Two Ælfric Texts: The Twelve Abuses and The Vices and Virtues 1843843609, 9781843843603

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Anglo-Saxon Texts 11

TWO ÆLFRIC TEXTS THE TWELVE ABUSES AND THE VICES AND VIRTUES AN EDITION AND TRANSLATION OF ÆLFRIC’S OLD ENGLISH VERSIONS OF DE DUODECIM ABUSIVIS AND DE OCTO VITIIS ET DE DUODECIM ABUSIVIS

Anglo-Saxon Texts issn 1463–6948

Editorial Board MICHAEL LAPIDGE MARY CLAYTON LESLIE LOCKETT RICHARD MARSDEN ANDY ORCHARD

Anglo-Saxon Texts is a series of scholarly editions (with parallel translations) of important texts from Anglo-Saxon England, whether written in Latin or in Old English. The series aims to offer critical texts with suitable apparatus and accurate modern English translations, together with informative general introductions and full historical and literary commentaries. Previously published volumes in the series are listed at the back of this book.

TWO ÆLFRIC TEXTS the twelve abuses and the vices and virtues an edition and translation of ælfric’s old english versions of de duodecim abusivis and de octo vitiis et de duodecim abusivis

Edited with a translation by MARY CLAYTON

D. S. BREWER

© Mary Clayton 2013 All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner First published 2013 D. S. Brewer, Cambridge ISBN 978 1 84384 360 3

D. S. Brewer is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc, 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620-2731, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for 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. Papers used by Boydell & Brewer are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests

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Contents Preface

vii

Acknowledgements

viii

Abbreviations

ix

Manuscript Sigla

x

Editorial Conventions

x

Introduction 1.  The Old English Manuscripts

1

2.  The Two Versions of the Old English Text

23

3.  De duodecim abusiuis

34

4.  The Vices and Virtues

71

De duodecim abusiuis

109

De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis

139

De duodecim abusiuis: Latin Text (Oxford, Jesus College, MS 3)

179

Bibliography

191

Index

197

For Catherine Clayton

Preface The texts edited in this volume are Ælfric’s vernacular versions of two highly influential early-medieval ethical treatises. The first text, De duodecim abusiuis, is his Old English version of a short tract dealing with the twelve abuses of the world and the second, De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis, is a composite text, of which De duodecim abusiuis forms the second part; the first part deals with the eight vices and the complementary eight virtues and is otherwise familiar as the last part of Ælfric’s Lives of Saints XVI. Both texts were composed in Ælfric’s hallmark rhythmical, alliterative prose. The Latin De duodecim abusiuis is a short moral tract, written in seventh-century Ireland, which lists and describes twelve abuses and suggests remedies for them. The main source for Ælfric’s treatment of the vices and virtues is Alcuin’s De uirtutibus et uitiis, written on the continent in the ninth century. The stand-alone text and the composite one survive in three manuscripts each. The two Old English texts have been in print for a long time, but there has not been a satisfactory edition of either. Richard Morris published two versions of the composite text in his Old English Homilies;1 in the main body of the volume he edited the very late, and altered, text in Xi, London, Lambeth Palace 487, and in an appendix he supplied an earlier version of the composite text, from R, CCCC 178, transcribed for him by the Rev. W. Snell.2 The Lambeth version was edited again in Sarah O’Brien’s unpublished thesis.3 The stand-alone version was printed by Rubie Warner from G, British Library, Cotton Vespasian D xiv,4 a manuscript of considerably later date than the other two manuscripts which contain this version of the text. Neither included any information about the relationship between the two versions or about how these texts fit into Ælfric’s oeuvre as a whole. Ælfric’s treatment of the sources for both texts has never been analysed in any detail before now. This edition presents new texts of Ælfric’s two works, with an extensive discussion of their sources. The text of the stand-alone version is based on P, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 115, not hitherto edited, and for the composite text I have re-edited R. In each case, the manuscript chosen is the earliest in date and in linguistic forms. Both versions of the text, in my view, are the work of 1 2 3 4

R. Morris, ed. and trans., Old English Homilies and Homiletic Treatises of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, EETS os 29 and 34 (London, 1867–8, repr. 1988), pp. 107–19. Ibid., pp. 296–304. S. O’Brien, ed., ‘An Edition of Seven Homilies from Lambeth Palace Library MS 487’ (unpubl. D. Phil. dissertation, Oxford University, 1985). R. Warner, ed., Early English Homilies from the Twelfth Century MS Vesp. D. XIV, EETS os 152 (London, 1917), pp. 11–16.

vii

Preface Ælfric and so it seemed best to make both available in the form in which he issued them. In addition, I have included a Latin text of De duodecim abusiuis from a twelfth-century English manuscript, Oxford, Jesus College 3; this is a copy of the Cyprianic recension, the recension which Ælfric used, and gives a good idea of the kind of Latin text from which he was working. His principal source for the vices and virtues section of the text, Alcuin’s De uirtutibus et uitiis, is readily available, although not in a modern critical edition, and I have not included it here.5

Acknowledgements This edition has been prepared over a long time and I owe many debts of gratitude. I should like to thank the librarians of University College, Dublin, and Trinity College, Dublin, the Parker Library in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (where I should particularly like to thank Gill Cannell and Catherine Hall), the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and the British Library. Thanks also to Malcolm Godden, Timothy Graham, Colin Ireland, Rohini Jayatilaka, Niall MacMonagle, Niamh Pattwell, Don Scragg and Janet Wilson. My special thanks to Aidan Breen, who died while this book was in press, for his help, and to Michael Lapidge for his forbearance. I should also like to thank the National University of Ireland for a publication grant.

5

PL 101, 613–38D.

viii

Abbreviations Assmann

CCCC CCCM CCSL CH I CH II CH III CSEL EETS Fehr

Hellmann

Ker LS MRTS MGH PG PL Pope

Angelsächsische Homilien und Heiligenleben, ed. B. Assmann, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 3 (Kassel, 1889; repr. with a supplementary introduction by P. Clemoes, Darmstadt, 1964) Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Medievalis Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies. The First Series. Text, ed. P. Clemoes, EETS ss 17 (Oxford, 1997) Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: The Second Series: Text, ed. M. Godden, EETS ss 5 (Oxford, 1979) M. Godden, Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: Introduction, Commentary and Glossary, EETS ss 18 (Oxford, 2000) Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum Early English Text Society B. Fehr, Die Hirtenbriefe Ælfrics in altenglischer und lateinischer Fassung, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 9 (Hamburg, 1914; repr. with a supplementary introduction by P. Clemoes, Darmstadt, 1966) ‘Pseudo-Cyprianus de XII abusivis saeculi’, ed. S. Hellmann, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, Reihe 3, Band 4, Heft 1 (Leipzig, 1909), pp. 1–62 N. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957) Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, 4 vols., ed. W. Skeat, EETS os 76, 82, 94, 114 (Oxford, 1881–1900; repr. as 2 vols., 1966) Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies Monumenta Germaniae Historica Patrologia Graeca, ed. J.-P. Migne, 162 vols. (Paris, 1857–66) Patrologia Latina, ed. J.-P. Migne, 221 vols. (Paris, 1844–64) Homilies of Ælfric: A Supplementary Collection, 2 vols., ed. J. Pope, EETS os 259 and 260 (Oxford, 1967–8)

ix

Sigla of Manuscripts containing the Old English Texts C G L P R S V W Xi

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 303 London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian D.xiv Cambridge, University Library, Ii.1.33 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 115 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 178 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 116 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 421 London, British Library, Cotton Julius E.vii London, Lambeth Palace Library 487

Editorial Conventions In the Old English texts edited here, punctuation, word division and capitalisation are all modern and abbreviations have been silently expanded in the text. Quotation marks are not used for direct discourse. The following signs are used: [ ] indicates a letter that a scribe has deleted or subpuncted in the manuscript. / indicates a line break in the manuscript. `´ indicates insertions by scribes. om. indicates omitted. Where the apparatus says, for example, om. S, it means that this one word has been omitted; where more than one word has been omitted, the omitted passage is given in full in the apparatus. Where a list of manuscripts is given in the apparatus, the spelling is that of the first in the list.

x

Introduction 1 The Old English Manuscripts and the Transmission of the Texts The Old English manuscripts Six manuscripts of Ælfric’s work on the twelve abuses are extant and they fall into two groups of three manuscripts, one group containing the stand-alone short treatise De duodecim abusiuis and the other a composite text composed of an introductory paragraph and an account of the eight chief vices and eight chief virtues, corresponding to Ælfric’s LS xvi, lines 267–381, followed by a text of the entire De duodecim abusiuis. I will refer to this composite text as De octo uitiis.1 The manuscripts in the first group are Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 115 (P), CCCC 303 (C) and British Library, Cotton Vespasian D.xiv (G); those in the second group, with the composite text, are CCCC 178 (R), Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 116 (S) and London, Lambeth Palace Library 487 (Xi).2 In addition, we have three manuscripts which preserve Ælfric’s treatment of the eight vices and virtues as part of LS xvi; these are London, British Library, Cotton Julius E.vii (W), CCCC 303 (C) and Cambridge, University Library, Ii.1.33 (L). This text begins with an account of the saints, covering the Old Testament, Christ and the martyrs and other saints of the New Testament; it then has a passage on the devil’s attempts to seduce Christians, leading into descriptions of the three virtues of faith, hope and charity (the heahmægnu), the eight chief vices (heafodleahtras) and the eight chief virtues (heafodmægnu). We also know of two further copies of Ælfric’s twelve abuses text in manuscripts which have survived but are now incomplete and from which this text has been lost. One of these is W, described below, and the other is V, CCCC 421. This manuscript is a composite volume: Part 2 was written at an unknown centre, possibly Canterbury, in the first half of the eleventh century and contains 1 2

The three titles in the manuscripts are De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus (R), De octo uitiis et de xii abusiuis (S) and De octo uiciis et de duodecim abusiuis huius seculi (Xi). The sigla used are those devised by Peter Clemoes for the Catholic Homilies. On connections among the manuscripts containing Ælfric’s De duodecim abusiuis and some other works of his, see A. Kleist, ‘Assembling Ælfric: Reconstructing the Rationale behind Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Compilations’, in A Companion to Ælfric, ed. H. Magennis and M. Swan (Leiden and Boston, 2009), pp. 369–98.

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Introduction a collection of vernacular homilies,3 while Part 1, which also contains vernacular homilies, was written in Exeter between 1050 and 1072.4 The original items now end on p. 354 with an incomplete copy of Ælfric’s CH I 21 (for the Ascension), but Parker’s table of contents lists De duodecim abusiuis as beginning on p. 356, the verso of the leaf which contained the end of the Ascension homily; it was, then, in Part 2, the earlier part of the manuscript. This item was missing by the time that Wanley described the manuscript in 1705. It is clear from the titles of the text in both W and V that they contained copies of the stand-alone text, not the composite version, whose title, in all three manuscripts which contain it, begins De octo uitiis. Manuscripts containing De duodecim abusiuis as a stand-alone text P Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 115, and Kansas University Library Y 104 (Ker 332)

P is a collection of homilies and short pieces.5 It has 157 medieval leaves; the measurement varies somewhat, but the texts in the main hand are written on leaves measuring 247 × 155 mm, with a written space 195 × 98 mm.6 The manuscript is foliated i–v, 1–139, 139a, 140–58. 139 of the leaves were written in a single hand of the second half of the eleventh century;7 this hand is very like that of British Library, Cotton Faustina A.x, a manuscript which contains Ælfric’s Grammar and Glossary and which is of unknown origin.8 Six leaves were removed from 3

4 5

6 7 8

See CH I, p. 47, and Pope, pp. 80–3, but, for caution on a Canterbury origin, see J. Wilcox, ed., Wulfstan Texts and Other Homiletic Materials, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile 8, MRTS 219 (Tempe, AZ, 2000), pp. 1 and 7–8. Wilcox’s verdict is: ‘Where the contents overlap with other manuscripts, they [i.e. CCCC 419 and 421, companion volumes] show textual affiliation with south-eastern manuscripts, most fully with Cambridge, Trinity College, B. 15. 34, which was written at Christ Church, Canterbury. The language of the homilies, mostly standard late-West Saxon but with considerable tolerance for non-standard forms, is most close to the language of south-eastern manuscripts, especially those from Canterbury. The idiosyncratic content of the two manuscripts, though, with their high number of unique anonymous homilies militates against a Canterbury origin, where the works of Ælfric were readily available and extensively copied at the time. Instead the range of contents suggests that these manuscripts were compiled in a scriptorium less central to the mainstream tradition than those of Canterbury, although one dominated by Canterbury influences’ (p. 1). Described by Ker, no. 69; Pope, pp. 80–3; CH II, pp. lxxi–lxxii; CH I, pp. 46–8; and Wilcox, Wulfstan Texts, pp. 7–13. As well as the description in Ker, no. 332, the manuscript is described in Pope, pp. 53–9; CH II, pp. lxvi–lxviii; CH I, pp. 33–6; and C. Franzen, Worcester Manuscripts, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile 6, MRTS 186 (Tempe, AZ, 1998), pp. 44–54. These measurements are from Franzen, Worcester Manuscripts, p. 45. Fols. 140–7 and fols. 148–55 were added to the original core of the manuscript. See Ker, pp. 402–3, and Pope, p. 53. Pope, p. 58, says that the same scribe was almost certainly responsible for both manuscripts.

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The Old English Manuscripts and the Transmission of the Texts the manuscript at some point after about 1200, when a list of contents was drawn up; one of these leaves is now Kansas University Library Y 104. The manuscript is a collection of five booklets and the texts written in the main hand were copied in three blocks or booklets, the quiring of each of which had to be adjusted at the end: (a)

Quires 1–9, fols. 1–67: Ælfric’s Hexameron; CH I 19; CH I 20; Pope xviii; LS xvii; Pope xix; CH II 19; CH II 20; CH II 21; LS xxv, lines 812–62 (on the three estates); De cogitatione; a short piece on abstinence; a short piece on baptising infants; a short piece forbidding the eating of blood and condemning those English who adopt Danish practices (elsewhere called De sanguine); Ælfric’s De septiformi spiritu; Pope xxii (Wyrdwriteras); LS xix, lines 155–258 (on Absalom and Achitophel and thieves and traitors).

(b)

Quires 10–13, fols. 68–94, and the Kansas leaf: CH II 35; CH II 36; CH II 38; Assmann iv;9 CH II 39, with Pope xxviii; CH II 40.

(c)

Quires 14–19, fols. 95–139: Sermo ad populum (Ælfric’s Letter to Wulfgeat, adapted to form a homily); a piece on Antichrist, adapted from the Preface to CH I; Pope xx; Ælfric’s Judges; De duodecim abusiuis secundum disputacionem Cypriani episcopi et martiris; Interrogationes Sigeuulfi presbiteri; LS xviii.

Fol. 65 is an inserted leaf with two short pieces, written at the end of the eleventh century by two scribes, whose contents are not included in the list above. The extract from LS xix is on two singleton leaves, fols. 66 and 67, written by the main scribe and bound between the first and second booklets.10 These three leaves form the end of the first booklet. The second booklet ends on the verso of fol. 94 with CH II 40; one-third of the page is left blank. At the end of the third booklet, after LS xviii, a page and a half are left blank (half of fol. 147r and all of the verso) and it seems from the make-up of the last quire that the scribe expected to add further material.11 Two other booklets at the end of the manuscript are in different hands. Fols. 140–7 form a folded booklet (folded across the middle) containing a sermon on hell; this may have been written earlier than the bulk of the manuscript, having been ‘clearly once independent of the others’.12 It is similar to Vercelli IX. Fols. 148–55 form another booklet, with eleven short texts on dreams and prognostics, as well as two paragraphs on the number of masses and psalms equivalent to different fasts on fols. 148–53; these are all in a twelfth9

This is lost apart from the Kansas leaf. P. Robinson, ‘Self-Contained Units in Composite Manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Period’, AngloSaxon England 7 (1978), 231–8, at 235. See also D. Scragg, ‘An Unpublished Vernacular Exhortation from Post-Conquest England and its Manuscript Context’, in Essays on Anglo-Saxon and Related Themes in Memory of Lynne Grundy, ed. J. Roberts and J. Nelson, King’s College London Medieval Studies 17 (London, 2000), 511–24, at 513. 11 Scragg, ‘An Unpublished Vernacular Exhortation’, p. 512. 12 Robinson, ‘Self-Contained Units’, p. 235. 10

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Introduction century hand. Fols. 154–5 have some lines in the tremulous hand, taken from CH II 35, and a note on Adam in another hand, as well as some scribbles. Robinson points out that ‘this collection could not have been bound together until some time after its component parts were copied’.13 A table of contents on fol. v, added c. 1200, lists all the texts as far as LS xviii, including the pieces on fol. 65, and it is possible that it was added when these folios were bound together.14 The items in the main hand are probably all by Ælfric.15 The first booklet contains ‘general sermons’,16 followed by a collection of short pieces, the second homilies for the Common of Saints and the third Old Testament pieces, some sermons, De duodecim abusiuis and the Interrogationes. The group of texts in P seems to be of mixed origin17 and Pope wrote that the compiler was evidently ‘making a fresh compilation, perhaps at intervals, from several different exemplars’.18 Scragg suggests that P and Cotton Faustina A.x should be viewed together ‘as part of a collection of the works of Ælfric, with three books or booklets now gathered together in Hatton 115 but originally made separately’.19 He adds that the ‘impression of an idiosyncratic assemblage of items, made in separate parts, is reinforced by the fact that the scribe made many small but significant textual changes, adding or subtracting sentences especially from the beginning and ends of items, clearly to make them fit in with his now irrecoverable purpose’.20 Two of the texts in the third booklet are from what Skeat called the ‘appendix’ to LS: item 31, fols. 116–21, De duodecim abusiuis secundum disputacionem Cypriani episcopi et martiris, and item 32, Interrogationes Sigeuulfi presbiteri.21 The different abuses are numbered in the margin of De duodecim abusiuis in the same black ink as the text hand. Small capitals are filled in with red. The hand of the main scribe is ‘not like the hands of other Anglo-Saxon manuscripts from Worcester’,22 but the manuscript must have been in Worcester by the first half of the thirteenth century, as it was glossed by the tremulous hand. Clemoes regards P as likely to be of West Midland origin23 and the set which was the source of its CH I items may have gone direct to where P was written, as it 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23

Ibid., p. 31. See C. Franzen, The Tremulous Hand of Worcester (Oxford, 1991), p. 40. Clemoes, CH I, p. 35, states that he does not consider that the pieces on infant baptism and the piece headed De sanguine (heading in a later hand) are by Ælfric. The phrase is from Scragg, ‘An Unpublished Vernacular Exhortation’, p. 516. Pope, p. 58. Pope, p. 58, n. 3. Scragg, ‘An Unpublished Vernacular Exhortation’, p. 516. Scragg notes here that the same scribe wrote P and Cotton Faustina A.x. Ibid. The principal manuscript of LS, W, originally ended, as we know from the original table of contents, with three items which are not saints’ lives: DE Interrogationibus sigewulfi presbyter[i], DE falsis diis and DE XII abusiuis. Skeat, the editor of LS, termed these items an appendix (LS, II, p. ix, n. 1). Ker, p. 403. CH I, p. 166; Pope, p. 81, says that P seems to ‘have been written in some scriptorium in the south-west’.

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The Old English Manuscripts and the Transmission of the Texts is demonstrably different in type to material known to have been at Worcester. P also shares a source with the south-eastern manuscript G.24 C CCCC 303 (Ker 57)

C is a large collection of homilies and saints’ lives, mainly by Ælfric, from the first half of the twelfth century, probably later rather than earlier in that period.25 It has 182 leaves, measuring 260 × 196 mm, with a written space of 213–203 × 149–138 mm. This is a simply produced manuscript, with minuscule rubrics and large red initials at the beginning of the pericopes and homilies and black initials highlighted in red within the texts. The manuscript is paginated on the rectos 1–141 and 141–361. Forty-four leaves seem to be missing from the beginning of the manuscript26 and an unknown number from the end, but the remaining texts fall into five groups, the first four of which are chronologically arranged in the order of the church year: (a)

Items 1–17, pp. 1–75: homilies for the temporale from the second Sunday after Epiphany27 to Easter, mostly from CH I and II.

(b)

Items 18–34, pp. 76–185: texts for the sanctorale from 3 May to 6 December. All but four of these texts are by Ælfric and all but one of the Ælfric items are from CH I (the other item by him is Assmann iii, part of a late re-issue of CH I).

(c)

Items 35–40, pp. 185–202: six homilies for the common of saints (four from CH II and two anonymous).

(d)

Items 41–61, pp. 203–90: texts for the temporale from Rogationtide to the twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, largely from CH I and II but including one item from LS (LS xvii, De Auguriis, for Rogationtide) and three anonymous items for Rogationtide.

(e)

Items 62–73, pp. 290–360: miscellaneous items, almost all by Ælfric: LS xvi (headed Sermo de memoria sanctorum quando uolueris); De duodecim abusiuis (on pp. 296–301, with the title Sermo de duodecim

CH II, p. lxviii. As well as Ker’s description, the manuscript is described by Pope, pp. 18–20; CH II, pp. xxxiii–xxxvii; CH I, pp. 5–7; and T. Graham, R. Grant, P. Lucas and E. Treharne, ed., Corpus Christi College, Cambridge I: MSS 41, 57, 191, 303, 367, 383, 422, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile 11, MRTS 265 (Tempe, AZ, 2000), pp. 55–66. Ker, p. 99, dated the manuscript to the first half of the twelfth century; for the suggestion that it was late in that period, see E. Treharne, ‘The Production and Script of Manuscripts Containing English Religious Texts in the First Half of the Twelfth Century’, in Rewriting Old English in the Twelfth Century, ed. M. Swan and E. Treharne (2000), pp. 11–40, at 28–30, and E. Treharne, The Old English Life of St Nicholas with the Old English Life of St Giles, Leeds Texts and Monographs, n.s. 15 (Leeds, 1997), pp. 20–1 (this work contains a very detailed description and discussion of the manuscript at pp. 4–28). 26 The medieval foliation begins at fol. 45 on what is now p. 1 of the manuscript. 27 Only the last four lines of this homily are now extant; see Ker, no. 57, item 1. 24 25

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Introduction Abusiuis secundum disputationem sancti Cypriani); Pope xix; Pope xxi; Ælfric’s Interrogationes; LS xii and xiii; Latin and English forms of excommunication; the Absalom and Achitophel pendant to LS xix; LS xxv; and Ælfric’s version of the Book of Judith (Assmann ix).

The manuscript is the work of three hands: one wrote pp. 1–50 and most of pp. 203–362, the second pp. 51–202 and the third a couple of short passages, as well as being the main corrector and the miniator and rubricator.28 Treharne suggests that this third scribe was ‘perhaps authoritative enough to be the manuscript’s compiler’.29 The compiler of C or its source appears to have drawn upon different exemplars to produce this collection, as the Ælfric texts are drawn from different lines of transmission.30 The collection may have been assembled in the twelfth century, with the compiler ‘picking and choosing from a range of earlier manuscripts’ to produce an order based on the church year.31 The last section of C contains all three texts from the so-called ‘appendix’ to LS in W (De duodecim abusiuis, De falsis diis and the Interrogationes), as well as other texts from LS.32 The only other items in this section are Pope xix, Ælfric’s version of the Book of Judith and the anonymous Latin and English forms of excommunication. If this section was assembled by the compiler, then he was drawing on Ælfric’s LS or a selection drawn from this collection and was choosing only items which were not saints’ lives. This collection clearly included all the items in the ‘appendix’ to Skeat’s manuscript of LS, W (not, of course, signalled as an appendix in the manuscript itself). That an item from LS (De auguriis) was included in section (d) of the manuscript suggests that the source of the LS items in section (e) may have been available when section (d) was being compiled, though no saints’ lives from LS are included in the sanctorale earlier in the manuscript (in section (b)). Either LS was not available at this point, or the compiler choose to restrict himself to the saints celebrated in CH I and II, whose feasts were kept by the laity, and excluded the more monastic saints in LS. If this were the case, then it would suggest that the distinction made by Ælfric at the end of the tenth century was still a valid one in the middle of the twelfth. On the other hand, it may be the case that the LS source became available only at a fairly late stage in the compilation of the collection. It is striking that in this manuscript LS xvi precedes De duodecim abusiuis, as xvi contains the account of the vices and virtues to which the twelve abuses text was added in the composite version. De duodecim abusiuis is written as a continuous text, with no breaks to mark the different abuses (there is no case of an abuse beginning on a fresh line) and 28

On this third hand, see Treharne, ‘Production and Script of Manuscripts’, p. 29. Ibid. 30 As Godden, CH II, p. xxxvii, notes: ‘the compiler of C or its source must have had access to a considerable range of earlier manuscripts, and drawn on them freely to produce his own collection’. See also S. Irvine, ‘Compilation and Use of Manuscripts Containing Old English in the Twelfth Century’, in Rewriting Old English in the Twelfth Century, ed. M. Swan and E. Treharne (2000), pp. 41–61, at 45–7. 31 See Irvine, ‘Compilation and Use’, p. 47. 32 See below, pp. 31–2, on the ‘appendix’. 29

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The Old English Manuscripts and the Transmission of the Texts no numbers in the margin to number the abuses. The beginning of a fresh abuse is marked only by a slightly larger than usual capital. Ker assigned the manuscript to Rochester on the basis of the script (‘small neat script of the “prickly” kind found often in Rochester (and Canterbury) manuscripts of s. xii1’)33 and its relationship to Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 340+342, an early-eleventh-century collection whose provenance is Rochester.34 The texts from the CH in parts (c) and (d) of the manuscript derive from the second volume of Bodley 340 and 342, though with at least one intervening copy,35 and some items in C are related to some in CCCC 162, again probably a Rochester manuscript.36 Clemoes also says that the manuscript is likely on textual grounds to have been written at Rochester and Mary Richards notes that two of the three anonymous saints’ lives in the manuscript have Rochester connections. She feels that such manuscripts were connected with the monks of Rochester Cathedral, who wished to have simple teaching materials in the vernacular, for preaching in English or for use in the instruction of young students.37 Susan Irvine has disputed this, suggesting that the vernacular manuscripts from Rochester Cathedral Library appear to have been for devotional reading rather than preaching or classroom purposes and that, if available to a wider reading audience than the monks alone, might have been ‘read and culled by clergy who relied on the vernacular for their own education or preaching material’.38 G British Library, Cotton Vespasian D.xiv, fols. 4–169 (Ker 209)

G, fols. 4–169, dated by Ker to the middle of the twelfth century, contains a varied collection of fifty-three texts.39 This part of the manuscript has 166 original leaves, measuring 189 × 123 mm, with a written space of 147 × 92 mm. There are multiple foliations and that used ordinarily in referring to the manuscript is a pencil foliation which includes the parchment flyleaves and in which the texts begin on fol. 4. The original compilation consisted of what are now articles 3–19, 21–2, 27–32, 35–53 and some now lost material after article 53.40 Additions in 33 34

35 36 37 38 39

40

Ker, p. 105. Ker, p. 105; the Rochester library catalogue preserved in the manuscript of the Textus Roffensis shows that Bodley 340+342 was there c. 1124 (see Ker, p. 367). See also K. Sisam, ‘MSS. Bodley 340 and 342: Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies’, in his Studies in the History of Old English Literature (Oxford, 1953), pp. 148–98 (first published Review of English Studies 7–9 (1931–3)), at 152. Ker, p. 99; CH II, p. xxxvi. CH II, pp. xxxii–xxxvii. M. Richards, Texts and their Traditions in the Medieval Library of Rochester Cathedral Priory, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 78 (Philadelphia, 1988), at 92, 94 and 119. Irvine, ‘Compilation and Use’, pp. 52–3 (quotation from p. 53) and p. 61. As well as the description in Ker, the manuscript is described by Pope, pp. 24–6; CH II, pp. xl–xlii; CH I, pp. 16–18; and Wilcox, Wulfstan Texts, pp. 53–64. It is also discussed in M. Förster, ‘Der Inhalt der altenglischen Handschrift Vespasian D xiv’, Englische Studien 54 (1920), 46–68; Richards, ‘Date and Provenance’; and R. Handley, ‘British Museum MS. Cotton Vespasian D.xiv’, Notes and Queries, n.s. 21 (1974), 243–50. The contents were edited by Warner in Early English Homilies. The probable uses of the manuscript are discussed by Irvine, ‘Compilation and Use’, pp. 48–54. Handley, ‘Vespasian D.xiv’, p. 244.

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Introduction originally blank spaces are usually in the main hand of the manuscript. The texts are all in English and ‘of a homiletic and proverbial nature’,41 ranging in date from at least as early as Ælfric’s CH I to works of the twelfth century, including a translation of a Latin sermon by Ralph d’Escures, bishop of Rochester (1108–14) and archbishop of Canterbury (1114–22) and Old English translations of two extracts from the Elucidarius by Honorius of Autun (died c. 1151). About half of the manuscript consists of works by Ælfric. The manuscript is probably the work of three hands;42 the main scribe, who wrote most of the manuscript, has a hand consistent with the middle of the twelfth century, while Treharne suggests that the second scribe ‘appears to use features of script which can be dated slightly later than the mid-twelfth century’.43 G was assembled in five blocks of quires, as Rima Handley has shown, and often additions were made at the end of quires: (a)

Ker, items 1–2: Additions on two quires at the beginning of the manuscript: extract from CH I 1 and Ælfric’s Letter to Sigefyrth (now fragmentary)

(b)

Ker, items 3–20: Old English translation of some of the Disticha Catonis; definition of the Trinity extracted from Ælfric’s CH I 20; extract from Ælfric’s Second Old English Letter for Wulfstan, on the Ten Commandments; De .xii. abusiuis secundum disputationem sancti Cypriani martyris; De .VIII. principalibus uiciis (equivalent to LS xvi, lines 267–311); De .VIII. uirtutibus (equivalent to LS xvi, lines 312– 81); extract from CH I 25 (Gospel text); extract from CH I 26 (gospel text); part of Old English passio of St James the Greater; extract from CH II 27 (on the Seven Sleepers); first part of CH II 24 (homily for feast of St Peter); CH I 28; CH II 28; CH I 30 (first part); CH II 29 (most); CH I 30 (second part); CH I 32. Added in a blank space here are an extract from Pope iv and an adaptation of two sentences from CH I 21.

(c)

Ker, items 21–6: first part of CH II 32; second part of CH I 34. Added on are a brief extract from CH II 30; a short passage quoting Augustine; an extract from Ælfric’s First Old English Letter for Wulfstan; and some prognostications.

(d)

Ker, items 27–34: A piece on Antichrist; CH I 40; second part of CH I 36; a translation of John 14.1–13; Old English Gospel of Nicodemus; abridged Old English Vindicta Salvatoris. Added at the end are Assmann xvii, on the fifteen days before Judgment, and prophecies based on thunder.

41

Ibid., p. 243. Though Treharne, ‘Production and Script’, pp. 31 and 32, n. 71, points out that Ker seems undecided about whether there were two or three hands and suggests that it is possible that scribes 1 and 2 are ‘actually one and the same, and that the manuscript represents a number of stints over a period of time by the main scribe’ (p. 32, n.71). 43 Ibid., p. 34. 42

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The Old English Manuscripts and the Transmission of the Texts (e)

Ker, items 35–53: Old English translation of part of Alcuin’s De uirtutibus et uitiis; extract from CH I 37; CH II 20; CH II 21; extract from CH I 18; extract from CH I 27; CH II 30; a homily on St Neot; Old English translation of a sermon by Ralph d’Escures; an Old English version of the Trinubium Annae; short Old English account of the captivity of the Jews in Babylon and a note giving the number of years from the Creation to the Incarnation; abbreviated translation of Honorius Augustodunensis, Elucidarium, book II, chs. 1–6. Added here are an abbreviated translation of Honorius Augustodunensis, Elucidarium, book I, chs. 23–5; an extract from CH I 19; a homily on the Phoenix; an extract from CH I 13; an extract from CH I 10, which ends imperfectly.

Blocks (b) to (e) were written first, while block (a) seems to have been added after the manuscript was put together. The second article in block (a) was written in the main hand of the manuscript, however, so the addition must be close in date to the other blocks. Handley suggests that the items in blocks (b) - (e) were copied from a single exemplar in a sequence whose liturgical items were based on the calendar.44 If this is the case, then the exemplar must have gathered together texts from different textual traditions; the CH I and some of the CH II texts in G go back to the textual tradition represented by Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 340 and 342, CCCC 198 and CCCC 162, whereas other CH II texts agree with P in both errors and authentic revisions.45 Other items, like the translation of the sermon by Ralph d’Escures,46 were written in the twelfth century so that, if most of the manuscript goes back to a single exemplar, it too would have had to be twelfth-century. The remaining, non-liturgical, material fits in with this selection: ‘the pieces which have been selected represent the elementary essentials of the Christian faith’.47 The compiler (whether the scribe or whoever commissioned the manuscript) typically extracted from the texts selected, rather than copying whole texts: ‘the compiler of the manuscript seems systematically to have selected and edited his material with a freedom and assurance not matched in any other collection of homilies from the period after the Conquest’.48 De duodecim abusiuis (article 6), on fols. 15–21, forms part of what was originally the beginning of the manuscript, block (b). The texts in this block begin with didactic material and De duodecim abusiuis is preceded by a piece on the 44

Handley, ‘Vespasian D.xiv’, p. 244. Godden, CH II, p. xli; Godden’s conclusion is that ‘The compiler must have drawn on a composite collection belonging to the DEF tradition but must also have had access to work belonging to a later stage of Ælfric’s career, as is evident too from his inclusion of Ælfric’s letters for Wulfstan.’ 46 On this text, see E. Treharne, ‘The Life of English in the Mid-Twelfth Century: Ralph D’Escures’s Homily on the Virgin Mary’, in Writers of the Reign of Henry II: Twelve Essays, ed. R. Kennedy and S. Meecham-Jones (New York and Basingstoke, 2006), pp. 169–86. 47 Handley, ‘Vespasian D.xiv’, p. 244. 48 Ibid., p. 243; see also Irvine, ‘Compilation and Use’, p. 50: ‘The evidence indisputably points to a compiler working around the middle of the twelfth century who, far from reproducing uncritically a random sample of Old English, is organising and adapting the material for practical purposes.’ 45

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Introduction ten commandments and followed by two extracts from LS xvi, headed De .VIII. principalibus uiciis and De .VIII. uirtutibus. Articles 5 to 8, then, all consist of catalogues: of the commandments, the abuses, the vices and virtues. That the extracts on the eight vices and virtues, which form part of the composite text, De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus, follow De duodecim abusiuis here might suggest that we have in G an alternative arrangement of the composite text (twelve abuses followed by vices and virtues),49 but I do not believe this to be the case. The G text lacks the introductory paragraph found in the three texts of the composite version and does not have the composite title;50 instead it has a title similar to that of the other two stand-alone texts.51 We also know from the numerous instances in the manuscript that the G compiler favoured extracting from texts. It seems much more likely that the collocation is a coincidence and that the compiler was responsible for extracting these two catalogues of vices and virtues. Alternatively, it is possible that the pieces on vices and virtues had been circulated in this stand-alone form by Ælfric before being incorporated in LS xvi and that this format has survived only in G. The beginning of De duodecim abusiuis is signalled by a one-and-a-half line title, De xii abusiuis secundum disputationem sancti cipriani martyris, with a large, decorated capital N marking the beginning of the text and initials two lines high marking the beginning of each section. All abuses but the first and fourth begin on a fresh line.52 There are no numbers in the margins. Ker considers that G is ‘probably from Rochester or Canterbury’, while Handley argues for a Christ Church, Canterbury origin, at least for the original compilation, and Richards for a Rochester origin.53 Handley suggests that a ‘man working at Christ Church, Canterbury, would have had available to him sufficient collections of Anglo-Saxon works from which to make the selection preserved in this manuscript, and sufficient interest in preserving the relicts of an earlier culture and transmitting them to his own time’.54 Richards, on the other hand, contends that the ‘combined evidence of language and orthography’ point to Rochester.55 Treharne favours Christ Church and argues that the most likely purpose is ‘that this is a monastic production originally intended for an exclusively monastic

49

50 51

52 53 54 55

As suggested by J. Hill, ‘The Dissemination of Ælfric’s Lives of Saints: A Preliminary Survey’, in Holy Men and Holy Women: Old English Prose Saints’ Lives and their Contexts, ed. P. Szarmach (Albany, NY, 1996), pp. 235–59, at 259, n. 63: ‘It is the same adaptation in Vespasian D.xiv (Ker 209) but here the material that forms one substantial homily in CCCC 178 is divided up into shorter pieces with separate Latin headings.’ See above, n. 1, for the wording in the three manuscripts of the composite text. P: De duodecim abusiuis secundum disputationem cypriani episcopi et martiris; C: Sermo de duodecim Abusiuis Secundum disputationem sancti Cypriani; G: De .xii. abusiuis secundum disputationem sancti Cypriani martyris. The first abuse, ‘Nu gyf se wite. . .’, begins in mid-line with a large capital N. Ker, p. 277; Handley, ‘Vespasian D.xiv’, pp. 247–50; Richards, ‘Date and Provenance’, pp. 31–5. Treharne, ‘Dates and Origins’, p. 232, says that Handley’s argument for Christ Church is persuasive. Handley, ‘Vespasian D.xiv’, p. 249. Richards, ‘Date and Provenance’, p. 34, and Texts and their Traditions, pp. 93–4.

