the most direct references to an ascension in the Pauline books, a much cited passage in patristic sources (Eph. 4:7–14): Unicuique autem nostrum data est gratia secundum mensuram donationis Christi. Propter quod dicit: ascendens in altum captivam duxit captivitatem, dedit dona hominibus. Quod autem: ascendit, quid est nisi quia et descendit primum in inferiores partes terrae? Qui descendit, ipse est et qui ascendit super omnes caelos ut impleret omnia. Et ipse dedit quosdam quidem apostolos, quosdam autem prophetas, alios vero evangelistas, alios autem pastores et doctores, ad consummationem sanctorum in opus ministerii in aedificationem corporis Christi, donec occurramus omnes in unitatem fidei et agnitionis Filii Dei in virum perfectum, in mensuram aetatis plenitudinis Christi. Ut iam non simus parvuli fluctuantes et circumferamur omni vento doctrinae, in nequitia hominum, in astutia ad circumventionem erroris. [But to each one of us [humans] grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s bestowal. Thus it says, Ascending on high, he led away captives; he gave gifts to men. Now this, ‘he ascended’, what does it mean but that he also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended, he it is who ascended also above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. And he himself gave some men as apostles, and some as prophets, others again as evangelists, and others as pastors and teachers, in order to perfect the saints for a work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the deep knowledge of the Son of God, to perfect manhood, to the mature measure of the fullness of Christ. And this he has done that we may be now no longer children, tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine devised in the wickedness of men, in craftiness, according to the wiles of error.]

Paul accepts an ascension, although he does not clarify whether or not he thinks of it as distinct from the Resurrection and when he

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assumes it to have taken place.10 Significantly, this passage is packed with elements that medieval authors, including Anglo-Saxon ones, avidly explicate into standard Ascension teachings. Among those is the descent–ascent movement of Christ (Eph. 4:9–10), including the Descent into Hell (4:9, in inferiores partes terrae), a pattern that dictates a sequential unfolding of the Ascension. During the Descent into Hell, Christ frees the souls of the Ancient Just (4:8, captivam duxit captivitatem) and eventually enters heaven with them (4:10, ascendit super omnes caelos), two events that signify the opening of heaven to humanity. Moreover, Paul mentions the Mystical Body of Christ (4:12, corporis Christi), an important element of the totus Christus, designating Christ as the Head and all Christians as his Body. The totus Christus becomes inextricably linked to the eschatological role of the Ascension: Christ the Head ascends, leaving the Body of Christians behind, but the two will be reunited at Judgement. Further themes that are less exegetically far-reaching but gain some popularity in Anglo-Saxon England are the gifts of men (4:7, nostrum data est gratia; 4:8, dedit dona hominibus) and the instability of life, possibly alluding to the motif of life as a sea voyage (4:14, non simus parvuli fluctuantes).11 Aside from compiling these crucial themes, Paul differs from the Lucan accounts in that he subjects the Ascension to a first typological reading by recalling Ps. 67:19 (Ascendisti in altum, cepisti captivitatem, accepisti dona in hominibus) in Eph. 4:8 (captivam duxit captivitatem, dedit dona hominibus). By drawing on an Old Testament passage as a prefiguration of the Ascension, Paul begins the work of developing its theological significance, laying the foundation for exegetical themes that will later be expanded by patristic authors. In referring to Psalm 67, Paul’s epistle also exemplifies the most immediate impulse of early Christians in the search for the significance of the Ascension: to look to Old Testament passages for a typological precursor. Several Old Testament passages seem to prefigure a divine ascension, even though one cannot speak of an abundance of proleptic signs. For example, as mentioned above, two figures experience an ascension, or a sudden removal from the earth: Enoch and Elijah. About Enoch, Genesis, the book of the generation of Adam, says, ambulavitque cum Deo et non apparuit quia tulit eum Deus (‘And he walked with God, and was seen no more: because God took him’) (Gen. 5:24). More famously, perhaps, Elijah is taken up to heaven with a whirlwind and a fiery chariot (4 Kgs 2:1 and 2:11). Both of these ascensions become contrasting narratives through which to interpret the Ascension of Christ.12

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The two Old Testament passages most influential to Ascension treatments are Psalm 23 and Psalm 67. Patristic literature links both of them to the Ascension and the Harrowing of Hell, the latter of which also belongs to the Easter–Pentecost sequence and theologically connects to the Ascension. Psalm 67 refers to a triumphant and ascending God who leads captives into an undefined space on high (Ps. 67:18–20 LXX): Currus Dei decem milibus multiplex, milia laetantium: Dominus in eis in Sina in sancto. Ascendisti in altum, cepisti captivitatem, accepisti dona in hominibus. Etenim non credentes inhabitare Dominum Deus. Benedictus Dominus die cotidie: prosperum iter faciet nobis Deus salutarium nostrorum. [The chariot of God is attended by ten thousands; thousands of them that rejoice: the Lord is among them in Sina, in the holy place. Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive; thou hast received gifts in men. Yea for those also that do not believe, the dwelling of the Lord God. Blessed be the Lord day by day: the God of our salvation will make our journey prosperous to us.]

In particular Ps. 67:19, the verse also quoted by Paul in Ephesians 4, was typologically interpreted in patristic literature to refer to the ascending Christ leading the souls freed during the Harrowing. More importantly, these captive souls ascend with him to the celestial kingdom, giving justification to the doctrine of the opening of heaven to humanity. Because of these links, Psalm 67 became a key text for developing this doctrine and thus regularly appears in Ascension texts. While both Psalms 67 and 23 contain important motifs, the latter had an especially profound effect on representations of the Ascension in patristic and medieval sources. This psalm’s verses, sketching out a verbal exchange in front of closed gates and referring to a glorious king who eventually enters through these gates, offers a natural template for the Ascension (Ps. 23:7–10 LXX): Adtollite portas, principes vestras, et elevamini, portae aeternales, et introibit rex gloriae. Quis est iste rex gloriae? Dominus fortis et potens: Dominus potens in proelio. Adtollite portas, principes vestras, et elevamini, portae aeternales, et introibit rex gloriae. Quis est iste rex gloriae? Dominus virtutum, ipse est rex gloriae. [Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be ye lifted up, O eternal gates: and the King of Glory shall enter in. Who is this King of Glory? the Lord who is strong and mighty: the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be ye lifted up, O eternal gates: and the

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King of Glory shall enter in. Who is this King of Glory? the Lord of hosts, he is the King of Glory.]

This psalm introduces to Ascension narratives the important motif of the gates, which early Christian authors will interpret as referring to Christ’s arrival at the gates of heaven. As we shall see, by dramatizing the moment before Christ enters heaven, Psalm 23 helps heighten the suspense of the Ascension. In this way, the psalm also provides a narrative structure on to which later authors could map both the Harrowing and Christ’s Entry into heaven. Ambrose of Milan and Bede incorporate it to narrate Christ’s arrival at the celestial gates, and the early Middle English Trinity Homily 19 interprets the psalm’s double command to open gates as referring separately to the Harrowing and to Christ’s arrival in heaven. Since Christ breaks down the gates of hell before the Harrowing, the psalm lends itself perfectly to such a linking and to a parallel presentation of those two Christological events, as I will address in more detail in Chapter 3. Old Testament and especially New Testament texts contain motifs and themes that stimulate exegesis, literary accounts, and artistic interpretations of the Ascension: a conquering, ascending Christ veiled by a cloud; the opening of gates; the grouped disciples gazing up to heaven; the promise of the Holy Spirit; the two men in white addressing the apostles, linking the Ascension to Christ’s return on Judgement Day. With these stock motifs, which endow the Ascension with commonly recognizable Christian iconography, the biblical sources set the stage for the first significant developments of Ascension doctrines. The patristic development of Ascension doctrines The initial theological development of these Old and New Testament themes occurs in early patristic literature, moving from the simple introduction of basic motifs to their exegesis. In this first phase, a number of important doctrines and lessons emerge. Patristic sources affirm Christ’s dual nature and his Ascension in a human body, and they establish that Christ opened heaven to humanity. Furthermore, Christ’s glorification and kingship in heaven as well as the totus Christus add important Christological dimensions to the Ascension. Finally, the impact of the Ascension on Christians is expressed in more general teachings that develop from the biblical sources: the foundation of the apostolic church

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and the Commission of the apostles; the importance of faith, even in the absence of visible proof, a demand conditioned by Christ’s physical absence;13 and the essential role of individual believers in fulfilling the redemptive promise of the Ascension by striving to ascend themselves. These are, in summary, the official teachings of the Church that patristic authors developed and that medieval authors and artists incorporated into their varied works on the Ascension, be they homilies, biblical commentaries, poetic narratives, or manuscript illuminations. In what follows, I discuss the milestones in the development of Ascension themes and doctrines in patristic literature. For each patristic source, I selectively emphasize those that especially lay the groundwork for the kind of materialist and spatially conceived treatment of the Ascension that I identify in medieval works. Both eastern and western Church Fathers dedicated themselves to advancing Ascension theology, and distinct eastern and western traditions developed in writing and especially in visual representations of the Ascension.14 Proceeding in chronological order, I focus largely on western writings and on those themes and doctrines mentioned above that most influenced Anglo-Saxon authors in their presentation of the dualities of the Ascension in spatial terms: the dual nature of the ascending Christ, the use of Psalm 23 in depicting Christ’s entering into heaven, the opening of heaven to humanity, and Christ’s continued spiritual presence after the Ascension. Christ and Christians are united in the totus Christus, and since all Christians are members of the totus Christus, they, too, can ascend (for now in the mind and later in the body), but they bear personal responsibility for accomplishing this. Initially, the Ascension developed only slowly into an event with definable theological content. The first Christians did not celebrate the Ascension as a separate feast, and Luke’s placement of the Ascension forty days after Easter was not accepted until much later. The Ascension was initially most readily linked with the events of Easter Sunday, the Resurrection, and the Harrowing of Hell. Once the Ascension emerged as a distinct occasion, Christians celebrated it in conjunction with Pentecost, as the earliest accounts by Holy Land pilgrims make clear. It grew into an independent feast day only in the fourth or early fifth century, thus shifting the development of Ascension theology partially to the sermons preached for the occasion (for example, by Augustine, as discussed below).15 The delayed independence may be connected to the late universal acceptance of the Ascension as described in

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Acts, including its occurrence forty days after Easter.16 The earliest evidence of a developing cult of the Ascension appears in the early fourth century (AD 333) in a travel account on the Holy Land by the so-called Pilgrim of Bordeaux. He mentions a church of the Ascension, which probably refers to the basilica built on the Mount of Olives in AD 330 by Emperor Constantine.17 Egeria (or Etheria), travelling in the eastern Mediterranean in the 380s, describes liturgies taking place on the fortieth day after Easter, though these were apparently not specifically a celebration of the Ascension.18 Not much later in the same century, Jerome, in his epistolary eulogy for Paula (Epistula 108), describes her travels through the Holy Land and mentions rutilantem montis oliueti crucem (‘the sparkling cross of the Mount of Olives’), testifying to pilgrimage activity at the place of Ascension.19 By the time Augustine of Hippo preached his Ascension sermons around the turn of the fifth century, the feast day had been established as a distinct celebration forty days after Easter.20 Alongside, and presumably also in response to, the emerging cult of the Ascension, the first theological definitions of the event appear. Many works simply state the fact of the Ascension or treat it by referring to those Old Testament texts that become conventionally associated with it (primarily Psalms 23, 46, 67, and 108), but only a few authors truly advance Ascension theology in this early phase. In J. G. Davies’s view, three authors make notable contributions during the first Christian centuries: Irenaeus of Lyons, Novatian, and Origen.21 Even though these earliest developments are modest, some elements become a permanent part of Ascension discourse with a lasting impact on subsequent writings. As is well known, the precise relationship between Christ’s two natures and the hypostasis became much debated in the early Christian Church. Paralleling the emphasis on Christ’s true humanity in the New Testament, the more innovative early patristic treatments of the Ascension participate in this discussion by insisting on Christ’s dual nature, the doctrine that undergirds the most important Ascension teaching: Christ ascended as both God and man. In relation to this, Irenaeus, for example, expounds the Ascension as an event of recapitulation: Christ is the new Adam, the new man, freeing those who previously descended to death so that they may now ascend.22 Perhaps influenced by the Jewish cosmology of the Ethiopian Ascensio Isaiae and reminiscent of a narrative strategy used by Justin Martyr, Irenaeus incorporates Psalm 23 and the motif of the unrecognizability of Christ at his

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return to heaven: when the ascending Saviour arrives at the gates of heaven, the celestial dwellers fail to recognize him.23 The Ascensio Isaiae attributes this to the fact that Christ descended to earth under divine cover but ascended in his human form, which none had seen before.24 This change in appearance between descent and ascent results from – and proves – Christ’s dual nature. Following Irenaeus, it becomes normative not only to use Psalm 23 for n ­ arrating Christ’s return to heaven, but also to attribute the angels’ inability to recognize him to his unexpected appearance as a ­conqueror in human form.25 The themes of Christ’s triumphant return, his changed appearance, and the use of Psalm 23 are powerfully taken up by one of the doctors of the Church, Ambrose of Milan (c.340–97),26 whose most interesting contributions to Ascension theology – and those most relevant to Anglo-Saxon texts – draw attention to the moment of Christ’s arrival at the celestial gates and the personal responsibility that all Christians bear in attempting to reach heaven themselves. Ambrose is one of the earliest Latin writers to substantially influence western thinking on the Ascension and the earliest whose Ascension-related writings are known to have been present in Anglo-Saxon England.27 He considers this occasion most extensively in Book IV of his anti-Arian treatise De Fide, where he draws on it to refute the Arians’ misguided insistence on the subordination of a fallible Son to the Father. In the first three chapters of De Fide, Ambrose interprets a set of important Ascension themes, some conventional by his time and some that become additional typical themes through him. Ambrose especially develops the image of Christ as triumphant conqueror, who brings the spoils of battle back to heaven, and the verbal exchange at the gates of heaven that emphasizes the redemptive act of opening those gates. Ambrose presents his comments on the Ascension as part of an explanation of how humans gradually gain knowledge of God. He opens Book IV with the question of why so many have gone so wrong in their beliefs about Christ. His response is that one should not wonder that humans are perplexed by ‘superhuman things’ and fail to comprehend the mystery of God and Christ, but rather that they have not submitted faithfully to scripture.28 Human lack of understanding is not surprising, since not even the angels fully understand the mystery of God. To prove this latter point, Ambrose invokes the Ascension. The regal and conquering Lord envisioned by Ambrose is precisely the kind of ascending Christ who reappears in Anglo-Saxon England, for example in

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Bede’s hymn on the Ascension and Christ II. When Christ arrives in heaven, the angels fail to recognize him, and so they ‘stood spellbound in wonder at the heavenly mystery’ (Obstipuerunt et angeli caeleste mysterium). To Ambrose, the angels are puzzled by Christ’s appearance not merely because he returns to heaven in human form, but above all because of his glorious appearance, ‘[f]or a Conqueror came, adorned with wondrous spoils’ (Veniebat enim novis victor redimitus exuviis), accompanied by ‘the prey wrested from death’ (spolium ex morte quaesitum), that is, the souls freed from hell.29 Christ is the very opposite in appearance from the suffering, humiliated figure laid to rest in the sepulchre not long before. The novelty of this event, expressed in his changed appearance, in the emphasis on the necessity for a new path for the new conqueror, and in the marvelling angels, draws attention to the unprecedented uniqueness of what is unfolding. As Ambrose goes on to state, 7. Debuit tamen novo victori novum iter parari; semper enim victor tamquam maior et praecelsior aestimatur. Sed quia aeternae sunt ‘iustititae portae’ eaedemque novi et veteris testamenti, quibus caelum aperitur, non mutantur utique, sed elevantur, quia non unus homo, sed totus in omnium redemptore mundus intrabat.30 [7. However, it was meet that a new way should be prepared before the face of the new Conqueror – for a Conqueror is always, as it were, taller and greater in person than others; but, forasmuch as the Gates of Righteousness, which are the Gates of the Old and the New Testament, wherewith heaven is opened, are eternal, they are not indeed changed, but raised, for it was not merely one man but the whole world that entered, in the person of the All-Redeemer.]31

Ambrose emphasizes the importance of the Ascension as a Christological event that is wholly new and unlike any other. Furthermore, he introduces here the gates of heaven (on which he elaborates in a subsequent passage), which are about to be raised to make room for Christ and his retinue. In a significant doctrinal point, Ambrose stresses that not only one man, Christ, entered heaven, but the ‘whole world’, a reference to the important teaching that, on that day, Christ opened heaven to all humanity. In the human nature of Christ, all humans are allowed access to this previously inaccessible place. As Ambrose lets the scene of Christ’s arrival unfold, he deve­ lops further the theme of the Lord’s unrecognizable appearance by delaying his entry into heaven and deploying Psalm 23 for the

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exchange among the angels at the gates, who wonder who this conquering king is. Their hesitation to open the gates and their amazement at Christ reflect their effort to understand this event and their gradual recognition of its significance, all of which exemplifies the human struggle to understand God: 9. Et ideo dominum omnium primum ac solum de morte triumphantem venire cernentes tolli portas principibus imperabant cum admiratione dicentes: Tollite portas, principes vestri, et elevamini, portae aeternales, et introibit rex gloriae. 10. Erant tamen adhuc et in caelestibus, qui stuperent, qui admirarentur novam pompam, novam gloriam, et ideo requirebant: Quis est iste rex gloriae? Sed quia et angeli processus habent scientiae et capacitatem profectus, habent utique discretionem virtutis atque prudentiae. Solus enim sine processu deus, quia in omni perfectione semper aeternus est. 11. Dicebant alii, illi utique qui adfuerant resurgenti, illi qui viderant vel iam cognoverant: Dominus fortis et potens, dominus fortis in proelio. 12. Iterum multitudo angelorum triumphali agmine praecinebant: Tollite portas, principes vestri, et elevamini, portae aeternales, et introibit rex gloriae. 13. Rursus alii stupentes dicebant: Quis est iste rex gloriae? Vidimus eum: non habebat speciem neque decorem. Si ergo ipse non est, quis est iste rex gloriae? 14. Respondetur a scientibus: Dominus virtutum ipse est rex gloriae. Ergo dominus virtutum est filius.32 [9. And therefore [the angels] descrying the approach of the Lord of all, first and only Vanquisher of Death, bade their princes that the gates should be lifted up, saying in adoration, ‘Lift up the gates, such as are princes amongst you, and be ye lifted up, O everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in.’ 10. Yet there were still, even amongst the hosts of heaven, some that were amazed, overcome with astonishment at such pomp and glory as they had never yet beheld, and therefore they asked: ‘Who is the King of glory?’ Howbeit, seeing that the angels (as well as ourselves) acquire their knowledge step by step, and are capable of advancement, they certainly must display differences of power and understanding, for God alone is above and beyond the limits imposed by gradual advance, possessing, as He does, every perfection from everlasting. 11. Others, again, – those, to wit, who had been present at His rising again, those who had seen or who already recognized Him, – made reply: ‘It is the Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.’ 12. Then, again, sang the multitude of angels, in triumphal chorus: ‘Lift up the gates, O ye that are their princes, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in.’ 13. And back again came the challenge of them that stood aston-

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ished: ‘Who is that King of glory? For we saw Him having neither form nor comeliness; if then it be not He, who is that King of glory?’ 14. Whereto answer they which know: ‘The Lord of Hosts, He is the King of glory.’ Therefore, the Lord of Hosts, He is the Son.]33

Ambrose’s expanded verbal exchange heightens the suspense of the crucial moment of Christ’s arrival at heaven, confirming his new regal status and anticipating his enthronement with the Father. This strategic deployment of Psalm 23 for Christ’s arrival, especially in order to dramatize and augment the importance of the crossing of the threshold into heaven, is later duplicated by Bede and by the Trinity homilist. Moving from the more immediate narrating of the Ascension to exegetical instruction in Chapter II of Book IV, Ambrose continues his discussion by applying the lessons of the Ascension to the lives of Christians, and, for the first time in a Latin source, the theme of personal responsibility is proffered as an explanation for the significance of the Ascension for individual believers, an idea that then permanently enters the teaching repertoire. Ambrose stresses that the Ascension ensures that Christians, too, can ascend to heaven by opening themselves to Christ. When Christ comes knocking on the doors of their souls and demands for them to be lifted up, they can do so by having true faith and confessing Christ. It is each individual believer’s responsibility to let Christ in and thereby follow him to heaven. He ascended for each one of us, and each one of us must strive to ascend and enter through the eternal gates.34 Ambrose’s treatment of the Ascension in De Fide emphasizes Christ ascending as an incarnate being. While Ambrose is not the first one to point out that Christ opened heaven to humanity, he is more emphatic than his predecessors about the role each Christian plays in achieving heaven. Therefore, Ambrose’s most lasting legacies are, first, his new demand for personal responsibility, which Augustine will develop more fully and which also appears in early medieval Ascension literature; and, second, the expanded narrative of Christ’s arrival at the gates of heaven, based on Psalm 23, which anticipates the heightened drama in both the literary representation and the annual celebration of the Ascension in Anglo-Saxon England.

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‘Let our hearts ascend with him’: the demands of the Ascension in Augustine of Hippo’s sermons Augustine’s twenty-one surviving sermons on the Ascension are the earliest preserved Latin compositions for the liturgical cele­ bration of the occasion: they present the most comprehensive theological assessment of the Ascension in patristic literature. His numerous sermons substantially further doctrinal understanding of the Ascension by bringing the various, at time diffuse, strands of theology together, presenting them with clarity and in the formulations in which Anglo-Saxons inherit them a few centuries later.35 Augustine’s sermons were already well known in early Anglo-Saxon England, with Bede using one of his Ascension sermons (Sermon 263) in his Retractatio on Acts; later in the period, a substantial number of Augustinian sermons (though none of his Ascension sermons) were included in the influential homiliary of Paul the Deacon.36 While his sermons present much theologically complex and interesting material, I focus on those themes and doctrines that are most relevant to Anglo-Saxon writings and that I have been consistently pursuing: the dual nature of the ascending Christ; his physical absence but continued spiritual presence on earth and the associated theme of faith; and the idea that all Christians are members of the totus Christus and bear moral responsibility for ascending themselves.37 Overall, Augustine views the Ascension as important because it marks the completion of the redemptive act begun at the Incarnation. Without the Ascension, redemption would simply not be possible. Therefore, he typically mentions the Resurrection and the Ascension as complementary events, often also emphasizing their soteriological link; he states, for example, Resurrectio domini, spes nostra: ascensio domini, glorificatio nostra (‘The resurrection of the Lord is our hope, the Lord’s ascension our glorification’),38 and Facta est ergo vera victoria domini nostri Iesu Christi, cum resurrexit et ascendit in caelum (‘So the true victory of our Lord Jesus Christ was achieved when he rose again and ascended into heaven’).39 In his preaching, Augustine is greatly concerned with the role of the Ascension in larger salvation history and with the particular demands it places on individual Christians. As a primary doctrine of the Ascension, the dual nature of Christ is particularly important to Augustine. The Incarnation enables a full understanding of the Ascension, because it is a re­ quisite step for Christ’s eventual bodily Resurrection, which both reveals his true divinity and leads to increased faith. In a subtle

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reminder of the importance of Christ’s physical body, Augustine states, Dominus noster Jesus Christus cum eo corpore, in quo resurrexit ascendit (‘our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven in the body with which he rose from the dead’).40 In the Incarnation, Christ deliberately emptied himself and took on the lowly state of humanity while maintaining his divinity. In fact, his humiliation prepares his exaltation; he had to humble himself in order to be exalted in the Ascension. As Augustine puts it, Quis est enim exaltatus nisi qui fuerat humiliatus? Vide humiliatum et uide exaltatum (‘Who, I mean to say, was exalted, but the one who had been humbled? See him humbled, and see him exalted’).41 Augustine establishes a chiastic relationship between divinity and humanity, on the one hand, and exaltation and humiliation, on the other: in the Incarnation, Christ’s divinity was humbled, and in the Ascension, humanity was exalted with Christ. This paradox is later elaborated by Gregory the Great in his Gospel Homily 29, the single most influential patristic sermon for Anglo-Saxon Ascension literature. Augustine’s starting point for the discussion of Christ’s dual nature is frequently John 3:13, already quoted above. This verse is used to emphasize that, when Christ ascended in human form, he was still as much God as when he initially descended in the Incarnation. Augustine is in part responding to contemporary heretics who insisted on the lesser status of God the Son than God the Father and who questioned how Christ could descend without a body and ascend with a body. Therefore, Augustine repeatedly stresses that Christ is equal, coeval, and co-eternal with God and that his divinity was in no way compromised by his taking on humanity. He offers a lucid comparison: if someone climbs up a mountain with clothes on after having initially come down without clothes, he is still the same person. Augustine comments on John 3:13, Hoc enim ad personam, non ad personae habitum retulit. Descendit sine corporis indumento, ascendit cum corporis indumento: nemo tamen, nisi qui descendit, ascendit (‘This, I mean, referred to the person, not to anything the person had. He descended without the garment of a body, he ascended with the garment of a body; and yet nobody ascended except the one who descended’).42 Besides the unchanging nature of Christ’s divinity, Augustine also draws attention to the physical body of Christ as a way of stressing his bodily Ascension while reminding listeners of his divinity. For example, in Sermon 264, commenting on Luke 24:39, palpate et videte quia spiritus carnem et ossa non habet sicut me videtis habere (‘Feel me and see; for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as

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you see I have’), he plays off Christ’s incarnate nature against his divine nature: Vera enim ossa erant, veri nervi, verae cicatrices … Tangebatur homo, intelligebatur Deus: tangebatur caro, intelligebatur sapientia: tangebatur infirmitas, intelligebatur potentia. Totum verum (‘They were true bones, you see, true sinews, true scars … It was a man being touched, God being understood; flesh being touched, wisdom being understood; weakness being touched, power being understood. The whole of it true and real’).43 For Augustine, the physicality of Christ’s human body and his unchanging divinity matter equally, for the combination of these two aspects and the tension in which they stand with each other make the recognition of Christ’s divinity possible. Augustine’s emphasis on Christ’s dual nature is further evident in his interpretation of the forty days that Christ spent on earth after the Resurrection as a means to increase faith in his disciples and, by extension, all Christians.44 According to Augustine in Sermons 264 and 265, Christ remained with his disciples after the Resurrection, like a hen looking after her chicks, in order to build up their faith.45 He recognized that it would be difficult for his followers, who had only known him as a man, to begin thinking of him as God and to believe in his divinity.46 Therefore, he lingered in body to accustom them to the idea of his divinity and to demonstrate that he can be recognized as God only in his physical withdrawal from them: Tunc enim cogitarent Deum, si ab illis et ab eorum oculis homo auferretur, ut amputata familiaritate quae cum carne erat facta, discerent vel absente carne divinitatem cogitare (‘The time they would think of him as God would be if the man were removed from their sight; this would cut short the familiarity they had acquired with him in the flesh, and so they would learn at least through his absence in the flesh to think about his divinity’).47 In Augustine’s interpretation, Jesus’ message to his disciples is Discedam ab oculis vestris; tollatur ab aspectibus caro mortalis, quae propter vestram mortalitatem suscepta est; indumentum hoc, quod humilitate suscepi, incipiatis non videre: levetur tamen in coelum. ut discatis quid speretis (‘Let me withdraw from your eyes; let the mortal flesh be removed from your sight, the flesh which was taken on because of your mortality; just begin not seeing this garment, which I assumed in humility; let it be lifted up to heaven, so that you may learn what to hope for’).48 Augustine argues that Christ’s physical manifestations and the Ascension train the mind’s attention on his divinity in a way that the Resurrection alone cannot. Christ’s humble human form is to be beheld with bodily eyes only for a while; it is a crutch

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on which to lean temporarily, until the mind can adjust to recognizing Christ in both his humanity and divinity. Once his dual nature is fully recognized, the physical sight of his human form is no longer necessary, and the mind can turn to contemplating – and understanding – the impact that Christ’s entering of heaven has for salvation. Linked to Christ’s temporary bodily presence is the emphasis in Augustine’s sermons on his physical absence but continued spiritual presence on earth. This teaching, which explains that the conclusion of Christ’s incarnated work is not the conclusion of his work of salvation and redemption, reveals the lasting impact of the Ascension on Christian history and the Church. Augustine draws on Matt. 28:20, when Christ commands his disciples to teach and baptize the world and promises to remain with them ‘all days, even to the consummation of the world’. Augustine quotes this verse almost without fail whenever he preaches on Christ’s physical withdrawal from earth. For example, he poignantly states in Sermon 263, Nonne melius in evangelio absens loquitur, quam praesens taceret? Et tamen non est absens, si corde teneatur … Nam si a nobis absens esset, quod modo audivimus mendacium esset, ecce ego vobiscum sum usque ad consummationem saeculi (‘Isn’t it better for him [Christ] to speak in the gospel, though absent, than to be present and say nothing? And yet he isn’t absent, if he’s held onto in the heart … Because if he were absent from us, what we heard just now would be a lie: Behold I am with you even to the consummation of the world’).49 Christ is always present, as he promised, because he lives in our hearts, and believers can make him continuously present through their own spiritual involvement, a point I will return to below. Augustine argues that the overly anxious cleaving to the physical obscures the kind of spiritual presence that is truly important, as exemplified by the disciples who did not want Christ to leave them: Videbant enim secum magistrum, confortatorem et consolatorem et protectorem hominem, quales videbant se ipsos. Si tale aliquid non viderent, absentem credebant; cum ubique ille majestate sit praesens (‘They could see him with them, I mean, as a teacher, a comforter, an encourager and protector, a man such as they saw themselves to be. If they couldn’t see something like that, they assumed he was absent; although in fact he is present everywhere in his divine greatness’).50 Paradoxically, then, Christ’s withdrawal from earth at the Ascension functions as promise – and proof – of his continued presence. In addition, the forty-day post-Resurrection period both raises

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hope for the afterlife and teaches that Christ’s spiritual presence is more desirable than his temporary physical presence, for with his spiritual presence he permanently remains with his followers and continues to protect them. The Ascension seals this message. As Augustine’s teachings are transmitted into Anglo-Saxon England, medieval authors find a variety of concrete motifs – such as Christ’s footprints on the Mount of Olives – to impress on their audiences the reality of both Christ’s dual nature and his simultaneous pre­ sence and absence. A theme associated with Christ’s presence/absence that is repeatedly addressed by Augustine in his sermons is the tension between seeing and believing. A central challenge of the Ascension is that, like many aspects of Christology, it asks Christians to believe something they did not witness themselves; they have to follow trustingly the original witnesses and those who believed before them.51 Augustine reminds his listeners, though, that it is not the belief in visible things that matters, but that believing in one’s heart is necessary and best.52 The heart is where one must look for affirmation of faith, and seeing with the eyes of the heart is better than seeing with the eyes of the body.53 Here again, he points out the necessity of being taught by the divinity of Christ and of detaching oneself, like the disciples, from the physical form of Jesus.54 The themes of Christ’s physical withdrawal and the dismissal of visible proof have been identified by some scholars as a discussion of the importance of faith.55 Faith is certainly a larger central theme in most writings on the Ascension, including Anglo-Saxon texts that address the necessity of Christ’s physical departure from earth. Since previous scholarship has discussed the theme of faith, I focus here more narrowly on the concept of seeing versus believing, as it is employed in Augustine’s sermons on the Ascension, which has, as we shall see, important implications for the way the Ascension is taught in Anglo-Saxon England. Although Augustine stresses the necessity of faith, when he preaches this point he almost always draws on the opposition between physical seeing and spiritual seeing, and between belief based on visual proof and belief without such proof. To some extent, these themes can be expected to appear in the context of the Ascension. Since the events leading up to the Ascension include Jesus’ encounter with the women at the grave and the doubting of Thomas, the theme of ‘blind faith’ versus the need for visible – even tangible – proof became associated with the Ascension early on. And Augustine

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argues along conventional lines for the sufficiency of spiritual belief or ‘blind faith’. Paradoxically, with the theme of seeing versus believing, he also draws attention to the physicality of faith. While believing without physical proof is the essence of faith and is ideally how faith develops, the repeated admonition that seeing with the eyes of one’s heart or mind is better than seeing with the eyes of one’s body also points to the strong human need for some sort of embodiment of faith. In other words, it is difficult to believe without visual support – not proof per se, but visual support of some kind – to which a believer can resort and to which the mind’s eye can turn.56 This explains, I contend, why concrete images, like Christ’s footprints or the gates of heaven, and a spatial imagining of the Ascension, such as in the form of Christ’s bodily movement through space and of the processions re-enacting the Ascension journey, appear in later Ascension materials. Such images and practices are important not merely as proof of the Ascension but as expressions – as acts – of faith that confirm that one believes without having witnessed the Ascension oneself. A final prevalent Ascension teaching in Augustine’s sermons – one already introduced by Ambrose and then repeated in AngloSaxon works – is the promise that all Christians can ascend with Christ and that each bears responsibility for this personal ascension. Christ’s continued spiritual presence on earth reminds Christians of the promise of redemption that he gave to humanity through his Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension. For example, Augustine directly links these themes in Sermon 263A: Sicut enim ille ascendit, nec recessit a nobis, sic et nos cum illo ibi iam sumus, quamvis nondum in corpore nostro factum sit quod promittitur nobis (‘Just as he ascended, you see, and still didn’t depart from us, so we too are now there with him, although what is promised us hasn’t yet come about in our bodies’).57 In part this idea of being with Christ is conditioned by the doctrine that, when Christ descended, he never left heaven, and, when he ascended, he did not completely leave earth. But the central concept underpinning both the promise and the eventual fulfilment of an ascension for all Christians is the totus Christus.58 To make the point that each individual plays an important role in following Christ to heaven, Augustine repeatedly draws on the concept of the totus Christus, which asserts that Christians are permanently linked to Christ as members of his Mystical Body. Thus, even as he has already physically ascended and they remain on earth, they are still linked to the Head: sed quod corporis unitas non separetur a capite (‘the unity of the body could not be separated

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from the head’).59 Because Christians are the members of his Body, they, too, have in some sense already ascended into heaven while they are also still on earth. This preliminary ascension, however, is only a promise of heaven, not a guarantee, for it has only been fulfilled spiritually, not yet bodily.60 This personal ascension, the goal that all Christians strive to achieve, must not be taken for granted and must be worked for. Consequently, Augustine assigns a serious task to each Christian to ensure that it will be accomplished. He demands that Christians reach towards Christ by directing their hearts and minds towards him as a ‘method’ by which to effect an eventual union with Christ the Head in heaven.61 As they celebrate the Ascension, he says, Ascendamus interim cum illo corde, certi sumus quod sequimur et carne (‘let us ascend with him in heart, being sure that we will also follow in the flesh’).62 Because fides in mente est, in fundamento cordis est fides (‘[f]aith is in the mind, in the depths of the heart’), and because one uses one’s mind to make decisions, hoc crede in verbum dei. Hoc audis et facis, cum dicitur sursum cor (‘use it [the mind] to believe in the Word of God. You hear this and do it, when the words are spoken, Lift up your hearts’).63 And again, Si ergo recte, si fideliter, si deuote, si sancte, si pie ascensionem domini celebramus, ascendamus cum illo, et sursum cor habeamus (‘So if we are to celebrate the Lord’s ascension in the right way, with faith, with devotion, with reverence as godfearing people, we must ascend with him, and lift up our hearts’).64 Augustine poses a task for all Christians that balances choice with determined discipline. One has to make an effort to ascend with Christ, and one truly has to want to be a part of his Body.65 At the same time, one has the choice to turn one’s mind to the Word of God. In this choice lies the great personal responsibility for ensuring both one’s own ascension and, more importantly, the completion of Christ’s Ascension. One way in which one can promote the ascending Christ and participate in the Ascension is by having true faith and striving for a true understanding of God. In Sermon 246 for Thursday during Easter week, Augustine explains, Si Christum Deum credideris aequalem Patri, tunc tetigisti quando ascendit ad Patrem. Ergo ascendit nobis, quando illum recte intelligimus. Semel tunc illo in tempore ascendit, sed modo quotidie ascendit (‘If you have believed Christ is Lord, equal to the Father, then you have touched him when he has ascended to the Father. So he ascended for us when we came to have a right understanding of him. He ascended just once, back at that time; but now he ascends every day’).66 If Christians do not have faith,

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then they cannot touch Christ, he will not ascend for them, and they will not reach the eternal homeland. But every time they have true faith and understand him correctly, he ascends, and they will, eventually, reach heavenly bliss with him, thus participating in and completing the Ascension. The burden of personal responsibility imposed on each Christian, as well as the other points of theology set forth so forcefully and comprehensively in Augustine’s sermons, become standard Ascension teachings, which later authors consistently incorporate into their writings. As we shall see in subsequent chapters, Anglo-Saxon authors, foremost among them Bede and Ælfric, identify strongly with this demand that the Ascension places on each Christian, and they repeatedly remind their audiences of their role in the Ascension as part of the totus Christus. Preaching the Ascension after Augustine: Leo the Great and Gregory the Great Popes Leo the Great (AD 440–61) and Gregory the Great (AD 590–604) are among the most well-known figures to preach on Augustine’s themes, and their Ascension sermons circulated in Anglo-Saxon England. While Augustine’s influence on AngloSaxon texts cannot always be precisely pinpointed,67 two Ascension sermons by Leo (Sermons 73 and 74) and one by Gregory (Gospel Homily 29) were included in Paul the Deacon’s important homiliary, which was heavily used in later Anglo-Saxon England.68 Leo’s and Gregory’s methods of presenting Ascension theology were thus directly transmitted into the hands of Anglo-Saxon churchmen. These two authors provide the link between Augustine and Anglo-Saxon Ascension texts, and their homilies are the most immediate sources through which Anglo-Saxon authors could become familiar with Ascension theology and thematics. Leo and Gregory do not develop any substantially new theology, but they offer a new explication of this theology and present it in ways that are more pedagogically adept than in previous sources. Leo has a knack for explaining the significance of the Ascension from the perspective of believers, drawing attention to the concrete consequences of the Ascension for listeners’ lives. Gregory, for his part, links Ascension theology to themes, some of them new (exalted humanity, the leaps of Christ, the gifts of men), that appeal greatly to Anglo-Saxon authors, who adapt those themes repeatedly in verse and prose.

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Leo the Great preached his Sermons 73 and 74 for the Feast of the Ascension in the years AD 444 and 445, respectively, and even though they are not a continuous document, the two sermons complement each other in Leo’s gradual building of his case.69 His approach is to tie the occasion consistently to the perspective of believers. He speaks less of the ascending Christ than Augustine does and instead focuses on the effect the Ascension has on the individual experience of faith and on access to understanding God and divine grace. One prominent theme in his sermons, already introduced by Augustine, is the tension between seeing and believing.70 Following Augustine, Leo argues that our belief and God’s grace grow stronger when we cannot physically see things, for great souls and faithful spirits are able to fix their desire where they cannot fix their sight.71 This teaching is exemplified by the disciples. After Christ’s death, they were doubtful about the news of his Resurrection. Importantly, for Leo, they experienced this doubt so that Christians could be taught: Nostris igitur perturbationibus, nostris periculis in apostolis consulebatur, nos in illis uiris contra calumnias impiorum, et contra terrenae argumenta sapientiae docebamur, nos illorum instruxit aspectus, nos erudiuit auditus, nos confirmauit adtactus … Dubitatum est ab illis, ne dubitaretur a nobis. [Consequently, it was our doubts, our danger, that was being considered in the apostles. We, in the guise of the apostles, were being instructed against the slanders of the wicked and the proofs of earthly wisdom. Their ‘seeing’ instructed us, their ‘hearing’ informed us, their ‘touching’ strengthened us … They ‘doubted’ so that we need not doubt.]72

As the disciples are confirmed in their faith, we are confirmed in our faith. After the Ascension, physical vision has been replaced by spiritual vision and by the spiritual gifts granted to the Church. Interestingly, Leo also observes, Quod itaque Redemptoris nostri conspicuum fuit, in sacramenta transiuit, et ut fides excellentior esset ac firmior, uisioni doctrina successit, cuius auctoritatem supernis inluminata radiis credentium corda sequerentur (‘What was to be seen of our Redeemer has passed over into the Sacraments. In order that faith might be more perfect and more firm, teaching has taken the place of sight, and to this authority the hearts of believers, illumined by heavenly rays, have conformed’).73 Leo elegantly justifies the physical disappearance of Christ by arguing that the sacraments, and thus faith, have replaced the once visible Christ. Furthermore,

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he strengthens the authority of the preacher and establishes a continuum between the Ascension and the celebration of the Mass that gives the Ascension an immediate, graspable meaning and connects it to the daily experiences of Christians. We will encounter such a linking of Ascension theology to common Christian experiences again in Old English homilies for Rogationtide. Furthermore, in a point similar to Augustine’s notion of bodily and spiritual vision, Leo explains that through Christ’s withdrawal from earth, the disciples gradually learned to accept the lessening importance of bodily perception and the increasing importance of spiritual perception (the dominant theme of Sermon 74). According to Acts, the disciples follow Christ with their eyes as he ascends. In reality, however, Leo states, Totam enim contemplationem animi in Diuinitatem ad Patris dexteram consedentis erexerant, nec iam corporeae uisionis tardabantur obiectu, quominus in id aciem mentis intenderent, quod nec a Patre descendendo afuerat, nec a discipulis ascendendo discesserat. [they had raised the whole gaze of their souls to the divinity of the one sitting at the right hand of the Father. No longer are they held back by any use of bodily sight which would prevent them from looking with sharpness of soul on that one who had neither been absent from the Father by his coming down, nor had departed from the disciples by his Ascension.]74

This waning need for physical touch, sight, and understanding is accompanied by an increasing spiritualization of one’s attention to Christ: glorificati corporis manente natura, eo fides credentium uocabatur, ubi non carnali manu, sed spiritali intellectu, par Genitori Vnigenitus tangeretur (‘the nature of the glorified body remaining, the faith of believers was drawn there where the Only-Begotten Son equal to the Father might be touched not by fleshly hand but by the spiritual intellect’).75 Notably, even as Leo argues for a shift in focus from body to mind, he casts the process of perceiving Christ and the experience of faith in intensely physical, albeit metaphorical, terms. He interprets John 20:17 (Noli me tangere) as a way for Christ to say nolo ut ad me corporaliter uenias … Cum ad Patrem meum ascendero, tunc me perfectius ueriusque palpabis, adprehensura quod non tangis, et creditura quod non uides (‘I do not want you to come to me bodily … When I have ascended to my Father, then you will feel me more perfectly and more truly. You will embrace what you do not touch and believe what you do not see’).76 Leo is of course playing on the verbal and conceptual paradox of ­‘grasping

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without grasping’, but his sermons also demonstrate again how difficult it is to imagine faith and the experience of understanding God in purely immaterial terms or without resorting to language based in a material reality. In this regard, Leo is a precursor to Anglo-Saxon authors who fully convert the abstract doctrines of the Ascension into concrete images with which they can lucidly teach theological content to diverse audience. Even though Leo’s influence on Anglo-Saxon sources is not measurable in precise verbal correspondences, his method of bringing the Ascension close to his audience’s experiences parallels the pedagogical strategies which are employed by Anglo-Saxon authors. Gregory the Great’s impact on Anglo-Saxon Ascension texts is direct and pervasive, by contrast with Leo’s, like his impact on Anglo-Saxon literature more generally.77 Gregory’s Gospel Homily 29 has the distinction of being the patristic Ascension sermon with the single greatest influence in Anglo-Saxon England, serving as an immediate source for Bede’s Homily II.15 and his hymn for the Ascension, Cynewulf’s Christ II, Ælfric’s CH I.21 for Ascension Day, Blickling Homily 11, and Trinity Homily 19, all of which contain passages directly based on or translated from the sermon. The importance of Gregory’s Homily 29 can in part be measured by the extent to which specific motifs that Gregory introduces, for example the ‘gifts of men’ and the ‘leaps of Christ’, become accepted by Anglo-Saxon authors and dispersed throughout the literary corpus. The majority of his sermon is a verse-byverse exegesis of the gospel reading for the day, Mark 16:14–20. Gregory presents many conventional points on the Ascension and preaches the standard doctrines already familiar from Augustine, but he adds distinct interpretations and flourishes.78 This exegetical commentary concluded, he adds a shorter section, for restat ut aliquid de ipsa tantae consideratione sollemnitatis dicamus (‘[i]t remains for me to say something in regard to such a great festival’).79 Gregory departs in content from his predecessors in this section, which contains his most innovative and lasting contributions to the repertoire of Ascension motifs. I select for discussion here two striking and influential examples: the angels appearing at the Ascension and the leaps of Christ.80 These are especially important for my study because they are most clearly linked to Ascension theology, and Gregory prepares the particular way in which Anglo-Saxon authors present them later on. Gregory tackles the question of why the angels appearing at the Ascension wore white garments while those at the Nativity did

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not. He elegantly ties the white garments to the already familiar Ascension theme of the humiliation and exaltation of Christ, an important point emphasized in virtually all subsequent writings on the Ascension. As he explains, white garments signify joy and festivity, making them appropriate for the joyous occasion of the Ascension: Quia nascente Domino uidebatur diuinitas humiliata, ascendente uero Domino humanitas exaltata. Albae etenim uestes exaltationi magis congruunt quam humiliationi. In assumptione ergo eius angeli in albis uestibus uideri debuerunt, quia qui in natiuitate sua apparuit Deus humilis, in ascensione sua ostensus est homo sublimis.81 [When the Lord was born his divinity seemed to have been humbled, whereas when he ascended his humanity was exalted. White garments indeed are more fitting for exaltation than for humiliation. At his assumption it was right that the angels should be seen in white garments because he who appeared as God made humble at his birth was revealed in his ascension as a human being on high.]82

Like Augustine before him, Gregory addresses the theme of the humiliation that Christ experienced by taking on human form, a major theme in patristic discussions of the Ascension. Gregory makes essentially the same point as Augustine about humbled divinity, following it up with the assurance that humanity was, in turn, exalted when Christ ascended in his human nature. Theologically, the important point is that Christ humbled himself to take on human form so that his humanity could, along with his divinity, be glorified in heaven, thereby preparing a place in heaven for all humans. Even though Gregory follows Augustine in terms of theological content, he inventively ties the theme of humiliation and exaltation to the scriptural detail of the white garments. By doing this, he achieves a succinct, nearly aphoristic, formulation of a seminal teaching (diuinitas humiliata – humanitas exaltata) at the same time as he infuses a scriptural detail with unprecedented significance by giving it an exegetical reading. Although the motif of the white garments is not widespread in Anglo-Saxon texts, it appears in some notable places. Most famously, Cynewulf adopts this theme for the opening of Christ II, and Ælfric, in CH I.21, also incorporates Gregory’s explanation. In a well-known passage, Gregory imagines the major moments in Christ’s life as ‘leaps’. The motif of the ‘leaps of Christ’ depicts a dynamic Christ and anticipates the Christ we encounter in AngloSaxon Ascension narratives. Prompted by Song 2:8, Ecce iste venit

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saliens in montibus, transiliens colles (‘behold he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping over the hills’), Gregory applies this verse to the ascending Christ: Veniendo quippe ad redemptionem nostram quosdam, ut ita dixerim, saltus dedit. Vultis, fratres carissimi, ipsos eius saltus agnoscere? De caelo uenit in uterum, de utero uenit in praesepe, de praesepi uenit in crucem, de cruce uenit in sepulcrum, de sepulcro rediit in caelum.83 [By coming for our redemption the Lord gave leaps, if I may say so. Dearest brothers, do you want to recognize those leaps of his? From heaven he came to the womb, from the womb to the manger, from the manger to the cross, from the cross to the sepulchre; and from the sepulchre he returned into heaven.]84

The leaps of Christ connect the most important moments of Christ’s life to the physical locations in which they take place and which have strong symbolic associations in Christian thinking (such as the manger or the cross). This motif appears also in two Anglo-Saxon Ascension texts, Cynewulf’s Christ II, which adds the Harrowing as a leap to Gregory’s five, and Trinity Homily 19, which additionally inserts a leap from hell back to earth for a total of seven. Beyond memorably sketching out Christ’s career, this motif helps explain the significance of the Ascension by connecting to the theme of liminality. Above all, the leaps eloquently speak to the enormous force with which the redemptive act is performed through the Incarnation and the Ascension: it is not a gentle coming – it is a powerful leaping. We see an active Christ, who does not proceed in a steady manner, but dynamically moves – leaps – from one space to another and across boundaries. The perception of Christ as an actively moving Saviour who crosses thresholds and conquers barriers becomes a defining theme in Anglo-Saxon texts that, as we shall see in Chapter 3, speaks to the very nature of Ascension theology itself. Gregory’s Homily 29 left a lasting imprint on the literature of Anglo-Saxon England, though not so much through any sustained exploration of Ascension theology or radically new doctrinal contributions as through the innovative linking of existing doctrines to memorable motifs that appealed a great deal to the literary imagination of Anglo-Saxon authors. I will return to the motifs and themes that I have isolated in the writings of Ambrose, Augustine, Leo, and Gregory in my discussion of Anglo-Saxon texts. Drawing on the themes and iconographic elements first introduced in biblical sources such as Paul’s letters and the psalms, patristic theologians emphasize

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Christ’s dual nature, his simultaneous absence and presence, the totus Christus, the tension between seeing and believing, the importance of Christ’s opening of heaven to humanity, and the personal responsibility all Christians bear for following in Christ’s footsteps and ascending themselves. All these teachings are thematically and conceptually marked by liminality in reflection of the essential duality of Christ. Tradition and innovation: the Ascension in Anglo-Saxon England As patristic Ascension doctrines moved into Anglo-Saxon England, they were absorbed and maintained by Anglo-Saxon authors, most immediately by Bede, the earliest, most prominent heir to the patristic tradition, and then by subsequent authors who preached the Ascension and taught its theology. How can the relationship between patristic and early medieval sources be defined? The content of the theology is remarkably consistent throughout the Anglo-Saxon period when compared to that developed by the Church Fathers, as little new doctrinal matter is developed and its core remained stable after Augustine. The insular authors whose texts I examine in the following chapters have largely the same theo­logical preoccupations with the Ascension as those found in biblical and patristic sources. Anglo-Saxon authors show awareness of standard patristic theology and aim to teach it faithfully, including those writers whom scholarship has considered less learned or sophisticated, often because they give conventional theology a vernacular inflection and their imagery seems unconventional. The main priority for Anglo-Saxon authors is to teach Ascension theology, not to produce it. What is different, then, is the presentation of this theology, the means by which authors teach it, and their didactic focus. They adopt patristic theology and generate creative ways of teaching it, whether in religious poetry (Christ II), hymn (Bede’s hymn on the Ascension), or homilies (Bede’s and Ælfric’s Ascension homilies, Blickling Homily 11, Trinity Homily 19). Different Anglo-Saxon authors find new ways of presenting conventional theological content, introducing their own interpretations and adding new perspectives to a stable doctrinal core.85 When patristic theology is applied to Anglo-Saxon literature and religious culture, it both remains theology in literature and becomes praxis. Theology becomes transformed into concrete images that let homilists – and thus presumably also their ­audiences – vividly

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imagine the places of the Ascension (the Mount of Olives and the celestial city) and the events that occurred there. Theology is also reflected in practices that re-enact the events of the Ascension, allowing those who celebrate the occasion to participate in its journey as a way of experiencing and understanding its theology. The move of patristic theology into Anglo-Saxon England is a move from the abstract to the concrete, from theology to narrative and practice, from the explication of theology to the expression of theology in a variety of concrete images and practices, in textual, visual, and ritual forms. While the theological message remains grounded in patristic writings, the themes, motifs, images, and practices by which it is taught are not all adopted from patristic writings. They derive from diverse sources and take on diverse forms. Drawing on a wide range of sources for inspiration, both for doctrinal content and for specific motifs, the uniqueness of Anglo-Saxon works lies in their simultaneous familiarity with the patristic tradition and their innovative presentation of this traditional material. The remainder of this book explores how this relationship between form and content is manifested in Anglo-Saxon literature. Even as Anglo-Saxon Ascension texts take on diverse forms and expressions, they are nonetheless unified by a category that bridges theology, literary forms, and praxis: liminality. The theology of the Ascension is fundamentally liminal in nature, concerned in its very essence with the movement from one space to another and the simultaneous inhabiting of two states or spaces. All of the core teachings of the Ascension are marked by liminality, and, as I argue throughout this book, the images, motifs, and practices chosen by AngloSaxons to teach these doctrines reflect this liminality, making them ideally suited to convey the theological content of the Ascension. How this liminal theology is expressed in Anglo-Saxon England through homiletic descriptions of the Church of the Ascension in the Holy Land forms the subject of the following chapter. Notes  1 Ælfric, Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies, The Second Series, ed. Malcolm Godden, EETS ss 5 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979). All references to the second series of Catholic Homilies are to this edition, cited by series, homily number, page number, and line number. Translation is mine.  2 Only the two Lucan accounts (Luke 24:50–3; Acts 1:3–12) can be

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considered ‘authentic’, that is, they were included in scripture at the time of the original writing. Mark’s Ascension passage belongs to the spurious ‘long ending’ of the gospel (16:9–19) that is accepted by Bible scholars as a later interpolation; see Bruce M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 2nd edn (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 226–9. Medieval authors, of course, consider the entirety of the gospels as canonical. For the early history and formation of the New Testament, see Metzger, The Text of the New Testament; Metzger, The Early Versions of the New Testament: Their Origin, Transmission, and Limitations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977); and Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press; Assen/Maastricht: Van Gorcum, 1992).  3 Jesus manifested himself to the women at the grave/Mary Magdalene (Matt. 28:1–10; Mark 16:9–11; John 20:11–18), to the travellers to Emmaus/into the countryside (Mark 16:12–13; Luke 24:13–35), to the disciples (Matt. 28:16–20; Mark 16:14–18; Luke 24:36–43; John 20:19–23 and 21:1–14; Acts 1:1–14), and to doubting Thomas (only in John 20:24–9). In Matt. 28:9, the two Marys embrace Jesus’ feet; in Luke 24:42–3, Jesus eats broiled fish and a honeycomb; in John 20:27–8, Thomas puts his fingers into the wounds of Christ.  4 The mechanism of the Ascension was debated during the early Christian period, finally settling on the consensus that Christ ascended by his own power, in contrast to Enoch and Elijah who were lifted up with divine help.  5 All biblical quotations are from Biblia Sacra iuxta vulgatam versionem, ed. Robert Weber, 4th edn (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994); punctuation and capitalization are added. All translations of biblical texts are from The Holy Bible (Douay-Rheims Version) (New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons, 1950 [1609]).  6 John includes no direct description of the Ascension, instead only obliquely referring to it, for example in 20:17, where Jesus says, Noli me tangere, nondum enim ascendi ad Patrem meum (‘Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father’). J. G. Davies, He Ascended Into Heaven: A Study in the History of Doctrine (New York: Association Press, 1958), p. 44, remarks that John includes ‘several unequivocal references to the Ascension’, including 3:13 and 6:63.  7 Davies, He Ascended Into Heaven, pp. 35–9, argues that, despite the inauthentic ending of Chapter 16, Mark’s gospel shows convincing evidence of a belief in the Ascension in other passages (for example, 8:38 and 14:62). A. W. Zwiep, The Ascension of the Messiah in Lukan Christology, Supplements to Novum Testamentum 87 (Leiden: Brill, 1997), pp. 11–12, sees Davies as overly accepting of references to Christ’s exaltation, session, and parousia as evidence for the Ascension. Despite its date, Davies’s study is still a useful source for a record of