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The Old English Manuscripts and the Transmission of the Texts audience’.56 The manuscript was read and annotated by a woman at the end of the twelfth century.57 Manuscripts containing the composite text R CCCC 178, pp. 1–270, + CCCC 162, pp. 139–60 (Ker 41)

This is a collection of homilies and other texts, all probably by Ælfric58 and all copied in the first half of the eleventh century by two scribes.59 There are 144 original leaves, measuring c. 287 × 195 mm, with a written space of c. 225 × 130 mm. The eleven leaves now in CCCC 162 seem to have been transferred by Parker from CCCC 178 and they belong between pp. 30 and 33 of CCCC 178. There is a Parkerian pagination on the rectos of R, which skips from p. 75 to p. 79, in the course of De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus. The titles of the texts are in metallic red rustic capitals and there are red initials also. The pieces are arranged in two groups, the rationale for which is explained by a note at the end of the first group, in the hand of the first scribe; it explains that each group contains twelve texts, with the first twelve intended to be said whenever one wished and the second twelve intended for specific days, and it lists the twelve texts in the second book.60 It does not, however, mention six short additional pieces between the eleventh and twelfth longer items in the first book. The note also says that two pieces, ‘an be þam heafodleahtrum. ⁊ oðer be þam wiglungum’, have been augmented; these augmented texts are the De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus and De auguriis. The last piece in the manuscript ends imperfectly and eight more leaves were extant in the sixteenth century, as is evident from the pagination and from two tables of contents, one thirteenthcentury (by the ‘tremulous hand’) and the other Parkerian, which both list De septiformi spiritu after the last extant homily; it is possible that some other items were also lost.61 The full contents are as follows: 56 57 58

59

60 61

Treharne, ‘The Life of English’, p. 171. See Handley, ‘Vespasian D.xiv’, p. 247, and Irvine, ‘Compilation and Use’, p. 51. Clemoes, CH I, p. 39, says that he does not believe that two of the short pieces, De sanguine prohibito or De inphantibus non baptizandis, are by Ælfric; Godden accepts the first piece but casts doubt on the second (CH II, p. lxvii, n. 1); Pope, pp. 55–7, defends both pieces as Ælfric’s. As well as the description by Ker, the manuscript is described by Pope, pp. 62–7; CH II, pp. lxviii–lxx; CH I, pp. 37–40. The first scribe copied from p. 1 to p. 169 (as far as the first five pages of the first homily of the second book) and the second pp. 170–270. Pope, p. 62, noted that, in his opinion, both hands ‘may be dated only a little before the middle of the century’. See below, p. 24, for the text of the note. It is printed in full by Ker, p. 62. See Ker, p. 60; Pope, p. 66, and P. Acker, ‘Three Tables of Contents, One Old English Homiliary in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 178’, in Old English Literature in its Manuscript Context, ed. J. Lionarons, Medieval European Studies 5 (Morgantown, WV, 2004), 121–37.

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Introduction (a)

pp. 1–163, with pp. 139–60 of CCCC 162: CH I 1; Hexameron; Interrogationes Sigewulfi; CH I 24; CH I 19; Pope xi; De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus; LS xvii; Pope xviii; CH II 28; Assmann iv; De anticristo, a short piece adapted from the Preface to CH I; a short piece entitled De sanguine prohibito; an excerpt from LS xxv, entitled De tribus ordinibus saeculi; a short piece on the baptism of infants, De inphantibus non baptizandis; a passage excerpted from CH II 39, on the end of the world and the intercession of Mary and other saints, entitled here De uaniloquio neglegentium; De auaritia, an excerpt from CH II 26; Pope xxi.

(b)

pp. 164–270: CH I 13; CH I 2; CH I 6; CH II 3; CH I 9; CH II 7; CH II 14, with a passage from I 14 added at the end; CH I 15; CH I 16; CH II 22; CH I 21; CH I 22.

The text of De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus is on pp. 73–88. The text was clearly corrected against an examplar. The presentation of the text was refined gradually, bearing witness to several generations of use. The vices, virtues and abuses are all written continuously and do not begin on separate lines. All are numbered in the margins, with separate numbering for the vices, virtues and the abuses. The names of the vices in Latin, with numbers, have been added in the margins of pp. 74–5, with attention drawn to them by sigla; they are possibly a little later than the text. The first two virtues, on p. 75, are named in Latin in the same script as the Latin names of the vices, with a similar siglum, but the remaining virtues, on the following two pages, are marked with a different type of siglum, with the Latin names in a different hand, and these appear to be distinctly later than the text. There is no Latin name in the margin for the eighth virtue. There is an Old English heading signalling the beginning of the vices on p. 74, BE ÐAM EahTA heAFODLEAHTRAN, and one signalling the beginning of the virtues, BE ÐAM EAHTA HeAFODMÆIGNA, on p. 75, both in rustic capitals in the hand which is almost certainly that of Coleman, who was St Wulfstan’s chancellor in 1089 and prior of the cell at Westbury-on-Trym from 1093 until his death in 1113.62 On p. 79, the tremulous hand has added the heading Duodecima abusiua and has glossed the text throughout. The pieces from CH I in R are ‘derived from a Q-type set at Worcester’63 and, while we do not know where R was written, it was probably, as Clemoes suggested, an unknown place in the area around Worcester.64 R has connections 62

I would like to thank Catherine Hall for her comments on the additions in the margins. E. McIntyre, ‘Early-Twelfth-Century Worcester Cathedral Priory, with Special Reference to the Manuscripts Written There’ (unpubl. D.Phil. dissertation, Oxford University, 1978), pp. 40–5, examines the notes by Coleman; they are of two kinds, some in a spidery hand (e.g. the note on not preaching on the swigdagum), several of which are signed, others in rustic capitals, which are not signed and not as definitely Coleman’s as the others. McIntyre, however, makes a convincing case for his being responsible. See also N. Ker, ‘Old English Notes Signed “Coleman”’, Medium Ævum 18 (1949), 29–31, and D. Johnson and W. Rudolf, ‘More Notes by Coleman’, Medium Ævum 79 (2010), 1–13. 63 Clemoes, CH I, p. 156. 64 Ibid., pp. 164–5; see also CH II, p. lxx.

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The Old English Manuscripts and the Transmission of the Texts with Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 343, a manuscript from the second half of the twelfth century with connections to the Worcester area.65 The manuscript must have been in Worcester by shortly after the middle of the eleventh century, as it was one of the exemplars of Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 113+114. S Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 116 (Ker 333)

S is a collection of homilies, written in one large hand in the first half or towards the middle of the twelfth century.66 There are 201 original leaves, measuring c. 260 × 170 mm, with a written space of c. 203 × 135 mm. There are two different paginations and the sixteenth-century pagination of 1–396 is commonly used. Pp. 279–94 have been wrongly bound and should precede pp. 253–78. The texts are almost all by Ælfric; only the first (St Chad) and last (for Wednesday in Rogationtide) are not by him.67 The manuscript can be divided into two sections, the first covering saints’ days, mostly from CH I, and the second containing general pieces: (a)

Homilies for saints’ days: pp. 1–252, pp. 279–94 and pp. 253–61: an anonymous life of St Chad; CH I 25; CH I 26; CH I 27; CH I 29; CH I 30; CH I 31; CH I 32; Assmann iii; CH I 34; CH I 36; CH I 37; CH I 38; Assmann iv.

(b)

Pieces on general themes: pp. 261–78, 295–395: Hexameron; Inter­ rogationes; De octo uitiis et de XIIcim abusiuis; LS xvii; Pope xxi; De septiformi spiritu; De sanguine; De infantibus; De cogitatione; an anonymous homily for Wednesday in Rogationtide.

The second part of S is closely related to R. The Hexameron, Interrogationes, De octo uitiis, De auguriis and De falsis diis68 (items 17 to 21 in S) are all in R’s first book, in the same form in which they occur here and in the same order, though with other items intervening in R. De septiformi spiritu was also in R,69 as are still De sanguine (the first part only) and De infantibus. As Pope demonstrated on the basis of readings in the Interrogationes, S cannot be derived from R, but R and S shared an ancestor which closely resembled R and from which S took this sequence of texts.70 De octo uitiis et de XIIcim abusiuis is on pp. 329–47. There is no numbering in 65 66

67 68

69 70

CH II, pp. lxix–lxx. As well as the description by Ker, the manuscript is described by Pope, pp. 67–70, and CH I, pp. 40–1. For the date, see Ker, p. 403; Treharne, ‘The Production and Script’, pp. 24–7, dates it in the second quarter of the twelfth century. That is, if one accepts Pope’s persuasive arguments for attributing De sanguine and De infantibus to Ælfric; see Pope, pp. 55–7. The text of De falsis diis is defective, probably, as Ker, p. 405, suggests, because of the loss of a quire in S’s immediate exemplar. Ker points out that the gap corresponds almost exactly to eight leaves in R. Although in R it was not with the other short pieces, but came at the end of the second book, after the twelfth homily. Pope, pp. 68–9 and p. 460, n. 1.

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Introduction the margins and the vices, virtues and abuses do not begin on a fresh line, but are written as continuous text. Ker says that the hand is ‘of a type found commonly in West of England manuscripts of s. xii’.71 The manuscript was certainly at Worcester by the first half of the thirteenth century, when it was glossed by the tremulous hand, and, according to Pope, its ‘relation to R suggests that it was written in the neighbourhood of Worcester, but not necessarily at Worcester itself’.72 X i London, Lambeth Palace Library 487

Lambeth 487 is a collection of sixteen prose items, homiletic and devotional, and two verse items, all in early Middle English.73 It has 67 medieval leaves. The leaves measure 176–8 × 134 mm, with a written area of 144–60 × 81 mm, and are foliated i–iii and 1–67. Most of this manuscript was written in a single hand at the end of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century, though another hand has added the (unfinished) Ureison of Oure Louerde on fols. 65v–67r. Ker advised Sarah O’Brien that there was no reason to place the main hand later than 1200.74 The contents are: 1. Homily for Palm Sunday; 2. Sermon for Lent, mostly derived from Wulfstan; 3. Sermon for Lent; 4. Sermon concerning Sunday; 5. Sermon about the prophet Jeremiah; 6. Rhymed Pater Noster in English; 7. Sermon on the Creed; 8. Homily for the Nativity of Christ; 9. CH I 22; 10. De octo uiciis. et de duodecim abusiuis huius seculi; 11. Homily for the fifth Sunday in Lent, including an extract from CH I 14; 12. Homily for the Second Sunday after Easter; 13. Homily on the epistle 2 Cor IX.6; 14. Sermon on Sunday observance; 15. Homily on Mark VIII.34; 16. Homily on ‘Estote fortes in bello’; 17. Homily on Psalm CXXV.6; 18. Poema morale; 19. On ureisun of Oure Louerde.

As is clear, two of the texts are by Ælfric and a third text includes an extract from CH I 14. Celia Sisam has shown that the texts in the manuscript can be divided into groups: 1–5 and 9 –13 form group A, on the basis of shared orthographical characteristics, while items 7, 8, 14–17 and the Poema morale form group B.75 Item 6, the rhyming Pater Noster, has orthographical affinities with both groups. Sisam argues, persuasively, that the Lambeth scribe had before him two 71

Ker, p. 406. Pope, p. 70. 73 The manuscript is described in M. James and C. Jenkins, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Lambeth Palace, Part V (Cambridge, 1932), pp. 673–6; Wilcox, Wulfstan Texts, pp. 72–8; CH I, pp. 49–50; and Swan, ‘Old English Textual Activity’, pp. 161–4; the prose contents are described in The Index of Middle English Prose Handlist XIII: Manuscripts in Lambeth Palace Library, including those formerly in Sion College Library, ed. O. Pickering and V. O’Mara (Woodbridge, 1999), pp. 40–3. The contents have all been edited by Morris, Old English Homilies, and seven of the homilies are edited in O’Brien, ‘An Edition of Seven Homilies’. 74 O’Brien, ‘An Edition of Seven Homilies’, p. 1. 75 C. Sisam, ‘The Scribal Tradition of the Lambeth Homilies’, Review of English Studies n.s. 2 (1951), 105–13, at 106–7. 72

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The Old English Manuscripts and the Transmission of the Texts manuscripts, which she calls X and Y: X was the source for group A and Y for group B; X was clearly an older manuscript than Y, but both were ‘almost certainly twelfth-century manuscripts’.76 The three Ælfric texts all belong in group A, as does Lambeth 2, based in part on Wulfstan’s Be godcundre warnunge,77 and some other texts in group A also go back to Old English (Lambeth 1 and 3).78 The text of De octo uiciis et de duodecim abusiuis huius seculi has been altered considerably in the course of transmission, in ways which go well beyond linguistic modernisation. Sisam conjectures that, in collections like these, which, she argues, would have been used for preaching by a parish priest to his congregation, a preacher would make alterations in his copy and these alterations would then be incorporated by the next scribe to copy the collection or parts of it. However, the kinds of changes in Lambeth 10 are not restricted to changes in vocabulary, idiom and syntax and they include the very rare practice of adding Latin quotations which Ælfric gave only in Old English translation.79 Sisam says that the manuscript’s Old English material ‘may have been a last flicker’, as the manuscript has no signs of use: ‘the scribe’s errors are not corrected, and there is no sign of revision by any other hand’.80 However, the last item was added in the mid-thirteenth century, so the book was certainly still in use at that time. Swan also suggests that the collection could have been produced and used by a parish priest who had access to a monastic library or that ‘it might have been produced for, or by, a secular vowess at Worcester’;81 the high level of uncorrected mistakes in the manuscript perhaps indicates that the scribe was to be the one preaching or reading from it, ‘then such slips might be more tolerable and could be rectified in performance were the homiletic items to be preached’.82 De octo uiciis. et de duodecim abusiuis huius seculi occupies fols. 37v to 45r. The title is rubricated and Latin words and quotations in the course of the text are also in red ink, in the main hand. They were written after the text and, in one case, space was left for a quotation that was never filled in; this is in the fifth virtue, where Nostra autem conuersatio in celis est was never filled in by the scribe. Some of the gaps for the names of the virtues were also never filled in. Some English capitals were also written in red or, again, a gap was left. The rubrication 76 77

78 79

80 81

82

Ibid., p. 110. See J. Wilcox, ‘Wulfstan and the Twelfth Century’, in Rewriting Old English in the Twelfth Century, ed. Swan and Treharne, pp. 83–97. Sisam, ‘The Scribal Tradition’, p. 110, n. 4, notes that items 1 and 3 certainly go back to Old English, in addition to the texts which draw on Ælfric, although no Old English sources had been identified. This feature is not restricted to this text but is also found in other texts in the manuscript; see M. Swan, ‘Preaching Past the Conquest: Lambeth Palace 487 and Cotton Vespasian A.XXII’, in The Old English Homily: Precedent, Practice and Appropriation, ed. A. Kleist, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 17 (Turnhout, 2007), 403–23, at pp. 407–9. See also her ‘Old English Made New: One Catholic Homily and Its Uses’, Leeds Studies in English 28 (1997), 1–18. Sisam, ‘The Scribal Tradition’, p. 110, n. 2. Swan, ‘Old English Textual Activity’, p. 164, and ‘Imagining a Readership for Post-Conquest Old English Manuscripts’, in Imagining the Book, ed. S. Kelly and J. Thompson, Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe 7 (Turnhout, 2006), 145–57, at 156. Swan, ‘Preaching Past the Conquest’, p. 414.

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Introduction in this item is the most extensive in the manuscript.83 Xi was probably written in the West Midlands84 and Hill concludes that the manuscript was probably copied ‘in or near the language area of Scribe A of the Cleopatra text of the Ancrene Riwle and that this language area included forms which were characteristic, but not exclusively characteristic, of Worcestershire, and which may well have been current in a more Southerly Western dialect’.85 Margaret Laing has provisionally located the dialect in North-West Worcestershire.86 Manuscripts containing De memoria sanctorum (LS xvi) W, C (described above) and L all contain LS xvi. In addition, G, also described above, contains the stand-alone pieces on the vices and virtues, corresponding to LS xvi, lines 267–311 and lines 312–81. W London, British Library, Cotton Julius E.vii (Ker 162)

This is our principal manuscript of Ælfric’s LS, containing a mixture of saints’ lives and homilies, and it dates to the beginning of the eleventh century.87 There are 238 original leaves, c. 273 mm × 185 mm, with a written space of c. 232 mm × 125 mm, which are foliated 3–240. The manuscript begins with Ælfric’s Latin and Old English Prefaces and a contemporary table of contents, listing thirty-eight pieces (the numbering, however, skips from XVII to XIX, so the last number is XXXVIIII);88 the last three items in the table are the Interrogationes, De falsis diis and De xii. abusiuis, but the end of the manuscript has been lost and it now breaks off about three-quarters of the way through De falsis diis. The texts are arranged in the order of the liturgical year, beginning with Christmas and ending with the feast of St Thomas (21 December), followed by the pieces just mentioned, the Interrogationes and De falsis diis. All of the items are by Ælfric apart from four: the lives of the Seven Sleepers, Eustace and Euphrosyne, all of which are named and numbered in the table of contents, and the life of Mary of 83 84 85 86

87 88

See Wilcox, Wulfstan Texts, p. 74. See R. Wilson, ‘The Provenance of the Lambeth Homilies, with a New Collation’, Leeds Studies in English and Kindred Languages 4 (1935), 24–43. B. Hill, ‘The Twelfth-Century Conduct of Life, Formerly the Poema Morale or A Moral Ode’, Leeds Studies in English n.s. 9 (1977), 97–144, at 109. M. Laing, ‘Multidimensionality: Time, Space and Tratigraphy in Historical Dialectology’, in Methods and Data in English Historical Dialectology, ed. M. Dossena and R. Lass (Bern, 2004), pp. 49–96, at 72–3. As well as the description in Ker, the manuscript is described in LS, II, pp. vii–xiii, and Scragg, ‘The Corpus of Anonymous Lives and their Manuscript Context’, pp. 217–18. See J. Hill, ‘Identifying “Texts” in Cotton Julius E.vii: Medieval and Modern Perspectives’, in Beatus Vir: Studies in Early English and Norse Manuscripts in Memory of Phillip Pulsiano, ed. A. Doane and K. Wolf, MRTS 319 (Tempe, AZ, 2006), 27–40, on the problems of numbering in the manuscript and in Skeat’s edition and on how the texts are treated in other manuscripts.

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The Old English Manuscripts and the Transmission of the Texts Egypt, which is not; Euphrosyne and Mary of Egypt are, moreover, not in the correct place in terms of the liturgical year. A single scribe wrote most of the manuscript but, as the hand changes somewhat over the course of the manuscript, it may have been copied over a period of time.89 Two other scribes copied the Seven Sleepers text90 and the second of these scribes also copied the life of Mary of Egypt, which breaks off incomplete. LS xvi is headed ‘Sermo de memoria Sanctorum. Spel loca hwænne man wille’ (‘a sermon for whenever one may wish’, a translation of quando uolueris).91 The text originally ended at line 381 in Skeat’s edition, with ‘no authentic homiletic conclusion’,92 but a later hand has supplied three further lines in W (the last three lines in Skeat’s text, LS xvi, lines 382–4), a concluding doxology. There is a thirteenth-century inscription of fol. 3, showing that the manuscript belonged to Bury St Edmunds, but we do not know where it was written.93 L Cambridge University Library Ii.1.33 (Ker 18)

This is a collection of saints’ lives and homilies, mainly for saints’ days, written in the second half of the twelfth century.94 There has been some disagreement about the number of scribes, with two, three and four being suggested.95 There are 226 original leaves, measuring c. 220 mm × 158 mm with a written area of 165–175 mm × 110 mm; there is a sixteenth-century pagination in red pencil on the rectos and foliation in pencil on the top right-hand corner of each folio. The manuscript was written in five separate sections: (a) Ælfric’s Preface to Genesis, followed by a translation of the first half of Genesis, partly by Ælfric, and CH II 13; (b) Ælfric CH I 2 and LS xx; (c) CH II 11; (d) LS x and CH I 27; and (e) homilies on apostles and other saints, as well as some other items. Most of the contents are drawn from 89 90 91 92

93 94

95

See Ker, p. 210, and Scragg, ‘The Corpus of Anonymous Lives and their Manuscript Context’, p. 217. Or the second Seven Sleepers scribe may have been the main scribe writing in a more compressed fashion (see Ker, p. 210). This is according to Skeat’s numbering; in the manuscript it is XV and in Ker it is item 21. See P. Clemoes, ‘The Chronology of Ælfric’s Works’, in The Anglo-Saxons: Studies in Some Aspects of their History and Culture, Presented to Bruce Dickins, ed. P. Clemoes (London, 1959), pp. 212–47, at 222, n. 1. Pope, p. 85, suggests that it ‘was probably written in the south’. See also G. Needham, ‘Additions and Alterations in Cotton MS. Julius E VII’, Review of English Studies n.s. 9 (1958), 160–4, at 160. As well as the description in Ker, the manuscript is described by Pope, pp. 35–9; CH II, pp. xliii–xlv; CH I, pp. 25–8; W. Schipper, ‘A Composite Old English Homiliary from Ely: Cambr. Univ. Lib. MS Ii.1.33’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 8 (1983), 285–98; and Da Rold, ‘Homilies and Lives of Saints: Cambridge, University Library, Ii. 1. 33’, http://www.le.ac. uk/english/em1060to1220/mss/EM.CUL.Ii.1.33.htm. Ker, p. 27, states ‘probably in two main hands’; Treharne, ‘Dates and Origins’, p. 240, agrees; Schipper, ‘Composite Old English Homiliary’, pp. 290–1, suggests three hands and O. Traxel, Language Change, Writing and Textual Interference in Post-Conquest Old English Manuscripts: The Evidence of Cambridge, University Library, Ii.1.33 (Frankfurt am Main, 2004), pp. 37–59, proposes a fourth scribe. Da Rold’s discussion at http://www.le.ac.uk/english/em1060to1220/mss/ EM.CUL.Ii.1.33.htm supports two rather than three or four hands.

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Introduction Ælfric’s CH I and II and LS and it seems that the collection in section (e), fols. 61 to 227, was put together from ‘companion copies’ of the two series of CH, similar to those in Cambridge University Library Gg. 3. 28, and a copy of LS, while the other sections draw on other sources.96 This manuscript is very important for study of Ælfric’s LS, as Clemoes pointed out, because, ‘representing a line of transmission entirely independent of W (our only copy of the set as a whole), it shows by its range of contents that Ælfric himself issued the set in broadly W’s form’.97 LS xvi is part of section (e) and is headed Incipit sermo de memoria sanctorum. Schipper suggested that the manuscript was written in Ely, on the basis of the prominence given to St Æthelthryth and of the way in which the manuscript was arranged.98 Treharne, however, has proposed either Christ Church, Canterbury, or Rochester as places of origin and Traxel suggests St Augustine’s, Canterbury, and then Ely as possible.99 The transmission of the texts Bringing together the evidence for the origins of the manuscripts containing, or which once contained, Ælfric’s De duodecim abusiuis, then, we have three surviving manuscripts of the stand-alone text, with two further manuscripts which once contained it. Two of the surviving manuscripts (C and G) come from Canterbury or Rochester; V, one of the manuscripts whose text has been lost, also has Canterbury connections, even if it was not written there. P probably comes from the West Midlands but it shared a source with G for two CH II homilies so it, too, has south-eastern connections.100 We do not know whether the remaining manuscript, W, the earliest of all of the manuscripts, was written in Bury St Edmunds or in a southern scriptorium. Three further manuscripts contain the composite text, De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus, as it is titled in R. All three, R, S and Xi, seem to come from the West Midlands area; R was at Worcester by soon after the middle of the eleventh century and S was certainly there by the first half of the thirteenth century. Both seem to have been written in the neighbourhood of Worcester and Xi, too, is assigned to this area. The manuscripts range in date from the first half of the eleventh century to c. 1200, testifying to the continuing interest and use of the text over a two hundred year period.101 96 97 98 99 100 101

Godden, CH II, p. xliv–xlv. CH I, p. 26; see below, pp. 30–2. W. Schipper, ‘A Composite Old English Homiliary from Ely: Cambr. Univ. Lib. MS Ii.1.33’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 8 (1983), 285–98. Treharne, ‘Dates and Origins’, pp. 240–4; Traxel, Language Change, Writing and Textual Interference, pp. 205–7. CH II, pp. xli and lxviii. On the post-Conquest life of Old English texts, see E. Treharne, ‘Reading from the Margins: The Uses of the Old English Homiletic Manuscripts in the Post-Conquest Period’, in Beatus Vir: Studies

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The Old English Manuscripts and the Transmission of the Texts Turning first to the stand-alone text, the earliest manuscript of this, P, written in the second half of the eleventh century, dates from more than a half-century after the text was composed; C dates from the first half of the twelfth century and G from the middle of that century. A stand-alone text was, of course, also used as the basis of the second half of the composite text. P was not the exemplar for either C or G; this is evident even from the Latin list of abuses in the first paragraph of the text where P, erroneously, reads ‘populus sine disciplina. plebs sine lege’ (line 8) rather than the ‘plebs sine disciplina. populus sine lege’ reading shared by C and G, the composite text and the Latin source. The P scribe omitted –sor– from orsorge, writing or at the end of a line and ge at the beginning of the next, whereas C and G preserve the correct reading, orsorge (line 98). At line 125, P omitted and healdan his eðel, preserved in C and G. Unþeawfæstlice in P (line 130) is an error for C and G’s uneawfæstlice. At line 138, P has unrihtlice where C, G and the composite text read unrædlice. P correctly reads arfæstnysse at line 133, where C and G read eaffoðnysse and earfoðnysse respectively. P, therefore, has unique readings, some of them errors, which place it apart among the three manuscripts. It is clear from the previous paragraph that C and G share readings which differ from P. Despite this, G cannot be descended from C. In line 51, C omits gehergodne of hæftnede gedeð, oððe gif he, apart from a subpuncted ge; G, however, has no omission here. C omits soðlice at line 96, but G preserves it. At lines 101–2, C omits ongean God and nele on his yrmðe eadmodnysse, while G again has no omission. Another such case is at line 116, where C, but not G, omits forþan ðe he sceal wissian. C omits and þa beoð us for æ at lines 167–8, unlike G. Where C reads, in error, sprece sprece, G correctly reads wreca wreca (P wrece wrece, line 77). Omissions in G are rare, apart from some articles or pronouns; one is where P and C read se lareowdom þam læwedum, while G reads se lare (lines 19–20); this may well be a deliberate alteration rather than an inadvertent omission as the sense does not suffer. G omits gif he at line 50, but again it is not necessary to the sense. G reads soðlice Cristen at line 90, where P and C read rihtlice Cristen, but G’s error is an understandable one as soðlice Cristen occurs just three words previously. A manifest error in G is its reading at line 127, earfoð on ræde, instead of the P/C reading on earfoðnysse anræde. There is nothing in G to prevent us from deducing that G was copied from a common original with C or at least from a manuscript closely related to C’s exemplar and that the C scribe was responsible for the omissions and misreading which mar its text in places, while the G scribe was, in general, more accurate in copying the exemplar, updating the language as he did so, but also making some errors. Given that C and G are from the same general area, this is not surprising. What is perhaps rather more surprising is that this relationship is different from that which we find in other Ælfric items in G, where some items are related to the DEF tradition102 and two CH II items are in Early English and Norse Manuscripts in Memory of Phillip Pulsiano, ed. A. Doane and K. Wolf, MRTS 319 (Tempe, Arizona, 2006), 330–58. 102 See above, p. 9.

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Introduction clearly related to P.103 In the case of De duodecim abusiuis, G’s text is closer to C than P. The C and G compilers, or the compilers of their exemplars, both seem to have had access to a range of manuscript sources, however, and thus individual items have different affiliations within the Ælfric tradition. We also have three manuscripts of the composite text: R from the first half of the eleventh century (the earliest of all of the surviving manuscripts of the text), S from the first half or towards the middle of the twelfth century and Xi from c. 1200, all from the same general area. The relationship between these three versions has already been discussed by Sarah O’Brien, in her unpublished edition of seven of the Lambeth homilies.104 Unfortunately, O’Brien’s discussion of the relationship between the manuscripts is marred by inaccuracies. In attempting to establish the relationship between the Xi version and those in R and S, she says that the most important agreement in error is where, in the catalogue of abuses in the Prologue, both R and S omit Se geonga butan gehyrsumnesse, through eyeskip, while Xi has a Middle English version.105 However, in R these words, omitted initially by the scribe, are supplied in the margin with a signe de renvoie, so this does not constitute agreement in error. O’Brien goes on to say that the only other plain agreement in error between two of the manuscripts is where, in the first abuse, Xi reads ileweden and R læwedum, but S læredum; this is not, however, the case, as S here very clearly shares R’s reading so that all of the manuscripts are in agreement.106 O’Brien’s conclusion on the relationship among the manuscripts was: ‘Although it can be established that neither S nor La [Xi] can be descended from R, nor La from S, nothing further can be shown about the textual relations of the three manuscripts.’107 Given the unsound basis on which her conclusions are based, they need to be re-examined. Turning first to the relationship between R and S, it is clear that S cannot descend from R. This is evident from the readings where R and S do not agree, but S agrees either with other versions of the vices and virtues material (LS xvi in W, C and L and the two separate pieces on vices and virtues in G) or with the stand-alone text on the twelve abuses; the obvious deduction from these readings is that the R scribe, or the scribe of his exemplar, has made alterations to the text, while in these instances S has preserved the readings of the composite homily in its original state. Examples (and they could be multiplied) of such readings are at line 25, where R reads gehaten, but S, LS xvi, line 286, and G lack it; at line 28, where S, like LS xvi, line 291, and G, reads þe he lufode to swiðe, but R omits to; at line 35, where S and LS xvi, line 300, have gecweden, but R reads gehaten (G omits a past participle here); at line 52, where S reads swa eac, as do LS xvi, line 325, and G, but it is omitted in R; and at line 185, where S, P and G read soþlice 103

See above, p. 9. O’Brien, ‘An Edition of Seven Homilies’, pp. 200–1. 105 Ibid., p. 200. 106 O’Brien, ibid., p. 200, notes, furthermore, that C reads læwedum and P læredum; both manuscripts read læwedum. She adopts the reading læredum in her edited text, though it lacks any manuscript authority and makes less good sense than the manuscript reading læwedum. 107 Ibid., p. 201. 104

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The Old English Manuscripts and the Transmission of the Texts deofles bearn, but R reads deofles bearn; at line 210, S, P and C read steopbearna, but R reads steopcilda (G reads steopcildena here). On the other hand, there are also readings, though fewer, where R agrees with the LS xvi and G reading or the reading of the stand-alone De duodecim abusiuis, as against S and Xi: at line 77, R reads unnyt, as do LS xvi, line 360, and G, where S has on unnyt and Xi on unnet; at line 175, R and all of the stand-alone manuscripts of De duodecim abusiuis read mihtesetle, but S has heahsetle and Xi hehsetle; at lines 109–10, R reads þam læwedum fremful, as do P and C (G abbreviates here), while S reads fremfull þam læwedum and Xi fremful ne icweme þan ileweden. In these cases, R seems to have preserved the original reading and the exemplar or exemplars of both S and Xi have introduced a change. It is clear, then, that R and S both depart from the original composite text in different places, although S appears to be somewhat more faithful, and that S cannot descend from R. In discussing the relationship between R and S, Pope has already pointed out that both manuscripts must descend from a common archetype, the manuscript which first had the note now preserved only in R and in which the twelve abuses were added to the vices and virtues to form the composite text, and that there must have been an intermediate manuscript between the archetype and R ‘so that there were at least three manuscripts with the same general content and the same colophon’.108 Turning now to how the other two manuscripts of the composite text are related to Xi, O’Brien’s point about Xi not being descended from S is valid, given the omission of Se geonga butan gehyrsumnesse from S, while Xi has at this point þe gunge bið butan hersumnesse. Since the corrector in R supplied this phrase in the manuscript, it is not an obstacle to proposing that R could have been Xi’s exemplar. There are several other readings where R and Xi agree against S: where R reads Se feorða leahter is ira gehaten and Xi Þeo feorðe sunne is ihatan ira, S, like the manuscripts of LS xvi, line 286 (W, C and L), and G, lacks gehaten. At line 86, R reads on his æhtum and Xi on his ehte, while S has on æhtum; in this case, LS xvi, line 373 (on his æhtum), and G (on his æhte) agree with R. Where R reads þæt folc butan steore oððe butan æ and Xi þet folc butan steore eft butan lahe at lines 105–6, S reads þæt folc butan steore. oððe folc butan æ; the stand-alone text agrees with S. As against this, there are numerous readings where R and Xi do not agree, generally in minor points of word-order or in small omissions or additions, and where S agrees with Xi. I shall only give some examples here. At line 28, S reads þe he lufode to swiðe, but R omits to; Xi reads þe he luuede to swiðe. At line 32, S reads on his life nan god don where R has nan good don on his life, while Xi here has on his liue nan god don. At line 35, S has gecweden where R reads gehaten; the Xi reading is icweðen. Where S reads mid gesceade hys gesetnysse, R has hys gesetnysse mid gesceade, but Xi mid isceade his isetnesse (line 48). 108

Pope, p. 460, n. 1 (in relation to the Interrogationes). See also M. Clayton, ‘Ælfric’s De auguriis and Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 178’, in Latin Learning and English Lore: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Literature for Michael Lapidge, II, ed. K. O’Brien O’Keeffe and A. Orchard (Toronto, 2005), 376–94, at 388.

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Introduction At line 52, S and Xi read swa eac and swa ec respectively, but it is omitted in R. Where S reads on urum godum weorcum at line 76, R omits urum, but Xi reads ure gode werckan. Where S read bið on unnyt her and Xi bið on unnet her, R has byð unnyt her (line 77). At line 90, S has fylst and Xi fulste, but R reads fultum. Where R reads mihtesetle, S has heahsetle and Xi hehsetle. Where, at line 185, S reads soþlice deofles bearn, R has deofles bearn R, but Xi’s reading is soðliche deofles bern. At line 227, S reads ær geheold and Xi, with a change of verb and a doublet, er iherd and icwemde, but R unrædlice geheold; here the archetype read unrædlice ær geheold, and R omits ær, while Xi and S omit unrædlice. At one point, all three manuscripts differ: where, at line 159, R reads genealæcað þurh heora hlafordscipe to gode, S has þurh heora hlafordscipe genealæcað gode and Xi inehlecheð Gode þurh heore lauerdscipe. Based on this evidence, Xi seems closer to S than to R, although at points it agrees with R against S. Most of its agreements with R against S or with S against R are, however, as a result of omissions in either R or S of words which were probably in their exemplars and others are the result of the scribes of R or S introducing their own minor alterations. In most of these cases Xi agrees with the manuscript which is closer to the archetype. More important are those instances where Xi agrees with R or S in a reading which does not seem to have been in the archetype: these are on unnet, hehsetle and fremful ne icweme þan ileweden, where Xi agrees with S against the archetype, and ihatan ira and the omission of folc, where it agrees with R against the archetype. Some of these readings may be the result of Xi and S responding to the same needs to update the language or replace unfamiliar with familiar words (mihtesetl, for example, is attested only in this text so its replacement with the more familiar heahsetl is not surprising). Xi, therefore, is difficult to place in the transmission of the composite text, as Sarah O’Brien also pointed out; its agreement at different points with both R and S is puzzling but it does not seem to descend from either of these manuscripts. Turning now to the relationship between the composite text and the other versions of the vices and virtues material, there are only two very minor instances where the archetype of the composite text seems to have differed from the archetype of the earlier versions. At line 22, R and S both read gemacað, where W, C, G and L read macað.109 At line 29, R, S and Xi read oðer, where W, C, G and L read and oðer. The stand-alone text of the twelve abuses which was incorporated in the composite text was clearly a very accurate one also, which did not share errors with any of the extant stand-alone texts. Where the base manuscript R has been corrected in this edition (usually to supply a small omission), the correct reading is generally shared by S and the stand-alone manuscripts, indicating that the deviation in question has been introduced by R (or its exemplar) rather than coming from the ancestor it shared with S.110 There are, however, some minor differences between all of the manuscripts of the composite text and those of the stand-alone text. These are at Xi reads macað here, but it either omits the Old English ge- prefix or replaces it with i-, so its exemplar may have had the ge- prefix here. 110 See above, p. 13. 109

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The Two Versions of the Old English Text line 102, where R, S read and se iunga and Xi and gif þe gunge, while P, C and G omit the and; at line 145, where R, S and Xi read on hungre (in R the on has been added as a correction), while P, C and G read hungre; at line 166, where R and S read mote wið sprecan and Xi mote wið speken, while the manuscripts of the standalone text read wið mote sprecan; and a more complicated case at line 218, where it is not possible to be certain of the reading which lies behind R, S and Xi. Here P reads onbyrigan (C onbyrge and G onbyrigen), while R reads abitan, S abyrgean and Xi arinan. All of the composite texts share a as the first letter, with different second elements; as S shares the a while being closest to the stand-alone text, I have adopted its reading in the text. In these few readings, the common ancestor of R, S and Xi must have differed from the stand-alone text; all of them are minor variations which the scribe of the common ancestor could have introduced. The redactor of the composite text, then, clearly had access to excellent versions of the vices and virtues and abuses material.

2 The Two Versions of the Old English Text: Authorship and Dates As we have seen, there are two versions of Ælfric’s work on the twelve abuses in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, with P, C and G representing the text as a stand-alone work, and R, S and Xi containing a composite text, with an introduction, the eight vices and virtues and the twelve abuses. While Ælfric’s authorship of the standalone De duodecim abusiuis has been firmly established since Dietrich,111 who cited its treatment of some of Ælfric’s favourite topics, the fact that creationism, a teaching which appealed to Ælfric as a zealous follower of Augustine, is adverted to in the closing passage, the style and the manuscript environment among other works of Ælfric’s as reasons for attributing it to him, the question of who was responsible for the composite De octo uitiis has not enjoyed the same clarity. Morris, whose Old English Homilies contains two versions of the composite text, did not give any opinion on the matter. Clemoes’s view was cautious: ‘I disregard, as a compilation possibly not by Ælfric, the version of De XII Abusivis which (as printed Morris, pp. 100 ff. and 296 ff.), in the same two manuscripts [R and S] and Lambeth 487, is preceded by Skeat XVI/267–381, for its introductory lines (incorporating Skeat XIII/98–101) are not in Ælfric’s rhythmical style and so cannot be regarded as certainly genuine.’112 Pope took this caution a step further and argued that the composite text was the work of a later editor, who joined De duodecim abusiuis to the description of the vices and virtues and produced the introductory paragraph.113 He argued also that this was the same person who E. Dietrich, ‘Abt Aelfrik’, Zeitschrift für die historische Theologie 25 (1855), 487–591, at 520. Clemoes, ‘Chronology’, p. 239, n. 3. In CH I, p. 50, Clemoes notes that the introductory paragraph, apart from the passages corresponding to lines in LS i and xiii, was ‘probably otherwise not by Ælfric’. 113 Pope, p. 64. 111

112

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Introduction wrote the note now preserved only in R; this note explains the arrangement of the manuscript in two books and explains that two items, ‘an be þam heafodleahtrum. ⁊ oðer be þam wiglungum’, have been augmented:114 Her geendað seo forme boc. ⁊ her æfter onginð seo oðer boc. on ægðer þara boca synd twelf spell. unleaslice; Ðas spell þe stondað on þissere forman bec. þa man mæg secgan loca hwænne man wylle. ac þa spell þe standað on þissere æfteran bec. þa man sceal secgan on þam dagum þe hy to gesette synd; Ða twa ⁊ twentig spell synd be fullan gesette swa swa hi æt fruman wæron on þære ealdan .æ. bysne. ac twa spel of þisum. an be þam heafodleahtrum. ⁊ oðer be þam wiglungum synd geeacnode. of oðrum spellum; Nu bidde ic on godes naman loca hwa þas boc hæbbe on his anwealde þæt he gedo þæt heo nytt beo oðrum mannum. þæt he nan pleoh næbbe gif heo unnytt bið;115

As Pope showed, the division into two books must go back beyond R, as the two texts named in the note as having been augmented are found in the same augmented form as items 19 and 20 in S, which cannot be derived from R, as R has ‘little deviations that do not appear in S’; in fact, articles 17 to 21 in S are all closely related to items in R and all are found, in the same order, in R.116 Both R and this part of S, therefore, must go back to a now lost manuscript from which both derive the augmented texts and from which R must also derive its note. Pope argued also that there must have been an intermediate manuscript between the archetype and R, ‘so that there were at least three manuscripts with the same general content and the same colophon’.117 The author of this note was, Pope argued, probably responsible for augmenting the two homilies and compiling the collection;118 the note, he says, clearly implies ‘that the responsibility for the enlargement lies with the author of the colophon or his supervisor, not with Ælfric’.119 He believed that the introductory paragraph of De octo uitiis was put together by this compiler, who, he thought, drew parts from other Ælfric texts and composed parts of it himself, and, in the case of the 114 115

116 117 118

119

Ibid., p. 65. The note, on p. 193 of R, is also given in full in Ker, Catalogue, p. 62: ‘Here ends the first book and hereafter begins the second book. In each of the two books there are truly twelve sermons. The sermons that are written in this first book, those one can say whenever one may wish, but the sermons that are written in the following book, those one must say on the days to which they are assigned. Twenty-two sermons are fully set down as they were in the beginning in the old exemplar, but two of these sermons, one about the chief vices and another about auguries, are augmented from other sermons. Now I ask in the name of God that whoever may have the book in his possession should make it useful to other people so that he may not have the responsibility if it is useless.’ Pope, p. 68; as Pope points out, other items come between some of these texts in R, but the order in which all five texts occur is the same in both manuscripts. See also above, p. 13. Ibid., p. 460, n 1. Pope calls the note a colophon, which strictly speaking it is not, so I have simply called it a note. See ibid., p. 458: ‘the author of the colophon (the compiler, apparently, of the ancestral manuscript from which both R and S are descended)’. Pope, pp. 67–70, leaves open the question of the extent of the collection put together by the author of the note, as he was unwilling to say whether it included the short pieces or not. Ibid., p. 786.

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The Two Versions of the Old English Text auguries text, Pope argued that the compiler composed the first three lines of the addition to the auguries text as a transition to the rest of the piece, borrowed by him, possibly as a whole, from a late version of LS xxi.120 I have discussed De auguriis elsewhere and have argued that it was Ælfric himself who augmented it; Mechthild Gretsch too, at about the same time, cast doubt on Pope’s arguments with regard to the Saul episode, part of the augmentation of this text.121 In the same piece, I also argued that Ælfric was responsible for the note in R, which has numerous points of similarity to his prefaces, and for the R collection itself. The outstanding question is, therefore, that of De octo uitiis and its first paragraph. De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus begins with a short section, which Pope argued was written by the compiler: ‘since the introductory lines .  .  . are not as a whole in Ælfric’s rhythmic prose, I think the author of the colophon was responsible for them as well as for the addition of De Duodecim Abusivis’.122 The Preface to LS, however, is written in a mixture of rhythmical and non- rhythmical styles, but its genuineness has not been questioned and the mixture of styles does not, therefore, constitute proof that Ælfric was not responsible.123 Pope himself pointed out that ‘at no time after the invention of the rhythmical form does Ælfric seem to have hesitated to insert a freshly composed rhythmical passage into an early homily written in ordinary prose [. . .], to attach a rhythmical exemplum to an ordinary prose admonition [. . .], or to include an early piece, partly ordinary, partly rhythmical, in an otherwise consistently rhythmical homily’.124 The disputed first paragraph of De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus reads: Omnia nimia nocent et temperantia mater uirtutum dicitur. Þæt is on Englisc: Ealle oferdone þingc deriað and seo gemetegung is ealra mægna modor. Se oferlyfa on æte and on wæte deð þone man unhalne, and his sawle Gode læðetteð, swa swa ure Drihten on his godspelle cwæð. Eft þær togeanes, ungemetgod fæsten and to mycel forhæfdnyss on æte and on wæte deð þone man unhalne and on mycelre frecednysse gebringð, swa swa us secgað bec, þæt sume men fæstan swa þæt hi geswencton hy sylfe forþearle, and nane mede næfdon þæs mycclan geswinces, ac þæs þe fyrr wæron from Godes miltsunge. Eaðe mæg se mann findan hu he hine sylfne amyrre, ac we sceolan witan þæt nan sylfcwala, þæt is agenslaga, ne becymð to Godes rice.

There are many similarities between this paragraph and passages in Ælfric’s works. The paragraph begins with a Latin quotation and its translation, very 120

Pope xxix, pp. 790–6. Clayton, ‘Ælfric’s De auguriis and Cambridge Corpus Christ College’, pp. 378–82, and M. Gretsch, Ælfric and the Cult of Saints in Late Anglo-Saxon England, CSASE 34 (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 190–1. 122 Pope, p. 64; see also p. 788, n. 1. 123 LS, pp. 4–6; the variation is very evident from Skeat’s layout. 124 Pope, I, 116–17. For a discussion of another mixture of ordinary and rhythmical prose, see my ‘An Edition of Ælfric’s Letter to Brother Edward’, in Early Medieval English Texts and Interpretations: Studies Presented to Donald G. Scragg, ed. E. Treharne and S. Rosser, MRTS 252 (Tempe, AZ, 2002), 263–83, at 276–7. 121

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Introduction similar to LS i, lines 162–4, as Pope pointed out: ‘Omnia nimia nocent. þæt is ealle ofer-done þing dæriað. Witodlice gemetegung is eallra mægena modor.’125 The person responsible for De octo uitiis cannot have derived the sentence from LS i, however, as the LS text does not have ‘temperantia mater uirtutum dicitur’, which is given only in an Old English translation in LS i.126 Godden suggested that the lines ‘perhaps come from a lost work by Ælfric’.127 Temperance as the mother of virtues is an unusual idea and the only sources which I have been able to identify are in Haymo, on whom Ælfric certainly drew.128 To argue that this paragraph was not composed by Ælfric, then, one would have to say that a scribal editor translated the second part of the LS i passage back into Latin or to postulate that a compiler drew on a lost work.129 The next sentence in De octo uitiis reads: ‘Se oferlyfa on æte and on wæte deð þone man unhalne, and his sawle Gode læðetteð, swa swa ure Drihten on his godspelle cwæð.’ The source for this is Luke XXI.34, a passage to which Ælfric alludes elsewhere; in his Letter to Wulfgeat, he says: Eac ure hælend  on his halgan godspelle forbead þa druncennysse  his discipulum, and eac us þurh hi,  swa swa we sædon ær, and þa egeslican oferfylle,  þe he onscunað þearle.130

and he also alludes to it in the Ammonitio at the beginning of CH II: ‘In nouo testamento quoque dominus ammonuit discipulos suos his uerbis dicens; Adtendite autem uobis. ne forte grauenter corda uestra in crapula et ebrietate’.131 His evident liking for this Gospel passage supports his authorship of the introductory paragraph here (although admittedly the passage is one which we find in a good number of Old English texts).132 We have no verbal parallel in Ælfric’s work for the first part of the next sentence: ‘Eft þær togeanes, ungemetgod fæsten and to mycel forhæfdnyss on æte and on 125

126 127 128 129 130

131

132

For possible sources and analogues of this statement, see M. Clayton, ‘Temperance as the Mother of Virtues in Ælfric’, Notes and Queries 55 (2008), 1–3. It seems likely that Ælfric combined the two statements rather than finding them together in a source. As pointed out by M. Godden, ‘The Sources of Lives 1 (Nativity of Christ)’, http://fontes.english. ox.ac.uk/. Ibid. The more usual mother of virtues is discretion; see my ‘Temperance as the Mother of Virtues’. The Lambeth 487 scribe does insert Latin quotations into some of the texts in that manuscript but it does not seem to happen in any pre-Conquest manuscripts. Assmann, p. 6, lines 147–50: ‘Also our saviour in his holy gospel forbade drunkenness to his disciples, and to us too through them, as we said previously, and terrible excess in eating, which he abhorred greatly.’ CH II, p. 2, lines 57–60; ‘In the New Testament the Lord also admonished his disciples in these words, ‘And take heed to yourselves, lest perhaps your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness . . .’ (trans. J. Wilcox, Ælfric’s Prefaces, Durham Medieval Texts 9 (Durham, 1994), p. 129). As the texts listed as using this passage in Fontes Anglo-Saxonici show (http://fontes.english.ox.ac. uk).

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The Two Versions of the Old English Text wæte deð þone man unhalne and on mycelre frecednysse gebringð, swa swa us secgað bec, þæt sume men fæstan swa þæt hi geswencton hy sylfe forþearle, and nane mede næfdon þæs mycclan geswinces, ac þæs þe fyrr wæron from Godes miltsunge.’133 The second part of it is taken, with slight alterations, from LS xiii, lines 98–101, as Ker pointed out: ac us secgað bec þæt sume fæston swa þæt hi geswencton hi sylfe forðearle and nane mede næfdon þæs mycclan geswinces ac þæs þe fyrr wæron godes miltsunge.134

The final sentence is again not paralleled in Ælfric’s known work: ‘Eaðe mæg se mann findan hu he hine sylfne amyrre, ac we sceolan witan þæt nan sylfcwala, þæt is agenslaga, ne becymð to Godes rice.’ Both of these passages, for which we do not have exact parallels in Ælfric’s known work, are completely compatible with his documented sentiments. The opinion on the danger of excessive fasting is of a piece with the lines from LS xiii which are incorporated in the composite text, as they are with the immediately preceding lines from that text, which also warn of the dangers of fasting: Fela dyslice dæda deriað mancynne. oððe for anwylnysse oððe for ungerade. Swa swa sume menn doð þe dyslice fæstað ofer heora mihte. on gemænelicum lenctene swa swa we sylfe gesawon. oðþæt hi seoce wurdon. Sume fæston eac swa. þæt hi forsawon to etanne buton on ðone oðerne dæg. and æton þonne grædiglice . . .135

In addition, LS xiii also has the same, rather odd, combination of a warning about fasting with the twelve abuses; the passage on fasting in LS xiii, of which part is quoted above, is followed directly by a summary of the twelve abuses, with a line devoted to each abuse. It seems highly unlikely that this association would be repeated by a compiler. In De octo uitiis itself, as in the parallel passage in LS xvi, temperance is given as the contrary virtue to gluttony; in this Ælfric alters his principal source, in which abstinence is the contrary virtue, very probably because of his suspicion of excessive fasting.136 Beginning De octo uitiis with Ungemetgod, however, is a word of which Ælfric was fond, as can be seen from the Old English Corpus (http://www.doe.utoronto.ca/pages/pub/webcorpus.html, s.v. ungemetgod, ungemetegod, ungemetegead and ungemetegud); his usages account for most instances in recorded Old English. 134 LS xiii, lines 98–101: ‘but books tell us, that some people fasted so that they afflicted themselves very severely and had no reward for their great effort but were the further from God’s mercy because of it.’ 135 Ibid., lines 91–7: ‘Many foolish deeds harm mankind, either because of obstinacy or of lack of discretion. Just as some people do who foolishly fast beyond their strength in the universal Lent, as we ourselves have seen, until they became sick. Some people also fasted in such a way that they scorned to eat except on every second day and then ate greedily . . .’ 136 See below, pp. 95–6. 133

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Introduction temperance and a warning about excessive fasting, then, points to Ælfric rather than a compiler as the person responsible. The idea that suicides do not go to heaven is similar to CH II 14, line 161, ‘forðan þe agenslaga on ecnysse ðrowað’ (this is said about Judas), and LS xix, lines 225–32, where Ælfric is prompted by the suicide of Achitophel to say: Ælc man bið eac fordemed þe hine sylfne adyt and ælc agen-slaga a on ecnysse ðrowað . . .137

Moreover, the use of agenslaga points to Ælfric, as agenslaga is attested only three times in Old English, all in his work.138 While this first paragraph is not entirely in rhythmical prose, then, it is totally in tune with Ælfric’s views and the sentences not paralleled elsewhere in his work are in a style which is very similar to his ordinary prose. Ælfric seems to be the author of all parts of this introductory paragraph and it is hard to imagine that he was not responsible for the passage as a whole; the striking linking of fasting and self-destruction, found also in his LS xiii, does not seem to be paralleled elsewhere in Old English literature.139 If someone else put the piece together from the works of Ælfric, we would have to postulate that he drew on as many as four works in one paragraph (LS i and xiii, and one or two lost works) or postulate a compiler using two works and then composing short passages similar in style and substance to Ælfric’s works. It is much more likely that Ælfric himself wrote the paragraph as a whole. If my arguments here and concerning De auguriis are accepted, then, Ælfric himself was responsible for the augmentation of the vices and virtues text and of the auguries text, as well as writing the note in R and compiling the original R-type collection as a quando uolueris collection of pieces to be read whenever one wished rather than being tied to particular liturgical occasions. The R note’s mention of a spel about þam heafodleahtrum, the chief vices, is, however, problematic;140 such a text (i.e. as an independent text, rather than the second part of Sermo de memoria sanctorum, as in W, L and C) is found only in the late manuscript G, where item 7 is De VIII principalibus uiciis (corresponding to LS xvi, lines 267–311) and item 8, corresponding to lines 312–81 of the same text, is De .VIII. uirtutibus. This could well be a coincidence, since the G compiler was at this point in the manuscript collecting catalogues: the preceding items are on the ten commandments and De duodecim abusiuis. If the compiler extracted the lines on the ten commandments from their source,141 Ælfric’s Second Old English Letter for Wulfstan, then he could, presumably, have done the same with the vices and virtues. On the other hand, it seems likely that the G compiler, had 137 138 139 140 141

LS xix, lines 229–30; ‘Every man who kills himself will also be damned and every suicide will suffer always in eternity . . .’ See M. Clayton, ‘Suicide in the Works of Ælfric’, Review of English Studies 60 (2008), 339–70, at 369–70. Ibid., pp. 361–9. Presumably this heading also covers the virtues which follow in the composite text. That is, if this is an extract and not originally another independent text.

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The Two Versions of the Old English Text he been working from the text as it is in W, L and C, would have begun with the preceding lines in LS xvi, on the three theological virtues, or heahmægnu, as Ælfric terms them, faith, hope and charity, before going on to the vices and virtues. The theological virtues form another short list that would have fitted well with the concerns of the G compiler. This suggests that lines 267–381 may have circulated as a separate tract or as two linked pieces, as well as circulating as part of a sermon, as in LS xvi.142 This might also explain the rather peculiar organisation of the second part of LS xvi, as we have it, where Ælfric deals with the three theological virtues (the heahmægnu), then eight vices and then eight contrary virtues (the heafodmægnu). Had this been planned as a whole, we might at least expect an explanation of the distinction between the three heahmægnu and the eight heafodmægnu. ‘Seo soðe lufu’, moreover, is in both lists, featuring in lines 253–66 as one of the three heahmægnu and in lines 361–3 as one of the heafodmægnu, which again seems odd.143 Another possible pointer to the vices and virtues perhaps being an addition to the first part of LS xvi is that the ending of LS xvi as we know it seems to have had no ‘authentic homiletic conclusion’,144 such as most of the LS texts have, and seems to have finished, as it still does in C, with the summing-up on the power of the virtues, ending at line 381 in Skeat. The lines in the composite text, De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus, finish at the same point and the twelve abuses begin. A later hand has supplied three further lines in W (the last three lines in Skeat’s text, LS xvi, lines 382–4), and L has also had a conclusion added to it. It is possible that, as originally written, LS xvi had a homiletic conclusion after line 266, where the account of the three theological virtues ends, but that this was dropped when the discussion of the eight vices and eight corresponding virtues was added, presumably by Ælfric, leaving the sermon without a homiletic conclusion. Alternatively, if the lines on faith, hope and charity were added if and when the descriptions of the eight vices and eight virtues were added, then LS xvi could have originally concluded with lines 242–5, which, with their allusion to heaven, feel more like an ending. A further possibility is that the text as we have it in Skeat is a combination of three originally separate sections: the long section on the saints (lines 1–245), a short piece on the three heahmægnu (lines 246–66) and another long section on the eight vices and virtues (lines 267–381). There are analogies in the LS for such additions. One is the story of Macarius appended to the Swithun Canterbury received early texts of CH I and II, so it is possible that Ælfric sent early versions of what were to become LS texts or pieces that were to be incorporated in LS texts there also. It is, of course, possible that the lines on the ten commandments in G were also circulated by Ælfric as a separate piece, as in G, as well as forming part of Ælfric’s Second Old English Letter for Wulfstan. 143 Admittedly, Alcuin does something similar in his De uirtutibus et uitiis, Ælfric’s principal source for the vices and virtues part of De octo uitiis: he has chapters on faith, charity and hope near the beginning of the work, then towards the end mentions charity again as one of the contrary virtues which can conquer the vices and then has a chapter ‘De uirtutibus quatuor’ on the cardinal virtues, prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance (PL 101, 637B–C). His section on the contrary virtues consists only of naming them, however, so the juxtaposition is not so noticeable. 144 As Clemoes, ‘Chronology’, p. 222, note 1, points out. 142

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Introduction life in LS xxi – only W has this story appended to the Swithun text145 and there the scribe first concluded the text with a doxology, then copied the Macarius text, and an eleventh-century corrector indicated that the doxology should come at the end of this story rather than before.146 Similarly, the lines on Absalom and Achitophel and thieves and traitors that form a separate piece in two manuscripts occur with the Alban passio, LS xix, as an Item alia, in three others.147 Both parts of LS xix have homiletic conclusions. Again, it is hard to know whether the Absalom and Achitophel passage was excerpted from the complete text or whether Ælfric circulated it both independently and as an appendage to LS xix. We know that lines 141–77 and 254–67 of LS xii circulated independently (CUL Gg. 3. 28 has them, as one piece, under the heading De penitentia), but were then incorporated in the LS text.148 The exact nature of the spel about the heafodleahtrum referred to in the note is not, then, self-evident and we do not have enough evidence to be sure whether the R compiler was extracting from LS xvi, as it is in W, L and C, or had available to him a separate tract, or two linked tracts, on the vices and virtues, as in G. If, as I believe, the note was written by Ælfric, and he was responsible for the composite text, then this lends support to the G form of the text going back to him. It is also seems unlikely that Ælfric would refer to LS xvi as a text be þam heafodleahtrum, ignoring all the material with which it begins; this again suggests that he had issued a separate text on the vices and virtues, to which only G now bears witness. The title of the composite text, De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus, also suggests the existence of an independent text on the vices (and, presumably, virtues). To conclude on De octo uitiis, then, I believe that, like the stand-alone text, it was the work of Ælfric himself. The dates of the texts Our earliest witness to Ælfric’s stand-alone twelve abuses text is W’s table of contents, dating, like the rest of the manuscript, from the beginning of the eleventh century and listing ‘De xii. Abusiuis’ as item XXXVIIII in the manuscript. We have no copy of LS as originally planned by Ælfric; even though the W collection is a very early one, it includes four lives not by him. In W the collection is composed of hagiographic and homiletic items and some Old Testament paraphrases and, as we know from the original table of contents, it concluded with three items, now generally referred to as tracts:149 the Interrogationes Sigewulfi, De falsis diis 145 146 147 148 149

The Macarius story is not in the only other complete copy, that in London, British Library, Cotton Otho B.x. See Pope, p. 787, and Hill, ‘The Dissemination’, p. 240. See Hill, ‘The Dissemination’, p. 239. Clemoes, ‘Chronology’, p. 221, n. 2. Clemoes, ibid., pp. 217–18, lists them under the heading ‘Separate Works’ but Pope, p. 142, while retaining ‘Separate Works’ as a heading, calls them tracts, as does, for example, R. Upchurch, ‘Homiletic Contexts for Ælfric’s Hagiography’, in The Old English Homily: Precedent, Practice

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The Two Versions of the Old English Text and De duodecim abusiuis.150 De falsis diis is now incomplete and De duodecim abusiuis completely lost. Skeat, the editor of LS, argued that these items ‘do not form a necessary part of the Homilies on the Saints’ Lives’,151 regarding them instead as an appendix and not including the two surviving items in his edition.152 Peter Clemoes, too, refers to the three items as being ‘in, as it were, an appendix at the end’153 and he suggested that the order of these three texts in W ‘may reflect their order of composition like that of the items at the end of Gg.3.28’;154 if this were so, it would be an important piece of evidence in dating De duodecim abusiuis. De temporibus anni, prayers and creeds in English, De penitentia, a short piece on abstinence and Ælfric’s Letter for Wulfsige were all added after CH I and II in this manuscript; Malcolm Godden suggests that the manuscript ‘is either a product of Ælfric’s own scriptorium or a remarkably faithful copy of such a manuscript’.155 While all of the extra pieces in CUL Gg.3.28 are early, we have, however, no evidence that their order in the manuscript is their order of composition, as Kenneth Sisam argued.156 In the case of W, the fact that the manuscript is definitely not a product of Ælfric’s scriptorium renders it more unlikely again. Clemoes argued that Ælfric probably issued LS in the form represented by W (without, of course, the non-Ælfrician items) because L has a similar mixture of homilies and saints’ lives in its pieces from LS, even though it is ‘uniformly unconnected with Julius textually’;157 L includes De falsis diis from the ‘appendix’, indicating that its LS exemplar may also have included the pieces at the end of W.158 The principle of selection underlying LS was, according to Clemoes, that pieces should be suitable for a ‘non-liturgical reading-book’ intended for pious reading.159 On this criterion, the three final items in the table of contents probably have as much claim to be considered full members of LS as do texts such as xvi (De memoria sanctorum) and xvii (De auguriis). Admittedly, they are not allocated to any date in the liturgical year, as are most of the other items, which cover the

150 151 152 153 154 155 156

157 158

159

and Appropriation, ed. A. Kleist, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 17 (Turnhout, 2007), 265–84, at 266. LS, vol. I, p. 10. LS, vol. II, p. ix. Ibid., p. ix, n. 1. Clemoes, ‘Chronology’, p. 220. Ibid., p. 224, n. 1. CH II, p. xliii. While Sisam, ‘MSS. Bodley 340 and 342’, p. 168, suggested that the pieces were added to CUL Gg.3.28 in their chronological order, he also suggested (p. 167) that the aim in adding these pieces to the manuscript was to include ‘some related writings for the guidance of the priests’; this latter suggestion suggests a different principle at work. Clemoes, ‘Chronology’, p. 220. Hill, ‘The Dissemination’, p. 237, erroneously says that CUL Ii.1.33 contains copies of the Interrogationes and De duodecim abusiuis; it includes only De falsis diis from the ‘appendix’ to the Lives. Clemoes, ‘Chronology’, p. 221. The pieces are, however, arranged in the order of the church year for ease of reference.

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Introduction liturgical year from Christmas to the feast of St Thomas on 21 December,160 but one could consider them as having the same relation to the rest of the manuscript’s contents as the items for the Common of Saints do to the rest of CH II; they are not assigned to any particular liturgical date and come at the end of the collection but can be used in the same way as the other items in the collection.161 Robert Upchurch has recently emphasised that ‘the tracts must be read in conjunction with the legend and homilies printed by Skeat in order to gain the fullest sense of the didactic scope of the collection’.162 Despite Skeat’s ‘appendix’ having had a long life, then, there is very little basis for it; the three items are entered in the manuscript’s table of contents in the same way as the other items and with a continuous numbering. On the evidence that we have (admittedly not as much as we would like), we should perhaps accord them the same status as the rest of W’s contents.163 This is not the same as saying that they were part of the series to which Ælfric’s preface to LS was the introduction but, on the evidence now available, this series cannot be reconstructed;164 as a result, what we know as LS is what is in W, apart from the anonymous works in the manuscript, and De duodecim abusiuis, the Interrogationes and De falsis diis should be included. Clemoes also suggested that De duodecim abusiuis is likely to have been composed around the same time as LS xiii, De oratione Moysi: ‘As to the fully rhythmical pieces among the supplementary items in Julius’s set of Lives, there is nothing to show a relative order of composition among them, except that Skeat xiii and De XII Abusivis are not likely to be far apart in time; the latter treats at length the theme summarised briefly in lines 116–27 of the former.’ This seems highly likely, as the lines to which Clemoes alludes are those in which Ælfric summarised the twelve abuses, assigning a line to each abuse. This text, De oratione Moysi, is considered to be one of the earliest of LS and probably dates from c. 995.165 As Clemoes points out, LS xiii is found in CCCC 162 with early 160

161

162 163

164

165

Other than LS xvi, which is headed ‘Sermo de memoria Sanctorum. Spel loca hwænne man wille’ and the paraphrase of Kings, although its place in the manuscript suggests that this should be read in early summer, when it was read in the monastic Office (on the reading of Kings, see M. McC. Gatch, ‘The Office in Late Anglo-Saxon Monasticism’, in Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England: Studies Presented to Peter Clemoes on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. M. Lapidge and H. Gneuss (Cambridge and New York, 1985), pp. 341–62, at 353–4). Hill, ‘The Dissemination’, p. 248, suggests, however, that the dissemination of the non-hagiographical items in the collection ‘may support the view that they were not all originally part of the Lives of Saints collection’. Upchurch, ‘Homiletic Contexts’, pp. 266–7, n. 4. Much work has been done recently by Joyce Hill on the transmission of the Lives of Saints, but she considers these items as ‘three completely independent works by Ælfric at the end of the manuscript which are not part of the Lives of Saints collection’ (‘Identifying “Texts” in Cotton Julius E.vii’, p. 28). M. McC. Gatch, Preaching and Theology in Anglo-Saxon England: Ælfric and Wulfstan (Toronto, 1977), pp. 180–1, n. 49, suggests that a ‘purer version’ of the series may have existed, if only in Ælfric’s imagination, as the Preface makes no reference to texts other than saints’ lives. Ibid., pp. 220–1 and 226, and M. Godden, ‘Apocalypse and Invasion in Late Anglo-Saxon England’, in From Anglo-Saxon to Early Middle English: Studies Presented to E. G. Stanley, ed. M. Godden, D. Gray and T. Hoad (Oxford, 1994), pp. 130–62, at 133.

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The Two Versions of the Old English Text versions of CH homilies and in a textual form which is earlier than that in W, suggesting that it was composed soon after the completion of CH II and before the compilation of LS.166 If De duodecim abusiuis was written around the same time, then it is more likely to have been written at the early stages of compiling LS than in the final stages. The LS collection was completed before the death of Æthelweard, to whom, along with his son Æthelmær, it was dedicated. The last charter attested by Æthelweard is dated 998 and it is generally assumed that he died fairly shortly afterwards.167 If we take De duodecim abusiuis as an integral part of LS, then, Ælfric’s De duodecim abusiuis must have been completed by c. 998 at the latest but its connection with LS xiii suggests that it may well have been written several years before that, c. 995. LS xvi must also have been completed by the time the collection as a whole was issued; W contains the preface addressing Æthelweard and Æthelmær so the form of the series in the manuscript was completed before Æthelweard’s death. Clemoes argued that LS xvi marked ‘the beginning of Ælfric’s plan to compile a volume of Lives’,168 which would presumably push the date back to a year or two earlier than 998, but we have no proof that this was one of the very first of the LS texts to be composed. He believed that this text was written especially for LS and intended: to serve as a general introduction to it [the series] in much the same way as CH I 1 served as a general introduction to CH. It places the passions of the martyrs in an historical perspective and relates them to the reader’s struggle against sin. It has been removed from its first place in Julius, though it is still not assigned to any specific position; but in Ii.1.33 it retains the rubric appropriate to an initial position: Incipit sermo de memoria sanctorum.169

As against this, however, Ælfric normally begins a series with a Christmas text, as LS does in W. The date of De octo uitiis is bound up with the compilation of the R-type collection. The earliest date at which this collection could have been compiled is 1006, as it contains Assmann iv, written after Ælfric had become an abbot. He became an abbot in 1005 and Assmann iv is dated by Clemoes to 1006 or after; Fehr proposed 1007.170 The textual state of the CH I texts in the R-type collection 166

Ibid., p. 221. On the death of Æthelweard, see S. Keynes, The Diplomas of King Æthelred ‘The Unready’ 978–1016: A Study in their Use as Historical Evidence (Cambridge, 1980), p. 192. Sisam, ‘MSS. Bodley 340 and 342’, p. 171, n. 1, had already given 998 as the later limit for the completion of LS, on the grounds that Æthelweard had died in that year, but Clemoes, ‘Chronology’, p. 243, worked from a death-date of 1002 for him. 168 Clemoes, ‘Chronology’, p. 226, n. 3. 169 Ibid., p. 222. 170 See also my ‘Of Mice and Men: Ælfric’s Second Homily for the Feast of a Confessor’, Leeds Studies in English 24 (1993), 1–26, at 1–2; a note in CCCC 188 explains that Ælfric composed the homily at the request of Æthelwold the Younger, bishop of Winchester from 1006 to 1012, and Fehr, pp. L–LI, pointed out the connection between the homily and Ælfric’s first Old English pastoral letter for Wulfstan, dated c. 1006. He therefore dated Assmann iv to 1007. 167

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Introduction fits with this, as they belong to the ε stage, revised when Ælfric had become an abbot.171 The other manuscripts which contain De octo uitiis, C and Xi, also belong to this stage, as we would expect. Similarly, the CH II texts in R belong to the second recension of this collection, ‘a substantially revised version of the text belonging to a fairly late stage of his work’.172 The augmented texts of De octo uitiis and De auguriis may have been produced specifically for the R-type collection if, as I believe, this was issued by Ælfric himself.173 In producing De octo uitiis, Ælfric, then, combined his work on the eight virtues and vices, which may well have been issued by him as a separate text as well as incorporated in LS xvi, and his text of the twelve abuses and provided the composite text with a introduction. This must have been done towards the very end of his career, between 1006 and his death, generally presumed to have taken place c. 1010.