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biblical and patristic writings on the Ascension. Zwiep, The Ascension of the Messiah, pp. 1–35, offers a useful summary of the history of Ascension scholarship.  8 On the significance of the location and its name, see Thomas D. Hill, ‘Bethania, the House of Obedience: The Old English Christ II, 45667’, N&Q new series, 27 (1980), 290–2.  9 Because of this disagreement, Gerhard Lohfink, Die Himmelfahrt Jesu – Erfindung oder Erfahrung, Kleine Reihe zur Bibel 18 (Stuttgart: KBW Verlag, 1972), pp. 50–66, has argued that Luke single-­handedly added the Ascension to the New Testament, modelled on the Entrückungen (abrupt removals, raptures) of Elijah and Enoch in the Old Testament, to shift focus from the expectation of an imminent parousia to the missionary calling of the burgeoning Church. For a more detailed discussion of this, see Lohfink, Die Himmelfahrt Jesu: Untersuchungen zu den Himmelfahrts- und Erhöhungstexten bei Lukas, Studien zum Alten und Neuen Testament 26 (Munich: Kösel-Verlag, 1971), pp. 74–9, 251–75. See Zwiep, The Ascension of the Messiah, pp. 20–8, for an assessment of Lohfink’s contributions to Ascension scholarship. 10 Davies, He Ascended into Heaven, pp. 60–1, argues that Paul sees the Ascension as the moment of glorification when Christ is elevated to the status of Lord and enthroned in heaven. 11 Other New Testament passages also refer to ascending/descending, to an exalted Christ, or to bestowals by the Holy Spirit and have been interpreted as referring to the Ascension: Rom. 10:6–7; 1 Cor. 12:7–11; Phil. 2:8–11; 1 Tim. 3:16; Heb. 1:3 and 2:9; and 1 Pet. 3:18–22. It should be noted that none of these passages clearly posits an ascension that is temporally or conceptually independent from the Resurrection. 12 Gregory the Great, for example, in Gospel Homily 29 on the Ascension, exegetically reads the raptures of Elijah and Enoch in comparison to Christ’s Ascension, a reading that Ælfric adopts in his homily on the Ascension. Other Old Testament passages have been linked to the Ascension. 3 Kgs 19:8 reports Elijah walking for forty days and nights, which might have provided a model for the forty-day interval between the Resurrection and the Ascension in Acts 1:3. Based on parallel narrative elements, Davies, He Ascended into Heaven, pp. 24–5, suggests that Luke 24 is modelled after Tob. 12:16–21. He also sees Dan. 7:9–14 as prefiguring Christ’s Ascension, since 7:13–14 especially speaks of a triumphal coming in a cloud of the son of man to the Ancient of Days. Influenced by Ezekiel’s vision of the winged chariot with four beasts’ heads (Ezek. 1:4–28 and 10:8–14), some of the earliest visual representations of Christ’s Ascension depict him ascending on such a ‘beastly’ chariot and/or on a cloud, the latter element presumably in reference to Acts. For more on the vision’s relation to the Ascension, see Brian Ó Broin, ‘Rex Christus Ascendens: The Christological Cult of the Ascension in Anglo-Saxon England’ (PhD dissertation, University of Illinois at

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Urbana-Champaign, 2002), pp. 3–7. On the influence of Ezekiel’s vision on early Ascension iconography, see S. Helena Gutberlet, Die Himmelfahrt Christi in der bildenden Kunst von den Anfängen bis ins hohe Mittelalter (Strassburg: Heitz, 1934), pp. 50–9, 104–7. 13 Christ is, of course, made bodily present in the Eucharist, but the immediate effect of the Ascension is Christ’s physical absence to prove his divinity and to increase faith in his apostles, as patristic authors assert. 14 Davies, He Ascended Into Heaven; Douglas Farrow, Ascension and Ecclesia (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), pp. 129–64; Lohfink, Die Himmelfahrt Jesu: Untersuchungen, pp. 80–146. On the history of Ascension iconography in art, see Ernest T. Dewald, ‘The Iconography of the Ascension’, American Journal of Archaeology, 2nd series, 19 (1915), 277–319; Gutberlet, Die Himmelfahrt Christi; and Hubert Schrade, ‘Zur Ikonographie der Himmelfahrt Christi’, Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg, 8 (1928/29), 66–190. For more on the Ascension in art, especially as it relates to the spatial conception of Ascension theology, see Chapter 5. 15 Georg Röwekamp, ‘Einleitung’, in Egeria, Itinerarium/Reisebericht, trans. Georg Röwekamp, Fontes Christiani 20 (Freiburg: Herder, 1995), pp. 9–117, at p. 100, places the development of an independent feast day in the fifth century. In contrast, Davies, He Ascended Into Heaven, pp. 192–8, argues for the early fourth century. Josef A. Jungmann, Liturgie der christlichen Frühzeit bis auf Gregor den Grossen (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag Freiburg Schweiz, 1967), p. 253, states that the Ascension began to be celebrated in the fourth century; A. Allan McArthur, The Evolution of the Christian Year (London: SCM Press, 1953), p. 157, puts this in the late fourth century. 16 Lohfink, Die Himmelfahrt Jesu – Erfindung oder Erfahrung, p. 82. 17 Röwekamp, ‘Einleitung’, p. 63. 18 Egeria, Itinerarium/Reisebericht, trans. Röwekamp, pp. 284–7. Egeria Itinerarium/Reisebericht, pp. 286–93, also describes celebrations for Pentecost, during which the Ascension story was read from Acts. Also see E. D. Hunt, Holy Land Pilgrimage in the Later Roman Empire AD 312–460 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), p. 113. For Egeria’s possible identity, homeland, and her itinerary, see Röwekamp, ‘Einleitung’, pp. 12–21, 29–33. 19 Jerome, Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi Epistulae, Pars II: Epistulae LXXICXX, ed. Isidor Hilberg, 2nd edn, CSEL 55 (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1996), pp. 306–51, at p. 320, line 10. Jerome mentions that Christ ascended from the Mount of Olives in Epistulae 46, 59, and 108 (CSEL 54 and 55). For a discussion of Jerome’s unexpectedly curt treatment of the Mount of Olives in Letter 108, see Rodney Aist, ‘St. Jerome’s Images of Jerusalem,

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Bethlehem and the Mount of Olives: A Critical Investigation of Epistula 108’, Holy Land Studies, 4.1 (2005), 41–54. As a major patristic figure, one might expect Jerome to comment on the Ascension, but he does not develop a sustained discussion of it in surviving materials. He apparently accepted it as a discrete event and is aware of scriptural passages relevant to the Ascension; see Davies, He Ascended Into Heaven, pp. 107–11. Jerome’s interest in holy sites anticipates one strand of medieval Ascension narratives that is interested in tangible testaments to Christ’s physicality – the topography, architecture, and miraculous nature of the place of the Ascension. For more on the earliest Holy Land reports, see Hunt, Holy Land Pilgrimage; Herbert Donner, Pilgerfahrt ins Heilige Land. Die ältesten Berichte christlicher Palästinapilger (4.–7. Jahrhundert), 2nd edn (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2002); and John Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades, 2nd edn (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 2002), who translates (some in excerpts) known sources on the Holy Land from Jerome’s Letter 108 (AD 385), pp. 79–91, to Rodulfus Glaber’s History (AD 1033). 20 See Augustine’s Ascension sermons 261–5, in which he repeatedly mentions the forty-day interval and which in themselves attest to established Ascension celebrations by this time. 21 Davies, He Ascended Into Heaven, pp. 74–7, 89–93. In the mid-third century, Novatian uses the Ascension in De Trinitate to develop his ideas on the Incarnation, emphasizing the dual nature of Christ, but also asserting his full divinity. He insists that Christ descended as God and ascended as God and man; see Davies, He Ascended Into Heaven, p. 89. Origen (c.185–c.254) opens the Ascension up to figurative interpretation; he rejects the Ascension as a literal, spatial event, since Christ as God cannot be circumscribed by space; see Davies, He Ascended Into Heaven, pp. 91–2. Farrow, Ascension and Ecclesia, pp. 87–129, considers Origen and Augustine as foundational thinkers for Ascension theology; as he puts it, ‘With Origen and Augustine the die was cast’ (p. 129). 22 Davies, He Ascended Into Heaven, pp. 76–7. Irenaeus discusses Christ’s work as recapitulation, for example, in the following passages of Adversus Haereses (cited by book, chapter, and section): 3.23.1, 5.21.1, and 5.21.3; Irenaeus, Contre les Hérésies, Sources Chrétiennes 100, 152, 210, 263, 293, ed. Adelin Rousseau et al. (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1965–82). A translation is Irenaeus, ‘Irenæus Against Heresies’, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume I: The Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenæus, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, rev. A. Cleveland Coxe (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1913 [1885]), pp. 315–567. 23 Before Irenaeus, Justin Martyr (d. c.165) was the most extensive textual witness to the Ascension, mentioning it in proto-credal formulas and developing an early Christology for it. He also seems to have been the first to use Psalm 23 for a brief dialogue scene at Christ’s return to

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heaven in Chapter 36 of his Dialogus cum Tryphone; Justin Martyr, Iustini Martyris Dialogus cum Tryphone, ed. Miroslav Marcovich, Patristische Texte und Studien 47 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1997), pp. 130–2. For a translation, see Justin Martyr, ‘Dialogue of Justin, Philosopher and Martyr, with Trypho, a Jew’, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume I: The Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenæus, ed. Roberts and Donaldson, pp. 194–270, at pp. 212–13. For more on Justin Martyr’s writings on the Ascension, see Davies, He Ascended Into Heaven, pp. 71–3. 24 Ascensio Isaiae, ed. Paolo Bettiolo et al., Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum 7 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1995), pp. 122–7. 25 In a variation on the theme, Psalm 23 appears in Chapter 21 of the influential apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, in which the psalm is, however, applied to the Harrowing of Hell. For more on the Gospel, see Chapter 3, note 48. 26 The first sermons for Ascension also appear in the late fourth century, attesting to its development into an independent feast day. The earliest surviving Ascension homily is by the Cappadocian Father Gregory of Nyssa, preached in AD 388, and consists of conventional materials; Gregory of Nyssa, ‘In Ascensionem Christi’, ed. Ernst Gebhardt, in Gregorii Nysseni Opera, Volumen IX: Sermones, Pars I, ed. Günter Heil et al. (Leiden: Brill, 1967), pp. 323–7. While Gregory’s homily sets a milestone in the evolution of Ascension literature, his writings had no direct impact on Anglo-Saxon authors. For the sermon’s date, see Gregory of Nyssa, ‘Homélie sur l’Ascension’, in Le Christ Pascal, Les Pères dans la Foi 55 (Paris: Migne, 1994), p. 101. 27 Ambrose’s De Fide was known in Anglo-Saxon England and is quoted and cited by Bede and Alcuin; see Michael Lapidge, The AngloSaxon Library (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 194, 277. Also see Dabney A. Bankert, Jessica Wegmann, and Charles D. Wright, Ambrose in Anglo-Saxon England with Pseudo-Ambrose and Ambrosiaster, Old English Newsletter Subsidia 25 (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997), www.mun.ca/Ansaxdat/ ambrose/listing.html (accessed 30 October 2012). De Fide survives in four late eleventh-century English manuscripts; see Helmut Gneuss, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, MRTS 241 (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001), nos. 593, 594.5, 605, and 739. 28 Ambrose, De Fide, III 1, 1. Ambrose, Sancti Ambrosii Opera, Pars Octava: De Fide [Ad Gratianvm Avgvstvm], ed. Otto Faller, CSEL 78 (Vienna: Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1962), pp. 158–9, ll. 1–5. 29 Ambrose, De Fide, IIII 1, 5–6 (CSEL 78, pp. 159–60, ll. 17–30). Ambrose of Milan, ‘Exposition of the Christian Faith’, trans. H. de Romestin, in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the

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Christian Church, 2nd series, vol. X, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1896), pp. 201–314, at p. 263. All translations of De Fide are taken from this edition. 30 Ambrose, De Fide, IIII 1, 7 (CSEL 78, p. 160, ll. 30–5). 31 Ambrose, ‘Exposition’, p. 263. 32 Ambrose, De Fide, IIII 1, 9–14 (CSEL 78, pp. 160–1, ll. 44–63). 33 Ambrose, ‘Exposition’, p. 263 (brackets and emphasis in original). 34 Ambrose, De Fide, IIII 2, 15 and 19–26 (CSEL 78, p. 162, ll. 7–11 and pp. 163–5, ll. 25–73). 35 At least sixteen manuscripts or manuscript fragments with English connections containing Augustinian sermons survive from before 1100; see Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Library, pp. 290–1. Gneuss, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, p. 155, lists fourteen manuscripts. For interest in Augustine’s sermons in Anglo-Saxon England, see Thomas N. Hall, ‘The Bibliography of Anglo-Saxon Sermon Manuscripts’, in Old English Scholarship and Bibliography: Essays in Honor of Carl T. Berkhout, ed. Jonathan Wilcox, Old English Newsletter Subsidia 32 (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2004), pp. 85-105. 36 For the contents of Paul the Deacon’s homiliary, see Réginald Grégoire, Homéliaires liturgiques médiévaux: analyse de manuscrits (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’alto Medioevo, 1980), pp. 423–78. For Bede’s citations of Augustine’s sermons, see Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Library, p. 203. 37 In contrast to other influential early Christian authors, Augustine does not cite Psalm 23 in his sermons, perhaps showing his lack of interest in a concrete envisioning of Christ’s Entry into heaven. Augustine seems most interested in the soteriological implications of the Ascension. 38 Sermo 261.1; Augustine, Sancti Aurelii Augustini Hipponensis Episcopi Sermones Selecti Duodeviginti, ed. D. C. Lambot, Stromata Patristica et Mediaevalia 1 (Utrecht: In Aedibus Spectrum, 1950), p. 88, ll. 1–2. Augustine, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, Sermons, vol. III/7, trans. Edmund Hill (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1993), p. 206. All translations of Augustine’s sermons are taken from this edition, cited as Hill, sermon number, and section number; when referencing sermons only by number, I use Hill’s numbering system. 39 Sermo Morin Guelferbytanus 22.2 (PLS col. 592); Hill 263.2. Augustine calls both the Resurrection and the Ascension the glorification of Christ; see Sermo 263.1 (PL 38:1209), Sermo 265.8 (PL 38:1222), and Sermo 265.12 (PL 38:1224). 40 Sermo 264.1 (PL 38:1212); Hill 264.1. 41 Sermo Lambot 16 (PLS col. 805); Hill 265E.2. See Sermo 264.4 (PL 38:1215) for a similar passage discussing Christ’s humiliation. 42 Sermo Mai 98 (PLS col. 496); Hill 263A.3. Also see Sermo Casinensis

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2, 76.2 (PLS, col. 531; Hill 265B.2) and Sermo 261.7 (PL 38:1206; Hill 261.7) for the same or similar point. 43 Sermo 264.6 (PL 38:1218); Hill 264.6. 44 Augustine returns repeatedly to the forty-day interval in his sermons, which suggests that he attributed considerable significance to it or at least that it needed to be explained. For other interpretations of the forty-day period, see Sermo Mai 98 (PLS cols. 496–7; Hill 263A.4), Sermo 264.5 (PL 38:1216; Hill 264.5), and Sermo Casinensis 2, 76.1 (PLS col. 531; Hill 265B.1). 45 In Sermo 265.1 (PL 38:1219), for example, he says, Posteaquam se reddidit oculis intuendum, manibus contrectandum, aedificans fidem, exhibendo veritatem and conversatus est cum eis in terra quadraginta diebus, intrans et exiens, manducans et bibens: ut exhiberet veritatem, non quod haberet necessitatem (‘So he gave himself back to their eyes to gaze upon, to their hands to touch and feel, thus building up their faith by presenting them with the truth’; and ‘he lived with them on earth for forty days, going in and coming out, eating and drinking; this was to drive home the reality, not because he was under any necessity’; Hill 265.1). For Augustine’s comparison of Christ to a hen, see Sermo 264.2 (PL 38:1213) and Sermo 265.11 (PL 38:1224). 46 See Sermo 264.2 (PL 38:1213) for the same point. 47 Sermo 264.4 (PL 38:1214); Hill 264.4. 48 Sermo 264.4 (PL 38:1215); Hill 264.4. 49 Sermo 263.3 (PLS col. 593); Hill 263.3. For similar passages, the first three of which also quote Matt. 28:20, see Sermon 261.11 (Augustine, Sancti Aurelii Sermones, ed. Lambot, p. 94, ll. 12–14; Hill 261.11); Sermo Liverani Augustinus 8 (PLS col. 530; Hill 265A.7); Sermo Casinensis 2, 76.3 (PLS 2, col. 532; Hill 265B.3); and Sermo Lambot 25 (PLS col. 829; Hill 265F.3). As Matt. 28:20 is the last verse of the book, the promise of Christ’s continuous presence is a powerful final statement of this gospel. 50 Sermo 264.2 (PL 38:1212–13); Hill 264.2. 51 Sermo 265.2 (PL 38:1219); Hill 265.2. For a statement on the necessity of believing, but also with the promise of future seeing, see Sermo 261.3 (Augustine, Sancti Aurelii Sermones, ed. Lambot, p. 90, ll. 18–19): Simul ergo modo credendo quaeramus, ut simul postea uidendo gaudeamus (‘So let us both seek together now by believing, so that later on we may both rejoice together by seeing’; Hill 261.3). 52 Sermo Morin Guelferbytanus 21.3 (PLS col. 593; Hill 263.3) and Sermo Morin Guelferbytanus 20.2 (PLS col. 591; Hill 265C.2). 53 Sermo 264.2 (PL 38:1213). Augustine similarly states that the mind is of more value than the eyes and that if one had to choose between the eyes of the body or the mind, one should choose the mind since that is what makes one human; see Sermo Morin Guelferbytanus 20.2 (PLS col. 590; Hill 265C.2).

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54 Sermo 264.4 (PL 38:1213). In Sermo Liverani Augustinus 8.6 (PLS col. 530), Augustine explains that Jesus told the disciples that the form of his body had to be removed ut ab oculis carnis servi forma remota dominum spiritualiter videre possitis (‘so that you may be able spiritually to see the Lord, once the form of a servant has been removed from in front of your eyes of flesh’; Hill 265A.6). 55 Scholars have made such a thematic identification not only for Augustinian writings, but for all those that address Christ’s withdrawal from earth as a means of encouraging faith; see, for example, Leo the Great, Sermons, trans. Jane Patricia Freeland and Agnes Josephine Conway, The Fathers of the Church 93 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1996), p. 322; and Ó Broin, ‘Rex Christus Ascendens’, pp. 59–61. 56 For a discussion of Augustine’s concept of bodily versus mental vision, see Margaret Miles, ‘Vision: The Eye of the Body and the Eye of the Mind in Saint Augustine’s De trinitate and Confessions’, The Journal of Religion, 63.2 (1983), 125–42. 57 Sermo Mai 98.1 (PLS col. 494); Hill 263A.1. 58 For other instances of Augustine’s use of the totus Christus in his Ascension preaching, see Sermo Mai 98.3 (PLS col. 496; Hill 263A.3) (where he connects it to John 3:13); Sermo 264.6 (PL 38:1218); and Sermo 265.2 (PL 38:1219) (where he connects it and the Ascension with the Final Judgement). For a discussion of the totus Christus in Augustinian writings, including the Ascension sermons, see William H. Marrevee, The Ascension of Christ in the Works of St. Augustine (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1967), pp. 125–52. 59 Sermo Mai 98.2 (PLS col. 495); Hill 263A.2. 60 Sermo Mai 98.1 (PLS col. 494); Hill 263A.1. 61 This demand for a focused mental method to achieve a personal ascension is similarly expressed by Cynewulf in Christ II with his metaphor of the ‘sea of this life’ (ll. 850–66), addressed in the Introduction. Like Augustine, Cynewulf promotes a directing – an anchoring – of the mind in a heavenly harbour before one can reach this safe haven both spiritually and bodily at Judgement Day. 62 Sermo Morin Guelferbytanus 20.1 (PLS col. 589); Hill 265C.1. 63 Sermo Morin Guelferbytanus 20.2 (PLS col. 591); Hill 265C.2. 64 Sermo 261.1 (Augustine, Sancti Aurelii Sermones, ed. Lambot, p. 88); Hill 261.1 (emphasis in original). 65 See, for example, Sermo Mai 98 (PLS cols. 495–6), where Augustine says that cum ascendit in caelum, nos ab illo non separamur. Qui descendit ab caelo, non nobis invidet caelum, sed quodammodo clamat: Mea membra estote, si ascendere vultis in caelum (‘when [Christ] ascends into heaven, we are not separated from him. The one who came down from heaven doesn’t envy us heaven, but in a kind of way cries out, “Be my members, if you wish to ascend into heaven”’; Hill 263A.2).

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66 Sermo 246.4 (PL 38:1155); Hill 246.4. 67 Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Library, p. 203, gives only a single citation of Augustine’s Ascension sermons in Bede’s corpus. In contrast, Bede quotes Gregory the Great’s Gospel Homily 29 on the Ascension six times (p. 210), and Ælfric quotes Gregory nine times in two of his sermons (p. 259). 68 Leo’s Homilies 73 and 74 and Gregory’s Homily 29 are the only sermons in the homiliary for Ascension Day. Paul the Deacon gives selections from Augustine’s Tractates on John as a sermon for Ascension Eve, but includes none of his sermons for Ascension proper; Bede’s Homily II.16 is included for the Sunday after Ascension; see Grégoire, Homéliaires liturgiques médiévaux, pp. 450, 458. On Paul the Deacon’s homiliary in Anglo-Saxon England, see Cyril L. Smetana, ‘Aelfric and the Early Medieval Homiliary’, Traditio, 15 (1959), 163–204; Smetana, ‘Paul the Deacon’s Patristic Anthology’, in The Old English Homily and Its Backgrounds, ed. Paul E. Szarmach and Bernard F. Huppé (Albany: SUNY Press, 1978), pp. 75–97; and Mary Clayton, ‘Homiliaries and Preaching in Anglo-Saxon England’, Peritia, 4 (1985), 207–42, at pp. 210–12 and 217–20. See also the many publications on Ælfric by Joyce Hill, for example ‘Ælfric and Smaragdus’, Anglo-Saxon England, 21 (1992), 203–37; ‘Ælfric’s Sources Reconsidered: Some Case Studies from the Catholic Homilies’, in Studies in English Language and Literature. ‘Doubt Wisely’: Papers in Honour of E. G. Stanley, ed. M. J. Toswell and E. M. Tyler (New York: Routledge, 1996), pp. 362–86; ‘Translating the Tradition: Manuscripts, Models and Methodologies in the Composition of Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies’, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 79 (1997), 43–65; and ‘Ælfric’s Manuscript of Paul the Deacon’s Homiliary: A Provisional Analysis’, in Old English Homily, ed. Szarmach and Huppé, pp. 67–96. On early medieval sermon collections more gene­ rally, see Thomas N. Hall, ‘The Early Medieval Sermon’, in The Sermon, ed. Beverly Mayne Kienzle, Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental 81–3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), pp. 203–69. 69 For the sermons’ dates, see Leo the Great, Sermons, p. 322. 70 This theme is prompted for Leo by two passages in the Gospel of John: the Noli me tangere scene between Jesus and Mary (John 20:17) and Jesus’ blessing of those who believe without seeing (John 20:29). 71 Leo the Great, Tractatus LXXIV.1, in Sancti Leonis Magni Romani Pontificis Tractatus Septem et Nonaginta, ed. Antoine Chavasse, CCSL 138A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1973), pp. 455–6, ll. 1–33. 72 Leo the Great, Tractatus LXXIII.1 (CCSL 138A, p. 451, ll. 19–26); Leo the Great, Sermons, p. 323. 73 Leo the Great, Tractatus LXXIV.2 (CCSL 138A, p. 457, ll. 42–5); Leo the Great, Sermons, p. 326.

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74 Leo the Great, Tractatus LXXIV.3 (CCSL 138A, pp. 457–8, ll. 58–63); Leo the Great, Sermons, p. 327. 75 Leo the Great, Tractatus LXXIV.4 (CCSL 138A, p. 458, ll. 70–3); Leo the Great, Sermons, p. 327. 76 Leo the Great, Tractatus LXXIV.4 (CCSL 138A, pp. 458–9, ll. 77–81); Leo the Great, Sermons, pp. 327–8. 77 Gregory was one of the most influential and most popular patristic writers in Anglo-Saxon England, in part due to his championing of the (re)conversion of the English in the late sixth century. For Gregory’s reception in north-west medieval Europe, see Rolf H. Bremmer Jr, Kees Dekker, and David F. Johnson, eds, Rome and the North: The Early Reception of Gregory the Great in Germanic Europe, Mediaevalia Groningana New Series 4 (Leuven: Peeters, 2001). As Bremmer, Kees, and Johnson state in their Introduction, ‘No Pope has influenced the literary heritage of the Germanic world between 700 and 1300 more than has Gregory the Great’ (p. ix). Thomas N. Hall, ‘The Early English Manuscripts of Gregory the Great’s Homilies on the Gospel and Homilies on Ezechiel: A Preliminary Survey’, in Rome and the North, ed. Bremmer et al., pp. 115–36, presents a useful overview of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts (to c.1125) containing Gregory’s homiletic works and demonstrates their wide distribution in Anglo-Saxon England. 78 For example, a comparison of Christ’s Ascension to the ascensions of Enoch and Elijah belongs to standard Ascension material, but Gregory interprets the three ascensions as representing increasing degrees of chastity. 79 Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Evangelia, ed. Raymond Étaix, CCSL 141 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), p. 251, ll. 180–1; Gregory the Great, Forty Gospel Homilies, trans. David Hurst, Cistercian Studies 123 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1990), p. 232. 80 Two additional influential themes are God’s gifts to men and the image of Christ and the Church as celestial bodies. Gregory includes a list of gifts of men, based on both Ps. 67:19 and 1 Cor. 12:8–10; see Homilia 29.10 (CCSL 141, p. 253, ll. 214–18). Cynewulf adopts this motif for Christ II, developing it into an extended passage (ll. 659–82); it also appears in Gifts of Men and Fortunes of Men. Gregory elaborates the image of Christ as sun and the Church as moon, an interpretation of Hab. 3:11 (LXX), as both the open preaching of Christianity after a time of secrecy and as the expansion of the Church through preaching the Gospel; see Homilia 29.10 (CCSL 141, p. 253, ll. 221–6). The most famous Old English version of this is again found in Christ II; see Charles D. Wright, ‘The Persecuted Church and the Mysterium Lunae: Cynewulf’s Ascension, lines 252b–272 (Christ II, lines 691b–711)’, in Latin Learning and English Lore: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Literature for Michael Lapidge, ed. Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe and Andy Orchard

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(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), II, pp. 293–314. The motif of the sun in association with the Ascension is widespread. For example, Blickling Homily 11 opens with Hab. 3:11, likening Christ as sol iustitiae to the properties of the sun. Gregory’s Homily 29 also had subtler impact on Anglo-Saxon Ascension writings; for example, Bede draws on it for his biblical commentaries without adopting any particular motifs; see Gregory, Forty Gospel Homilies, p. 235. 81 Gregory, Homilia 29.9 (CCSL 141, p. 252, ll. 192–7). 82 Gregory, Forty Gospel Homilies, pp. 232–3. 83 Gregory, Homilia 29.10 (CCSL 141, pp. 253–4, ll. 229–34). 84 Gregory, Forty Gospel Homilies, p. 234. I have made slight changes to the translation. 85 While Anglo-Saxon authors work innovatively through conventional patristic materials, they are also influenced by theological and homiletic developments on the Continent. For the impact of continental preaching and reform movements on Anglo-Saxon preaching, see, for example, Clayton, ‘Homiliaries and Preaching in Anglo-Saxon England’; Catherine Cubitt, ‘Review Article: The Tenth-Century Benedictine Reform in England’, Early Medieval Europe, 6 (1997), 77–94, esp. at pp. 78–83; Nancy M. Thompson, ‘The Carolingian De Festiuitatibus and the Blickling Book’, in The Old English Homily: Precedent, Practice, and Appropriation, ed. Aaron J Kleist, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 17 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 97–119; Joyce Hill, ‘Ælfric, Gregory and the Carolingians’, in Roma, Magistra Mundi: Itineraria Culturae Medievalis. Mélanges offerts au Père L. E. Boyle à l’occasion de son 75e anniversaire, ed. Jacqueline Hamesse, Fédération internationale des instituts d’études médiévales, textes et études du Moyen Âge 10.1 (Louvain-la-Neuve: Fédération internationale des instituts d’études médiévales, 1998), pp. 409–23; and Hill, ‘The Litaniae maiores and minores in Rome, Francia, and AngloSaxon England: Terminology, Texts and Traditions’, Early Medieval Europe, 9 (2000), 211–46. Also see Hill’s publications in note 68.

2 God’s footprints: material symbolism in the Old English Martyrology and Blickling Homily 11

Halfway through his sermon, the homilist of item 11 (for Ascension Day) in the late tenth-century sermon collection known as the Blickling Homilies abruptly turns away from explicating the pericope for the day to inform listeners of the following curious fact: Swylce eac we leorniaþ, men, þæt þa men secgaþ þa þe þyder ferdon & eft hider coman, þæt seo stow þe Drihten lichomlice nehst on stod her on middangearde, ær þon þe he þurh his mennisce gecynd in heofenas astige, – þæt seo is nu get æt þysne andweardan dæg mid manegum godcundum wuldrum swiþe healice geweorþod for manna eagum. […] Forlét he ure Drihten his þa halgan fét þær on þa eorþan besíncan mannum to ecre gemynde.1 [Equally also we learn, men, that those people who travelled there and came back again say that the place on which the Lord last stood bodily here on earth, before he ascended through his human nature to the heavens, that it is now still to this present day very greatly honoured with many divine glories before the eyes of men. […] Our Lord let his holy feet sink into the earth there as eternal reminder for people.]

Not only can Christ’s footprints still be seen on the Mount of Olives as proof of the Ascension, but they were specifically left to teach people. The homilist’s attention is entirely absorbed by this particular motif, which is grounded in a spatial understanding of the Ascension and its theology, while also being fiercely material and specifically located: the footprints of Christ on the Mount of Olives.2 Once he has come upon the subject of the wondrous place of Christ’s Ascension and what it can teach, he enthusiastically pursues it for the rest of the homily and binds into it the theological message of his preaching occasion. As the passage also indicates, this concrete way of representing the Ascension is linked to a firm belief in the power of place and the importance of the communal

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experience of this liturgical occasion. Among Anglo-Saxon narratives, only two texts make Christ’s footsteps central to their teaching: the section for Ascension Day in the ninth-century Old English Martyrology and Blickling Homily 11, bearing the title ‘On þa halgan þúnres dei’ (‘On Holy Thursday’) in the manuscript.3 Both texts devote considerable space to the description of the Church of the Ascension and especially to the miraculous footprints. In contrast to the gates of heaven examined in the following chapter, the footprints, still visible on the Mount of Olives, are unambiguously sited in a known location. They belong fully to the human realm, left on earth for everyone to see – and even touch. Their concreteness speaks to the importance of a tangible place or object that can both teach important Christian doctrines and incite faith, at the same time as they are a symbol that connects the earth from which Christ ascended and the heaven that received him. I contend that both the martyrologist and the Blickling homilist use the footprint motif as the perfect vehicle to convey the theology of the Ascension, especially by playing upon its liminal characteristics. The innovativeness of the Old English authors lies in their giving the footprints a decidedly theological inflection, transforming them into a homiletic device infused with specific doctrinal content. Marking the physical location of Christ’s Commission to his disciples, the footprints moreover demonstrate that the Ascension was an ecclesial event that affected the entire earthly community of Christians. The emphasis both on the footprints’ materiality and on their miracles, including their healing ability, speaks to the power this place holds to worshippers and homilists alike. In Anglo-Saxon literature, then, the footprints function as a flexible and polysemous symbol that teaches the Ascension as a historical, annual, and communal event as well as an invisible, eternal, and soteriological one. This chapter examines the ways in which the Old English Martyrology and Blickling Homily 11 reveal the symbolic force of the footprint motif by integrating it with standard Ascension teachings. Even though Adomnán of Iona’s De Locis Sanctis is known as the immediate source for the footprints in Anglo-Saxon texts, there has been little interest in this source from a literary historical perspective or in the footprints as a material expression of theology. No scholar has systematically analysed the role of the footprints in the larger preaching programme on the Ascension in Anglo-Saxon England.4 In the first section, I argue that the footprints lend themselves so aptly to teaching theology because the

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motif can be used to express a range of theological ideas in different contexts, making it a literary and homiletic device that is as versatile as it is effective. The transmission history of the footprint motif from early pilgrimage reports to Anglo-Saxon England, examined in the second section, documents their gradual transformation from their ‘factual’ origins as a sight at a biblical location into an element of the cult of the Ascension and, eventually, to their use as a homiletic device that symbolizes theology. Finally, close readings of the entry for Ascension Day in the Old English Martyrology (OEM) and of Blickling Homily 11 (BH 11) demonstrate the innovative use of the footprints by Anglo-Saxon authors, who seem to delight particularly in the footprints and the opportunity to express Ascension doctrines through them. The Anglo-Saxon authors actively shape their source materials in the service of teaching theo­ logy in a way not seen in the earlier materials. With the material image of the footprints, the martyrologist and the Blickling homilist connect to their audiences’ broader cultural knowledge, their experiences in the real world, their investment in and dependence on the natural world, and concurrent beliefs about the power of place. The employment of the footprints in Anglo-Saxon religious literature shows the medieval authors’ complex rhetorical and theological goals in texts that, to some, have appeared naively simplistic and that can strike modern readers as narrowly interested in only the most spectacular aspects of the Ascension tradition. A closer examination of these aspects reveals, however, that they carry sophisticated theological content. The footprints as a doctrinal symbol The motif of the vestigia Domini (as the footprints are typically referred to in Latin sources) originates in early Christian descriptions of Holy Land sites, contained both in pilgrims’ reports and letters by early churchmen. As the vestigia became bound up with Ascension themes, they acquired new valences and pointed beyond their material reality to the spiritual reality of Christ’s Ascension, and audiences were expected to sublimate the footprints into a meaningful Christology. In contrast to the gates of heaven, for example, which stand for the precise moment of salvation in the larger Ascension process as Christ crosses into heaven, the footprints do not pinpoint a particular theologically charged moment.5 They do not signify without the context in which they appear, and their meaning arises from being interpreted correctly in light

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of the doctrines for which they stand. Nonetheless, the footprints are an intelligible, lucid, and teachable theological symbol. The key aspect that allows them to carry such content is their liminal character: left by a foot, they attest to a former human presence but necessitate a current absence. This natural liminality helps convey core Ascension teachings, which are also inherently liminal, as we have seen in the Introduction: Christ’s dual nature, his physical absence but continuing spiritual presence, and the totus Christus. A multivalent symbol, the footprints effectively mediate between the earthly realm and the heavenly home, between biblical history and ongoing Christian practices, between past divine actions and current beliefs of the faithful. Their origin in letters and travel reports describing the place of Ascension makes the footprints in the Anglo-Saxon tradition additionally interesting, since this origin is far removed in genre from their later homiletic-didactic contexts and intriguingly throws into relief the radical transformation they undergo in the course of textual transmission. It also links the Ascension as a biblical event and its theology to a strong emphasis on location and a developing interest in the place of Ascension as place, highlighting the role that material reality can play in conveying abstract theological content. Anglo-Saxon authors eventually found this focus on the materiality of place immensely appealing and used it to great homiletic effect in their teaching of theology. Indeed, the effectiveness of the footprints as a homiletic device naturally depends in part on the texts’ audiences who have to be receptive to it. Both the OEM and BH 11 had mixed audiences that included lay listeners, and both are types of texts that are open to incorporating miscellaneous materials. While the question of audience has been much debated in regard to vernacular homilies, it is certain that the Blickling collection was directed at a mixed lay and religious audience or multiple audiences.6 In fact, Blickling Homily 10 (for Rogation Wednesday) explicitly addresses lay listeners.7 For the OEM, the question of audience is not as straightforward, since its precise usage is unclear, but the hybrid nature of its contents implies a wide range of possible readers and users.8 One usage was apparently as a resource for homilists who could consult individual OEM sections as starter material for longer compositions, including homilies known to have addressed lay audiences.9 While the immediate users of the OEM were most likely members of the clergy, its content reached a wider, more general audience. Both BH 11 and the OEM are liberal in terms of the material they

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include. Assuming that the Blickling Homilies were compiled no later than the early 970s, Jonathan Wilcox states that pre-Reform homilies display more latitude in terms of the materials permitted for inclusion, which were less strictly regulated then than after the Reform.10 For its part, the OEM is conceived as a compilation of a wide range of mixed hagiographical and non-hagiographical content and is preserved alongside secular materials, including charms, prognostics, and information about pagan practices. I suggest that the presumed audiences and the mixed content of the OEM and BH 11 explain the interest in the footprint motif. Aside from the fact that it yields a rich symbol for Ascension doctrines, its inclusion broadens the appeal of both texts. As Mary Swan has pointed out, every preaching situation consists of a ­‘combination of dynamism and continuity’; preaching ‘has to be formulaic, has to appeal to and reiterate tradition, but at the same time and by the same means it has to assert a particular set of contemporary ideals which are always defined – whether silently or explicitly – by contrast with competing ones’.11 The vestigia Domini appeal to and reiterate tradition because they encapsulate basic catechetical teachings; at the same time, they assert contemporary ideals by connecting to current agricultural and pilgrimage practices. In the case of the OEM and BH 11, monastic and nonmonastic audiences alike might have had interest in this originally secular and non-hagiographical motif, and these audiences certainly shared lived experiences to which the texts connect, such as agricultural labour, the importance of land, popular religious practices, and pilgrimage activities. The footprints are, therefore, a complex theological symbol whose concreteness can appeal to a mixed audience with varied experiences and levels of education by simultaneously linking to biblical, theological, ecclesiastical, and lay contexts. In tracing the transmission history of the footprints in some detail, I aim to show the gradual accretion of their theological significance and exegesis. When the Anglo-Saxons inherited the materials containing the footsteps, they shaped this motif and its exegesis according to their own didactic purposes – chiefly the conveyance of theological content – but also in a way that maintained its appeal to their particular audiences. In the transformation of the footsteps from a roadside attraction and pilgrims’ curiosity into a powerful symbol of Ascension theology, we can see the process by which a material object becomes the carrier of doctrinal content. Conversely, the abstract Christian doctrines that the homilists wish to preach become translated into a grasp-

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able image. In the footprints, theology becomes flesh and blood, so to speak. Appropriate for a symbol that is left on earth among people, the teachings expressed through the footprints are directly relevant to the daily lives of Christians and to the larger earthly community. In their didactic function, they carry on the ascending Christ’s Commission to his disciples and express those aspects of Ascension theology that have the most impact on the Church founded at this moment. Given all this, this chapter shows that the miraculous footprints in Anglo-Saxon literature do not owe their existence merely to the ‘überschwengliche[n] Phantasie naiver Volksfrömmigkeit’ (‘effusive imagination of naive popular piety’), as Gustav Klameth would have it.12 Nor are they, in the case of BH 11, a sign of one of the ‘most primitive’ sermon collections, standing in opposition to any intellectual achievement of the period.13 On the contrary, they are a meaningful, sophisticated, and effective symbol that stands for specific patristic Christological teachings. Mirum uero: Christ’s footprints in early Christian sources The footprints that Christ, according to extra-scriptural tradition, left imprinted on the Mount of Olives became a recognizable motif associated with Ascension themes during the early centuries of Christianity and enjoyed popularity throughout the Middle Ages.14 The rise of the motif parallels the gradual working out of Ascension theology by eastern and western Church Fathers as well as the development of the cult of the Ascension more generally. Ascension Day did not emerge as an independent liturgical occasion until the fourth or fifth century. Only once Ascension Day was accepted as a feast day could distinct liturgical, pilgrimage, and other cult practices emerge.15 The first evidence for a developing cult of the Ascension appears in the work of Church historian Eusebius (c.260–339). He reports in his Vita Constantini that the first basilica in memory of Christ’s ascent, known as the Eleona, was erected by Empress Helena on the side of the Mount of Olives near or over a cave in which Christ was said to have given his final instructions to the disciples.16 Interestingly, Eusebius also states that Helena ‘accorded suitable adoration to the footsteps of the Saviour, following the prophetic word which says, “Let us adore in the place where his feet have stood” (Ps. 132/131:7)’.17 But he does not mention actually visible footsteps and simply seems to think of Helena as commemorating Christ’s erstwhile presence at various biblical locations.

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The first unambiguous mention of permanent footprints appears in a letter by Paulinus of Nola written to Sulpicius Severus around 402 (Epistula 31). In a first hint at what would happen to the footprints later on, Paulinus is the earliest writer who explicitly links this location to theological content. According to him, Christ’s footprints, visible in the basilica of the Ascension, are characterized by a certain obstinacy: [M]irum uero inter haec, quod in basilica ascensionis locus ille tantum, de quo in nube susceptus ascendit, captiuam in sua carne ducens captiuitatem nostram, ita sacratus diuinis uestigiis dicitur, ut numquam tegi marmore aut pauiri receperit, semper excussis solo respuente quae manus adornandi studio temptauit adponere. [I]taque in toto basilicae spatio solus in sui cespitis specie uirens permanet et inpressam diuinorum pedum uenerationem calcati deo pulueris perspicua simul et adtigua uenerantibus harena conseruat, ut uere dici possit: adorauimus ubi steterunt pedes eius.18 [A striking phenomenon is afforded by this building. In the basilica commemorating the Ascension is the place from which He was taken into a cloud, and ascending on high, led our captivity captive [Eph. 4:8] in His own flesh. That single place and no other is said to have been so hallowed with God’s footsteps that it has always rejected a covering of marble or paving. The soil throws off in contempt whatever the human hand tries to set there in eagerness to adorn the place. So in the whole area of the basilica this is the sole spot retaining its natural green appearance of turf. The sand is both visible and accessible to worshippers, and preserves the adored imprint of the divine feet in that dust trodden by God, so that one can truly say: We have adored in the place where His feet stood [Ps. 131:7].]19

Paulinus stresses that Christ ascended as a human, as expressed in the quote from Ephesians 4, a passage commonly cited in patristic Ascension writings. As this verse says, Christ ‘led our captivity captive’, that is, he took his humanity and the souls freed from hell to heaven. In this way, the place of Ascension is becoming linked with the developing theology. The significance of this location is further emphasized through the miracles surrounding the footprints: divine power has singled out this place. The passage ends in the quote from Psalm 131 (the same quoted by Eusebius), linking the Old Testament and the moment when the reader peruses Paulinus’ letter in an interesting way. Read typologically as referring to the Ascension, the psalm invokes the footprints that will eventually be visible on the Mount of Olives, even long after Christ’s time on earth, and that any visitor to this place could see

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this very moment and would surely then adore. Just like the authors of the OEM and BH 11 later on, Paulinus imagines the footprints tightly bound into their physical setting – they are visible traces located on the Mount of Olives. He hints at the theological content of the psalm but offers no explicit exegesis, and his thinking about the footprints ultimately remains on an empirical level. Following Paulinus, Sulpicius Severus also reports on the footprints in his Chronica. In expanding Paulinus’ passage, Sulpicius adds an important new property to the footprints: their complete indestructibility. Even though faithful visitors daily collect earth from the place on which the Lord stood, the footprints remain fully preserved.20 This miraculous characteristic will become essential for Anglo-Saxon authors’ interpretation of the footprints’ symbolic power and their ability to express the theological content of the Ascension. Holy Land travellers naturally have a strong interest in holy sites, and Paulinus, as we saw, has an inchoate notion of the importance of the Mount of Olives to Ascension theology. Complementing these views, some authors subject the footprints to a more forceful exegetical reading that operates independently from their location in the Ascension church. At least one patristic source considers the vestigia Domini for their metaphysical value in a way that anticipates their Anglo-Saxon use as a Christological symbol. In Treatise 47 of his Tractates on the Gospel of John, Augustine mentions the footprints in his exegesis of John 10:16, which he reads as referring to Christ being uniquely sent to Israel and to no other people: praesentiam suam corporalem non exhibuit nisi populo Israel[.] Ad gentes non perrexit ipse, sed misit; ad populum uero Israel et misit, et uenit ipse, ut qui contemnebant, maius iudicium sumerent, quia et praesentia est illis exhibitia. Ipse Dominus ibi fuit, ibi matrem elegit, ibi concipi, ibi nasci, ibi sanguinem fundere uoluit; ibi sunt uestigia eius, modo adorantur, ubi nouissime stetit, unde ascendit in caelum; ad gentes autem misit.21 [he showed his physical presence only to the people of Israel[.] To the Gentiles he did not go himself, but he sent; to the people of Israel, in truth, he both sent and came himself so that those who were despising him would receive greater judgment because his presence was also shown to them. The Lord himself was there, he chose a mother there, he wanted to be conceived there, to be born there, to pour out his blood there. His footprints are there; they are adored now where he last stood, at the place from which he ascended into heaven. But he sent to the Gentiles.]22

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Augustine takes it for granted that the Lord’s vestigia can be seen in Israel. They are a fact as naturally accepted and unquestioned as Christ’s birth or his shedding of blood. Augustine places the footprints firmly into the course of salvation history. The imprinting of Christ’s feet is one of the few moments he selects to sketch out the Saviour’s time on earth, from his Incarnation to his Ascension, in a move similar to the ‘leaps of Christ’ that Gregory the Great and Cynewulf incorporate into their respective Ascension writings. By reducing Christ’s career to these essential moments, Augustine not only lends importance to the Ascension as a Christological milestone, but also draws the Ascension, Incarnation, and Nativity closely together, a connection that both Gregory and Cynewulf will develop further. As part of the larger narrative of salvation history that implicitly underlies Augustine’s passage, the footprints are shorthand for the entire post-Resurrection period and for proof of Christ’s bodily Resurrection.23 Augustine could have chosen any of the physical manifestations that appear in scripture as representative of Christ’s work among the people of Israel. Instead, the extra-scriptural footprints serve as the epitome of Christ’s physical presence after the Resurrection. As the repeated emphasis on his presence shows, this is Augustine’s true concern. As early as his time, then – reinforced by sources describing the Ascension site – the footprints are chosen as a symbol that attests powerfully to Christ’s former physical presence and to the soteriological importance of the Ascension.24 While the passage from his Tractates on the Gospel of John apparently did not directly influence Anglo-Saxon Ascension texts, Augustine anticipates later authors’ use of the footprints as the symbolic link between the Ascension as a biblical event and the doctrines of the totus Christus, Christ’s dual nature, and his simultaneous absence and presence.25 Collectively, the travel narratives and the activities associated with the Mount of Olives point to an increasing recognition of this location as one of special import to Christians that needed to be explained and commemorated. One way to do this was with the help of sacred souvenirs. Along with increasing pilgrimage traffic, the souvenir industry for holy sites, including the Mount of Olives, flourished.26 In some places, the veneration of acheiropoieta (icons not made by hand) developed to capture the power of individual parts of Christ’s body. For example, in the late sixth century, the so-called Pilgrim of Piacenza (Antoninus Placentinus) reports that pilgrims measured Christ’s footprints, sunk into the stone on which

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he stood when tried by Pilate, and then made cloth strips from the foot measures and wore them for their protective and curative powers.27 Pilgrims did the same with Christ’s Ascension footprints, as attested by a piece of linen, cut in the shape of a foot and identified as Christ’s footprint from the Mount of Olives, which survives in Germany, probably from the seventeenth century.28 All of these practices show that Christ’s footprints have for a long time exerted a fascination, from Eusebius’ imagined footsteps commemorating Christ’s former presence to tangible pilgrims’ souvenirs with healing powers. As we will see, the footprints were no less fascinating and powerful to Anglo-Saxon authors. More importantly, once they merge with theological content, they have fully completed their transformation from a biblical site in pilgrims’ reports to a material symbol of Ascension theology for preaching. Christ’s footprints in the British Isles While the Old English authors of the OEM and BH 11 were probably not directly familiar with the earliest Christian sources in which the footprints appear, they nonetheless had access to them through two insular Latin texts, Adomnán of Iona’s De Locis Sanctis and Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, as well as Bede’s own version of De Locis Sanctis, all of which rely closely on the earlier sources. Even though these texts consider the footprints to be an important part of the religious landscape of the Holy Land, they simply report on them rather than shape them in the service of specific doctrinal teachings. In contrast to their Latin sources, the Old English preaching texts connect the footprint motif to a theological message by drawing on liminality as a concept shared between form and content. The immediate source for the OEM and BH 11 is Adomnán of Iona’s De Locis Sanctis. He provides the first detailed description of the Ascension church (including a sketch), as it allegedly appeared in the late seventh century, and discusses the miraculous nature of the footprints. He also introduces elements of the church and the footprints that Anglo-Saxon authors later adopted, thus becoming the most influential source for Old English descriptions of this location. In his three-volume work, probably written in AD 683–6, Adomnán records an account of the holy sites by a Bishop Arculf from Gaul, who reportedly travelled to the Holy Land not long before arriving at Iona, whither he was blown off course on his homeward journey.29 Book I, xxi–xxiii, describes the Mount

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of Olives, its topography, and the place of Ascension, especially the church. Even though Adomnán purports to record Arculf’s oral travel account, he also draws on Sulpicius Severus’ Chronica description of the church, which he expands considerably.30 As the oldest surviving text composed in the British Isles that mentions the footprints, Adomnán’s De Locis Sanctis attests to a much expanded cult and the increased status of the location as divinely inspired space. In Book I, xxiii, ‘De Loco Dominicae Ascensionis et Eclesia in eo Aedificata’, Adomnán describes a number of elements (such as the uncoverable and indestructible prints, the bronze enclosure, the miracles) that are eventually taken into the Old English texts: 4. Nam cum haec de qua nunc pauca commemorantur basilica fabricaretur, idem locus uestigiorum Domini, ut alibi scriptum repertum est, contenuari pauimento cum reliqua stratorum parte non potuit, siquidem quaecumque adplicabantur insolens humana suscipere terra respueret in ora adponentium excussis marmoribus. 5. Quin etiam calcati Deo pulueris adeo perenne est documentum ut uestigia cernantur inpressa, et cum cotidie confluentium fides a Domino calcata diripiat, damnum tamen arena non sentit et eandem adhuc sui speciem ueluti inpraesis signata uestigiis terra custodit. 6. In eodem igitur loco, ut sanctus refert Arculfus, sedulus eiusdem frequentator, aerea grandis per circuitum rota desuper explanata collocata est, cuius altitudo usque ad ceruicem haberi monstratur mensurata. 7. In cuius medietate non parua patet pertussura, per quam desuper apertam uestigia pedum Domini plane et lucide inpressa in puluere demonstrantur. 8. Illa quoque in rota ab occidentali parte quasi quaedam semper patet porta, ut per eam intrantes facile adire locum sacrati pulueris possint et per apertum desuper eiusdem rotae foramen de sacro puluere porrectis manibus particulas sumant.31 [Because, when this basilica (of which a few details are now being recorded) was being built, the place of the Lord’s footprints (as is found in another source) could not be incorporated in a pavement with the rest of the floor. For the ground (unwont to bear anything human) would reject whatever was laid upon it, casting the marble into the face of those who were laying it. Nay more, so lasting is the proof that the dust was trodden by God that the imprints of the feet are visible; and, though crowds of the faithful daily plunder the earth trodden by the Lord, still the spot suffers no perceptible damage, and the ground goes on keeping the semblance as it were of footprints. Thus, in this spot, as the holy Arculf (a sedulous visitor of it)

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relates, a huge bronze circular structure has been set up, levelled out on top, the height of which measures up to the chin. In the middle of it is quite a large perforation, and when this is open the footprints of the Lord are pointed out plainly and clearly stamped on the dust. Also, at the western side of the structure, there is a sort of door always open, so that people entering by it can easily approach the place of the sacred dust, and take particles of it by stretching in their hands through the open perforation in the circular structure.]32

Adomnán continues to describe the church, its illumination by lamps, and its visibility from Jerusalem, all according to how Arculf relayed it. Finally, he adds another astonishing fact about the church: every year, at noon on Ascension Day, a wind so strong sweeps through the church that anyone there is forced to lie prostrate until the tempest has passed. An interesting detail that becomes relevant for Old English texts is the active role of the earth in preserving the appearance of the footprints, which Adomnán adopts almost verbatim from Sulpicius. His most significant addition to the footprint tradition is their increased veneration. The cult activity has grown considerably in Arculf’s account, with added architectural elements, barriers between the worshippers and the footprints, and careful cult management, all aspects adopted by the OEM or BH 11. Part of the augmented Ascension cult is the annual miracle of the tempest, which attests to a divine presence and the sacredness of the place in which Christ last stood on earth. The tempest miracle also seems to be a lesson: the levelling winds force the worshippers into a submissive posture, as a stark reminder of God’s omnipotence. This spectacular display of divine power and the ability to teach believers are aspects that the Old English martyrologist and the Blickling homilist enthusiastically embrace for their own descriptions of the church. A contemporary of Adomnán of Iona, Bede became interested in the work of the Irish abbot and even produced a redaction of De Locis Sanctis under the same title.33 Besides the pastoral and ecclesiastical achievements of Adomnán, Bede informs readers of the abbot’s literary endeavour in De Locis Sanctis, to which he gives considerable attention in the Historia Ecclesiastica, presenting lengthy descriptions of the sites of Christ’s Nativity, Passion, and Resurrection, the tombs of the patriarchs at Hebron, and the Mount of Olives and Church of the Ascension (V.15–17).34 Despite Bede’s engagement with the holy sites in a more streamlined, somewhat smoother fashion than Adomnán and despite his otherwise far-reaching influence on later writers, his version of De Locis

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Sanctis does not become the main model for the later vernacular authors writing about Christ’s footprints. The OEM and BH 11 draw directly on Adomnán’s De Locis Sanctis rather than on Bede, as is clear from their inclusion of details and motifs that are present only in the Irishman’s version.35 Both the martyrologist and the homilist are fascinated with the footprints as a curiosity, but especially as proof of God’s power and of the sanctity of the location. The martyrologist abbreviates Adomnán’s account by excising all material except that on the footprints. Other Latin and Old English sources on the Ascension were current in Anglo-Saxon England by the ninth century, and the martyrologist might have had access at least to some of these.36 It seems probable, therefore, that both Adomnán as a source and the focus on the footprints were deliberate choices. In contrast to the shorter text of the OEM, the Blickling homilist includes more details of the description of the church, but also some entirely different materials appropriate and necessary for a homily. For the more conventional exegesis in the text’s first half he largely follows his main source, Gregory’s Gospel Homily 29. Concluding his exegesis, he turns his focus to the physical appearance of the Ascension place. This new section introduces the footprints, their significance, and especially the power of the location as dominant themes for the remainder of the homily.37 The Old English authors relate differently to the information about the Ascension church than the Latin authors. Bede and Adomnán act mainly as ‘reporters’, who pass on what Arculf experienced and (reportedly) witnessed without passing judgement. Bede even deliberately distances himself from the subject matter by claiming to quote someone else’s work and withholds his view as to the content’s credibility or significance. In contrast, both the martyrologist and the homilist take this material and transform it into a matter wholly their own. They embrace it with unmediated attention, which signals that they accept it as valid and as equal in status to other material, such as, for example, the biblical paraphrases of Acts in BH 11. They are unabashedly enthusiastic about the footprints and deeply involved in the materials, bringing them to life both in their animated narration and in the way they connect to their audiences. This befits their homiletic and didactic purpose, as they needed to convince their audiences of the reality and significance of what they described. Even though Adomnán and Bede handle the same material differently, their reports nonetheless provide didactic inspiration for

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the martyrologist and the homilist. The Latin authors describe the place of the Ascension from the perspective of worshippers. Through their descriptions, they are able to place their readers as ‘visitors’ right at the location, allowing them to imagine it in detail and creating, to an extent, a personal experience of the church and its miraculous events. This seems to appeal to the vernacular authors and provides them with an ideal foundation for transforming the footprints into a teaching tool. The most significant change by the OEM and BH 11 authors to the matter of the Ascension is to recognize the footprints’ powerful didactic potential and intentionally teach Ascension doctrines through them. The martyrologist explicitly states that they syndon monnum to ecre lare (‘are for the eternal teaching of people’), a point that is not in the source and is thus the martyrologist’s own. As becomes clear from both Old English texts, the vestigia can teach multiple doctrines because they can hold multiple meanings. Their ambiguous appearance, which signals both presence and absence, body and spirit, earth and heaven, human and divine, corresponds uniquely to the liminal nature of Ascension teachings. The opening of the entry for Ascension Day in the OEM (listed for 5 May) almost immediately moves the footprints into the foreground and links them directly to a central theme of the Ascension: humanity and divinity: On ðone fiftan dæg þæs monðes bið se dæg þe ure Dryhten to heofonum astag. Ðy dæge hine gesegon nyhst his þegnas on Oliuetes done; ðær he bletsade hi ond ða gewat mid þy lichoman on heofonum. Ðy dæge eode seo eorðe on heofon, ðæt is se mon ofer engla ðrym. Ond on Oliuetes dune syndon nu gyt ða swæþe Drihtnes fotlasta. Ymb þa Drihtnes fotlastas timbredon Cristne men seonewealte cirican wunderlice. Ne mihte seo his swaðu næfre mid nænigre oðre wisan beon þæm oðrum florum geonlicod ond gelice gehiwad. Gif þær mon hwæt mænnisces on asette, ðonne ; ðeah hit wære marmarstanas, ða wæron aswengde on ðara onsyn þe þær on sæton. Ðæt dust ðæt God ðær on træd, ond þa his swaða ðe þær on þricced sendon, ða syndon monnum to ecre lare. Ond dæghwamlice geleaffulle men nimað ðæt sand, ond þær hwæðre ne bið nænig wonung on þæm sande ðære Drihtne fotswaða.38 [On the fifth day of the month is the day that our Lord ascended to heaven. On this day, his disciples saw him last on the Mount of Olives; there he blessed them, and then he went to heaven with his body. On this day, the earth went to heaven, that is the man over the host of angels. And the traces of the Lord’s footprints are even now on

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the Mount of Olives. Around the Lord’s footprints Christian people built a wonderful round church. His track could never in any way be made similar to the rest of the ground and [be] formed alike. If one placed anything human thereon, then the earth would not receive it; even if it were stones of marble, they were thrown into the face of those who had placed them there. The dust on which God had stepped there and his traces which are imprinted there, they are for the eternal teaching of people. And daily faithful people take that sand, and yet there is no reduction whatsoever of the Lord’s footprints in that sand.]

In this passage the main theme of Christ’s humanity and divinity becomes especially pronounced in two juxtaposed opposites: that of Christ as man and God, and that of the earth trodden by Christ and the now untouchable sacred space. This initial theme lays the foundation for properly interpreting the footprints in light of Ascension doctrines, which all, to some degree, depend on the fundamental duality of Christ as Deus-Homo. In the OEM and BH 11, the footprints are a concrete representation of this most central Ascension doctrine, Christ’s dual nature. The martyrologist draws attention to both Christ’s humanity and divinity with phrases that blend references to divine and human actions. For example, he mentions that eode seo eorðe on heofon, ðæt is se mon ofer engla ðrym (‘the earth went to heaven, that is the man over the host of angels’) and points to Ðæt dust ðæt God ðær on træd (‘the dust on which God had stepped there’). But the most memorable way in which he does this is through the image of the footprints, which dominates the entire martyrology entry.39 With a phrasing similar to that in the OEM, the Blickling homilist also identifies the footprints’ powerful ability to teach people. He writes, Forlét he ure Drihten his þa halgan fét þær on þa eorþan besíncan mannum to ecre gemynde, þa he æfter his þære halgan þrowunga his þa menniscan gecynd on heofenas lædon wolde, þonon he næfre onweg gewiten næs þurh his þa ecan godcundnesse40 [Our Lord let his holy feet sink into the earth there as an eternal reminder for people, when he, after his holy suffering, wished to take his human nature into heaven, from where he had never gone away on account of his eternal godhead.]

Christ’s imprint on earth serves ‘as an eternal reminder for people’, and the specific point of which it reminds people is that Christ ascended in his humanity. The homilist connects the footprints specifically to Christ’s dual nature, a link he expresses forcefully

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throughout the homily, for example in the passage quoted in the chapter opening. In another instance, he states towards the end of the homily: he on þære stowe nehst lichomlice on stod her on eorþan, ær þon þe he þa menniscan gecynd upon heofenas gelædde41 (‘in this place he bodily stood last here on earth before he led his human nature into heaven’). The homilist associates the dual nature of Christ specifically with the place where he last touched the earth and left his imprint. In fact, this is how the homilist defines the principal importance of this location: the Mount of Olives is first and foremost the place where Christ last stood on earth. The footprints are an effective symbol for Christ’s dual nature, because they illuminate so plainly that Christ had a human body, which could leave visible, even tangible, traces. In this way, they represent his human nature, proving the Incarnation, but they also prove Christ’s divinity, since the body that left these traces ascended to heaven, as no earthly creature can, and brought redemption for all humans. The vestigia are so memorable because they are an image of strong physical materiality, which is, paradoxically, employed to express the immaterial, theological significance of the Ascension. As a liminal symbol that bridges opposing categories, the footprints themselves straddle the threshold between concrete humanity and elusive divinity. As the vestigia Domini help audiences visualize that Christ ascended in a human body, they prompt them to reflect on the biblical event, but also on what lies beyond the physical conditions of the Ascension. In their emptiness, the footprints symbolize the physical absence of the incarnate Christ, while through their very existence, they remind believers of his continuing spiritual presence. The combination of these opposites again marks the footprints as a paradoxical image, as one that belongs to more than one category; they are both/and, exactly as one would expect from a liminal symbol, according to Victor Turner’s definition. The Blickling homily reminds listeners of Christ’s former physical presence by saying that hire þa halgan fét ures Drihtnes on stodan (‘the holy feet of our Lord stood upon [the earth]’). If Christ’s real feet once stood on the earth, then his absence is also a real physical absence. The consolation for this absence – and a reminder that this absence does not equal God’s abandonment of humankind – is the continued divine presence on earth. This spiritual presence of God is proven by various recurring miracles surrounding the holy site. Foremost among these is the perpetual preservation of the footprints themselves, the central miracle that

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both the homilist and the martyrologist relay. The homilist’s version reads as follows: & þonne is þæt eác ealles wundorlicost þæt man dæghwamlice þa moldan nimeþ on þæm lastum, & men wíde geond eorþan lædaþ to reliquium, swa ic ær sægde, & næfre man þære moldan to þæs feale ne nimeþ, ne to þæs oft, þæt mon æfre þurh þæt mæge a þy maran dæ´l on þæm stoplum gewercean, oþþe þæt þa lastas on oþerne mægwlite oncyrran; ah hie á swa onwalge beoþ & on þære ilcan onsyne þe hie þær on forman on þa eorþan bestapene wæron.42 [and then that is also of all the most miraculous that one daily takes earth from the [foot]traces, and people take [it] widely across the earth as a relic, as I said before, and never does one take of the earth so much, nor so often, that through that one can ever make a greater portion on these steps, or that [one can] change the steps into another form; but they are forever so whole and of that same appearance, with which they were there first imprinted into the earth.]

Part and parcel of the miraculous nature of the footprints and the ‘path’ of the ascending Christ is their additional refusal to be covered up with any man-made materials, a stubbornness already familiar from Paulinus, Sulpicius, Adomnán, and Bede.43 The ever new and indestructible appearance of the vestigia teaches an important lesson: it is as if Christ even now steps on to the earth every day, perennially (re)enacting the Ascension and daily leaving fresh imprints as proof of the continuing divine presence in this place, ‘on which the Lord last stood’. As an extension of the miraculous self-preservation of the footprints and as further proof of the continued spiritual presence of Christ, the homilist says (in the passage quoted earlier) that the place on which Christ last stood on earth is even now honoured by divine glories, and, moreover, the church, despite its open roof, is protected from bad weather þurh Godes gife (‘through God’s grace’).44 Perhaps the most remarkable of the accompanying miracles is reported by the martyrologist, who closely follows Adomnán’s account, namely that every year, on Ascension Day, an enormous wind sweeps through the church, making it impossible for anyone there to remain standing: ealle þa men, ðe þær þonne wæron, lagon aþænede on þære eorðan mid ofdune healdum ondwleotan, oþ þæt seo ondrylice yst forðgeleoreð45 (‘all people who were then there lay stretched out on the earth with their faces turned down, until the terrible gust passes away’). This wind testifies to God’s special attention to this particular

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location. In addition to the daily gentle reminder of the reconstituted footprints, God sends more forceful and more humbling proof every year that he may not be visibly present but that he is always spiritually present and can make his power felt at any time. Aside from their meaning in the immediate context, the footprints’ miraculous nature also has a theological function in a wider context. The footprints and the miracles surrounding them are reminiscent of – and even a continuation of – Christ’s manifestations, because they, too, serve as visible proof of his bodily Resurrection. This, in turn, is the precursor to the eventual resurrection that all Christians hope to experience for themselves. In this way, the footprints gesture beyond themselves and towards other events associated with the Easter cycle. Just as Holy Land visitors to the loca sancta re-experienced the biblical events that took place in those locations, faithful listeners can reimagine Christ’s physical Ascension via the footprints and are prompted to reflect on its consequences.46 They can meditate on the ‘conclusion’ of the Ascension, that is, Christ’s Entry into heaven from where he will eventually return again to judge. The vestigia are thereby also associated with the events of Judgement Day and the larger salvation history to which all Christians and human events are subject. As my analysis here makes clear, the seemingly simple motif of the footprints is the nexus of complex Christological and soteriological concepts. The liminal position of the footprints between presence and absence points to a larger tension between materiality and spiri­ tuality, for there is an inherent ambiguity in expressing spiritual content with a material image. This long-standing tension was already apparent when patristic authors repeatedly resorted to material imagery to convey the spiritual content of the Ascension and argued for the necessity of believing without visible proof. Materiality is important for teaching, for allowing learners to grasp abstract concepts, but materiality is also directly opposed to spirituality in a strictly Augustinian model of thinking. Despite the tension between materiality and spirituality and between seeing and believing, the Blickling homilist comes down on the side of materiality – seeing – and of visible proof as important aspects of developing faith. He expresses this not only through the material footprints, but also in his comments on the Ascension church’s eight lamps, whose bright light can be seen all the way to Jerusalem. This light has a palpable effect on those who see it:

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& þæt oft gíta manegum mannum gelimpeþ, þonne hie þæt leoht geseoþ on niht scinan beorhte, þæt heora heortan beoð þurh þæt innan gemanode, & þurh godes gife, & hie heora sylfra líf þe gearor ongeotaþ, & hie eft færinga þe maran hreowe doþ heora synna. […] & oft á manige men þurh þæt to soþre bote gecyrraþ, & góde & medeme for Gode geweorþaþ, ge efne eac manige hæþne men ungeleafsume oft þurh þæt to Godes geleafan gecyrraþ, þe hie geseoð hu God þa stowe weorþaþ. & þæt is þonne geare to witenne þonne God heora heortan swa innan manaþ, þæt he him þonne wille milde geweorðan, & him heora synna forlætnesse syllan, & heora bena gehyran.47 [And it often still happens to many persons, when they see the light shining brightly at night, that their hearts are through this, and through God’s grace, exhorted within, and they understand their own lives more readily, and they afterwards quickly do greater penance for their sins. […] And often, through that [being exhorted by the shining light], many people turn forever to true betterment and appear good and pleasing before God. And equally also many unbelieving heathen people often through this turn to faith in God, when they see how God honours this place. And that is then clear to see, when God exhorts their hearts so from within, that he wishes to become merciful to them, and to grant them remission of their sins, and to hear their prayers.]

The place of Ascension holds such strong sway that it compels even heathen non-believers to convert. Importantly, the conversion takes place only after the converts have seen the light of the lamps, which moves their hearts: visual proof precedes and causes conversion and true faith. Seen in this way, the lamps are another instance of the fides ex visu motif, which had already appeared in Augustine’s sermons, as we saw in Chapter 1, and continued in pilgrimage practices such as visiting shrines, touching or kissing of relics, acquiring pilgrims’ souvenirs, and, not least, collecting earth from Christ’s footprints. Adomnán mentions that the lamps lead to greater divine love and compunction, but he specifically attributes this effect to those who are already believers; he does not mention conversion. The Blickling homilist enforces the impact of the lamps by attributing actual conversions to them, and his mention of heathens perhaps signals that he adjusted the content to the circumstances of his own time, the later tenth century, when anxieties over renewed Scandinavian attacks and pagan activities lingered among churchmen. Whatever his particular motivation, the Blickling homilist likes to discuss concrete, visible things that also carry an unambiguous religious message.

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Compared to the teachings of Christ’s dual nature and his absence/presence, the doctrine of the totus Christus is not as explicitly expressed in the OEM and BH 11; neither of the texts refers directly to Christ as the Head and Christians as the Body. Nonetheless, both the OEM and BH 11 incorporate the idea of a link between earth and heaven. According to the martyrologist, Arculf said that se weg ðær wære a to heofonum open þara monna eagum þe him þær gebædan on ðære ylcan stowe48 (‘the path to heaven there was always open for the eyes of those people who prayed there in the same place’).The Blickling homilist uses similar phrasing when he writes that the church is unroofed because he ure Drihten wolde þæt þa men þe þyder mid geleafan coman, & þa halgan stowe sohton, þæt heora eagum aá se weg wære up to heofenum cuþ to locienne, þider hie witon þæt he Drihten mid lichoman astag (‘our Lord wanted people who came there in faith and sought the holy place, that to their eyes the path up to heaven would always be familiar to look at, whither they knew that the Lord ascended in his body’).49 Since the path on which Christ travelled to heaven cannot be covered up, visitors to the church can behold the entire space of the Ascension. In contrast to Adomnán and Bede, both the martyrologist and the homilist stress this path which visitors can follow with their eyes, and they specifically link this devotional experience to the place of the Ascension (on ðære ylcan stowe and þa halgan stowe). Viewing the footprints and the aerial space above them, as the disciples did before them at the biblical event, Christians can both reimagine Christ’s Ascension and project their own anticipated heavenward journey on to that same space. They can follow Christ into heaven – preliminarily and mentally, at least, as Augustine also recommends in his sermons – and channel their attention on the heavenly destination. Those who meditate on the place of Ascension are reminded that their goal in life should be to follow Christ the Head, not only with their eyes but with their souls – and, eventually, with their bodies – in order to complete fully Christ’s Ascension and unite the Body of Christians with the divine Head. The Ascension as a communal event One of the far-reaching legacies of the Ascension is the founding of the Christian community. Aside from teaching theological points, the footprints help crystallize the import of the Ascension as an ecclesial event. Among the actions described in Acts 1:1–14, Christ commissions his disciples to spread the word of God through

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teaching and preaching, and, at this moment, creates the ecclesial community that will carry forward his missionary work. The Ascension thus holds not only Christological, but also communal significance, as it marks the rise of Christianity as a lasting religious movement in history. The Ascension and especially the footprints, with their emphasis on physical location, draw the attention of successive communities throughout history to the Church’s founding moment. In the earliest instance, the disciples directed their gaze as a group at the ascending Christ. This is made clear by the address directed at them by the two men in white in Acts 1:11, which identifies them as a single collective (Viri galilaei, ‘men of Galilee’) jointly looking heavenward. As we have seen, the footprints also draw the gaze of ever new witnesses – whether Holy Land pilgrims or Anglo-Saxon Christians listening to a homily – thus forging a community of disciples across time. In doing so, they become a permanent marker for the earthly community and for those aspects of the Ascension that directly concern Christ’s followers left behind on earth. Accordingly, Old English authors use the footprints as a focal point for a fundamentally communal experience of the Ascension – through preaching or reading aloud of a text – allowing listeners to visualize and more closely identify with the events of this occasion.50 Cynewulf expresses the communal experience of the biblical Ascension in Christ II, when he groups the disciples around the trace that Christ leaves behind to stress that they have to fill his role after he has ascended (494b–502a):         Cyning ure gewat þurh þæs temples hrof þær hy to segun, þa þe leofes þa gen last weardedun on þam þingstede, þegnas gecorene. Gesegon hi on heahþu hlaford stigan, godbearn of grundum. Him wæs geomor sefa hat æt heortan, hyge murnende, þæs þe hi swa leofne leng ne mostun geseon under swegle.51 [Our king departed through the temple’s roof there as a sign, when they yet watched the dear one’s trace in that gathering-place, the chosen thanes. They saw the Lord ascend on high, the god-son, from the earth. They had a grieving mind, hot around the heart, a mourning mind, because they would no longer be allowed to see the so dear one under the sky.]

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The disciples are chosen to carry on Christ’s mission. The moment when they behold – indeed, guard (weardedun) – his literal footprints is the moment when they follow in his symbolic footsteps as they are sent to preach the word of God.52 They are designated to step into the void left by Christ. The disciples also react as a single entity to Christ’s departure; they feel their grief as one with one heart and one mind. The overall effect of the language in this passage is to present the disciples as a tight group and create for them a communal identity as followers of Christ. Anglo-Saxon visual representations of the Ascension also emphasize its communal nature and its effect on the earthly community. With rare exceptions, they all prominently include the gathered apostles, often arranged in a dense huddle gazing up at the ascending Christ. Especially in images with the so-called ‘disappearing Christ’ (Figures 1 and 4–8), the emphasis shifts from the ascending Christ, originally the main figure, to his legacy and to the apostles who are left behind as representatives of the earthly Church. In late medieval depictions of Christ, when footprints have become a routinely included motif, the disciples are often emphatically grouped around the vestigia as a focal point, and, in some images, the disappearing Christ is almost entirely excluded with only his feet barely visible at the top of the image.53 These depictions represent not the biblical event of the Ascension but its after-effects. By placing the footprints at the centre, they foreground the community that Christ leaves behind and the responsibility of following in his footsteps. Viewing the Ascension as a communal event serves as a reminder that this occasion has a place in living communities, where it is preached and celebrated. Homiletic texts reflect, at least to some extent, the contexts and settings of their preaching.54 This is also the case with the OEM and BH 11, which clearly aim to invoke a collective imagining of the sacred location of the Ascension as faithful Anglo-Saxons celebrate this occasion. These texts make present for their audiences a place that is far removed from them in time and space but that can be recreated through descriptive detail and wondrous excitement. The Blickling homilist explicitly states, þeah þe we nu þær andwearde ne syn æt þære halgan stowe þe ic nu sægde, þehhweþre we magon on þyssum stowum, þe we nu on syndon, gode [&] medeme weorþan for urum Drihtne, gif we nu soþ & riht on urum life dón willaþ; for þon æghwylc man, sy þær eorðan þær he sy, þurh góde dæda Gode lician sceal55

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[although we may now not be present there at this holy place, about which I just spoke, nonetheless we can become good and pleasing before our Lord in these places, where we are now, if we now wish to do what is true and right in our life; because each person, wherever he may be on earth, must please God through good deeds.]

The homilist links the place of Ascension to the listeners’ own time and place and makes clear that Anglo-Saxon Christians, by knowing of the sacred location, bear the same responsibility for proper action as someone who may be pricked with compunction by being physically there or seeing the lamps shine towards Jerusalem. Therefore, in a reciprocal rhetorical move, the homilist places his listeners at the Mount of Olives through vivid descriptions of the footprints and the church, at the same time as he makes the place of the Ascension present and meaningful for them in their own contemporary setting.56 All of these elements, with the vestigia as the focal point, aggregate into a communal liturgical experience and communal learning about the meaning of the Ascension in actual Christian lives. Another way in which God’s footprints can be read as a communal experience for Anglo-Saxon audiences is through their position as a folk-motif. Footprints appear widely in folklore and popular beliefs and are not restricted to the Christian God, as, for example, folk traditions surrounding the devil’s footprints attest.57 Footprints might therefore have lingered more broadly in the popular imagination of Anglo-Saxons and brought echoes of these folk-beliefs into the OEM and BH 11 when they are mentioned there. When footprints attest to the former presence of a significant figure (Christ, the devil, Buddha), they mark a place that harbours a residue of that former supernatural presence. To the authors of the OEM and BH 11, the place of the Ascension is just such a special place, and they grant virtually independent agency to the earth that holds Christ’s footprints when they report that it actively throws off any man-made matter. The Blickling homilist not only confidently elaborates on his main source, Adomnán, with more detailed descriptions of the church, but he also adds material not found in any earlier sources, most significantly the particular properties of the earth that visitors gather from the footprints: & manige men þær þa moldan neomaþ on þæm lastum, þe þæt begytan magan þæt hie hit dón motan, & him to reliquium habban, & monige adle & untrumnesse þurh þæt beoð gehæ´lde, þonne man þa moldan todéþ58 (‘and many people, who can obtain that they are allowed to do it, there take earth from the tracks and have it as a relic, and

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many diseases and infirmities are healed through that, when one divides the earth’). The earth, taken as a relic into distant parts of the world, has curative powers with which it has been imbued after contact with Christ’s feet.59 In this regard, the footprints function like a regular contact relic and tie in with common Christian religious practices. At the same time, the representation of the earth as sacred and as possessing special powers resembles the characterization of the earth in charms, field rituals, and other cultural phenomena, which do not derive from purely Christian traditions. Many Anglo-Saxon practices that blend Christian and Anglo-Saxon native elements, like the Æcerbot Charm and other boundary rituals discussed in Chapter 4, attest to a belief in the importance of particular places and in the powerful properties of the earth. The OEM and BH 11 share similarities with concurrent cultural practices probably derived from pre-Christian traditions. This additional context adds yet another layer of complexity to the footprints, with their long Christian tradition. As the authors of both the OEM and BH 11 state, the footprints serve the eternal teaching of humanity, by which they surely have conventional theological content in mind. But the footprints also belong to the realm of popular religion and link to experiences from the secular world of the Anglo-Saxons. As a consequence of these many semantic layers, the footprints make sense not only in their homiletic context, but also in a secular context, where lay listeners with rich and mixed experiences perform popular religious practices (charms, boundary rituals, prayers for fertility) and know of the devil’s footprints on a rock nearby. Ultimately, these many layers make the footprints into a superbly effective rhetorical device that combines traditions, appeals to a wide range of cultural associations, and carries theological content. As my analysis has shown, the particular use of Christ’s footprints in Anglo-Saxon teaching and preaching on the Ascension results from a complex confluence of patristic Latin learning, the epistolary and travel writing genres, popular interests, and the Anglo-Saxon vernacular homiletic tradition. This remarkable motif has also proven textually resilient, as it is attested over several centuries in Anglo-Saxon England. From Adomnán’s late seventhcentury De Locis Sanctis, Bede adopts it in the early eighth century; it is then transferred into the vernacular in the ninth-century OEM, and finally reappears in the late tenth-century Blickling Homilies. The literary uses of the footprints in A ­ nglo-Saxon England

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occur in genres radically different from their late antique origins. Their transmission history, traced in this chapter, thus highlights the Anglo-Saxon innovations. Since the OEM and BH 11 are dedicated explicitly to liturgical, homiletic uses, the motif has been removed from the context of travelogues and pious architectural descriptions and transplanted into contexts that raise hortatory and didactic expectations. The transmission via Adomnán (and Bede) permits us to see how the martyrologist and the homilist adapt the material for their own pastoral needs. Their most immediate goal is, naturally, the preaching of Christian doctrine, an aim that strengthens the community of the faithful on earth to strengthen the Ecclesia at large. In contrast to the insular Latin sources, which were produced in monastic settings, the use of the footprint motif in the vernacular texts suggests its dissemination in broader and more public settings. The new generic contexts, the transition to the vernacular, and the individualized reworking of the materials in the OEM and BH 11 can all be read as ‘popularizing’ moves that render the vestigia more accessible, more volksnah, if you will. The transfer of the footprints into a homiletic context also allows for a conceptual expansion, since this new environment brings with it expectations of exegetical interpretation, moral exhortation, and richer theological content. In contrast to the ‘report-like’ nature of the sources, the new generic contexts allow for the footprints to be infused with ritual and symbolic meaning. And this meaning can be isolated by applying the concept of liminality to the literary representations of the Ascension in the OEM and BH 11, which shows that God’s footprints function in the Old English sources as a liminal symbol which can carry theological meaning in a way impossible in the earlier contexts. The following chapter explores a motif that, like the footprints, teaches Ascension theology by playing on its liminal character. In contrast to the material and specifically located footprints, however, it is an entirely imagined space: the gates of heaven. Notes  1 Richard Morris, ed. and trans., The Blickling Homilies of the Tenth Century, EETS os 73 (London: Trübner, 1880), pp. 125, ll. 13–18, and 127, ll. 21–3; subsequent references to the Blickling Homilies (hereafter BH) are to homily number, page, and line numbers in this edition. All translations from Old English in this chapter are mine. The homily famously gives the year AD 971 as the date of its writing

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(or at least copying); BH 11:119, 1–2. Jonathan Wilcox, Homilies by Ælfric and Other Homilies, ASMMF 17, MRTS 359 (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2008), p. 129, dates the manuscript to AD 971 or sometime thereafter. N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), p. 451, gives the manuscript date as s. x/xi.  2 The footprints appear in Ascension literature in varying degrees of materiality, showing that Anglo-Saxon authors had a choice in how to present them. Gregory the Great’s Gospel Homily 29 contains neither a description of the place of Ascension nor the word vestigia. Gregory exhorts listeners to follow the model of Christ, who ascended passibus amoris (‘with steps of love’); Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Evangelia, ed. Raymond Étaix, CCSL 141 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), p. 254, l. 253. Bede encourages his audience to follow in Christ’s metaphorical footsteps (eius uestigia sequi); Bede, Opera Homiletica, ed. D. Hurst, CCSL 122 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1955), p. 289, ll. 329–30.  3 BH 11:115. The homily’s Old English title is added in a later hand; see Wilcox, Homilies by Ælfric, p. 138. Ker, Catalogue, p. 453, characterizes the title’s script as ‘a rough hand of s. xi’.  4 The footprints have been cited by scholars in various disciplines, though not for their theological content nor for the relationship to their sources. See Brian Ó Broin, ‘Rex Christus Ascendens: The Christological Cult of the Ascension in Anglo-Saxon England’ (PhD dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2002), pp. 90–2, 130–1, 220–2; Robert Deshman, ‘Another Look at the Disappearing Christ: Corporeal and Spiritual Vision in Early Medieval Images’, The Art Bulletin, 79 (1997), 518–46, at p. 530; and Andrea Worm, ‘Steine und Fußspuren Christi auf dem Ölberg: Zu zwei ungewöhnlichen Motiven bei Darstellungen der Himmelfahrt Christi’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 66 (2003), 297–320, at pp. 307–20. Gustav Klameth, Die neutestamentlichen Lokaltraditionen Palästinas in der Zeit vor den Kreuzzügen, Vol. II, 1. Die Ölbergüberlieferungen, Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen, Band X, Heft 2 (Münster: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1923), pp. 108–13, places the footprints into an ancient tradition of memorializing the temporary presence of a deity on earth. Also see Max Küchler, ‘Die “Füsse des Herrn” (Eus., DE 6, 18): Spurensicherung des abwesenden Kyrios an Texten und Steinen als eine Aufgabe der historisch-kritischen Exegese’, in Jerusalem: Texte – Bilder – Steine, ed. Max Küchler and Christoph Uehlinger, Novum Testmentum et Orbis Antiquus 6 (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987), pp. 11–35.  5 The footprints mark Christ’s departure from earth, but this is not a theologically significant moment per se. The gates of heaven are discussed in Chapter 3.

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 6 Mary Clayton, ‘Homiliaries and Preaching in Anglo-Saxon England’, Peritia, 4 (1985), 207–42, esp. at p. 225, concludes that the Blickling Homilies were ‘composed with a lay congregation in view’ and ‘for preaching to the people’.  7 BH 10:107, 9–11: Men ða leofostan, hwæt nú anra manna gehwylcne ic myngie & lære, ge weras ge wif, ge geonge ge ealde, ge snottre ge unwise, ge þa welegan ge þa þearfan (‘Dearest people, listen, I now exhort and teach each and every person, both men and women, both young and old, both wise and unwise, both the wealthy and the needful’).  8 Christine Rauer, ‘Usage of the Old English Martyrology’, in Foundations of Learning: The Transfer of Encyclopaedic Knowledge in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Rolf H. Bremmer Jr and Kees Dekker, Mediaevalia Groningana New Series 9 (Paris, Leuven, and Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2007), pp. 125–46, esp. at pp. 125–6, 132, 142.  9 For example, an anonymous homily for Rogationtide draws on the OEM entry for Rogationtide; Joyce Bazire and James E. Cross, eds, Eleven Old English Rogationtide Homilies, King’s College London Medieval Studies IV (London: King’s College London, 1989), homily 6; see also Rauer, ‘Usage of the Old English Martyrology’, pp. 134, 139. 10 Jonathan Wilcox, ‘The Blickling Homilies Revisited: Knowable and Probable Uses of Princeton University Library, MS Scheide 71’, in The Genesis of Books: Studies in the Scribal Culture of Medieval England in Honour of A. N. Doane, ed. Matthew T. Hussey and John D. Niles, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 97–115, at p. 100; Wilcox reasons that, since post-Reform homiliaries typically include Ælfric’s work, the exclusion of his homilies from the Blickling collection indicates that it was not compiled under Reform influence. I thank Jonathan Wilcox for sharing a pre-publication copy of his essay with me. In contrast, see Mary Swan, ‘Constructing Preacher and Audience in Old English Homilies’, in Constructing the Medieval Sermon, ed. Roger Andersson, Sermo: Studies on Patristic, Medieval, and Reformation Sermons and Preaching 6 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 177–88, at p. 181, who thinks ‘the manuscript’s production and likely early years of use fall firmly into the most active period of the Winchester-centred project to promote, in Wessex and beyond, a reformed Benedictine monasticism’. 11 Swan, ‘Constructing Preacher and Audience’, pp. 179–80. 12 Klameth, Die neutestamentlichen Lokaltraditionen, p. 111. Klameth emphatically stresses the naive and demotic (rather than institutionally approved) nature of the veneration of the footprints. 13 Robin Ann Aronstam, ‘The Blickling Homilies: A Reflection of Popular Anglo-Saxon Belief’, in Law, Church, and Society. Essays in Honor of Stephan Kuttner, ed. Kenneth Pennington and Robert Somerville (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977),

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pp. 271–80, at p. 271; setting up a false dichotomy, Aronstam states, ‘One will not find here [in the Blickling Homilies] the highest intellectual achievement of the Anglo-Saxon church, but rather the elements of popular belief – the folk religion of Christianity’ (p. 272). Cf. also Hildegard L. C. Tristram, ‘Vier altenglische Predigten aus der heterodoxen Tradition, mit Kommentar, Übersetzung und Glossar sowie drei weiteren Texten im Anhang’ (PhD dissertation, University of Freiburg, 1970), p. 285, who dismisses the value of BH 11 for religious edification because of its use of apocryphal motifs and ‘fantastic legends’. 14 See s.v. Pied, in Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, ed. Fernand Cabrol and Henri Leclercq, 15 vols (Paris: Librairie Letouzey et Ané, 1907–), 14, pp. 818–19; Lexikon der Christlichen Ikonographie, ed. Engelbert Kirschbaum, in Zusammenarbeit mit Günter Bandmann et al., 8 vols (Freiburg: Herder, 1968–76), 2: col. 268 and cols 273–4; P. Egon Sendler, Les Mystères du Christ: les icônes de la liturgie (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 2001), p. 206. 15 On the early history of Ascension Day, see Chapter 1, pp. 40–1. Among the earliest pilgrims’ reports is the travelogue of the Pilgrim of Bordeaux, who visited Palestine and Jerusalem in AD 333; see Itinerarivm Bvrdigalense, ed. P. Geyer and O. Cuntz, in Itineraria et Alia Geographica, CCSL 175 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1965), pp. 1–26. He identifies Mount Olivet as the place of Christ instructing his disciples before his Passion and associates its top (monticulus) with the transfiguration (p. 18). 16 Eusebius, Vita Constantini, III, 43; Eusebius, Über das Leben des Kaisers Konstantin, ed. Friedhelm Winkelmann, 2nd edn, Eusebius Werke I.1 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1991), pp. 101–2. A second church dedicated to the Ascension, the so-called Imbomon, was erected on top of the Mount in the 370s, sponsored by a Roman woman named Poemenia; see Hanswulf Bloedhorn, ‘Die Eleona und das Imbomon in Jerusalem: Eine Doppelkirchenanlage auf dem Ölberg?’, Akten des XII. Internationalen Kongresses für Christliche Archäologie; Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, Ergänzungsband, 20 (1995), 568–71, at p. 569. Also see E. D. Hunt, Holy Land Pilgrimage in the Later Roman Empire AD 312–460 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), pp. 160–3, on Poemenia’s activities in the eastern Mediterranean. For an architectural history of the Ascension church, see Hugues Vincent and Félix-Marie Abel, Jérusalem. Recherches de topographie, d’archéologie et d’histoire, Vol. II: Jérusalem nouvelle (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1914), pp. 360–419. Klameth, Die neutestamentlichen Lokaltraditionen, pp. 1–56, 96–130, examines the traditions associated with various locations and buildings on the Mount of Olives. 17 Eusebius, Vita Constantini, III, 42; Eusebius, Life of Constantine, trans. Averil Cameron and Stuart G. Hall (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

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1999), p. 137. For the original Greek passage, see Eusebius, Über das Leben des Kaisers Konstantin, p. 101, Chapter 42,2, l. 19. 18 Epistula 31.4; Paulinus of Nola, Sancti Pontii Meropii Paulini Nolani Epistulae, ed. Wilhelm von Hartel and Margit Kamptner, 2nd edn, CSEL 29 (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1999), pp. 267–75, at pp. 271–2 (emphases in original). 19 Paulinus of Nola, Letters of St. Paulinus of Nola, Volume II: Letters 23–51, trans. P. G. Walsh, Ancient Christian Writers 36 (New York: Newman Press, 1967), pp. 129–30. Walsh dates the letter to AD 402–3 (p. 327). 20 Sulpicius, Chronica, II, 33.3; Sulpicius Severus, Sulpice Sévère Chroniques, ed. Ghislaine de Senneville-Grave, Sources Chrétiennes 441 (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1999), p. 302. Sulpicius writes, et cum cotidie confluentium fides certatim Domino calcata diripiat, damnum tamen arena non sentiat, et eandem adhuc sui speciem, uelut impressis signata uestigiis, terra custodit (‘although the faith of those who daily flock to that place, leads them to vie with each other in seeking to carry away what had been trodden by the feet of the Lord, yet the sand of the place suffers no injury; and the earth still preserves the same appearance which it presented of old, as if it had been sealed by the footprints impressed upon it’; Sulpicius Severus, ‘The Sacred History of Sulpitius Severus’, trans. Alexander Roberts, in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, 2nd series, Vol XI [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1955 (1894)], pp. 71–122, at p. 113). 21 Tractatus XLVII.4; Augustine, Sancti Aurelii Augustini In Iohannis Evangelium Tractatus CXXIV, ed. Radbod Willems, CCSL 36 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1954), p. 406, ll. 12–19 (emphases added). 22 Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John 28–54, trans. John W. Rettig, Fathers of the Church 88 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1993), pp. 216–17 (emphases added). 23 Augustine may be privileging the footprints because they typologically echo Zach. 14:4, an eschatological verse often cited in association with the Ascension. Klameth, Die neutestamentlichen Lokaltraditionen, p. 113, and Ó Broin, ‘Rex Christus Ascendens’, p. 91, point out this possible Old Testament link in Augustine’s passage. 24 Even though the place of Ascension is a standard location visited by Holy Land travellers, the footprints are not mentioned in all recorded reports; for example, the sixth-century Theodosius, De situ terrae sanctae, ed. P. Geyer, in Itineraria et Alia Geographica, CCSL 175 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1965), pp. 113–25, at pp. 117, 121, refers to Mount Olivet as the place of Ascension but adds no other information; similarly The Itinerary of Bernard the Wise, trans. J. H. Bernard, in The Library of the Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society, Vol. III (New

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York: AMS Press, 1971 [1893]), pp. 3–11, at p. 9, which records the late ninth-century journey of Bernardus Sapiens, or Bernardus Monachus. More relevant for Anglo-Saxon England, the eighthcentury journey of Willibald, later Bishop of Eichstätt, is recorded in two narratives. Huneberc of Heidenheim, The Hodoeporicon of St. Willibald, in The Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany, trans. and ed. C. H. Talbot (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1954), pp. 153–77, at p. 167, describes Willibald’s visit to the open-roofed Ascension church but mentions no footprints. In contrast, the anonymous Itinerary of St. Willibald (Itinerarium S. Willibaldi), trans. Canon Brownlow, in The Library of the Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society, Vol. III, pp. 38–54, reports that the ‘marks of our Lord’s Feet’ (p. 46) are visible to this day and that ‘St. Willibald and his companions never ceased to wash [these marks] with flowing tears’ (p. 47). Verbal correspondences indicate that the Itinerarium’s author seems to have been familiar with Paulinus’ Epistula 31. 25 There are no direct verbal echoes of Augustine’s Tractate 47 in AngloSaxon Ascension texts, although Augustine’s work was known in Anglo-Saxon England and cited by both Bede and Ælfric. For Bede, see Michael Lapidge, The Anglo-Saxon Library (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 203–4; for Ælfric, see pp. 253–4. Lapidge reports that eight manuscripts with connections to Anglo-Saxon libraries contain Augustine’s Tractates, all of them dated late eleventh century or later (p. 205). 26 Nina Gockerell, ‘Pilgerandenken aus Jerusalem’, in Dona Ethnologica Monacensia, Leopold Kretzenbacher zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Helge Gerndt et al. (Munich: Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Institut für deutsche und vergleichende Volkskunde, 1983), pp. 163–79. 27 Antonini Placentini Itinerarivm, ed. P. Geyer, in Itineraria et Alia Geographica, pp. 127–74, at p. 141 (Chapter 23). In connection to the Praetorium, the pilgrim describes Christ’s appearance: ‘He had a wellshaped foot, small and delicate, but he was of an ordinary height, with a handsome face, curly hair, and a beautiful hand with long fingers, as you can see from a picture which is there in the Praetorium, and was painted while he was alive. From this stone where he stood come many blessings. People take “measures” from the footprints, and wear them for their various diseases, and they are cured. The stone itself is decorated with gold and silver’; John Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades, 2nd edn (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 2002), p. 141. 28 Lenz Kriss-Rettenbeck, Bilder und Zeichen religiösen Volksglaubens (Munich: Georg Callwey, 1963), p. 68 and Plate 215. An inscription identifies this linen footprint as ‘vestigium D. N. J. C. in Mo: Oliveti’; it measures 26 cm (10.2 inches) in length and 10.5 cm (4.1 inches) in width, hardly the ‘small and delicate’ foot that the Pilgrim of Piacenza describes (see n. 27). Footprints also survive in other media, such as woodcuts and

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copperplate engravings; see Wallfahrt kennt keine Grenzen, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, 28 June–7 October 1984, ed. Bayerisches Nationalmuseum and Adalbert Stifter Verein [exhibition catalogue] (Munich: Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, 1984), p. 80. 29 Bede, HE, V.15, p. 506, reports that Arculf was thrown upon the western shores of Britain by a great storm; Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969). Denis Meehan dates Arculf’s stay in the eastern Mediterranean to AD 679–82; see Adomnán, Adamnan’s De Locis Sanctis, ed. Denis Meehan, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae III (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1958), p. 11. According to Adomnán, Arculf ‘sojourned for nine months in the city of Jerusalem, traversing the holy places in daily visitations’; after arriving in Iona, he ‘dictated to me, Adamnan, his faithful and accurate record of all his experiences’; Adamnan’s De Locis Sanctis, p. 37. All quotations and translations of De Locis Sanctis are from Meehan’s edition. For another edition, see Adomnán, Adamnani De Locis Sanctis Libri Tres, ed. Ludwig Bieler, in Itineraria et Alia Geographica, pp. 183–234. Thomas O’Loughlin, Adomnán and the Holy Places: The Perception of an Insular Monk on the Locations of the Biblical Drama (London and New York: T. & T. Clark, 2007), pp. 210–11, asserts that Adomnán’s work largely lacks factual information and reflects mostly ‘how those in its place of composition imagined Palestine at the time’ (emphasis in original). 30 See Adamnan’s De Locis Sanctis, pp. 11–14, esp. p. 13, on Adomnán’s sources and models. He does not seem to have drawn on Paulinus of Nola’s Epistula 31, the only other possible source for the churchcum-footprints motif at that date. Since apparently neither Sulpicius’ Chronica nor Paulinus’ letter was known in Anglo-Saxon England, the motif was most probably transmitted through Adomnán’s De Locis Sanctis; see Adamnan’s De Locis Sanctis, p. 13. Cf. also Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Library, pp. 333–4, 405 (for writings by Sulpicius Severus attested in Anglo-Saxon England) and pp. 324, 401 (for Paulinus of Nola); and Helmut Gneuss, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, MRTS 241 (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001), p. 175 (for Paulinus) and p. 181 (for Sulpicius). 31 Adamnan’s De Locis Sanctis, pp. 64, 66. 32 Adamnan’s De Locis Sanctis, pp. 65, 67. 33 Bede is particularly interested in Adomnán because of his role in the Easter date debate; see HE V.15, pp. 504–7, and HE V.21, pp. 550–1 (in the letter of Ceolfrith to Nechtan). For more on Bede’s De Locis Sanctis, see George Hardin Brown, A Companion to Bede, AngloSaxon Studies 12 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2009), p. 71.

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34 Even though Bede claims to be quoting from Adomnán in the section on the Ascension church (HE V.17, p 510), he quotes from his own version of De Locis Sanctis. 35 For example, Paulinus of Nola, Sulpicius Severus, and Adomnán all mention the impossibility of covering up the ground where Christ’s feet stood, even with a stone as noble as marble. While Bede repeats that the church could not be roofed on account of Christ’s passage, he mentions no specific material, marble or otherwise, used for this. Both the OEM and BH 11 also mention that the footprints throw any matter back into the faces of those who try to cover them up, a detail omitted by Bede. On the sources of the OEM in general, see Christine Rauer, ‘The Sources of the Old English Martyrology’, ASE, 32 (2003), 89–109; Rauer, ‘The Sources of the Old English Martyrology (Cameron B.19.079)’, Fontes Anglo-Saxonici: World Wide Web Register (2000), http://fontes.english.ox.ac.uk/ (accessed 15 November 2012); Rauer, ed. and trans., The Old English Martyrology: Edition, Translation and Commentary, Anglo-Saxon Texts 10 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2013), pp. 2–4, 228–310 (the commentary section); James E. Cross, ‘On the Blickling Homily for Ascension Day (No. XI)’, NM, 70 (1969), 228–40; and Cross, ‘On the Library of the Old English Martyrologist’, in Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England: Studies Presented to Peter Clemoes on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Michael Lapidge and Helmut Gneuss (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 227–49. The martyrologist was a competent Latinist and handled his sources reliably; see James E. Cross, ‘The Latinity of the Ninth-Century Old English Martyrologist’, in Studies in Earlier Old English Prose: Sixteen Original Contributions, ed. Paul E. Szarmach (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1986), pp. 275–99; and Rauer, ‘The Sources of the Old English Martyrology’, pp. 92–3. 36 Gregory the Great’s Gospel Homily 29, Bede’s Gospel Homily II.15, his hymn on the Ascension, his Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, and (perhaps) Cynewulf’s Christ II predate the compilation of the OEM. Among the wide range of sources that the martyrologist used for his entire compilation, he names Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica and Gregory’s Homiliae XL in Euangelia; see Rauer, ‘The Sources of the Old English Martyrology’, pp. 103–4. This means that he may well have had access to Gregory’s Homily 29 but deliberately chose not to use it for his Ascension Day entry. See also Rauer, Old English Martyrology, p. 258, on the sources of the entry for Ascension Day. 37 BH 11:125, 13ff. In Morris’s edition, the last three out of 7.5 printed pages focus on the Ascension place. The homilist mentions the footprints (lastas, fet, stoplas, swaþas) eleven times on a single printed page (BH 11:127), in addition to numerous references to ‘earth’ (eorþ, molda).

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38 Rauer, Old English Martyrology, p. 96 (emphases added). All quotes are taken from this most recent edition. But see also Günter Kotzor, ed., Das altenglische Martyrologium, 2 vols, Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. Kl., n.s. 88.1–2 (Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1981), II, pp. 1–266, at pp. 84, 86 (MSS. B/C version). For extensive bibliography, see Rauer’s website ‘The Old English Martyrology: An Annotated Bibliography’, www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~cr30/martyrol​ ogy/index.htm (accessed 10 November 2012). The OEM is generally dated to the ninth century; see Rauer, ‘The Sources of the Old English Martyrology’, p. 91, esp. note 7; James E. Cross, ‘“Legimus in ecclesiasticis historiis”: A Sermon for All Saints, and its Use in Old English Prose’, Traditio, 33 (1977), 101–35, at p. 134, dates the OEM to the second quarter of the ninth century. The OEM survives in six copies, all incomplete. The two earliest manuscripts are London, British Library, Additional 23211 (c.871 x 899, Wessex), and London, British Library, Additional 40165 A.2 (s. ix ex. or ix/x). The section for Ascension Day survives in three manuscripts, among them BL Add. 40165 A.2. (see Rauer’s website). For the textual origins of the OEM, see Michael Lapidge, ‘Acca of Hexham and the Origin of the Old English Martyrology’, Analecta Bollandiana, 123 (2005), 29–78. 39 What is quoted here is slightly less than half of the entry, which goes on to talk about the church built at the site and mentions Christ’s footprints several more times. In the entire entry, the martyrologist mentions the footprints nine times, in addition to seven further references to the holy earth and the place on which Christ stood. The OEM’s user would presumably be sufficiently well informed to know the Ascension lections for the day. Or, if this material was used for a homily, then listeners would have heard the basic biblical narrative and further instructions through other parts of the liturgy. The entry’s content itself falls largely outside of what would be presented in the liturgy. If the martyrology was indeed consulted as a reference work in the process of homiletic composition, then this entry offers a rather narrow choice of topic. 40 BH 11:127, 21–5 (emphasis added). 41 BH 11:129, 18–20. 42 BH 11:127, 14–21. For the corresponding passage in the OEM, see Rauer, Old English Martyrology, p. 96. 43 For the impossibility of covering up the footprints, see Rauer, Old English Martyrology, p. 96; and BH 11:125, 33 to 127, 4. 44 BH 11:125, 31–2. 45 Rauer, Old English Martyrology, p. 98. BH 11 omits this miracle. 46 See Deshman, ‘Another Look at the Disappearing Christ’, p. 530, on the links of the footprints to the mimesis tradition. 47 BH 11:129, 6–10 and 22–9.

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48 Rauer, Old English Martyrology, p. 96. 49 BH 11:125, 27–30. The emphasis on the sacred path that Christ took is reminiscent of the ‘new path’ that the ascending Christ forges in Ambrose’s treatise De Fide and Bede’s Ascension hymn. 50 See Rauer, ‘Usage of the Old English Martyrology’, pp. 128–35, who speculates on the possible usages of the OEM, including several in communal settings, such in the monastic capitular Office, in preaching, and for reading out loud; and Swan, ‘Constructing Preacher and Audience’, pp. 179–80, who considers the stylistic clues that vernacular homilies give about their performance settings. 51 George Philip Krapp and Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie, eds, The Exeter Book, ASPR 3 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), pp. 16–17. Cynewulf’s description reveals his familiarity with early Christian pilgrimage reports. Although the biblical event took place in the open, the detail of Christ ascending þurh þæs temples hrof indicates that Cynewulf imagines the location as it appeared when the Ascension church with its open roof had been constructed. On Cynewulf’s possible sources, see Albert S. Cook, The Christ of Cynewulf (Boston: Ginn, 1900), pp. 122–4, note 495, who quotes from a translation of Bede’s De Locis Sanctis and the OEM entry; Cook also suggests that Willibald’s travel account ‘is perhaps quite as likely to have been in Cynewulf’s mind as that from Bede’ (p. 124); on Willibald, see note 24 above. 52 Cynewulf mentions Christ’s ‘trace’ only this once without elaborating. It is therefore unclear whether he had actually visible footprints in mind. The notion of the apostles following in Christ’s footsteps is present either way. 53 For examples, see Gertrud Schiller, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, 4 vols (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1966–91), 2: Plates 497 and 521; and Lexikon der Christlichen Ikonographie, 2: cols 271–2, Plate 5. 54 See, for example, Clayton, ‘Homiliaries and Preaching in AngloSaxon England’; and Swan, ‘Constructing Preacher and Audience’. 55 BH 11:129, 29–34 (brackets in original). 56 For different means of making holy sites present to insular viewers, namely, through art and architecture, see Richard Bailey, ‘St. Wilfrid. Ripon and Hexham’, in Studies in Insular Art and Archaeology, ed. Catherine Karkov and Robert T. Farrell, American Early Medieval Studies 1 (Oxford, OH: American Early Medieval Studies and the Miami University School of Fine Arts, 1991), pp. 3–23; and Carol Neuman de Vegvar, ‘Remembering Jerusalem: Architecture and Meaning in Insular Canon Table Arcades’, in Making and Meaning in Insular Art: Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Insular Art held at Trinity College Dublin, 25–28 August 2005 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007), pp. 242–56. 57 David A. Barrowclough and John Hallam, ‘The Devil’s Footprints and Other Folklore: Local Legend and Archaeological Evidence in

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Lancashire’, Folklore, 119 (2008), 93–102, at p. 99, discuss English folk beliefs on the devil’s footprints, stating that indentations in rocks, interpreted to be the devil’s, link ‘the world of the living with that of the dead’. Interestingly in the present context, they read these footprints as a marker of liminality: ‘the liminal area in between the living and the dead might be an appropriate place for rituals, including rights [sic] of passage’ (p. 100). I thank Oren Falk for this reference. Divine and other footprints can be found across the world; for instance, Mohammed’s footprints in the Dome of the Rock or Buddha’s footprints across Asia. For footprints in European folk literature and beliefs, see Stith Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, rev. edn (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1956), A901, A972.1.1, A972.1.3, A972.2.1, A972.2.2, F.521.2.1.2, and F521.2.4; and Hanns Bächtold-Stäubli, ed., Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, 10 vols (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1927–42), 3: cols 240–3, s.v. Fußspur. 58 BH 11:127, 10–14. 59 Compare this also to King Oswald’s place of death, mentioned by Bede in HE III.9, from where earth is taken to heal people.