3 De duodecim abusiuis In his De duodecim abusiuis Ælfric produced the earliest vernacular version of one of the most influential ethical treatises of the Middle Ages. The main source of his text has never been in doubt, proclaimed by the very title: P, for example, is headed De duodecim abusiuis secundum disputacionem Cypriani episcopi et martiris. There has, however, been no detailed treatment of Ælfric’s use of this source; it is, moreover, not very well known among Anglo-Saxonists and so I introduce it here in some detail, before moving on to a consideration, section by section, of the Old English. The Latin De duodecim abusiuis is a short tract on what the author sees as the twelve abuses of the world.174 These abuses are all expressed in the form of the contradictio in adiecto, or contradiction in terms, where the adjective used to describe a category of people is a contradiction of what is seen as the most See Clemoes, CH I, pp. 112–22. CH II, p. xxiii. 173 For this suggestion, see my ‘Ælfric’s De auguriis’, pp. 389–90. 174 The standard edition is still that of Hellmann, [Pseudo-Cyprian], ‘Pseudo-Cyprianus de XII abusivis saeculi’, ed. S. Hellmann, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, Reihe 3, Band 4, Heft 1 (Leipzig, 1909), 1–62, but a new edition by Aidan Breen, based on his Ph.D. dissertation, ‘Towards a Critical Edition of De XII abusiuis: Introductory Essays with a Provisional Edition of the Text’ (unpubl. Ph.D. dissertation, Trinity College, Dublin, 1988), is in progress. Breen’s work, in his dissertation and in a range of articles, is drawn upon extensively in this chapter. The text was also edited in an appendix by W. Hartel, Cypriani Opera, CSEL III, 3 (Vienna, 1871), pp. 152–73, among the works of Cyprian in PL 4, 869–82, and among the works of Augustine in PL 40, 1079–88; the reader of the works of St Patrick is referred to the PL 4 edition in PL 53, 837–8. See Clavis patristica pseudepigraphorum medii aevi II B, ed. I. Machielsen (Turnhout, 1994), p. 695 (no. 3067) and p. 740 (no. 3230). Breen provides a translation of his edition in his dissertation and Hellmann’s text has been translated by P. Throop in Vincent of Beauvais, The Moral Instruction of a Prince, and Pseudo-Cyprian, The Twelve Abuses of the World (Charlotte, VT, 2011). 171 172

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De duodecim abusiuis important quality for this group; so, for example, the abuse of a woman without modesty sees modesty as the crucial virtue for women or the abuse of the king without justice sees justice as the most important quality for a king. The tract covers all of society, from kings and bishops to paupers, women, the young and the old and groups who disrupt the proper functioning of a Christian society. There are many biblical quotations and examples to illustrate the abuses. The descriptions of the abuses and the accounts of how inappropriate they are range in length from about 24 lines to about 50 lines in Hellmann’s edition, in which the entire text reaches to just over 500 lines. While termed abuses, the individual sections describe what the author sees as correct behaviour as much as they do the evil which is being condemned. The individual sections, in summary, are: 1. sapiens sine operibus bonis,175 the wise man without good works, that is the preacher who does not live in accordance with his own preaching and also refuses to be instructed by another teacher. Those to whom the care of others is entrusted will be more severely punished than ordinary people if they do not do the will of God. 2. senex sine religione, the old man without religion, that is the old man (the signs of whose old age are vividly depicted) who does not live a devout life but ignores his imminent death. The heart and the tongue do not change with age and draw men into sin; old men should consider what is appropriate for their age and act accordingly. 3. adolescens sine oboedientia, the young man without obedience, that is a young man who does not show respect to his ‘father’ and never acquires discipline; a fourfold interpretation of father is given (‘hoc est natura gente admonitione aetate’).176 Young men should be subject and obedient. 4. diues sine elemosyna, the rich man without almsgiving, that is the rich man who hoards his wealth and never helps the poor, thus depriving himself of the kingdom of heaven by loving things which cannot love him in return. 5. femina sine pudicitia, the woman without modesty, because modesty in outward behaviour and in inner disposition nourishes all good actions in women, restrains every vice and ensures that women will be praised in this world and rewarded in the next. 6. dominus sine uirtute, the lord without strength, that is the lord who rules without inner strength of spirit and is negligent, lacking the necessary qualities of terror (i.e. that his subordinates fear him), good governance (ordinatio) and love, and who does not acknowledge his dependence on God; the author then discusses the effects of high office on different kinds of dominus by means of biblical examples.177 7. christianus contentiosus, the contentious Christian, that is the Christian who loves and strives for the things of this world, causing contention, rather than loving Manuscripts differ on the reading bonis in the first line of the text; Hellmann’s text, p. 32, line 1, reads sapiens sine operibus, but several of his variant manuscripts read operibus bonis or bonis operibus, whereas Breen’s edition, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, p. 332, line 1, reads sapiens sine operibus bonis, as Ælfric’s source seems to have done. 176 Hellmann, p. 37, line 1: ‘by nature, by nation, lineage, advice, or age’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 118). 177 On this term, see below, p. 40. 175

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Introduction God and his neighbour, imitating Christ and concentrating on the homeland of heaven. 8. pauper superbus, the poor man who is proud, that is the man who has nothing and should be humble, mindful that blessed are the poor in spirit, but who instead is arrogant. 9. rex iniquus, the unjust king, whose behaviour is wicked. Much of this section is devoted to describing the qualities of a just king, whose justice makes his kingdom prosper and ensures him a reward in heaven. This is followed by an account of the disastrous effects for the kingdom of an evil king – entailing war, infertility of the land, death, invasion, deaths of animals, storms and the loss of heirs to the kingdom – and an account of how the justice of the king guarantees the welfare of his kingdom, bringing tranquillity, protection for kingdom and subjects, temperate weather, still seas, fruitful land, comfort to the poor, the sure inheritance of the king’s children and eternal reward for the king. 10. episcopus negligens, the negligent bishop, whose behaviour is not appropriate for his high office and who does not live up to the etymology of his name, which means watchman. The bishop must attempt to correct the sins of his people and, if he cannot, to cast out sinners from the church; no bishop may receive those excommunicated by another bishop. The qualities of a good bishop are then listed and the section ends with a plea that bishops behave in such a way as to ensure that they are rewarded at the Last Judgement. 11. plebs sine disciplina, the people without discipline, who do not observe the rules of their elders and fall into the snare of perdition. The Lord disciplines his children that they may be corrected and those who reject that discipline rend the unity of the church, for discipline protects the entire church; it is preserved by keeping all of the commandments. 12. populus sine lege, the people without law, who know the commands of God but despise them and follow different paths to perdition, rather than taking the one royal highway of the law of God, to which they were invited by Christ. The people without law is therefore the people without Christ. The text concludes with an exhortation to all to be part of Christ. The text can be viewed as a single tract or, alternatively, as Aidan Breen suggests, as ‘a collection of twelve succinct but comprehensive moral-theological treatises on the chief sources of moral corruption within humanity which lead to its damnation’.178 The tract is written in a distinctive style and the structure of the sentences is determined by the rhetorical figure of homœteleuton, by which words with the same or similar endings are used at the end of sections of a sentence; as Kenney says, ‘the majority of its sentences are divided into balanced periods, more or less rhythmical and with occasional riming endings’.179 A. Breen, ‘De XII abusiuis: Text and Transmission’, in Ireland and Europe in the Early Middle Ages: Texts and Transmission, ed. P. Ní Chatháin and M. Richter (Dublin, 2002), pp. 78–94, at 78. 179 J. Kenney, The Sources for the Early History of Ireland: An Introduction and Guide, I: Ecclesiastical (New York, 1929), p. 282. 178

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De duodecim abusiuis Place of origin of De duodecim abusiuis De duodecim abusiuis is frequently ascribed to a named author in the manuscripts, with attributions to Cyprian (d. 258) and Augustine (d. 430) the most common. Early editions of De duodecim abusiuis are, accordingly, found among the works of Cyprian and Augustine; however, in 1905, in his work on St Patrick, Bury attributed the text to Ireland. He pointed out that its use of the Vulgate contradicted the ascriptions to Cyprian or Augustine and that the Collectio canonum Hibernensis, an early-eighth-century text written in Ireland, quoted an adaptation of the ninth abuse and ascribed it to Patrick;180 this ‘strongly suggests that its origin was Irish’.181 In his 1909 edition, Hellmann offered further evidence for placing the composition of De duodecim abusiuis in Ireland. He located it on the basis of the passage in the Hibernensis, of another passage based on the ninth abuse in a letter dated 775 by Cathwulf, probably an Anglo-Saxon at the court of Charlemagne,182 also with an ascription to Patrick, of the manuscript distribution (although no early manuscripts from Ireland are extant, the pattern of distribution suggested an Irish origin to him) and of the language of the text which, he felt, pointed to somewhere that Latin had always been a written rather than spoken language; he also claimed that the orthography and the textual errors pointed to Ireland.183 Hellmann argued further that the work had been compiled in the south or south-east of Ireland, on the grounds that it and the Hibernensis had the same home; the Hibernensis was written by two authors, Ruben of Darinis (on the Blackwater River in Munster), who died in 725, and Cú Chuimne of Iona, who died in 747.184 The two texts had, he pointed out, common sources which were unusual in this period (in particular, the Vulgate, the Benedictine Rule and a hypothetical collection of sententiae), the Hibernensis had copied part of De duodecim abusiuis and both used homoeoteleuton as a stylistic device to a degree not found elsewhere in Hiberno-Latin of the period; for these reasons he thought that both must share a place of origin.185 Hellmann also felt that the text came from Romani circles in Ireland;186 this point will be discussed further below. He suggested too that De duodecim abusiuis showed the influence of native Irish tradition, saying that similar contradictions in terms can be found in, for example, 180 181 182

183 184

185 186

H. Wasserschleben, Die irische Kanonensammlung, 2nd edn (Leipzig, 1885); this text will be referred to as the Hibernensis. J. Bury, The Life of St Patrick and his Place in History (London and New York, 1905), p. 245. On Cathwulf, see M. Garrison, ‘Letters to a King and Biblical Exempla: The Examples of Cathuulf and Clemens Peregrinus’, Early Medieval Europe 7 (1998), 305–28, and ‘The English and the Irish at the Court of Charlemagne’, in Karl der Große und sein Nachwirken. 1200 Jahre Kultur und Wissenschaft in Europa, ed. P.L. Butzer, M. Kerner and W. Oberschelp (Turnhout, 1998), I, 97–123, esp. 101–2, and J. Story, ‘Cathwulf, Kingship, and the Royal Abbey of St Denis’, Speculum 74 (1999), 1–21. Hellmann, pp. 3–4. Ibid., pp. 4–10. On the compilers, see T. Thurneysen, ‘Zur irischen Kanonensammlung’, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 6 (1908), 1–5. Hellmann, pp. 7–9. Ibid., pp. 10–14.

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Introduction the Senchas Már, an early collection of Irish law.187 Hellmann’s attribution of the text to Ireland has been generally accepted and his various arguments about the Irish origin of the text have all been developed by later scholars, proving, in general, remarkably accurate.188 Like Hellmann, Kenney argued that De duodecim abusiuis originated in Ireland: ‘In both the turn of thought and the form it is characteristically Irish, and would be immediately recognised as such by any person familiar with the secular gnomic literature of the Irish language.’189 The ninth abuse, the unjust king, has been crucial in discussions of origin and the text’s linking of the welfare of the kingdom with the justice of the king has been traced back to Irish tradition.190 Kim McCone, for example, explains: At the heart of early Irish kingship theory lay the notion that a kingdom’s welfare in both the social and natural spheres was intimately bound up with the sovereign’s physical, social and mental condition. Medieval Irish literature abounds in descriptions attributing peace, social stability, good weather, abundance of crops, livestock and so on to the ‘sovereign’s truth’ or fír flatha. Conversely, other passages record the catastrophic consequences such as Ibid., p. 15. The Senchas Már probably dates from the first half of the eighth century (see T. CharlesEdwards, ‘Early Irish Law’, in A New History of Ireland: Prehistoric and Early Ireland, ed. D. Ó Cróinín (Oxford, 2005), pp. 337–46). This text enumerates four dignitaries who may be degraded: a false-judging king, a stumbling bishop, a fraudulent poet and an unworthy chieftain who does not fulfil his duties (quoted by Hellmann, p. 15) and Hellmann pointed to the similarities with the unjust king, the negligent bishop and the lord without power. 188 See Kenney, Sources, pp. 281–2; M. Esposito, ‘Notes on Latin Learning and Literature in Mediaeval Ireland. – III’, Hermathena 23 (1933), 221–49, repr. in Latin Learning in Mediaeval Ireland, ed. M. Lapidge (London, 1988), p. 229 (although his is a less than enthusiastic acceptance of the tract’s Irishness; he says that ‘several modern scholars have concluded, not perhaps without probability, that the little treatise was in reality written in that distressful country between the years 630 and 700’); B. Bischoff, ‘Die europaïsche Verbreitung der Werke Isidors von Sevilla’, Isidoriana. Estudios sobre San Isidoro de Sevilla en el XIV centenario de su nacimiento, ed. M. C. Diaz y Diaz (Léon, 1961), pp. 317–44; augmented version in Mittelalterliche Studien 1 (Stuttgart, 1966), pp. 171–94, at 181; K. Hughes, Early Christian Ireland: Introduction to the Sources (Ithaca, NY, 1972), p. 68; H. Anton, ‘Pseudo-Cyprian: De duodecim abusivis saeculi und sein Einfluss auf den Kontinent, insbesondere auf die karolingischen Fürstenspiegel’, in Die Iren und Europa im früheren Mittelalter, ed. H Löwe (Stuttgart, 1982), pp. 568–617, who fully accepts the Irish origin. Somewhat more sceptical are M. Winterbottom, ‘Aldhelm’s Prose Style and its Origins’, Anglo-Saxon England 6 (1977), 39–76, at 74, who says that De duodecim abusiuis ‘may be Irish’, and A. Orchard, ‘Some Aspects of Seventh-Century Hiberno-Latin Syntax: A Statistical Approach’, Peritia 6–7 (1987–8), 158–201, at 180–2, who says that his statistical approach offers only partial support for the Irish origin of De duodecim abusiuis, but that the figures for the text closely resemble those for the letters of Virgilius Maro Grammaticus (for whom an Irish origin has also been suggested). The exception is E. Coccia, ‘La cultura irlandesa precarolingia: miracolo o mito?’, Studi Medievali 3rd ser. 8 (1967), 257–420, at 393–5, who suggested that the tract could possibly be English; this theory has not won any acceptance (for a refutation, see Anton, ‘Pseudo-Cyprian’, p. 571). 189 Kenney, Sources, p. 282. 190 For a fuller discussion of this, see M. Clayton, ‘De duodecim abusiuis, Lordship and Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England’, in Saints and Scholars: New Perspectives on Anglo-Saxon Literature and Culture in Honour of Hugh Magennis (Cambridge, 2012), pp. 141–63, and J. Grigg, ‘The Just King and De duodecim abusiuis saeculi’, Parergon 27 (2010), 27–51. 187

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De duodecim abusiuis strife, bad weather, pestilence and famine liable to result from the gáu flatha or ‘sovereign’s lie’.191

The closest Irish text is Audacht Morainn, the earliest Irish example of the genre of the speculum principum, which appears very early in Irish literature; its orthography and syntax suggest a date of c. 700.192 Fergus Kelly points out that the ‘central theme of A[udacht] M[orainn] is that the welfare of the king and his tribe depends on his justice or fír flathemon’.193 The following translated quotation shows the similarities very clearly: §12 Tell him, it is through the justice of the ruler that plagues [and] great lightnings are kept from the people. §13 It is through the justice of the ruler that he judges great tribes [and] great riches. §14 It is through the justice of the ruler that he secures peace, tranquillity, joy, ease, [and] comfort. §15 It is through the justice of the ruler that he dispatches (great) battalions to the borders of hostile neighbours. §16 It is through the justice of the ruler that every heir plants his house-post in his fair inheritance. §17 It is through the justice of the ruler that abundances of great tree-fruit of the great wood are tasted. §18 It is through the justice of the ruler that milk-yields of great cattle are maintained (?). §19 It is through the justice of the ruler that there is (?) abundance of every high, tall corn. §20 It is through the justice of the ruler that abundance of fish swim in streams. §21 It is through the justice of the ruler that fair children are well begotten.194

Such a connection is not unique to Old Irish texts, however, and McCone points out that the ‘basic dichotomy [in De duodecim abusiuis] is entirely in keeping with Proverbs 29.4’.195 What we have in De duodecim abusiuis seems to be a coming together of biblical and native Irish concepts of kingship, therefore, with the Irish tradition assimilated into a Christian framework; the influence of the Old Testament on the text is pervasive and the author also seems to have been familiar

191 192 193

194 195

K. McCone, Pagan Past and Christian Present in Early Irish Literature, Maynooth Monographs 3 (An Sagart, 1991). Audacht Morainn, ed. F. Kelly (Dublin, 1976), p. xiv. Ibid., p. xvii; see also N. Aitchison, ‘Kingship, Society, and Sacrality: Rank, Power, and Ideology in Early Medieval Ireland’, Traditio 49 (1994), 45–75, at 62–4, and B. Jaski, Early Irish Kingship and Succession (Dublin, 2000), pp. 72–5. Audacht Morainn, ed. Kelly, p. 7 (question marks in the translation are Kelly’s). McCone, Pagan Past and Christian Present, p. 139. Proverbs XXIX.4 is ‘rex iustus erigit terram uir auarus destruet eam’ (‘the just king setteth up the land; a covetous man man shall destroy it’). A similar idea can also be found in Greek literature and Kelly has pointed out that the Audacht Morainn’s linking of the welfare of king and kingdom is similar to the Odyssey, xix (Audacht Morainn, ed. Kelly, p. xvii).

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Introduction with continental developments in kingship theory.196 Another pointer to the text’s origin in Ireland is the numerical structure of the twelve abuses, even though it was imitated from either the Regula Magistri or the Regula Benedicti; the Irish had a marked fondness for such structuring principles. Charles Wright observes: ‘In comparison to most continental sources, Irish biblical commentaries, florilegia and homily collections are remarkable for their persistent use of numerical motifs, often grouped in sequence or employed as a structural principle, as in the influential tract De duodecim abusiuis saeculi.’197 Anton pointed out that the content of the sixth abuse is another symptom of an Irish origin. The sixth abuse is the dominus sine uirtute; although it was interpreted from the ninth century onwards as a nobleman, dominus in the sixth abuse has to be interpreted in the Irish context in which the text was written.198 Anton points out that it is particularly clear from the beginning of the abuse that in this text the dominus is, at least primarily, an ecclesiastical leader.199 Such a dominus or princeps, as he is also termed in the sixth abuse, was the leader of people living on church land (those not living on church land were ruled by a king or a chieftain); he could be an abbot, bishop or lay person with responsibility for administering the church land and was equivalent in status and function to a king.200As Anton notes, the tenth abuse concerns bishops, so abbots sine uirtute, without the mental strength and resolution to do good, are presumably the primary target here.201 A further indication of Irish origin is the nature of the biblical text used in the tract. Breen has analysed the Vulgate text used and concludes that the Irish origin of De duodecim abusiuis ‘can with rigour and in detail be demonstrated from an analysis of its biblical text-type and usage, the exegetical structure of the text, its complex textual relationships with the Hiberno-Latin corpus, including texts both anterior and posterior to it, and from a number of significant indications within the framework of the text which definitely bespeak an Irish origin’.202 He has also explored the connections between the tract and other Hiberno-Latin texts,

196 197 198 199 200

201

202

Grigg, ‘The Just King and De duodecim abusiuis saeculi’, especially pp. 43–51. Wright, The Irish Tradition, p. 21; see also F. Brunhölzl, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters (Munich, 1971), I, 191. For a fuller discussion, see my ‘De duodecim abusiuis, Lordship and Kingship’, pp. 144–6. Anton, ‘Pseudo-Cyprian’, p. 573; at the beginning of this abuse, the author says that the dominus does not need the armed force which is necessary for secular lords but rather internal strength. See J.-M. Picard, ‘Pour une réévaluation du rôle et du statut de l’évêque dans l’Irlande du haut Moyen Âge’, Medievales 42 (2002), 131–52 (at p. 145), and his ‘Princeps and Principatus in the Early Irish Church: A Reassessment’, in Seanchas: Studies in Early Irish and Medieval History and Literature in Honour of Francis J. Byrne, ed. A. Smyth (Dublin, 2000), pp. 146–60. Anton, ‘Pseudo-Cyprian’, p. 573, n. 24; see also A. Breen, ‘The Date, Provenance and Authorship of the Pseudo-Patrician Canonical Materials’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Kanonistische Abteilung 71 (1995), 83–129, at 95, n. 41. See A. Breen, ‘Pseudo-Cyprian De duodecim abusivis saeculi and the Bible’, in Irland und die Christenheit: Bibelstudien und Mission, ed. P. Ní Chatháin and M. Richter (Stuttgart, 1987), pp. 230–45, at 231. See further below under sources.

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De duodecim abusiuis especially the canons known as the First and Second Synods of Patrick.203 These will be discussed further below. The evidence for De duodecim abusiuis’s Irish origins is, then, compelling. The date of De duodecim abusiuis Bury pointed out that De duodecim abusiuis must have been written before c. 700 because it was used in the Hibernensis, which dates from the first quarter of the eighth century.204 Hellmann agreed with the pre-700 dating and argued that the terminus post quem was provided by the completion of Isidore of Seville’s Eymologiae, which, he suggested, had been used as a source for the etymology episcopus-speculator in the tenth abuse.205 He proposed a time-frame of c. 630 to 700;206 Kenney, however, preferred a time-frame of 630 to 650 on the grounds that the use of the title Patricius in the Hibernensis for the author of the ninth abuse denoted antiquity and that the text must, therefore, have been already old when it was used in the Hibernensis.207 Kathleen Hughes accepted this also.208 In his 1982 article, Anton looked again at the dating. Taking Hellmann’s suggestion of the use of the Etymologiae in the tenth abuse as certain, he added that the author of De duodecim abusiuis had definitely used Isidore’s Sententiae III.48, as well as proposing some further uses of the Etymologiae, one of which he also considered certain.209 Given that Isidore is for him the latest source, the date at which these works might have been available in Ireland is clearly crucial. The Etymologiae is the later of the two works and it existed in some form c. 620 but did not receive its final form until after Isidore’s death in 636.210 We know that Isidore’s works were known in Ireland very soon after they were written.211 203 204 205 206 207 208

209

210 211

Breen, ‘The Date, Provenance and Authorship’. Bury, The Life of St Patrick, p. 245. Hellmann, pp. 1–2 (drawing on Etymologiae VII.12.12); Hellmann also pointed out some other possible uses of Isidore in his critical apparatus. Ibid., p. 2. Kenney, Sources, p. 282. K. Hughes, ‘Irish Monks and Learning’, in Los monjes y los estudios, IV semana de estudios monasticos (Poblet, 1961), pp. 61–86 (repr. in her Church and Society in Ireland A.D. 400–1200, ed. D. Dumville (London, 1987)), at 66–7: ‘The Irish author of the treatise De Duodecim Abusivis Saeculi, writing perhaps between 630 and 650, knew Isidore’s Etymologiae, and it is worth noting that the only seventh-century manuscript of the Etymologiae which is known to exist was written in Irish minuscule.’ ‘Pseudo-Cyprian’, p. 574, n. 26; the further use which he considered certain is in the ninth abuse which, according to Anton, draws on Etymologiae XIII. 12. 3 (Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum sive Originum, ed. W. Lindsay, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1911). See also H. Anton, Fürstenspiegel und Herrscherethos in der Karolingerzeit, Bonner Historische Forschungen 32 (Bonn, 1968), p. 68, n. 110. See Anton, ‘Pseudo-Cyprian’, p. 575, and S. Barney, W. Lewis, S. Beach and O. Berghof, The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville (Cambridge, 2006), p. 10. Bischoff, ‘Die europaïsche Verbreitung der Werke Isidors von Sevilla’, p. 180; J. Hillgarth, ‘The East, Visigothic Spain and the Irish’, Studia Patristica 4 (Berlin, 1961), 442–56, and ‘Visigothic

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Introduction Anton, therefore, gives an earliest possible date of c. 625 but feels that a date of 630 or 635 is more likely as a terminus post quem; as regards the terminus ante quem, Anton puts it at the end of the seventh century.212 Anton’s limits, therefore, are similar to Hellmann’s, c. 630 to c. 700. However, Anton, on the basis of a series of comparisons between De duodecim abusiuis, the Hibernensis and the Collectaneum of Sedulius Scottus, then suggested that the extant form of De duodecim abusiuis was not the original form and that an earlier version, which has not survived, may have once existed.213 This earlier text was, he surmised, represented by passages in the Sentenzensammlung, or collection of extracts, whose existence Hellmann had already postulated,214 and it was on this lost text that the Hibernensis and Sedulius Scottus drew. This would, he argued further, mean that the dating criteria that he used serve to date the lost earlier version, not the extant one; the earliest evidence for the latter would then be the earliest surviving manuscripts and the use of the text in the Collectanea of Pseudo-Bede. While advancing this argument, Anton felt that a new edition of the Hibernensis was needed before this question could be definitively solved.215 Aidan Breen, who produced a new, interim, edition of De duodecim abusiuis for his Ph.D. dissertation, was not at all convinced of the existence of the hypothetical Sentenzensammlung, however, arguing that the Hibernensis extracts come from De duodecim abusiuis as we know it; he says, nevertheless, that ‘similarities between phrases and expressions in De XII and other Hiberno-Latin texts must persuade us to leave the possibility open that some common pool of proverbial material may once have existed’.216 It seems preferable, then, to use the dating criteria as evidence for De duodecim abusiuis as we now have it, rather than as evidence for the date of a hypothetical earlier stage of the text from which extracts were incorporated in another hypothetical lost text. Another important consideration for the date of De duodecim abusiuis, already indicated by Hellmann, is its connections with the Romani movement within the Irish church. The Romani were those who supported the Roman Easter in the paschal controversy which troubled the Irish church from the 620s to the beginning of the eighth century.217 This controversy was not limited to Ireland;

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Spain and Early Christian Ireland, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 62 (1962), 167–94; D. Ó Cróinín, ‘A Seventh-Century Irish Computus from the Circle of Cummianus’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 82 (1982), 405–30, at 423–4, repr. in his Early Irish History and Chronology (Dublin, 2003), pp. 99–130. Anton, ‘Pseudo-Cyprian’, p. 576. Ibid., pp. 576–86. Hellmann, p. 6, and Sedulius Scottus, Liber de rectoribus Christianus, ed. S. Hellmann, Quellen und Untersuchungen zur lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters 1 (Munich, 1906), pp. 136–41. Anton, ‘Pseudo-Cyprian’, p. 586. Breen, ‘De XII abusiuis: Text and Transmission’, p. 82, n. 14; Breen, however, also left open the possibility that the Hibernensis compilers were drawing on an intermediate source such as a seventh-century Irish synod which could have re-edited the extract from the ninth abuse (see Breen, ‘The Date, Provenance and Authorship’, pp. 107–80). An overview of this controversy can be found in the B. Blackburn and L. Holford-Strevens, The Oxford Companion to the Year (Oxford, 1999), in the chapter entitled ‘The Date of Easter’, pp.

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De duodecim abusiuis the Irish method of calculating Easter had been adopted from the British church and the controversy was more bitter in Britain.218 From the early Middle Ages, it was agreed that Easter should be celebrated on the first Sunday after the full moon which fell on or after the vernal equinox, but different churches disagreed on the date of the equinox and on how to calculate the full moon. In the fifth and sixth centuries the Irish church calculated the date of Easter on the basis of an 84-year cycle.219 This did not cause problems until the beginning of the seventh century, partly because of the relative isolation of the Irish and British churches;220 however, long before that Rome had switched to a 19-year cycle. Gaul, too, used a 19-year cycle devised by Victorius of Aquitaine, which had been adopted there in 541. There were two 19-year cycles, that of Victorius and the Dionysiac-Alexandrian; Victorius’s tables seem to have been used in Rome c. 630 but Rome appears to have changed to the Dionysiac-Alexandrian tables at some point after that. The two systems differed on the lunar limits, that is, on the day of the lunar month that Easter Sunday was allowed to fall, and on the date of the vernal equinox and they differed from the 84-year cycle in these respects also. In 628 or 629, Pope Honorius wrote to the Irish church asking them not to observe a different Easter from the rest of the world and exhorting them not to think that they, on the edge of the world, were wiser than everyone else;221 in response to the letter, a number of southern Irish churches agreed to adopt the Roman Easter and it was then determined that a synod would be held to decide the Easter question. A letter by Cummian, written in 632 or 633 and addressed to Ségéne, fifth abbot of Iona, and Béccán, an anchorite, allows us to reconstruct the sequence of events; Cummian was defending what must be Victorius’s tables and urging acceptance of them.222 The synod was held at Mag Léne in 630 and agreement to adopt the Roman Easter seems to have been reached; however,

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791–800, and in the chapter entitled ‘The Paschal Controversy’, in T. Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 391–415. For more detailed discussions of different aspects, see the collection of essays by D. Ó Cróinín, Early Irish History and Chronology (Dublin, 2003), and Cummian’s Letter De controversia paschali and the De ratione conputandi, ed. M. Walsh and D. Ó Cróinín, Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Texts and Studies 86 (Toronto, 1988). Bede reports on it at length; see especially Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. and trans. B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (London, 1969), II.2, II.4, II.19, III.3, III.17, III.25–6, IV.15 and IV.21–2. The 84-year Easter table used by the Irish church was for a long time considered lost but an Irish table for the years 438 to 521 was discovered in a manuscript in Padua; it was published by D. McCarthy and D. Ó Cróinín, ‘The “Lost” Irish 84-Year Easter Table Rediscovered’, Peritia 6–7 (1987–8), 227–42. This 84-year cycle may have been devised by Sulpicius Severus: see D. McCarthy, ‘The Origins of the Latercus Paschal Cycle of the Insular Celtic Churches’, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 28 (1994), 25–49. Problems arose first in Gaul; when Columbanus arrived there at the end of the sixth century, he followed the 84-year cycle to which he was accustomed at home. The differences between this and Victorius’s tables, which were followed in Gaul, gave rise to the problem of Easter being celebrated on different days; Columbanus wrote two letters to the pope (the first to Gregory the Great and the second to one of his successors) defending the 84-year tables. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Colgrave and Mynors , II.19. Cummian’s Letter, ed. Walsh and Ó Cróinín, pp. 18–19.

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Introduction one senior figure who had consented to the decision changed his mind shortly afterwards and refused to accept the synod’s ruling.223 A delegation was then sent to Rome in 631 (a year in which the divergence between the Irish and Roman Easter was a whole month);224 this returned c. 632 and confirmed the Roman Easter. Iona and the churches subject to Iona in Ireland and in Britain refused, however, to accept the new tables;225 some other Irish churches may also have stayed with their traditional tables. In 640, John IV, while pope-elect, wrote to the northern Irish bishops, in reply to a letter from them, warning of the dangers of observing Easter on the fourteenth day along with the Jews but it is not totally clear what tables they were using at this point.226 By c. 700, Bede tells us, the majority of the Irish churches ‘rationabile et ecclesiasticum paschalis obseruantiae tempus Domino donante suscepit’;227 Adomnán ‘ad unitatem reduxit catholicam’ almost all those who had not yet conformed, except for those subject to his own monastery, Iona.228 It was 716 before Iona abandoned the practice of its founder and went over to the Roman Easter; the Northumbrian church had already accepted it at the Synod of Whitby in 664. For much of the seventh century, therefore, and up to 716 in some instances, there was a split in the Irish church between the Romani, who followed the Roman Easter, and the Hibernenses, who remained loyal to the traditional Irish calculation. The disagreements between the Romani and the Hibernenses seem not to have been limited to chronology, moreover, but also included differences in tonsure (the Roman crown tonsure versus the insular tonsure),229 exegesis, canons and matters of liturgy. As Dáíbhí Ó Cróinín puts it, the paschal controversy ‘acted as a lightning-rod for dissenting groups’.230 The Romani laid great emphasis on

223 224 225

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230

Ibid., passim; the sequence of events can be reconstructed from Cummian’s account. Ibid., pp. 4–6. We know this because Iona still celebrated the traditional Irish Easter in the abbacy of Adomnán; Adomnán was persuaded to change to the Roman Easter while on a visit to Northumbria c. 703, but could not convince his monks to alter their customary Easter. See Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, V.15. For a list of the Irish houses subject to Iona, see Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland, p. 250. The traditional view was that the northern Irish churches refused to abandon the 84-year cycle, while the southern churches did, but D. Ó Cróinín has argued that the northern churches had adopted the Victorian tables by 640 (see his ‘New Heresy for Old: Pelagianism in Ireland and the papal letter of 640’, Speculum 60 (1985), 505–16, repr. in his Early Irish History and Chronology, pp. 87–98). Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, pp. 226–7, suggests instead that the northern churches by this date were using the Dionysiac-Alexandrian tables. Bede says that the south of Ireland had conformed to the Roman Easter before 635 (Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, III.3), while the north retained the 84-year cycle. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, V.15 (p. 504): ‘by the grace of God . . . adopted the reasonable and canonical date for keeping Easter’ (ibid., p. 505). Ibid., V.15 (p. 506): ‘restored . . . to catholic unity’ (ibid., p. 507). On the insular tonsure, see the fascinating article by D. McCarthy, ‘On the Shape of the Insular Tonsure’, Celtica 24 (2003), 140–67; he argues that its shape was a Δ and illustrates it from some of the most famous Irish Gospel books. Email of 20 March 2008.

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De duodecim abusiuis the unity of the church, aware that they were one part of a universal church,231 while the Hibernenses regarded the matters at issue as relating to local custom, in which divergence should be permitted. Cummian’s letter, proclaiming his allegiance to Rome, makes this very clear: ‘Et hoc uereor; sed uos considerate quae sunt conuenticula quae dixi: utrum Haebrei et Greci et Latini et Aegiptii, simul in obseruatione precipuarum solennitatum uniti, an Britonum Scottorumque particula, qui sunt pene extremi et, ut ita dicam, mentagrae orbis terrarum.’232 Hellmann argued that De duodecim abusiuis came from Romani circles on the basis of its emphasis on the undivided tunic of Christ as a symbol of the unity of the church,233 of its treatment of the bishops’ powers of excommunication in the tenth abuse, its use of the Vulgate and the Benedictine Rule and perhaps its employment of homoeoteleuton.234 Pádraig Ó Néill came to the same conclusion in his article on seventh-century Hiberno-Latin Romani texts. He pointed out that there is evidence for a Romani tradition of biblical scholarship in a commentary on the Psalms composed c. 700, which introduces some interpretations by attributing them to the Romani (‘secundum Romanos’), and sought to identify further evidence for this tradition.235 Examining a group of four seventh-century texts which we know were Romani products, he noted that they share certain features: ‘Certain characteristics and concerns have been discussed in these four Romani texts which can plausibly be explained as reflecting the influence of the Roman and continental churches on Ireland during the seventh century: more vigorous expressions of orthodoxy; greater devotion to Rome and the cult of St Peter; diligence about scriptural canonicity; early and frequent use of certain patristic writers, notably Isidore and Gregory.’236 O’Neill then suggests that the presence of these characteristics in other texts could point to Romani origins or influence and concludes that: ‘Significantly, De duodecim exemplifies the 231

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See Bede’s account of the Synod of Whitby, at which again the Roman spokesman regarded conformity as essential: Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, III. 25. Aldhelm says the same in his letter to Geraint of Dumnonia concerning the Roman Easter (Letter IV, Aldhelmi Opera, ed. R. Ehwald, MGH, Auct. antiq. 15 (Berlin, 1919), pp. 480–6). Cummian’s Letter, ed. Walsh and Ó Cróinín, p. 72, lines 107–10: ‘And this I fear. But you ought to consider which are the conventicles of which I spoke, whether they are the Hebrews, Greeks, Latins and Egyptians who are united in their observance of the principal solemnities, or an insignificant group of Britons and Irish who are almost at the end of the earth, and, if I may say so, but pimples on the face of the earth’ (trans., pp. 73–4). The text is very insistent on this, accusing those who rend the discipline of the church of doing that which not even the soldiers who killed Christ did when they cast lots for his tunic, rather than tearing it. Hellmann, pp. 12–13. Ó’Néill, P., ‘Romani Influences on Seventh-Century Hiberno-Latin Literature’, in Irland und Europa, ed. P. Ní Chatháin and M. Richter (Stuttgart, 1984), pp. 280–90, at 282; on this commentary, see also M. McNamara, ‘Tradition and Creativity in Early Irish Psalter Study’, in Irland und Europa, ed. P. Ní Chatháin and M. Richter (Stuttgart, 1984), pp. 338–89. Ó Néill, ‘Romani Influences’, p. 288. The texts that he cites are De mirabilibus sacrae scripturae, Liber de ordine creaturarum (c. 680), Laidcend’s abridgement of Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Iob (before 661) and the anonymous commentary on the Catholic Epistles written in Ireland (c. 650–90).

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Introduction Romani characteristics discussed above: use of a good Vulgate text, quotations from Isidore (Etymologiae, De Ecclesiasticis Officiis, and perhaps De Ortu et Obitu Patrum) and remarkably, the Regula of St Benedict, a work popularised by Gregory the Great (in his Dialogues, Bk. II), associated with the spread of Roman influence on Western monasticism, and unlikely to have gained acceptance from conservative Irish monasteries.’237 De duodecim abusiuis, then, almost certainly belongs to the period when there was controversy in the Irish church about the date of Easter, and, as a document of the Romani, was presumably, as Aidan Breen has suggested, written after the Synod of Mag Léne in 630/1.238 While it contains no explicit discussion of the Easter controversy, its emphasis on unity and discipline appears to be an implicit commentary on it. Breen has further argued that De duodecim abusiuis is closely linked to the canons known as Synodus I Patricii and the Synodus II Patricii, two collections of canonical material attributed to St Patrick;239 the first collection begins by saying that its contents are the synod of the bishops, ‘ID EST PATRICI AUXILII ISSERNINI’, and the second concludes ‘FINIT PATRICII SINODUS DEO GRATIAS’.240 Synodus II refers to the Romani and it is clear that it issued from the Romani group within the Irish church in the seventh century. There have been very differing views on the dates of the two canonical documents, though many historians agree that they are not the work of St Patrick.241 It may well be the case also that these documents were never intended to be taken as the work of Patrick himself and Breen argues that the most plausible explanation for what we have in the texts and other fragments attributed to Patrick is ‘the work of an individual who must have occupied a central role in the inauguration of the Romani movement, which almost certainly regarded Patrick as the founder of a Church wholly Roman in character, and therefore conferred upon this individual 237

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Ó Néill, ‘Romani Influences’, p. 289; however, it should be noted that De duodecim abusiuis does not use Isidore’s De ecclesiasticis officiis (on this, see Anton, ‘Pseudo-Cyprian’, p. 575, n. 26). On the Benedictine Rule in the early Irish Church, see Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland, pp. 383–8. Breen, ‘De XII abusiuis: Text and Transmission’, p. 82. The two synods are edited by L. Bieler, The Irish Penitentials, with an Appendix by D. A. Binchy, ed. L. Bieler, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae 5 (Dublin, 1963), pp. 54–9 and 184–97. Synodus I was also edited by M. Faris, The First Synod of St Patrick (Liverpool, 1976) and Synodus II edited again, from better manuscripts, by Breen, ‘The Date, Provenance and Authorship’, pp. 112–25. Bieler, Irish Penitentials, pp. 54 and 196. See, for example, D. Binchy, ‘Patrick and his Biographers, Ancient and Modern’, Studia Hibernica 2 (1962), 7–173, and ‘St Patrick’s First Synod’, Studia Hibernica 8 (1968), 49–59; K. Hughes, The Church in Early Irish Society (London, 1966), pp. 44–53, and Early Christian Ireland, pp. 68–71. Bieler, Irish Penitentials, p. 2, however, felt that the document of the first synod had been issued with the express approval of Patrick, at a synod in 457. Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland, pp. 245–50, argues for a late-fifth-century date for the first synod and in T. Charles-Edwards, ‘Palladius and Patrick’, in The Island of St Patrick: Church and Ruling Dynasties in Fingal and Meath, 400–1148, ed. A. MacShamhráin (Dublin, 2004), pp. 13–37, at 32–3, he suggests that the extant copy derives from one in which Palladius was altered to Patricius and that the document was ‘issued possibly fifteen or twenty years on from 431 by Palladius and two others – Auxilius, Iserninus – who were, by then, bishops of new dioceses’ (p. 33).

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De duodecim abusiuis the pseudonym or title of Patricius in recognition of his authoritative standing and learning and his advocacy of the Roman ecclesia, first introduced by Patrick’.242 There are more marked similarities between De duodecim abusiuis and Synodus II, though some of the canons in Synodus I are also linked in content to the tract.243 Breen suggests that De duodecim abusiuis and Synodus II are the work of the same author, who may also have redacted Synodus I. While this cannot be proved, it is clear that there are close links between the first two texts, in particular. Another text with connections to De duodecim abusiuis, Breen suggests, is De mirabilibus sacrae scripturae, whose author seems to have read the tract on the abuses and incorporated some of its phrases and concepts.244 However, while it used to be thought that De mirabilibus was completed in 655, which would mean that De duodecim abusiuis must have been available before that date, this date can no longer be trusted and is therefore of no value as evidence for dating other texts.245 On the basis of all of this evidence Breen has suggested a date in the middle of the seventh century for De duodecim abusiuis, between 630 and 650.246 In his view, Isidore was not used as a source, so questions about his availability in Ireland in the 630s are not relevant.247 Breen goes beyond this dating, moreover, to suggest a possible author for De duodecim abusiuis. His argument is based on several factors. In the first place, he points to the similarities of thought and language between De duodecim abusiuis and the sermons and letters of St Columbanus (d. 615) and suggests that both authors may have shared a common scholarly tradition, perhaps having been educated under the same teacher, and that both used a now lost treatise on Easter written in Ireland.248 He argues that the author of the lost Easter treatise was possibly known to both Columbanus and the author of De duodecim abusiuis and that he may have been Sinlán or Sinell of Bangor (d. 610), whom the Antiphonary of Bangor termed the famosus mundi magister.249 A note in the eight-century Irish text of the Gospel of Matthew in Würzburg Universitätsbibliothek MS M.p.th.f.61 mentions a Mo-Chúaróc 242 243 244 245

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Breen, ‘The Date, Provenance and Authorship’, p. 110. See Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, p. 47, on Synodus II and De duodecim abusiuis, and ‘The Date, Provenance and Authorship’, pp. 85–91, on the links between Synodus I and the tract. Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, p. 59. See L. Castaldi, ‘A scuola da Manchianus. Il «De mirabilibus sacrae scripturae» di Agostino Ibernico e i reflessi manoscritti dell’attività didattica nell’Irlanda del secolo VII’, Filologia mediolatina 19 (2012), 45–74, esp. 53 and 60–1. I am grateful to Michael Lapidge for drawing this article to my attention. Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, pp. 59–60, and ‘De XII abusiuis: Text and Transmission’, p.  84. Breen, ‘Pseudo-Cyprian De duodecim abusivis saeculi and the Bible’, p. 231. Breen writes here that ‘of the five source usages of, or parallels to, Isidore noted by [Hellmann] in apparatu, only one – that of episcopus-speculator (Etym. VII.12.12) – is remotely possible, and that doubtful’. See also Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, p. 221. A. Breen, ‘The Evidence of Antique Irish Exegesis in Pseudo-Cyprian, De duodecim abusiuis saeculi’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 87 (1987), 77–101, and ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, pp. 56 and 222. Breen, ‘The Evidence of Antique Irish Exegesis’, p. 100.

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Introduction maccu Neth Sémon, or Cronanus sapiens, who was a pupil of Sinlán and who was described by fellow Romani as doctor totius mundi; Breen argues that this epithet suggests an individual of great learning who could well have been the author of De duodecim abusiuis. This Cronanus was described as living on the island of Crannach in Dun Lethglaise (perhaps Downpatrick, a site associated with the cult of St Patrick) and was bishop of Nen-druim; he died in 643.250 The evidence for Cronanus’s authorship of the text is not decisive but Breen at least gives a convincing picture of the type of person who must have been responsible for the composition. To sum up, then, De duodecim abusiuis is clearly a seventh-century Irish text, probably dating from the second quarter of the century, after 630. It is a product of the Romani movement and is one of a group of works associated with it. The tract bears the marks of controversies within the Irish church at the time of its writing. Sources of De duodecim abusiuis As mentioned already, one of the principal sources of De duodecim abusiuis is the Bible and the author had at his disposal a good text of the Vulgate; there are over thirty citations from the Old Testament and twenty-three from the New excluding the Gospels, with nineteen more from the Gospels.251 Breen has analysed the biblical texts used and has pointed to the importance of the tract in the history of the Vulgate; he has indicated that there are traces of Spanish influence in the Old Testament citations and that the New Testament, apart from the Gospels, draws on a text of ‘quite pure North Italian type’.252 The Gospel quotations used a text ‘of a distinctly Irish character’; they are the most mixed part of the biblical text in De duodecim abusiuis and contain readings also to be found among eighth- and ninth-century Irish biblical manuscripts, which go back, in part, to a pre-Vulgate translation from Greek.253 Apart from quotations, there are many more allusions to biblical passages. The author’s use of the Bible in the tract is throughout informed by patristic exegesis, as Breen has shown: ‘His use of any particular text, or the association of a number of them, is always informed by his understanding of the contextual sense of the relevant biblical passage and his interpretation of the text in the light of his reading of the Fathers.’254 Apart from the Bible, what seems the other most obvious source is the Regula S. Benedicti, which has already figured repeatedly in the discussion of the text as a Romani document and which has been generally accepted as one of the principal 250 251 252 253 254

Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, pp. 222–31; on the note, see D. Ó Cróinín, ‘Mo Sinn maccu Min and the Computus of Bangor’, Peritia 1 (1982), 281–95. See Breen, ‘Pseudo-Cyprian De duodecim abusivis saeculi and the Bible’, pp. 230–45, from which these figures are drawn; see also his ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, p. 92. Breen, ‘Pseudo-Cyprian De duodecim abusivis saeculi and the Bible’, p. 236. Ibid., pp. 239–42. Ibid., p. 232.

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De duodecim abusiuis sources since Hellmann’s edition.255 Hellmann regarded the seventh chapter of this Rule, with its account of the twelve steps of the ladder of humility ascending to heaven, as the source for the ordering principle of De duodecim abusiuis. This idea, as the Rule itself makes clear, goes back to the account of Jacob’s ladder in Gen. XXVIII.12, which describes angels ascending and descending a ladder stretching from earth to heaven, and the number of steps is probably derived from the number of Jacob’s sons.256 The twelve gradus of De duodecim abuisuis reverse the ascending motif to one of descending, giving us instead the twelve steps of abuse by which mankind ‘ad tartari tenebras . . . per iustum Dei iudicium rotatur’.257 However, Breen has suggested that a more probable source for the structuring principle is the almost identical account in ch. 10 of the Regula Magistri, which was the source for the corresponding chapter in the Regula S. Benedicti.258 Breen argues that the balance of probability is in favour of the Irish text drawing on the Regula Magistri as its use is also attested in I Synodus Patricii, but that it is also quite possible that both rules were known to the Irish author.259 The different steps of humility are introduced differently in the two Rules, however, and De duodecim abusiuis is more similar to the Regula S. Benedicti. The Regula Magistri begins each abuse with the disciple as the grammatical subject and the step as object whereas the Regula S. Benedicti has the step as subject of the first sentence of each abuse, apart perhaps from the first.260 So, for example, the Regula Magistri begins the second abuse ‘Deinde secundum humilitatis gradum in scala caelesti ascendit discipulus . . .’,261 while the Regula S. Benedicti begins it ‘Secundus humilitatis gradus est si . . .’,262 similar to ‘Secundus abusionis gradus est si . . .’ This suggests that it may well have been the Regula S. Benedicti which was the source for the Hiberno-Latin text. Apart from the Bible and one or both monastic rules, the author of De duodecim abusiuis seems to have had an extensive patristic library at his disposal. Tracking his sources is not an easy task, as he does not quote verbatim from the fathers, but has assimilated them so thoroughly that his use of them 255 256

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Hellmann, p. 5; see also, as examples, Anton, ‘Pseudo-Cyprian’, p. 586; Ó Néill, ‘Romani Influences’, p. 289. See Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, pp. 96–7. The development of the idea may be indebted to an apocryphal Ladder of Jacob text; the only version now extant is in late Slavonic (see Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, 96–8, and J. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2 vols. (New York, 1985), II, 401–11). ‘is turned towards the darkness of hell through the righteous judgement of God . . .’ (transl. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 115). Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, p. 99. Ibid. La Règle du Maître, ed. De Vogüé, I, X; Benedicti Regula, ed. R. Hanslik, CSEL 75 (Vienna, 1960), VII. In Hellmann’s edition, the first abuse begins ‘Primus abusionis gradus est si . . .’, while in Breen’s edition it begins ‘Primo si sine operibus bonis sapiens et praedicator fuerit . . .’ Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, p. 281, argues that the ‘Primus abusionis’ reading is more satisfactory, but only one strand of his manuscripts gives it and he is unwilling to accept it into his text without more supporting evidence. La Règle du Maître, ed. De Vogüé, I, X, 42. Benedicti Regula, ed. Hanslik, VII.

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Introduction ‘must be teased out through contextual clues and verbal associations – for there is not one patristic citation throughout the text’.263 Origen (in a Latin translation), Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustine (who is particularly favoured), Rufinus, Jerome, Cassian and Gregory the Great were all employed.264 The sixth-century Latin translation of Hesychius of Jerusalem, In Leviticum, may also have been among the sources.265 Almost all scholars since Hellmann have agreed with his assumption that Isidore was an important source for De duodecim abusiuis and Isidore has played a very prominent role in discussions of the dating of the text; however, Breen questions this and feels that the passages attributed to Isidore rely on earlier sources.266 Textual history The textual history of De duodecim abusiuis is a complicated one, as the number of manuscripts is very large and in date they range from the ninth century to the end of the Middle Ages. Breen has counted over four hundred manuscripts and believes that the total extant number may be much greater.267 The tract is also very well attested in medieval manuscript catalogues.268 There are no manuscripts from the seventh or eighth centuries; ten manuscripts date from the ninth century, all from the continent.269 Of these, eight attribute the text to Cyprian and two have no attribution. The first manuscript attributions to Augustine are from the eleventh century.270 Breen is the only scholar to have attempted to come to grips with a wide range of manuscript witnesses. He regards his findings as preliminary, but they are the best guide available until the completion of his edition. He demonstrates that there are two main recensions of the tract, circulating under the names of Augustine and Cyprian respectively.271 While Hellmann used manuscripts with an attribution

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269 270

271

Breen, ‘Pseudo-Cyprian De duodecim abusivis saeculi and the Bible’, p. 243. Source texts are suggested in the notes in Hellmann’s and Breen’s editions. See also Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, p. 94. Breen, ‘The Date, Provenance and Authorship’, p. 89. See above, n. 74. Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, p. 234; see also Anton, ‘Pseudo-Cyprian’, pp. 603–6, on the large number of manuscripts. Esposito, ‘Notes on Latin Learning and Literature in Mediaeval Ireland, III’, pp. 221–8, gives a list of over two hundred manuscripts, with their attributions. H. Anton, ‘Zur neueren Wertung Pseudo-Cyprians (‘De duodecim abusivis saeculi’) und zu seinem Vorkommen in Bibliothekskatalogen des Mittelalters’, Würzburger Diözesangeschichtsblätter 51 (1989), 463–74, at 470–4, deals with the appearance of the tract in medieval library catalogues, as does his ‘Pseudo-Cyprian’, pp. 602–5. Anton, ‘Pseudo-Cyprian’, p. 604; four of these manuscripts are from St Gall. Esposito, ‘Notes on Latin Learning and Literature in Mediaeval Ireland, III’, p. 229, n. 25. Breen, ‘De XII abusiuis: Text and Transmission’, p. 89, points out, however, that the earliest entry in a library catalogue (that of St Riquier abbey in 831) seems to point to an Augustine-type manuscript. Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, p. 241.

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De duodecim abusiuis to Cyprian for his edition,272 the Augustinian readings are, according to Breen, ‘mostly self-evidently superior’.273 Surprisingly, with ‘the partial exception of O (St Omer 267, saec. x in.), the great majority of the earlier manuscripts are corrupt, and diverge, both within themselves and as a body, from the much later, and certainly far better manuscripts of the Augustinus group ADH’.274 Breen is convinced that the ‘text was systematically revised at a very early stage of its continental diffusion in accordance with the “humanistic” or quasi-modern standards of intelligibility established during the Carolingian renaissance’.275 It may have been at this stage that it received its attribution to Cyprian, presumably because the use of Cyprian in the tract was recognised.276 The text circulated in Ireland under the name of Augustine.277 One of the signs of the Cyprianic recension is its title; where the Augustinian manuscripts tend to bear the title De duodecim abusiuis, most of the Cyprianic manuscripts add saeculi, giving De duodecim abusiuis saeculi. Another sign is the treatment of the very beginning of the text; where the Augustinian manuscripts open with a numbered list of capitula, followed by ‘His duodecim abusiuis suffocatur iustitia’, in the Cyprianic manuscripts we find the list of abuses followed by ‘Sic suffocatur iustitia’.278 The Cyprianic recension falls into two principal subdivisions, each of which has readings peculiar to itself, but there are also many shared readings ‘which are either (a) common to both groups or to the majority of manuscripts within either group, frequently against the Augustinian group, or (b) confined to a number of manuscripts within either group or (c) an important number of readings shared between the Augustinian group and some of the manuscripts of either or both of the other two groups’.279 It proved impossible for Breen to establish a stemma owing to the profusion of variants and ‘their haphazard distribution within and between the different groups’;280 he found himself ‘forced to the conclusion that there existed at every stage after the first generation of the transmission of this text an enormous number of manuscripts, which after endless re-copying and 272

273 274

275 276 277

278 279 280

He incorporated some readings from Augustinian manuscripts on p. 55 of his edition, for part of the text of the tenth abuse. See Breen, ‘De XII abusiuis: Text and Transmission’, pp. 85–6, for a critique of Hellmann’s edition. Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, p. 241. Ibid. A is Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 800 (twelfth-century English hand), D is Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 2331 (twelfth-century, from Fécamp) and H is Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 15146. Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, p. 241. Breen, ‘De XII abusiuis: Text and Transmission’, p. 89. Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, p. 64, and ‘De XII Abusiuis: Text and Transmission’, p. 91. While the Hibernensis and Cathwulf attribute the text to Patricius, no extant manuscript carries this attribution. Presumably this attribution fell out of use at an early stage, to be replaced in Ireland by the attribution to Augustine. Two of the quotations from De duodecim abusiuis in Sedulius Scottus’s Collectaneum Miscellaneum carry an attribution to Augustine (see below, p. 53). Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, pp. 278–9, and ‘De XII abusiuis: Text and Transmission’, pp. 87–8. Breen, ‘De XII abusiuis: Text and Transmission’, p. 88 (emphasis his). Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, p. 305.

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Introduction collation produced a plethora of hybrid readings, straddling various groups of manuscripts’.281 No pre-Conquest manuscript of De duodecim abusiuis survives from England and only one of the post-Conquest manuscripts is early enough to find its way into Gneuss’s Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts. This is Salisbury, Cathedral Library 168, dated to the end of the eleventh century; it contains Augustine’s De diuersis quaestionibus LXXXIII, De duodecim abusiuis and Bede’s De iudicii.282 Its text belongs to the Augustinian recension. Manuscripts from England from the twelfth century include Cambridge, University Library, Add. 3319 (Cyprianic recension);283 London, British Library, Harley 3027 (Augustinian recension); London, British Library, Royal 5.F.x (Augustinian recension);284 London, British Library Royal 6.B.xiii (Augustinian recension, in an English hand); Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 800 (a very good text of the Augustinian recension, in an English hand); Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 350 (from Ebirbach, Cyprianic recension); Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canon. Pat. Lat. 49 (Cyprianic); and Oxford, Jesus College 3, probably from Cirencester (Cyprianic recension).285 Many later manuscripts in British libraries which contain De duodecim abusiuis are listed by Esposito.286 Dissemination and influence of De duodecim abusiuis The influence of this seventh-century Hiberno-Latin tract was long-lasting and deep, especially the influence of the ninth abuse, the unjust king; this was both through the Hibernensis, which circulated extensively on the continent and in Anglo-Saxon England, and through the tract itself. I will give here just a brief indication of its use by English authors and by others who had some influence on Anglo-Saxon England. Material from the ninth abuse, probably through the Hibernensis, was used by Boniface in writing to Æthelbald of Mercia c. 746–7287 and by Cathwulf in writing to Charlemagne in 775.288 De duodecim abusiuis itself was used in three places in the Pseudo-Bede Collectanea, an insular miscellany 281 282 283 284

285

286 287 288

‘De XII abusiuis: Text and Transmission’, p. 88. Gneuss, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, no. 750. This text is worthless, according to Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, p. 249. Twelfth-century, perhaps from Wallingford (N. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, 2nd edn (London, 1964), p. 192). This manuscript has a particularly good text, according to Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, p. 304. On the provenance, see Ker, p. 52. For the recension, see Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, p. 252. I am indebted to Breen’s dissertation for this list of twelfth-century manuscripts in English libraries. Esposito, ‘Notes on Latin Learning and Literature in Mediaeval Ireland, III’. S. Bonifatii et Lullii Epistolae, ed. M. Tangl, MGH Epistolae Selectae 1, 2nd ed. (Berlin, 1955), no. 73, p. 147, lines 21–4. Epistolae Karolini Aevi II, ed. Dümmler, pp. 501–5, at 503, lines 36–44. See also R. Meens, ‘Politics, Mirrors of Princes and the Bible: Sins, Kings and the Well-being of the Realm’, Early Medieval Europe 7 (1998), 345–57, at 354. On Cathwulf, see the references in n. 182 above.

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De duodecim abusiuis drawing on a wide variety of seventh- and eighth-century insular sources;289 it drew on the ninth abuse in §118 (on the king’s justice and the welfare of the kingdom), on the second in §119 (on the physical effects of old age) and on the prologue in §176 (for the list of the twelve abuses). These extracts were taken from a Cyprianic recension.290 Alcuin used material from the ninth abuse, possibly familiar to him via the Hibernensis or Cathwulf, when he wrote from the continent to Æthelred of Northumbria and his nobles in 793, giving the characteristics of a good king and linking the good king with the prosperity of the kingdom,291 and again when he wrote to Charlemagne six years later.292 Sedulius, an Irish scholar who seems to have worked on the Continent between c. 840 and 860, used De duodecim abusiuis in his Collectaneum miscellaneum293 and in his Liber de rectoribus.294 De duodecim abusiuis also found its way into the proceedings of ecclesiastical synods on the continent. The Acts of the Synod of Paris in 829, compiled by Jonas of Orleans, included a section of the ninth abuse, attributed to Cyprian, in its treatment of kingship.295 Jonas incorporated the same text in his De institutione regia, composed in 831 for King Pippin of Aquitaine.296 The Synod of Metz in 859 and the Synod of Trosly in 909 alluded also to the ninth abuse.297 Ansegisus’s capitulary incorporated the Acts of the 829 Paris Synod and Abbo of Fleury took them from there and included them in his Collectio canonum (written between 994 and 996).298 The homiliary of St Père de Chartres, a collection composed after 820 and before the second half of the tenth century, contains a sermon entitled Predicatio de principibus et populis which depends substantially on the adaptation of the ninth abuse in the Hibernensis.299 Lines 14–72 of the sermon, apart from some 289 290 291 292 293

294 295 296 297 298 299

M. Lapidge, ‘The Origin of the Collectanea’, in Collectanea Pseudo-Bedae, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae 14, ed. M. Bayless and M. Lapidge (Dublin, 1998), pp. 1–12, at 3. Breen, ‘De XII abusiuis: Text and Transmission’, p. 90. Epistola 18, Epistolae Karolini aevi II, ed. Dümmler, pp. 49–52, at 51, lines 19–22 and lines 29–32. See Anton, ‘Pseudo-Cyprian’, pp. 600–1, and Fürstenspiegel, pp. 90–1. Epistola 177, Epistolae Karolini aevi II, ed. Dümmler, pp. 292–3, at 293, lines 17–19. See Anton, ‘Pseudo-Cyprian’, p. 602, and Fürstenspiegel, pp. 105–7. Sedulii Scotti: Collectaneum miscellaneum, ed. D. Simpson, CCCM 67 (Turnhout, 1988); the passages are XIII.vi.19–20; XIII.xxix.25; and XIII.xxxvii.3. See Breen, ‘De XII abusiuis: Text and Transmission’, p. 90. Sedulius Scottus, Liber de rectoribus Christianus, ed. Hellmann, pp. 1–91, book xx. See Anton, Fürstenspiegel, pp. 261–7. Concilia aevi Karolini I.ii, MGH Concilia II, ed. A. Werminghoff (Hannover and Leipzig, 1908), pp. 605–80, at 650; see Anton, Fürstenspiegel, p. 208. PL 106, 279–306, at 288–9. Anton, ‘Pseudo-Cyprian’, p. 613, and Anton, Fürstenspiegel, p. 311 and 244. Die Kapitulariensammlung des Ansegis, ed. G. Schmitz, MGH Capitularia regum Francorum, n. s. 1 (Hannover, 1996), and PL 139, 471–508. On the date and place of origin (we do not yet have enough evidence to know whether this was in the British Isles or on the Continent), see J. Cross, ed., Cambridge Pembroke College MS 25: A Carolingian Sermonary used by Anglo-Saxon Preachers, King’s College London Medieval Studies 1 (London, 1987), pp. 88–90. The sermon is printed from Cambridge, Pembroke College MS 25 by Cross on pp. 156–60 and his notes give references to the Hibernensis.

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Introduction short additions, come from the Hibernensis, mostly from its ninth abuse material. Following this, the sermon lists the twelve abuses, drawing here either on the beginning of De duodecim abusiuis, where they are listed, or on a list such as we saw in the Pseudo-Bede Collectanea.300 In England, the tract left a mark on early-medieval coronation rites. As Janet Nelson has pointed out, the ideological content of the First English coronation ordo, which was written by the middle of the ninth century at the latest, is reminiscent of early insular texts, including the ninth abuse in De duodecim abusiuis.301 Oda of Canterbury drew on the Hibernensis, with its form of the ninth abuse, for his treatment of kingship in his Constitutions, written between 942 and 946.302 The earliest reference to De duodecim abusiuis itself, however, is in a list of the books donated to Peterborough by Æthelwold, bishop of Winchester from 963 to 984; here the text is called De duodecim abusiuis and is unattributed.303 Breen suggests that this was probably a text of the Augustinian recension, given the title and the anonymous transmission.304 A text of the Cyprianic type was used as a source by Ælfric for his translation of De duodecim abusiuis, edited in this volume, probably before the end of the 990s; this is evident from the title of the text in three manuscripts, which explicitly ascribes it to Cyprian.305 He used it as source for parts of three other texts also. In Catholic Homilies II.19 he drew upon it for the etymology of the word episcopus and a passage on kingship: Cyninge gerist. rihtwisnyss and wisdom. him is nama gesett of soðum reccendome. þæt he hine sylfne. and siððan his leode mid wisdome wissige and wel gerihtlæce; Þæt folc bið gesælig þurh snoterne cyning. sigefæst. and 300

301

302

303

304 305

The sermon uses material from the Hibernensis which was not drawn from De duodecim abusiuis, so Cross is certainly correct in saying that its treatment of kingship depends on the canonical collection rather than the tract. J. Nelson, ‘The Earliest Royal Ordo: Some Liturgical and Historical Aspects’, in Authority and Power: Studies in Medieval Law and Government Presented to Walter Ullmann (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 29–48; repr. in her Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe (London, 1986) pp. 341–60, at 351. The ‘Constitutions of Archbishop Oda’ are edited in Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church, ed. D. Whitelock, M. Brett and C. N. L. Brooke (Oxford, 1981), I, 67–74. See p. 68 for details of Oda’s use of the Hibernensis. Four manuscripts from England contain versions of the Hibernensis: Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 42, from Brittany, which was in England by the tenth century; London, British Library Royal 5.E.xiii (Northern France or Brittany); CCCC 279 (North-West France), in England by c. 1000; and London, British Library, Cotton Otho E.xiii, a Breton manuscript, which was probably in Canterbury in the tenth century. See S. Ambrose, ‘The Collectio canonum Hibernensis and the Literature of the Anglo-Saxon Benedictine Reform’, Viator 36 (2005), 107–18, at 108–9; Gneuss, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, nos. 629, 459, 81 and 361; Wormald, Making of English Law, p. 344. See M. Lapidge, ‘Surviving Booklists from Anglo-Saxon England’, in Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England: Studies Presented to Peter Clemoes on the Occasion of his Sixty-fifth Birthday (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 33–89 (no. IV.12). Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, p. 235, and ‘De XII abusiuis: Text and Transmission’, p. 91. The three manuscripts which give the freestanding Old English text, P, C, and G, all attribute the text to Cyprian; this attribution seems to have been dropped when the text was combined with the eight vices and virtues.

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De duodecim abusiuis gesundful. ðurh gesceadwisne reccend; And hi beoð geyrmede ðurh unwisne cyning. on manegum ungelimpum. for his misræde;306

and in Lives of Saints xiii, where all twelve abuses are catalogued: Ne sceal se wise mann beon butan godum weorcum . ne se ealde ne beo buton æwfæstnysse . ne se iunga ne beo butan gehyrsumnysse . ne se welega ne beo butan ælmes-dædum . ne wifmen ne beon butan sidefulnysse . ne se hlaford ne beo leas on wordum . ne nan cristen man ne sceal sceandlice flitan . Eft bið swiðe þwyrlic. þæt ðearfa beo modig . and forcuðlic hit bið þæt cyning beo unrihtwis . eac bið swyþe derigendlic þæt bisceop beo gymeleas . and un-fremful. bið þæt folc beo butan steora. oððe butan . æ . him eallum to hearme .307

Ælfric drew on the text also for his definition of king in his Grammar: ‘rex cyning is gecweden a regendo, þæt is fram recendome, forðan ðe se cyning sceal mid micelum wisdome his leode wissian and bewerian mid cræfte’.308 The ninth abuse is the source for a section of the Old English Promissio regis, a text consisting of a translation of the promise made by late Anglo-Saxon kings followed by two paragraphs on the duties of kingship; this may draw on the Hibernensis or on a full text of the ninth abuse.309 It has also been suggested that the second abuse, with its graphic depiction of the signs of old age, may lie behind the passage in the Seafarer which describes the physical effects of the onset of old age.310 In the post-Conquest period in England, vernacular treatments of the abuses continue, alongside copying of the Latin original.311 The latest copy of Ælfric’s 306

307

308 309 310 311

CH II 19, lines 93–9: ‘Justice and wisdom befit a king; in him is set the name of true ruling, that he may direct himself and then his people with wisdom and correct them well. The people will be fortunate by means of a wise king, victorious and prosperous by means of a rational ruler. And they will be afflicted by means of an unwise king, by many misfortunes because of his ill counselling.’ See my ‘De duodecim abusiuis’, pp. 153–5, for a discussion of this passage. LS, xiii, lines 116–27: ‘The wise man must not be without good works, nor the old man without religion, nor the young man without obedience, nor the rich man without almsgiving, nor women without modesty, nor must any Christian man be shamefully contentious. Likewise it is very perverse that a poor man should be proud and it is disgraceful that a king should be unjust; also it is very harmful that a bishop be negligent, and unprofitable that the people be without discipline or without law, to the harm of them all.’ Ælfrics Grammatik und Glossar, ed. Zupitza, p. 29: ‘rex, king, is named a regendo, that is from ruling, because the king must direct his people with great wisdom and defend them with strength.’ See my ‘The Old English Promissio Regis’, Anglo-Saxon England 37 (2008), 91–150. The Wanderer, ed. R. Leslie (Manchester, 1966), p.p. 28–9. For the passage, see The Seafarer, ed. I. Gordon, with a bibliography compiled by M. Clayton (Exeter, 1996), lines 94–6. Esposito, ‘Notes on Latin Learning and Literature in Medieval Ireland, III’, pp. 221–8, lists a large number of manuscripts of the tract in British libraries.

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Introduction translation, in London, Lambeth Palace 487, was made c. 1300. There is a rich literature in Middle English concerned with the abuses, including an unpublished Wycliffite translation.312 It is clear, then, that De duodecim abusiuis was enormously popular and influential in England throughout the Middle Ages. Ælfric’s De duodecim abusiuis As Ælfric’s use of De duodecim abusiuis has not been discussed in any detail, I will go through the text section by section; the differences between the standalone and composite versions are minimal and what is said here of one text applies to both. The title in all three manuscripts of the stand-alone version attributes the Latin to Cyprian and this, along with textual details, shows that Ælfric’s source was a text of the Cyprianic family, rather than of the Augustinian type.313 For this reason, I shall quote Hellmann’s edition, based on manuscripts attributed to Cyprian, despite the fact that Breen’s Augustinian text is superior. For sourcing purposes, however, the differences are rarely significant; where they are, I shall refer to the text of the variant manuscripts. My quotations from the Old English here are from the stand-alone P text. Ælfric begins with a sentence in English which leads into his catalogue of the abuses in Latin, following his source word for word: Nu synd twelf abusiua, ðæt synd twelf unðeawas, þa we eow secgað on Leden and syððan on Englisc. Duodecim abusiua sunt seculi. Hoc est: sapiens sine A large number of texts is listed in the Index of Middle English Verse and the Supplement under ‘abuses’, with varying numbers of abuses; see C. Brown and R. Robbins, The Index of Middle English Verse (New York, 1943) and R. Robbins and J. Cutler, Supplement to the Index of Middle English Verse (Lexington, 1965). S. Wenzel, Preachers, Poets, and the Early English Lyric (Princeton, 1986), ch. 6, shows how vibrant this tradition was; see also C. Brown, ‘“The Pride of Life” and the “Twelve Abuses”’, Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 128 (1912), 72–8. An anonymous Wycliffite translator produced translations of four pseudo-augustinian texts, preserved as a group in three fifteenth-century manuscripts, and one of these is an unedited translation of De duodecim abusiuis: Cambridge, University Library, Ii.6.55, fols. 66r–78r; London, British Library, Harley 2330, fols. 100b–119b; and Oxford, All Souls College 24, fols. 38b–59a. Its heading in CUL Ii.6.55 is ‘Seynt austyn of twelue abusyouns or mysusis’. There is also a summary of this text in the seventeenth-century manuscript, London British Library Egerton 2877, fols. 97v–98r, also not yet edited. English authors also reworked the Latin text: there is a Latin verse adaptation in Dublin, Trinity College 600, fols. 40v–51r, not yet edited, and another which has been edited by J. Ziolkowski, Nigel of Canterbury: The Passion of St Lawrence, Epigrams and Marginal Poems (Leiden, 1994), pp. 293–4. 313 Aidan Breen has very kindly looked at my translation of the Old English in light of his knowledge of the Latin texts and confirms that it derives from the Cyprianic recension, suggesting that the closest Latin manuscript, of those he has examined, is Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canon. Patr. Lat. 49, a twelfth-century Italian manuscript. There are, he says, ‘a number of tantalising indications of this but the surest is the translator’s version of Ps 2.12 in abusio 11: “apprehendite disciplinam ne quando irascatur dominus + et pereatis de uia iusta”, an addition which is unique to K among the MSS which I have so far examined’ (email from Aidan Breen, 21 June 2002). It is very possible, however, that Ælfric and the K scribe independently completed the verse from the psalm. 312

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De duodecim abusiuis operibus bonis; senex sine religione; adholescens sine obedientia; diues sine elemosina; femina sine pudicitia; dominus sine uirtute; Christianus contentiosus; pauper superbus; rex iniquus; episcopus neglegens; plebs sine disciplina; populus sine lege. Et sic suffocatur iustitia Dei.

The text’s Latin authority is established here, unusually, with this quite lengthy Latin passage, and the list is then repeated in English, prefaced by a translation of the sentence that follows the list in the Latin. The wording of this introductory paragraph, with its ‘Et sic suffocatur iustitia Dei’, confirms the textual nature of Ælfric’s source.314 Ælfric follows the Latin, ‘Haec sunt duodecim abusiua saeculi per quae saeculi rota, si in illo fuerint, decipitur et ad tartari tenebras nullo impediente iustitiae suffragio per iustum Dei iudicium rotatur’,315 but simplifies the language considerably; he adds ‘gif hi moton ricsian’, echoed in another ‘gif hi moton’, to stress the moral point that the abuses can be combated, and adds ‘þone geleafan amyrrað’, to emphasise that not only justice, but also faith, can be destroyed by the abuses. Ælfric’s discussion of the abuses is considerably shorter than the Latin but the extent of abbreviation varies from one section to another. A very rough sense of what Ælfric considered most important in his treatment of the abuses themselves can be gained from the proportion of his tract that he devoted to each one, in comparison to the Latin. Counting Latin lines in Hellmann’s edition in relation to the number of words in the Old English, we get: Abuse

1 2 3 4 5 6

Latin lines OE words

24 32 40 46 50 49

Abuse

72 116 93 250 99 293

7 8 9 10 11 12

Latin lines OE words

51 36 50 54316 32 32

159 184 325 186 158 236

The Hiberno-Latin author devoted most space to the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, ninth and tenth abuses, while Ælfric’s version devoted most space to the fourth, sixth and ninth abuses, the rich man without almsgiving, the lord without strength and the king; the Old English demonstrates, then, a marked interest in wealth and power. The last abuse, the people without law, is also of clear interest to Ælfric; he is markedly less interested in women (fifth abuse) and in contentious Christians (seventh) and devotes somewhat less attention to negligent bishops (tenth). 314

See above, p. 51. For the Latin text, see the Jesus version, p. 180. However, none of the manuscripts collated by Hellmann or Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, p. 332, has Dei after iusticia. 315 Hellmann, p. 32, lines 7–9: ‘They are the twelve abuses of the world through which, if they exist in the world, the wheel of the world is deceived and is turned toward the darkness of hell through the righteous judgement of God, with no intervening approval of justice.’ (trans. Throop, PseudoCyprian, p. 115) The last phrase in this translation is probably not accurate; Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, p. 333, has ‘with no plea of justice impeding’ for this difficult phrase, which Ælfric omits. 316 This somewhat misrepresents the length of this abuse in the Latin, as for one sentence Hellmann gives three readings in parallel columns; it should be something more like 50 Latin lines.