3 Gateway to salvation: Ascension theology in liminal spaces

Having departed from earth, leaving behind his footprints to mark the beginning of his journey, Christ ascends towards heaven to be seated in glory next to the Father. Instead of moving into heaven with uninhibited stride, however, Christ’s progress is halted at the gates, as he is challenged by angels who wish to know who demands entry. Christ has to open the gates of heaven before he can triumphantly enter the celestial city to complete his journey. This chapter concerns the end point of the Ascension, the arrival of Christ at the gates and eventual entry into heaven. I examine the rhetorical strategies that two authors use to establish the spatial and thus the symbolic relationships of the Ascension to two historical-mythical events in the life of Christ: the Harrowing of Hell and Christ’s Entry into heaven.1 In the surviving corpus of early medieval English Ascension literature, two texts foreground the interconnectedness between these events: a hymn for Vespers of Ascension Day ascribed to Bede2 and Homily XIX ‘In Ascensione Domini’ of the late twelfth-century vernacular sermon collection known as the Trinity Homilies (hereafter TH 19).3 Both sources treat the relationship of the Harrowing and Christ’s Entry to the Ascension as a central theme and as a structuring device.4 I argue in this chapter that Bede and the Trinity homilist depict the Harrowing and Christ’s Entry as events that are centrally defined by the crossing of boundaries in a spatial sense and that can, therefore, symbolize the inherently liminal theology of the Ascension. Rather than explain theology in difficult abstract terms, the authors represent the Ascension by concretely visualizing two events that are doctrinally associated with it. In depicting the Harrowing and Christ’s Entry into heaven, they choose rhetorical strategies that specifically reflect the liminality shared by the historical events and the underlying theology. In this way, Bede and the Trinity homilist establish a conceptual parallel between the

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events they narrate and the theology they wish to explain, allowing them to illustrate specific Ascension doctrines through concretely imaginable images. Despite the emphasis that Bede’s hymn and TH 19 place on Christ’s movement through space and his crossing of boundaries, this subject has not drawn any interest. Scholarship has largely neglected both texts, and the indebtedness of TH 19 to Bede’s hymn has hitherto not been examined at all.5 Previous scholarship on Ascension literature, which has heavily focused on Cynewulf, at least indicates which issues have generated the most interest and are therefore relevant in the present context, since Christ II shares certain thematic and structural similarities with both the hymn and the homily. Critical attention has been given to formal issues, for example the seemingly violated chronology of narrative events in Christ II.6 Further topics that have been explored are the identification and transmission of sources and motifs, such as the descent–ascent motif.7 While critics have not focused on liminality and the spatial aspects of Ascension narratives, their work nonetheless makes for a useful foundation for further examination. For example, I share an interest in the transmission of patristic theology into early English texts with George Hardin Brown, who shows that Cynewulf draws on a rich tradition of Ascension theo­ logy from both biblical and patristic works by tracing his sources for the repeated descent–ascent motif and the poem’s linking of the Harrowing with the Ascension.8 Building on this previous work, I examine how the link is established between these important Christological events in two different texts. Rather than seeking a narrative pattern based on biblical sources that imply descents and ascents, I propose to follow the narrative progression as given in the texts themselves, which reveals that the narrative elements connect to one another in a multi-directional network rather than through a strictly alternating descent–ascent pattern. There are up-and-down movements, to be sure – the Incarnation and the Harrowing are descents and the Ascension is an ascent – but they do not follow one another in alternating patterns. Instead, the Ascension functions as the starting point for both descents and ascents. Following the natural progression of events, I will show that the Ascension functions as narrative origin multiple times in Bede’s hymn and TH 19, for Christ’s ascending movement and his Entry into heaven do not immediately succeed the Harrowing. Both the Harrowing and Christ’s Entry spring from passages that describe the Ascension scene on the Mount of Olives. In contrast

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to other literary critics, I also argue that Bede and the homilist view Christ’s Entry into heaven as an event separate from the Ascension and the Harrowing (a view that has theological grounding), revealing that this separation results in more effective doctrinal instruction because it draws targeted attention to the goal of the Ascension by using liminality as an interpretive concept. The examination of border spaces uncovers that the spatial relationships between the Ascension, the Harrowing, and Christ’s Entry create symbolic meaning in the respective narratives. As part of this semantic network, both authors use the image of the gates of heaven to teach the theology of the Ascension. The concept of liminality provides a new way of reading the Harrowing and Christ’s Entry and especially their relationship to the Ascension, because it reveals that Bede and the Trinity homilist include them not merely to describe two important Christological events, but specifically to reinforce the importance of the Ascension in Christian theology and salvation history. They achieve this by linking the Ascension to two ‘adjacent spaces’, those in which the Harrowing and Christ’s Entry take place, which then become new narrative arenas; this positions the Ascension as a ‘gateway’ event that provides the narrative occasion for the Harrowing and Christ’s Entry, at the same time as those two narratives meaningfully reflect back on to the Ascension. Most importantly, Bede and the Trinity homilist recognize that the depicted events share an emphasis on borders: all three take place across spaces (earth into hell, earth to heaven, outside heaven into heaven). The shared spatial liminality makes these events structurally similar to one another, and the texts place them into contiguous narrative spaces as they unfold. Bede and the homilist conceive of the three events as belonging together not only in time but in space with the effect of making the shared liminality visible, and both authors elaborate precisely upon those moments of the Harrowing and Christ’s Entry when the protagonist Christ faces barriers – such as the gates of hell and the gates of heaven – and overcomes them. In other words, they focus on liminal spaces. To convert the essential spatial movements of Christ during the Harrowing and his Entry into an effective narrative, Bede and the Trinity homilist choose rhetorical strategies that reflect this liminality. Rather than including comprehensive detail in depicting the historical events, however, they work allusively. Only a few moments are selected as narrative focal points (such as Christ’s opening of gates), but these are sufficient to invoke the familiar

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larger narratives of the Ascension, the Harrowing, and Christ’s Entry, while also lending the texts a consistent emphasis on crossing boundaries. As laid out in the Introduction, the thematic liminality of the rhetorical strategies is also inherent in Ascension theology. In their focus on thresholds, borders, and barriers, Bede and the Trinity homilist have no interest in explicating the theological significance of the narrative content in abstractions, but instead theology finds expression in concrete spatial details and in a Christ who moves through space in an easily imaginable way.9 Bede and the homilist express abstract theological content as a set of images that can be easily visualized and through which this theology can be understood. But these images also need to be interpreted properly, and both authors expect their audiences to read Christ’s movements symbolically and to understand that the ultimate purpose of the Ascension, the salvation of humanity, is not completed until Christ enters heaven – the move without which any preceding acts would be meaningless. The shared liminality of the historical events, of the rhetorical strategies chosen to narrate them, and of the theological teachings is key to reading properly the meaning of the Ascension to individuals and to the Christian collective. The concept of liminality operates on three levels in my reading of Bede’s hymn and TH 19: historical, rhetorical, and theological. First, the larger historical events that Bede and the homilist portray take place across spaces and thresholds; their core significance consists of crossing boundaries. Second, to present these larger spatial relationships, Bede and the homilist choose rhetorical strategies that reveal their thematic focus on liminal spaces. Third, the concrete spatial liminality and the rhetorical strategies reflect the underlying liminal theology of the Ascension. Similar to Christ’s footprints discussed in the previous chapter, the rhetorical strategies used by Bede and the Trinity homilist, especially the motif of the gates of heaven, become the means through which they teach the abstract doctrines of the totus Christus, Christ’s dual nature, and the exaltation of humanity. My approach to Bede’s hymn and TH 19 advances our thinking about these texts by showing how the concept of liminality, the construction of spatial relationships, and the skilful juxtaposition of three Christological events function together as a remarkable means of visualized theological instruction in early medieval religious literature. Moreover, the authors’ similar approach to narrating the Ascension suggests that specific Ascension thematics belonged to a sustained tradition that

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spanned pre- and post-Conquest preaching, and perhaps even the possibility of a more systematic programme of teaching Ascension doctrines in Anglo-Saxon England. Circumventing time: narrative sequencing of the Ascension, the Harrowing, and Christ’s Entry For any author who wishes to depict the Ascension, the Harrowing, and Christ’s Entry coherently, the disjointed temporal sequencing of these events presents a considerable narrative challenge. Although all three events are commonly alluded to in Christian literature, the sequence in which they unfold is problematic and unclear. I contend that Bede and the Trinity homilist solve this problem by linking the three events in space rather than only in time. Constructing spatial relationships circumvents any problematic temporal relationships and, at the same time, foregrounds the shared liminality. Even though the Ascension firmly belongs, in terms of both the unfolding of scriptural events and its Christology, to the Easter–Pentecost sequence, it was initially a matter of debate as to when the biblical Ascension occurred. The discrepancies among biblical sources and the temporal separation of the Ascension from Easter led to uncertainty about how to reconcile the time of its occurrence with that of other paschal events. For one thing, the Ascension becomes closely linked with the (largely extra-scriptural) Harrowing of Hell.10 Christ’s descent into hell connects naturally to the Ascension since the freed souls of the Ancient Just become the spoils that Christ leads with him to heaven when he ascends. But the Harrowing is also closely tied to Easter because it takes place in conjunction with Christ’s Resurrection.11 Thus, the forty-day interval between Easter and the Ascension poses the logistical problem of how these two events can be connected and how their temporal relationship ought to be constructed in retelling them.12 Despite these issues of chronology, there are sound theological reasons why the Ascension belongs to the Harrowing and Christ’s Entry, even as they are doctrinally distinct. The Ascension is Christ’s final act on earth in his human form and initiates the triumphant completion of his redemptive act and his glorification and enthronement in heaven.13 New Testament authors already recognized the independent doctrinal significance of the Ascension. As William Marrevee explains,

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For them the dogmatic reality of the Ascension as Christ’s glorification and exaltation and as His invisible entering into the heavenly glory where He is established as Lord with the Father, is of the greatest importance. This is the essential content of the mystery of the Ascension and as an Easter event is intimately connected with the Resurrection and yet as a second phase distinct from it.14

Even though the linking of the Harrowing and the Ascension is common in the theology of glory,15 the Ascension is, as Marrevee notes, a discrete event in salvation history which has its own theology. For example, a central significance of the Ascension is that it leads to the opening of heaven to humanity. This is predicated, in part, upon Christ’s bodily Resurrection and on the successful Harrowing of Hell, but doctrinally it can be formulated as distinct from these two. The Resurrection and the Harrowing do not inevitably predict the opening of heaven, and the Ascension culminates in the glorification of Christ, an outcome that is not immediately dependent on any other event. As a discrete Christological event, the Ascension carries its own meaning, even as its relationships to other elements of the divine economy – the Harrowing and Christ’s Entry – help define and deepen this significance. The clear Christological but unclear temporal links between the Ascension, the Harrowing, and Christ’s Entry, and the interpretive problems this inevitably brings with it, invite us to examine the relationships between these three events more closely and to ask how early medieval authors coped with this narrative challenge. Bede’s hymn and TH 19 are interesting cases to study in this regard, as they are the only completely preserved early medieval (pre-1200) Ascension texts that include all three events in their narratives and offer a spatial solution to the problem of temporal sequencing. As I show in what follows, this solution to a logistical problem lends itself perfectly to the teaching of theology because it is not so much the temporal as the spatial dimensions of these events that signal their theological importance. When the events occur is less important than the fact that they occur across spaces, a fact that can be visualized in a narrative. The narrative strategy of focusing on liminal spaces allows Bede and the homilist to express the theological significance of the Ascension by drawing attention away from the historical reality of the biblical event to its eternal impact. The spatial relationships become the point of departure for exegesis, demanding interpretation. And this interpretation shows that Bede and the Trinity homilist effectively align the spatial

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liminality of the actions depicted with the theological liminality of the doctrines taught. Visual vignettes of theology: Bede’s hymn on the Ascension Bede’s particular rhetorical strategy in narrating the Ascension in his hymn, ‘De Ascensione Domini’, is to spotlight selective aspects of the Ascension, the Harrowing of Hell, and Christ’s Entry into heaven.16 He leaves aside parts of the narrative in favour of a few significant moments when Christ encounters and overcomes barriers and crosses from one space to another. For example, he does not include the apostles’ questions about the end of time, the commissioning of the Church, or Jesus’ promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit, which could all help illuminate the eschatological and ecclesiological import of the Ascension. Relying instead on allusive imagery, Bede dilates those aspects that allow audiences most vividly to envision the Harrowing and Christ’s Entry. The overall effect of this selective presentation is that the hymn becomes a series of visual vignettes that invoke the complete larger narrative and that establish the thematic through-line of liminal spaces. Rather than faithfully rephrasing his biblical source, Bede makes liminality into the hymn’s central theme, thereby shifting the narrative perspective away from the events themselves and towards their role in salvation history. Anchored by an emphasis on crossing boundaries, he selectively includes similar moments from the Easter–Pentecost sequence, for example the Harrowing. By highlighting Christ’s performance of salvific acts, Bede instantly teaches the Ascension’s soteriological significance. Bede is the only named Anglo-Saxon author with what one might call a ‘body’ of Ascension writings and the earliest whose work on the Ascension survives.17 As doctor ecclesiae, he carries on the patristic tradition, but he also shapes the patristic materials for reception in Anglo-Saxon England. One example of such adaptation, his Ascension hymn consists of elements familiar from Acts and of standard exegetical and doctrinal interpretations. Limited to the four-line stanza and bound by metric requirements, Bede densely packs this material into the tight hymnic form.18 Despite consisting of selectively shaped moments, the hymn’s thirty-two stanzas contain an astonishing amount of detail, allowing for a nuanced narrative to unfold. From the very beginning, Bede’s hymn is governed by a thematic focus on liminality and space. Stanzas 1 and 2 introduce the

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occasion for the hymn’s composition and its general subject, the Ascension, and both stanzas include a reference to Christ traversing space, as he triumphantly journeys towards the celestial throne: 1 Hymnos canamus gloriae, Hymni noui nunc personent, Christus nouo cum tramite Ad Patris ascendit thronum. 2 Transit triumpho nobili Poli potenter culmina, Qui morte mortem absumpserat, Derisus a mortalibus.19 [1. Let us sing hymns of glory; let new hymns now resound. Christ ascends to the Father’s throne by a new path. 2. In noble triumph and with power, He crosses the heights of heaven; mocked by men, He has conquered death in death.]20

In the first six lines, Christ ascends and travels across ‘the heights of heaven’ in a sweeping movement. This initial representation of Christ is naturally conditioned by the hymn’s main topic, yet it also reveals the degree of deictic selection. Bede shows Christ as a dynamic figure, whose far-reaching actions will govern the hymn’s ‘plot’, and establishes the hymn’s thematic focus on movements across spaces.21 This privileging of the ‘spatial narrative’ over a temporal narrative emerges even more clearly in sketching out the hymn’s overall progression. Rather than linger on the details of the Ascension, the end of stanza 2 introduces the theme of death (morte mortem absumpserat) and leads to the Harrowing of Hell, treated in stanzas 3–7, indicating that this related event is a suitable theme for teaching about the Ascension. After less than two stanzas, Christ’s heavenhigh ascent has swooped downwards towards hell, and the hymn has apparently veered off its main topic. Bede uses the Ascension as a starting point for the journey, as the impulse that leads to other events through which he can better relay the theological significance of the main event. While the move from the Ascension to the Harrowing is actually a leap backwards in chronology, it is neither confusing nor disorienting, because Bede makes a connection through an apposite description of Christ: he who crosses the heights of heaven is also the one who conquered death. In this way, hell is first introduced thematically, then morphs into the physical location and the destination of the descending journey as part of the spatial unfolding of the narrative. Once the Harrowing has been

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described (stanzas 3–7), Christ emerges from hell and begins his upward movement towards heaven (stanzas 8 and 9). In accordance with Easter chronology, Bede follows the Harrowing with the Resurrection (stanza 8), and then uses the rising motion of the resurrected Christ to lead naturally into the Ascension (stanza 9). Bede does not worry about either the forty-day interval or where the saved souls might be stored in the time between the Harrowing and the Ascension. At this point, he does not yet present the conclusion of the Ascension, though; he merely previews Christ’s seeking and opening of the doors of heaven (stanzas 10–13). Then Bede leaves Christ suspended in mid-Ascension and moves to earth to show the parallel scene of the apostles and Mary witnessing the Ascension on the Mount of Olives (stanza 14). The apostles’ eyes and hearts follow Christ towards heaven (stanza 15); the angels of Acts predict Christ’s return at Judgement (stanza 16–17a). With the angels then ascending, this scene returns to Christ’s triumphant march towards heaven, and the hymn’s next major focus falls on Christ’s arrival at the gates and his eventual triumphant Entry (stanzas 18–26). Although all these events must, of course, unfold in a chrono­ logy, there is no sense of measurable time; everything takes place in a vague temporal continuum. But a precise chronology is unnecessary, for the actions flow into each other and follow naturally upon one another, even though they take place neither at the same time nor in the same place. For example, after emerging from the Harrowing, Christ simply continues to ascend, and this upward movement allows for the action to merge naturally into the biblical Ascension scene on earth in the hymn’s middle stanzas; the action then departs from earth a second time, this time to complete the heavenward journey. The Ascension is a double starting point: it is the ‘gateway’ first for Christ’s descent to hell and then for Christ’s ascent to heaven. It is my contention that Bede deliberately narrates the Harrowing and Christ’s Entry because in these added narratives he can emphasize actions that take place across spaces. The Harrowing and Christ’s Entry are marked by liminality in a way that the Ascension itself – as isolated, biblical event taking place on earth – is not. Bede substitutes an exclusive focus on the biblical Ascension, or on an abstract explanation of theology, with the depiction of two spatial boundaries: the entrance to hell and the entrance to heaven. Thus, he can simultaneously develop an effective rhetorical strategy to tell the story of the Ascension, depict it as a dynamic event of consequence, and visualize its theological significance in a concrete way.

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A closer examination of the Harrowing and Christ’s Entry in the hymn reveals the complex relationships between rhetorical strategy, theology, and historical events: Bede’s depiction of the Harrowing invites an exegetical reading that uncovers the larger doctrinal messages behind the narrative. Bede extends the theme of liminality, first set out in stanzas 1 and 2, into his description of the Harrowing. Opening with the motif of the threshold to the underworld, the passage is rich with repeated references to such liminal motifs as the threshold, gates, and jaws of hell (stanzas 3–7): 3 Nam diri leti limina Caecas et umbras inferi Lustrans sua potentia Leti ligarat principem, 4 Et, quos suos in actibus Fideque lectos nouerat, Omnes Auerni faucibus Saluauit a ferocibus. 5 Laetamque uitae ianuam Pandit Redemptor omnibus, Quos lex amara corporis Vita pios priuauerat. 6 O mira rerum claritas! Miranda Saluatoris est Virtus, gemella gratia Quae regna leti destruit. 7 Nam plurimos ab inferi Portis reduxit spiritu, Multos et ipso corpore De fauce mortis eruit. (emphases added) [3. He has lit the thresholds of terrible death and hell’s blind shadows; He has bound death’s prince with His power. 4. From the ferocious jaws of Avernus He has saved all those He knew were His chosen ones in deed and faith. 5. The Redeemer has opened life’s blessed gateway to all the good men deprived of life by the bitter law of mortality. 6. O wonderful brightness of things! The power of the Saviour is marvellous, the twin grace which destroyed death’s kingdom. 7. For He has led many from hell’s gates in spirit, and rescued many from death’s jaws in body.] (emphases added)

Bede makes the liminal space of the infernal doorstep this section’s focal point. This doorway is a highly charged space, for it is associated with Christ breaking down the gates of hell, an inevitable element of the iconography of the Harrowing, although Bede never

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directly refers to broken gates.22 He avoids any overly spectacular action and focuses instead on the liminal nature of the space and of the actions taking place there. Consequently, in his approach to hell, Bede’s Christ literally shines his light on to the line between perdition inside and safety outside, between death with Satan and life with Christ.23 The illumination of the threshold additionally alludes to the well-known identification of Christ as light and reminds listeners that the act that prepares salvation lies not in breaking the doors but in the crossing of this boundary – first by Christ entering hell and then by the souls being pulled out. Bede develops the idea of liminal space as a space of salvation by juxtaposing the ‘negative’ gates of hell and the ‘positive’ gates of life. He twice mentions gates directly, in stanzas 5 (uitae ianuam) and 7 (inferi portis), the latter instance representing the ‘negative’ gates. Leaving most other aspects of the Harrowing aside, Bede foregrounds the act of passing through the gates of hell: Nam plurimos ab inferi/ Portis reduxit spiritu,/ Multos et ipso corpore/ De fauce mortis eruit (‘For He has led many from hell’s gates in spirit, and rescued many from death’s jaws in body’) (stanza 7). This stanza divides into two couplets of symmetrical imagery: the gates of hell (ab inferi portis) of the first clause are mirrored in the jaw of death (de fauce mortis) of the second.24 For Bede, the essence of the Harrowing is a series of border-crossing moments and, accordingly, these lines underscore the act of passing through the gates, of snatching the souls across the infernal threshold, as the theologically most significant moment of the Harrowing, because it is crucial to the redemption narrative. The phrase de fauce mortis also echoes stanza 4, in which Bede already used fauces: Omnes Auerni faucibus/ Saluauit a ferocibus (‘From the ferocious jaws of Avernus He has saved all’). The jaws of hell in stanza 4 are, in turn, skilfully juxtaposed with the ‘positive’ gates, which follow immediately in stanza 5. The ianua uitae, the ‘gate of life’, which is prepared for the previously damned, anticipates the gates of heaven later in the hymn and contrasts powerfully and consolingly with the references to the gateway of death in stanzas 4 and 7, which structurally envelop the gate of life. The contrast created by Bede is that, when Christ saves the souls from the jaws of hell, he figuratively opens for them the door to eternal life. While stanza 4 refers specifically to those rescued at the Harrowing (rather than Christians throughout history), the repetition of fauces draws a parallel between stanzas 4 and 7, and stanza 7 does speak of Christ’s saving souls throughout history. Bede indicates here

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that, even though the Harrowing was a singular event, its hopeful message is that Christ continuously rescues souls from destruction, even now. The Harrowing is the historical blueprint for the eternal theological truth of the redemptive promise made through Christ.25 In this section, then, Bede works from the specific to the general, from the Harrowing as a paschal event to its meaning for all Christians throughout time, and he instructs his audience both on the particulars of the event and on its impact on salvation history. The theological significance of the Harrowing will culminate in the completed Ascension, when the redemptive promise becomes fully possible. The preliminary importance of the Harrowing is the saving of the souls, which will eventually accompany Christ to heaven. The threshold to hell becomes the representative symbol for the importance of the Harrowing to the Ascension and anticipates the boundary of heaven, the dominant motif in the second part of the hymn, to which my discussion now turns. Bede elaborates his teaching of Ascension theology in his extended account of Christ’s Entry by focusing on the gates of heaven, giving considerable attention to the events unfolding in this second liminal space: thirteen out of thirty-three stanzas are specifically devoted to Christ’s triumphant march to and arrival at God’s kingdom.26 Bede also dramatizes Christ’s Entry into heaven more fully than the Harrowing. Once again, his rhetorical strategy is to dilate the moment before Christ enters heaven to lend it added emphasis and increase narrative suspense. He also creates a concrete sense of space, especially in stressing the barrier that Christ has to overcome. Given all these narrative elements, the similarities to his account of the Harrowing are clear. Like the threshold to hell, the gates of heaven support the theme of Christ’s crossing of boundaries. In contrast to the Harrowing, however, Bede amplifies everything about Christ’s Entry to indicate its greater importance: he spends more time on it and stresses the barrier before it is overcome rather than the opened gates. Christ’s Entry into heaven is the deeply important conclusion to the Ascension; it is the long anticipated climax towards which the hymn has been building up, and Bede clarifies through it that the Ascension profoundly affects all Christians. While in the Harrowing Bede taught about the preliminaries of the Ascension, he uses the main theme of liminality here to drive home the central significance of the Ascension as formulated in the doctrines of the exaltation of humanity, Christ’s dual nature, and the totus Christus.

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As the hymn’s action moves to Christ’s arrival in heaven, the preoccupation with the gates of heaven – and with the question of whether or not they will be opened – becomes immediately obvious. The first stanza of this second part places the action at the heavenly gates, as a verbal exchange between angels inside and outside heaven unfolds: 18 Haec dixerant, et non mora, Iuncti choris felicibus Cum rege regum lucidi Portis Olympi adproximant. 19 Emissa tunc uox angeli: Portas, ait, nunc pandite, Et introibit perpetis Dux pacis et Rex gloriae, 20 Respondit haec ab intimis Vox urbis almae moenibus: Quis iste Rex est gloriae, Intret poli qui ianuas? 21 Nos semper in caelestibus Christum solemus cernere Et eius una cum Patre Pari beamur gloria. 22 At praeco magni iudicis Dominus potens et fortis est, Qui strauit atrum in proelio Mundi triumphans principem. 23 Quapropter eleuamini, Portae perennis aetheris, Introeat Rex gloriae, Virtutis atque gratiae. 24 Mirata adhuc caelestium Requirit aula ciuium: Quis, inquit, est Rex gloriae, Rex iste tam laudabilis? 25 Herilis at mox buccina Respondit: Auctor omnium Altissimus uirtutum et Rex ipse fulget gloriae. 26 Dictis quibus Rex gloriae Cum glorioso milite Ingressus est in aethere Sublime regnum gloriae. (emphases added) [18. Having said this, the angels joined the happy choirs without delay, and came to the gates of bright Olympus with the King of kings.

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19. Then an angel’s voice came and said: ‘Now open the gates and the Lord of everlasting peace, the King of glory, will enter in.’ 20. A voice from the inner ramparts of the bountiful city replied, ‘Who is this King of glory who can enter heaven’s gates? 21. ‘We are always accustomed to seeing Christ among those who dwell in heaven; we are blessed by Him and His Father in equal glory.’ 22. But a herald of the great Judge said, ‘This is the powerful and mighty Lord who triumphantly overthrew the world’s black prince in battle. 23. ‘Wherefore, be lifted up, you gates of eternal heaven, so the King of glory may enter, the King of virtue and grace.’ 24. Still amazed, the court of celestial citizens asks, ‘Who is the King of glory, this King who is so praiseworthy?’ 25. Straight-away the Master’s herald replied, ‘He is the highest Author of all virtues; He shines forth as the King of glory.’ 26. At these words the King of glory, together with the shining host, entered into highest heaven, into His kingdom of glory.] (emphases added)

Immediately striking in this passage is the intensified deployment of motifs relating to physical landmarks and the continued emphasis on liminality. Linking these two elements, Bede makes no fewer than ten references to gates and acts of opening and entering: Cum rege regum lucidi/ Portis Olympi adproximant [[the angels] came to the gates of bright Olympus with the King of kings] (stanza 18) Portas, ait, nunc pandite/ Et introibit perpetis/ Dux pacis [[An angel’s voice] said, ‘Now open the gates and the Lord of everlasting peace … will enter in’] (stanza 19) Quis iste Rex est gloriae,/ Intret poli qui ianuas? [‘Who is this King of glory who can enter heaven’s gates?’] (stanza 20) Quapropter eleuamini,/ Portae perennis aetheris,/ Introeat Rex gloriae [‘Wherefore, be lifted up, you gates of eternal heaven, so the King of glory may enter’] (stanza 23) Rex gloriae/ … / Ingressus est in aethere/ Sublime regnum gloriae [the King of glory … entered into highest heaven, into His kingdom of glory] (stanza 26) (emphases added)

Since Bede draws on Ps. 23:7–10 to structure his narrative in these stanzas, it comes as no surprise that doors, gates, and related motifs

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feature prominently. In paraphrasing the psalm verses, however, he noticeably reinforces the importance of these by multiplying them. As this amplification resonates with the same motifs in the hymn’s first half (stanzas 3–7, 10, 12), audiences are already primed to recognize the traversing of space, the overcoming of barriers, and the entering through gates as a unifying theme for Christ’s actions. By the time the narrative reaches Christ’s arrival at heaven in stanza 18, listeners will understand it simultaneously as a continuation, another instantiation, and the culmination of the theme of liminality. Bede reinforces the barrier that Christ faces by emphatically underscoring the separation between the outside and the inside of heaven. One way in which he does this is by redistributing the speaking roles of the lines in Psalm 23, the source for this section. When Christ approaches the gates, accompanied by angels and the freed souls, Bede seizes the occasion to dramatize this moment. Rather than entering heaven without much difficulty, Christ has to stop before the gates and a verbal exchange occurs between the angel-heralds accompanying him and the angels on the celestial ramparts. Following the tradition of Justin Martyr and Irenaeus of Lyons, and especially Ambrose’s discussion of the Ascension in Book 4 of De Fide, Bede skilfully uses Psalm 23 to develop this extended dialogue.27 Ambrose was the first Latin author to develop a dialogue based on the psalm, but for him it takes place entirely inside heaven, between those angels who fail to recognize Christ and are astonished at his pomp and glory and those who recognize him or were present at his rising.28 Bede follows his patristic precursors by rephrasing all the verses of Ps. 23:7–10 in their original order and by incorporating a reason why the heavenly dwellers fail to recognize Christ (stanza 21; they are unaware that he had left heaven). But he also shapes the scene according to his own needs. Aside from adjusting the phrasing of verses to the hymn’s metric requirements, he injects additional content, weaving in exegetical readings of the psalm and reassigning the speaking roles of Psalm 23 so that the verbal exchange takes place between angels outside and inside heaven. Bede not only makes clear who is speaking which lines, but he also creates a sense of the physical space in which the dialogue takes place, especially of the fortress-like celestial city, with the effect of buttressing the blockade Christ has to penetrate. Building up the barrier that Christ has to overcome, Bede’s physical descriptions intensify the theme of liminality. The ­respective

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locations of the speakers are not subtly sketched and do not need to be intuited, as is the case with the patristic texts, for Bede clearly positions them outside and inside the gates. The angels travelling with Christ ‘approached the gates of bright Olympus’ (lucidi/ Portis Olympi adproximant, stanza 18). Both a ‘herald of the great Judge’ and ‘the trumpet of the master’ speak for Christ, unambiguously belonging to his retinue placed outside haven (praeco magnis iudicis, stanza 22; Herilis … buccina, stanza 25). In contrast, the ones who wonder about who is demanding entry are ‘a voice from the inner ramparts of the bountiful city’ and ‘the court of celestial citizens’ (intimis/ Vox urbis almae moenibus, stanza 20; caelestium/ … aula ciuium, stanza 24). Notably, Bede links the speakers inside heaven to their physical environment (moenia, urbs, aula). Only after those on the inside have been convinced of Christ’s legitimacy after several rounds of questions and answers does ‘the King of glory, together with the shining host, [enter] into highest heaven, into His kingdom of glory’ (stanza 26). Since the application of Psalm 23 to the Ascension is a standard exegetical move following Ambrose, it may seem as if Bede introduces only small changes. But these changes have a considerable effect on what audiences take away as the most important teachings about the Ascension. Bede significantly formalizes and disambiguates the dialogue. The psalm’s spoken lines are marked by introductory clauses explicitly announcing the speaker’s locations, roles, and affiliations in the drama. In contrast to Ambrose, the dialogue takes place across the boundary of heaven, which is repeatedly marked by the mention of closed gates. Even with only brief references to the physical aspects of this liminal space, Bede renders the basic surroundings noticeably concrete, most importantly the boundary to heaven. The bastion-like heaven starkly pitches those inside and outside against each other and fortifies the barrier between them, increasing the challenge set before Christ. All of this emphasizes the magnitude of Christ’s eventual conquest of this divide and the importance of its outcome, the promise of redemption, which through his Entry into heaven is permanently and unchangeably extended to all humanity. Aside from showing what an impressive accomplishment Christ’s Entry was, Bede’s emphasis on liminality also relates central Ascension teachings: Christ opens heaven to humanity, as he enters it as both God and man. Bede communicates this doctrine not with heavy-handed didacticism or blunt references. He never mentions Christ’s dual nature. Instead, listeners have to

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make interpretive connections between the various details given throughout the hymn. To teach the doctrine of Christ’s dual nature, Bede includes the celestial angels’ failure to recognize Christ upon his return, which points to the human form he took on (stanzas 20–1, 24). At the same time, he ascends through his own power, returning to his home where angels have customarily beheld him and where both he and God the Father dwell in glory for eternity (stanza 21); these aspects indicate his divine nature. Once Christ’s dual nature has been established, it is clear that, when he enters heaven, he takes humanity with him. Humanity is additionally exalted, as Christ brings along the saved souls, the ‘shining host’ that enters heaven with him (stanza 26). Collectively, these elements add up to Bede’s version of the totus Christus. Christ the Head has reached heaven while the Body of Christians still strives to join him. This suspended state, in which the figurative Body and Head can be imagined to stretch from earth to heaven, is perfectly encapsulated in the image of the gates of heaven, the barrier that Christ has overcome and that symbolizes both the opportunity for salvation (Christians can follow Christ through the gates) and the demand for a moral life (the path by which Christians have to open the gates for themselves to reach heaven). Bede’s rhetorical and didactic strategy is to juxtapose selective details of three historical events and to direct listeners to recognize their associated theological meanings. The hymn invites audiences to think beyond the immediate events on the Mount of Olives and imagine the conclusion of the Ascension in the context of the Harrowing told earlier: because Christ overcame the barrier to hell, he can save souls from destruction; because he takes the spoils of hell with him as he ascends, he can lead humanity across the boundary into heaven. This understanding is facilitated because Bede can rely on his audience already having basic catechetical knowledge, for example of Christ’s dual nature. Since the hymn would have been sung during Ascensiontide, he can also expect listeners to understand it in the context of the readings, lessons, sermons, and other liturgical elements presented to them in the Divine Office for the feast day and during the entire week. Profiting from this context, Bede merely needs to excerpt from the collection of available images associated with the Ascension without losing any central meaning. Although Bede focuses on gates and boundary crossings – fairly conventional motifs in Ascension thematics – his treatment stands out in its narrow focus on liminal spaces. Because the motifs he chooses invoke the larger shared narrative already

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familiar to the audience, he can teach the overall significance of the Ascension through a tight narrative focus and allusive imagery. Bede isolates moments when Christ crosses boundaries because they are transformative moments. Christ’s journeys into hell and towards heaven are necessary and important preparatory steps for the Ascension and important to include in this narrative. But without Christ’s final move of actually crossing the boundary into heaven, these initial steps have no lasting meaning. The moment when Christ’s dual nature crosses into heaven is the very moment of salvation when redemption is made possible for all Christians. For Bede, the essence of the Ascension lies in crossing this threshold as an imagined physical action, as a theological theme, and especially in its power of transformation, for – wonderfully – in an instant, salvation is brought to humanity. Bede’s legacy in vernacular sources: Cynewulf’s Christ II and Trinity Homily 19 Bede’s hymn enjoyed great popularity during the early Middle Ages – it is preserved in seven Anglo-Saxon hymnals alone – and, in its short version, it seems to have been used widely for liturgical purposes.29 Consequently, it would have been well known ­especially to members of religious communities, and its successful dissemination is indicated by its influence on later texts. Although no other Anglo-Latin text survives that presents the Ascension similarly to Bede, two vernacular sources – Cynewulf’s Christ II and Trinity Homily 19 – adopt Bede’s basic structural approach. For the study of the adaptation of Christian-Latin materials to Anglo-Saxon religious culture, it is of intrinsic interest how vernacular authors treat inherited Ascension materials. In addition, these texts are significant to Anglo-Saxon literary history because they attest to the influence of Bede’s hymn, their presumed primary source. As my discussion of Christ II and TH 19 will show, the vernacular authors share with Bede their rhetorical strategies and a focus on liminal spaces. The most famous Old English reflex of Bede’s hymn is in Christ II. Cynewulf draws on Bede in a number of respects, for instance in linking the Ascension with the Harrowing and Christ’s Entry and inverting the chronology of events with a repeated Ascension scene.30 Despite these similarities, Christ II is a problematic source for the narrative aspects I am interested in here, largely because of the substantial textual gap which disrupts line 556 and caused

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the loss of the early portion of the Harrowing, in whatever form it may originally have existed. All that remains of the Harrowing is a passage in which the angels who accompany Christ praise it as a fait accompli (556b–70). Presumably, the poem once had a more developed scene. Even though it is impossible to know how closely the missing passage was modelled on Bede’s narrative, Cynewulf’s priorities can be partially determined from what survives. The angels’ praise of the Harrowing leads into a description of Christ’s ascent and arrival at the gates, and one rhetorical strategy that Cynewulf adopts from Bede is to use Psalm 23 to shape this scene, which is evidently still narrated by the aforementioned angels and is addressed to those inside heaven (571–85): Wile nu gesecan  sawla nergend gæsta giefstol,  godes agen bearn, æfter guðplegan.  Nu ge geare cunnon hwæt se hlaford is  se þisne here lædeð, nu ge fromlice  freondum togeanes gongað glædmode.  Geatu, ontynað! Wile in to eow  ealles waldend, cyning on ceastre,  corðre ne lytle, fyrnweorca fruma,  folc gelædan in dreama dream,  ðe he on deoflum genom þurh his sylfes sygor.  Sib sceal gemæne englum ond ældum  a forð heonan wesan wideferh.  Wær is ætsomne godes ond monna,  gæsthalig treow, lufu, lifes hyht,  ond ealles leohtes gefea.31 [The Saviour of souls, God’s own child, will now seek the gift-seat of spirits after battle-play. Now you will fully know who the Lord is who leads this company; now you go boldly with a glad mind towards friends. Gates, open up! The ruler of all, the king, the origin of creation, wishes to lead through you into the city, to the joy of joys, with no small retinue, the people that he took from the devils through his own victory. Peace must be in common between angels and men forever henceforth for all time. A contract exists between God and men, a spirit-holy trust, love, life’s hope, and joy of all light.]

The angels command the gates to open (Geatu, ontynað, 576b) in a direct parallel to Psalm 23 (adtollite portas), but since Psalm 23 is used for the passage immediately following the gap, it is unknowable how much of the psalm also subtended the missing portion. If we assume that Cynewulf adhered closely to Bede’s hymn, then

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a developed double use of Psalm 23 for both the Harrowing and Christ’s Entry is less likely, since Bede lacks such a double use. Aside from general thematic similarities, there are other indications that Cynewulf follows Bede fairly closely, even down to wording. For example, the phrases corðre ne lytle (‘with no small retinue’) (578b) and fyrnweorca fruma (‘the origin of creation’) (579a) directly echo lines in Bede’s hymn. Describing the same narrative moment, right before Christ processes into heaven, Bede calls him the auctor omnium/ Altissimus uirtutum (‘the highest Author of all virtues’) (stanza 25) who enters cum glorioso milite (‘together with the shining host’) (stanza 26). These descriptors are fairly commonplace and do not ultimately prove derivation from any particular source, but they also do not directly correspond to any verses of Psalm 23. If one takes this as an indication that Cynewulf draws on Bede’s hymn in these instances and adheres to him closely, then one can conclude that he probably did not use Psalm 23 for the Harrowing. There are, however, also signs that Cynewulf works quite independently from his source, and some specific phrasings seem to indicate that the psalm was originally used for the missing Harrowing. For example, lines 573b–74, Nu ge geare cunnon/ hwæt se hlaford is se þisne here lædeð (‘Now you will fully know who the Lord is who leads this company’), imply that the repeated question of Ps. 23:8 and 10, Quis est iste rex gloriae? (‘Who is this King of Glory?’), was posed earlier and that the triumphant Entry is configured as a resounding response to it.32 Despite the structural parallels, however, Cynewulf ultimately has a different interest in the material than Bede. His use of Psalm 23 for Christ’s Entry is subtler than Bede’s in that he does not present a fully developed dialogue at the gates of heaven. He focuses on Christ’s victory in battle and triumph over the devils rather than spatial imagery and the power, theological function, or didactic potential of liminal spaces. Cynewulf’s lack of interest in these themes, therefore, serves best as a contrasting example and Christ II as an instructive outlying reference point as we map the occurrences of liminal motifs in Anglo-Saxon Ascension narratives for the teaching of theology. Unfortunately, besides Christ II, no Old English comparanda to Bede’s hymn survive. In the absence of other Anglo-Saxon sources, we must look instead to a rich post-Conquest corpus with which Christ II shares formal features and didactic goals: vernacular homilies.33 As the lively ongoing scholarship on vernacular

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literary traditions in post-Conquest England has shown, much can be learned from studying this area, not only about later medieval literary culture but, reflexively, about Anglo-Saxon England.34 Homily collections from the late eleventh and twelfth centuries (such as the Trinity Homilies) are important witnesses to vernacular preaching in the early post-Conquest period that can instruct us about the continuities and innovations of twelfth-century literary activity. They can also sometimes supplement information about Old English homiletic materials where Anglo-Saxon records are incomplete or missing altogether, as is the case with the treatment of the Ascension discussed in this chapter. Twelfth-century England clearly saw an abiding interest in the vernacular preaching tradition. Old English homilies continued to be copied and recopied (for example, Ælfric’s sermon cycles); Old English homilies were updated into Middle English (as is the case, for instance, with several items in the Lambeth Homilies);35 and new vernacular homilies were composed. It is not always equally clear how this continued activity should be interpreted by modern readers. Twelfth-century homily collections have often been seen as the faded conclusion to a once glorious era of vernacular homiletics, as derivative and inferior in form and skill, especially when compared to the celebrated homilies of Ælfric and Wulfstan, which represent the apex of early medieval preaching.36 As recent scho­ larship has shown, however, vernacular preaching in the twelfth century was not merely not backward-looking but appropriately contemporary, and just as political and reflective of its own historical moment as earlier homiletic literature.37 As Elaine Treharne argues, it is more accurate to say that the ‘authoritative and influential texts issued by the known and anonymous Anglo-Saxon writers’ had a lasting impact and influence ‘whose pertinence was felt deep into the post-Conquest period and beyond as can be witnessed by the late homilies in the Lambeth and Trinity manuscripts’.38 The later vernacular homilists are aware of the legacy they inherit, following an honoured and valuable tradition that can also be made newly relevant in a contemporary historical context. Post-Conquest homilists are thus both traditional and innovative. The Trinity Homilies collection reflects such a positioning between the Anglo-Saxon legacy and new contextual demands. Preserved in an early Middle English of the East Midlands, the homilies have no clear pre-Conquest antecedents.39 Five of the Trinity Homilies overlap with items in Lambeth MS 487, which reflect contemporary influences and concerns, as do other items

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in the Trinity collection.40 Even though the relationship of the Trinity Homilies to the pre-Conquest preaching tradition has not yet been precisely determined, continuities certainly exist. As Jerome Oetgen correctly states, the Trinity Homilies author(s) ‘imitated some of the methods and employed some of the same types of sources as his (or their) tenth- and eleventh-century predecessors’.41 In the absence of fully reliable textual proof, the links of the Trinity Homilies to Anglo-Saxon England are most profitably located in an evolving tradition that spans both pre- and post-­ Conquest periods. Treharne has called the collection ‘a homiliary that contains texts very much in the tradition of earlier English homilies’, and Mary Swan includes the Trinity Homilies manuscript in her list of ‘Principal Manuscripts Containing Old English Texts Produced between ca. 1150 and 1200’.42 Furthermore, as Treharne has recently pointed out, the Trinity Homilies address themes that met the requirements of twelfth-century parishioners and reflected recent ecclesial changes, thus innovating homiletic content, even as they are deeply influenced by Anglo-Saxon preaching traditions.43 Given these recent assessments and the absence of any other Anglo-Saxon examples that as fully illuminate the influence of Bede’s hymn on later texts, TH 19 becomes especially important, because it takes a similar approach to the Ascension materials as Bede and because it is a witness to the continuations of vernacular preaching across the constructed Old English/Middle English divide. The double use of Psalm 23 in Trinity Homily 19 The vernacular prose text of TH 19 differs starkly from Bede’s hymn and Christ II. Unlike the earlier texts in terms of language, genre, time, and place of composition, the homily nonetheless employs remarkably similar rhetorical strategies, especially in relation to Bede’s hymn. Perhaps influenced by the hymn, the homilist also grounds his narrative of Christ’s Entry in Psalm 23. Departing from Bede, however, TH 19 presents both the Harrowing and Christ’s Entry as parallel and emphatically symmetrical events by using Psalm 23 to narrate both.44 This symmetry matches the stiffly structured nature of the text as a whole. Each of its sections focuses on a list of points that the author dutifully works through (like the four aspects of the sun to which Christ is compared or his seven leaps). Despite the Trinity homilist’s adept rhetorical choices, his

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compositional skills and theological wherewithal have been harshly dismissed, for example by Jerome Oetgen, who finds the theology of the Trinity Homilies ‘undistinguished … None of them aspires to analyze very carefully either doctrine or scripture; all are hortatory and discursive rather than consistently exegetical.’45 Because scholarship, sparse as it is, has focused on the homilist’s (lack of) theological sophistication, his serious interest in the Ascension has been overlooked. Again, Oetgen reproaches the homilist for imposing a structure ‘from without for it does not develop organically from within’.46 The homilist indeed imposes a structure, but, I argue, this is done with a purpose; this structure is not a weakness but a deliberate rhetorical move, which encodes the theology of the Ascension that TH 19 is intended to teach. In contrast to previous assessments, I contend that the author of TH 19 was aware of Ascension doctrines, carefully reflects on them, and strives to express them in a memorable way. The homilist is not the most sophisticated theologian or the most elegant writer, but he finds a distinct way of incorporating patristic teachings through Christ’s double challenge at the gates of hell and heaven. My reading of TH 19 draws out this neglected homilist’s rhetorical skills to show that his seemingly clunky methods teach important theological points. The corpus of anonymous vernacular prose homilies, which despite efforts towards recuperation is still too often unjustly dismissed as inferior, has much to offer for stylistic and rhetorical analysis as well as for our understanding of the knowledge and dissemination of theology in early medieval settings. TH 19 is, to my knowledge, unique among early medieval vernacular Ascension texts in the explicit double use of Psalm 23. This raises the question of sources. The homilist draws on scriptural, patristic, apocryphal, and liturgical sources, but none of these contains such a repeated use.47 While patristic writers had already linked the psalm to both the Harrowing (Gregory of Nyssa) and Christ’s Entry into heaven (Julian Martyr, Irenaeus, and Ambrose), the psalm’s symmetrical use as basis for a continuous narrative and two dialogue scenes, as we see it in TH 19, is unprecedented. The homilist certainly has models in popular contemporary sources for the separate use of Psalm 23 for either the Harrowing or Christ’s Entry. For example, for the Harrowing, he seems to adapt in broad strokes and to condense the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, a widely disseminated account of which Old and Middle English versions circulated.48 The Gospel of Nicodemus incorporates Psalm 23 for Christ’s breaking down the gates of hell at the Harrowing

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and is the earliest precedent for such a use of the psalm for this narrative purpose.49 For Christ’s Entry, I suggest that Bede is the most likely model, especially considering the hymn’s popularity and the homilist’s confident use of various liturgical sources.50 The homilist’s apparent use of two separate sources for the double use of Psalm 23 in order to depict the liminality of the Ascension suggests that he worked more independently and with more control over his materials than has previously been granted. Besides Bede’s hymn, TH 19 is the only other extant and the only vernacular Ascension text from the early medieval period with a fully developed trifold articulation of the Harrowing, the Ascension, and Christ’s Entry. The homily falls into two major parts, each of which narrates the Ascension by way of a different dominant theme. The two parts are not rhetorically marked as such, but the homilist noticeably focuses on two separate aspects of the Ascension: Christ as sun in motion, and Christ at the gates of hell and heaven. The first part (p. 109 to p. 113, l. 6) elaborates the motif of Christ as sol iustitiae (‘sun of justice’), a phrase taken from Mal. 4:2.51 The homilist explicates the unique properties of the sun and thus of Christ, which prompts him to comment on Christ’s descent–ascent movements, leading him, in turn, to the well-known motif of the ‘leaps of Christ’, based on Gregory the Great’s Gospel Homily 29 and inspired by Song 2:8.52 The homily’s second major part (p. 113, l. 6 to p. 115) shows Christ more statically placed both at the gates of hell and heaven. The homilist develops a dialogue for each of these locations, thereby strongly drawing attention to these two liminal spaces. Given the motifs just described and the homilist’s confident adaptation of standard sources, his main interest seems to lie with Christ’s movements and with imagining him in space – as sun rising, leaping, descending, ascending, and, especially, confronting the gates. Like Bede, the homilist focuses on the spatial dimensions of the Ascension, though he depicts these in broader strokes and with less awareness of the theological subtleties that could be teased out. While both the hymn and the homily foreground the spatial relationships between the Ascension and the Harrowing and Christ’s Entry into heaven, the homilist is more alive to the inherent drama of these two events. He is intensely occupied with the barriers that Christ encounters (even more so than Bede), as expressed in the dialogues he constructs for both hell and heaven. The scene at the gates of hell unfolds as follows:

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Ac þo he to helle com, þe engles þe mid him comen clepeden to þe deuel and seiden, Tollite portas principes uestras et e[levamini], p[ortae] e[ternales], et intrabit rex glorie. Ge maisterlinges of þesternesse, openeþ giwer gaten. Þe king of blisse wile faren herin. Ðe stefne herden þe witeies, þe þerinne weren and on of hem þat was dauid andswerede þus: Dominus fortis et potens, dominus potens in prelio. Þe louerd þe is strong and mihti and on fehte. And dide ure louerd alse þe boc seið. Portas ereas contriuit et uectes ferreos confregit, et dedit lumen his qui erant in penis tenebrarum, et ligauit satanan et captiuam ducit in captiuitatem. And ure helende brac þo þe irene herre and alto shiurede þe giaten and in wende. Þo was helle liht enes and nefre eft of heuene liht, and bond te holde deuel and herede helle of þo þe him hadden her er quemed. Alse þe salm wrihte seið: Eduxit eos de tenebris et umbra mortis et uincula eorum disripuit. And he brac here bendes and ledde hem ut of þesternesse and of deaðes shadewe.53 [But when he came to hell, the angels who had come with him called out to the devil and said, Tollite portas principes uestras et elevamini portae aeternales, et intrabit rex glorie. You princes of darkness, open your gates. The king of grace will enter in. The prophets, who were within, heard the voice, and one of them, who was David, answered thus: Dominus fortis et potens, dominus potens in prelio. The lord who is strong and mighty and in battle. And Our Lord did as the book says. Portas ereas contriuit et uectes ferreos confregit, et dedit lumen his qui erant in penis tenebrarum, et ligauit satanan et captiuam ducit in captiuitatem. And our Saviour broke then the iron hinges and altogether shattered the gates and went in. Then hell was illuminated once and never again by heaven’s light, and he bound the old devil and harrowed hell of those who had pleased him before. As the psalm writer says: Eduxit eos de tenebris et umbra mortis et uincula eorum disripuit. And he broke their bonds and led them out of d ­ arkness and death’s shadow.]

Psalm 23 fully commands the structure and content of this entire scene of the Harrowing, especially given its relative conciseness. The psalm’s commanding presence is iterated not much later with Christ’s Entry, emphasizing the importance of these two events in conjunction with each other. The homilist proceeds to tell of the Ascension, mostly by paraphrasing portions from Luke and Acts, and briefly elaborates the notion that Christ ascended accompanied by wordless song and the blowing of trumpets.54 As before, and this time as in Bede’s hymn, Psalm 23 provides the narrative ­structure to further dramatize the scene: And þe bemene drem þe þe engles blewen, þe þere comen biforen ure helende to heuene gaten, and þus queðen to þe engles þe þer

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­wiðinnen weren, Tollite portas principes uestras et elevamini porte eternales et intrabit rex gloriae. Gie maisterlinges herwið-innen openeð giure gaten, and ech gate untineð giu seluen to-genes þe king of blisse þe wile faren herin. And hie þe þer-inne weren þus andswereden, Quis est iste rex gloriae? Hwat is þis blissene king? And þo wiðuten seiden, Dominus uirtutum ipse est rex glorie. He þe is alre mihtene louerd he is alre blissene king.55 [And the sound of the trumpets that the angels blew, that came there before our Saviour to the gates of heaven, and they said thus to the angels who were within, Tollite portas principes uestras et elevamini porte eternales et intrabit rex gloriae. You princes within, open your gates, and each gate, open yourself for the king of grace who will enter in. And those who were within answered thus: Quis est iste rex gloriae? Who is this king of graces? And those outside said, Dominus uirtutum ipse est rex glorie. He who is the Lord of all powers, he is the king of all graces.]

At this point, after answering the psalm’s question, the homilist abruptly stops, omitting the crucial part of Christ entering heaven. Instead, he returns to the opening theme of the sun that illuminates the hearts of Christians, along with some hortatory urging to repent and to desire to be drawn to Christ, possibly echoing Gregory the Great’s encouragement to follow in Christ’s passibus amoris. The homilist is less skilled than Bede in smoothly juxtaposing diverse narrative elements. But his instinct guides him in the right direction towards the drama at the gates of heaven and hell. He makes it abundantly clear that Christ faces a formidable barrier, for he emphatically also constructs an opposition between inside and outside. He mentions the gates and those within and without eight times in this passage (not counting the Latin quotations). Perhaps because of this highlighting of the physical threshold, he does not finally need to show Christ crossing into heaven; he has sufficiently built up the challenge Christ faces, magnifying his eventual achievement by magnifying the physical obstacle he has to overcome. Again, the most unusual feature of TH 19 is the presentation of the Harrowing and Christ’s Entry in nearly identical terms, which creates a strict symmetry between the two events. This symmetry serves the homily’s larger didactic enterprise. At the most basic level, it shows that the homilist viewed the Harrowing and Christ’s Entry as corresponding events that frame the Ascension. In this, he and Bede think alike. Both view the Ascension as a ‘gateway’ that leads (narratologically speaking) to the other two events.

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Chronologically, by the time of the Ascension, the Harrowing has already occurred, of course. But in an imaginative retelling such as TH 19, the Ascension can provide the narrative occasion that leads to the other events. Both authors believe that the Harrowing and Christ’s Entry are useful ways of narrating the Ascension, through which important points can be taught about it. In this, they differ fundamentally from all other Ascension authors (with the possible exception of Cynewulf). Teaching theology through liminal spaces The positioning of the Ascension as a ‘gateway’ facilitates the understanding of its theology by spotlighting the two moments that are most important to salvation history, when Christ opens hell and enters heaven. As Jackson J. Campbell observes, in narratives of the descent to hell, the Harrowing symbolizes salvation and is represented as the central event that leads to salvation.56 The symmetrical presentation of both the Harrowing as preparation for the Ascension and of Christ’s Entry as conclusion to it in Bede’s hymn and TH 19 suggests that the two events are at least equally important to salvation history. Bede and the homilist emphasize that the Harrowing is one important step in a sequence of events, of which the all-important completion is Christ’s Entry into his kingdom. Bede focuses closely on this latter part, the moment of Christ’s actual crossing into heaven, while the homilist more broadly constructs the equal status of the Harrowing and Christ’s Entry. In contrast to Campbell’s observation, my view is that Bede and the homilist, since their narrative focus on liminal spaces has the ultimate goal of teaching Ascension theology, are influenced by overarching soteriological concerns that correspond to patristic views on the significance of the Easter–Pentecost sequence as a whole. Three examples of specific doctrines that they teach are, not surprisingly, the totus Christus, Christ’s dual nature, and the exaltation of humanity. Even though these three doctrines are closely linked to one another, Bede and the homilist present each slightly differently. As we have seen in Chapter 1, Augustine, in his sermons on the Ascension, vigorously promotes the concept of the totus Christus, reminding Christians that they are the Body of Christ and that they should direct their aspirations towards heaven. Bede and the homilist place similar importance on this point, but they teach the totus Christus implicitly rather than explicitly. The homilist, for

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example, points out that Christians should strive to follow Christ, implying the connection between Head and Body. The doctrines of Christ’s dual nature and the exaltation of humanity are incorporated by Bede and the homilist more directly and more complexly. Bede’s hymn and TH 19 teach Christ’s dual nature through the combined symbolism of the Ascension, the Harrowing, and Christ’s Entry. Because the spatial liminality of these three Christological events replicates the liminality of Ascension doctrines, they have to be read jointly to arrive at the correct and most complete understanding of the Ascension, and that is why Bede and the homilist combine the three events. Christ’s crossing of the threshold of hell during the Harrowing heralds the last and most important of his liminal moves, the one into heaven, which signifies the Ascension’s central doctrine of Christ eternally accepting his dual nature and opening heaven to humanity. As the analysis of Bede’s hymn has shown, the narrative spaces of the three events connect to each other so that the Ascension can smoothly transition to Christ’s liberation of the righteous souls from hell and then to his ascent with them to heaven. In this way, the juxtaposition of these events visualizes explicitly the otherwise abstract doctrine of Christ’s dual nature: Christ ascends with souls in his retinue and returns to his heavenly home in human form (expressed through the angels’ failure to recognize him). The moment that Christ crosses the threshold into heaven, the celestial realm is irreversibly opened for humanity. Both Bede and the Trinity homilist incorporate in spatial terms the doctrine of the exaltation of humanity, or humanitas exaltata, as Gregory the Great puts it so succinctly in Gospel Homily 29. Their dramatization of the entry into heaven in itself points up the importance they place on Christ’s border crossing, but both authors also use specific motifs to remind their audiences of the importance of the exaltation. Bede, for example, stresses in stanza 12 that Christ opened heaven to all faithful, not merely the freed souls: Quo tota praecedentium/ A saeculo fidelium/ Caterua caeli regiam/ Pandente Christo subiit (‘This is the day when the whole company of the world’s faithful went ahead and entered heaven’s kingdom which Christ opened to them’).57 The Trinity homilist incorporates the doctrine in a twofold way in the following passage: Þe his faren fro giu into heuene he cumeð eft alswo ge him segen faren into heuene. Þo folgede ure helende michel feord of englen and of holie soules, þe he lesde ut of helle, þonked wurðe him58 (‘He [Jesus] who has gone from you into heaven, he will come again just as you have

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seen him go to heaven. Then followed our Saviour a great host of angels and of holy souls, which he had freed from hell, thanks be to him’). Besides referring to the freed souls, this passage also emphasizes Christ’s return in human form on Judgement Day (based on Acts 1:11), drawing attention to his dual nature, which is a fundamental prerequisite for the exaltation of humanity. As this brief examination shows, Bede and the homilist teach the most important Ascension doctrines, demonstrating that they are not simply interested in composing a mellifluous hymn or telling a riveting story to a congregation. The message of the larger doctrines matters because it assigns a firm place to the Ascension within salvation history. Both authors effectively teach this most astonishing impact of Christ’s boundary-crossing journey through their focus on liminal spaces, concisely encapsulating the message of salvation in the image of the gates. Although the action-packed and admittedly spectacular Harrowing of Hell has received more scholarly attention, Christ’s Entry into heaven is the more important event from a theological and ecclesiological perspective, as discussed in Chapter 1. It was, accordingly, important to medieval authors, some of whom also clearly take pleasure in suspensefully dramatizing this moment in Christ’s career. When Christ’s progress is halted at the gates of heaven and he cannot immediately proceed, a moment of crisis occurs, threatening failure and, most catastrophically, the loss of human salvation. At that moment, the audience is held in suspense: Will Christ enter heaven successfully? Will he be able to take the human souls with him? Will he be ‘the Saviour’? On the one hand, Christians collectively can trust that, at the conclusion of his time on earth, Christ did ascend and enter into heaven and extend the promise of salvation. On the other hand, personal salvation is in no way assured and has to be earned by Christians in their earthly lives. They are reminded of this moment of crisis annually as they celebrate the liturgy of Ascension Day, as they sing hymns and listen to sermons.59 Equally, the authors of Ascension narratives emphasize – typically as a final exhortation – that believers need to imitate Christ and live without sin so that they, too, may ascend and dwell with him. While he has ascended, the success of the Ascension remains tenuous for individuals, and, as we know from Augustine’s injunctions in his sermons, each Christian is responsible for bringing about the successful completion of Christ’s redemptive work. By linking the Ascension with two other important Christological

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events, the Harrowing and Christ’s Entry into heaven, Bede and the Trinity homilist are able to create richer narratives and invoke a much broader spectrum of theological meaning than the ‘basic facts of the story’ would allow. The Ascension, as an isolated biblical incident and in its narrowest scope, consists of a minimally dramatic episode on the Mount of Olives, whose meaning could not be brought home with equal force or clarity. In recognizing the shared concern with liminality of the three events and by exhausting the narrative potential that this shared liminality provides, both authors, remarkably, shape the same profoundly meaningful message and teach their audiences the same Ascension doctrines, even as they themselves and their writings – a Latin hymn from the early eighth century and an early Middle English homily from the twelfth – belong to radically different worlds. Bede’s hymn and TH 19 are, moreover, distinct from all the other Anglo-Saxon works examined in this study in that their central motif (the gates of heaven) is the least material, in a literal sense, of all the different ways in which the Ascension is taught. Christ’s actual footprints are in Jerusalem and can be visited there; the Rogationtide processions physically move congregants through space; the artistic depictions of the Ascension can be viewed in manuscripts with one’s own eyes. All of these belong, in one way or another, to the material culture of Anglo-Saxon England. While the gates are a concrete image, they belong to a purely imagined place. This makes them no less powerful as a symbol for Ascension theology, but reveals that their appeal to audiences plays on a different sensibility. They direct their audiences’ mental gaze towards heaven rather than to symbols of earthly materiality, as the other, more materially grounded ways of teaching theology do. One particularly physical expression of liminal theology – the embodied experience of the Ascension in the liturgical practices for Rogationtide – is the subject of the next chapter. Notes  1 Even though the Harrowing of Hell and Christ’s Entry into heaven are not historical events in the way that the biblically documented Nativity or Passion are, I refer to them here as ‘historical events’ both to indicate that they are accepted by the Church as acts performed by Christ before his return to heaven and to distinguish them from their literary representations discussed in this chapter.  2 Bede, Opera Rhythmica, CCSL 122, ed. J. Fraipont (Turnhout:

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Brepols, 1955), pp. 419–23. The hymn is known by various titles, including ‘In Ascensione Domini’, ‘Ymnus in Ascensione Domini ad Vesperam’, and, especially in hymn scholarship, by its first line, ‘Hymnum canamus gloriae’/‘Hymnos canamus gloriae’. It is the most popular and most widely disseminated of Bede’s hymns.  3 The Trinity Homilies are preserved in Cambridge, Trinity College MS B.14.52, which has been variously dated: N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), p. xix, dates the two hands he identifies in the manuscript to s. xii2; see also Ker, ‘The Scribes of the Trinity Homilies’, MÆ, 1 (1932), 138–40. Elaine Treharne, ‘Cambridge, Trinity College, B. 14. 52’, in The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220, ed. Orietta Da Rold, Takako Kato, Mary Swan and Elaine Treharne (University of Leicester, 2010), www.le.ac.uk/english/ em1060to1220/mss/EM.CTC.B.14.52.htm (accessed 17 November 2012), lists the manuscript date as s. xii2/xiii. Additional descriptions of the manuscript, including its later history, can be found in Betty Hill, ‘Cambridge, Trinity College MS B.14.52’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 12 (2003), 393–402; M. R. James, The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, 4 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1900–04), I, pp. 459–62, no. 335; and Linne R. Mooney, The Index of Middle English Prose, Handlist XI, Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 1995), p. 15.  4 Cynewulf’s Christ II is the only other Anglo-Saxon text that develops the connection between the Ascension, the Harrowing, and Christ’s Entry. Owing to a missing manuscript leaf that disrupts line 556, only a hint of this connection remains in the poem in its present form; I therefore draw on this important poem mostly for comparative purposes. On the disrupted sequence of events, see Karl Jost, ‘Crist 558–585’, ES, 27 (1946), 175–9; and John C. Pope, ‘The Lacuna in the Text of Cynewulf’s Ascension (Christ II, 556b)’, in Studies in the Language, Literature, and Culture of the Middle Ages and Later, ed. E. Bagby Atwood and Archibald A. Hill (Austin: University of Texas at Austin, 1969), pp. 210–19. Pope draws on Bede’s Ascension hymn as evidence for a leaf missing in the manuscript.  5 Bede’s hymn has not been extensively discussed either from a literarycritical perspective or with an eye towards his theology. Scholars who mention the hymn more than merely in passing include Josef Szövérffy, ‘Hymnologische Streifzüge’, in Literatur und Sprache im europäischen Mittelalter; Festschrift für Karl Langosch zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Alf Önnerfors, Johannes Rathofer, and Fritz Wagner (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1973), pp. 12–38, esp. at pp. 13–14; Karin Wilcke, Christi Himmelfahrt: Ihre Darstellung in der europäischen Literatur von der Spätantike bis zum ausgehenden

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Mittelalter (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1991), pp. 186–91; Michael Lapidge, ‘Bede the Poet’ (Jarrow Lecture 1993), in Bede and his World: The Jarrow Lectures (Aldershot: Variorum, 1994), II, pp. 929–56, at pp. 933–40; Donald K. Fry, ‘A Bede Bibliography: Hymn 6: In Ascensione Domini’, in Essays on Old, Middle, Modern English, and Old Icelandic in Honor of Raymond P. Tripp, Jr., ed. Loren C. Gruber with Meredith Crellin Gruber and Gregory K. Jember (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000), pp. 73–90. TH 19 has been treated in only one article-length study: Jerome Oetgen, ‘The Trinity College Ascension Sermon: Sources and Structure’, Mediaeval Studies, 45 (1983), 410–17. Oetgen, ‘Common Motifs in the Old English Ascension Homilies’, Neophilologus, 69 (1985), 437–45, discusses it along with other texts. The Trinity Homilies have received most interest as a collection, especially in studies of vernacular preaching; see, for example, Bella Millett, ‘Discontinuity of English Prose: Structural Innovation in the Trinity and Lambeth Homilies’, in Text and Language in Medieval English Prose: A Festschrift for Tadao Kubouchi, ed. Akio Oizumi, Jacek Fisiak, and John Scahill (Frankfurt: Lang, 2005), pp. 129–50; and Millett, ‘The Pastoral Context of the Trinity and Lambeth Homilies’, in Essays in Manuscript Geography: Vernacular Manuscripts of the English West Midlands from the Conquest to the Sixteenth Century, ed. Wendy Scase (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 43–64.  6 The poem’s structural challenges arise for several reasons. The missing leaf disrupts the narrative and has led to speculation about the missing section’s contents. There are also narrative elements that seem repetitive or illogically placed, for example, the Harrowing (ll. 558–70), which appears unexpectedly after the Ascension scene, or the Judgement scene (ll. 789b–849). The positioning of the Harrowing has a precedent in Bede’s hymn, one of Cynewulf’s main sources. As this chapter shows, this chronology and the spatial linking of Ascension and Harrowing serve the theological explanation of the Ascension. On the unity and structure of Christ II, see, for example, Pope, ‘Lacuna’, pp. 210–19; Oliver J. H. Grosz, ‘Man’s Imitation of the Ascension: The Unity of Christ II’, in The Cynewulf Reader, ed. Robert E. Bjork, Basic Readings in Anglo-Saxon England 4 (New York: Routledge, 2001), pp. 95–108; and D. R. Letson, ‘The Homiletic Nature of Cynewulf’s Ascension Poem’, Florilegium, 2 (1980), 192–216.  7 See Introduction, note 42.  8 George H. Brown, ‘The Descent–Ascent Motif in Christ II of Cynewulf’, in Cynewulf Reader, ed. Bjork, pp. 133–46, at p. 141.  9 This concrete imagining of Christ’s multi-directional movement applies only to literary and artistic representation. From a doctrinal perspective, Christ’s Ascension as a physical movement through real space, that is, as an ascension into an actual sky, was rejected early

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on, especially under the influence of Origen, who insisted that Christ cannot be conceived of in terms of human space or time; see J. G. Davies, He Ascended Into Heaven: A Study in the History of Doctrine (New York: Association Press, 1958), pp. 91–4; and Gerhard Lohfink, Die Himmelfahrt Jesu – Erfindung oder Erfahrung, Kleine Reihe zur Bibel 18 (Stuttgart: KBW Verlag, 1972), pp. 56–7. 10 The apocryphal Harrowing of Hell, or Christ’s Descent into Hell (the so-called Descensus ad Inferos), was popular both in Anglo-Saxon literature and art; see Jackson J. Campbell, ‘To Hell and Back: Latin Tradition and Literary Use of the “Descensus ad Inferos” in Old English’, Viator, 13 (1982), 107–58; and Karl Tamburr, The Harrowing of Hell in Medieval England (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 2007), pp. 44–83. On the status of apocryphal literature in Anglo-Saxon England, see Frederick M. Biggs, ‘An Introduction and Overview of Recent Work’, in Apocryphal Texts and Traditions in AngloSaxon England, ed. Kathryn Powell and Donald Scragg (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003), pp. 1–25; and Biggs, ed. Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture: The Apocrypha, Instrumenta Anglistica Mediaevalia 1 (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2007). 11 Traditionally, the Harrowing occurs before the Resurrection, although Anglo-Saxon texts can be ambiguous about when exactly the Harrowing took place. Interestingly, Augustine mentions Christ’s bodily descent into hell after the Resurrection in one of his Ascension sermons (Sermo Casinensis 2, 76.1; PLS col. 531). See Tamburr, Harrowing of Hell, pp. 1–13, for an overview of the development of the Harrowing in Easter liturgy. 12 The Ascension is connected to further events. The ascending Christ promises the coming of the Holy Spirit, a promise that is fulfilled at Pentecost. The Ascension also links to Christ’s return on Judgement Day, an association made explicit in Acts 1:11. Owing to the ‘networked’ nature of its theology, the Ascension is often depicted (in texts but especially also in visual representations) in conjunction with other Christological events, for example Pentecost. 13 Davies, He Ascended Into Heaven, p. 96. The connection of the Ascension (as the final moment of the incarnate Christ on earth) to the Incarnation (as his first moment on earth) is incorporated by Cynewulf in the opening of Christ II, where he describes Christ’s Nativity. This linking is common in biblical and patristic literature as well; see Brown, ‘Descent–Ascent Motif’, pp. 134–6. 14 William H. Marrevee, The Ascension of Christ in the Works of St. Augustine (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1967), p. 2. 15 Brown, ‘Descent–Ascent Motif’, p. 141. 16 Scholars ascribe this 32-stanza hymn securely to Bede. Although medieval manuscripts preserve it only in a shortened form (consisting of stanzas 1, 2, 14, 15, 16, 17, [17a], 30, and 31; see apparatus CCSL

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122:419), Fraipont prints the long version (CCSL 122:419–23). Not all manuscripts contain stanza 17a, and most editors consider it a later interpolation. For a critical edition of the short version with Old English interlinear gloss, see Inge B. Milfull, The Hymns of the AngloSaxon Church: A Study and Edition of the ‘Durham Hymnal’, CSASE 17 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 294–7. The long version appears earliest in Georg Cassander’s Hymni Ecclesiastici, published in Cologne in 1556, and his attribution of the hymn to Bede has been accepted; see, for example, Guido Maria Dreves, ed. Hymnographi Latini. Lateinische Hymnendichter des Mittelalters, 2nd part, Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi 50 (New York: Johnson Reprint Corp., 1961 [1907]), pp. 103–5; Lapidge, ‘Bede the Poet’, pp. 936, 937, 939; and Helmut Gneuss, Hymnar und Hymnen im englischen Mittelalter: Studien zur Überlieferung, Glossierung und Übersetzung lateinischer Hymnen in England, Buchreihe der Anglia 12 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1968), p. 53. Albert S. Cook, The Christ of Cynewulf (Boston: Ginn, 1900), pp. 116–18, the first to suggest Bede’s hymn as a source for Christ II, assumes that the whole of the hymn was available to Cynewulf, as he sketches out correspondences in phraseology and content between the hymn’s long version and the poem. 17 Besides the hymn, Bede’s Ascension corpus might be defined as Gospel Homily II.14, Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, Commentary on Luke, his redaction of Adomnán’s records of Arculf’s travels in De Locis Sanctis, and the sections in the HE on Arculf’s journey through the Holy Land. Bede stands at the centre of this chapter because his hymn, the earliest of the texts discussed here, is a foundational source for later authors and is preserved in its entirety. In contrast, Cynewulf’s Christ II is incompletely preserved, and TH 19 is a post-Conquest source in its extant form and lacks an attested Anglo-Saxon antecedent. 18 On hymns, hymnody, and hymn collections in Anglo-Saxon England, see Gneuss, Hymnar und Hymnen; Gernot R. Wieland, The Canterbury Hymnal: Edited from British Library MS. Additional 37517, Toronto Medieval Latin Texts 12 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1982), pp. 1–22; and Milfull, Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church. On Bede as hymnist, see Lapidge, ‘Bede the Poet’, pp. 933–40. For some recent bibliography, including on (mostly post-medieval) collections containing Bede’s hymn, see Fry, ‘Bede Bibliography’, pp. 73–90. 19 All passages of the hymn are quoted from Bede, Opera Rhythmica, CCSL 122, pp. 419–23, by stanza. 20 All translations of the hymn are taken from Michael J. B. Allen and Daniel G. Calder, Sources and Analogues of Old English Poetry. The Major Latin Texts in Translation (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1976), pp. 81–3, with some wording and punctuation slightly changed.

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21 This theme of the dynamically moving Christ is carried through to the hymn’s end; in stanza 28, Christ is again described as having ‘crossed all the heights of blazing heaven’ (cuncta transiens/ Caeli micantis culmina) to seat himself on the throne of glory, only to rise again in the following stanza to return to earth for the Judgement. 22 The broken gates appear, for example, in the Old English Descent into Hell, ll. 33–40 and 53–5, and Christ and Satan, ll. 378–80 and 463–7. Also in the Old English Gospel of Nicodemus; see James E. Cross, ed., Two Old English Apocrypha and Their Manuscript Source: The ‘Gospel of Nichodemus’ and ‘The Avenging of the Saviour’, with contributions by Denis Brearley, Julia Crick, Thomas N. Hall and Andy Orchard, CSASE 19 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 215, 217, 219. Illuminations of the Harrowing in earlier medieval manuscripts that include the gates are British Library, Cotton, MS Tiberius C.VI (Tiberius Psalter), fol. 14 (s. ximed); Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Cod.bibl.fol. 23 (Stuttgart Psalter), fol. 29v (s. ix1/2), an illustration accompanying Psalm 23, on which more below (the psalter is viewable at http://digital.wlb-stuttgart.de/purl/ bsz307047059 [accessed 23 November 2012]); and St Albans Psalter, p. 49 (s. xii1/2) (for an image and comments by Jane Geddes on the gates’ Anglo-Saxon features, see www.abdn.ac.uk/stalbanspsalter/ english/commentary/page049.shtml [accessed 23 November 2012]). 23 The bright light with which Christ floods hell is a stock narrative element of the Harrowing; see, for example, H. C. Kim, ed., The Gospel of Nicodemus. Gesta Salvatoris, Toronto Medieval Latin Texts 2 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1973), pp. 36–7, Chapter XVIII, and Descent into Hell, l. 53. The Harrowing is the only time when the otherwise perennially dark hell is illuminated. 24 A number of well-known Anglo-Saxon and post-Conquest visual representations of the hell-mouth, the giant jaws that are the entrance to hell, also vividly show this parallel; see, for example, Bodleian, MS Junius 11, fols 3 and 16 (c.1000); British Library, Cotton, MS Tiberius C.VI (Tiberius Psalter), fol. 14; British Library, Cotton, MS Nero C.IV (Winchester Psalter), fol. 39r (c.1150); Bodleian, MS Douce 293, fol. 14r (late 12th century). For an assessment of the hell-mouth in medieval English literary culture and art, see Gary D. Schmidt, The Iconography of the Mouth of Hell: Eighth-Century Britain to the Fifteenth Century (Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press; Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1995). Latin fauces frequently occurs with the meaning ‘entrance’ when referring to places, indicating the appropriateness of the association of jaws and doorways; see Charlton T. Lewis, A Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002 [1879]), s.v. fauces. 25 Bede constructs a hymn of superior complexity with a focused theme that is incorporated both subtly and brashly. Each stanza of this section

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(stanzas 3–7) refers in some way to the boundaries of hell. Stanza 6 initially seems to stand out, since it is the only one in this section that does not directly refer to gates or hell’s threshold; it is dedicated instead to praising the destructive brightness that Christ poured into hell. But Bede does, in fact, adhere to the theme of boundaries, for stanza 6 echoes stanza 3, in which Christ illuminates the thresholds of death to chase away hell’s shadows. Stanza 6 repeats not only the image of the lit threshold, but also the theme of the double forces of light and power which overcome death, and thus ties tightly into the hymn’s overall thematic programme. 26 I include the interpolated stanza 17a in this total count. 27 Justin, Irenaeus, and Ambrose cite Ps. 23:7–10 in their respective treatments of the Ascension, interpreting these verses as anticipating Christ’s arrival at heaven. All three also explain why the celestial inhabitants fail to recognize the returning Christ. Justin comments that Christ’s ‘uncomely and dishonoured appearance’ made him unrecognizable to the ‘rulers of heaven’, who are then informed by the Holy Spirit of the true identity of the traveller; see Justin Martyr, ‘Dialogue of Justin, Philosopher and Martyr, with Trypho, a Jew’, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume I: The Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenæus, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, rev. A. Cleveland Coxe (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1913 [1885]), pp. 194–270, at p. 213. Irenaeus pushes this point further by stating that ‘because the Word descended invisible to created things, He was not made known in his descent to them. Because the Word was made flesh, He was visible in His Ascension’ (qtd. in Davies, He Ascended Into Heaven, p. 75). Because Christ was invisible when he descended from heaven for the Incarnation, the angels of the firmament cannot recognize him, while the angels below, who demand the gates to be opened, already know who Christ is. 28 Ambrose, De Fide, IIII 1, 9–14 (CSEL 78, pp. 160–2, ll. 44–72). 29 Milfull, Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church, pp. 296–7. 30 See Cook, Christ of Cynewulf, pp. 116–18, for the specific parallels that he sees between the hymn and the poem. 31 George Philip Krapp and Elliot Van Kirk Dobbie, eds, The Exeter Book, ASPR 3 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), p. 19. All translations from Old English throughout this chapter are mine. A more recent edition is Bernard J. Muir, ed., The Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry: An Edition of Exeter Dean and Chapter MS 3501, 2 vols, 2nd edn (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2000), I, pp. 63–78. 32 In early Christian writings, Psalm 23 is most frequently interpreted as foreshadowing Christ’s Entry rather than the Harrowing. A rare patristic precursor of the double use appears in a sermon by Gregory of Nyssa, who interprets the repeated question of Ps. 23:8 and 10 as referring to two separate challenges to Christ, once as he descends

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for the Harrowing and once as he returns from it, thus explaining why the question appears twice (see Brown, ‘Descent–Ascent Motif’, p. 141). George Hardin Brown also observes that Cynewulf, ‘in different but certainly analogous fashion’ [to Gregory of Nyssa], links the Harrowing and the Ascension through a use of Psalm 23, but he merely mentions this possibility without giving further details; for the Harrowing, he offers as evidence only the phrase wuldres cyning (565b) as an echo of rex gloriae. 33 Letson, ‘Homiletic Nature’, pp. 192–216. 34 A landmark essay collection for the study of post-Conquest Old English is Mary Swan and Elaine M. Treharne, eds, Rewriting Old English in the Twelfth Century, CSASE 30 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Also see Aaron J Kleist, ed., The Old English Homily: Precedent, Practice and Appropriation, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 17 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007). For extensive bibliography, see The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220, ed. Da Rold et al. www.le.ac.uk/english/em1060to1220/index.html. 35 Mary Swan, ‘Old English Textual Activity in the Reign of Henry II’, in Writers of the Reign of Henry II, ed. Ruth Kennedy and Simon Meecham-Jones (New York: Palgrave, 2006), pp. 151–68, at pp. 161–4. The Lambeth Homilies collection is preserved in London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 487, dated to the early thirteenth, or possibly late twelfth, century. 36 For representative views, see John Edwin Wells, A Manual of the Writings in Middle English, 1050–1400 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1916), pp. 281–2; Oetgen, ‘Trinity College Ascension Sermon’, p. 411; and H. L. Spencer, ‘Middle English Sermons’, in The Sermon, ed. Beverly Mayne Kienzle, Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental 81–3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), pp. 597–660, at pp. 616–17. 37 See, for example, Millett, ‘Discontinuity of English Prose’, pp. 129–50; Swan, ‘Old English Textual Activity’, pp. 151–68; and Elaine Treharne, ‘The Life and Times of Old English Homilies for the First Sunday in Lent’, in The Power of Words: Anglo-Saxon Studies Presented to Donald G. Scragg on his Seventieth Birthday, ed. Hugh Magennis and Jonathan Wilcox (Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University Press, 2006), pp. 205–40. 38 Treharne, ‘Life and Times of Old English Homilies’, pp. 239–40; see also pp. 207–8. 39 Margaret Laing and Angus McIntosh, ‘Cambridge, Trinity College, MS 335: Its Texts and their Transmission’, in New Science out of Old Books. Studies in Manuscripts and Early Printed Books in Honour of A. I. Doyle, ed. Richard Beadle and A. J. Piper (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1995), pp. 14–52, at p. 33, localize the manuscript in the East Midlands region and posit the linguistic origin of scribe B, the

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copier of TH 19, in south Suffolk, south Cambridgeshire, or, ‘less probably’, in south Huntingdonshire. Laing and McIntosh also give details on the language varieties and other linguistic issues in the Trinity Homilies as well as on the manuscript’s three scribes, textual transmission, and possible place of origin. See also note 3 above. Ker, Catalogue, xix, characterized the link of Cambridge, Trinity College, MS B.14.52 to Old English manuscripts as ‘tenuous’ and excludes it from the Catalogue. 40 See especially Millett, ‘Discontinuity of English Prose’. 41 Oetgen, ‘Trinity College Ascension Sermon’, p. 411. 42 Elaine Treharne, ‘Categorization, Periodization: the Silence of (the) English in the Twelfth Century’, in New Medieval Literatures 8, ed. Rita Copeland, David Lawton and Wendy Scase (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), pp. 247–73, at p. 264; and Swan, ‘Old English Textual Activity’, p. 153. Swan identifies ‘texts composed in Old English in pre-Conquest England that were recopied and adapted after 1066’ and ‘texts newly composed in English after 1066 of which literary style and sensibilities, as well as the language, fit much more closely with Old English traditions than with Middle English ones’ (p. 152); since the Trinity Homilies have no known Anglo-Saxon antecedents, Swan presumably groups them among the latter. 43 Treharne, ‘Life and Times of Old English Homilies’, pp. 236–9. 44 On the symmetry of the opening of the gates of hell and heaven, see also Sahoko G. Tsuji, ‘Destruction des portes de L’Enfer et ouverture des portes du Paradis’, Cahiers Archéologiques, 31 (1983), 5–33. 45 Oetgen, ‘Trinity College Ascension Sermon’, p. 411; and Wells, Manual of the Writings in Middle English, pp. 280–1. 46 Oetgen, ‘Trinity College Ascension Sermon’, p. 416. 47 See Oetgen, ‘Trinity College Ascension Sermon’, for identification and brief analysis of the homily’s sources. 48 See Tamburr, Harrowing of Hell, 44–83; and Kim, Gospel of Nicodemus, 6–7. For texts of the Old English Gospel of Nicodemus, see William Henry Hulme, ‘The Old English Gospel of Nicodemus’, Modern Philology, 1 (1903), 579–614; and Cross, ed., Two Old English Apocrypha. The Gospel of Nicodemus (or Euangelium Nichodemi) consists of two originally independent texts, the older Acta Pilati, probably first composed in Greek between the second and fourth centuries, and a later description of the Harrowing of Hell (the so-called Descensus Christi ad inferos), which was added to the Latin version of the Gospel of Nicodemus between the fifth and ninth centuries and became enormously influential in medieval art and literature; see Thomas N. Hall, ‘The Euangelium Nichodemi and Vindicta saluatoris in Anglo-Saxon England’, in Two Old English Apocrypha, ed. Cross, pp. 36–81, esp. pp. 37–58. The popularity of the Gospel of Nicodemus in Anglo-Saxon England is in part evinced by the frequent appearance

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of the descensus motif in the Old English corpus. One can cite here Christ and Satan, ll. 366–664; Elene, ll. 179–82, 293–7, 905–13; The Phoenix, ll. 417–23; Guthlac, ll. 1074–7; The Panther, ll. 55–64; Credo, ll. 25–32. For a Middle English example, see William Henry Hulme, The Middle English Harrowing of Hell and Gospel of Nicodemus, EETS es 100 (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1907). For an edition of a version of the Latin Gospel, see Kim, Gospel of Nicodemus. 49 An interesting visual parallel to this exists in the illustration for Psalm 23 in the Stuttgart Psalter, fol. 29v (see note 22 above), which depicts Christ rushing at the heavily barred gates of hell with his cross-staff raised as if knocking on the doors. Like the texts, this image emphasizes the barrier Christ has to overcome in an allusion to Ps. 23:7–8, 9–10, rather than the already broken gates, as is more conventional. 50 Oetgen, ‘Trinity College Ascension Sermon’, p. 415, note 18, also points out the similarity in structure between the homily and Bede’s hymn; for examples of the liturgical sources used, see pp. 413–14. 51 See Oetgen, ‘Trinity College Ascension Sermon’, p. 413. The theme of the sun is adopted from Gregory the Great’s Gospel Homily 29, one of TH 19’s main sources. To introduce this theme, Gregory quotes Hab. 3:11 from the Old Latin Bible, which the homilist also quotes with the same wording. 52 Interestingly, the homilist includes seven leaps, two more than Gregory and one more than Cynewulf, adding ‘earth’ to his leaps for the Ascension: womb, stable/manger, cross, sepulchre, hell, earth, heaven. This shows that the homilist is highly aware of the spatial unfolding of the events and logically assumes that the forty-day interval between the Harrowing and the Ascension as well as Christ’s manifestations on earth would require him to leap to earth before leaping to heaven at the Ascension. 53 Richard Morris, ed., Old English Homilies of the Twelfth Century, EETS 53 (London: Trübner, 1873), pp. 109–15, at p. 113; I have changed punctuation, capitalization, and the formatting of dissolved abbreviations. 54 The homilist quotes standard passages from Luke 24, Acts 1, Ps. 46:6, ascendit Deus in iubilo Dominus in uoce tubae (‘God is ascended with jubilee, and the Lord with the sound of trumpet’), as well as other texts; see Oetgen, ‘Trinity College Ascension Sermon’, p. 414. 55 Morris, Old English Homilies, p. 115. 56 Campbell, ‘To Hell and Back’, pp. 111, 125, 136, 146 (on Cynewulf) and passim. 57 This idea is reminiscent of Ambrose’s statement (in De Fide IIII 1,7) that when Christ entered heaven, non unus homo, sed totus in omnium redemptore mundus intrabat (‘not one man but the whole world entered in the person of the redeemer of all’; my translation). 58 Morris, Old English Homilies, p. 115.

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59 In some churches today, Christ’s journey is also ritually enacted during the celebration of the Ascension. Representing the ascending Christ, the priest, accompanied by acolytes, waits outside the church and knocks on the closed doors. The relevant parts of Psalm 23 are recited in responsorial fashion between the congregation inside and those outside before the priest proceeds into the church.

4 Walking towards heaven: boundary rituals, community, and Ascension theology in homilies for Rogationtide

Rogationtide, the three days immediately before Ascension Day, held a position of great significance in the Anglo-Saxon calendar. The festival’s history shows that it was associated with agricultural concerns from early times, which are reflected in the homilies, prayers, and field processions performed during that week. In Anglo-Saxon England, Rogationtide also enjoyed popularity as an occasion that was above all, I contend, defined as a communal event. The entire community participated in it through ecclesiastical practices as well as secular customs – gambling, horse racing, and feasting – which allowed participants to identify the festival as a long-established tradition and as closely linked to their communal land. A substantial number of Rogationtide homilies survive (at least twenty-four vernacular items).1 That these homilies for a liturgical occasion other than the Ascension nonetheless contain strong thematic links to it underlines the wide variety of forms and settings in which doctrinal instruction for the Ascension took place in AngloSaxon England. In this chapter, I discuss Latin and vernacular homilies for Rogation and Ascension, spanning from the early to the late Anglo-Saxon period, as well as clerical and lay religious practices associated with Rogation days. In scholarship, homilies for Rogationtide and for Ascension are only rarely discussed together, and the former feast is commonly viewed as a generic preaching occasion, dedicated to teaching general catechism rather than topics specially designated for this time. In contrast, my study shows that Rogationtide homilies should be seen as belonging to the programmatic teaching of Ascension theology. This chapter moves in its analysis from the conventional and formal ways of teaching theology (homilies conveying patristic doctrines) to the spatial and ritual practices of Rogationtide liturgy (relic processions, field perambulations and blessings, agricultural

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prayers), and, finally, to popular religious rituals and beliefs about the importance of the land and its boundaries (field perambulations, agricultural healing rituals, boundary marking). From these sources, we can see that the teaching of Ascension theology moves beyond the confines of homilies and into the lay community and its practices. Similarly, the visualization of theology moves beyond concrete spatial metaphors, which we encountered in the previous chapters, to take on physical and communal forms. In other words, in the Rogationtide materials, we witness the translation and visualization of theology into communal practices. The move from abstract theology to concrete practices reveals the continuities in both content and applied purpose of otherwise disparate forms of religious expression. My goal in examining this body of literature and practices is to demonstrate that abstract Ascension doctrines took on concrete, even physical, forms in Anglo-Saxon England for preaching to a wide range of audiences; at the same time, homilists drew on popular beliefs in order to teach conventional theology. These interrelations show the mutually supportive functions of formal, clerically driven elements of religious culture and unconventional, lay elements.2 Bringing together elements of Anglo-Saxon religious culture that have not previously been linked in this way, I assert that the connections between homilies for Rogationtide, homilies for Ascension Day, and Anglo-Saxon boundary practices show that Rogationtide anticipates the Ascension not only liturgically, through its processions, but theologically, through the content of its homilies. In this way, the concrete, physical side of Rogationtide liturgy and the abstract, theological aspects of the homilies work in concert to instruct Anglo-Saxon Christians on the significance of the Ascension. Rogationtide and Ascension are additionally linked by their common concern with boundaries and borders: both feasts, the processions, and other cultural practices discussed here (like the Æcerbot Charm) are all spatial processes, whether physical movements through space or a boundary-crossing Christological event that is reimagined and celebrated as part of Christian liturgy. What is remarkable about Rogationtide and Ascension materials is the sheer spectrum of sources to consider: formal preaching in vernacular and Latin homilies, liturgical processions, boundary rituals, and field blessings. Besides deepening our understanding of the thematic and theological connections between Rogationtide and Ascension, I wish to widen our view to the range of information that homilists could allusively employ to reach their audiences.

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Homilists drew not only on biblical, patristic, and (historical) liturgical matter, but also on their audiences’ secular cultural knowledge, the kinds of things that happen outside church but that are nonetheless part of a commonly shared religious experience. Rogationtide observances were established from the earliest days of Anglo-Saxon Christianity, and all parishioners were expected to attend church on this occasion, with both clergy and laity participating in the attendant rituals.3 Therefore, all Anglo-Saxons, whether lay or religious, clerical or monastic, would have had in common the experience of celebrating Rogationtide and gained this cultural knowledge simply by ‘growing up Anglo-Saxon’. The didactic advantage of this shared experience and of the varied Rogationtide materials is that they appeal to mixed audiences: the field processions performed jointly by lay and religious members of the community, the image of life as a journey in homilies, the emphasis on the importance of the land and its fruits, and the play on a belief in the ‘power of the earth’ collectively contain formal theological, liturgical, and popular religious elements that appeal to a sense of community, especially in those listeners who are tied to agricultural work, as many of the laity would have been. I begin this chapter by briefly surveying the history of Rogationtide, identifying the preaching goals for this occasion, and laying out the liturgical connections between Rogationtide and Ascension. I then discuss the formal teaching of theology, in both vernacular and Latin homilies by two authoritative preachers, Bede and Ælfric, to show how Rogationtide homilies teach specific Ascension doctrines. Their homilies are of special interest because they were written by a single author. Single authorship is not a prerequisite for the larger argument of this chapter, since Rogationtide homilies could prepare listeners for the Ascension regardless of whether or not they were written by the same author or designed as a group.4 But for such carefully planned collections as Bede’s and Ælfric’s, single authorship might mean that the homilies were composed as a sequence of texts that build upon each other, serving a cumulative preaching purpose. They can thus more readily be examined for deliberate thematic and theological links. In a final section, I move from abstract theology to lived practices by turning to the processions that formed an essential part of Rogationtide liturgy. These spatial rituals symbolize specific Ascension doctrines at the same time as they tie into popular religious and secular beliefs about the land. The common focus on sacred soil and agricultural prosperity in such varied sources

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as homilies, charms, and field processions attests to the currency of land/earth-related beliefs both in popular and conventionally religious contexts, and shows that Rogationtide homilies belong to a spectrum of diverse but contiguous religious expressions. Preaching, theology, and rituals are, in turn, linked by the concept of liminality. I propose that we can recognize the common purpose of these different sources most effectively by viewing them through the lens of liminality; I am, therefore, interested in this chapter in liminality not only as a thematic thread that links the examined materials in terms of their content, but also, on a more theoretical level, as a methodology for reading them. The concept of liminality allows us to recognize that the formal homiletic teaching and the spatial rituals of Rogationtide liturgy jointly prepared Christians for Ascension Day later in the week, while also symbolically anticipating the events of Judgement Day when all Christians hope to ascend themselves. The previous chapters have discussed the Ascension as a fundamentally liminal event and the literary motifs chosen to express this. As I will show in what follows, the various textual sources and especially the practices associated with Rogationtide are equally defined by spatial liminality and liminal imagery, allowing them to be used in the teaching of Ascension theology. Given the complexity and ‘networked’ position of Rogationtide in Anglo-Saxon culture, it is a good example – and case study – for larger patterns of cultural interactions at work, for this occasion demonstrates how thoroughly ‘official’ Church culture and lived customs and beliefs were enmeshed in early and certainly in late Anglo-Saxon England. The connections between theology, formal preaching, liturgical and agricultural practices, and popular beliefs demonstrate the continuity between clerical interests and lay communal life, between religious instruction in church and religious practices outside church. All of the above parallels allow these seemingly disparate phenomena, beliefs, and materials to be synthesized, for the first time here, into a coherent body of religious experience, reflecting the rich and multi-textured spirituality of Anglo-Saxon Christianity. The history of the Rogationtide festival and customs Rogationtide designates the three days (Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday) immediately preceding Ascension Day, which falls on the sixth Thursday after Easter. The third Rogation day thus

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coincides with Ascension Eve. It is a period dedicated to intense prayer, fasting, and penitence, and since its inception in fifthcentury Gaul, Rogationtide has been closely linked to prayers for the protection of the community and especially with processions, which constitute an essential feature of the festival. Anglo-Saxon Rogationtide homilies frequently recount the occasion’s history to contextualize and explain these customs, but also because the history itself is intimately linked to the season’s spiritual meaning and rituals, which, in turn, I argue, reflect the meaning of the Ascension. In the rite of the Roman Church, Rogationtide is referred to as Litaniae minores (‘Minor Litanies’) in distinction from the Litania maior (‘Major/Greater Litany’), another feast of supplication cele­ brated on 25 April. Anglo-Saxon usage, however, usually designates the pre-Ascension Rogation days as Litaniae maiores, often without contrastive distinction to any minor litany on 25 April, which was not universally observed in Gallican tradition (including Francia and Anglo-Saxon England until the eighth century).5 Although several histories of the festival circulated, the institution of the three-day festival is most commonly attributed to the late fifth-century Bishop Mamertus of Vienne, who imposed a threeday period of chanting prayers and fasting to deliver his city from various afflictions, such as wild beasts, fire, and an earthquake.6 The so-called ‘Minor Litanies’ for Rogationtide are therefore originally a Gallican tradition and were principally observed in areas following Gallican usage. The Council of Orleans (in 511) and the Councils of Tours and Lyons (in 567) ordered Rogationtide to be a formal celebration, but it was officially accepted and formalized by the Roman Church only under Pope Leo III (795–816). Leo specified the processions to be held in Rome on the three days before Ascension, preserving processions as an essential element of the celebration.7 One alternative history of the festival’s origins reports that St Peter first established Rogationtide as a Christian counterpart to a three-day pagan festival with processions and prayers for fertility.8 Although the celebration of Rogationtide cannot be proven to go back to biblical times, this history might at least point to a pagan precursor with similar concerns, the Roman ambarvalia, a celebration held around the same time in May which involved field circumambulations and prayers for agricultural prosperity.9 Identical observances are, of course, a central feature of the Rogation days. This alternative history would thus understandably have made

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sense to an Anglo-Saxon homilist, and the link to an originally pagan festival was presumably intentionally maintained to explain the Christian festival’s history and to underscore its superiority.10 Observances for Rogationtide apparently existed already in the earliest days of the Anglo-Saxon Church.11 In the Historia Ecclesiastica (I.25), Bede mentions that Augustine of Canterbury and his companions performed a procession when they approached the land given to them by King Æthelberht of Kent at Canterbury, carrying a cross and singing the antiphon ‘Deprecamur te, Domine’ from the liturgy of Rogationtide. Interestingly, the purpose of this procession is to designate a circumscribed parcel of land as something that will belong to the community, associating Rogationtide early on with the perambulation of communal land. By the time of Bede’s death, relic processions and other observances were firmly established.12 In 747, the Council of Clovesho issued a canon formally legislating Rogationtide practices and thereby captured the most essential characteristics of this occasion as it was celebrated in eight-­century Southumbria.13 According to Catherine Cubitt, the council’s canons ‘were aimed at every area of church life, promulgating decrees on pastoral care, liturgy and worship and the monastic life. They represent a comprehensive programme of reform.’ Even though the council responded to local circumstances, it was a ‘milestone in the history of the Anglo-Saxon church’ because of its noticeable influence on later Church councils and synods.14 Canon 16 of the council, ‘De Diebus Laetaniorum’, specifies when and how the two main litanies of the year (that is, 25 April and Ascension week) are to be held.15 This canon represents an important touchstone for Old English Rogationtide homilies. For one, it confirms and legitimizes the connection between Rogationtide and the Ascension. Moreover, the canon details the prescribed observances, which also appear in later homilies, and attempts to rein in the festivities as they were popularly practised, giving insight into the festival’s perception by lay Anglo-Saxons and its status in eighth-century Anglo-Saxon England more generally. The first point to note in this regard is that the canon identifies the proper dates when both litanies are to be held. It specifies that one is held on 25 April, ‘according to the rite of the Roman Church’, adding that the Roman Church calls this one laetania major. In contrast, the rogations before Ascension Day are held secundum morem priorum nostrorum (‘following the custom of our forefathers’). The pre-Ascension litanies are seen as self-consciously

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distinct from Roman tradition, not just in the different calendar date but in their path of transmission. While the 25 April festival is imposed by the Roman Church, including its nomenclature, the pre-Ascension rogations are perceived as a long-standing native practice, passed down through generations and associated with a firm sense of tradition. When it comes to regulating the Litaniae minores, therefore, the council merely confirms what already exists by tradition, with which Anglo-Saxons already strongly identify. Another interesting aspect of Canon 16 is the emphasis on inclusivity: both clergy and laity have to participate in the celebrations, clero omnique populo (‘the clergy and all the people’), and, during the processions, omnis populus genu flectendo … humiliter exorat (‘the whole people, genuflecting, humbly prays’). Cubitt states that the Council of Clovesho marks an important shift in emphasis towards instructing the laity in basic catechism and theology.16 The insistence of Canon 16 on the participation of all people might reflect this effort towards improved education and greater inclusion of the lay population. At a minimum, it indicates that the ecclesiastical authorities agreed that Rogationtide concerned the whole community, as it was already celebrated in practice. The canon is, of course, directed at the clergy and to be implemented by the ecclesiastical leadership, but the specific demand that both clergy and laity participate jointly in Rogationtide practices shows that the council went beyond narrow instructions directed at priests and had the entire community in mind. As reflected in Canon 16, Rogationtide was an event in which everyone was expected to participate and was defined, envisioned, and practised as a communal event. Finally, Canon 16 regulates the laity’s behaviour, specifying both the rites to be performed and appropriate behaviour for the festival. The council confirms the three days of fasting and relic processions before the Ascension as essential and further stipulates that humility in supplication and posture is necessary. It curbs inappropriate behaviour: there is to be no gambling, horse racing, or major feasting, and all of the customary rituals are to be performed cum timore et tremore (‘with fear and trembling’). This exhortation to sombre execution of the festivities may have been part of the council’s effort to (re)educate Anglo-Saxon laity. At the same time, the suppression of gambling, feasts, and races indicates that Rogationtide was very much a celebration of the people, who obviously felt a bit too comfortable with this penitential occasion and displayed insufficient fear and trembling. The popular customs

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that Canon 16 sought to suppress show that during Rogationtide a crossover occurred between official Church practices and popular activities (possibly with older pre-Christian roots).17 Regardless of the council’s aim, all of these activities belonged firmly to the festival, certainly in the eyes of lay folk. This interlocking of clerical and lay, official and popular, sacred and secular is precisely what informs my reading of Rogationtide homilies in the light of Ascension theology. As texts written for this occasion, the homilies are also lodged in this web of interactions and should be read within this context. Preaching with a goal: homilies for Rogationtide and their connection to the Ascension Scholars have not known quite what to do with Rogationtide as a preaching occasion. It is clear that it was important; it is ‘that favourite season of Anglo-Saxon sermon writers’, as Milton McC. Gatch writes, for which, relatively speaking, a large number of homilies survive.18 This moderate abundance of sources allows for a survey of subjects typically covered by the homilies. Naturally, repeated elements linked to Rogationtide occur (histories of Rogationtide, admonitions to fast, pray, and repent), but there seems to be no standard set of Christian teachings that one ought to expect. Therefore, the general assessment in homiletic scholarship has been that Rogationtide is a catch-all preaching occasion.19 Because there is no fixed preaching programme for Rogation week, the homilies are seen mostly as dedicated to basic tenets of faith: penance, almsgiving, the need for prayer, avoidance of temptation and sins.20 To be sure, Rogationtide homilies teach basic catechism, but the general teachings, along with more specialized theological points, directly inform listeners on particular Ascension doctrines. For example, as part of his Rogation Tuesday sermon CH I.19, largely dedicated to the Pater Noster, Ælfric reminds listeners of the Last Judgement and instructs them to follow in Christ’s footsteps, both frequent themes in Ascension texts. More specifically, the prayers for earthly and spiritual wealth, an essential part of Rogationtide liturgy, correspond to the concern in Ascension homilies for personal salvation. These instructions advise listeners on how to reach heaven, which is a general Christian aspiration, of course, but it is also, expressly and more literally, the goal of the Ascension, formally expressed in the doctrine of the totus Christus. Rogationtide homilies contain many basic themes that are also preached at other times of the year and

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that are fundamental to Christian thinking and theology. However, the calendrical context in which these general teachings appear is crucial, for the spiritual preparation for the impending Ascension advocated during Rogationtide shapes the content of the generic instructions, adding layers of meaning to them that are specifically relevant to the Ascension. The elements in Rogationtide homilies dedicated to Ascension thematics thus establish a theological link between the two events. Over time, Rogationtide came to be seen as liturgically linked to the Ascension and as a time of prayer, penance, and spiritual preparation specifically leading up to Ascension Day.21 This link arose from a coincidence of calendar, since the original reason for instituting the rogations – the various calamities that had befallen Vienne – had no explicit relationship to the Ascension.22 With continued observance, however, this link became indissoluble, and the events of the week were thought of as belonging together to ‘a season’.23 The liturgical connections eventually became entrenched and found expression in homilies and other sources written for the entire week. In Anglo-Saxon England, the Old English Martyrology, for example, explicitly makes the link in the entry for Rogation days: Ymb þas dagas utan, hwilum ær, hwilum æfter, beoð þa þry dagas on ðæm Godes ciric ond Cristes folc mærsiað Laetanias, þæt is þonne bene ond relicgongas foran to Cristes uppastignesse24 (‘Round about these days, at times earlier, at times later, are the three days on which God’s churches and Christ’s people mark Litaniae, that is then the prayers and relic-processions before Christ’s Ascension’). Following this introduction, the martyrologist further details the required observances, comparing the fast for Rogationtide to that before Easter. He also characterizes Rogationtide with a medicinal metaphor: Ðas ðry dagas syndon mannes sawle læcedom ond gastlic wyrtdrenc; forðon hi sendon to healdanne mid heortan onbryrdnesse25 (‘these three days are the remedy for man’s soul and a spiritual potion; therefore, they are to be observed with compunction of the heart’). The martyrologist links Rogationtide to another preparatory period, Lent, whose purifying fast leads up to Easter. In the same way, Rogationtide serves as a time of spiritual preparation and healing culminating in Ascension Day. Homilists, too, emphasize Rogationtide as such a time of spiritual preparation, creating a close and natural link between the two feasts. For example, Vercelli Homily XIII, a homily for Rogation Wednesday/Ascension Eve, presents Rogationtide as an opportunity to make up for past f­ ailings (XIII, 234, 12–15):

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7 gif we mid ures lichaman lustum hwæt gimeleaslices dydon on þyssum feowertegum nihtum wið Godes willan, bete he þæt on þyssum dagum nu 7 clænsige hine, þæt he mæge beon þys mergenlican dæge æt þære halgan dryhtnes upastignestide clæne æt dryhtnes wiofode. [and if we through the pleasures of our body did anything carelessly against God’s will during those forty days [of Lent], may he remedy it now in these days and may he cleanse himself so that he might be pure before the Lord’s altar on this day tomorrow at the holy Lord’s Ascension.]