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Introduction Ælfric drastically condenses the first abuse, the wise man or preacher without good works (se wita and se lareow in Ælfric). He first converts the rather repetitive beginning of this section in the Latin into a rhetorical question, asking how the teaching of a wise man without good works could not be useless to the laity: ‘Nu gif se wita byð butan godum weorcum, se þe oðrum mannum sceolde syllan gode bysne, hu ne byð sona his lar þam læwedum mannum unwurð, gif he sylf nele don swa swa he him to donne tæcð?’ In the next sentence, ‘Ne byð se lareowdom þam læwedum fremful’ renders ‘numquam enim fit efficax auctoritas instituentis . . .’ and ‘gif se lareow mid weorcum towyrpð his bodunge’ takes up the end of the preceding Latin clause: ‘cum praedicatoris opera a praedicationis uerbis discrepare conspiciunt’.317 Ælfric then ends this section with a translation of the Latin’s gloss on its quotation of Matt. V.13, ‘si doctor errauerit, a quo iterum doctore emendabitur?’ and of the very striking image ‘Si namque oculus a uidendi officio desiuerit, quis a manu . . . illud ministerium exigit?’318 He omits entirely the concluding part of this Latin section, directed at preachers themselves, where the Hiberno-Latin author warns of the dangers of greater punishment for those to whom the gift of preaching has been entrusted if they do not use it. In the second abuse, the old man sine religione, without religion or piety, Ælfric again selects the core points of the Latin, but abbreviates, omitting especially the graphic picture of the symptoms of old age.319 The tree image comes straight from the Latin, with Ælfric adding ‘byð unwurð his hlaforde’ to spell out the moral implications, as does the question about the foolishness of the old man not turning to God; here Ælfric’s concern for clarity is evident in his rendering the Latin ‘si mens ad perfectionem festinare non contendat’ as ‘nelle his mod to Gode awendan’.320 The uncertainty of death for the young but its certainty for the old is again a more straightforward and pithy rendering of the source: ‘Iuuenibus enim incertus huius uitae terminus instat, senibus uero cunctis maturus ex hac luce exitus breuiter concordat.’321 The final two sentences of the Old English again follow the thought of the Latin very closely, while compressing the more explanatory Latin and also replacing the injunction that the old man should act in such a way that neither his life nor his age nor his service should be despised with an emphasis instead on the old man’s soul: ‘þa ðing forseo þe his sawle deriað’. The third abuse, the young man without obedience, almost all comes from the Latin. Ælfric restructures the paragraph, however, and also completely omits the 317 318

319 320 321

Hellmann, p. 33, lines 4: ‘he never becomes an effective authority of instruction’ and 3–4 ‘when they see his works differ from the words of his preaching’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 116). Ibid., p. 33, lines 11–12 and 13–15: ‘if the teacher errs, by what teacher will he again be corrected’ and ‘If the eye deserts its function of seeing who, by hand . . . performs that service?’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 116). This has been suggested as a source for The Seafarer, lines 94–6. See above, p. 55. Hellmann, p. 34, lines 15–16: ‘if the soul does not strive to hasten to perfection’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 117) Ibid., p. 35, lines 8–10: ‘For young people the end of this life exists as an uncertainty, but for all old people it is a sure thing that the exit from this life is soon at hand’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 117).

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De duodecim abusiuis discussion of the four different types of father (father by nature, lineage, advice and age), with its concession that one’s natural father may be unworthy, and of the benefits of discipline. His second sentence is translated from the second sentence of the Latin, but Ælfric changes it from a question into a statement: ‘Qualiter namque in senectute ministrari sibi ille sperabit, qui in adolescentia senioribus oboedientiam exhibere contemnit?’322 The example of Christ’s obedience is also from the source, but Ælfric deftly combines two very separate statements into a sentence which includes Christ’s obedience to earthly and heavenly parents: ‘Propter quod et Dominus Iesus in temporibus suae carnis, dum adhuc ad legitimam aetatem doctoris non peruenit, oboedienter ministrationem parentibus suis praestauit’323 and ‘Quae sui normam studii a Christo Domino sumpsit qui oboediens patri usque ad mortem crucis ignominiam libenter sustinuit’.324 The penultimate sentence in the Old English section is based closely on ‘Sicut ergo in senibus sobrietas et morum perfectio requiritur, ita in adolescentibus obsequium et subiectio et oboedientia rite debetur’.325 Like the Latin, Ælfric then quotes the fourth commandment but he adds independently, from Matt. XV.4, ‘gif he hi wyrigeð, he byð wyrðe deaðes’.326 Ælfric devotes considerably more space to the fourth abuse, the rich man without almsgiving, than he did to the preceding three. His first sentence is based on the first in the Latin, with ‘bediglige his feoh’ echoing ‘in posternum recondit’, ‘hoards up for the future’, and ‘geornlice healde him to helle wite’ being prompted by ‘diligenti cura custodit’, ‘guards with diligent care’,327 though Ælfric, memorably, has the rich man diligently keep his possessions for himself as a punishment in hell rather than spelling out that he thereby loses the everlasting treasure of heaven, as the Latin does. The Latin then summarises the gospel story, Matt. XIX.16–22, about the young man who wishes to be perfect and whom Jesus tells to sell his possessions, give them to the poor and follow him. Ælfric, writing for two wealthy patrons, tellingly omits this;328 it is a story 322 323

324

325

326

327 328

Ibid., p. 36, lines 3–5: ‘How will one expect to be served in old age if, in adolescence, he disdained showing obedience to his elders?’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 118). Ibid., p. 36, lines 6–9: ‘Because of this, even the Lord Jesus, in the days of his corporal existence when he had not yet reached the age proper for a teacher, obediently fulfilled his duty to his parents’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 118). Ibid., p. 38, lines 5–7: ‘Obedience took the measuring stick for its effort from Christ the Lord who, obeying his father unto death, willingly sustained the ignominy of the cross’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 119). Ibid., p. 36, lines 9–11: ‘Therefore, just as sobriety and perfection of behavior are required in old folks, so in adolescents compliance, deference and obedience are rightly owed’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 118). This is a passage of which Ælfric was evidently fond, as he quoted it a number of times (in, for example, a passage in CH I 12, which Ælfric then cancelled (CH I, Appendix A, 1, lines 16–17), in CH II 12, lines 313–14, CH II 19, lines 190–1, and in Sex aetates mundi: Die Weltzeitalter bei den Angelsachsen und den Iren, Untersuchungen und Texte, ed. H. Tristram, Anglistische Forschungen 165 (Heidelberg, 1985), pp. 195–201, at lines 134–5). Hellmann, p. 38, line 9 and line 11. See M. Godden, ‘Money, Power and Morality in Late Anglo-Saxon England’, Anglo-Saxon England 19 (1990), 41–65, and below, pp. 98–9.

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Introduction which he had told in CH II 25 and there he had insisted that this was an action to be undertaken by only a few.329 Here, he skips instead to the end of the section in the Latin, translating ‘Infelices ergo sunt auari diuites qui propter res transitorias in aeternam damnationem dilabuntur, et e contrario beati sunt misericordes, quoniam ipsi misericordiam consequentur’.330 He follows it with a passage which seems to be inspired by what Jesus said to the young man in Matt. XIX.21, quoted in De duodecim abusiuis, ‘da pauperibus, . . . et habebis thesaurum in caelo’.331 Ælfric then mentions that no thief can steal this treasure, presumably drawing on Matt. VI.20/Luke XII.33, not in the Hiberno-Latin source, and continues with the idea that the good one does for others will be repaid a hundredfold in heaven. This is a very common idea in Ælfric and Malcolm Godden has identified twelve examples in his works, pointing out that it is ‘sometimes presented as if it is part of a Biblical quotation, but misleadingly’.332 Ælfric continues with a substantial passage based on Augustine’s Enchiridion, in which Augustine, drawing on Matt. XXV.34–46, provided an important and comprehensive description of the multiple ways of giving alms:333 Non solum ergo qui dat esurienti cibum, sitienti potum, nudo uestimentum, peregrinanti hospitium, fugienti latibulum, aegro uel incluso uisitationem, captiuo redemptionem, debili subuectionem, caeco deductionem, tristi consolationem, non sano medelam, erranti uiam, deliberanti consilium, et quod cuique necessarium est indigenti, uerum etiam qui dat ueniam peccanti, eleemosynam dat. Et qui emendat uerbere in quem potestas datur, uel coercet aliqua disciplina, et tamen peccatum eius quo ab illo laesus aut offensus est dimittit ex corde, uel orat ut ei dimittatur, non solum in eo quod dimittit atque orat, uerum etiam in eo quod corripit et aliqua emendatoria poena plectit, eleemosynam dat, quia misericordiam praestat.334 329 330

331 332 333

334

Ibid., p. 61. Hellmann, p. 40, lines 9–12: ‘Therefore avaricious rich people, who will fall into eternal damnation because of transitory things, are unhappy; and conversely Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 120). Ibid., p. 38, lines 15–16: ‘give to the poor . . . and you will have treasure in heaven’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 119). See CH III, p. 398. There is one passage in CH for which the nearest parallel Godden could identify is in the Enchiridion (CH III, p. 387); otherwise Ælfric is not known to have used it. It is possible that he knew the almsgiving passage through an intermediary source and that the Enchiridion was an antecedent rather than immediate source; this passage was excerpted by, for example, St Eligius, Jonas Aurelianus, Hrabanus Maurus and Haymo, but not in texts otherwise used by Ælfric. Enchiridion, ed. E. Evans, CCSL 46 (Turnhout, 1969), pp. 23–114, at XIX.72 (p. 88): ‘Not only, then, the man who gives food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothing to the naked, hospitality to the stranger, shelter to the fugitive, who visits the sick and the imprisoned, ransoms the captive, assists the weak, leads the blind, comforts the sorrowful, heals the sick, puts the wanderer on the right path, gives advice to the perplexed, and supplies the wants of the needy, – not this man only, but the man who pardons the sinner also gives alms; and the man who corrects with blows, or restrains with any kind of discipline one over whom he has power, and who at the same time forgives from the heart the sin by which he was injured, or prays that it may be forgiven, is also a giver of alms, not only in that he forgives, or prays for forgiveness for the sin, but also in that he rebukes and corrects

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De duodecim abusiuis Of Augustine’s list Ælfric omits giving refuge to a fugitive and visiting prisoners, but he adds burying the dead, an accepted means of almsgiving in late AngloSaxon England (Wulfstan also includes it as a type of almsgiving).335 In the final sentences devoted to the abuse of the rich man without almsgiving, Ælfric first returns to De duodecim abusiuis, with the urging not to allow treasure lie dormant in one’s store when it is needed by the poor: ‘Non ergo dormiat in thesauris tuis, quod pauperes dormire non sinit. Diues namque etsi multa congregauerit, his frui solus nequaquam poterit .  .  .’336 Here Ælfric’s source, instead of ‘dormire non sinit’, probably had ‘potest reficere’, ‘can refresh’, as do some of Hellmann’s and Breen’s variant manuscripts.337 The final clause, ‘þeah þu hi wolice healde’, appears to be his own addition. Ælfric then continues the direct address, with ‘Ðu gaderast ma and ma’, possibly rendering ‘Diues namque etsi multa congregauerit’ into the second person singular, but he continues with no direct source, as far as I have been able to establish: ‘and men cwelað hungre, and þine welan forrotiað ætforan þinum eagum’. The decaying treasure may owe something to Matt. VI.19, on moths and rust destroying earthly treasure. Ælfric concludes the section with a quotation from Luke XI.41, also quoted by Augustine immediately before the passage translated from the Enchiridion: ‘Doð swa swa Drihten cwæð: Dælað ælmyssan and ealle þing eow beoð clæne. Ðis he cwæð on his godspelle.’338 Ælfric, therefore, has treated this abuse much more freely than the first three, completely restructuring what he keeps from his principal source, omitting much and introducing a substantial passage from a totally different text. He urges the efficacy of almsgiving and the multiple ways in which it can be performed, concluding with a very strongly worded second person address, moving from singular to the biblical plural in the last injunction. The fifth abuse is the immodest woman, treated at considerable length in the Latin (49 lines); this is very much shortened by Ælfric. The Latin gives a long list of the evils against which modesty guards and of the qualities it cultivates in women and how these are regarded by God and men; it then lists how modesty of the body and of the soul are practised, ending with a catalogue of epithets describing modesty. Ælfric instead begins with a sentence on immodesty, translated from a Latin sentence ten lines into the section: ‘Impudica namque uita nec laudem ab hominibus in praesenti saeculo nec remunerationem a Deo expectat in futuro’;339 he then returns to the opening passage of the Latin abuse, translating

335 336

337 338 339

the sinner; for in this, too, he shows mercy’ (trans. J. Shaw, ‘St Augustine: The Enchiridion’, in A Select Library of the Christian Church Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, III, ed. P. Schaff (Grand Rapids, MI, 1956), p. 260). The Homilies of Wulfstan, ed. D. Bethurum (Oxford, 1957), Xc, lines159–62. Hellmann, p. 38, lines 18–20: ‘Therefore let nothing be idle in your treasures which does not allow poor people to sleep. Even if a rich person gathers many things, he is in no way able to enjoy them himself . . .’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 119). Ibid., p. 38, and Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, p. 354. Ælfric had also quoted this passage in CH II 19, lines 232–3. Hellmann, p. 41, lines 4–5: ‘A woman of immodest life expects neither praise from people in the

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Introduction a passage explaining that modesty in women is like wisdom (‘prudentia’) in men, as ‘cunctos honestos actus nutrit et fouet et custodit pudicitia’.340 The Old English continues with a selection from the many qualities of modesty listed in the Latin: ‘Pudicitia namque castitatem custodit, auaritiam refrenat, lites deuitat, iras mitigat, libidinem occupat, . . . lasciuiam castigat .. gulae concupiscentias oppugnat . . .’341 Ælfric highlights the modest woman’s avoidance of drunkenness by removing ‘ebrietatem cauet’, ‘guards against drunkenness’, from its position after ‘lasciuiam castigat’ in the Latin, and beginning a new Old English sentence with it, continuing with ‘uerba non multiplicat’.342 The paragraph ends with the sentence after this one in the Latin, ‘omnia uitia restringit et omnes uirtutes et quicquid coram Dei et hominibus bonis laudabile est nutrit’,343 ignoring the remainder of the source passage on physical and spiritual modesty and the very elaborate catalogue which follows in the source. This very selective section, limited to a translation of the first ten of the forty-nine lines devoted to the abuse in the Latin, concentrates on modesty as a defence against common vices (including the capital vices of avarice, anger, lust and gluttony) and avoids the more daunting characteristics of the virtue in the source. The sixth abuse is the dominus sine uirtute, which, as we saw, had a very particular meaning in seventh-century Ireland, the dominus being a leader of people living on church land;344 Ælfric devotes a considerable amount of space to this abuse. He avoids beginning this abuse with a simple translation of dominus sine uirtute and instead devotes the first sentence to his understanding of the kind of person intended, which is a very free treatment of the Latin: ‘Se syxta unðeaw is þæt se, þe to hlaforde byð gesett, þæt he for modleaste ne mage his mannum don steore, ac byð him swa mihtleas on his modes strece þæt he his underþeoddan egsian ne dear, ne to nanum wisdome hi gewissian nele.’345 The Latin does not explicitly mention the lord’s inability to discipline his men, although this is implicit in the story of Heli, the first example given in this section, and does not mention at all the lord’s unwillingness to guide his men wisely. Ælfric omits the reference to the rigor uirtutis of the dominus being different from that required by secular lords, probably because for him, as for the Carolingians, the dominus was a secular lord; ‘mihtleas on his modes strece’ may have been prompted by both rigor uirtutis (strece translating rigor) and ‘dominandi uirtus

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342 343 344 345

present life nor remuneration from God in the future’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 121). Ibid., p. 40, lines 17–18: ‘modesty nurtures, cherishes, and guards all honest actions’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 121). Ibid., p. 40, line 18 - p. 41, line 1: ‘Modesty guards chastity, restrains avarice, avoids arguments, soothes anger, masters lust, . . . chastises licentiousness, . . . fights against the desires of gluttony . . .’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 121). Ibid., p. 40, line 20 – p. 41, line 1: ‘does not multiply words’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 121). Ibid., p. 41, lines 2–4: ‘It checks all vices and nourishes all virtues and whatever is praiseworthy in the sight of God and good people’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 121). See above, p. 40. For Ælfric’s different versions of dominus sine uirtute, see my ‘De duodecim abusiuis’, pp. 156–9.

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De duodecim abusiuis per animi neglegentiam perditur’.346 The following passage about lords either drawing near to God or angering him is a much abbreviated version of the Latin and the examples of Moses and Saul are taken from there, those of Solomon and Jeroboam being omitted. That the lord should be gentle and frightening is based on: ‘Tria ergo necessaria hos qui dominantur habere oportet, terrorem scilicet et ordinationem et amorem; nisi enim ametur dominus pariter et metuatur, ordinatio illius constare minime poterit; per beneficia ergo et affabilitatem procuret ut diligatur, et per iustas uindictas non propriae iniuriae, sed legis Dei studeat ut metuatur.’347 However, Ælfric seems to have introduced the foolish, who do not feature in the Latin, as the object of the terror inspired by the lord, and the demand that the lord be ‘wordfæst and witan hwæt he clypige’, something which perhaps indicates that he was thinking of Anglo-Saxon England and its witan,348 is also not paralleled in the source. The Latin’s affability is the source of ‘He sceal beon swa geworht þæt him man wið mote sprecan’ and the lord’s righteous punishments are from the same Latin sentence. The next sentence echoes Romans I.32, on those who consent to evil being as worthy of death as those who do it;349 there is no direct equivalent to it in the Latin, though it may be hinted at in the sentence about Heli.350 Ælfric adds ‘gif he hit gebetan mæg and embe þa bote ne hogað’. These additions, on the hlaford’s duty to stick to his word and on the guilt of those who consent to evil, as well as the various additions on the need for the lord to guide wisely, to put an end to folly and to make the foolish fear him,351 suggest that Ælfric may have been responding to what he saw as problems among the hlafordas of his day. The next Old English sentence, which says that the lord must adhere to God with good behaviour, is from the Latin, which has an extended passage about the lord adhering to God; the peg image, prominent in the Latin, is not used in the Old English. Ælfric translates ‘quam uirtutem sine Dei auxilio nullatenus habet’352 with ‘for þan ðe he nane mihte habban ne mæg to rihte butan Godes fylste’, adding ‘swa swa God sylf cwæð’. This does not seem to be a biblical quotation in the Latin, but it appears that Ælfric thought that it 346 347

348 349 350 351

352

Hellmann, p. 43, lines 10–11: ‘the strength of ruling is lost through the negligence of the soul’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 123). Ibid., p. 43, line 14 – p. 44, line 3: ‘There are three indispensable things which are necessary for those who rule: terror, orderly rule and love. Unless the lord is feared and loved to an equal degree, his orderly rule will not be able to stand firm. Therefore through his kindness and affability he may ensure that he is loved and he may strive to be feared through his just judgements, not against wrongs to himself, but against the law of God’ (my translation). See my ‘De duodecim abusiuis’, pp. 157–9. The same passage is translated similarly in CH II 20, lines 68–70: ‘ðonne hit awriten is. þæt ða beoð ealswa scyldige ðe þæt unriht geðafiað. swa swa ða ðe hit gewyrcað’. If that is what the Latin ‘uelut consentienti’ implies; Heli is severely criticised for consenting to his sons’ wickedness. The same concern about the duty of the wise to check folly is expressed in almost the same words in CH I 19, lines143–4, where Ælfric is not following a source closely: ‘wise men sceolon settan steore dysegum mannum. swa þæt hi ðæt dysig. & þa unþeawas alecgon’ (‘wise men must establish discipline for foolish people, so that they may lay aside their folly and vices’). Hellmann, p. 45, lines 8–9: ‘in no way does anyone have virtue without the help of God’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 124).

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Introduction was. At first sight it looks like a version of Rom. XIII.1, but that verse is quoted towards the end of the Latin section, and translated by Ælfric two sentences later (‘for þan ðe nan miht nis butan of Gode’), and in any case it is spoken by Paul, not God. Ælfric may perhaps have been thinking of John XV.5, ‘quia sine me nihil potestis facere’, translated in CH II 28, lines 89–90, as ‘Ne mage ge nan ðing to gode gedon. buton me’. He then continues with a very faithful translation of the last part of the Latin chapter, which incorporates quotations from Rom. XIII.1, Sam. II.8/Ps. CXII.7–8, Luke I. 52 and Rom. III.19 and 23: Omnis igitur qui praeest hoc primitus animi tota intentione procuret, ut per omnia de Dei adiutorio omnino non dubitet. Si namque coeperit in actibus suis auxiliatorem habere dominum dominorum, nullus hominum contemptui habere poterit eius dominatum. Non est enim potestas nisi a Deo. Ipse enim eleuat de stercore egenum et sedere facit cum principibus populi sui et potentes deponit de sede et exaltat humiles, ut subditus fiat omnis mundus Deo et egeat gloria Dei.353

Ælfric has reorganised this section of the source very considerably and his additions and omissions help produce a passage which strongly suggests that he was here thinking of pious Anglo-Saxon lay leaders, like his own patrons. The seventh abuse is the contentious Christian and Ælfric takes the first part from the beginning of the Latin: ‘Septimus abusionis gradus est Christianus contentiosus, qui cum participationem nominis Christi per fidem et baptismum suscipit . . .’354 He follows up this point about Christianus/Christus by jumping 30 lines of the Latin text to combine it with a passage about imitating Christ, leading into God the Father’s praise of Christ (Matt. XII.18–19) and of his peacefulness: Igitur Christianus qui nominis Christi similitudinem tenet morum quoque eius similitudinem habere debet. Christianus enim nemo recte dicitur, nisi qui Christo moribus coaequatur. De Christo uero per prophetam ita describitur: ecce filius meus quem elegi, electus meus, complacuit sibi in illo anima mea, ponam spiritum meum super eum. Non contendet neque clamabit neque audiet aliquis in plateis uocem eius.355 353

Ibid., p. 45, lines 12–19: ‘With his mind’s full intention, let everyone in authority make sure that he has no doubt whatsoever about God’s help in everything. If he begins to have God as his helper in his deeds, no one will be able to scorn his rule: (Rom 13.1) For there is no power except from God. He (cf. 1 Sm 2.8) raises the poor man from the dunghill and makes him sit with the princes of his people, and he deposes the powerful from their seat and exalts the humble, so that (Rom 3.19) all the world may be made subject to God and that they may feel the need for the glory of God’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 124). 354 Ibid., p. 46, lines 1–3: ‘The seventh abuse is an argumentative Christian. Although this person participates in the name of Christ through faith and baptism . . .’ (Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 124). 355 Ibid., p. 47, line 20 – p. 48, l.7: ‘A Christian, whose name holds a likeness to Christ, ought also to have some semblance of his behavior. No one is rightly called a Christian, except one who becomes equal to Christ in his behavior. The prophet writes about Christ. (Mt 12.18–19; cf. Is 42.1) Behold my son whom I have chosen, my beloved. By him my soul has been well pleased. I will endow him with my spirit. He will not argue or shout, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets’ (trans. Throop,

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De duodecim abusiuis Instead of continuing, as in the Latin, with Matt. XXIII.8–10, Ælfric continues with an adaptation of Matt. V.9, ‘beati pacifici quoniam filii Dei vocabuntur’; this is not in the Hiberno-Latin but is obviously germane to the topic and made more so by the echo of the previous Matthew quotation in the addition ‘and sace ne astyriað’. He then develops this by another independent addition, touching on a point which he had already developed in CH I and II: ‘Swa swa þa gesibsuman beoð soðlice Godes bearn, swa beoð eac þa sacfullan soðlice deofles bearn.’ It owes much to 1 John III.10, ‘In hoc manifesti sunt filii Dei, et filii diaboli. Omnis qui non est iustus, non est ex Deo, et qui non diligit fratrem suum’;356 in CH I 19, lines 34–8, and in CH II 13, lines 50–9, Ælfric made similar points, insisting that men made themselves children of the devil by their own actions.357 The Old English paragraph returns to the Latin source with the beginning of the Pater noster, and with the concluding sentence, abbreviated from the Latin: Frustra ergo contendit patrem in terra qui patrem et patriam profitetur habere in caelo; cuius patriae possessor nemo efficitur, nisi qui de terrenae patriae contentione securus habetur.358

In his treatment of this abuse, then, Ælfric skips much of the Latin; he eliminates its sophisticated discussion, playing on the different meanings of the verb contendere (to strain after, to strive for, to fight), of how contention or striving is founded in attachment to the fleeting things of this world, against the command of the Holy Spirit and against the command to love our neighbour, and he concentrates instead on those parts of the Latin which emphasise the basic point of avoiding strife and promoting peace. The eighth abuse is the poor man who is proud. Ælfric begins, as usual, by naming the abuse and continues with a passage adapted from the Latin, but omitting the reference to Paul and converting the Latin question into a statement: Octauus abusionis gradus est pauper superbus, qui nihil habens in superbiam extollitur, cum e contrario diuitibus saeculi non superbe sapere per apostolum Paulum imperatur. Quid ergo stolidius fieri potest quam illum qui per infimam miseriam uelut in terra abiectus et extremus et humilis incedere et contristari debuerat, supercilioso superbiae tumore inflatam mentem contra Deum erigere?359 Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 125). ‘In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil. Whosoever is not just is not of God, or he that loveth not his brother.’ 357 For discussion of this, see Godden, CH III, pp. 155 and 468. 358 Hellmann, p. 48, line 14 – p. 49, line 2: ‘A person who professes to have a father and a country in heaven argues in vain that he has a father on earth; no one becomes a possessor of the heavenly country except one who is free of contention about the earthly country’ (trans. Throop, PseudoCyprian, pp. 125–6). 359 Ibid., p. 49, lines 3–9: ‘The eighth abuse is a proud pauper who, having nothing, is lifted up in pride, although the apostle Paul orders the opposite: (1 Tim. 6.17) that rich people of the world not be proud minded. What can be more stupid than a person (who ought to be despondent and who, in his weak misery walks on earth as if an abject, mean, and lowly person) to raise, with a supercilious 356

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Introduction The Old English omits a couple of sentences in the Latin (the reference to the fallen angels and their pride and a question about what poor man would wish to be proud), then rejoins the source with the quotation from the Beatitudes, Matt. V.3. Ælfric drops the following Latin sentence, which declares that God promised heaven to the poor, and a passage on the need for the poor to take heed lest they lose the promised reward because of pride and on how they can choose whether or not to be poor in spirit. His next sentence is based on the Latin: ‘Pauper enim humilis pauper spiritu appellatur, qui cum egenus foris cernitur, numquam in superbiam eleuatur, quoniam ad petenda regna caelorum plus ualet mentis humilitas quam praesentium diuitiarum temporalis paupertas.360 Ælfric continues to follow his source, developing the point that the rich too can be poor in spirit, ‘Etenim humiles qui bene diuitias possessas habent possunt pauperes spiritu appellari . . .’;361 he supports this with a quotation, Ps. LXIX.6, which is not in the Latin, in which King David says of himself that he is poor and needy and asks for God’s help. The final Old English sentence comes from the Latin, with Ælfric reversing the order of clauses to finish with a reaffirmation that the humble rich can be saved: ‘Pauper ergo in multis diuitiis est diues humilis spiritu et quasi diues nihil habens est pauper superbus mentis affectu.’362 ‘On bocum’ is an addition, as is the clause about pleasing God. There is no Old English equivalent to the final sentence in the Latin, which places the focus squarely on the poor man, rather than the rich. It could be argued with some justification, indeed, that the rich man’s ability to please God is the focus of this old English section, rather than the proud poor man. The most influential of all the twelve abuses was the ninth, the unjust king, and, fittingly, it was the one to which Ælfric devoted most space.363 Ælfric begins with the Latin’s explanation of rex, but prefaces it by saying that the king ‘byð gecoren to þam þe him cyð his nama’. The Latin has no reference to choosing or electing a king.364 The explanation of king comes from the Latin, rector meaning ruler, director, but Ælfric probably supplemented it with his knowledge of other texts: ‘Nomen enim regis intellectualiter hoc retinet, ut subiectis omnibus rectoris officium procuret.’365 Ælfric expands the explanation by defining what for him,

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361 362 363 364

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swelling of pride, a conceited mind against God’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 126). Ibid., p. 50, lines 7–10: ‘A humble pauper is called poor in spirit when, although he is seen as needy on the outside, he is never lifted up in pride. In seeking the kingdom of heaven, humility of mind is more valuable than the temporal poverty of present wealth’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 126). Ibid., p. 50, lines 11–12: ‘As a matter of fact, humble people who have well-gotten riches are able to be called poor in spirit . . .’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, pp. 126–7). Ibid., p. 50, lines 15–17: ‘A rich man who is humble in spirit in the midst of great riches is therefore a poor man and a poor man with nothing who is proud of mind is like a rich man’ (my translation). See my ‘De duodecim abusiuis’, pp. 159–61. J. Nelson, ‘Inauguration Rituals’, in Early Medieval Kingship, ed. P. H. Sawyer and I. N. Woods (Leeds, 1977), pp. 50–71, at 56, points out that ‘It is a commonplace that medieval men saw no incompatibility between the principles of election and heredity which to modern eyes tend to appear mutually exclusive’. Hellmann, p. 51, lines 5–6: ‘By the word “king” (rex) it is understood that he functions as the ruler

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De duodecim abusiuis it seems, are the principal duties of the king: ‘Rex we cweþað cyning, þæt is gecweden wissigend, for þan ðe he sceal wissian mid wisdome his folc and unriht alecgan and þone geleafan aræran.’ He changes the Latin rhetorical question regarding how a wicked king can correct others into a straightforward moralising statement: ‘Sed qualiter alios corrigere poterit qui proprios mores ne iniqui sint non corrigit?’366 into ‘Ðonne byð hit earmlic gif he byð unrihtwis, for þan ðe he ne gerihtlæcð nænne, gif he unrihtwis byð sylf’. He then follows the Latin rather closely: Quoniam in iustitia regis exaltatur solium et in ueritate solidantur gubernacula populorum. Iustitia uero regis est neminem iniuste per potentiam opprimere, sine acceptione personarum inter uirum et proximum suum iudicare, aduenis et pupillis et uiduis defensorum esse, furta cohibere, adulteria punire, iniquos non exaltare, impudicos et striones non nutrire, impios de terra perdere, parricidas et periurantes uiuere non sinere, ecclesias defendere, pauperes elemosynis alere, iustos super regni negotia constituere, senes et sapientes et sobrios consiliarios habere, magorum et hariolorum et pythonissarum superstitionibus non intendere, iracundiam differre, patriam fortiter et iuste contra aduersarios defendere, per omnia in Deo confidere, prosperitatibus animum non eleuare, cuncta aduersaria patienter ferre, fidem catholicam in Deum habere, filios suos non sinere impie agere, certis horis orationibus insistere, ante horas congruas non gustare cibum. Vae enim terrae, cuius rex est puer et cuius principes mane comedunt.367

Most of the king’s duties listed in this passage are included in the Old English, although the order is sometimes changed; Ælfric omits that the king should be (rector) for all his subjects’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 127). This is only one of a number of places where Ælfric uses this etymology; see his Grammar: ‘rego ic wissige, rexi, rectum of ðam cymð rex cyning, þe rihtlice wissað his folce’ and ‘rex cyning is gecweden A REGENDO, þæt is fram recendome, forðan ðe se cyning sceal mid micelum wisdome his leode wissian and bewerian mid cræfte.’ (Ælfrics Grammatik und Glossar, ed. Zupitza, pp. 173 and 293). The etymology in the Grammar is from the Excerptiones de Prisciano, ed. D. W. Porter (Woodbridge, 2002), p. 44. Behind these etymologies is Augustine’s comment on Ps. XLIV.17 in his Enarrationes in Psalmos, ed. E. Dekkers and J. Fraipont, CCSL 38 (Turnhout, 1956), 505–6: ‘Inde et rex a regendo dicitur. Non autem regit qui non corrigit. Ad hoc est rex noster rectorum rex.’ 366 Hellmann, p. 51, lines 7–8: ‘But how can he correct others, if he does not correct his own behaviour, taking care that he is not unjust?’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 127). 367 Ibid., p. 51, line 8 to p. 52, line 7: ‘It is through justice that a king’s throne is lifted high, and through truth that governance of the people is made firm. A king’s justice lies in oppressing no one unjustly through his authority, judging between a person and his neighbor without favoritism, defending strangers and orphans and widows, repressing theft, punishing adultery, not exalting unjust people, not nurturing shameless people and striones, ridding the land of impious people, not allowing parricides and perjurers to live, defending churches, supporting poor people with alms, setting virtuous people over the business of the kingdom, having as councilors people who are old, wise and sober. He does not heed the superstitions of magicians, fortune tellers, and soothsayers; he puts off anger; he bravely and justly defends the country against adversaries, trusting in God through all things; he does not raise his spirit in prosperity and patiently bears adversity; he holds the catholic faith in God; he does not allow his children to act impiously; he pauses for prayers at certain times and does not eat food before the suitable times. (Eccl 10.16) Woe to the land, whose king is a child and whose princes eat in the morning’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, pp. 128–9).

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Introduction a defender of strangers, that he should not elevate the wicked, that he should not support the shameless and actors, that he should not allow parricides and perjurers to live and that he should have an orthodox faith in God. Some of these passages overlap with duties which are listed and others could possibly be taken for granted. Ælfric then follows the Latin very closely in spelling out how a king’s behaviour determines his kingdom’s prosperity and his own eternal fate; if he does not do as this passage says, then his kingdom will suffer all kinds of hardship (much abbreviated in the Old English). The ninth abuse concludes in the same way as the Latin, with a stern warning to kings, Ælfric again including an appeal to books to strengthen the point: ‘Attamen sciat rex quod sicut in throno hominum primus constitutus est, sic et in poenis, si iustitiam non fecerit, primatum habiturus est. Omnes namque quoscumque peccatores sub se in praesenti habuit, supra se modo plagali in illa futura poena habebit.’368 The tenth abuse is the negligent bishop. The Latin explains this as the bishop who wants to be publicly honoured but neglects his duties. The bishop should live up to his dignity as episcopus, watchman, as revealed in Ez. XXXIII.6–9; the next section of the Latin is very concerned with excommunication and other bishops not receiving excommunicates, justified by quotations from Matt. XVIII.15–17 and Lev. XXI.7. Paul is then extensively paraphrased (1 Tim. III.2–7, Tit. I.6–9) and the section concludes with biblical warnings against negligent shepherds (Jer. XII.10, Ez. XXXIV.8) and a charge to work to deserve to hear the Lord’s welcome as a good and faithful servant (Matt. XXV.21 and 23). Ælfric begins with the etymology of episcopus, giving the Greek, Latin and English, and then paraphrases the Latin: ‘Decet ergo episcopum omnium quibus in specula positus est peccata diligenter attendere’;369 this is followed with a translation of Ez. XXXIII.7–9, as in the Latin. The following Old English passage is a very free treatment of the Latin: ‘Caueant ergo neglegentes episcopi, quod in tempore uindictae Dominus per prophetam conqueritur: pastores multi demoliti sunt populum meum, et non pascebant pastores gregem meum, sed pascebant pastores semet ipsos . . .’;370 in the Latin this is followed by quotations from Luke XII.42 and Matt. XXV.21 and 23. Instead of the biblical quotations, Ælfric concentrates on what the Matthew passages imply, that the eternal fate of the bishop and of his flock depends on his fulfilling the duties of his office. He concludes with a passage very reminiscent of, but oddly different from, one in CH II 19, where he was also using De duodecim abusiuis as his source: ‘Þæt folc bið gesælig þurh snoterne cyning. sigefæst. and

368

Ibid., p. 53, lines 11–15: ‘Nevertheless, let a king know that, just as he is set on his throne as first among the people, so also, if he has not done justice, he will have primacy in punishment. All sinners who were under him in the present life, he will have over him, in a punishing way, for that punishment to come’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, pp. 128–9). 369 Ibid., p. 54, lines 9–11: ‘It is fitting for a bishop to diligently watch for the sins of all the people over whom he has been placed as a watchtower’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 129). 370 Ibid., p. 56, lines 10–13: ‘Let negligent bishops beware that the Lord, at a time of vindication, complains through the prophet (Jer 12.10; Ez 34.8) Many pastors have destroyed my people, and my shepherds did not feed my flocks but fed themselves’ (Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 130).