The Vercelli homilist views Rogationtide as a second chance at fasting and repentance for the Ascension, in case these preparations were not performed properly during Lent. Like the martyrologist, he (or she) characterizes Rogationtide as indispensable for reaching the necessary purified spiritual state through intense fasting, repentance, almsgiving, and prayers. This envisioning of Rogationtide as a second Lent assigns to it a specific liturgical purpose and ties it firmly into both the Easter–Pentecost sequence and to the Ascension.26 For Anglo-Saxons the connection between Rogationtide and the Ascension has become natural and self-evident. Despite the calendrical and liturgical links, and although the Rogation days are a time of spiritual – and, as I argue, doctrinal – preparation for the Ascension, homilies for Rogationtide and for Ascension Day are rarely discussed as a group in scholarship, and their didactic goals and doctrinal content have drawn little interest.27 M. Bradford Bedingfield illuminatingly examines the ‘dramatic liturgy’ of Rogationtide and Ascension in a single chapter, showing Rogationtide as an occasion that allowed ‘liturgical participants to process to the threshold of heaven along with Christ at his Ascension’.28 He reads vernacular homilies as sources for liturgical information and for larger theological themes but is not centrally concerned with the preaching of specific Ascension doctrines. Similarly, Stephen J. Harris has investigated vernacular homilies, showing that Ælfric composed his Rogationtide homilies in precise harmony with liturgical themes, but he pays little attention to Ælfric’s preaching for Ascension Day.29 While Bedingfield and others have shown that liturgical and thematic connections exist between homilies for Rogationtide and Ascension, these connections and their precise nature remain understudied and have not been considered for groups of homilies with single authorship. As my analysis below shows, Rogationtide homilies do not just

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pursue general theological or eschatological themes but present specific doctrines that are closely linked to Ascension theology and, therefore, support the larger effort of teaching it in Anglo-Saxon England. Rogationtide homilies teach Ascension theology in two ways: by straightforwardly explicating theological points that are directly relevant for an understanding of the Ascension and its importance for all Christians (e.g., Christ’s dual nature, the totus Christus), and by symbolically expressing the importance of the Ascension through liminal imagery (gates, knocking and entering, opening of heaven, asking and receiving, life as a journey). To demonstrate how this formal teaching of Ascension doctrines unfolds in AngloSaxon homilies, I examine selective doctrines in two groups of homilies for Rogationtide and Ascension, explicating one main example to illustrate how it functions in each.30 These two groups, moreover, represent different points on the Anglo-Saxon homiletic spectrum: early Latin homilies by the authoritative and patristic Bede and later vernacular homilies by the reform-minded and conservative Ælfric. Knocking on heaven’s door: Bede on the opening of heaven to humanity Bede’s central goal in his Gospel Homilies II.14 for Rogationtide and II.15 for Ascension is to teach the core doctrine of Christ’s opening of heaven to humanity. He expresses this doctrine and important outcome of the Ascension through the liminal images of gates and boundaries as well as knocking on doors and entering. Aside from being the earliest example of Rogationtide preaching in Anglo-Saxon England, Bede is an ideal starting point for this chapter’s discussion, because he represents the Latin patristic tradition in Anglo-Saxon England and is an influential, authoritative voice for later homilists.31 Building on the Gospel reading for the day (Luke 11:9–13), Homily II.14 is dedicated to the themes of proper supplication and receiving rewards, as is appropriate for Rogationtide.32 Bede elaborates motifs suitable to those themes, most prominently those of asking (especially for food) and receiving, opening and entering heaven, and preparing to follow Christ. For example, the opening of Homily II.14 is saturated with images of petitioning and knocking on gates, and seeking heaven (II.14, 272, 1–10):

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Dominus et saluator noster ad caelestis regni gaudia nos peruenire desiderans et nos eadem gaudia a se petere docuit et nobis petentibus se haec daturum esse promisit. Petite, inquit, et dabitur uobis, quaerite et inuenietis, pulsate et aperietur uobis. Quae nobis sint uerba domini, fratres carissimi, magnopere ac toto corde pensanda quia uidelicet regnum caelorum non otiosis et uacantibus sed petentibus quaerentibus pulsantibus dandum inueniendum et aperiendum esse testatur. Petenda est ergo ianua regni orando quaerenda recte uiuendo pulsanda perseuerando.33 [Our Lord and Saviour, desiring that we arrive at the joys of the heavenly kingdom, taught us to ask these joys of him, and promised that he would give them to us if we asked for them. ‘Ask’, he said, ‘and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you’. We must ponder these words of our Lord, dearly beloved brothers, earnestly and with our whole heart, because he bears witness that the kingdom of heaven is not to be given to, found by, and opened to those who are idle and unoccupied, but to those who ask for it, seek after it and knock [at its gates]. The gate of the kingdom must be asked for by praying; it must be sought after by living properly; it must be knocked at by persevering.]34

And shortly thereafter (II.14, 273, 28–31): Pulsemus infatigabili desiderio aeternae beatitudinis aures pii conditoris nec deficiamus a coeptis prius quam illo aperiente de carcere mortis huius eripi ac portam mereamur patriae caelestis ingredi. [Let us pierce the ears of our benevolent Maker with our unwearying desire for eternal happiness, and let us not falter in what we have begun before he opens [the gates], and we become worthy to be snatched from the prison of this death and to enter the gate of the heavenly fatherland.]35

In beginning the homily with the central theme of reaching heaven, Bede really begins with the ending, the ultimate goal of life, but this ending also contains the central message of the Ascension: all Christians can, in the end, partake of the joys of the heavenly kingdom. Bede also teaches the tools necessary to accomplish this goal, namely, living properly, keeping one’s eye on the prize, and, especially, prayer. While the Ascension models the journey towards and arrival in heaven, Rogationtide teaches Christians not only how to pray, but also that active prayer and constant striving lead to heaven. Bede explicitly continues and synthesizes these themes in Homily II.15 for Ascension Day by making the theological content

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of the Ascension fully explicit, especially its important message of the opening of heaven. When recounting the disciples’ anticipation of post-Ascension events, Bede speaks of them being laetitia feruentes pro ingressu patriae caelestis fuderint (II.15, 284, 167–8) (‘aflame with lively hope and gladness over the prospect of their own entry into the heavenly fatherland’),36 portraying the disciples as historical precedent and as models for all Christians, who articulate a specific aspiration for them. In a summarizing passage in the homily’s conclusion, Bede returns to the image of the gates, linking it to Christ’s central achievement of unlocking heaven through his Ascension. Bede addresses his audience (II.15, 289, 332–7), Ecce in ascensione redemptoris nostri quo nostra sit omnis intentio dirigenda didicimus ecce ascendente ad caelos mediatore Dei et hominum patefactam hominibus caelestis patriae ianuam cognouimus. Ad huius ergo patriae illam perpetuam felicitatem omni studio festinemus. [Behold, we have learned in our Redeemer’s ascension whither all our effort should be directed; behold, we have recognized that the entrance to the heavenly fatherland has been opened up to human beings by the ascension into heaven of the Mediator between God and human beings. Let us hurry, with all eagerness, to the perpetual bliss of this fatherland.]37

That these images are not incidental but central to Bede’s thinking about the Ascension is supported by his forceful privileging of such liminal imagery (gates, thresholds, barriers) in his hymn on the Ascension (as shown in the previous chapter). When Bede uses this imagery in this homily, he previews with it the key moment of the Ascension: the emphasis on seeking out, knocking on, and opening gates trains one’s full attention on the moment of salvation when Christ enters heaven in his dual nature.38 It is not a foregone conclusion, however, that all Christians will reach heaven, for the Ascension makes this opportunity possible, but does not guarantee it. As laid out in Chapter 1, Christians must ensure their own ascension. Hence Bede emphasizes so strongly the obligation to seek, to ask, to persevere, to knock, and to live properly (this last an embodied act of petitioning for entrance to heaven). In the homily’s opening alone, the first passage quoted above, Bede verbally compiles all of these obligations: seeking (desiderans, petere, ­petentibus, petite, quaerite, petenda, quaerenda), asking (orando), persevering (perseuerando), knocking (pulsate, pulsantibus, pulsanda), and living properly (recte uiuendo). These are the key actions that all

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Christians have to perform for themselves in order to reach on the level of personal salvation what Christ’s Ascension made possible for all of humanity on the larger scale of salvation history. In Homilies II.14 and II.15, Bede also expresses the need of striving for heaven through another metaphor, that of following in Christ’s footsteps, perhaps echoing Gregory the Great’s ­encouragement in Gospel Homily 29 to follow Christ who ascended passibus amoris (‘with steps of love’). Bede ends Homily II.14 with an image of metaphorical footsteps (II.14, 279, 258–61): Cuius uestigiis iuxta modulum nostrum, fratres dilectissimi, adhaerentes petamus Deum patrem ut spiritus sui gratia nos in uiam rectae fidei quae per dilectionem operatur inducat (‘Following closely in his footsteps to the best of our abilities, dearly beloved brothers, let us ask God our Father that by the grace of his Spirit he may bring us to the way of upright faith which works through love’).39 Placed at the end of the homily, this image is left with listeners as a last impression, which leads them on into Homily II.15 for Ascension. There, Bede takes up the metaphorical footsteps again, as he voices the following wish (II.15, 289, 329–30): et ut ipsi quoque eius uestigia sequi atque ad caelos mereamur ascendere interim salubriter humiliemur in terra (‘that we ourselves may become worthy of following in his footsteps and ascending to heaven, let us in the meantime become humble on earth for our own good’).40 With his words, Bede urges his listeners to follow Christ; with the image of the footprints, he gives them a visual emblem that encourages them to emulate Christ. With the reference to following in Christ’s footsteps, Bede might also have the liturgical processions of Rogationtide in mind, which remind participants of Christ’s journey towards heaven which they are encouraged to replicate. This imitatio Christi also aims at achieving one’s own ascension. Bede repeatedly mentions the goal of ascending like Christ and thereby fully completing the divine act of the Ascension (e.g., II.14, 273, 24–8; II.15, 289, 326– 47).41 Therefore, Bede’s various liminal metaphors in Homilies II.14 and II.15, which draw special attention to the threshold of heaven, cumulatively instruct listeners that Christ’s opening of heaven commissions them with personal responsibility to follow him and to help bring the Ascension to a successful conclusion. Unity and the totus Christus in Ælfric’s first series of Catholic Homilies As my analysis of Bede’s homilies shows, he generally focuses on the perspective of the believer; he instructs his listeners on how the

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Ascension affects them and how it teaches them to change their lives. His homilies are about recognizing personal responsibility, learning how to follow Christ, and praying in order to receive. In notable contrast, Ælfric focuses strongly on Christ and his achievements. While he also explicates the meaning that these achievements hold for the Christian community, it is primarily Christ’s role in the Ascension that stands at the centre of his preaching. Consequently, I argue, the aspects of liminal theology that Ælfric chooses to teach in his series of Rogationtide and Ascension homilies (CH I.18–21) are specifically Christological doctrines: Christ’s dual nature and the totus Christus.42 In a further difference, Ælfric is less interested than Bede in metaphors or symbolic imagery, engaging in more direct teaching of theology. Even as he shares with Bede an adherence to conventional patristic views, he contrasts instructively with him as a major representative of vernacular preaching in the post-Benedictine Reform period of later AngloSaxon England. Ælfric immediately encapsulates the two doctrines that are most relevant to his teaching of the Ascension in the opening section of CH I.19 (Feria III De Dominica Oratione, for Rogation Tuesday) (CH I.19, 326, 27–9): Crist is ure heafod 7 we sind his lima; he is mid ure menniscnysse befangen 7 he hæfð urne lichaman (‘Christ is our head and we are his limbs; he is clothed in our humanity and he has our body’). These two statements express succinctly the totus Christus and Christ’s dual nature and, fittingly, can be seen as announcing the homily’s theme.43 Both of these doctrines are essential for understanding the true impact of the Ascension: when Christ the Head ascends to heaven, he marks out the path for the Body to follow, even though the latter remains on earth; as Christ enters heaven in his dual nature, he exalts humanity. That Ælfric is especially concerned with teaching the totus Christus becomes clear from his repeated explanations of this concept, but he also links it to the larger theme of Christian unity, which becomes his key strategy for explaining the soteriological significance of the totus Christus. Appropriately, the unity of all Christians is an important Ascension theme, since the biblical event, as the foundational moment of the earthly Church and as a liminal ritual, forges Christians into one community, both earthly and spiritual. Ælfric bookends his homily with two expositions on Christian unity. He opens by stating that Christ taught the disciples how to pray by giving them the Lord’s Prayer, the homily’s dedicated topic; after reciting the vernacular version of the prayer,

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Ælfric launches into a substantial section explaining the ways in which Christians are one with God and with one another (CH I.19, 325–7, 1–52). Christ is God’s son and Christians are God’s children because he created them and then sent his only son to redeem them. Christ is our head and we are his limbs. Christ is brother to all Christians, who are one family with one father in heaven and who are tied together in soþan sibbe (‘true peace’). After explicating the seven petitions of the Pater Noster, the bulk of the homily, Ælfric returns to the theme of unity at the end of CH I.19. This time he stresses the need for unity and cooperation and illustrates this by again using the image of a head and its body, to which Christians are metaphorically likened. This time he goes into considerable detail with this metaphor, even listing the functions of different body parts and their contributions to a successfully working body. The different body parts must collaborate for the body and all its limbs to survive. Defining the relationship between Christ and his faithful, Ælfric explains that the head and the limbs are mutually necessary to each other (CH I.19, 333–4, 234–43): Se þe ðe mundað. swa swa fæder. he bið swilce he þin heafod sy; Eallswa wel behofað þæt heafod þæra oðra lima. swa swa þa lymu behofiað þæs heafdes; Gif an lim bið untrum ealle þa oðre þrowiað mid þam anum; Swa we sceolon eac gif bið án ure geferena on sumere earfoðnysse. ealle we sceolon his yfel besargian. 7 hogian ymbe þa bote gif we hit gebetan magon. 7 on eallum þingum we sceolan healdan sibbe and annysse. gif we wyllað habban þa micclan geþincþe. þæt we beon godes bearn se þe on heofenum is, on þære he rixað mid eallum his halgum. on eallra worulda woruld. AMEN [He who protects you just like a father, he is as if he is your head; Equally the head well has need of the other limbs, just as the limbs need the head. If one limb is weak, [then] all the others suffer with the one. So we must also, if one of our companions is in some distress, all be sorry for his evil, and think about the remedy if we can improve it, and in all things we must keep peace and oneness, if we wish to have the great honour that we be the children of God who is in the heavens, where he reigns with all his saints, forever and ever. AMEN]

Ælfric links the unity of all Christians to the totus Christus, explaining one by way of the other, with each reinforcing the central message that all Christians are one body, one entity that lives and functions as one. Even in the homily’s closing admonition, Ælfric stresses the theme of unity: sibb and annyss (‘peace and oneness’)

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are necessary to earn the status of God’s children. By using the word sibb he also elegantly links the homily’s ending back to its beginning where he mentioned the soþan sibbe (‘true peace’) that ties the entire Christian family together. The homily’s final image is thus, once again, peace and unity. This concluding passage also makes clear that the explication of the Pater Noster in the homily’s body, which may appear a grave interruption of the themes I identify here, equally belongs to the theme of unity and seamlessly merges with the teaching of the totus Christus. After explaining the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, Ælfric states that God gave this prayer to all Christians so that they might say it in unison (CH I.19, 333, 213–24): Crist gesette þis gebed … 7 þis gebed he sette eallum cristenum mannum gemænelice; Ne cwyð na on þam gebede. min fæder. þu ðe eart on heofonum. ac cwyþ ure fæder. 7 swa forð ealle ða word þe ðæræfter filigað. sprecað gemænlice be eallum cristenum mannum; On þam is geswutelod hu swiðe god lufað annysse. 7 geþwærnysse on his folce; Æfter godes gesetnysse ealle cristene men sceoldon beon swa geþwære. swilce hit an man wære. for þi wá þam men þe ða annysse tobrecð; Swa swa we habbað on anum lichaman manega lima 7 hi ealle anum heafde gehyrsumiað. swa eac we sceolon manega cristene menn criste on annysse gehyrsumian. for þan ðe he is ure heafod. 7 we sind his lima. [Christ established this prayer … and this prayer he established for all Christian people together. In this prayer, it does not say, ‘My Father, you are in heaven’, but it says, ‘Our Father’, and so forth all the words that follow thereafter, spoken together by all Christian people. In these is made clear how much God loves unity and togetherness in his people. According to God’s ordination, all Christian people must be so joined as if it were one person because woe to the person who breaks the unity. Just as we have many limbs on one body and they all obey one head, so also we many Christian people must obey Christ in unity because he is our head and we are his limbs.]

For Ælfric, the Pater Noster symbolizes God’s love for unity and acts as a strongly unifying force when recited by all Christians as if by one body. And woe to him who endangers the integrity of this body. This threat teaches that every Christian is responsible for the body’s health, especially for making the limbs serve the head in unity so that the whole body can function successfully. All this is important for understanding the Ascension, since the integrity of head and body are essential for achieving salvation. As part of the totus Christus, Christians have the privileged opportunity to reach

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heaven, but only if the diverse limbs can discipline themselves enough to jointly follow the head. Ælfric does not impose the responsibility of maintaining integrity simply on individuals but on the entire community and even seems to encourage communal supervision to ensure that every member lives without reproach so that eventually all can gain heaven. The body – the Church – does not and cannot consist of individuals but succeeds only through a collaborative – and ­watchful – effort. Ælfric’s emphasis on community is also appropriate in light of Rogationtide liturgy. On these gebeddagas (‘prayer days’), communal activity is especially oriented towards praying together, and diverse folk (clergy and laity, men and women, young and old) are called on to perform the liturgical rituals together, as specified by Canon 16 of the Council of Clovesho and made explicit in the Old English Martyrology. It is fitting, therefore, that this homily instructs listeners on the Pater Noster as a basic Christian prayer but also as one that has the special power of uniting believers: all Christians are permitted to say it, no matter their sex, age, social status, or office held. Like other Ascension authors, Ælfric exploits the liminal image of the totus Christus and its theological implications in CH I.19. But instead of following the standard notion of Christ the Head having ascended and the Body waiting to follow, he focuses on the state of the Body before it departs for heaven. To Ælfric, the barrier to salvation that needs to be overcome is not the threshold to heaven but the threat of disunity within the earthly community. In his subsequent sermon for Rogation Wednesday, CH I.20 (De Fide Catholica), a homiletic exposition on the Christian faith, Ælfric discusses a set of fundamental catechetical points, particularly distinguishing orthodox views from unacceptable ones. As part of this concern, he treats the nature of the Trinity, which further contributes to the understanding of the totus Christus.44 Based on this subject’s treatment by Augustine of Hippo, whom Ælfric cites in the opening passage, he emphasizes especially the unity of the Trinity and thus explicitly continues the theme established in CH I.19. For instance, he explains the indivisibility of the Trinity (CH I.20, 336, 30–3): Se god wunað on þrynnysse untodæledlic. 7 on annysse anre godcundnysse; Soðlice oðer is se fæder. oþer is se sunu oðer is se halga gast ac þeahhwæþere þæra ðreora is an godcundnyss 7 gelic wuldor. 7 efenece mægenþrymnyss. (emphases added)

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[God dwells in indivisible Trinity and in unity of one Godhead. Truly, one is the Father, the other is the Son, the third is the Holy Spirit, but nevertheless of these three [there] is one divinity and equal glory and co-eternal majesty.]

He adds shortly thereafter (CH I.20, 336, 39–41), Nu habbað ge gehyred þa halgan þrynnysse. ge sceolon eac gehyran þa soðan annysse; Soðlice se fæder 7 se sunu. 7 se halga gast habbað ane godcundnysse. 7 an gecynd. 7 an weorc. (emphases added) [Now have you heard [about] the holy Trinity; you must also hear [about] the true unity. Truly the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit have one divinity and one nature and one action.]

Ælfric is painstakingly emphatic about the unity of the Trinity in order to distinguish this doctrine from the heretical views he addresses later on. One reason for stressing this unity is that this dogmatic point is easily misunderstood by laypersons, as the idea that the Trinity is simultaneously three and one is a complicated and subtle one. His focus on unity might also reflect the concerns and unifying impulse of the Benedictine Reform, of which Ælfric was a prominent representative and advocate.45 The perceived lack of learning and theological knowledge before the Reform, and the potential threat of ecclesiastical discord arising from it, made reformers particularly anxious to stress aspects that bind all Christians together and the importance of maintaining collective unity. Ælfric’s emphasis on oneness, when read in the context of Rogationtide, adds meaning to the general teaching on the Trinity, for it directly contributes to understanding specific Ascension dynamics. For example, the Trinity’s indivisible and co-eternal oneness means that the Second Person, the Son, has always dwelled in heaven with God, even during the Incarnation. It explains, therefore, how Christ can eternally dwell in heaven and yet, at the Ascension, return to it. Listeners also learn that unity takes the form of both the pre-existing unity of the Trinity (CH I.20) and the unity that is forged through the totus Christus and the Ascension (CH I.19). By discussing Christian unity, the nature of the Trinity, and the totus Christus, CH I.19 and I.20 give listeners a more doctrinally grounded understanding of the impending Ascension. In keeping with his Christological focus, Ælfric does not treat thoroughly in CH I.21 what the Ascension means most concretely

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to individual Christians. His tone is generally less grimly hortatory than in the preceding homilies; at the extreme, he urges listeners to do good deeds because faith without good works is useless (CH I.21, 350, 141–3). The reduction in admonitions may reflect the less penitential and more festive nature of Ascension Day (in contrast to Rogationtide), but Ælfric also has no need to address, for example, the personal responsibilities of each Christian because he has already done so in the homilies leading up to CH I.21. Equally, he does not need to talk about the totus Christus, since he has already explained it in CH I.19 and 20. CH I.21 consists, most broadly, of exegesis of the two New Testament readings for the day (Acts 1:3–15 and Mark 16:14–20).46 Malcolm Godden characterizes the homily’s content by observing that Ælfric’s ‘concern is primarily with the literal sense of the two texts and the doctrinal and moral problems raised by various details … It is, characteristically, the problems of the relation of body and spirit that most interest him.’47 Notwithstanding Godden’s view that Ælfric focuses on the literal sense of the pericopes, he does privilege certain themes, such as the necessity of miracles, the spiritual versus the bodily, and Christ’s bodily existence. He also includes theological points that are intimately associated with the Ascension, most prominently that of Christ’s dual nature. If listeners are to take away only a single point, it should be that Christ took humanity with him to heaven. Ælfric refers to Christ’s human nature several times, and listeners merge what they know about the totus Christus from the preceding homilies with this new information. For example, Ælfric mentions that Christ manifested himself in flesh and blood (CH I.21, 346, 40) and that he departed the earth in his human body after removing any doubt in his disciples about his bodily Resurrection by allowing them to examine his wounds (Christ lichamlice hi forlætan wolde [‘wished to leave them behind bodily’]; CH I.21, 349, 110–17). Needing visible and tangible proof of something that ought simply to be believed belongs to common Ascension thematics, tying especially into the theme of seeing versus believing. Patristic writings on the Ascension repeatedly remark that the apostles needed visible miracles to make them believe in Christ’s divinity. Ælfric furthermore explains (CH I.21, 347–8, 79–81), On his acennednysse wæs geþuht swilce seo godcundnyss wære geeadmet. 7 on his upstige wæs seo menniscnys ahafen 7 gemærsod (‘In his birth it appeared as if the divinity were humbled and in his Ascension humanity was lifted up and glorified’). He adopts this idea from one of his main sources, Gregory

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the Great’s Gospel Homily 29, in which Gregory develops the idea of divinitas humiliata and humanitas exaltata (‘humbled divinity’ and ‘exalted humanity’).48 Ælfric follows this point with the assertion that, despite Adam’s guilt and the inevitable return to dust of the earthly body, human nature was taken with Christ to heaven in its unruined state and Christ will reappear in human form on Judgement Day (CH I.21, 348, 83–93). This again draws attention to the fact that Ælfric’s Rogationtide and Ascension homilies are most usefully understood as a sequence and within their full liturgical context. Even though his homily for Ascension Day (CH I.21) may seem mostly focused on the literal meaning of the readings, as Godden observes, the information presented in the preceding homilies provides a foundation for a more nuanced understanding of CH I.21. Through the teaching of the totus Christus in CH I.19 and I.20, listeners understand why they have to experience an earthly existence in order to earn heaven through personal responsibility. The dominant teaching of Christ’s dual nature in CH I.21 complements the teachings expounded in the preceding homilies (the Head and Body of Christ, the unity of Christians, the Trinity) by reminding audiences of that singular achievement of the Ascension – the opening of heaven to humanity. Ælfric’s Rogationtide and Ascension homilies thus work cumulatively, and the main themes addressed in each collectively present the totus Christus and Christ’s dual nature as key teachings. The Rogationtide homilies have to be seen as part of Ælfric’s larger teaching effort for the entire Ascension week, which culminates in CH I.21. Ælfric effects this culmination through subtle reinforcement of previously introduced Ascension themes rather than through a display of doctrinal fireworks. Embodied theology: ritual observances for Rogationtide While Rogationtide can be regarded as a ‘catch-all’ occasion for preaching, as my above discussion shows, one also has to consider this general teaching within its immediate liturgical context and the position of Rogationtide in the annual cycle. It is inextricably linked with the Ascension. Some of the images used by Bede and Ælfric in their Rogationtide homilies are statements of nearproverbial status in Christian thinking (e.g., ‘ask and you shall receive’), but they are also, of course, drawn from the readings for the day. It can be difficult to tell what motivated authors to choose motifs that cannot immediately be traced to a specific source or

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context, but one would expect homilists to be cognizant of the events of the whole week and to compose homilies for that context. The thematic freedom permitted by Rogationtide provides the opportunity both for general teaching on any topic and for narrower, targeted instruction. When homilists shape general teachings to fit the immediate liturgical context, they accrue meaning that is particular to this moment in the ecclesiastical calendar. In this way, I have argued, Rogationtide supports the instruction of listeners on the importance and theology of the Ascension, the event with which the week culminates. Such a contextualized reading of the formal teaching of theo­ logy in Rogationtide and Ascension homilies can also fruitfully be expanded to other aspects, above all to the liturgical practices ­associated with Rogationtide.49 These spatial rituals (processions, stational prayers, and field ambulations) are especially marked as communal activities. They also emphasize land and earthly growth in addition to boundaries, borders, and other aspects of liminality inherently linked to Rogationtide and the Ascension. As I contend here, by focusing on community and liminality, these rituals are conceptually closely related to Ascension theology and, analogously to the manuscript illuminations discussed in the final chapter, are a way to visualize its most important tenets. In order to examine how this different, less formal and physical kind of theological teaching unfolds, I first show what forms the spatial rituals took by detailing the observances for Rogationtide. These observances also demonstrate the close links between the basic purposes of Rogationtide (prayer and repentance), the liturgical spatial practices performed, and the land on which they take place. I argue that these connections show that Rogationtide processions not only support the teaching of Ascension theology through their shared concern with liminal spaces, but also, in their physical movement, express this theology in an embodied form. The two Old English names for Rogationtide isolate two distinct main observances: gangdagas (‘walking days’) reflects the processions through community and fields and gebeddagas (‘prayer days’) the habitual supplications and repentance expected during this time.50 These two elements appear without exception in the descriptions of observances in the homilies. A typical summary list of observances can be found in the opening sentence of Vercelli Homily XI (for Rogation Monday) (Vercelli XI, 221, 1–4): þis syndon halige dagas 7 halwendlice 7 ussum sawlum læcedomlice, 7 us geriseð þæt we hie wel begangen mid fæstenum 7 mid gebedum 7

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mid reliquiasocnum 7 mid usse eaðmodlice gange (‘these are holy and healthful days and [days] salutary for our souls, and it befits us that we observe them with fasts and with prayers and with visits to relics and with our humble procession’). Similarly, Ælfric describes the observances in CH I.18 (for Rogation Monday) (CH I.18, 318, 40–2), We sceolon eac on ðysum dagum began ure gebedu 7 fylian urum haligdomum ut 7 in. 7 þone ælmihtigan god mid geornfulnysse herian (‘We must also on these days observe our prayers and follow our relics out and in and praise the almighty God with eagerness’). Ælfric opens this homily by explaining the name and main purpose of Rogationtide (CH I.18, 317, 2–5): Þas dagas sind gehatene. letanie˛.  sind gebeddagas. On þisum dagum we sceolon gebiddan ure eorðlicra wæstma, genihtsumnysse, 7 us sylfum gesundfulnysse 7 sibbe. 7  git mare is ure synna forgifenysse (‘These days are called letaniae, which are prayer days. On these days, we must pray for our earthly growths, for abundance, and for health and peace for ourselves, and, what is yet more, for the forgiveness of our sins’). Prayers and (relic) processions have from the beginning been identifying characteristics of Rogationtide practices. Ælfric names an additional important aspect when listing the prayer for earthly growth; with this, he links the required prayers not only to the land on which the processions take place, but also to agriculture, the source of sustenance (directly or indirectly) for the ritual’s participants. Other homilies also stress the link between the observances and earthly growth. For example, the following representative passage from the anonymous Rogationtide homily Bazire–Cross 8 connects the processions across the land with blessing the fields, an aspect not explicitly mentioned by Ælfric. The homilist urges that Rogationtide has to be celebrated forðon þe nu ealle eorðan wæstmas growende syndon and blowende geopenade and þæt ure bileofan syn growende and gebletsode to hælo ures lichoman and sawle. Forðon us is þeos tid geset ure sawla hælo on to biddanne, and ures lichoman bletsunge and ura woruldgoda genihtsumnesse mid godcunda lofsange and mid þam halgum reliquium. We sculon beon Gode lof secgende, and Cristes rodetacen forðberan and his þa halige godspell and oðre halignessa, mid þam we sceolon bletsian ure þa eorðlican speda, þæt synd æceras and wudu and ure ceap und eall þa þing þe us God forgyfen hafað to brucanne þe we bileofian sceolon.51 [because now all the earth’s growths are growing and [are] opened blooming and so that our faith may be growing and be blessed for the health of our body and soul. Because this time is established for

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us in order to pray for the health of our souls and for the blessing of our body and the abundance of our worldly goods with heavenly praise-song and with the holy relics. We must be saying praise to God and carry forth Christ’s cross and his holy Gospel and other holy things, with which we must bless our earthly wealth, which are fields and woods and our cattle and all those things which God has given us to enjoy, as we must believe.]

The relationship between the processions and prayers and their function as field blessings is made explicit here. These spatial rituals are not just an extension of the Mass celebrated in church, but it is important that they are a walking of the land, during which one remembers the plants, livestock, and other elements sustained by that land – just as the participants themselves are. One prays for the wellbeing of the land, agricultural success, and other earthly prosperities; one also prays for spiritual health – spiritual flourishing is compared to the flourishing of the earth – and eventual prosperity in heaven. In this way, spiritual wellbeing is closely tied to, even dependent on, the wellbeing of the land, which is promoted by walking and blessing the fields. The most remarkable and telling passages about the function of Rogationtide, especially for an agriculturally based community, occur in Vercelli XII, which not only recites the standard observances, but also indicates the meaning these rituals hold for those performing them. The homilist explains (Vercelli XII, 228, 13–19) that Peter established þa halgan gangdagas þry, to ðam þæt we sceoldon on Gode ælmihtigum þiowigan mid usse gedefelice gange 7 mid sange 7 mid ciricena socnum 7 mid fæstenum 7 mid ælmessylenum 7 mid halegum gebedum. 7 we sculon beran usse reliquias ymb ure land, þa medeman Cristes rodetacen þe we Cristes mæl nemnað, on þam he sylfa þrowode for mancynnes alysnesse. Swelce we sculon beran ða bec þe man hateð godspel. (emphases added) [the three holy walking-days so that we ought to serve almighty God with our fitting walk and with song and with church visits and with fasts and with alms and with holy prayers. And we must carry our relics around our land, Christ’s worthy cross, which we call Christ’s sign, on which he himself suffered for the redemption of mankind. Equally we must carry the book which one calls Gospel.]

He prescribes further (Vercelli XII, 229, 28–34), Eac we sculon beran oðre halige reliquias, þæt syndon haligra manna lafe, hyra feaxes oððe hyra lices dæl oððe hrægles, 7 mid þam

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halignessum eallum we sculon eaðmodlice gangan ymb ure land on þissum halgum dagum. 7 urne ceap 7 urne eard 7 urne wudu 7 eal ure god we sculon Gode bebeodan, 7 him þancian þara gesynta þe forþgewitene syndon, swylce eac þara andwearda 7 þara towearda. (emphases added) [Also we must carry other holy relics, that are the remnants of holy men, of their hair or a part of their body or clothing, and with all those holy things, we must humbly go around our land on these holy days. And we must offer up to God our livestock and our land and our woods and all our property, and thank him for those prosperities/ benefits which have passed [and] likewise also for current ones and for future ones.]

The homilist is initially most occupied with specifying observances for Rogationtide. As he moves into further details about the practices, about what relics are to be carried about, and what prayers are to be said, a much closer identification of the participants with the ritual emerges. As becomes clear from these passages, there is a strong emphasis on the ‘we’ performing the processions and on ‘our’ property. In contrast to, for example, Bazire–Cross 8, which also lists the earthly wealth given by God, the Vercelli homilist emphatically accompanies each item with a first-person-plural possessive adjective. This language not only invites participants to identify with the prayerful processions, but it establishes a collective identity, a plural ‘we’ who communally undergo the experience of Rogationtide together. The homily subtly shapes this collective identity in opposition to an unmentioned other group, a ‘they’ who do not participate in the ritual and thus do not belong to ‘our’ community. This self-definition is crucial for the ritual’s participants, since knowing who belongs (or not) has grave consequences. Being a member of the celebrating community means belonging to the Body of Christ. The spatial rituals and the homilies for Rogationtide are thus intensely interested not only in the blessing of the land that sustains everyone, but also in the delineation of boundaries of this common land and, especially, of Christ’s community. The effect of the linguistic manipulation by the Vercelli XII homilist is parallelled by the empirical and symbolic functions of the field perambulations, for the prayer stations on the land equally identify what belongs to the community, the extent of its communal property, and its boundaries. As the homily states, during the processions, which take place between the third and the ninth hour on each of the three Rogation days, the gospels, a cross, and relics are carried

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throughout the community, thereby bringing God’s space from the church into the community.52 The congregation stops at designated stations for prayers, concluding with a return to the church. The processions demonstrate the importance of boundaries, that is, liminal spaces: carrying relics throughout the community marks off the areas, which are dedicated to God so that he can bless them.53 Even though these ritual perambulations did not yet literally follow the outer parish boundaries, which were generally not established until the thirteenth century, they may have involved a circumnavigation of fields.54 They certainly confirm the symbolical boundaries of the community. The perambulations define what lies inside those boundaries as the communal, sacred, and legitimate, separating it from the non-communal, the non-arable, and the outlying. Therefore, the processions and the verbal choices of the Vercelli XII homilist accomplish something very similar: both identify the corporate boundaries of the community. In the course of Rogationtide liturgy, the community’s boundaries are circumscribed by verbal means just as the land’s boundaries are circumscribed by physical ambulation. When prayers are said for the health and abundance of the cultivated land, which sustains the body of the community, they are simultaneously said for the health of each praying body and soul, for the land and the community are one.55 These spatial Rogationtide observances – the processions and prayers essential to the week’s liturgy – take on a particular role in teaching Ascension theology. The physical movement of the procession, especially when the congregation stops at several stations for special prayers, is a symbolic representation of the journey of the Ascension. In the Rogationtide liturgy, each station is designated by name;56 the last one is called In atrio and is most probably associated with the entrance to the church before the congregation re-enters the building. During this last station, the faithful literally return to church, but symbolically they arrive at the gates of heaven.57 Vercelli Homily XX illustrates the solemnity of this moment, speaking of the procession as preparation for re-entering ‘God’s temple’ as well as of the necessity to avoid distracting behaviour (Vercelli XX, 332, 5–7): 7 uton lætan ure idelan spræca, ægðer ge þonne we ut ga[n]gen mid [þam] haligdome ge þonne we in to cyrican gangen, for ðam þe þam deofle bið swa leofre swa we seldor on Godes temple cumen (‘and let us abandon our idle speeches, either when we go out with the relics or when we go in to church, because to the devil it is the dearer if we come to God’s temple less frequently’). When participants pray at the station In

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atrio and then enter the church, they re-enact the triumphant entry of Christ into heaven, as if travelling in his retinue, as well as the completion of the Ascension, the occasion commemorated on the Thursday of this week.58 Furthermore, when entering the church, the procession also anticipates the events of Judgement Day, when Christians hope to cross the threshold to heaven for a final time. In a complex confluence, three different moments in time collapse in this one celebration: the past of Christ’s Ascension, the present of Christians commemorating this Christological event, and the future of the anticipated ascension and entrance into heaven of the faithful.59 When the Body of Christians processes into the church, the gates of heaven are symbolically opened for them in a recapitulation of Christ’s arrival in heaven, although, in the present, heaven stands open only figuratively. As part of the totus Christus, Christians in historical time remain on earth and must strive to be united with Christ, as the homilies repeatedly make clear. In this way, the congregants embody the events of the Ascension, while the Rogationtide homilies function as glosses upon those acts, helping the participants understand theologically what they enact physically. In his Homily II.14 for Rogationtide, Bede engages this symbolic meaning of the processions by linking the prayers for earthly wealth to the ultimate destination of the symbolic journey of Christian life (II.14, 275, 112–17):60 Neque enim prohibentur ciues patriae caelestis in terra peregrinantes pro pace temporum pro salute corporum pro ubertate frugum pro serenitate aurarum pro ceteris uitae huius necessariis dominum petere, si tamen haec non nimie petantur et si ob id solummodo petantur ut abundante uiatico in praesenti liberius ad futura dona tendatur. [The citizens of the heavenly fatherland, while they are pilgrims on this earth, are not forbidden to ask the Lord for peaceful times, bodily health, abundant crops, good weather, and other necessities of this life, if these things are not asked for inordinately, and if they are asked for only for this reason, that with abundant food for the journey in this present [life], they may more freely reach out towards future gifts.]61

Since Church-approved Rogationtide celebrations commonly included prayers said for livestock, land, and plants, Bede utilizes the processions, the festival’s traditional link to agriculture, and the importance that field blessings and prayers would hold for

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congregants, even monastic ones. He immediately translates those prayers for earthly rewards into a more appropriate desire for spiritual rewards; temporary wealth should be a stepping-stone towards spiritual rewards. At the same time, he connects the prayer for earthly prosperity to earthly pilgrimage: walking the fields symbolizes Christ’s march to heaven during the Ascension and the earthly pilgrimage of all Christians, which also ends, it is hoped, in heaven. Bede thus carefully incorporates a range of typical Ascension thematics in his homily – Christ’s opening of heaven, striving for spiritual rewards, and seeking heaven – and teaches them both to explicate the spiritual meaning of Rogationtide observances and to increase the theological understanding of the coming Ascension. By mentioning the prayers for earthly goods in Homily II.14, Bede acknowledges the lived practices and concerns of a people dependent on an agrarian economy. While he naturally approves of the processions for Rogationtide, which are part of official liturgy, he also justifies them within an eschatological framework when he includes his exhortation that prayers for earthly wealth should only be said with an eye towards otherworldly goals. Bede differs from later vernacular homilists, particularly the anonymous ones, in omitting extensive descriptions of the processional field rituals. Since Rogationtide processions were performed by the monks of Wearmouth and Jarrow, Bede certainly could have described them, but perhaps he had no reason to include such prescriptions for his intended (monastic) audience.62 Nonetheless, the passage quoted above implies that his audience did have legitimate agricultural concerns. His silence on the observances, especially in conjunction with his warning about proper intent, may instead indicate reluctance to discuss a practice with ambiguous origins. In contrast, Vercelli Homilies XI and XII fully indulge in describing the ritual observances for Rogationtide, as we have seen above, and openly compare them to the pagan festivities which Rogationtide was assumed to have replaced. The conspicuous similarities between Christian and pagan celebrations make some mainstream Anglo-Saxon clerics rather nervous, chief among them the reform-minded and theologically conservative Ælfric. Liturgical and lay agricultural rituals In this final section, I focus on the ritual practices associated with Ascension week – walking the fields, praying for the prosperity of

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the land, blessing livestock, woods, and crops – in order to examine how we might understand them in the contexts of clerical culture and, especially, lay Anglo-Saxon popular religious practices. I contend that the Rogationtide field rituals and prayers for agricultural prosperity share formal and thematic characteristics with Anglo-Saxon ritual charms and field remedies as well as with the Ascension doctrines already discussed in relation to Bede’s and Ælfric’s homilies. The thematic links between these texts consist of a shared interest in liminality and, more literally, of references to or actual physical delineation of liminal spaces. But the celebration of Rogationtide and the rituals performed during this time are also liminal moments that bring performers in contact with the eternal divine. Bede’s and Ælfric’s formal preaching of theology represents an ‘official’, standardized form of spirituality, and the liturgical Rogationtide practices that take place in the fields are also part of this formal, sanctioned spirituality. At the same time, the dedication of the woods and crops, the field perambulations, and the accompanying raucous behaviour (which the Clovesho Council sought to suppress) mark Rogationtide also as a popular, less conventional occasion. These are the aspects that make Rogationtide observances similar to agricultural rituals that are a part of larger Anglo-Saxon lay culture. All of these practices exist on a continuum and, as diverse as they are, all belong equally to the same overarching religious culture. Rather than expressing varying degrees of orthodoxy, they are different forms of receiving and packaging conventional theological information and hence should be seen as parallel didactic models.63 Formal preaching and popular religious rituals represent different aspects of the entire spectrum of AngloSaxon religious culture and reflect coexisting lay and learned sub-cultures within a religious culture that can subsume both. In bringing together these materials, I am not interested in reconstructing a particular historic moment but in a textual analysis that highlights the shared thematic focus of these texts and practices. I assume an implied mixed lay and clerical audience rather than envisioning a historically specific one.64 At the same time, I view the sources examined here not as isolated pieces of literature but as reflective of the larger world of Anglo-Saxon religious culture and of real historical contexts. These sources reflect a world of blended traditions, a confluence of Christian teachings and Anglo-Saxon native traditions. Cultural historians John Blair and Karen Louise Jolly have both worked on such blended materials, and their definitions and approaches,

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c­ orresponding closely to my own, provide useful orientation. Blair, in his recent study of parish churches in Anglo-Saxon society, lucidly explicates how we might understand texts and practices that seem to blend Christian with ‘pagan’ elements and succinctly defines the intersections of non-Christian and Christian traditions from the perspective of Anglo-Saxon practitioners. When evaluating ritual prayer or a ‘magic charm’, scholars should not be posing the question of religion or whether a practice is idol worship or pagan. Instead, all of these practices should be recognized as popular in the sense that they are old traditions of the people.65 Their users do not adhere to paganism; they have genuinely adapted to Christianity, but they also bring their people’s past into it. Therefore, according to Blair, a more useful way of thinking about such blending of elements is to say that while there are ‘two cultures’, they are not divided into literate-Christian, on the one hand, and vernacular and folkloric, on the other. Rather, the division falls between ‘the fastidious, metropolitan, temperamentally dirigiste moral leaders whose voices come through to us – Aldhelm, Bede, Boniface, Alcuin – and the diverse majority, clerical and lay, whose voices remain silent’.66 Blair distinguishes a clerical culture in situ from a more removed ecclesiastic culture. The parish priests and monks who worked daily with the laity were more accepting of and would even participate in popular religious activities, allowing for native traditions to blend with imported Christian ones, even as the authoritative leadership rejected such permissive handling of practices. Blair specifically views Rogationtide observances as an example of such fused traditions.67 Karen Louise Jolly’s work has also helped define blended or seemingly heterodox Anglo-Saxon practices, repeatedly urging us to understand them in their own contexts and on their own terms.68 For example, Christianized charm remedies are not indicative of an opposition between such categories as Christian and pagan or religion and science but instead reveal ‘the in-between practices that demonstrate a considerable amount of assimilation between these opposing categories. In these in-between or “middle” practices we can best see how Christianity and Anglo-Saxon culture were fused.’69 Popular religious practices have to be viewed as the result of a process of acculturation, ‘not as the opposite of formal “elite” religion, but as a fruitful middle ground in the interaction between the formal church and popular experience’.70 Therefore, ‘middle practices’ are not pre-Christian hangovers but newly formed customs, blended from the influences of two merging cultures (Anglo-Saxon native and Christian-Latin culture).

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I consider both phenomena – the liturgical rituals of Rogationtide and the lay field ritual prescribed, for example, in the Æcerbot Charm – as examples of ‘middle practices’, even as the former is also part of formal liturgy and the latter belongs fully to the realm of popular religion. The two practices share important parallels. Both have older roots than their Christian manifestations and are religious practices addressing the everyday concerns of AngloSaxon Christians. Even though they are deployed on different occasions, ritual practices such as the Rogationtide processions and the Æcerbot Charm are similar in form, content, and attitude to the land on which they take place, revealing their fundamental similarities (i.e., concern for agricultural prosperity, sacred landscape, communal experience, and dependence on land). Moreover – and this aligns them both with the Ascension – they are liminal rituals that take performers to the physical boundaries of the land, and, more importantly, confront them with a liminal moment in which divine power enters into human material reality to heal a field, to make the Ascension present in the lives of faithful, or to grant a glimpse of the anticipated Paradise. The field blessings and prayers for crops and abundant harvest described in the Rogationtide homilies are naturally linked with the processions that take the congregants to those very fields and to other locations of daily labour. I have previously shown the importance of the land – of our land – to the ceremonies of this week. In this context, it is useful to return to one of the traditional histories of Rogationtide which attributes its establishment to St Peter in response to an older pagan celebration. Whenever homilists present this history, they cite the displaced pagan observances.71 Vercelli XI (XI, 221, 5–8), for example, states that Peter established Rogation days for us to beganganne for hæðenra manna gedwilde, for þan þe hie hiera wiggild 7 hiera diofulgild on ðas dagas weorðedon 7 beeodon, 7 we nu for þam þingum sculon þas dagas mærsian 7 weorðigan mid þam gesettum godum þe to þyssum dagum gelimpaþ. [to observe [them] because of the error of heathen men, because they worshipped their idols and performed their devil-worship on these days, and we must now for those reasons celebrate these days and honour [them] with the established services, which take place on these days.]

The homilist sees the Christian festival as a direct replacement of pagan celebrations and as a way of sanctifying these unworthy

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previous activities. Notably, he describes the pagan activities in similar terms as the Christian ones, using the word weorðian to describe worshipping in both contexts. He makes Rogationtide a close successor in practice to the pagan idol worship. More remarkably, when the homilist of Vercelli XII presents this same history of Rogationtide, he describes the pagan customs, revealing their strong association with agriculture (XII, 228, 2–6): hæðene liode hæfdon þry dagas synderlice beforan hira oðrum gewunan þæt hie onguldon hira godum, 7 hiera ceapes wæstma 7 ealle hira æhta hie hira gode bebudon. Þæt wæs dioflum sylfum, for þon þe hie hira godu hæfdon geworhte of treowum 7 of stanum 7 of oðrum untimbrum missenlicum. [heathen people had three days, separately above their other customs, when they made offerings to their gods, and they offered up to their god the products of their cattle and all their goods. That was to the devil himself, because they had made their gods out of trees and stones and various other materials.]

For pagans, the three days were dedicated to commending their agricultural products to their divinity, which the homilist is sure to identify as the devil. When, shortly thereafter, he describes the Christian observances for Rogationtide, the parallels are conspicuous (XII, 229, 30–3): mid þam halignessum eallum we sculon eaðmodlice gangan ymb ure land on þissum halgum dagum. 7 urne ceap 7 urne eard 7 urne wudu 7 eal ure god we sculon Gode bebeodan (‘with all those holy things [the gospel, cross, and relics], we must humbly go around our land on these holy days. And we must offer up to God our livestock and our land and our woods and all our property’). As in Vercelli XI, the same language is used to describe both pagan and Christian activities. In addition, the two sets of customs share close ties to the land and its products and the hope for abundant fertility by commending it to divine forces; both pagans and Christians have essentially the same concerns. The Christian festival replaced the pagan festival, but it is mostly a replacement in addressee, not in form or intent. Just as the Christian prayers are seen as now being addressed to the correct God, the liminal aspects of the ritual, the field perambulations, are now performed in service of the correct purpose, that is, to call upon the Christian God to bring blessings to fields and crops. While similar liminal practices probably existed in pre-Christian times, these activities are reinterpreted in the light of Christian priorities. That is why, in addition to marking out fields as God’s space, the

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processions around the land can serve the expression of the liminal theology of the Ascension. To be clear, I am not claiming that Rogationtide observances are pagan or consciously adopt pagan practices. They are Christian rituals performed by Christian congregants. But the similarities of the described pagan and Christian practices demonstrate that the concerns of ordinary folk are thought to change little over time, and the presumed pagan precursor can credibly be portrayed as a fertility ritual that is simply addressed to the wrong entity. This indicates the deep-rootedness and the continuing importance of the agricultural rituals conducted during Rogationtide. Above all, the parallels show that the core concern of the prayers and spatial rituals, no matter in whose name they are performed, is the wellbeing and prosperity of the land, a concern found also in other areas of Anglo-Saxon religious and secular life. This interest in the land and its health associates the communal rituals of Rogationtide and the liminal imagery used in formal preaching to teach Ascension theology (i.e., gates, journey to heaven) with an entire realm of agricultural practices and fertility field rituals.72 There are many levels of practices, from official field blessings in church services to experimental ritual prayers that never became part of formal liturgy.73 These have no immediate connection to Rogationtide liturgy or Ascension theology but distinctly resemble Rogationtide practices in form. In addition, all of them reflect what might be described as a belief in the ‘power of the earth’, that is, the belief that the earth is a virtually independent entity that can be addressed and manipulated and through which, with the help of spoken words, conditions in the material world can be altered. The clearest example of these parallels is the aforementioned Old English Æcerbot Charm, a field blessing ritual that prescribes elaborate actions, incantations, and prayers to ‘heal’ land that has become unfruitful and to elicit anew a bountiful harvest. The charm has occasioned considerable commentary and speculation about its roots and significance, mostly because of its apparent syncretism of standard Christian prayers with folkloristic and unconventional, non-Christian elements.74 Of most interest in the current context are the formal parallels between the ritual injunctions of the Æcerbot Charm and those for Rogationtide. The Æcerbot prescribes gathering sods and plant and animal products from four parts of the affected land:75 Her ys seo bot, hu ðu meaht þine æceras betan gif hi nellaþ wel wexan oþþe þær hwilc ungedefe þing on gedon bið on dry oððe on

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lyblace. Genim þonne on niht, ær hyt dagige, feower tyrf on feower healfa þæs landes, and gemearca hu hy ær stodon. Nim þonne ele and hunig and beorman, and ælces feos meolc þe on þæm lande sy, and ælces treowcynnes dæl þe on þæm lande sy gewexen, butan heardan beaman, and ælcre namcuþre wyrte dæl, butan glappan anon, and do þonne haligwæter ðær on, and drype þonne þriwa on þone staðol þara turfa, and cweþe ðonne ðas word: Crescite, wexe, et multiplicamini, and gemænigfealda, et replete, and gefylle, terre, þas eorðan. In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sanctu sit benedicti. And Pater noster swa oft swa þæt oðer. And bere siþþan ða turf to circean, and mæssepreost asinge feower mæssan ofer þan turfon, and wende man þæt grene to ðan weofode, and siþþan gebringe man þa turf þær hi ær wæron ær sunnan setlgange. [Here is the remedy, how you can improve your fields if they do not want to grow well or when some harmful thing has been done to [them] by a wizard or poisonous sorcery. Take then at night, before dawn, four sods from four parts of the land and mark how they were before. Take then oil and honey and yeast, and milk from each kind of livestock that may be on the land, and a piece of each kind of tree that may grow on the land, except for ‘hard trees’, and a piece of each plant/ herb known by name, except for glappan76 alone, and then put holy water thereon, and then drip [it] thrice on the base of the sods, and then speak these words: Crescite, grow, and multiplicamini, and multiply, et replete, and fill, terre, the earth. In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sanctu sit benedicti. And the Pater Noster as often as the other one. And after that, carry the sods to church, and a mass-priest should sing four masses over the sods, and one should turn the green [side] towards the altar, and afterwards one should take the sods to where they were previously, before the setting of the sun.]

After this, four crosses are made from branches, inscribed with the evangelists’ names, and buried face-down in the pits from which the sods were taken. In this first part of the charm, the land is notably involved in the ritual process; it is seen as having sacred power, which it transmits to other elements that come into contact with it. It is used as a ritual object, that is, as an object that is manipulated by prescription and fulfils a symbolic function in a spiritual reality beyond its existence simply as an object. Sods are taken from the affected field; natural products brought forth by the land are collected and mixed; crosses are made from branches that presumably grew on the land, and so on. All of these parts stand in for the land as a whole, and symbolic actions are performed on them in supplication to spiritual forces and to effect a change in the material world, namely, to improve

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agricultural production. Through the use of the sods as ritual objects, a close connection is forged between the land and God who is asked to heal it, and through the spatial ritual the divine blessing is directed to the specific field in need of healing. The spatial ritual prescribed in the Æcerbot Charm has distinct parallels to Rogationtide observances. For one, they are both communal rituals that need to be performed by a number of individuals who need to cooperate for a successful outcome. The walking of field boundaries – like walking in the processions – also marks a liminal moment of contact between present reality and a timeless reality outside the material world. As Rogationtide processions are liminal in collapsing time, making divine and earthly time intersect, the boundary ritual of the Æcerbot Charm is liminal in creating a space in the present for a divine force to enter and heal the field. More importantly, a parallel to the Rogationtide processions emerges in the prescription for the ritual moving about on the land. As practitioners walk the fields to gather the sods and other elements, they mark the boundaries of the land. Like the stational prayers for designated locations, then, the charm’s ritual prescriptions effectively prompt a field perambulation. Since the walking of boundaries and property perambulations were also commonly performed in other contexts in Anglo-Saxon England, such a ritual would presumably strike the charm’s user as familiar.77 One walks the land’s outer reaches, its liminal spaces, and, like the Rogationtide processions, marks it off as the territory for which blessings are asked. Both the processions and the Æcerbot dedicate land to God to achieve agricultural success, and they do so by the same means: prayers and marking boundaries by walking the land. Besides the use of sods as ritual objects, the earth is also a presence that the ritual’s performer invokes: Ðonne þæt eall sie gedon, þonne nime man uncuþ sæd æt ælmesmannum and selle him twa swylc, swylce man æt him nime, and gegaderie ealle his sulhgeteogo togædere; borige þonne on þam beame stor and finol and gehalgode sapan and gehalgod sealt. Nim þonne þæt sæd, sete on þæs sules bodig, cweð þonne:   Erce, Erce, Erce,  eorþan modor,   geunne þe se alwalda,  ece drihten,   æcera wexendra  and wridendra,  eacniendra and elniendra,   sceafta hehra,  scirra wæstma,   and þæra bradan  berewæstma,

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and þæra hwitan  hwætewæstma, and ealra  eorþan wæstma. Geunne him  ece drihten and his halige,  þe on heofonum synt, þæt hys yrþ si gefriþod  wið ealra feonda gehwæne, and heo si geborgen  wið ealra bealwa gehwylc, þara lyblaca  geond land sawen. Nu ic bidde ðone waldend,  se ðe ðas woruld gesceop, þæt ne sy nan to þæs cwidol wif  ne to þæs cræftig man þæt awendan ne mæge  word þus gecwedene.

Þonne man þa sulh forð drife and þa forman furh onsceote, cweð þonne:   Hal wes þu, folde,  fira modor!   Beo þu growende  on godes fæþme,   fodre gefylled  firum to nytte. (emphases added) [When all that is done, then let someone take unknown seed from beggars and give them twice as much as he took from them, and let him gather all his plowing gear together; then bore [a hole] into the plow beam [putting into it] incense and fennel and hallowed salve and hallowed salt. Then take that seed, place it on the body of the plow; then say:                                

Erce, Erce, Erce, mother of the earth, may the almighty grant you, the eternal lord, fields growing and flourishing, increasing and strengthening, high shafts, bright fruits, and the abundant barley-growth, and the white wheat-growth, and all growth of the earth. May the eternal lord grant him, and all his holy ones, who are in heaven, that his produce may be defended against all enemies, and that it be protected against all evils, against poisonous sorceries sown over the land. Now I ask that ruler, he who shaped this world, that there may be no speaking-woman nor a skilful man who can turn to naught words thus spoken.

Then let someone drive forth the plow and open the first furrow; then say:   May you be well, earth, mother of men!   May you grow in God’s embrace,   filled with food for use by men.]

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This remarkable prayer has caused some consternation among critics, who have attempted to make sense of the name ‘Erce’ and to explain why a distinctly non-Christian ‘mother of the earth’ is addressed.78 The invocations and the symbolic actions to be performed indicate that this is, above all, a fertility ritual; it is quite literally an insemination of the land so that it may conceive and bring forth fruit.79 Moreover, the charm is a prayer to keep further harm away from the field; for this purpose, strikingly, both the earth and God the creator are called on. There is no doubt about the ritual’s sincere Christian nature, but the address to the earth diverges from conventional prayer formulas. While help is expected to come from God, the earth is nonetheless treated as an entity that can be implored independently. Given all of these elements, the Æcerbot and Rogationtide rituals share significant parallels, not only in the perambulations and agricultural prayers, but also in the attribution of cultural and theological importance to the earth. Divine power is channelled through the practitioners and into the soil itself, whose efficacious role is assumed to lead to the land’s healing. The focus of both the Æcerbot and Rogationtide rituals on sacred soil reflects the idea of the ‘power of the earth’, which is present in AngloSaxon England not only in middle practices like the charm, but also in more conventional religious contexts.80 Anglo-Saxon theologians agreed with their lay constituents that earth could be charged with divine power: any contact relic involving soil is a ‘proper’ Christian version of the same phenomenon. In the Historia Ecclesiastica, Bede tells of the special properties of the place where King Oswald died in battle. So many faithful had come to take earth from it to use for healings that, eventually, a large hole had formed.81 And, as we have seen in Chapter 2, exceptional spiritual power also characterizes the earth in which the ascending Christ imprinted his footprints. Just as the prohibited pagan rituals closely resemble the permitted Christian Rogationtide practices, the use and the apparent power attributed to the earth are similar, if not identical, both in ecclesiastically sanctioned relic veneration and in the lay, seemingly heterodox charm remedies. Both practices are in equal measure part of Anglo-Saxon religious culture. Theologians recognized that the belief in the ‘power of the earth’ could at times verge dangerously close to idolatry among some community members. Perhaps this is why Bede stresses the need for correct intent when requesting earthly wealth, as discussed earlier. Ælfric, with his formal ecclesiastical perspective, is frequently sceptical of popular beliefs and r­ epeatedly warns of the

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danger of what he sees as pagan practices. As he condemns them, he describes these customs, some of which clearly share features with Christian agricultural rituals and which are thus useful examples to which we can compare the earth-related customs familiar from other contexts. Ælfric deals with the pagan past and (present and past) idol worship in two sermon treatises, De Auguriis and De Falsis Diis. De Auguriis is in some manuscripts designated as ‘Sermo in Laetania Maiore’, that is, as a sermon for Rogationtide.82 Perhaps Ælfric was especially prompted to preach on the topic of residual pagan practices by the customs accompanying Rogationtide.83 In De Falsis Diis, for example, he claims that those who lapsed into paganism after surviving Noah’s Flood arbitrarily sought their gods in nature (ll. 82–9): Hi namon þa [to] wisdome þæt hi wurþodon him for godas þa sunnan and þone monan, for heora scinendan beorhtnysse, and him lac offrodan, and forletan heora Scyppend. Sume menn eac sædon be þam scínendum steorrum þæt hi godas wæron, and wurþodan hy [georne]. Sume hi gelyfdon on fýr for his færlicum bryne, sume eac on wæter, and wurðodan hi [for godas]; sume on þa eorþan, for þon þe heo ealle þing afet.84 [They took it to be wisdom that they worshipped as gods the sun and the moon because of their shining brightness, and they offered sacrifices, and they abandoned their Creator. Some men also said about the shining stars that they were gods, and they worshipped them eagerly. Some believed in fire due to its quick burning, some also in water, and they worshipped them as gods; some [believed] in the earth because she feeds all things.]

While Ælfric condemns thinking of nature as divine with great conviction, the passage is not original to him, and it is instructive to consider his source. For the first part of the De Falsis Diis (ll. 28–196), he draws on De Correctione Rusticorum, a sixthcentury treatise on how to reform pagans by the Spanish bishop Martin of Braga. Martin writes about Roman pagans, but his and other treatises on Roman paganism served as guidelines for western European Christian writers in dealing with Germanic paganism. Ælfric certainly considers Martin’s instructions as immediately relevant to the Anglo-Saxon situation. Martin describes the idolatrous and other sinful practices common among the rustici, and Ælfric models the lines quoted above on a passage about post-

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diluvian idol worship.85 What is most striking about Ælfric’s adaptation is that he deliberately adds ‘earth’ to the list of natural elements mistakenly worshipped by pagans. Martin did not include earth in his list of idols, and it is therefore reasonable to think that Ælfric added it as an object of heathen worship in order to make the list more relevant for his own context. Even though there is no direct proof, Ælfric may have been familiar with ongoing popular practices and have felt compelled to respond to concerns about improper practices involving earth in his own time.86 Audrey Meaney observes in regard to Ælfric’s addition: It is possible, but not very probable, that Ælfric was moved by a desire for comprehensiveness in including the earth; and the remarkable charm for blessing fields, with the invocation ‘Erce, erce, mother of earth’ may well have been the kind of thing that he was objecting to.87

Even though churchmen like Ælfric sought to suppress lay customs performed without official clerical approval, a wide range of religious expressions nonetheless existed simultaneously, as can be seen from the Æcerbot Charm and Rogationtide processions. Each was performed in a different context and initiated by different parties, but both involved the same lay participants (and even clerical participants, as with the priests who hold Masses over the sods). This coexistence reflects the two cultures identified by John Blair: the official hierarchical one (represented by Ælfric) and that of the practising community (represented by the Æcerbot). The charm’s rituals and Rogationtide practices would have appeared rather similar to a lay user, who would, in fact, perform them with the same desired outcome in mind: agricultural prosperity. Lay participants would see either of them as reasonably addressing their concerns for daily sustenance. Such coexistence, then, reflects the larger fact that religious culture takes place on a cognitive as well as a lived continuum and that fertility rituals such as the Æcerbot and the formal preaching of patristic Ascension theology, as opposite from each other as they may initially appear, equally belong to that same continuum. The synthesizing concept of liminality reveals that, even when aspects of Anglo-Saxon culture seem disparate to modern observers, they merged into an intelligible whole from the perspective of Anglo-Saxons themselves. The inclusion of boundary perambulations and agricultural prayers in both lay and ecclesiastical practices underscores, by contrast, the significance of the additional presence of Ascension

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theology in the Rogationtide sources, since this theological content is particular to them. The conceptual relationships and formal similarities between Rogationtide/Ascension homilies and various Anglo-Saxon spatial practices allow us to recognize the ways in which Rogationtide homilies and practices (the processions and stational prayers) support the teaching of specific Ascension doctrines. Because the teaching of theology in the homilies shares features with popular religious practices, it appeals to mixed lay and religious audiences. The homilists, in any case, considered their chosen materials and motifs appropriate for exactly the audiences they knew themselves to be writing to. The same people who might perform field perambulations and other liminal rituals such as the Æcerbot Charm at other times of the year participated in the Rogationtide processions, listened to the homilies of that week, and then celebrated Ascension Day shortly thereafter. As practitioners walk the fields on Rogation Monday, marking the boundaries of their land, they think of Christ’s Ascension, which they re-enact in this journey; but they might also be reminded of other occasions when they walk their fields and pray for fertility and speak blessings over them. Therefore, all the liminal aspects of Rogationtide – Ælfric’s description of the Head and Body of the Trinity, the liturgical processions across the land, Bede’s gates of heaven, life as a journey – must have resonated powerfully especially with lay Christian listeners, who recognized all of them as belonging to an established set of culturally significant spatial practices performed at Rogationtide as well as throughout the year to fulfil the communal desire for earthly and spiritual renewal, for the rewards of field and heaven, and for harmony between Christian souls and God. Notes  1 Joyce Bazire and James E. Cross, eds, Eleven Old English Rogationtide Homilies, King’s College London Medieval Studies IV (London: King’s College London, 1989), p. xx. N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), p. 529, also lists twenty-four items, although his list differs slightly from that of Bazire and Cross.  2 When I speak of ‘formal’ sources, I refer to those used in the context of official Church settings, primarily homilies, but also hymns, prayers, and ceremonies. I define ‘ritual’ as the performance of a prescribed set of actions and spoken words that carry symbolic meaning for users or performers within but also beyond their immediate context. The term ‘conventional’ designates mainstream patristic theology, which

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occurs in formal sources and settings, including the liturgical processions held on Rogation days. I avoid speaking of orthodox versus unorthodox or heterodox content and texts, since these terms create a false dichotomy. Seemingly ‘unorthodox’ religious expressions often teach perfectly conventional ‘orthodox’ theology and are accepted and fully integrated aspects of religious culture, even though they often take on unconventional forms. The distinction between unorthodox and orthodox aspects is, therefore, neither useful nor easily made. When I refer to ‘popular religious’ practices and beliefs, I do not mean remnants of pagan customs; they are religious practices that are a regular and common part of Christian religious culture, even if not always officially sanctioned by the highest Church instances. Popular religious practices are not exclusively lay practices; the clergy might participate in them (for example, when performing the Masses prescribed in the Æcerbot Charm). Therefore, the use of popular religious practices does not strictly distinguish lay folk from ecclesiastics and is also not restricted to the lower class but is practised across classes. My understanding of these sources is not so much concerned with their origins but instead acknowledges them – their form, purpose, and function – in their own cultural contexts.  3 Canon 16 of the Council of Clovesho (held in 747) and the entry in the Old English Martyrology for Rogation days explicitly mention the participation of both lay and clerical members of the community, making clear that Rogationtide was an occasion for the whole community (more on these sources below). Scholars have proposed mixed or non-religious audiences for the vernacular Rogationtide homilies; see M. Bradford Bedingfield, The Dramatic Liturgy of Anglo-Saxon England, Anglo-Saxon Studies 1 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2002), p. 197; Bazire and Cross, Eleven Old English Rogationtide Homilies, pp. 41, 57, suggest unlearned audiences for their homilies 3 and 4; Charles D. Wright, ‘Vercelli Homilies XI–XIII and the Anglo-Saxon Benedictine Reform: Tailored Sources and Implied Audiences’, in Preacher, Sermon and Audience in the Middle Ages, ed. Carolyn Muessig (Leiden: Brill, 2002), pp. 203–27, at p. 207, argues for a secular clerical audience for the Vercelli Rogationtide homilies.  4 While common authorship is often difficult to prove in anonymous homilies, a third sequence of Rogationtide and Ascension homilies by a single homilist seems to have survived in Vercelli XIX–XXI and Tristram III (an Ascension homily in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 162); on the authorship of this group, see Donald G. Scragg, ‘An Old English Homilist of Archbishop Dunstan’s Day’, in Words, Texts, and Manuscripts: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Culture: Presented to Helmut Gneuss on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Michael Korhammer with the assistance of Karl Reichl and Hans Sauer (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1992), pp. 181–92. Although this group is

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not examined here because of its less reliably proven single authorship and limited space, my observations might equally apply to it.  5 See Joyce Hill, ‘The Litaniae maiores and minores in Rome, Francia, and Anglo-Saxon England: Terminology, Texts and Traditions’, Early Medieval Europe, 9 (2000), 211–46, at pp. 212, 245, and passim, for the complex history of Rogationtide terminology and observances according to Roman and Gallican traditions.  6 See Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie (hereafter DACL), ed. F. Cabrol and H. Leclercq, 15 vols (Paris: Librairie Letouzey et Ané, 1948), XIV.2, cols 2459–61, s.v. Rogations; and IX.2, cols 1540–71, at col. 1559, s.v. Litanies. On the history of the pre-Ascension Rogation festival, see also D. de Bruyne, ‘L’Origine des processions de la chandeleur et des rogations à propos d’un sermon inédit’, Revue Bénédictine, 34 (1922), 14–26. For a concise summary of the festival’s development, including in Anglo-Saxon England, see Bazire and Cross, Eleven Old English Rogationtide Homilies, xv–vii. In Old English homilies, this history of Rogationtide is given in Ælfric, CH I.18, 317, 5–11; Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies, The First Series, ed. Peter Clemoes, EETS ss 17 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). All references to the first series of Catholic Homilies are to this edition, cited by series, homily number, page number, and line number; I have made occasional changes in punctuation. Bazire–Cross 8, 109, 4–17; Bazire and Cross, Eleven Old English Rogationtide Homilies, pp. 109–13. All references to homilies from this edition are given as ‘Bazire–Cross’, followed by homily number, page number, and line number. Vercelli XIX, 324–25, 149–64; Donald G. Scragg, ed., The Vercelli Homilies and Related Texts, EETS os 300 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). All references to the Vercelli homilies are to this edition by homily number, page number, and line numbers.  7 See DACL, XIV.2, col. 2461.  8 Vercelli XI, 221, 4–8, and Vercelli XII, 228, 12–13. Aside from the apostolic origins of Rogationtide, a further scriptural link is made to the story of Jonah, who warns the Ninevites of the avenging fire of God and warns them to fast and repent pre-emptively (Jon. 3:1–10). Anglo-Saxon homilists see the story of Nineveh as proof of the efficacy of prayer and as a prescription for fasting and prayer. The Jonah story is mentioned in Ælfric, CH I.18, 317, 12–39, and Vercelli XIX, 321–4, 109–48. On the Jonah narrative in Old English homilies, see Paul E. Szarmach, ‘Three Versions of the Jonah Story: An Investigation of Narrative Technique in Old English Homilies’, ASE, 1 (1972), 183–92.  9 D. de Bruyne, ‘L’Origine des processions’, pp. 15, 17–18; and Bazire and Cross, Eleven Old English Rogationtide Homilies, pp. xxi–ii. This history of pagan origins might also conflate the history of preAscension Rogationtide with that of the litany for 25 April, whose

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processions are frequently linked to the pagan Robigalia, an agricultural spring festival; see DACL, IX.2, col. 1551, s.v. Litanies. DACL, XIV.2, col. 2459, s.v. Rogations, rejects an origin in the ambarvalia or lustrationes. De Bruyne, ‘L’Origine des processions’, p. 14, notes a tenth-century French manuscript which identifies Rogation days as derived from a pagan ceremony called Arvambale, which involved field circumambulations for fertility. Also see Bazire and Cross, Eleven Old English Rogationtide Homilies, pp. xxi–ii. 10 The homilist of Vercelli XI, 221, 4–8, presents Rogationtide in this light. 11 See Bazire and Cross, Eleven Old English Rogationtide Homilies, p. xv, and Catherine Cubitt, Anglo-Saxon Church Councils c.650–c.850 (London: Leicester University Press, 1995), pp. 129–30. 12 In his account of Bede’s death (Epistola de obitu Bedae), which occurred on Rogation Wednesday/Ascension Eve, Cuthbert notes that the brothers had to leave Bede’s side in order to observe the Rogationtide relic procession at the third hour; HE, p. 584. 13 Cubitt, Anglo-Saxon Church Councils, pp. 99–152. 14 Cubitt, Anglo-Saxon Church Councils, p. 99; see also pp. 99–101, for a summary of the council’s canons and reform programme. 15 Canon 16 reads as follows: 16. De Diebus Laetaniorum. Sexto decimo condixerunt capitulo: Ut Laetaniae, id est, rogationes, a clero omnique populo his diebus cum magna reverentia agantur, id est, die septimo kalendarum Maiarum, juxta ritum Romanae Ecclesiae: quae et Laetania major apud eam vocatur. Et item quoque secundum morem priorum nostrorum, tres dies ante Ascensionem Domini in coelos cum jejunio usque ad horam nonam et Missarum celebratione venerantur: non admixtis vanitatibus, uti mos est plurimis, vel negligentibus, vel imperitis, id est, in ludis et equorum cursibus, et epulis majoribus; sed magis, cum timore et tremore, signo passionis Christi nostraeque aeternae redemptionis, et reliquiis sanctorum Ejus coram portatis, omnis populus genu flectendo Divinam pro delictis humiliter exorat indulgentiam. [16. In Regard to the Days of the Litanies. With the sixteenth canon, they ordained [as follows]: That the Litanies, that is, the Rogations, be performed by the clergy and all the people with great reverence on these days, that is, the seventh day of the Calends of May, according to the rite of the Roman Church, and which is called by [the Church] ‘Greater Litany’. Moreover also, following the custom of our forefathers, that the three days before the Lord’s Ascension into the heavens be honoured with a fast until the ninth hour and with the celebration of Masses, [and] with no vanities intermingled, as is the custom with many who are either negligent or ignorant, that is, in gambling and horse races and great feasts; but rather with fear and trembling, with the sign of Christ’s Passion and of our eternal redemption, and with the relics of his saints carried before, the whole people, genuflecting, humbly prays for divine forgiveness

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for offences.] Original text from Arthur West Haddan and William Stubbs, eds, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, 3 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1871), III, p. 368. The translation is mine. 16 Cubitt, Anglo-Saxon Church Councils, pp. 99–100. 17 Bernadette Filotas, Pagan Survivals, Superstitions and Popular Cultures in Early Medieval Pastoral Literature, Studies and Texts 151 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2005), p. 184, considers the ‘popular manifestations accompanying the processions of Rogation days’ as a ‘continuance of traditional pagan rituals in the vicinity of churches’. 18 Milton McC. Gatch, Preaching and Theology in Anglo-Saxon England: Ælfric and Wulfstan (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), p. 50. 19 For example, Gatch, Preaching and Theology, p. 51, states that, when one examines Rogationtide homilies (both Ælfric’s and anonymous ones), one ‘has the impression that this season became in the lateSaxon church a conventional collecting-place for general catechetical and parenetic or hortatory sermons’. Also see Paul E. Szarmach, ‘The Vercelli Homilies: Style and Structure’, in The Old English Homily and Its Backgrounds, ed. Paul E. Szarmach and Bernard F. Huppé (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1978), pp. 241–67, at pp. 248–52; Michael Fox, ‘Vercelli Homilies XIX–XXI, the Ascension Day Homily in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 162, and the Catechetical Tradition from Augustine to Wulfstan’, in New Readings in the Vercelli Book, ed. Samantha Zacher and Andy Orchard, TASS 4 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), pp. 254–79, at p. 255, note 3; and Malcolm R. Godden, ‘The Development of Ælfric’s Second Series of Catholic Homilies’, ES, 54 (1973), 209–16, at p. 212, who believes that items XXIII and XXIV (the second and third items for Rogation Tuesday in Thorpe’s 1844–46 edition) were included in this place not because they were specifically for Rogation Tuesday, but because they were not adapted for any other occasion; this points to the general content of these homilies. 20 See Bazire and Cross, Eleven Old English Rogationtide Homilies, pp. xxiv–xxv, for a listing of typical Rogationtide themes; Bedingfield, Dramatic Liturgy, p. 191; and Mary Clayton, ‘Homiliaries and Preaching in Anglo-Saxon England’, Peritia, 4 (1985), 207–42, at p. 224, who considers the emphasis on general catechetical themes ‘natural for the penitential season of Rogationtide’. Gordon B. Sellers, ‘The Old English Rogationtide Corpus: A Literary History’ (PhD dissertation, Loyola University, 1996), pp. 153–62, detects an emphasis on eschatological themes and spiritual growth. 21 Bedingfield, Dramatic Liturgy, pp. 191–2. 22 In fact, the three-day Rogationtide was not uniformly fixed before

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Ascension Day until the late sixth century and is listed in some continental sources as falling after Ascension Day; DACL, XIV.2, col. 2459 and 2460; de Bruyne ‘L’Origine des processions’, p. 17. 23 The frequent joint treatment of Rogationtide and Ascension in modern discussions of English customs also indicates that the week is regarded as a whole in common understanding, folk customs, and folklore studies. For example, see John Brand, Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, 3 vols (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1853), I, pp. 197–212 (‘Rogation Week and Ascension Day’); and Ronald Hutton, The Stations of the Sun (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 277–87 (‘Rogationtide and Pentecost’). 24 Christine Rauer, ed. and trans., The Old English Martyrology: Edition, Translation and Commentary, Anglo-Saxon Texts 10 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2013), p. 94. Also see Günter Kotzor, ed., Das altengli­ sche Martyrologium, 2 vols, Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. Kl., n.s. 88.1–2 (Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1981), II, p. 80. The entry for Rogation Days is not listed under a specific date, since they are movable feast days; it appears between the Discovery of the Holy Cross (3 May) and the Ascension of Christ (listed for 5 May). All translations from Old English are mine. 25 Rauer, Old English Martyrology, p. 96. 26 Vercelli Homily XIX also views Rogationtide and Ascension as a coherent, four-day festival and likens the four days to four holy men. Although the homilist does not explain this point further, it is based on a Latin source, Pembroke Homily 36, which likens the four days to the ‘quattuor uiris perfectis’ (Noah, Abraham, Moses, Christ); James E. Cross, ed., Cambridge, Pembroke College, MS 25: A Carolingian Sermonary used by Anglo-Saxon Preachers King’s College London Medieval Studies 1 (London: King’s College London, 1987), p. 102. Most interesting about this comparison is that Rogationtide is seen as preparing for the Ascension, just as the Old Testament figures prepared for Christ. In this comparison, Ascension Day is then, appropriately, likened to Christ. The Latin source homily also likens the four days to the four evangelists and the cross. For a similar comparison in Rogationtide homilies of holy men to light vessels that guide Christians, see Hildegard L. C. Tristram, ‘Die Leohtfæt-Metapher in den altenglischen anonymen Bittagspredigten’, NM, 75 (1974), 229–49. 27 For the most recent example of a discussion of Rogation/Ascension homilies as a group, see Fox, ‘Vercelli Homilies XIX–XXI’, who shows the dependence of Vercelli XIX–XXI and Tristram III on Augustine’s model narrationes for teaching catechism. Also see Scragg, ‘An Old English Homilist’. 28 Bedingfield, Dramatic Liturgy, p. 193. 29 Stephen J. Harris, ‘The Liturgical Context of Ælfric’s Homilies

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for Rogation’, in The Old English Homily: Precedent, Practice, and Appropriation, ed. Aaron J Kleist, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 17 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 143–69. Harris examines CH I.18–20 (for Rogationtide) and mentions Ælfric’s Ascension homily (CH I.21) only in passing (p. 163). 30 Bede and Ælfric both teach a wider range of Ascension doctrines than I am able to explicate here. For example, Bede teaches the totus Christus in Gospel Homily II.14 (see note 38). Ælfric, in CH II.22, 207, 36–49 (for Rogation Wednesday/Ascension Eve), stresses Christ’s menniscnyss and his godcundnyss and explains that Christ ascended in our body, introducing human substance into heaven; he thus teaches both Christ’s dual nature and the opening of heaven; see Ælfric, Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies, The Second Series, ed. Malcolm Godden, EETS ss 5 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979). All references to the second series of Catholic Homilies are to this edition, cited by series, homily number, page number, and line number. 31 Bede’s homilies were included in Paul the Deacon’s homiliary; see Chapter 1, note 68, for the homiliary’s status in Anglo-Saxon England. Ælfric, for example, draws substantially on Bede for his Catholic Homilies; see Malcolm Godden, Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: Introduction, Commentary and Glossary, EETS ss 18 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), notes on each homily’s sources (hereafter cited as Godden, Commentary). On Bede’s influence in later AngloSaxon England, see Sharon M. Rowley, ‘Bede in Later Anglo-Saxon England’, in The Cambridge Companion to Bede, ed. Scott DeGregorio (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 216–28. 32 In Luke 11, Jesus teaches the disciples to pray, including the Pater Noster. Ælfric’s homily CH I.19 for Rogation Tuesday (Feria III De Dominica Oratione) is dedicated to the Pater Noster, while CH I.18 is an exegesis of Luke 11:5–13. 33 Bede, Opera Homiletica, ed. David Hurst, CCSL 122 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1955), pp. 272–89 at p. 272. All references to Bede’s gospel homilies are to this edition by book, homily, page number, and line number. 34 Bede, Homilies on the Gospels, Book Two: Lent to The Dedication of the Church, trans. Lawrence T. Martin and David Hurst, Cistercian Studies Series 111 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1991), pp. 124–33, at p. 124 (brackets in original). All translations of Bede’s gospel homilies are from this edition. 35 Bede, Homilies on the Gospels, p. 125. 36 Bede, Homilies on the Gospels, p. 141. 37 Bede, Homilies on the Gospels, p. 147. 38 The focus on Christ entering the gates of heaven also contains the doctrine of the totus Christus. With Christ the Head having already crossed the boundary into heaven, the Body of the Church is invited to

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follow him. Believers are expected to trace the path that Christ took at the Ascension, and thus the Body will follow the Head into heaven. 39 Bede, Homilies on the Gospels, p. 133. 40 Bede, Homilies on the Gospels, p. 147. In addition, Bede draws attention to Christ’s literal footsteps, as the disciples worship in the place where his feet stood; they shed tears in ‘the place where he had most recently planted his footsteps’ (p. 141). The importance of Christ’s footprints in the teaching of Ascension theology is discussed in Chapter 2. 41 Bede, Homilies on the Gospels, pp. 125, 147. The themes of the completion and fulfilment of promises also provide interesting parallels to the agricultural imagery of completion/fulfilment so strongly present in Rogationtide homilies. 42 In medieval homiliaries, not all Rogationtide homilies are followed by an Ascension homily; for example, Ælfric’s Rogationtide sequence from CH II and the first group of Rogationtide homilies in the Vercelli Book (Homilies X–XIV) lack accompanying Ascension homilies. 43 Ælfric ponders the Body of Christ also in other passages. Harris, ‘Liturgical Context’, pp. 155, 161, 163, discusses several of those other instances. 44 Ælfric heavily focuses on the Trinity in the first half of CH I.20, and even though he refers to the Trinity thereafter, the second half is most concerned with the nature of the soul, heretical Trinitarian views, the purpose of miracles, and the relationship of body and soul. Ælfric’s main themes relating to the Trinity are the unity of the Trinity (pp. 336–8), the Trinity being like the Sun (pp. 338–9), and the soul being like the Trinity (p. 342). 45 For recent assessments of Ælfric’s training and role in the Benedictine Reform, see Joyce Hill, ‘Ælfric: His Life and Works’, in A Companion to Ælfric, ed. Hugh Magennis and Mary Swan, Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition 18 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), pp. 35–65, esp. pp. 47–60; and Christopher A. Jones, ‘Ælfric and the Limits of “Benedictine Reform”’, Companion to Ælfric, ed. Magennis and Swan, pp. 67–108, who defines Ælfric’s precise relationship to the Reform and the nature of his reformist ideas. Two useful overviews of scholarship on the Reform movement are Catherine Cubitt, ‘Review Article: The Tenth-Century Benedictine Reform in England’, Early Medieval Europe, 6 (1997), 77–94, and Nicola Robertson, ‘The Benedictine Reform: Current and Future Scholarship’, Literature Compass, 3 (2006), 282–99. 46 Ælfric explicates Acts 1:3–15 (the epistle reading for the day), supplementing it with passages from Luke 24, and Mark’s account of the Ascension in 16:14–20 (the gospel reading for the day). He draws on at least eight different sources, which he variously expands in his own ways. For the homily’s first half, Ælfric mainly relies on Bede’s commentary on Acts and Homily II.9 (on Luke for after Easter) and,

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in the second half, on Gregory’s Gospel Homily 29 for his exegesis of Mark; see Godden, Commentary, pp. 166–7. For a list of Ælfric’s sources and their uses, see Godden, Commentary, pp. 167–75. For a list of the gospel readings used for Ascension week in AngloSaxon liturgy, see Ursula Lenker, Die westsächsische Evangelienversion und die Perikopenordnung im angelsächsischen England, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Englischen Philologie 20 (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1997), p. 322. 47 Godden, Commentary, p. 166. 48 Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Evangelia, ed. Raymond Étaix, CCSL 141 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), pp. 244–54, at p. 252, ll. 192–4. 49 Bedingfield, Dramatic Liturgy, pp. 191–209, and Harris, ‘Liturgical Context’, have explored similar ideas in relation to Rogationtide homilies and observances. 50 As Bedingfield, Dramatic Liturgy, p. 194, notes, the two Old English names for the festival ‘reflect the two central elements of the Rogationtide liturgy, the processions and the stational penitential prayers’. 51 Bazire–Cross 8, 112, 106–14 (emphasis added). See Bazire and Cross, Eleven Old English Rogationtide Homilies, pp. 104–7, for details on the sources of this compiled homily, which ‘seem to have included a lost Wulfstan homily which expanded passages from Ælfric on the origin of the Rogation Day observances’ (Dorothy Whitelock, qtd. in Bazire and Cross, p. 104). 52 The designated hours for the processions are mentioned in the Old English Martyrology’s entry for Rogationtide; see Rauer, Old English Martyrology, p. 94. Bazire–Cross 5 (for Rogation Monday), 72–3, 114–25, expresses the idea that a gastlice gemotstow (‘ghostly meeting place’) is created wherever relics are placed, whether inside or outside the church. See also Bedingfield, Dramatic Liturgy, pp. 201–2, for a discussion of this idea. 53 Bedingfield, Dramatic Liturgy, p. 200. John Blair, The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 487–9, comments on the purpose of the field perambulations and processions as a way of identifying a worshipping collective, that is, ‘parishioners’. 54 This may be especially so if Rogationtide indeed retains echoes of the Roman festival of ambarvalia; see note 9 above. The pagan ceremony called Arvambale, identified in a French manuscript as the origin of Rogation days, is described as follows: Arvambale vero celebrabant omni anno ab ambitu arvorum pro fertilitate eorum, ut dictum est. Quam sollempnitatem istis rogationibus imitamur nostros circumeuntes agros, non tam pro fertilitate eorum quam pro ceteris necessitatibus animae et corporis (de Bruyne, ‘L’Origine des processions’, p. 15, emphases added) (‘Truly, they celebrated Arvambale every year, by circumambulation of

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the fields for their fertility, as it is said. This solemnity we imitate with these rogations, proceeding around our fields, not so much for their fertility, as for other necessities of soul and body’). On the establishment of parish boundaries, see Gervase Rosser, ‘Parochial Conformity and Voluntary Religion in Late-Medieval England’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th series, 1 (1991), 173–89, esp. at p. 174. On the history of parish boundaries and boundary marking more generally, see Angus Winchester, Discovering Parish Boundaries (Princes Risborough: Shire Publications, 1990). 55 Karen Louise Jolly, ‘Prayers from the Field: Practical Protection and Demonic Defense in Anglo-Saxon England’, Traditio, 61 (2006), 95–147, has noted similarly complex connections between ritual prayers, agricultural concerns, and community. About the Northumbrian ritual field prayers recorded by Chester-le-Street monks examined by her, she observes, ‘Aldred and his community believed these prayers were useful and beneficial for the communal health of both body and soul. Clearly the rural landscape was understood as a divine domain, fraught with perils material and spiritual, but one nonetheless under the command of God, to whom the c­ ommunity commended itself through these prayers’ (p. 136). 56 The stations are named after the Roman locations, at which the ­liturgical processions originally took place. The Leofric Missal lists the following stations: St Lawrence, St Valentine, Milvian Bridge, Holy Cross, the atrium (of the church); see Nicholas Orchard, ed., The Leofric Missal, 2 vols, Henry Bradshaw Society 113 & 114 (London: Boydell Press, 2002), II, pp. 191–2. 57 As Harris, ‘Liturgical Context’, p. 163, observes, ‘In a physical analogy, the processors will be heading back to their church, whose entrance is called the Paradisum, and which will soon house the repentant body of processing Christians.’ 58 Vercelli XIX, 319, 82–5, also attests to the cumulative and especially powerful effects attributed to Rogationtide observances, when it speaks of hurrying to God’s temple and declares that whosoever comes to God’s temple during these three days and sincerely asks for forgiveness will have all sins of the last twelve months forgiven. Since the homilist considers the festival as a four-day period (Rogationtide plus Ascension), Rogationtide culminates in the arrival at God’s temple as symbolic completion of the Ascension. 59 This collapsing of time, or co-presence of all three moments, reflects the non-linear nature of divine time (a kind of timelessness) in contrast to the linear unfolding of human history. 60 Cf. Vercelli XI, 223–4, 46–62, which also brings up the common image of life as journey; because of Adam, we were thrown from Paradise, but the Ascension has regained heaven for us. While we are in this body, we are in exile from God and on pilgrimage and must earn our

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place in the homeland (eðel). The language here is similar to that of Cynewulf’s Christ II; see Introduction above. 61 Bede, Homilies on the Gospels, p. 128. 62 In Homily II.14, Bede addresses fratres dilectissimi (II.14, 279, 259), a phrase that might reflect a genuine address to monastic brethren or might simply be conventional. Bede’s homilies were generally intended for a monastic audience, even though it is unclear whether he ever preached them himself or whether he had always thought of them as works for private or public reading. For the possible preaching settings of Bede’s gospel homilies, see Lawrence T. Martin, ‘Bede and Preaching’, in Cambridge Companion to Bede, ed. DeGregorio, pp. 156–69, at pp. 162–3. Also see George Hardin Brown, A Companion to Bede, Anglo-Saxon Studies 12 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2009), pp. 73–6. 63 The charms are not typically seen as conveying conventional theological content. The general perspective on them is that they are Christian with unorthodox, magical, or superstitious elements; for representative views, see R. D. Fulk and Christopher M. Cain, A History of Old English Literature (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003), pp. 41–3; and Stanley B. Greenfield and Daniel G. Calder, A New Critical History of Old English Literature (New York: New York University Press, 1986), pp. 255–8. Nonetheless, some scholars, even fairly recently, have still viewed a text such as the Æcerbot Charm as almost purely pagan rather than as integrated into post-pagan Christianity; for instance, Karl Schneider, ‘The OE. æcerbo¯t – an Analysis’, in Sophia Lectures on Beowulf, ed. Shoichi Watanabe and Norio Tsuchiya (Tokyo: Taishukan, for the Japan Science Society, 1986), pp. 276–98, at p. 276, sees the Æcerbot Charm as containing elements that ‘are partly of a Christian and partly of an immensely pagan nature’ and proceeds to give a strongly, if not to say wildly, pagan reading of the text. 64 See note 3 above. 65 Blair, Church in Anglo-Saxon Society, pp. 166–81, esp. pp. 175–6. 66 Blair, Church in Anglo-Saxon Society, p. 179. 67 Blair, Church in Anglo-Saxon Society, p. 176. 68 Karen Louise Jolly, Popular Religion in Late Saxon England: Elf Charms in Context (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), pp. 1–34, esp. at p. 3. See also Jolly, ‘Medieval Magic: Definitions, Beliefs, Practices’, in Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: The Middle Ages, ed. Bengt Ankarloo and Stuart Clark (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), pp. 1–71, esp. pp. 14–20 (on conversion in the early Middle Ages) and pp. 35–42 (on ritual performance). On the question of identifiably ‘pagan’ elements in syncretic texts, see Jolly, ‘Anglo-Saxon Charms in the Context of a Christian World View’, Journal of Medieval History, 11 (1985), 279–93. 69 Jolly, Popular Religion, pp. 2–3.

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70 Jolly, Popular Religion, p. 3. 71 Interestingly, only the anonymous vernacular homilists consider Rogationtide to be a replacement of a pagan festival. Ælfric always attributes Rogationtide to Mamertus of Vienne, which perhaps reflects his discomfort with popular customs that link this occasion too closely to a pagan past. 72 Jolly, ‘Prayers from the Field’, pp. 109–10, identifies ‘three relevant agricultural times’ associated with field rituals that ‘began to emerge in the late Anglo-Saxon period in religious calendars and references’: ‘1) winter ploughing rituals such as the Æcerbot or later Plough Monday celebrations; 2) spring Rogation Days of litanies, fasting, and processions that replaced pagan rituals; and 3) harvest festivals in the fall, such as Lammas Day, the celebration of new grain on August 1.’ Jolly groups the Æcerbot with winter ploughing rituals, though she notes that it is difficult to locate it securely within the agricultural cycle. 73 For examples of field rituals/ritual prayers besides the Æcerbot Charm discussed here, see Adolph Franz, Die kirchlichen Benediktionen im Mittelalter, 2 vols (Freiburg: Herdersche Verlagshandlung, 1909), I, pp. 361–88; II, pp. 1–12. Jolly, ‘Prayers from the Field’, discusses a set of experimental ritual field prayers preserved from the late tenth century in a Durham manuscript. These rituals share with the Æcerbot Charm and Rogationtide practices a desire to protect the fields and one’s agricultural livelihood and the communal aspect of performing the prayers. The prayers differ, however, in the specifics of the ritual (the use of sod/soil, perambulations, four corners/sides of the fields, etc.), which closely link the Æcerbot Charm to Rogationtide rituals. For blessings of fields, plants, and produce of the land for use in official liturgy, see, for example, Henry A. Wilson, The Missal of Robert of Jumièges, Henry Bradshaw Society 11 (London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 1896), pp. 280–2; and Orchard, The Leofric Missal, II, pp. 415–18. 74 Select discussions of the Æcerbot are Bruce A. Rosenberg, ‘The Meaning of Æcerbot’, Journal of American Folklore, 79 (1966), 428–36; Thomas D. Hill, ‘The æcerbot Charm and its Christian User’, ASE, 6 (1977), 213–21, who focuses on Christian analogues to the charm; Jolly, Popular Religion, pp. 6–11; and John D. Niles, ‘The Æcerbot Ritual in Context’, in Old English Literature in Context: Ten Essays, ed. John D. Niles (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1980), pp. 44–56, who also considers the charm’s Christian context and syncretism but does not suggest specific sources or analogues. Maria Vittoria Molinari, ‘Sull’Æcerbot anglosassone’, Romanobarbarica, 10 (1988–89), 293–308, rejects any religious syncretism and argues that the charm reflects the ‘uso magico di elementi rituali e dogmatici tipicamente cristiani’ (p. 308). 75 Elliott van Kirk Dobbie, ed., The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems, ASPR

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6 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1942), pp. 116–18, at p. 116 (emphases added); all quotations are from this edition. The text is preserved in London, British Library, Cotton, MS Caligula A. VII, written, according to Ker, Catalogue, p. 172, ‘in an ill-formed hand’ of the first half of the eleventh century. 76 The meaning of glappe is unclear. Felix Grendon, ‘The Anglo-Saxon Charms’, Journal of American Folklore, 22 (1909), 105–237, at p. 173; Godfrid Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1948), p. 173; and Jolly, Popular Religion, p. 7, translate glappe as ‘burdock’ (clinging weed). S. A. J. Bradley, Anglo-Saxon Poetry (London: Dent, 1982), p. 545, translates as ‘buckbean’ (bogbean, marsh clover), following the suggestion of Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1898), p. 480. 77 Evidence of property perambulations survives in Anglo-Saxon land charters in the form of boundary clauses, which describe borders of estates, towns, and parishes and were used for perambulations. Aside from boundary clauses, there is evidence that the walking of boundaries was commonly practised to measure out plots of land for sale and to confirm property boundaries. For an example of surviving estate perambulations, see Simon Keynes, ‘A Lost Cartulary of St Albans Abbey’, ASE, 22 (1993), 253–79. For a literary example, see the Old English poem Christ and Satan, ll. 698–703, in which Christ commands Satan to measure the outer boundaries of hell. For a discussion of Satan measuring hell in a Christian context, see Thomas D. Hill, ‘The Measure of Hell: Christ and Satan 695–722’, PhQ, 60 (1981), 409–14. Probably the most famous boundary practice is the ‘beating of the bounds’, which traditionally takes place during Rogationtide. In this boundary ritual a church community walks along the outer border of its parish, with regular stops at landmarks and boundary markers, which the priest blesses and parishioners ‘beat’ with sticks. The ritual serves as a communal confirmation of the boundaries and delineates the community from the outside. The ritual continues in some English parishes even today; for example, St Michael at the Northgate and St Mary the Virgin, both in Oxford, still annually ‘beat the bounds’. This custom reflects many of the same elements of the spatial rituals of Rogationtide and also blends religious aspects with secular roots and purposes. Even though this custom is presumed to have ancient roots, it must be a post-Conquest development as parish boundaries were not established until the thirteenth century (see Winchester, Discovering Parish Boundaries, pp. 9, 10–11; Blair, Church in Anglo-Saxon Society, pp. 487–8; Rosser, ‘Parochial Conformity’, p. 174). For a view of the ‘beating of the bounds’ as ancient, see Arnold H. J. Baines, ‘Beating the Bounds: Rogationtide at Waddesdon’, Records of Buckinghamshire, 41 (2001), 143–64; Baines prints the records of three modern perambulations at Waddesdon (1911, 1928, 1952), which reveal an interest-

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ing additional parallel to the Æcerbot in that they record the cutting of turf crosses along the parish boundaries to mark this liminal space. For descriptions of the ‘beating of the bounds’ and other customs associated with Ascension week, see Jacqueline Simpson and Steve Roud, A Dictionary of English Folklore (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), accessed through Oxford Reference Online at www.oxfordrefer​ ence.com (accessed 23 November 2012) (under ‘Beating the Bounds’); Charles Kightly, The Customs and Ceremonies of Britain (New York: Thames & Hudson, 1986), pp. 48–50; and Hutton, Stations of the Sun, pp. 277–87. 78 See, for example, Audrey R. Duckert, ‘Erce and Other Possibly Keltic Elements in the Old English Charm for Unfruitful Land’, Names, 20 (1972), 83–90; Jacob Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 2 vols, 4th edn (Wiesbaden: Fourier, 2003 [1875–78]), I, p. 210; and Niles, ‘Æcerbot Ritual’, p. 55. 79 See Hill, ‘The æcerbot Charm’, pp. 214–15, 219. 80 Other charms survive that invoke the special properties of earth, for example, the well-known charm for a swarm of bees, which prescribes throwing dirt into the air in an empathetic gesture intended to make the bees sink to the ground; for the text, see Dobbie, Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems, p. 125. 81 HE III.9, p. 242. 82 Ælfric, De Auguriis, in Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, ed. Walter W. Skeat, 2 vols, EETS 76 & 82, 94 & 114 (London: Trübner, 1881–90), I, pp. 364–83, at p. 364. 83 Despite the regulations issued by the Council of Clovesho, secular Rogationtide traditions continued to thrive throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern period; see Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England c.1400–c.1580, 2nd edn (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), pp. 136–9; Blair, Church in Anglo-Saxon Society, pp. 487–8, note 279. 84 Ælfric, De Falsis Diis, in Homilies of Ælfric. A Supplementary Collection, ed. John C. Pope, 2 vols, EETS 259–60 (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), II, pp. 676–712 (emphasis added). 85 Martin of Braga, De Correctione Rusticorum, 6: Et cum coepisset multitudo subcrescens mundum implere, obliviscentes iterum homines creatorem mundi deum, coeperunt, dimisso creatore, colere creaturas. Alii adorabant solem, alii lunam vel stellas, alii ignem, alii aquam profundam vel fontes aquarum, credentes haec omnia non a deo esse facta ad usum hominum, sed ipsa ex se orta deos esse (‘And when the multitude began to increase and fill the world, again men forgot God the Creator of the world and when they had abandoned the Creator they began to worship creatures. Some paid homage to the sun, others to the moon and stars, others fire, others deep water and springs of water, believing that all of these had not been created by God for the use of man, but had sprung up

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as gods from themselves’). Original taken from Martin of Braga, De Correctione Rusticorum, in Martini Episcopi Bracarensis Opera Omnia, ed. Claude W. Barlow (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, for The American Academy in Rome, 1950), pp. 183–203, at p. 186. Translation taken from Martin of Braga, ‘Reforming the Rustics’, trans. Claude W. Barlow, in Iberian Fathers, 3 vols, The Fathers of the Church 62, 63, 99 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1969), I, pp. 73–4. 86 Ælfric’s condemnation of specific idolatrous behaviours involving a belief in the power of the earth may indicate that he knew them as current practices. For example, in De Auguriis, 148–9, he decries that, in order to heal sick children, sume gewitlease wíf farað to wega gelætum. and teoð heora cild þurh ða eorðan (‘some witless women travel to the crossroads and draw their child through the earth’). Contemporary churchmen on the Continent also condemned this custom; see Wilhelm Boudriot, Die altgermanische Religion in der amtlichen kirchlichen Literatur des Abendlandes vom 5. bis 11. Jahrhundert, Untersuchungen zur Allgemeinen Religionsgeschichte 2 (Bonn: Ludwig Röhrscheid Verlag, 1964 [1928]), p. 35. 87 Audrey Meaney, ‘Ælfric and Idolatry’, Journal of Religious History, 13 (1984), 119–35, at p. 129. For more on Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical attitudes towards paganism, see Meaney, ‘Ælfric’s Use of his Sources in his Homily on Auguries’, ES, 66 (1985), 477–95, and Meaney, ‘Bede and Anglo-Saxon Paganism’, Parergon, ns 3 (1985), 1–29.

5 The liminal Christ in Anglo-Saxon art

Folio 15r of London, British Library, Cotton, MS Tiberius C. VI, the so-called Tiberius Psalter, depicts Christ’s Ascension. Instead of showing Christ in full length, the ascending Christ is only partially represented: his upper body has ‘disappeared’ beyond the frame, and only his lower limbs are visible (Figure 1). Christ’s hovering legs dominate the upper half of the picture as he vanishes into a cloud while two groups of apostles standing below follow him with their gaze. The ‘disappearing Christ’, as Meyer Schapiro famously called this motif,1 is a distinctly Anglo-Saxon innovation that first appears early in the eleventh century in a group of insular manuscript illuminations, spreads to the Continent by the twelfth century and across western Europe in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.2 The figure of the disappearing Christ introduces a particularly ‘liminal’ way of depicting the Ascension by focusing on the moment when Christ crosses from earth into heaven. Moreover, the feet in the visual iconography invite a comparative reading with the footprints of Christ in the Old English texts, which marked the starting point of my examination of the Ascension in Anglo-Saxon England. The Ascension in art advances my discussion of the teaching of Ascension theology, taking us from the textual sources and embodied practices to visual representations. The disappearing Christ yields further evidence for a pervasive understanding of the Ascension as liminal. AngloSaxon visual representations of the Ascension constitute an entire body of evidence that is radically different in form from the textual sources yet shares with them an understanding of the Ascension as a liminal event. Visual art focuses on the Ascension as a process and has the ability to suspend it in mid-progress to emphasize the moment when Christ crosses the threshold into heaven. This chapter examines visual representations of the Ascension – and especially its liminality – in art. This evidence from a major

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corpus of Ascension materials, aside from literature, demonstrates that Anglo-Saxons recognized the essential nature of the Ascension and its theology as liminal in multiple senses and that they strove to represent this in their creative and spiritual endeavours. The essentially identical understanding of the Ascension in art and literature supports my reading of Ascension texts as a coherent corpus. The ‘disappearing Christ’ A sustained tradition of representing the Ascension in art stretches from eighth- and ninth-century stone sculptures to manuscript illuminations of the eleventh century. While some stone sculptures, which generally precede manuscript illuminations in date, depict the Ascension, none of them shows a disappearing Christ.3 For the current purpose, therefore, I narrow my analysis to the iconography of the Ascension in Anglo-Saxon manuscript illuminations and consider it in the light of some of the central doctrines associated with the Ascension: Christ’s dual nature, his physical absence but spiritual presence, and the totus Christus. I specifically focus on the disappearing Christ as imagery both native to Anglo-Saxon England and speaking pointedly to the perception of the Ascension as liminal. While the disappearing Christ has spurred discussion among art historians, one aspect that has been neglected is the parallels between Anglo-Saxon textual and visual representations of the Ascension and how they relate to the nature of Ascension theology. Can Anglo-Saxon artists be said to do something similar as those authors who use various rhetorical strategies, in the form of specific motifs and images, to express the liminal theology of the Ascension? How does the disappearing Christ reflect patristic theology on the Ascension? In seeking answers to these questions, I argue that the disappearing Christ is a liminal image that corresponds to and concretely visualizes the liminality of Ascension theology. Therefore, it has the same function as the liminal imagery in Anglo-Saxon texts (e.g., Christ’s footprints, the gates of heaven) that is employed to teach essential doctrines relevant to the Ascension. While art historians have examined how theo­ logy influences the composition of Ascension depictions, they have not read this in the light of liminality. Seen as a liminal image, the disappearing Christ supports my contention that the Ascension is viewed and taught in Anglo-Saxon England primarily as a liminal event. My observations here on Anglo-Saxon art complement and

1  Tiberius Psalter, London, British Library, Cotton, MS Tiberius C. VI, fol. 15r. Ascension of Christ.

2  Æthelstan Psalter, London, British Library, Cotton, MS Galba A. XVIII, fol. 120v. Ascension of Christ.

3  Benedictional of St Æthelwold, London, British Library, MS Additional 49598, fol. 64v. Ascension of Christ.

4  Missal of Robert of Jumièges, Rouen, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS Y.6 [274], fol. 81v. Ascension of Christ.

5  Cotton or Caligula Troper, London, British Library, Cotton, MS Caligula A. XIV, fol. 18r. Ascension of Christ.

6  Bury St Edmunds Psalter, Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica, MS Reg. lat. 12, fol. 73v. Psalm 67:15–24 (© 2012 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana).

7  Odbert Gospels of St-Bertin, New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.333, fol. 85r. Opening of the Gospel of John with the disappearing Christ in the upper frame.

8  Bernward Gospels of Hildesheim, ‘Kostbares Evangeliar’, Hildesheim, Dom- und Diözesanmuseum, Domschatz 18, fol. 175v. Ascension of Christ (above) and the Evangelist John (below).