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De duodecim abusiuis gesundful. ðurh gesceadwisne reccend.’371 Here, he says instead: ‘Ac þæt folc byð gesælig þurh snoterne bisceop þe him segð Godes lare and hylt hi under Gode, swa swa god hyrde, þæt hi beon gehealdene and he hæbbe þa mede.’ In the Latin, as in CH II, a people’s prosperity is associated firmly with a just king but Ælfric replaces it here with the bishop. In all, this section is very different from the Latin source; Ælfric omits the Latin’s concern with excommunication372 and all the Pauline injunctions about the bishop (understandably, in the case of such commands that he should have had only one wife, should have obedient children or should not be newly converted). He concentrates on the warnings from Ezekiel and on drawing out the consequences of this for the bishop and his people, as he does in similar fashion, but at far greater length and using the next chapter of Ezekiel, in both the original and the later addition to CH I 17.373 The eleventh abuse is a people without discipline, a term which is carefully explained in the Latin, and the section includes various biblical admonitions on the need for discipline and a long passage on the tunic of Christ, woven in one piece, as a figure for the unified discipline of the whole church which should not be torn. Breen argues that the group referred to is a ‘schismatic sect’, and that what has prompted this abuse is the Easter controversy within the Irish church.374 Again, what we get in Ælfric is rather different. All references to the tunic of Christ disappear and most of the paragraph is made up of the biblical quotations taken from the source (Ps. II.12, Hebr. XII.7–8, Is. I.16–17 and Ps. XXXVI.27), several of them in both Latin and English. The second sentence and the last seem to be Ælfric’s own additions and change the tenor of the section; the second sentence emphasises how foolishness reigns securely when it is not corrected and the consequences of this for the wise, perhaps with contemporary resonances, and the final sentence, continuing both the imperative mode and the sentiments of the preceding psalm quotation, commands the innocent to protect themselves against evil and the guilty to turn from evil – an example of discipline or correction in action. The twelfth, and last abuse, is the people without law, those who do not obey the commands of God and who are therefore not on the path to salvation, that is, lapsed Christians. The Latin quotes Is. LIII.6 and a slightly altered version of Prov. XVI.25/XIV.12 about erring paths, then has a series of New Testament CH II 19, lines 96–7: ‘The people will be fortunate by means of a wise king, victorious and prosperous by means of a rational ruler.’ See my discussion of this passage in ‘De duodecim abusiuis’, pp. 153–5. In the ninth abuse in De duodecim abuisiuis, Ælfric makes a similar point, though more cautiously: ‘Gif se cyning wyle mid carfulnysse healdan þas foresædan beboda, þonne byð his rice gesundful on life and æfter life he mot faran to þam ecan for his arfæstnysse.’ 372 The concern with excommunication is probably related to circumstances in the seventh-century Irish church, as Hellmann suggested. See above, p. 45, and Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, pp. 6–10. 373 See CH III, pp. 136–44, and R. Upchurch, ‘A Big Dog Barks: Ælfric of Eynsham’s Indictment of the English Pastorate and Witan’, Speculum 85 (2101), 505–33. 374 Breen, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’, p. 6. 371

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Introduction quotations, about Christ as the way and about how the church welcomes everyone alike (Rom. X.4, John XIV.6, Matt. XI.28, Rom. II.11 and Gal. III.28/Col. III.11), with a concluding paragraph on a people without law being a people without Christ and how great an abuse this is in the days of the gospels. Ælfric begins with a characteristic explanation about the Old Law and the New and how we no longer follow the Old, reminiscent of his Preface to Genesis,375 rejoining his Latin source at the end of the second sentence with a translation of ‘qui sine lege sunt sine Christo fiunt’.376 Ælfric then continues with a close translation of ‘De quibus etiam uiis eadem sapientia loquitur per Salomonem: multae uiae uidentur hominibus rectae, et nouissima earum ducunt ad mortem’.377 He adds a final clause, underlining the foolishness of those who follow the paths to death, ‘þa ðe him dyslice folgiað’. In the next sentence, he combines the explanation of the one way (‘una regalis uia lex Dei uidelicet’) with the ‘per diuersas errorum uias’378 of the first sentence of the Latin and he then adopts its quotation of John XIV.6, adding a coda emphasising the moral and eschatological point: ‘Ac we beoð þurh Crist to heofonum gebrohte, gif we his bigengas healdað.’ The following Old English sentence appears to be adapted from the less straightforward Latin: ‘Non fiamus itaque sine Christo in hoc tempore transitorio, ne sine nobis Christus esse incipiat in futuro.’379 Ælfric then omits most of the last part of the Latin, keeping the quotation from Matt. XXVIII.20 and adding his own concluding prayer: ‘Se hælend us gewissige to his willan symle, þæt ure sawla moton siþian eft to him æfter urum life to þam ecan life, þæt he ure sawla underfo þe hi asende to þam lichaman. Sy him a wuldor and wurðmynt. AMEN.’ The prayer is a more elaborate version of the conclusion to two other homilies, Pope xiv and Assmann iii. In translating and adapting this text, Ælfric has produced a vernacular version which is simplified and abbreviated and which focuses even more on moral advice and exhortation than the Latin does. Some of the more sophisticated, philosophical passages of the Latin are omitted. Even though the vernacular, like the Latin, deals with all sections of society, there are distinct indications that the primary audience that Ælfric had in mind was one of powerful, wealthy, devout men, who had an important role in guiding society, and that his treatment of some of the abuses was influenced by his awareness of this audience. He used this tract to encourage them to obedience in youth, almsgiving, firmness and strength in exercising their authority with a constant awareness of their dependence on God, avoidance of quarrelsomeness and humility of spirit; women are exhorted to be modest and people in general to be disciplined and to abide by the law of God. The text deals also with the duties of Ælfric’s Preface to Genesis, The Old English Heptateuch, ed. Marsden, pp. 3–7, lines 8–24. Hellmann, p. 59, line 17: ‘people who are without law come to be without Christ’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 132). 377 Ibid., p. 59, lines 4–6: ‘Even Wisdom talks about these ways, through Solomon (cf. Prv 14.12) Many ways seem right to people, but their ends lead to death’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 132). 378 Ibid., p. 59, line 7: ‘the one royal way (the law of God . . .)’ and p. 58, line 16: ‘various pathways of their errors’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 132). 379 Ibid., p. 60, lines 10–11: ‘And so, let us not become people without Christ in this transitory time, lest Christ begin to be without us in the future.’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 133) 375 376

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The Vices and Virtues other authority figures, preachers, bishops and the king. As someone oblivious to the original circumstances of composition, Ælfric understandably excised several passages which arise from seventh-century Irish concerns, concentrating instead on what he regarded as more useful for his audience.

4 The Vices and Virtues While Ælfric’s De duodecim abusiuis is relatively straightforward in terms of source analysis, drawing as it does almost exclusively on a single text, the situation is more complicated with regard to the vices and virtues section of the composite text. Ælfric’s account in De octo uitiis, despite having received a little attention as part of LS xvi,380 has never been considered in detail. As this part of Ælfric’s LS xvi is almost identical to the equivalent section in his composite De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus, I will not make a distinction between them in discussing sources and will refer to this section of text as De octo uitiis.381 What has been published to date on Ælfric and the vices and virtues is largely in the context of analysis of the sources of his other principal treatments of the topic, in CH II 12, lines 479–559 (Dominica in media quadragesime), and in Fehr iii, Ælfric’s Second Old English Letter for Wulfstan.382 In date, the CH II account must be the earliest of these, as the series was completed by 995,383 and the letter, written after Ælfric became an abbot, the latest (Clemoes considers the most probable date for this to be 1006);384 De octo uitiis must have been completed by 998, by which date LS was completed.385 Because Ælfric’s account of the vices and virtues is an important representative of the tradition of vices and virtues material and because 380

381 382

383 384 385

In, for example, Lees, ‘The Dissemination’, and Torkar, Eine altenglische Übersetzung, p. 32. In LS xvi, the account of the vices and virtues is prefaced by an account of the saints, covering the Old Testament, Christ and the martyrs and other saints of the New Testament; a passage on the devil’s attempts to seduce Christians follows and then descriptions of the three virtues of faith, hope and charity (the heahmægnu), followed by the eight vices and their complementary virtues. As suggested above, pp. 10 and 29, it is possible that Ælfric issued it also as a stand-alone text. In addition, there are brief lists of the sins in Pope iv, lines 249–51 (a text which Pope, p. 260, considers to be ‘roughly contemporary with the Lives’) and De doctrina apostolica, Pope xix, lines 126–9, the conclusion of the first, non-rhythmical section of this text, which Pope associates with the beginning of De Auguriis and which he supposes to be ‘leftovers from the period of the Catholic Homilies’ (Pope, p. 614). In LS i, lines 102–9, a homily on the Nativity of Christ, Ælfric discusses the threefold nature of the soul, drawing on Alcuin’s De animae ratione; the concupiscent, irascible and rational parts of the soul are each linked with sins, with perverted desire giving rise to gluttony, fornication and avarice (gyfernesse, forlygr and gitsunge), perverted anger to wrath and sloth (unrotnisse and æmylnysse) and perverted reason to pride and vainglory (modignysse and ydel gylp). This gives a list of seven capital vices, all drawn from Alcuin’s treatise; however, neither Alcuin nor Ælfric advert to them being the capital vices in these texts. Godden, CH III, pp. xxix–xxxvi. Clemoes in Fehr, p. cxlv, and ‘Chronology’, p. 245. See above, p. 33.

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Introduction he certainly knew a variety of earlier treatments, I will begin with a brief account of the development of the tradition, in order to situate Ælfric within it, before going on to examine in detail the sources he used in De octo uitiis. The development of the tradition Ælfric’s treatments of the vices and virtues are part of the history of the genre, then developing, of treatises on the vices and virtues.386 While we cannot be certain whether or not he issued a separate text on the vices and virtues, it is a distinct possibility387 and, in any case, some of the most important texts in the development of the genre do not restrict themselves only to vices and virtues material, as Ælfric did not in almost all extant versions of his texts. In each case other than that in G, the vices and virtues material is part of a larger text. As Newhauser has pointed out, this is a volatile genre, which can be subsumed into larger forms, ‘at which point its generic identity was, in effect, dissolved in the make-up of these larger forms’ or can be extracted from ‘more inclusive works or isolated as an independent source of inspiration within them’.388 There is also, throughout its history, a fluid movement between treatise and sermon.389 In the brief overview below, I will concentrate on those texts and developments of most importance to Ælfric. The genre originates in early texts which focus largely on the capital vices390 and the opposing, or contrary, virtues are a subsidiary development. The ascetic Evagrius Ponticus (d. 399), writing in Greek for fellow-monks in Egypt and building on earlier sources analysing sin, presented an octad of evil thoughts (gluttony, lust, avarice, sadness, anger, sloth, vainglory and pride, the order reflecting the monk’s spiritual progress and with each thought causally linked to the following); this order was varied in one of his texts, De octo spiritibus malitiae, so that sadness followed wrath.391 A Greek treatise, Tractatus de uitiis quae opposita sunt uirtutibus, which may also be by Evagrius, seems to have originated the pattern of pairing each vice with an opposing virtue; it has nine vices, the extra one being envy, and its pairings are gluttony and self-control, lust and temperance, avarice and poverty, sadness and joy, anger and patience, sloth and endurance, vainglory and its opposite, envy and its opposite and pride and humility.392 386

387 388 389 390 391 392

This survey is heavily indebted to R. Newhauser, The Treatise on Vices and Virtues in Latin and the Vernacular, Typologie des Sources du Moyen Âge Occidental 68 (Turnhout, 1993), pp. 97–118. See also S. Wenzel, ‘The Seven Deadly Sins: Some Problems of Research’, Speculum 43 (1968), 1–22, and M. Bloomfield, The Seven Deadly Sins (East Lansing, MI, 1952), pp. 59–104. See above, p. 29. Newhauser, Treatise, p. 58. Ibid., pp. 75–83. In the later Middle Ages, the capital vices became known as the deadly sins. PG 79, 1145–64. What is called sloth here is acedia, a far more complicated concept. See below, pp. 77–9. See Newhauser, Treatise, pp. 105–6; the tract is edited in PG 79, 1140–4. It does not name the virtues opposite to vainglory and envy.

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The Vices and Virtues The evil thoughts were then adopted in the Latin West and developed further by Cassian (d. 435), who took Evagrius’s octad and used it in his two major texts, De institutis coenobiorum and the Conlationes.393 The evil thoughts became uitia, vices, in Cassian; each of books V to XII of De institutis deals with a vice and the fifth book of the Conlationes is entitled De octo principalibus uitiis and deals with all eight vices. Cassian’s sequence, like Evagrius’s in following what he saw as the monk’s progress from physical to spiritual temptations, was: ‘Octo sunt principalia uitia quae humanum infestant genus, id est primum gastrimargia, quod sonat uentris ingluuies, secundum fornicatio, tertium filargyria, id est auaritia siue amor pecuniae, quartum ira, quintum tristitia, sextum acedia, id est anxietas seu taedium cordis, septimum cenodoxia, id est iactantia seu uana gloria, octauum superbia.’394 Gastrimargia became in time more commonly known as gula, while the favoured term for the third vice was auaritia and for the seventh uana gloria; the most common form of this list became, then, gula, luxuria, auaritia, ira, tristitia, acedia, uana gloria and superbia.395 Cassian also names the other sins to which each of these vices gives rise. In addition, Cassian mentioned what he called the uirtutes contrariae which will occupy the heart once the vices have been driven out; then castitas, chastity, will replace concupiscentiae uel fornicationis spiritus, the spirit of concupiscence or fornication, patientia will replace furor, anger, salutaris et plena gaudio tristitia, a salutary sadness full of joy, will replace the tristitia which brings about death, fortitudo will replace acedia and humilitas will replace superbia.396 While this is not a systematic pairing of all eight vices, it established in the West the principle of each vice having a matching virtue, a principle which was to be very influential, even if the choices of counterparts varied. Cassian also frequently alluded to contrary virtues in his discussions of individual vices; the whole point of his treatment of the vices is to provide remedies for them. The imagery of battle, which was to dominate the vices and virtues tradition, is already well established in Cassian. Cassian’s contemporary, Prudentius (d. after 405), also used this martial imagery to good effect in his Psychomachia, a poem describing the conflict of vices and virtues; these, however, are not the capital vices as a group, although some are identical to them.397 The next influential figures were from the Iberian peninsula; Eutropius (fl. c. 580) made a digest of book V of Cassian’s Conlationes for his Epistula de viii uitiis, to produce a stand-alone work on the vices, and Martin of Braga (d. 580), 393 394

395 396 397

Cassian, De institutis coenobiorum, ed. M. Petschenig CSEL 17 (Vienna, 1888), and Conlationes, ed. M. Petschenig, CSEL 13 (Vienna, 1886). Cassian, Conlationes, ed. Petschenig, V.2 (121.11–16): ‘There are eight principal faults which attack mankind; viz., first gastrimargia, which means gluttony, secondly fornication, thirdly philargyria, i.e., avarice or the love of money, fourthly anger, fifthly dejection, sixthly acedia, i.e., listlessness or low spirits, seventhly cenodoxia, i.e., boasting or vain glory; and eighthly pride’ (The Conferences, trans. E. Gibson, A Select Library of the Christian Church Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, vol. XI (New York, 1894), p. 339). See Newhauser, Treatise, p. 182. Cassian, Conlationes, ed. Petschenig, V.23 (148.1–8). On the contrary virtues, see Newhauser, ‘Preaching the “Contrary Virtues”’, for a discussion of the development of these lists of virtues. Psychomachia, trans. H. J. Thomson in Prudentius, vol. I (London and Cambridge, 1949).

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Introduction in a range of works, also drew on Cassian’s treatment of the eight vices.398 In his Formula uitae honestae, written for the Suevic king of Galicia and his court, Martin of Braga juxtaposed the four cardinal virtues to the eight vices, rather than matching each vice with a virtue. As Newhauser has pointed out, ‘As an integral system, the seven (or eight) capital vices were relatively stable; the virtues . . . was a field always open for innovation’.399 Gregory the Great (d. 604), however, presented a heptad rather than an octad of vices in his list of principalia uitia, in book 31 of his Moralia in Iob, and, even though this was only a very short passage rather than a full treatise, it was to prove enormously influential. Gregory’s seven vices, in order, were inanis gloria, inuidia, ira, tristitia, auaritia, uentris ingluuies and luxuria (vainglory, envy, anger, sadness, avarice, gluttony and lust) and he regarded pride, superbia, as the queen and the root of all vices, underlying them all, though not counted in his list of seven.400 He was, then, responsible for the introduction of envy to the list in the West and for the separation of superbia as the cause of all of the vices; his list did not include acedia. Gregory’s scheme could also be adapted to include superbia, giving an octad. His order of vices was very different from Cassian’s, more or less inverting it, with the spiritual vices coming before the physical but, like Cassian, Gregory specified many other sins that arise from the capital vices. Isidore of Seville (d. 636) discussed the capital vices in different texts. In his De differentiis rerum he took over the Gregorian vices but used Cassian’s order, slightly changed, and included superbia to give an octad (gulae concupiscentia, fornicatio, auaritia, inuidia, tristitia, ira, inanis gloria and superbia);401 this order is found also in other texts. In his Quaestiones in Deuteronomium, his list comprised gastrimargia, fornicatio, philargyria, ira, tristitia, accidia, cenodoxia and superbia, again an octad.402 In his Sententiae, he gave a list of opposing virtues as well as vices.403 Aldhelm (d. 709 or 710) drew on Cassian’s Conlationes V and on Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Iob for the section on the eight principal vices which concludes his metrical De uirginitate;404 the sins he discusses are gula, stuprum (debauchery), philargiria, ira, tristitia, accidia, cenodoxia (as, he says, the Greeks call it, while the Latins call it uana gloria) and superbia. Aldhelm presents the virtues as battling against the vices: fasting against gluttony, pure virginity against 398

399 400 401 402 403

404

Eutropius’s work is in PL 80, 9–14, and Martin of Braga’s various works are in PL 72. See Newhauser, Treatise, pp. 110–12, for an overview of Martin of Braga’s moral-theological works (Formula uitae honestae, Pro repellenda iactantia, De superbia, Exhortatio humilitatis and De ira). Newhauser, Treatise, p. 111. Moralia in Iob, ed. M. Adriaen, CCSL 143B (Turnhout, 1985), 31.45.14–21. PL 83, 96. PL 83, 366. Sententiae, ed. P. Cazier, CCSL 111 (Turnhout, 1998), 2.37.2 (166.7–13); the vices are not all the capital vices but they include sadness opposed to joy, acedia opposed to fortitude, avarice to generosity and pride to humility. De uirginitate, lines 2446–761, in Aldhelmi Opera, ed. Ehwald. Aldhelm also wrote about the eight vices briefly in ch. 13 of his prose De uirginitate (ibid., pp. 241–2) and there names Cassian and Gregory’s Moralia in Iob as his sources.

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The Vices and Virtues debauchery, patience against anger, spiritual joy against tristitia, perseverance of the mind (constantia mentis) against sloth and humility against pride; no specific remedy for vainglory is offered. Tristitia is divided into good and bad varieties, drawing on Cassian’s Conlationes V.xxiii, where Cassian distinguishes between the tristitia which brings about death and ‘a saving sorrow full of joy’ (salutaris et plena gaudio tristitia).405 Aldhelm remarks that In geminas istud nomen se findere partes Creditur et duplici dirimuntur tramite causae: Una salutaris tendens ad limina lucis, Altera mortalis penetrans ad Tartara tetra; De qua nos salvare Deus dignetur ab arce!406

Early Irish penitentials include lists of the capital or other serious sins or use them as their organising principle, showing a connection between the capital sins and the developing practice of private confession: the sixth-century Irish Penitential of Finnian, §29, lists some of the capital sins and their contrary virtues; the seventh-century Penitential of Cummian begins with chapters devoted to each of the eight capital sins; the eighth-century Bigotian Penitential lists the eight chief vices and their offspring and then has chapters devoted to the remedies for each of the vices; and the Old Irish Penitential begins with a list of virtues with their corresponding vices, with the organising principle for the rest of the text being the eight capital sins.407 In the Carolingian period and after, the vices and virtues became an important focus of attempts to enforce standards of Christian moral behaviour among the clergy and the laity, through preaching, private confession and reading. Frankish episcopal statutes of the ninth century decreed that confessors should know the eight chief sins and that penitents should confess their sins according to this scheme. Theodulf of Orleans (d. 818) listed the eight capital vices about which 405

Behind this distinction lies 2 Cor. VII.9–10: ‘nunc gaudeo: non quia contristati estis, sed quia contristati estis ad poenitentiam. Contristati enim estis ad Deum, ut in nullo detrimentum patiamini ex nobis. Quæ enim secundum Deum tristitia est, poenitentiam in salutem stabilem operatur: sæculi autem tristitia mortem operatur’ (‘Now I am glad: not because you were made sorrowful, but because you were made sorrowful unto penance. For you were made sorrowful according to God, that you might suffer damage by us in nothing. For the sorrow that is according to God worketh penance, steadfast unto salvation: but the sorrow of the world worketh death’). 406 Aldhelmi Opera, ed. Ehwald, De uirginitate, lines 2661–5: ‘That name [Tristitia] is believed to divide itself into two parts, and its conditions are thought to be distinguished by a two-fold path, one of salvation leading to the threshold of Light, the other, fatal, one, descending into the dark underworld [II Cor. VII.10] – from which may God in heaven deign to save us!’ (Aldhelm: The Poetic Works, trans. M. Lapidge and J. Rosier (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 161–2). 407 These penitentials are all edited in The Irish Penitentials, ed. Bieler. On the date of the Penitential of Finnian, see Bieler, p. 4, and of the Penitential of Cummian, p. 6. M. Lapidge and R. Sharpe, A Bibliography of Celtic-Latin Literature (Dublin, 1985), p. 157, no. 614, assign the Bigotian Penitential to the first half of the eighth century; it uses the Penitential of Cummian and was in turn used by the author of the Old Irish Penitential, which is thought to have been written no later than the eighth century (see Binchy in The Irish Penitentials, ed. Bieler, p. 258). The Penitential of Cummian seems to have been quite well known in late Anglo-Saxon England (see Frantzen, The Literature of Penance, pp. 130–7).

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Introduction the confessor should ask each penitent in his Capitula ad presbyteros parochiae suae.408 The Capitula ecclesiastica, dated 810–13, required every priest to have capitula concerning the vices and to preach about them;409 as McKitterick points out, ‘It seems to have been considered desirable therefore for the clergy to possess a set of excerpts from the Fathers on the vices and virtues as a means of self-instruction for the literate, while it was intended that they should be read to the illiterate to assist their moral formation’.410 McKitterick argues that the texts in question were primarily ascetic florilegia, such as Defensor of Ligugé’s Liber scintillarum, a series of excerpts on good practices, vices and virtues, including the capital sins, or the florilegium of Paulinus of Aquileia, dedicated to a layman.411 Continental penitentials too begin to include lists of the capital sins or to use them as an organising principle, as some early Irish penitentials had already done.412 Halitgar of Cambrai devoted books one and two of his De uitiis et uirtutibus et de ordine poenitentium libri quinque, written c. 830, to the vices and virtues.413 Burchard of Worms’s Decretum, a canon law collection in twenty books, compiled c. 1020, incorporated a penitential as book xix, with chapters devoted to the eight vices and the virtues which can overcome them.414 Prayers associated with confession also began to list the sins and so, for example, the prayer beginning Deus inaestimabilis misericordiae, Deus immensae pietatis, Deus conditor et reparator humani generis, a confessional prayer attributed to Alcuin (which may have been composed by him for Charlemagne), includes ‘Insuper etiam ira, tristitia, acedia, iactantia atque desidia, omnibusque octo principalibus uitiis obnoxium me esse profiteor’.415 Among the works which respond to this emphasis on the vices and virtues are Alcuin’s ethical treatise, De uirtutibus et uitiis, written c. 800 in Tours as a moral guide for a layman, Count Wido, Ambrosius Autpertus’s De conflictu uitiorum atque uirtutum, Hincmar’s De cavendis vitiis et virtutibus exercendis and Hrabanus Maurus’s sermons on each of the eight capital vices.416 The most important of these 408 409

410 411

412 413

414 415 416

PL 105, 191–208, at 201A–B; see also Newhauser, Treatise, pp. 115–16, Frantzen, The Literature of Penance, pp. 102–3, and McKitterick, The Frankish Church, pp. 52–7. These capitula are transmitted in Ansegius’s influential collection; see G. Schmitz, Die Kapitulariensammlung des Ansegis, MGH Capitularia regum Francorum I (Hannover, 1996), p. 29, for discussion and 513.6 for the text of this stipulation. R. McKitterick, The Frankish Church and the Carolingian Reforms 789–895 (London, 1977), p. 160. Ibid., p. 163. See above, p. 75. PL 105, 649–710. Despite the title, Halitgar composed six books and the last is a complete penitential and guide to the confessor. See McKitterick, The Frankish Church, pp. 170–2. PL 140, 537–1058; the chapters on virtues and vices are 6 and 7 of book xix. Black, ‘Psalm Uses’, pp. 38–9, lines 61–4: ‘In addition to anger, sorrow, acedia, vainglory and idleness, I confess myself to be guilty of all of the eight principal vices.’ See also below, p. 90. Alcuin’s treatise (hereafter De uirtutibus) is in PL 101, 613–38D; De conflictu uitiorum atque uirtutum, ed. R. Weber, Ambrosii Autperti Opera, CCCM XXVIIB (1979), 909–31 (however, this does not deal specifically with the capital vices); Hinkmar von Reims: De cavendis vitiis et virtutibus exercendis, ed. D. Nachtmann, MGH Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte 16 (Munich, 1998); C. Woods, ‘Six New Sermons by Hrabanus Maurus on the Virtues and Vices’, Revue bénédictine 107 (1997), 280–306. See also T. Noble, ‘Secular Sanctity: Forging an Ethos for the Carolingian Nobility’, in Lay

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The Vices and Virtues for the development of the tradition and for Anglo-Saxon England was Alcuin’s treatise and I shall focus on it here. The text, one of a number of ethical treatises written in the Carolingian period for the laity,417 begins with a chapter on wisdom, then deals with the theological virtues, faith, charity and hope, and the benefits of reading the Bible, then comes a series of chapters on virtues or virtuous habits (such as peace, mercy, forgiveness, patience), a series on vices and bad behaviour (such as bearing false witness, envy, pride and anger), and chapters 27 to 34 deal with the capital vices and, briefly, with their contrary virtues; the conclusion then covers the four cardinal virtues, prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance, and exhorts Wido to use the handbook daily to think on his own behaviour. Alcuin’s sources for the capital vices were Cassian (both the Conlationes and De institutis), Prudentius, Gregory the Great, Isidore and Aldhelm.418 He follows Cassian’s order of vices for the most part, but places superbia first rather than last. The treatment of each vice is concluded with the virtue which can conquer it and, in his conclusion to the capital vices part of the treatise, Alcuin sums up all of the pairings: ‘Prima superbia per humilitatem, gula per abstinentiam, fornicatio per castitatem, auaritia per abstinentiam [Ms. S. Jac., largitatem et contemptum mundi], ira per patientiam, acedia per instantiam boni operis, tristitia mala per laetitiam spiritualem, uana gloria per charitatem Dei [Al., per sapientiam] [uincitur].’419 Although written for a layman, much of this text is still very monastic;420 one obvious example is Alcuin’s treatment of acedia, which speaks almost exclusively of monks. Acedia harms the servants of God, driving monks from their cells into the world and throwing them from the life of the rule into vice.421 In terms of the development of the vices over the course of the texts surveyed above, some vices are relatively stable, such as fornicatio, for example, while others change as the tradition develops and especially as the intended audience changes.422 One very evident example is acedia. Acedia is a vice that was traditionally a particular danger for monks and both Cassian’s and Alcuin’s 417 418

419

420

421 422

Intellectuals in the Carolingian World, ed. P. Wormald and J. Nelson (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 8–37. See Noble, ‘Secular Sanctity’. L. Wallach, ‘Alcuin on Virtues and Vices: A Manual for a Carolingian Soldier’, Harvard Theological Review 48 (1955), 175–95, at 180 and 188. PL 101, 637A (the readings in square brackets are alternative manuscript readings): ‘First pride is overcome by humility, gluttony by abstinence, fornication by chastity, avarice by abstinence [generosity and contempt of the world], anger by patience, sloth by perseverance in good work, harmful sadness by spiritual joy, vainglory by love of God [by wisdom].’ P. Szarmach, ‘The Latin Tradition of Alcuin’s Liber de virtutibus et vitiis, cap. xxvii–xxxv, with Special Reference to Vercelli Homily XX’, Mediaevalia 12 (1989 for 1986), 13–41, at 16–18, points out that many of the alternative readings are not supported by early manuscripts of the text. Abstinentia as the virtue which overcomes avarice seems to be a mistake, as it has already been cited as overcoming gula. On this, see W. Otten, ‘The Texture of Tradition: The Role of the Church Fathers in Carolingian Theology’, in The Reception of the Church Fathers in the West, vol. I, ed. I. Backus (Leiden, 1996), 3–50, at 24–31; she comments on the ‘unproblematic integration of a monastic with a secular mentality’, in Alcuin’s treatise (p. 30). PL 101, 635B. Although even with fornicatio the emphasis can be very different in different accounts, especially depending on whether they are for monastic or lay audiences.

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Introduction accounts (to focus on the two vices and virtues texts most important for Ælfric) refer principally to the monastic life. From the beginning, however, it was a vice which had different strands. In its desert origins it was a particular danger for hermits, as it ‘designated the temptation to quit religious exercises, to slacken one’s wakefulness, or to leave the spiritual life altogether because of depression, physical weariness, boredom with the cell – inner experiences in part caused, and certainly aggravated, by such external factors as the desolate monotony of the desert, noonday heat, and the peculiar daily schedule as well as the ascetic ideals of the hermits’.423 It is a much more complex vice than the deadly sin of sloth which it eventually became. Acedia manifests itself in two ways in Cassian – the first is what we would call sloth in that the monk is incapacitated and unable to do good work or contemplate God and the second is a kind of restlessness, a futile hyperactivity almost, driving him out of his cell to seek distraction and to invent all sorts of excuses to justify that distraction. Cassian says at the beginning of De institutis, book X, the book devoted to acedia, that in Latin it may be called ‘taedium siue anxietatem cordis’, that it is akin to tristitia and especially dangerous for solitary monks.424 He emphasised the idleness (otiositas) which was an aspect of acedia and which had been condemned by St Paul; acedia, he says, ‘omnique actu spiritali redditur otiosus ac uacuus’.425 Much of Cassian’s treatment of the vice stressed the monk’s physical labour as a remedy for acedia and Wenzel argues that in this ‘we witness the concept in the process of being transferred from the desert to the monastery’, as the vice ‘which Cassian with the help of St. Paul strikes at is not really dejection or boredom but simply idleness (otium or otiositas)’.426 In the Carolingian period, when we begin to get treatments of acedia aimed at lay people, as, for example, Alcuin’s De uirtutibus or Hrabanus Maurus’s De ecclesiastica disciplina, they develop the idleness aspect of the vice and tailor it to the laity to differing degrees; Alcuin, despite concentrating still on a very monastic understanding of it, includes pigritia operis boni and tepiditas laborandi among the sins to which acedia gives rise and stresses that the devil will find it more difficult to tempt a man whom he finds engaged in good work than one whom he finds otiosum and doing no good work.427 In Hrabanus Maurus this tendency becomes more pronounced and he says of acedia: per quam tepor mentis et segnities noxia oritur, quae hominem inutilem ad omne opus bonum ac procliuem ad interitum reddit. . . . Qualis ergo ille est 423 424 425 426 427

S. Wenzel, The Sin of Sloth: Acedia in Medieval Thought and Literature (Chapel Hill, 1967), pp. 174–5. Cassian, De institutis, ed. Petschenig, X. 1 (173.21): ‘listlessness or depression’ (trans. Bertram, The Monastic Institutes, p. 145). Cassian, De institutis, ed. Petschenig, X. 2 (175.10–11): ‘he becomes idle and empty of any spiritual work’ (trans. Bertram, The Monastic Institutes, p. 146). Wenzel, The Sin of Sloth, p. 22. PL 101, 635A- B (‘sluggishness for good work’ and ‘lack of ardour for working’ (trans. Throop, Alcuin, p. 80)); see S. Wenzel, ‘Acedia 700–1200’, Traditio 22 (1966), 73–102, at 79, and The Sin of Sloth, p. 36.

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The Vices and Virtues Christianus qui cum mane a lecto ebrietatis suae surrexerit, non aliquo operi utili insistit, non ad ecclesiam orationis causa uadit, non ad audiendum uerbum Dei concurrit, non eleemosynas agere satagit, non infirmos uisitare, uel calumniam patientibus subuenire contendit: sed aut in uenatum foras pergit, aut domi lites et contentiones excitat, aut aleae uel fabulis et iocis se inutilibus impendit, donec edulium suum a seruis laborantibus praeparetur.428

Here, then, acedia is associated almost exclusively with idleness in living a good Christian lay life, rather than with the dangers of the monk’s life, and we find this also in the penitentials, which, when specifying penances for acedia, concentrate on ‘idleness, somnolence and instability’.429 As Wenzel argues, this was because ‘the confessor had to deal with concrete, external faults rather than inner attitudes’.430 This concept of ‘sloth in God’s service’ was crucial to the later medieval concept of the vice.431 As will be evident, Ælfric’s treatment of the vices and virtues shows some of this type of development. The contrary virtues receive far less emphasis in the pre-Ælfrician tradition than the vices – they are rarely treated as systematically as the vices or accorded the same degree of attention and they vary from author to author.432 Alcuin’s treatise as a whole is an exception in the proportion of the text devoted to virtues but much of this is in the earlier part of the text, before he turns to the capital vices and their contrary virtues, which are treated very briefly. The tradition, therefore, offered more scope for innovation with respect to the virtues than the vices. Ælfric was not the only late Anglo-Saxon author to be interested in the vices and virtues and it seems likely that part of this interest was stimulated by a knowledge of Carolingian texts which stressed their importance in the life of Christians.433 Alcuin was the major source for other vernacular treatments,434 both directly and through the homiliary of St Père de Chartres, best represented in the English 428

429 430 431 432 433

434

PL 112, 1251–3: ‘From it arises languor of the mind and a harmful sluggishness, which renders man useless to any good work and pushes him to his destruction. . . . Such then is the Christian who, when he arises in the morning from his bed of drunkenness, does not engage in any useful work, does not go to church to pray, does not hasten to hear the word of God, does not make an effort to give alms or to visit the sick or to help those who suffer injustice: but rather goes hunting abroad, or stirs quarrels and fights at home, or devotes himself to the dice or to useless stories and jokes while his food is being prepared by hardworking servants’ (trans. Wenzel, The Sin of Sloth, pp. 36–7). Wenzel, The Sin of Sloth, p. 38. Ibid., p. 38 and 70–1. Ibid., p. 182. See above, pp. 72–7, for Evagrius’s, Cassian’s and Alcuin’s pairings of vices and virtues. A number of the Carolingian texts in question, such as the Capitula of Theodulf of Orleans or the Decretum of Burchard of Worms, can be found in Wulfstan’s ‘commonplace book’, which survives in a number of manuscripts; see H. Sauer, ‘The Transmission and Structure of Archbishop Wulfstan’s “Commonplace Book”’, in Old English Prose: Basic Readings, ed. P. Szarmach (New York, 2000), pp. 339–93. For an overview of the use of Alcuin’s treatise, see Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture: A Trial Version, ed. F. Biggs, T. Hill and P. Szarmach, MRTS 74 (Binghamton, NY, 1990), 20–1, and C. Lees, ‘The Dissemination of Alcuin’s De virtutibus et vitiis liber in Old English: A Preliminary Survey’, in Sources and Relations: Studies in Honour of J. E. Cross, Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 16 (1985), 174–89.