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revise existing scholarship by showing that liminality, visualized in the disappearing Christ, inheres in the underlying theology that conditions the iconography of the Ascension found in both visual and literary sources. In other words, while the disappearing Christ appeared in Anglo-Saxon art only around the year 1000, he had been liminal all along. In order to understand the developments in insular art in the early eleventh century, it is necessary briefly to sketch out the basic iconographic history of the Ascension in Christian art. Art historians have long identified two parallel iconographic traditions of the Ascension: an eastern one and a western one.4 In the eastern type, Christ appears in his divinity, that is, he is typically shown frontally standing or seated, often holding a book in his left hand and raising the right hand in blessing. A mandorla encloses him, which is held by winged angels on each side. The witnessing disciples and Mary stand as a group below the ascending Christ. Examples of this eastern type are found in the late sixth-century Rabula Gospels,5 the sixth-century Monza phial,6 and, in AngloSaxon England, in the early tenth-century Winchester-produced images of the Æthelstan Psalter (London, British Library, Cotton, MS Galba A. XVIII, fol. 120v; Figure 2). In the western type, there is more variation in the surrounding features, but the core element is that Christ, in full-length profile or three-quarter view, actively strides towards heaven, from where typically the hand of God emerges to pull him up or to receive him into heaven.7 Sometimes Christ is surrounded by a mandorla and/ or is holding a cross-staff, and angels are frequently present, but they touch neither him nor the mandorla, probably to indicate that Christ ascends through his own power. Well-known examples of this western type can be seen on the fourth-century ivory plaque from Munich (the ‘Reidersche Tafel’),8 in a historiated C-initial in the ninth-century Drogo Sacramentary,9 and in the Benedictional of St Æthelwold, made at Winchester (c.971–84) (London, British Library, MS Additional 49598, fol. 64v; Figure 3).10 As is clear from the examples cited, both types are represented in AngloSaxon manuscript art of the tenth century, just before the appearance of a new, third type. I am most interested here in this third way of depicting the ascending Christ – one that is distinctly Anglo-Saxon and emphatically liminal in its focus on the border-crossing Christ, and thus powerfully demonstrates that the key aspect of the Ascension was understood to lie in Christ overcoming the boundary between

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earth and heaven as he ascended in his human body. While both the eastern and the western types prevail throughout the Christian Middle Ages and beyond, Anglo-Saxon artists invented a new figural type of the ascending Christ – the disappearing Christ – which first appears in English manuscripts shortly after the year 1000.11 This new iconography depicts only the lower half of Christ’s ascending body. Four examples of this type occur in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts and two more in Anglo-Saxoninfluenced manuscripts on the Continent, all from the eleventh century. In two well-known studies, Meyer Schapiro and Robert Deshman have assessed the disappearing Christ, its meaning, and significance for Anglo-Saxon art history. Schapiro sees the motif as the beginning of empiricism and ultimately as an early form of ‘optical realism’ that shows the Ascension from the perspective of the apostles and reflects a ‘subjective, individual side of religious feeling’.12 More than fifty years later, Robert Deshman challenged and refined Schapiro’s views by placing the disappearing Christ in theological, exegetical, and historical contexts, recognizing that this imagery harbours complex theological content.13 My reading of Ascension texts confirms Deshman’s view that the disappearing Christ in art reflects theological teachings. I extend his assessment by reading the Ascension through the concept of liminality, maintaining that this concept influences the composition of the visual representations because the theology underlying them is already fundamentally defined by it. Read in the light of liminality, the disappearing Christ can be rethought in a way that collocates texts, images, and theology. Examining the miniatures for the same themes that appear in the textual sources reveals that both artists and authors successfully relay key doctrines of the Ascension by drawing on imagery that reflects the liminality of the theology they teach. The disappearing Christ depicts the ascending figure in liminal guise and is thus analogous in purpose to the liminal motifs in literature. Liminality, therefore, is the defining characteristic of the Ascension in both written and iconographic sources. If we imagine the top of the picture or what lies beyond the upper frame to be representative of heaven, then Christ is shown, quite literally, as crossing into heaven. The disappearing Christ also holds symbolic meaning, which reflects the liminality of the underlying theology, as I discuss below. My reading brings all of these elements together and provides a conceptual approach with which we can read the visual depictions alongside Old English poetry and vernacular and Latin

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homilies. If we look at all of these representations of the Ascension together, we can recognize, I argue, that it is the theological focus on Christ’s border-crossing that is unambiguously visualized in the disappearing Christ. This shows that, while the disappearing Christ may have been an innovative way of depicting the Ascension in early eleventh-century art, it is the liminality inherent in the underlying theology that conditions the choice of imagery. The iconography of the disappearing Christ expresses brilliantly the most important tenets of Ascension theology. Moreover, as a half-figure, he is visualized as being of more than one substance or identity, symbolizing the betwixt-and-between or the both/ and condition of his dual nature as well as the notion that Christ the Head is in heaven while his Body, the temporal Church, is still on earth. Even though the six Anglo-Saxon depictions of the disappearing Christ vary in particular details, they all share certain schematic features that express these basic Ascension doctrines. In my discussion of the disappearing Christ, I explicate a representative example for each doctrine with the understanding that all of the images teach these theological points. In addition, I examine in more detail the Ascension illustration in the Tiberius Psalter, which not only typifies the iconography of the disappearing Christ in Anglo-Saxon art, but also has unique features that expand our understanding of the possibilities that art offers for visualizing and interpreting the Ascension in the light of patristic theology. A visual theology of the Ascension While all six images show the disappearing Christ in the process of crossing from earth to heaven, some place special emphasis on the separation between earth and heaven. Two examples of this are found in the Missal of Robert of Jumièges (Rouen, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS Y.6 [274], fol. 81v; Figure 4)14 and in the Cotton or Caligula Troper (London, British Library, Cotton, MS Caligula A. XIV, fol. 18r; Figure 5).15 The missal shows the feet of Christ floating freely in mid-air; they protrude from the bottom of a robe. Christ, enclosed in the bottom portion of a pointed green mandorla, disappears into a wavy cloud. Below him, Mary, enclosed in a blue mandorla, and the disciples stand watching the ascending figure; above their heads, two angels hover, one on each side. Between the angels and the group below, a slightly curved brownish arch is drawn that divides the illustration in half. Perhaps this is to indicate the hill from which Christ ascended,

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but it is not clearly a solid ground and is affiliated by colour with the cloud-like background that fills the space between the angels’ bodies. A further separation between earth and heaven is introduced by means of a straight, golden-yellow bar that stretches between the angels’ upper bodies, just underneath Christ’s feet. The background behind the ascending Christ is equally tinged in this yellow colour, creating a separate aerial space in which Christ is located. In contrast, the miniature in the Caligula Troper shows Christ actively striding with feet still on the ground on the Mount of Olives. His legs are shown in profile, climbing to the right, as his upper body is already covered by the cloud that receives him. Mary and the apostles are again grouped in the lower half of the image, and three semi-circular mounds above their heads are inscribed ‘Mons Oliveti’. These three arches separate the lower, earthly space from that of the ascending Christ. Again, a further separation is introduced, for above the three mounds Christ is stepping both on a green mass, whose undulating lines indicate its uneven surface and which seems to be part of the hillside from which he ascends, and on a curved scroll held between two accompanying angels. This scroll starkly separates the space of the ascending Christ from the realm below, and it is, quite literally, the limen from which Christ steps away over the threshold between his earthly existence as Jesus and his reign as glorified Christ in heaven. In addition, the scroll points to the Incarnation: symbolizing the Incarnated Christ as the Word, it represents his humanity, which he takes with him as he ascends.16 By reinforcing the spatial division between earth and heaven, both artists increase the barrier between the two spaces that Christ has to overcome and can thereby imply the importance of Christ’s salvific journey from earth to heaven. In non-visual sources – Bede’s hymn on the Ascension and Trinity Homily 19 – which naturally lack the ability to draw visual boundaries with coloured lines, the gates of heaven are the corresponding imagery and become the primary marker of the border between earth and heaven. Christ’s journey at the Ascension, in turn, is replicated in the Rogationtide processions which end with the community stepping ‘into heaven’ when returning to church. The division between earth and heaven also stresses the difference between the heavenly realm into which Christ ascends until Judgement Day and the earthly realm, in which the apostles remain, now charged to carry out their mission of growing the temporal Church. The disappearing Christ cogently illustrates the two doctrines

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most commonly associated with the Ascension in the written sources, whether exegetical, homiletic, or literary: Christ’s dual nature and the totus Christus. As a representative example, I discuss here the Ascension depicted in the Bury St Edmunds Psalter, produced in Canterbury or Bury St Edmunds around the mid-eleventh century (Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica, MS Reg. lat. 12, fol. 73v; Figure 6). The Ascension in the St Edmunds Psalter is not a full-page illustration, but it is part of a decorative frame of line drawings that illustrate the psalter text in the main field of the page. (The two remaining Anglo-Saxon examples of the disappearing Christ not yet mentioned are also partial-page depictions: the Odbert Gospels of St-Bertin, Figure 7,17 and the Bernward Gospels of Hildesheim, Figure 8.)18 In the upper frame, Christ’s feet are seen striding to the right into a cloud; the ascending figure is, as in the Missal of Robert of Jumièges, enclosed in the bottom half of a pointed mandorla. As a representation of Christ’s dual nature, his feet or the lower part of his body most immediately symbolize his humanity, his incarnate state. Such a reading of the feet plays on the idea of a divided symbolic body of Christ, by which his feet symbolize his manhood and his head symbolizes his godhead.19 His divinity, the head, is not immediately made visible, but it is implied. As Deshman explicates in convincing detail, the cloud into which the disappearing Christ almost always ascends does not stand for heaven or his divinity, as one might expect, but symbolizes his humanity veiling his divinity. Christ’s divinity is thus not directly visible in the disappearing Christ, as it is veiled by the cloud; instead, the cloud points to it.20 This latter point also links to the concept of the totus Christus. Since in the disappearing Christ, Christ’s head has already vanished beyond the viewpoint, the Head can be seen as already having gone to heaven while his physical body – and thus his Mystical Body – is still part of the earthly realm. This in-between state symbolizes both the work towards salvation that Christians have to accomplish while still on earth and the ambiguity of life, in which Christians are simultaneously safe in heaven and yet still imperilled until the Last Judgement. Furthermore, since the Ascension is shown ‘in progress’, the disappearing Christ also symbolizes Augustine’s idea that the Ascension is not yet complete and that the members of the Body have a role to play in the successful completion of the Ascension: their moral living assures that the entire Body of Christ will eventually disappear into heaven. The members of Christ’s Body and the earthly Church are also directly represented by

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the disciples, who remain behind as they watch Christ ascend and who have just received the founding commission for the Church. The disappearing Christ expresses Christ’s dual nature and the totus Christus in a visually lucid way that is lacking in conventional Ascension depictions. In the written sources, audiences are most often explicitly reminded that Christ ascended in his dual nature and took humanity with him to heaven. But different authors also find specific motifs to express the same theological points that the disappearing Christ conveys. For example, Cynewulf deve­ lops the previously mentioned metaphor of the ‘sea of this life’, which reflects the ambiguity of Christian existence and the totus Christus. The Old English Martyrology and Blickling Homily 11 home in on the footprints of Christ as a motif that best symbolizes Christ’s spiritual presence and physical absence as well as his dual nature. Bede’s prominent motif of the gates of heaven focuses on the moment that is also depicted in the disappearing Christ, when Christ crosses from earth into heaven. All of these examples are literary counterparts to the disappearing Christ. The appearance of Christ’s feet in art and of his footprints in texts raises the question of how these pedal images are related to each other and to theology.21 Deshman sees the footprints as directly equivalent to the feet and thus as a symbol of Christ’s Incarnation.22 Because the footprints in Ascension narratives derive from pilgrimage literature, he sees them as part of the mimesis tradition, the practice of reliving the events of Christ’s life in the present, which, for example, pilgrims’ reports of the Holy Land describe and prescribe for the holy places. Following this line of argument, Deshman does not think the footprints contain theological meaning aside from symbolizing Christ’s human nature. While I agree with Deshman that the feet and footprints carry similar functions and symbolism, I suggest that, as with the other iconographic details, they can be read with more nuance in the light of specific Ascension doctrines. For example, the visual feet and the textual footprints both express the important Ascension teaching of Christ’s physical absence but continued spiritual presence by pointing to the former physical presence of Christ while also showing his disappearance (in the form of the empty footprints and the floating, disappearing feet). In this way, they both demonstrate concretely the significant effect of the fleeting moment when Christ stepped off the earth to ascend. Teaching this common lesson, both feet and footprints work best within the respective medium

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in which they are employed. While the footprints also incorporate the doctrine of Christ’s dual nature, the feet are actually more illustrative of this point, especially in conjunction with the veiling cloud, as Deshman has explained. Furthermore, Christ’s feet can more readily be represented visually in an illumination, which can linger over narrative details, than they can be talked about in a text, in which the narrative has to move forward and the feet would have to disappear more quickly into heaven, as it were. The footprints, in contrast, are a more effective symbol for the simultaneous presence and absence of Christ. They are proof of the human body with which Christ walked the earth leaving a permanent mark on the Mount of Olives, as the Old English Martyrology and Blickling Homily 11 describe. At the same time, their miraculous nature proves the continued presence of God.23 Permanently imprinted on the earth, the footprints can be described; events and narratives can unfold around them while they steadily remain at the centre, just like Christ’s feet in the visual representations. Both feet and footprints contribute to the larger project of explaining the Ascension’s importance in Christian thinking, and both perfectly reflect important doctrines, but each also functions most effectively when expressing subtly different aspects of Ascension theology. The remaining Anglo-Saxon example of the disappearing Christ differs from those discussed so far. It is the scene on fol. 15r of the Tiberius Psalter, mentioned in the chapter opening, in which Christ is shown neither striding nor contained in a mandorla (Figure 1).24 The Tiberius Psalter illustration includes unique aspects, which express a further theological teaching of the Ascension that is not usually incorporated in the western Ascension type: Christ’s glorification in heaven. The psalter page is also unusual in that it includes Christ’s simultaneous physical absence and spiritual presence in an unusually direct way. Before discussing how the image teaches these two theological points, a description of the page will prove helpful. The upper half is dominated by the ascending Christ, who disappears into a semi-circular cloud. His lower extremities are visible from his hips downward, taking up a c­ onsiderable portion of the page. Christ wears a layered robe with decoration down its length and along its borders that falls in folds, giving it the look of a liturgical vestment. Christ’s bare feet protrude from beneath the robe. No angels accompany him. The lower two-thirds of the picture are taken up by the witnessing apostles, divided into two pyramid-shaped groups (seven on the left, six on the right);

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almost all of them gaze upward at the disappearing Christ. Mary, typically included in Ascension scenes, is absent from this one. Two prominent disciples are shown symmetrically to the left and the right. Peter, the one on the left, is holding a book in his right hand and a crown surmounted by a cross in his outstretched left.25 The disciple on the right is holding a short cross-staff in his left hand, and his right points to the centre of the image. Behind him, another disciple is holding a book in his right, the same hand with which he is also supporting the aforementioned crown, which is positioned between the two groups of apostles at the very centre of the page directly underneath the ascending Christ’s feet. The psalter page illustrates Christ’s physical absence and continuing spiritual presence after the Ascension through the striking empty space that opens up between the two groups of disciples. This void, evidently left behind by Christ, is emphatically framed by the apostles’ clothing and further emphasized by the pointing hand of the disciple on the right. This empty space seems deliberately created to invite viewers to reflect on its significance as much as on that of the depicted event, confronting viewers with the former physical presence of Christ, which has now turned into an absence. In this way, this space is the visual equivalent of the empty footprints of Christ, described in the Old English Martyrology and Blickling Homily 11, which fulfil this same function (see Chapter 2). The crown held by the apostles is a unique feature in Ascension depictions; it is an arched crown with two trefoil adornments surmounted by a cross at the centre. Kathleen Openshaw, who has extensively examined the pictorial programme of the Tiberius Psalter, does not find any exact parallels or models for this unusual crown form and interprets it as an expression of the exaltation of humanity and as a symbol of Christ’s victory as his gift to men.26 Barbara Raw reads the iconography as ‘Christ leav[ing] a short cross-staff and an imperial crown to his disciples … The crown, which is similar in form to that held over the head of Cnut in the frontispiece to the New Minster Liber vitae … must symbolize earthly dominion.’27 Raw identifies the crown as an imperial one, perhaps because it shows some resemblance to the continental Bügelkronen, to which a cross was later affixed (only in the eleventh century, however).28 While the symbolism detected by Openshaw and Raw is surely present, I want to suggest here that the crown points to consequences of the Ascension that lie beyond the imme-

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diate scene shown. The apostles hold the crown precisely above the void left by their Lord, as if crowning a Christ who is now only spiritually present on earth.29 The crowning and the empty space thus hold an uplifting message: Christ’s current spiritual presence is just as significant as his former physical presence, and this new kind of presence is so real that Christ can be (spiritually) crowned. In a further connection to the idea of Christ’s physical absence/ spiritual presence, the honour and veneration given to Christ with this crowning also acknowledges that he, even though he is now physically absent, remains king both on earth and in heaven. He is the unquestioned ruler, the rex gloriae and rex althithronum, as Bede calls him in his Ascension hymn. As we have seen in Chapter 3, both Bede and the author of Trinity Homily 19 dramatize the conclusion of the Ascension by focusing on the kingly Christ’s triumphant arrival in heaven, the moment when the truly transformative effect of the Ascension occurs. The crowning gesture also points to the glorification and enthronement of Christ in heaven, which follows upon his arrival there and constitutes the all-important conclusion to the process of the Ascension. At the same time, the disciples can also be read as offering this crown as reward to those faithful Christians who ponder this image. Those who successfully imitate Christ, the goal encouraged by the Ascension, really step into his stead, as visualized again by the void among the apostles. Even though the immediate scene depicted is that of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives, the Tiberius artist is able to incorporate the far-reaching consequences of this event, both on earth and in heaven. Given the richly allusive nature of Anglo-Saxon Ascension depictions, only some of which I have laid out here, the image of the disappearing Christ represents an interesting visual analogue to Anglo-Saxon texts and an equally complex means of ­expressing – and thus teaching – the central doctrines of this important Christological event.30 The disappearing Christ is, quite literally, a liminal figure and thus essentializes the liminal nature of the Ascension and its theology in a succinct and visually arresting way. This literalness, rather than limiting exegetical possibilities, opens the image up to multiple readings, encapsulating central doctrines, and even modelling behaviour for those reflecting on it. The visual and theological complexity of the disappearing Christ exemplifies the sophisticated visual iconography developed by late AngloSaxon artists as well as their active participation in the transmission of patristic theology into Anglo-Saxon England.

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Notes  1 Meyer Schapiro, ‘The Image of the Disappearing Christ: The Ascension in English Art Around the Year 1000’, Gazette des BeauxArts, series 6, 23 (1943), 135–52; rpt. in Meyer Schapiro, Late Antique, Early Christian, and Mediaeval Art: Selected Papers (New York: George Braziller, 1979), pp. 266–87. My citations are to the reprint.  2 The disappearing Christ was widespread in western Europe until the Reformation, when it disappears from most visual art. For later medieval examples, see Gertrud Schiller, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, 4 vols (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1966–91), II, Plates 496–9, 501, 520–1, and Elz˙bieta Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, 900–1066 (London: Harvey Miller, 1976), Figures 39, 40, and 43. Andrea Worm, ‘Steine und Fußspuren Christi auf dem Ölberg: Zu zwei ungewöhnlichen Motiven bei Darstellungen der Himmelfahrt Christi’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 66 (2003), 297–320, traces the iconographic history of Christ’s footprints, especially in continental art. Even though the disappearing Christ fades from Ascension art with the Reformation, a strong interest in Christ’s feet and footprints remains especially in pilgrimage and popular religious contexts; see Chapter 2, note 28.  3 The earliest Anglo-Saxon Ascension depictions occur on stone sculptures, with both eastern and western types represented (see below for more on those types). Three stone carvings can relatively unambiguously be identified as the Ascension: the Wirksworth Slab, the Rothbury Cross/Font (both eastern types), and the Reculver Cross (western type). On the Wirksworth Slab (probably late eighth/ early ninth century), see Jane Hawkes, ‘The Wirksworth Slab: An Iconography of Humilitas’, Peritia, 9 (1994), 246–89. On the Rothbury Cross (later eighth or earlier ninth century), see Rosemary Cramp, ed., County Durham and Northumberland, CASSS I, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1984), I, pp. 219, 221; and Jane Hawkes, ‘The Rothbury Cross: An Iconographic Bricolage’, Gesta, 35 (1996), 77–94. On the Reculver Cross fragments (ninth century), see Dominic Tweddle, Martin Biddle, and Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle, eds, South-East England, CASSS IV (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1995), pp. 61, 151, 157, 161; Tweddle, ‘The Date and Stylistic Context of the Reculver Fragments’, in South-East England, ed. Tweddle et al., pp. 46–61; and Ruth Kozodoy, ‘The Reculver Cross’, Archaeologia, 108 (1986), 67–94. An Ascension scene (western type) also survives on a small boxwood casket at the Cleveland Museum of Art, produced about 1050, perhaps in the West Midlands; see Holger A. Klein, ed., Sacred Gifts and Worldly Treasures: Medieval Masterworks from the Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2007), pp. 132–3. The stone carvings differ sharply from the later innovative

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iconography, relying instead on established traditions. Even though written sources introduce liminal motifs early on (e.g., the gates of heaven in Bede’s hymn), explicitly liminal imagery does not appear in art until the disappearing Christ.  4 Ernest T. Dewald, ‘The Iconography of the Ascension’, American Journal of Archaeology, 2nd series, 19 (1915), 277–319, at pp. 279–84; S. Helena Gutberlet, Die Himmelfahrt Christi in der bildenden Kunst von den Anfängen bis ins hohe Mittelalter (Strassburg: Heitz, 1934), pp. 39–88. On the iconography of the Ascension more generally, see also Hubert Schrade, ‘Zur Ikonographie der Himmelfahrt Christi’, Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg, 8 (1928/29), 66–190; and Schiller, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, III, pp. 141–64.  5 Schiller, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, III, Plate 459.  6 Schiller, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, III, Plate 460.  7 According to Dewald, ‘Iconography of the Ascension’, pp. 297, 318–19, the western type shows more variation and is frequently influenced by the more fixed eastern type, eventually blending western and eastern features, such as the hand of God (western) and surrounding angels (eastern). See also Gutberlet, Die Himmelfahrt Christi, pp. 83–7, who views the early fifth-century carved Ascension scene on the door of Santa Sabina in Rome already as a ‘Mischtypus’ (blended type); for an image, see Schiller, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, III, Plate 457.  8 Gutberlet, Die Himmelfahrt Christi, Plate II; Schiller, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, III, Plates 12 and 451.  9 Wilhelm Koehler and Florentine Mütherich, Drogo-Sakramentar: Manuscrit Latin 9428, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, Codices Selecti 49 (Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1974), fol. 71v; also see the commentary volume accompanying the facsimile (p. 26). Schiller, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, III, Plate 468. 10 See Robert Deshman, The Benedictional of Æthelwold (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), pp. 58–62, Plate 25 for a colour image, and pp. 260–1 for the manuscript date. 11 Schapiro, ‘Image of the Disappearing Christ’, is the classic study of the motif. An important article re-examining Schapiro’s findings is Robert Deshman, ‘Another Look at the Disappearing Christ: Corporeal and Spiritual Vision in Early Medieval Images’, The Art Bulletin, 79 (1997), 518–46. For the motif in post-Conquest English manuscripts, see Kathryn Gerry, ‘The Reappearance of the Disappearing Christ in an Early Thirteenth-Century Psalter from Oxford’, in Art & Nature: Studies in Medieval Art and Architecture, ed. Laura Cleaver, Kathryn Gerry, and Jim Harris (London: Courtauld Institute of Art, 2009), pp. 114–29, 179–81 (notes). Earlier art historians had, despite evidence to the contrary, identified the disappearing Christ as a ‘Gothic’ phenomenon, but Schapiro and Deshman have shown it to be an

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early ­medieval insular innovation; Deshman has also linked it to the historical contexts of late Anglo-Saxon England. On the disappearing Christ as a ‘Gothic’ phenomenon, see Dewald, ‘Iconography of the Ascension’, pp. 315–17, who calls the disappearing Christ part of ‘the quaint realism of the Gothic Ascension’ (p. 317); Gutberlet, Die Himmelfahrt Christi, pp. 243–56. 12 Schapiro, ‘Image of the Disappearing Christ’, p. 284. Schapiro rejects a deeper theological meaning, saying that Anglo-Saxons deliberately re-envision the ‘traditional types, weighted with theology and classical recollections’ with the ‘freshness and spontaneity of the lyrical passages in Anglo-Saxon writings’. Consequently, when he discusses Christ’s footprints in the images, he takes them mostly literally, without thinking about how they might reflect an underlying theology (pp. 273, 277). 13 Deshman, ‘Another Look’, p. 545, concludes that the Anglo-Saxon images ‘serve to emphasize how empiricism blocks faith’; furthermore, ‘the disappearing Christ established that images can and do aid in the acquisition of spiritual understanding’, a point demonstrated by the ‘complex incarnational and divine symbolism … and the use of empathetic realism to express the dogmatic and theological complexities of the Ascension’. According to Deshman, these are themes in which Anglo-Saxon religious would have been particularly interested in the wake of the monastic reform of the late tenth century as part of a renewed emphasis on the vita contemplativa (p. 543). Even though Deshman draws on Anglo-Saxon literary sources for comparison and detects a parallel development of ideas in art and literature, he is not principally concerned with texts and considers criteria quite different from mine. 14 Henry A. Wilson, The Missal of Robert of Jumièges, Henry Bradshaw Society 11 (London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 1896), Plate IX. A colour image of fol. 81v can be viewed through the Base d’Images of the Bibliothèque Municipale of Rouen at http://bibliotheque.rouen. fr/repons/portal/armadillo/image/zoom/7009 (accessed 23 November 2012). The manuscript was produced c.1020 in southern England; see Michelle P. Brown, Manuscripts from the Anglo-Saxon Age (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), p. 163. For a recent discussion of the Ascension page, see Catherine E. Karkov, The Art of AngloSaxon England, Boydell Studies in Medieval Art and Architecture (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2011), pp. 234–5. 15 The manuscript was produced in the mid-eleventh century, perhaps at Winchester, Worcester, Hereford, or Canterbury; Brown, Manuscripts from the Anglo-Saxon Age, p. 168, and the British Library’s Online Gallery (including a colour image) at www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ onlineex/illmanus/cottmanucoll/t/largeimage74998.html (accessed 23 November 2012). For studies of the manuscript’s troper portion,

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see Elizabeth C. Teviotdale, ‘The Cotton Troper (London, British Library, Cotton MS Caligula A.XIV, ff. 1–36): A Study of an Illustrated English Troper of the Eleventh Century’ (PhD dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1991); and T. A. Heslop, ‘Manuscript Illumination at Worcester c.1055–1065: the Origins of the Pembroke Lectionary and the Caligula Troper’, in The Cambridge Illuminations: The Conference Papers, ed. Stella Panayotova (London: Harvey Miller, 2007), pp. 65–75. 16 On the roles of scrolls in some Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, see Benjamin Withers, ‘Interaction of Word and Image in Anglo-Saxon Art, II: Scrolls and Codex in the Frontispiece to the Regularis Concordia’, Old English Newsletter, 31.1 (1997), 36–40. Although he is not concerned with Ascension images, Withers incidentally proposes that the scrolls in the Ascension image of the Bury Psalter (see discussion below and Figure 6) ‘bridge the gap between Heaven and Earth’ (p. 39). It can be added that, remarkably, the scroll at the upper left of the text in the Bury Psalter, in a dramatic swoop, links the space of the Ascension with the text on the page; the end piece of the scroll brackets precisely the lines of Ps. 67:19, which read ascendisti in altum cepisti captivitatem accepisti dona in hominibus (‘Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive; thou hast received gifts in men’). 17 Odbert Gospels of St-Bertin, New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.333, fol. 85r, dated to the early eleventh century. A colour image is available on the Morgan Library’s website at http://corsair. morganlibrary.org/icaimages/3/m333.085r.jpg (accessed 14 November 2013). 18 Bernward Gospels of Hildesheim (‘Kostbares Evangeliar’), Hildesheim, Dom- und Diözesanmuseum, Domschatz 18, fol. 175v, produced around 1015. A discussion and colour reproduction can be found in Michael Brandt, ed., Das Kostbare Evangeliar des Heiligen Bernward (Munich: Prestel, 1993), p. 49 and Plate 29. For descriptions of all the illuminations in the gospels, see Michael Brandt and Arne Eggebrecht, eds, Bernward von Hildesheim und das Zeitalter der Ottonen, 2 vols (Hildesheim: Bernward Verlag, 1993), II, pp. 570–8. This depiction is unusual in that the Ascension scene only takes up the upper half of the page, in which Christ, without any witnesses present, is striding into a semi-circular segment of heaven; the lower half, in an entirely separate register, shows the Evangelist John as a scribe, whose gaze is directed at another segment of heaven in the top right corner of his register. Deshman, ‘Another Look’, pp. 537–42, discusses the links of the Ascension to the Evangelist. Jennifer P. Kingsley, ‘To Touch the Image: Embodying Christ in the Bernward Gospels’, Pereginations, 3.1 (2010), 138–73, disagrees with Deshman’s conclusions about the Bernward Gospels’ pictorial programme based on his reading of the Ascension image.

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19 For a classic discussion of the ‘split body’, see Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957), especially at pp. 73–4 on the Ascension. Deshman, ‘Another Look’, p. 528, further lays out the logic of Christ’s divided body, citing patristic and Anglo-Saxon sources. 20 Deshman, ‘Another Look’, pp. 520–8. 21 Although the footprints are well represented in Anglo-Saxon texts, they do not appear in art until the early thirteenth century and then apparently first on the Continent; see Worm, ‘Steine und Fußspuren Christi’, p. 314, and Schapiro, ‘Image of the Disappearing Christ’, p. 277. Since the feet and the footprints are closely linked in meaning and symbolism, it is worthwhile to consider them side by side. 22 Deshman, ‘Another Look’, pp. 528, 530. 23 Another Anglo-Saxon Ascension homily that incorporates the theme of Christ’s presence and absence is the anonymous homily known as Tristram III; see Hildegard L. C. Tristram, ‘Vier altenglische Predigten aus der heterodoxen Tradition, mit Kommentar, Übersetzung und Glossar sowie drei weiteren Texten im Anhang’ (PhD Dissertation, University of Freiburg, 1970), pp. 162–72. Tristram III, p. 171, tells that when Christ ascended, the moment he disappeared from before the disciples’ eyes they immediately began praying for the coming of the spirit. In this way, Christ’s body is replaced by the divine spirit, and his physical absence is transformed into a spiritual presence. 24 The Tiberius Psalter was produced at Old Minster, Winchester, c.1050. For a discussion of the manuscript, see Kathleen M. J. Openshaw, ‘Images, Texts and Contexts: The Iconography of the Tiberius Psalter, London, British Library, Cotton MS. Tiberius C.VI’ (PhD dissertation, University of Toronto, 1990). Also see Francis Wormald, ‘An English Eleventh-Century Psalter with Pictures, British Museum, Cotton MS Tiberius C. VI’, Walpole Society, 38 (1960–62), 1–14, rpt. in Francis Wormald, Collected Writings, ed. Jonathan Alexander, T. J. Brown, and Joan Gibbs (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 123–37. 25 The disciple on the left can be identified as Peter, who is typically depicted with grey hair and tonsure; three of the other liminal Ascension depictions also show Peter grey-haired, tonsured, and holding the key to heaven. 26 Openshaw, ‘Images, Texts and Context’, pp. 326–30. 27 Barbara C. Raw, Anglo-Saxon Crucifixion Iconography and the Art of the Monastic Revival, CSASE 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 146. Karkov, Art of Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 265–6, reads Cnut’s crown as an emblem of earthly power and heavenly reward, similar to my reading of the Tiberius crown as pointing to both earthly and heavenly consequences of the Ascension. Parallels to the crown can be found in other manuscripts. The Benedictional

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of St Æthelwold, fol. 99v, also produced at Winchester, shows a Benedictine monk holding an arched, trefoiled crown; see Deshman, Benedictional of Æthelwold, Plate 33 and pp. 117–21. 28 Percy Ernst Schramm, Herrschaftszeichen und Staatssymbolik, 4 vols, Schriften der Monumenta Germaniae Historica 13 (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1954–56), II, pp. 564–8. 29 The crowning gesture might be compared to an image in the Bernward Gospels (fol. 17r), which shows an enthroned Mary with two angels placing a crown on/over her head. The Tiberius image may also relate in concept to Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS 579, fol. 49v (Leofric Missal). This page shows a multi-coloured line drawing of a crowned Christ whose body is horizontally divided by an inscribed scroll that he is holding; the bottom half of Christ’s body looks strikingly similar to the Tiberius Ascension. See Brian Ó Broin, ‘Rex Christus Ascendens: The Christological Cult of the Ascension in Anglo-Saxon England’ (PhD dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2002), pp. 286–9, on links between the Leofric Missal image, AngloSaxon and continental representations of kings with ‘split bodies’, and Ascension iconography; by comparing Ascension texts with visual representations of the ascending Christ as king and of AngloSaxon rulers, Ó Broin shows the gradual adoption by Anglo-Saxon kings of the concept of the dual-natured ruler and of regal Ascension iconography. 30 Anglo-Saxon Ascension depictions, especially those of the striding Christ, might also reflect the famous literary motif of the ‘leaps of Christ’, included in Christ II and Blickling Homily 11. The striding Christ, usually in mid-air, is a figure actively in motion, which is reflected in the verbal choices of vernacular authors. The Old English words commonly used for ‘ascension’ and ‘to ascend’ are upastigedness and astigan. Related to stigan, these words point to the ‘climbing’ aspect of the Ascension. James W. Marchand, ‘The Leaps of Christ and The Dream of the Rood’, in Source of Wisdom: Old English and Early Medieval Latin Studies in Honour of Thomas D. Hill, ed. Charles D. Wright, Frederick M. Biggs, and Thomas N. Hall, TOES 16 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), pp. 80–9, argues that astigan, which usually means ‘to climb’ or is translated as ‘to ascend’ in Ascension contexts, should be translated as ‘to leap’, because astigan is used both in Christ II, when Christ performs his leaps, and in The Dream of the Rood, when Christ ascends the cross. The Ascension is also frequently included in image cycles of Christ’s life, and the other events in such cycles (Incarnation, Nativity, Crucifixion, Harrowing) are precisely the other ‘leaps of Christ’. For example, the Odbert Gospels (Figure 7), the Cleveland Museum boxwood casket (see note 3), and the Tiberius Psalter include the Ascension among scenes from Christ’s life. Schapiro, ‘Image of the Disappearing Christ’, and

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Between earth and heaven Deshman, ‘Another Look’, have shown the parallel developments in Anglo-Saxon texts and art on the Ascension. If somewhat fixed ideas on the Ascension circulated, then artists might well have been familiar with the idea of the Ascension as one of Christ’s leaps and thus perhaps chose to depict the ascending Christ as leaping into heaven.

Afterword

The analysis of source materials in this book began with the footprints of Christ that mark the beginning of the Ascension, soared to the heights of heaven and travelled into the lives of Anglo-Saxon Christians, and finally returned to the feet of the ascending Christ. Along the way, supported by patristic theology, I have argued that the footprints in the Old English Martyrology and Blickling Homily 11, the gates of heaven in Bede’s hymn on the Ascension and Trinity Homily 19, the processions, field rituals, and spatial symbolism in homilies for Rogationtide and Ascension Day, and the disappearing Christ in Anglo-Saxon art all visualize and explain for their respective audiences the theology of the Ascension through images or motifs of liminality. Since the most central Ascension doctrines conveyed by these sources are inherently liminal in cha­ racter, the underlying concept of liminality connects the diverse forms and expressions that this teaching takes. And, in all of these cases, this liminality is couched in concrete, even material, terms. The images and motifs chosen to teach Ascension theology are marked as both abstract and concrete. These seemingly opposite aspects, as is the case with all religious symbolism, illuminate each other: theology gives symbolic meaning to imagery, while the imagery translates a doctrinal message that might otherwise be elusive to the widest range of audiences. The materiality with which the abstract theological concepts of the Ascension are taught is less stable than, for example, a physical landscape or a public social space, such as a hall or a church. It is, nonetheless, a concrete materiality and one that fulfils an important symbolic function in Anglo-Saxon religious literature and culture, adding to our understanding of the many shapes that materiality can take and the many purposes it can serve. The symbolic and theologically charged materiality in the texts examined in this book complements the prominent presence of the material in Anglo-Saxon thinking.

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Anglo-Saxons imagined the physical universe as materially constructed and creation as a process of building the natural world, demonstrated by Cædmon’s Hymn with its reference to the roof of heaven, or by the notion of Christ as a craftsman in the opening lines of Christ I.1 Anglo-Saxons even conceived of psychological processes in intensely materialist terms.2 Because the crossing of boundaries and the inhabiting of dual spaces are spatially grounded images, the liminality in the works examined in this book derives its appeal not from the power of transcendence but from that of experience, of living and moving within the real world. In this way, these Anglo-Saxon texts bring theology directly into the lives of Christians, whether as easily imaginable places when listening to a sermon, or as processions across parish fields. The way the Ascension is taught in AngloSaxon England is powerful in its ability to make theology take a place among the people, bring the lessons of this Christological event into the midst of faithful communities and into the minds of believers, and, through this immediacy, make theology matter to them. Other models of teaching Ascension theology in Anglo-Saxon literature underline by contrast what stands out about the teaching modes I identify in this study. In the Introduction, I drew attention to a different model of imagining the significance of the Ascension and of explaining its theology: Cynewulf’s metaphor of the ‘sea of this life’ at the conclusion of Christ II (ll. 850–66). Cynewulf imagines life as a storm-tossed journey across the sea. While Christians in life sail across perilous waters, hope and faith are the mental anchors that can connect the violently moving boats to a safe harbour, that is, the stability of heaven, before the boats can be safely brought into the harbour at the end of life’s journey. This last section of the poem expresses metaphorically the ambiguity of life, during which Christians know themselves to be safe because of Christ’s redemptive sacrifice, which already connects them to heaven, but know also that their salvation is still in danger as they face the moral challenges of life until they can follow Christ to heaven. No scholarly explanation has been given for the passage’s position at the very end of the poem or its thematic logic.3 Read in the light of Ascension doctrines, however, the metaphor gains clarity. The ambiguity of the sea voyage as both ongoing and completed suitably conveys the inherent duality of the totus Christus, which envisions Christ the Head in heaven while the members of his Body toil on earth in anticipation of their

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own ascension. Cynewulf also expresses the demand for personal responsibility issued by the Ascension by pointing to the effort that the imitation of Christ takes (ll. 853b–63). He recognizes the Ascension as a hope-giving moment, crystallized in the image of the anchor of hope (l. 863) and developed thematically throughout the poem. These three aspects of Ascension theology – the totus Christus, personal responsibility, and the hope of salvation – ­coalesce in the ‘sea of this life’ metaphor into a Cynewulfian model of mental activity that teaches believers how to explore spiritual mysteries and participate in the Ascension themselves. With the ‘sea of this life’ metaphor, Cynewulf avails himself of spatial imagery, but it is not a concretely material image like Christ’s footprints or the gates of heaven, since this maritime space is not only entirely imagined, but also functions on a purely metaphorical level and remains on this level throughout. It cannot be identified as a location either on earth or in the unfolding process of the Ascension. Christ II certainly shares thematic concerns with the texts discussed in this book, as my brief reading of the passage above makes clear. Since the core messages of the Ascension were already explicated in patristic sources, they are naturally the same. What is different is the form in which they are conveyed, and the abstractly conceived means of teaching theology through the ‘sea of this life’ metaphor, therefore, throws into relief the similarities between the Ascension texts at the centre of this study. Each chapter in this book elucidates a different aspect of how patristic teachings were transmitted, adapted, and disseminated to Anglo-Saxon audiences. As a whole, this study brings together patristic theological teachings, formal clerical preaching, liturgical and lay practices, and art, all of which belonged to the same vibrant religious culture, practised and experienced by Anglo-Saxon Christians. These diverse works are located at different points along a spectrum that ranges from conventional patristic teachings all the way to popular religious ‘middle practices’; collectively, they merge into an intelligible, coherent whole that constitutes what it means to teach the Ascension in Anglo-Saxon England. In demonstrating the rewards of reading Ascension sources as a single corpus, Between Earth and Heaven also aims at encouraging the continued study of diverse textual forms that blend traditions and influences and of interactions between ‘official’ religious culture and lay practices, Latin and vernacular sources, homiletic prose and religious verse. Sustained diachronic studies of AngloSaxon theology can widen the view outwards from important and

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­ uch-studied theologians, such as Bede and Ælfric, to the anonym mous and other neglected materials of the entire Anglo-Saxon period. Such broadened investigation could also further illuminate the position of Anglo-Saxon England in the history of Catholic doctrine at large. While these enquiries lie in the future of AngloSaxon studies, my hope is that, for now, this study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how Christian-Latin traditions were not only successfully transmitted to and carried on in AngloSaxon England, but were transformed into new and rich materials through a uniquely vernacular understanding of patristic theology. Notes 1 Johanna Kramer, ‘“Ðu eart se weallstan”: Architectural Metaphor and Christological Imagery in the Old English Christ I and the Book of Kells’, in Source of Wisdom: Old English and Early Medieval Latin Studies in Honour of Thomas D. Hill, ed. Charles D. Wright, Frederick M. Biggs, and Thomas N. Hall, TOES 16 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), pp. 90–112. 2 Leslie Lockett, Anglo-Saxon Psychologies in the Vernacular and Latin Traditions, TASS 8 (Toronto: University of Toronto, 2011) explores corporeal and cardiocentric concepts of the mind. 3 For example, Thomas D. Hill, ‘The Anchor of Hope and the Sea of this World: Christ II, 850–66’, ES, 75 (1994), 289–92, at p. 292, acknowledges that the passage’s ‘full significance has escaped commentators’. Judith N. Garde, Old English Poetry in Medieval Christian Perspective: A Doctrinal Approach (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1991), pp. 156–8, makes an association between the ‘sea of this life’ passage and the general ‘spiritual lesson’ of the Ascension, but she does not explicate it in relation to specific Ascension doctrines.

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Index

Note: Titles of works with known authors can be found under authors’ names; ‘n.’ after a page reference indicates the number of a note on that page; references in italics refer to illustrations. Adomnán, De Locis Sanctis 19, 73, 81–4, 90, 95 Æcerbot Charm 13, 20, 95, 148, 177, 179–83, 185–6, 186n.2, 196n.63, 197n.72, 197n.73 Ælfric 16–17, 27n.46, 31, 53, 59, 62n.12, 69n.67, 98n.10, 101n.25, 127, 149, 156, 160–7, 175, 183–4, 193n.42, 194n.51, 197n.71 CH I.18 (In Letania Maiore) 161, 169, 188n.6, 188n.8, 192n.32 CH I.19 (Feria III De Dominica Oratione) 154, 161–5, 167, 192n.32 CH I.20 (Feria IIII De Fide Catholica) 164–5 CH I.21 (In Ascensione Domini) 26n.44, 56, 57, 165–7 CH II.20 (Item in Letania Maiore. Feria Tertia) 31 CH II.22 (In Letania Maiore. Feria. IIII.) 31, 192n.30 De Auguriis (Sermo in Laetania Maiore) 184, 200n.86 De Falsis Diis 184–5 Æthelstan Psalter 203, Fig. 2 agriculture 76, 148–51 passim, 169, 170, 173, 174–86, 193n.41, 195n.55 Ambrose of Milan 17, 18, 30 De Fide 42–5, 121–2, 145n.57 Ancient Just 37, 111 angels, at the Ascension 34, 35, 56–7, 115, 203, 205–6, 213n.7 anthropology, and literature 5–6

anti-structure see structure and antistructure apostles 7, 22n.13, 29, 31–5, 39–40, 48–50, 54–5, 63n.13, 77, 91–3, 99n.15, 113, 115, 159, 161, 166, 192n.32, 193n.40, 201, 203–11 Arculf, bishop 81–3, 84, 91, 140n.17 art 12–13, 15, 21, 21n.1, 35, 63n.14, 105n.56, 141n.24, 201–11, Figs. 1–8 see also manuscripts, cited and under individual manuscript titles Ascensio Isaiae 41–2 Ascension as communal event 6, 19, 72–3, 91–5 cult of 24n.34, 41, 74, 77, 82–3 Day 69n.68, 77, 83, 88, 135, 147, 150, 152, 155, 166, 186, 191n.26 feast day of 6, 10, 14, 36, 40–1, 65n.26, 77, 123, 148, 155, 166 place of 2, 13, 15, 16, 41, 72–91, 93–4 see also Mount of Olives and subjunctive 5, 10 see also theology, of the Ascension Augustine of Canterbury 152 Augustine of Hippo 1, 10–11, 15, 18, 30, 54, 57, 59, 164, 207 sermons 46–53, 133, 139n.11 Tractates on the Gospel of John 69n.68, 79–80

246 barrier 109–10, 145n.49, 159, 164 see also boundaries; boundaries, crossing of Bazire-Cross homilies no. 3 (In Quarta Feria in Letania Maiore) 187n.3 no. 4 (In Uigilia Ascensionis) 187n.3 no. 5 (Feria II in Letania Maiore) 194n.52 no. 6 (Sermo In Letania Maiore. Feria Secunda) 98n.9 no. 8 (De Letania Maiore) 169–70, 171, 188n.6 beating the bounds 198n.77 Bede 18, 39, 46, 53, 59, 65n.27, 69n.67, 70n.80, 91, 95–6, 101n.25, 149, 167, 175, 183, 186, 193n.46, 208 De Locis Sanctis 81, 83–5, 105n.51, 140n.17 Ecclesiastical History (Historia Ecclesiastica) 81, 83, 102n.29, 103n.36, 106n.59, 140n.17, 152, 183, 189n.12 Gospel Homilies II.9 (Post Pascha) 193n.46 II.14 (In Litaniis Maioribus) 140n.17, 157–8, 160, 173–4, 192n.30, 196n.62 II.15 (In Ascensione Domini) 56, 97n.2, 103n.36, 158–60 II.16 (Post Ascensionem) 69n.68 hymn on the Ascension 7, 13, 16, 19–20, 43, 56, 59, 103n.36, 105n.49, 107–26, 128, 130, 132–6, 138n.6, 206, 211 Benedictine Reform 6, 71n.85, 76, 161, 165 Benedictional of St Æthelwold 203, 216n.27, Fig. 3 Bernward Gospels of Hildesheim 207, 217n.29, Fig. 8 Bible see New Testament; Old Testament Blickling Homilies 25n.38, 72, 76 no.10 (for Rogation Wednesday) 75 no.11 (for Ascension Day) 13, 15, 16, 26n.44, 56, 59, 70n.80, 72–96, 208–9, 210, 217n.30 Body of Christ 5, 8, 37, 91, 123, 133, 161–4, 167, 171, 173, 207 see also totus Christus border see barrier; boundaries

Index boundaries 2–3, 20, 157, 168, 171–2, 177, 181, 186 crossing of 3, 7, 8, 9, 13, 58, 107–8, 110, 113–24, 130–5, 148, 201–8 boundary ritual(s) 95, 148, 168–86 boxwood casket, Cleveland Museum of Art 21n.1, 212n.3, 217n.30 Bury St Edmunds Psalter 207, 215n.16, Fig. 6 Caligula Troper see Cotton or Caligula Troper ‘Charm for Unfruitful Land’ see Æcerbot Charm Christ duality of 29–30, 59, 86, 220 dual nature of 1, 3, 7–8, 12, 29–35, 41–2, 46–50, 75, 80, 86–7, 110, 118, 122–4, 133–5, 161, 166–7, 205–9 glorification of 1, 9, 39, 62n.10, 66n.39, 111–12, 209, 211 the Head 9–11, 52, 91, 161–4, 205 see also totus Christus physical absence of 7, 13, 19, 29, 40, 46, 49, 75, 87, 208–11 spiritual presence of 7, 13, 19, 29, 34, 40, 46, 49–51, 75, 87–9, 208–11 see also Entry into Heaven, of Christ Church Fathers 40, 59, 77 see also under individual names of authors cloud, at the Ascension 34–5, 62n.12, 201, 205–6, 207, 209 commission, of the apostles 29, 31–5, 40, 73, 77, 91–2, 208 communitas 4–5, 8–9 community, of Christians 73, 77, 91–4, 96, 147–53, 161, 164, 168, 171–2, 185, 198n.77, 206, 220 Constantine, Emperor 41 Cotton or Caligula Troper 205, 206, Fig. 5 Council of Clovesho 152–4, 164, 175, 187n.3, 199n.83 crown, in art 210–11 Cynewulf 80, 145n.52 Christ II 9–10, 15–16, 18, 21n.1, 35, 43, 56, 57, 58, 68n.61, 70n.80, 92–3, 108, 124–6, 137n.4, 139n.13, 139n.16,

Index

247 140n.17, 195n.60, 208, 217n.30, 220–1

Descensus ad Inferos see Harrowing of Hell Descent into Hell 37, 111 see also Harrowing of Hell ‘disappearing Christ’ 21, 93, 201–11, Figs. 1, 4–8 see also art disciples see apostles doubting Thomas 22n.13, 50, 61n.3 Drogo Sacramentary 203 dual nature see Christ, dual nature of earth (substance) 20, 79, 82–8, 90, 94–5, 150–1, 179, 181–5, 208–9 Easter 1, 29, 38, 40–1, 52, 89, 111–12, 113, 115, 133, 150, 155–6 Egeria 41 Elijah 32, 37, 61n.4, 62n.9, 62n.12, 70n.78 Enoch 32, 37, 61n.4, 62n.9, 62n.12, 70n.78 Entry into Heaven, of Christ 2, 39, 43–5, 66n.37, 89, 107–36, 173 Eusebius, Church historian 77, 78, 81 exaltation, of humanity (humanitas exaltata) 8, 20, 47, 53, 57, 110, 118, 123, 134–5, 161, 167, 210 fasting 151–6 passim, 169, 188n.8 feet, of Christ 13, 80, 87, 93, 95, 103n.35, 193n.40, 201–10 see also footprints, of Christ field blessing 147–8, 169–70, 173–4, 177–81, 197n.73 field perambulations 147, 151, 168, 171–2, 175, 178–83, 185–6 field rituals 13, 20, 95, 168–86 footprints of Christ 12–20 passim, 50, 51, 72–96, 110, 136, 160, 183, 193n.40, 201, 202, 208–9, 210 in folklore 94–5 gifts of men 37, 53, 56, 70n.80 Gospel of Nicodemus 65n.25, 129–30, 141n.22, 141n.23 Gregory I (the Great), Pope 18, 30, 53, 80, 132, 145n.52

Gospel Homily no. 29, 8, 47, 56–8, 62n.12, 84, 97n.2, 103n.36, 130, 134, 145n.51, 160, 166–7, 193n.46 Gregory of Nyssa 65n.26, 129, 142n.32 Harrowing of Hell 1, 19–20, 111, 129–30 heaven gates of 12, 13, 16, 17, 20, 38–9, 42–5, 51, 74, 107, 109–10, 115, 117–35, 157–60, 172–3, 186, 202, 206, 208, 212n.3 journey towards 7, 12, 16, 31, 51, 60, 91, 107, 114–15, 146n.59, 158–86 passim, 206 opening of 1, 3, 10, 12, 19, 29, 37–8, 40, 43, 45, 59, 112, 115, 122, 134, 157–60, 167, 173–4, 192n.30 threshold of 1, 7, 45, 124, 132, 134, 156, 160, 164, 173, 201, 206 see also Entry into Heaven, of Christ Helena, Empress, mother of Constantine 77 Heliand 24n.36 hell 20, 43, 78, 114–18, 123, 133–4, 198n.77, gates of 13, 39, 109, 116–18, 129–32 see also Descent into Hell; Harrowing of Hell Hodoeporicon of St. Willibald, The 100n.24 Holy Land 40–1, 60, 74, 79, 81–3, 89, 208 homilies, for Ascension and Rogationtide see Ælfric; Augustine of Hippo, sermons; Bazire-Cross homilies; Bede, Gospel Homilies; Blickling Homilies; Gregory I (the Great), Pope; Leo I (the Great), Pope; Trinity Homilies; Tristram III, homily; Vercelli Homilies humanitas exaltata see exaltation, of humanity Huneberc of Heidenheim 100n.24 hymns 2, 30, 140n.18, 186n.2 see also Bede, hymn on the Ascension

248 Incarnation 1, 46–7, 58, 64n.21, 80, 87, 108, 139n.13, 142n.27, 165, 206, 208 Irenaeus of Lyons 41–2, 142n.27 Itinerary of Bernard the Wise, The 100n.24 Itinerary of St Willibald, The 100n.24 Jerome 41 John, evangelist 31, 215n.18 Judgement, Day of 10, 35, 37, 39, 68n.58, 68n.61, 89, 115, 135, 139n.12, 141n.21, 150, 154, 167, 173, 206–7 Justin Martyr 18, 64n.23, 142n.27 laity 149, 153, 164, 176 Lambeth Homilies 127 land, importance of 20, 76, 147–50 passim, 168–86 leaps of Christ 21n.1, 53, 56–8, 80, 128, 130, 217n.30 Leo I (the Great), Pope 18, 30, 32 Sermons 73 and 74, 53–6 Leo III, Pope 151 Leofric Missal 195n.56, 197n.73, 217n.29 life, as a journey 9–10, 149, 157, 173–4, 186, 220 liminality 2–13, 58–9, 60, 73, 75, 81–89 passim, 96, 105n.57, 107, 109–22, 130, 134, 136, 150, 157–72 passim, 175–86 passim, 201–5, 211 spatial v. theological 112–13 see also liminal space(s) liminal space(s) 107–33 passim, 133–6, 168, 172, 175, 181, 198n.77 liturgy 1–21 passim, 72–3, 77, 94, 104n.39, 123, 135, 139n.11, 147–56, 160, 164, 167–79, 186 Mamertus of Vienne 151, 197n.71 manuscript illuminations 40, 136, 168 see also art manuscripts, cited Cambridge, Trinity College MS B.14.52 (contains Trinity Homilies) 137n.3, 143n.39 Hildesheim, Dombibliothek, MS St Godehard 1 (St Albans Psalter) 141n.22

Index Hildesheim, Dom-und Diözesanmuseum, Domschatz 18 (Bernward Gospels of Hildesheim) 207, 217n.29, Fig. 8 London, British Library, Cotton, MS Caligula A.VII 197n.75 London, British Library, Cotton, MS Caligula A.XIV (Cotton Troper) 205, Fig. 5 London, British Library, Cotton, MS Galba A.XVIII (Æthelstan Psalter) 203, Fig. 2 London, British Library, Cotton, MS Nero C.IV (Winchester Psalter) 141n.24 London, British Library, Cotton, MS Tiberius C.VI (Tiberius Psalter) 141n.22, 141n.24, 201, Fig. 1 London, British Library, MS Additional 49598 (Benedictional of St Æthelwold) 203, Fig. 3 London, Lambeth Palace Library MS 487 (Lambeth Homilies) 127, 143n.35 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.333 (Odbert Gospels of St-Bertin) 215n.17, Fig. 7 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 579 (Leofric Missal) 217n.29 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 293, 141n.24 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius 11, 141n.24 Rouen, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS Y.6 (Missal of Robert of Jumièges) 205, Fig. 4 Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Cod.bibl. fol. 23 (Stuttgart Psalter) 141n.22, 145n.49 Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica MS Reg. lat. 12 (Bury St Edmunds Psalter) 207, Fig. 6 Martin of Braga, De Correctione Rusticorum 184–5 Mary, mother of God 115, 203, 205, 206, 217n.29 materiality 3, 12–13, 15, 40, 56, 72–81, 87, 89–90, 136, 219–20 metaphor, spatial 15, 148, 221

Index

249

‘middle practices’ 17, 176–7, 183, 221 Missal of Robert of Jumièges 197n.73, 205–6, 207, Fig. 4 Monza phial 203 Mount of Olives 19, 34, 41, 72–3, 77–81 passim, 87, 94, 115, 136, 206, 209, 211 see also Ascension, place of

145n.54; 67:18–20, 37–8, 41, 70n.80, 215n.16; 108, 41; 131:7, 77–8 Song of Songs 2:8, 57–8, 130 Tobit 12:16–21, 62n.12 Zachariah 14:4, 100n.23 Origen 41, 138n.9 Otfrid von Weissenburg, Evangelienbuch 24n.36

Nativity 56–7, 80, 83, 139n.13, 217n.30 New Testament 12, 29, 39, 41, 62n.11, 111–12 Acts 1:1–14, 1, 31, 33–5, 40–1, 55, 60n.2, 62n.12, 63n.18, 84, 91–2, 113, 115, 131, 135, 139n.12, 166 1 Corinthians 12:7–11, 62n.11, 70n.80 gospels 13, 31–5, 61n.3 Ephesians 4:7–14, 26n.40, 36–7, 78 John 3:13, 31–2, 47, 61n.6, 68n.58; 6:63, 61n.6; 10:16, 79–80; 20:17, 55, 61n.6, 69n.70; 20:24–9, 22n.13, 69n.70 Luke 11:9–13, 157; 24, 62n.12, 193n.46; 24:39, 47–8; 24:50–3, 33–4, 60n.2, 131 Mark 8:38, 61n.7; 14:62, 61n.7; 16:14–20, 31, 32–3, 56, 60n.2, 166 Matthew 28:16–20, 7, 32, 49 Novatian 41

paradox 4, 7, 9, 47, 49, 51, 55–6, 87 Passion 51, 83, 99n.15, 136n.1 Pater Noster 154, 161–4, 192n.32 Paulinus of Nola 78–9, 100n.24, 102n.30, 103n.35 Paul the Deacon 46, 53, 192n.31 Pentecost 38, 40, 63n.18, 111, 113, 133, 139n.12, 156 Pilgrim of Bordeaux 41, 99n.15 Pilgrim of Piacenza 80–1, 101n.28 popular religious practices 12, 14, 17, 20, 21, 27n.46, 76, 94–5, 148–50, 175–86, 186n.2, 212n.2 ‘power of the earth’ 149, 179, 183, 200n.86 prayer(s) 13, 30–1, 95, 147–8, 151, 154–6, 158, 161–4, 168, 169–74, 175–86 passim, 186n.2 prayer stations 168, 171–3, 181, 186, 194n.50 preaching 2–3, 13, 17, 20, 30, 32–3, 35, 46–59, 73, 76, 81, 92–6 passim, 110–11, 127–8, 147–75, 179, 185, 196n.62 prose 14, 17, 53, 129

Odbert Gospels of St-Bertin 207, 217n.30, Fig. 7 Old English Martyrology 1, 13–19 passim, 34, 72–96, 155, 164, 208–10 Old Testament 12, 37, 39, 41, 78, 191n.26 Daniel 7:9–14, 62n.12 Ezekiel 1:4–28, 62n.12; 10:8–14, 62n.12 Genesis 5:24, 37 Habakkuk 3:11, 70n.80, 145n.51 Jonah 3:1–10, 188n.8 3 Kings 19:8, 62n.12 4 Kings 2:1, 37; 2:11, 37 Malachi 4:2, 130 Psalms 23:7–10, 17, 38–9, 40, 41, 43–5, 120–2, 125–6, 128–32, 141n.22, 146n.59; 46:6, 41,

Rabula Gospels 203 Reculver Cross 212n.3 Reidersche Tafel 203 repentance 154–6, 168 responsibility, of Christians 10, 29, 30, 40–53 passim, 94, 160–1, 163–4, 166, 167, 221 Resurrection 1, 13, 22n.13, 29, 31–36 passim, 40, 46–51 passim, 54, 62n.11, 66n.39, 80, 84, 89, 111–12, 115, 166 ritual(s) 186n.2 liminal 3–11, 161, 177 see also liminality spatial 6, 12–14, 17, 146n.59, 149–50, 168–86

Index

250 Rogationtide 147–86 as communal event 147–8, 153, 164, 168, 171–2, 179, 181, 186 customs at 147, 150–4, 178, 183–4, 191n.23, 197n.71, 198n.77 history of 147, 150–2, 177–8 processions at 6, 10, 11, 13, 16, 20, 30–1, 51, 136, 147–53, 160, 168–74, 175–86 passim, 186n.2, 206 see also homilies, for Ascension and Rogationtide; liturgy Rothbury Cross/Font 212n.3 St Albans Psalter 141n.22 salvation history 1, 11, 20, 46, 80, 89, 109–12, 113, 118, 133–5, 160 ‘sea of this life’ 9–10, 15, 37, 208, 220–1 seeing versus believing 29, 50–1, 54, 89–90, 166 stone sculptures 202 structure and anti-structure 5, 9, 10, 11 Sulpicius Severus 78, 79, 82, 83, 103n.35 Theodosius, De situ terrae sanctae 100n.24 theology, of the Ascension development of 29–60 embodied 51, 136, 159, 168, 173 liminal 6–13 see also under individual names of authors Tiberius Psalter 21n.1, 141n.22, 141n.24, 201, 205, 209–11, Fig. 1 totus Christus 3, 7–10, 19, 20, 29–30, 37, 39, 40, 46, 51–3, 75, 80,

91, 118, 123, 133–4, 154, 157, 160–7, 173, 192n.30, 192n.38, 202, 207–8, 220–1 Trinity, Holy 32, 164–5, 186 Trinity Homilies 20, 27n.47, 107, 127–9 no. 19 (In Ascensione Domini) 7, 13, 17, 26n.44, 39, 58, 59, 107–13, 140n.17, 128–36, 206, 211 Trinity homilist 16, 20, 45, 107–13, 129–30, 134–6 Tristram III, homily 26n.44, 187n.4, 191n.27, 216n.23 Turner, Victor 3–6, 7–10 passim, 87 see also liminality unity, of Christians 160–5, 167 Vercelli Homilies 187n.3, 193n.42 no. XI (for Rogation Monday) 168–9, 174, 177–8, 188n.8, 189n.10, 195n.60 no. XII (for Rogation Tuesday) 170–2, 174, 178, 188n.8 no. XIII (for Rogation Wednesday) 155–6 no. XIX (for Rogationtide) 187n.4, 188n.8, 191n.26, 191n.27, 195n.58 no. XX (for Rogationtide) 172–3, 187n.4, 191n.27 vestigia see footprints Willibald, Bishop of Eichstätt 100n.24, 105n.51 Wirksworth Slab 212n.3 women at the grave 32–3, 50, 61n.3 Wulfstan of York, homilist 17, 127, 194n.51