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Introduction manuscript Cambridge, Pembroke College 25, which redacted De uirtutibus in three homilies.435 Vercelli XX, for example, is translated closely from item 93 in the Pembroke collection, which draws on Alcuin’s chs. 27–35, on the vices and virtues. Other sources were used also; Vercelli III, which may be a Canterbury text of the tenth century and which is based on a Latin penitential homily, follows its source in enumerating eight capital vices: ‘Witodlice eahta synt heafodleahtras, butan þara sumon ne mæg ænig man uneaðlice gemet bion. Ærest is þæt forme gifernes þæt is þære wambe frecnes, oðer is dyrne geligre, þridde is sleacmodnes ⁊ unrotnes, feorðe gitsung, .v. idel wuldor, .vi. æfest, .vii. irre, .viii. oferhygd, sio is cwen eallra yfla.’436 It then goes on to say that the confessor must remind the sinner of the eight capital sins and name each of them to him: ‘& he sceal hine manian þæt he of þam eahta [h]eafodleahtrum andetnesse do, & se sacerd him sceal synderlice ælcne leahtor genæmnan & swa of þam his andetnesse anfon.’437 Confessional texts in Old English also enumerate the sins, as in, for example, the following directions for confession from London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius A.iii: ‘& bebeorh þe wið þa eahta heahsynna þe þu þa ne fremige þæt is gitsunge & gifernes galnes & weamodnes & unrotnes & asolcennes gilpgeornes. & ofermodines seo is heofod & wyrtruma ealra leahtra.’438 Although much of Halitgar’s penitential was translated into Old English, books one and two, on the vices and virtues, were not included.439 The Capitula of Theodulf of Orleans were translated into Old English twice, each time preserving the list of eight capital sins: Ęlce synne mon sceal his scrifte andettan þara þe he æfre gefremede oððe on worde oððe on weorce oððe on geþohte. Eahta syndan heafodlice synna þonne is swiðe lyt monna þæt ne sy mid þæm sumum oððe eallum besmiten. An is gyfernes metes, oðer unrihthæmed, þrydde worulde unrotnes, feorðe gytsunge feos, fyfta ydel gylp, syxta æfest, seofoða yrre, eahtoða ofermedla.440 435 436

437

438

439 440

See Cross, Cambridge Pembroke College MS 25 (the homilies are Vercelli XIX, XX and XXI). The Vercelli Homilies and Related Texts, ed. D. Scragg, EETS os 300 (London, 1992), III, lines 19–23: ‘Truly there are eight capital vices, without some of which no-one can easily be found. To begin with, there is the first, gluttony, that is greed of the stomach, the second is secret fornication, the third is sloth and sadness, the fourth avarice, and fifth vainglory, sixth envy, seventh anger, eighth pride, which is queen of all evils.’ See p. 72 for the suggested date. The source of this homily is also preserved in the Pembroke 25 collection; the ultimate source of these lines is Theodulf’s Capitula (see above, pp. 75–6). Vercelli Homilies, ed. Scragg, III, lines 30–3: ‘And he must exhort him to confess the eight capital sins and the priest must name each of the vices to him separately and thus receive his confession concerning it.’ H. Logeman, ‘Anglo-Saxonica Minora,’ Anglia 12 (1889), 497–518, at 515–18, lines 100–3: ‘and defend yourself against the eight capital sins, that you do not commit them: that is avarice and gluttony, lust, and anger, and sadness, and sloth, vainglory and pride, which is the head and root of all vices.’ Die altenglische Version des Halitgar’schen Bussbuches, ed. J. Raith, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 13 (Hamburg, 1933). Theodulfi Capitula in England, ed. H. Sauer, Texte und Untersuchungen zur englischen Philologie 8 (Munich, 1978), ch. 31, lines 1–8: ‘One must confess each sin to one’s confessor, those which one has ever committed, either in word or in deed or in thought. There are eight capital sins; consequently there are very few people who are not defiled with some or all of them. The first is gluttony for

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The Vices and Virtues To sum up, then, it is clear that there was a thriving tradition of works on the vices and virtues, both in Latin and in the vernacular, available for Ælfric to draw on. It was not a totally uniform tradition in terms of the number of vices or the order in which they were listed, but in the opposing virtues the norm is far less established and, indeed, never settled to the same extent. Of the principal texts discussed above, those by Cassian, Gregory and Alcuin were certainly available to Ælfric, and he presumably knew also of other treatments, such as texts associated with penance and confession. Ælfric’s De octo uitiis In all three of his principal discussions of vices and virtues, Ælfric has eight vices, never the seven of Gregory the Great, and he never includes inuidia, envy, among the vices, as Gregory did.441 While being broadly similar, the three accounts differ in organisation (CH II 12 deals largely with the vices but they are followed by a brief account of the contrary virtues, treated separately, De octo uitiis deals with the eight vices first, followed by a more detailed account of the contrary virtues, and Fehr iii again concentrates on the vices but each vice is immediately followed by its contrary virtue) and in the order of the vices and, therefore, of the virtues. Source work on the other two texts is enormously helpful in sourcing De octo uitiis, even though scholarly opinion on them has not been unanimous; while Ælfric’s three extensive treatments of the vices and virtues do not, by any means, repeat each other verbatim, there are substantial similarities among them, enough for us to be confident that he was drawing on the same principal sources in each case. Förster identified Cassian’s Conlationes and Alcuin’s De uirtutibus as the two main sources for the CH II version in 1894;442 he pointed out, too, that it was often difficult to say which source Ælfric was following in a particular place, as Cassian was one of Alcuin’s sources and therefore the two were sometimes very similar. The order of the vices in this Ælfric text is that of Cassian rather than of Alcuin (gluttony, fornication, avarice, anger, sadness, sloth, vainglory and pride). Clare Lees, however, has disputed the importance of Alcuin, arguing that ‘there is a lack of verbal correspondence between Ælfric and Alcuin’ and that, for some parts at least of the homily, ‘the apparent similarities between the “obvious” Latin source, Alcuin, and the Old English writer, Ælfric, arise, in fact, because both writers are using the same tradition’.443 Malcolm Godden has since discussed the food, the second fornication, the third sadness of the world, the fourth avarice for money, the fifth vainglory, the sixth envy, the seventh anger, the eighth pride.’ The quoted text is from CCCC 201, recension A, which was probably translated after 970 (see Sauer, p. 170). 441 See Godden, CH III, p. 593, for Ælfric’s familiarity with Gregory’s Moralia. 442 M. Förster, ‘Über die Quellen von Aelfrics exegetischen Homiliae Catholicae’, Anglia 16 (1894), 1–61, pp. 46–8. 443 Lees, ‘The Dissemination’, p. 180. See now M. Clayton, ‘The Source of Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies II 12, lines 531–539’, Notes and Queries 59 (2012), 476–9, which demonstrates that Alcuin was certainly a direct source for Ælfric.

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Introduction sources in his commentary volume on the Catholic Homilies, as well as sourcing the text for Fontes Anglo-Saxonici, and he has confirmed Förster’s identifications, though more cautiously.444 In Fontes Anglo-Saxonici, the parallels in Cassian’s Conlationes are noted as S2, probable sources, as are most of the parallels in Alcuin’s De uirtutibus. The Alcuin parallels for the sixth and seventh vices are marked S3, possible source, and Alcuin and Cassian are noted as M2a, ‘probable source used in combination with another’, for the eighth vice, pride. Fehr examined the sources for the pastoral letter’s version and the principal source that he identified was the same Alcuin text. He pointed out that, unlike CH II, the order in which the vices were discussed was that of Alcuin (pride, gluttony, fornication, avarice, anger, sloth, sadness and vainglory)445 but that Ælfric did not follow Alcuin in discussing all of the vices followed by all of the virtues, but rather dealt with each matching pair in turn.446 Bloomfield, however, questioned Ælfric’s dependence on Alcuin in the letter, stating that ‘I do not believe the dependence is proved – many of the parallels are commonplaces and the verbal correspondences are few’.447 The order of vices in De octo uitiis is the same as that in CH II 12, that is, Cassian’s order. Neither the composite De octo uitiis nor LS xvi has been sourced for Fontes Anglo-Saxonici and I will, therefore, go through each vice and virtue in turn, analysing Ælfric’s likely sources. THE VICES

Gula Ælfric’s sources for the beginning of his discussion of gula are Cassian’s Conlationes V.11 and/or Alcuin’s De uirtutibus, ch. 28, and his account is similar to CH II 12 and Fehr iii, which share these sources; all define gluttony as eating and drinking too much or eating before the proper time. However, both Alcuin and CH III, pp. 448–66, especially at 462–5, and ‘The Sources of Catholic Homilies 2.12’, http://fontes. english.ox.ac.uk/. 445 The differences between this and the CH II 12 order are in placing pride first rather than last, thus displacing all of the other vices by one, and in placing sloth before rather than after sadness. Clemoes, ‘Chronology’, pp. 225–6, and Pope, pp. 284–4, have discussed whether the order of vices has implications for dating. It is clear from the varying orders in the Latin texts that the order had not totally settled by Ælfric’s day and he seems not to have felt constrained to follow one particular order of vices throughout his work. He never discussed the significance of the order, as, for example, Cassian and Gregory had done, but deals with each sin separately. 446 Fehr, p. LXXXV. Fehr also argued that Ælfric used Pseudo-Alcuin’s treatment of the same topic in De divinis officiis, on the basis of three points in which it has a closer parallel to the Old English pastoral letter: however, as R. Torkar, ed., Eine altenglische Übersetzung von Alcuins De virtutibus et vitiis, Kap. 20 (Liebermanns Judex), Texte und Untersuchungen zur englischen Philologie 7 (Munich, 1981), p. 32, n. 6, points out, all three points are included elsewhere in Alcuin’s De uirtutibus et uitiis, so there is no need to look outside this text. 447 Bloomfield, The Seven Deadly Sins, p. 113. 444

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The Vices and Virtues Cassian distinguish three types of gluttony: ‘Quae tribus modis regnare uidetur in homine; id est, dum homo horam canonicam et statutam gulae causa anticipare cupit, aut exquisitiores cibos sibi praeparare iubet, quam necessitas corporis, uel suae qualitas personae exigat, uel si plus accipiet in edendo uel bibendo propter desiderium intemperantiae suae, quam suae proficiat saluti.’448 In all of his treatments of the vices, Ælfric omits the desire for delicacies, which he clearly did not find useful for his audience.449 What he does instead in the remainder of this vice is to stress the dangers of drinking, seen as responsible for destroying both body and soul; this is not paralleled in Cassian, who concentrates very much on limiting food, or to anything like the same extent in Alcuin, although he mentions drunkenness as one of the offshoots of gluttony. Aldhelm had focused on drunkenness in his treatment of gluttony and he is a possible, though unlikely, influence here, as his treatment of it is very different;450 drunkenness is, of course, a topic to which Ælfric adverted frequently elsewhere and about which he had very strong views.451 In the passage on the vices in CH II 12 drunkenness hardly features, receiving only a passing mention, but in Fehr iii Ælfric highlights it also, including among the gluttonous ‘seðe drunconnysse to dyselice begæð and on oferflowednysse gefadað his lyf’.452 Ælfric may well have been familiar with Caesarius of Arles’ sermons on drunkenness, used as sources by the author of Assmann xii; these are sermones 46 and 47 and their influence can be detected in most of his treatments of the topic, although De octo uitiis is too brief at this point for verbal correspondence.453 Drunkenness is prominent as a feature of gluttony in many penitentials and they may well also have contributed to Ælfric’s very characteristic inflection of gluttony here to focus on it.

448

449

450 451 452

453

PL 101, 633C: ‘In three ways it is seen to rule in a person, that is, when a person, for the sake of gluttony, wants to eat before the hour set by the rule; or, if he orders foods prepared for him, more exquisite than the necessity of the body or his own quality demands; or if, because of the desire of his lack of moderation, he takes more, in eating and drinking, than is beneficial to his health’ (trans. Throop, Alcuin, p. 77). It is also possible that Ælfric had a deficient text of Alcuin, as Magennis suggests in Anglo-Saxon Appetites, pp. 99–100, n. 63; the Vercelli Homily XX version of Alcuin’s account of gluttony mentions three types but then describes only two (see P. Szarmach, ‘Vercelli Homily XX’, Mediaeval Studies 35 (1973), 1–26, at 6–7 and 21). As Magennis points out, however, Ælfric could have supplied this deficiency from Cassian so his avoidance of it may well be deliberate. Aldhelmi Opera, ed. Ehwald, De uirginitate, lines 2482–533. H. Magennis, Images of Community in Old English Poetry, CSASE 18 (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 53–5. Fehr iii, §156: ‘he who foolishly devotes himself to drunkenness and who conducts his life in excess.’ Other texts which demonstrate the same concern are Ælfric’s Letter to Sigeweard, lines 925–33, which has the same association of drunkenness with ill-health, physical and spiritual (R. Marsden, ed., The Old English Heptateuch and Ælfric’s Libellus de Veteri Testamento et Novo, vol. I, EETS os 330 (Oxford, 2008), pp. 201–30), his Letter to Wulfgeat (Assmann i, pp. 1–12, at lines 140–50), his pastoral Letter for Wulfsige (Fehr i, §§74–6) and his very sharp Ammonitio, which includes Archbishop Sigeric among those castigated, at the end of the Preface to CH II (CH II, p. 2). Caesarius of Arles, Sermones, ed. G. Morin, CCSL 103 (Turnhout, 1953).

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Introduction

Fornicatio The second vice, fornicatio, is treated very briefly in De octo uitiis: ‘Se oðer leahter is forliger and ungemetgod galnyss. Se is gehaten fornicatio, and he befylð þone mannan, and macað of Cristes limum myltestrena lima and of Godes temple gramena wununge.’454 The idea of defilement, ‘he befylð þone mannan’, is fundamental to definitions of fornication and the pairing occurs frequently in the New Testament (for example, Col. III.5 and Eph. V.5); Alcuin’s account of the vice begins: ‘Fornicatio est omnis corporalis immunditia.’455 Neither Alcuin nor Cassian prompted ‘macað of Cristes limum myltestrena lima’ but Clare Lees has pointed out that it can be paralleled in Isidore’s Sententiae and in Defensor’s Liber scintillarum.456 Isidore, in the course of a long discussion of fornicatio, says that it is the worst sin, ‘quia per carnis inmunditiam templum Dei uiolat, et tollens membra Christi, facit membra meretricis’, and Defensor quotes this passage in his florilegium.457 Behind Isidore’s formulation, however, is 1 Cor. VI.15–19: ‘Nescitis quoniam corpora uestra membra sunt Christi? Tollens ergo membra Christi, faciam membra meretricis?’ . . . Fugite fornicationem. . . . An nescitis quoniam membra uestra, templum sunt Spiritus Sancti, qui in uobis est, quem habetis a Deo, et non estis uestri?’458 It is probable that Ælfric drew independently on the Bible here; although Isidore’s Sententiae and Defensor both circulated in Anglo-Saxon England, they do not appear among the sources which Ælfric is known to have used.459 In CH I 32, lines 95–101, following Bede, Ælfric quotes 1 Cor VI.15 and, in CH II 40, lines 101–3, he quotes 1 Cor VI.19, so he was highly aware of Paul’s pronouncements. The idea that sinful men become the dwelling of the devil, as in ‘macað . . . of Godes temple gramena wununge’, is one which occurs elsewhere in Ælfric, as, for example, in CH I 14, lines 109–10, or CH I 19, where he says ‘Swa eac þærtogeanes se fordona man bið deofles templ ⁊ deofles wunung’460 or twice in Pope iv: and þa ðe fuhtiende beoð on fulre galnysse, on swilcum he macað symle his wununge. 454 455 456 457

458

459 460

The ungemetgod appears redundant as galnyss on its own is one of the vices, but is presumably there to satisfy the demands of Ælfric’s prose style. PL 101, 633C. Lees, ‘The Dissemination’, pp. 182 and 189, n. 61. Lees does not argue that either of these texts is the direct source for Ælfric here; her point is that it is difficult to identify florilegia as sources. Sententiae, ed. P. Cazier, CCSL 111 (Turnhout, 1998), 2.39.20 (175. 107–8): ‘because it violates the temple of God through the impurity of the flesh and, taking the members of Christ, makes them the members of a prostitute’ and Defensoris Locogiacensis monachi, Liber scintillarum, ed. H. Rochais, CCSL 117 (Turnhout, 1957), pp. 1–307, cap. XXI, §32. ‘Know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? . . . Fly fornication. . . . Or know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own?’ See, for example, the lists of sources in Pope and in CH III, and the list of texts in Fontes AngloSaxonici which use Isidore and Defensor as sources. CH I 19, lines 67–8: ‘Just as likewise on the other hand the corrupt person is the devil’s temple and the devil’s habitation’.

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The Vices and Virtues Gif ðas heafodleahtras habbað stede on þam menn, þonne næfþ Godes gast nane wununge on him, ac he bið eall deofles gif he geendaþ on ðam . . .461

In each of these cases, Ælfric seems to have introduced the idea independently of his sources;462 as Godden points out, he uses it ‘to complement the Pauline concept of the temple of God’.463 In De octo uitiis, it may owe something to a chapter which preceded Alcuin’s chapters on the capital sins in De uirtutibus, that is ch. 18, De castitate, where he says: ‘Ubi immunditia est corporis, ibi habitatio diabolici spiritus’.464 This idea is, however, clearly a favourite of Ælfric’s, strongly suggesting that he was not using Isidore or Defensor here.

Auaritia The discussion of the third vice, avarice, begins with avarice as the root of all evil, ‘seo is wyrtruma ælcere wohnysse’; this has no parallel in either Alcuin or Cassian and Lees has again pointed to parallels in Isidore’s Sententiae (in a chapter headed ‘De cupiditate’) and in Defensor.465 The ultimate source, as she says, is 1 Tim. VI.10: ‘Radix enim omnium malorum est cupiditas.’ Ælfric does not use other material from Isidore on the vice or from Defensor’s chapter of the same name, however, and it is, moreover, a quotation which he used repeatedly elsewhere.466 Again, therefore, there is every reason to think that Ælfric recalled the quotation and introduced it in De octo uitiis independently, rather than relying on Isidore or Defensor for it. The next part of the paragraph details the other sins to which avarice gives rise and draws on Alcuin’s De uirtutibus (‘Cuius genera sunt .. furta, latrocinia, . . . mendacia, periuria, . . . iniusta iudicia . . .’).467 Ælfric 461

462 463 464

465 466

467

Pope iv, lines 229–30 (‘and he always makes his dwelling in those who are dripping in foul lust’) and 252–4 (‘If the capital vices have a place in a person, then the spirit of God has no dwelling in him but he is entirely the devil’s if he dies in them’); the second quotation follows a list of the capital vices. CH III, pp. 115 and 156, and Pope, p. 276. CH III, p. 156. PL 101, 626C: ‘Where there is uncleanness of the body, there is the habitation of the spirit of the devil’ (Alcuin: The Life of Alcuin of York, Alcuin’s Treatise On Virtues and Vices and the Dialogue between Alcuin and Pepin, trans. P. Throop (Charlotte, VT, 2011), p. 64). Lees, ‘The Dissemination’, pp. 182 and 189, n. 61. He employed it in CH I 18, lines 193–4, ‘seo gitsung is ealra yfelra þinga wyrttruma’ (here he is following his source, Augustine; see Godden, CH III, p. 153), in CH II 26, lines 108–10, ‘Seo grædignys is. swa swa se apostol Paulus cwæð wyrtruma ælces yfeles. and seo soðe lufu is wyrtruma ælces godes’ (following another sermon by Augustine, see CH III, p. 574), and in CH II 31, lines 35–6, where he introduced it himself (CH III, p. 603); he also uses it in the chapter ‘De auaritia fugienda’ in his Admonitio ad filium spiritualem, following his source, ‘Warna ðe wið gitsunge. forðam ðe heo witodlice is “eallra yfela wyrttruma.” swa swa se apostol awrat’ (The Anglo-Saxon Version of the Hexameron of St. Basil . . . and the Anglo-Saxon Remains of St. Basil’s Admonitio ad filium spiritualem, ed. H. Norman, 2nd edn (London, 1849), ch. 9, lines 8–9), and in his later addition to CH I 17, written probably after 1005, where again it seems to be unprompted by his sources (for the dating, see Godden, CH III, p. 136; on p. 143, he says that the passage which contains this quotation is ‘Ælfric’s own lament over the avarice of his times . . .’). PL 101, 634B: ‘Avarice includes . . . theft, robbery . . . lying, perjury . . . unfair judgements (trans.

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Introduction concludes this vice with a simile: ‘Heo is helle gelic, for þam þe hi habbað butu unafylledlice grædignesse, þæt hi fulle ne beoð næfre.’ While in both CH II 12 and in Fehr iii he mentions the insatiable nature of avarice,468 he does not have the comparison to hell in either text. This is, however, a widespread simile and Ælfric could have found it earlier in the same Alcuin text, in the chapter entitled ‘De fraude cauenda’: ‘Auarus uir inferno est similis, qui nunquam impletur.’469 Following his source, Basil, he used the same simile in his translation of the Admonitio ad filium spiritualem: ‘Se gitsienda wer. ðe ne wyrð næfre full. is helle gelic ðe næfð nan gemet. ac swa heo ma forswelgeð. swa heo ma gewilnað.’470 It is an image, therefore, which Ælfric undoubtedly knew from different Latin texts, though the immediate impetus here was probably Alcuin.

Ira The fourth vice is anger and Ælfric deals with it very briefly: ‘Se feorða leahter is ira; þæt is on Englisc weamodnyss. Se deð þæt se mann nah his modes geweald and macað manslyhtas and mycele yfelu.’ This is very similar to the accounts of anger in both CH II 12 and in Fehr iii.471 Given the similarity, it is likely that Ælfric followed the same source; Godden cites Alcuin’s De uirtutibus for the CH II text, as does Fehr for Fehr iii.472 The first part is from Alcuin’s ‘ita ut homo sui animi impotens erit’473 and in the second part Ælfric abbreviates Alcuin considerably, keeping only homicidia from the list of anger’s consequences and summarising the rest as mycele yfelu: ‘De qua, id est ira, pullulat tumor mentis, rixae et contumeliae, clamor, indignatio, praesumptio, blasphemiae, sanguinis effusio, homicidia, ulciscendi cupiditas, iniuriarum memoria.’474 Cassian gave homicidium, clamor and indignatio as issuing from anger475 but Ælfric’s mycele yfelu suggests that he was thinking here of Alcuin’s much longer list. Ælfric’s drastic abbreviation focuses on a consequence, manslyhtas, which was probably of more danger to laymen than clergy, although both Cassian and Alcuin had already included it. In the penitentials which are organised according to the sins

468 469

470

471 472 473 474

475

Throop, Alcuin, p. 78). Cassian’s Conlationes, ed. Petschenig, V. 16 (142.20–2), has a very similar list but does not include iniusta iudicia. There is a similar list in CH II 12, lines 507–9, also from Alcuin. CH II 12, lines 506–7, and Fehr iii, §160. PL 101, 628C: ‘A greedy man is like hell, which is never filled’ (trans. Throop, Alcuin, p. 67). R. Newhauser, The Early History of Greed: The Sin of Avarice in Early Medieval Thought and Literature (Cambridge, 2000), p. 136, has a list of those who compare the avaricious man to hell. The Anglo-Saxon Version of the Hexameron of St. Basil, ed. Norman, ch. 9, lines 47–9 (‘The covetous man, that is never satisfied, is like unto hell that hath no bound, but the more it swallows up, the more it desires’ (trans. ibid., p. 57)). CH II 12, lines 510–13, and Fehr iii, §162. CH III, p. 464, and Fehr, p. 208. PL 101, 634C: ‘so that a person will be powerless over his own mind’ (trans. Throop, Alcuin, p. 79). PL 101, 634D: ‘From anger grows conceit of the mind, quarrels and insults, noise, indignation, presumption, blasphemy, bloodshed, murder, desire for revenge, memory of injuries’ (trans. Throop, Alcuin, p. 79). Cassian, Conlationes, ed. Petschenig, V.16 (142.22–3).

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The Vices and Virtues arising from the different vices, homicide as a consequence of anger features prominently, and these may be an influence here.476 Similarly, an Old English penitential prayer, which goes through the capital sins in turn, emphasises homicide as the primary consequence of anger.477

Tristitia For tristitia, sadness or dejection, Ælfric defines the vice and explains the difference between good and bad tristitia: Se fifta is tristitia; þæt is þisre worulde unrotnyss, þonne se mann geunrotsað ealles to swiðe for his æhta lyre, þe he lufode to swiðe, and cit þonne wið God and his synna geeacnað. Twa unrotnyssa synd: an is þeos yfele; oðer is halwende, þæt man for his synnum geunrotsige.

The accounts in CH II 12 and in Fehr iii are very similar, explaining what gives rise to the vice and distinguishing two kinds of sadness.478 I will deal with the second, easier part of the paragraph first. Godden cites Alcuin as the source for the two kinds of tristitia in CH II 12, as does Fehr for Fehr iii, and he is the most likely source for this paragraph also:479 Tristitiae duo sunt genera: unum salutiferum, alterum pestiferum. Tristitia salutaris est, quando de peccatis suis animus contristatur peccatoris, et ita contristatur, ut confessionem et poenitentiam agere quaerat, et conuerti se ad Deum desideret. Alia est tristitia huius saeculi, quae mortem operatur animae, quae nihil in bono opere proficere ualet, quae animum perturbat, et saepe in desperationem mittit, ut futurorum spem abstollat [Ms., auferat] bonorum.480 476

477

478 479 480

This is particularly the case with the Irish penitentials: see the Penitential of Cummian, ch. IV (ed. Binchy, The Irish Penitentials, p. 118), the Bigotian Penitential, ch. IV (ibid., pp. 226–8, dealing with the different kinds of murders that arise from anger) and the Old Irish Penitential, ch. V (ibid., pp. 270–2). P. Pulsiano and J. McGowan, ‘Four Unedited Prayers from British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius A.iii’, Mediaeval Studies 56 (1994), 189–21, pp. 206–8. The passage on anger, lines 28–33, reads: ‘Ic þurh weamodnysse wrohte feala yfela ⁊ þurh manslihtas me scyldigne dyde wið þe, min drihten, þa ic ðin handgeweorc unwyrcan dorste ⁊ deaþe betæcan. Nu synd mine handa þurh þone hefian gylt mid manna blodum þe ic ðurh gebeot oft ⁊ þurh hatheortnesse her on lyfe ageat yfele befylede ⁊ fæste gebundene swærum gyltum þurh þa sylfan weamodnysse þe ic ær gewrohte’ (‘Out of anger I did many evil things and made myself guilty against you, my lord, by homicide, when I dared to destroy your handiwork and deliver it over to death. Now by that grievous offence my hands are gravely defiled with men’s blood which I often shed here in this life because of boasting and rage and they are bound fast by heavy sins because of that same anger by which I acted’). For more on this prayer, see below, pp. 90 and 92. CH II 12, lines 514–19, and Fehr iii, §§168–70. Godden, CH III, p. 464, quotes the Alcuin passage; in ‘The Sources of Catholic Homilies 2.12’, it is given as S2, a probable source (http://fontes.english.ox.ac.uk/); Fehr, pp. 210–11. PL 101, 635C: ‘There are two kinds of sadness: one health-bringing, the other pestilent. Sadness is healthful when a sinner’s mind is made sad by his sins, and thus being sad, he seeks to carry out confession and penance, and desires to turn to God. The other sadness is of this world. It brings death to the soul, and is able to profit nothing by a good work, and disturbs the mind, and often sends it into despair, so that it removes hope of future good things’ (trans. Throop, Alcuin, p. 80).

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Introduction Ælfric could have found the good and bad kinds of sadness in Cassian’s De institutis, IX.10–11,481 or in Aldhelm,482 but his formulation in De octo uitiis is closest to Alcuin. The idea of the two varieties goes back to 2 Cor. VII.10: ‘Quæ enim secundum Deum tristitia est, poenitentiam in salutem stabilem operatur: sæculi autem tristitia mortem operatur.’483 Ælfric’s source for explaining what gives rise to the negative kind of tristitia is less clear, however, and very specific: ‘þonne se mann geunrotsað ealles to swiðe for his æhta lyre, þe he lufode to swiðe’. Each of his three treatments of the vice has a variation of this explanation of the cause of tristitia, each of them fundamentally similar. In CH II 12 the cause is more general, ‘for ungelimpum ðises andwerdan lifes’, the misfortunes of this present world, and in Fehr iii Ælfric expands upon this, saying it is sadness ‘for mislicum gelimpum, þe mannum becymð on cwelme and on lyrum oþþe on freonda forðsiðe’, sadness arising because of various events which happen to people as a consequence of plague, losses or the death of friends. In De octo uitiis it is a markedly more limited definition, focussing as it does only on the loss of beloved possessions. In Cassian tristitia is a vice which prevents the monk from devoting himself to prayer and contemplation and leads him to despair; it can arise from a multitude of factors. In Conlatio V.11, Cassian gives ‘de illato damno’, ‘from some kind of loss’, as one among some possible causes of tristitia: ‘tristitiae genera sunt duo. unum quod uel iracundia desinente uel de inlato damno ac desiderio praepedito cassatoque generatur, aliud quod de inrationabili mentis anxietate seu desperatione descendit’.484 Book IX of Cassian’s De institutis is also devoted to tristitia and here, in IX.13, we get another account of what the vice arises from: ‘hoc enim modo uniuersa tristitiarum genera, siue quae ex praecedente ira descendunt, siue quae amissione lucri uel detrimento inlato nobis adueniunt seu de inrogata generantur iniuria, siue quae de inrationabili mentis confusione procedunt, seu quae letalem desperationem nobis inducunt ualebimus superare . . .’485 Loss does, then, feature in Cassian but only as one among a variety of possible causes of tristitia, including some which owe nothing to outward circumstances, and he never alludes to such a loss leading to complaint against God and a consequent increase in sinfulness. Cassian’s account of tristitia is very 481

482 483 484

485

Forster points to two kinds of dejection in Cassian, Conlationes, ed. Petschenig, V.11, but these are both forms of the vice whereas in De institutis Cassian mentions both good and bad dejection, quoting Paul to the Corinthians; Alcuin states very clearly what can be inferred from Cassian’s De institutis. See above, p. 75. ‘For the sorrow that is according to God worketh penance, steadfast unto salvation: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.’ Cassian, Conlationes, ed. Petschenig, V.11 (134.5–8): ‘Of dejection there are two kinds: one, that which springs up when anger has died down, or is the result of some loss we have incurred or of some purpose which has been hindered or interfered with; the other, which comes from unreasonable anxiety of mind or from despair’ (trans. Gibson, Conferences, p. 344). Cassian, De institutis, ed. Petschenig, IX.13 (171.16–21): ‘In this way we shall be strong enough to overcome all types of melancholy, whether they arise from anger beforehand, or through the loss of property or some injury done to us; or are caused by some wrong we have suffered or spring from an irrational mental anxiety or bring upon us a deadly despair’ (trans. Bertram, The Monastic Institutes, p. 143).

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The Vices and Virtues much a monastic one; nothing of this is evident in Ælfric. Alcuin’s much simpler account says nothing about the factors which cause worldly tristitia, describing only its symptoms and the remedy for it. Godden was unable to find a source for Ælfric’s ‘definition of unrotnys as grief (or resentment?) directed against God because of misfortunes in the world’ in CH II,486 but Fehr suggested the Bigotian Penitential as the closest parallel to Fehr iii’s treatment.487 The penitential explains worldly sorrow as ‘Mortiferum, cum orbitate amicorum aut demptione rerum corporalium aut dampno, si demptae sunt, contristamur’.488 Its account is also the closest Latin text that I have been able to find to this section of De octo uitiis, even though we do not know of Ælfric’s using the Bigotian Penitential otherwise; it has an extensive discussion of the eight principal vices, drawing especially on Isidore and Cassian, but it does not seem to provide a source for Ælfric’s treatments of the other vices and it is possible that he derived the idea from some other text, possibly one also used by the compiler of the penitential.489 The source of the sentence in the Bigotian has not been established; it does not come from the Vitae patrum which is quoted immediately after it.490 In formulating his very limited and, compared to Cassian, very reductive account of tristitia, it is probable that Ælfric was thinking of a primarily lay audience and chose therefore a very concrete reason for sadness that they would readily understand and identify with. There is nothing here of the spiritual despair of which Cassian speaks. There are some similarities between De octo uitiis on unrotnyss and Ælfric’s treatment of Job in CH II 30; there he mentions all the tribulations inflicted on Job by the devil, who always left someone alive to inform CH III, p. 464. Fehr, p. 210. The Bigotian Penitential is a long text gathering material from a variety of sources, including Cassian and the Benedictine Rule, preserved in two continental manuscripts (one lateninth- and the other tenth-century), and it was written either in Ireland or on the Continent in the eighth century. On the place of origin see Binchy, Irish Penitentials, p. 10, who thinks it ‘not purely Irish’, and T. Charles-Edwards, ‘The Penitential of Columbanus’, in Columbanus: Studies on the Latin Writings, ed. M. Lapidge (Woodbridge, 1997), pp. 217–39, at 239, who feels it may be Irish. Frantzen, The Literature of Penance, p. 49, says that it ‘served as a florilegium of patristic opinions’. See also above, p. 75. 488 The Bigotian Penitential in Irish Penitentials, ed. Bieler, p. 232: ‘It brings death when we grieve because we are deprived of friends or have suffered damage or loss of bodily goods’ (trans. p. 233). The eighth-century Old Irish Penitential also uses the Bigotian Penitential for its treatment of tristitia, resulting again in similarities to Ælfric: ‘The first is sadness and grief at parting with carnal friends for loss of their human affection . . . Anyone therefore whom the Devil has mocked by means of grief and sorrows, such as the loss of friends and relatives or of anything else . . .’ (ed. and trans. Binchy, in Irish Penitentials, ed. Bieler, pp. 273–4). 489 There is also a similar passage in the twelfth-century Gottfried of Admont, again suggesting that Ælfric may have had a specific source here; see PL 174, 340D. 490 Fehr, p. 210, suggests that the Bigotian draws partly from Cassian here, presumably meaning Conlatio V.11, which gives ‘de illato damno’, ‘from some kind of loss’, as one among some possible causes of tristitia (see above, p. 88). Unless the compiler of the penitential was selecting and expanding much more freely than usual, however, Cassian does not seem to be the source for its very specific statement. 486 487

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Introduction Job of his ‘æhta lyre’ (the only other use of this expression).491 Ælfric also praises Job because he ‘dyslice ongean god ne spræc’ (the opposite of complaining against God),492 and says that he showed he had held his great possessions without gytsunge when he lost them without unrotnysse. Job seems to have functioned for him as an example of how not to fall into the sin of unrotnyss and it may be that he was thinking of Job as he explained unrotnyss. There is also a vernacular confession prayer that has significant parallels to Ælfric. The prayer, ‘Eala þu ælmihtiga god unasecgendlicere mildheortnesse’, begins as a translation of a confessional prayer written by Alcuin.493 The Old English, however, instead of following the Latin in enumerating all the parts of the body which sin, takes up the list of capital vices (only one sentence in the Latin) and makes it the basis for much of the prayer, going through each vice in turn. This prayer is preserved in London, British Library Cotton Tiberius A.iii and in London, British Library Royal 2.B.v, and its causes for unrotnysse are very similar to Ælfric’s, echoing, as he does, 2 Cor. VII.10: Ic on unrotnysse oft eac agylte ⁊ swiðor ceorude þonne min sawul behofade þa þa ic æhta forleas oððe leofne freond oððe me hwæt mislamp on þyses lifes ryne; ⁊ ic þa ongean þe, drihten, dyrstilice ceorode þurh þa unrotnysse þe ys deaðes wyrcende.494

This resonates with Ælfric’s three accounts of unrotnysse, including, as he variously does, the loss of possessions, the death of a friend or misfortunes; it also specifies complaints against God as a feature of tristitia, as in De octo uitiis (‘cit þonne wið God and his synna geeacnað’) and Fehr iii, §169 (‘Þonne murcnað se mann on his mode to swiðe and ceorað ongean God ungesceadwislice’).495 Neither Alcuin nor Cassian mentions complaint.496 We cannot be certain that Ælfric knew the prayer but it is possible that he was familiar with it, as the version of it in the Royal manuscript is thought to date from the beginning of the eleventh century, when he was writing.497 At the very least, they share a tradition of associating the vice with sinful complaint against God. Both the Bigotian Penitential and the prayer are penitential texts, suggesting that the source for Ælfric’s understanding of tristitia may also have been penitential in nature. 491 492 493

494

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CH II 30, line 88. Godden, CH III, p. 592, mentions Ælfric’s interest in Job ‘as an exemplary figure of patience’. CH II 30, lines100–1: ‘did not speak foolishly against God’. Pulsiano and McGowan, ‘Four Unedited Prayers’, pp. 206–8. For the Latin source, see J. Black, ‘Psalm Uses in Carolingian Prayerbooks: Alcuin’s Confessio peccatorum pura and the Seven Penitential Psalms (Use 1)’, Mediaeval Studies 65 (2003), 1–56, and above, p. 76. Ibid., p. 207, lines 34–7: ‘I often sinned also in sadness and complained more than my soul needed when I lost possessions or a beloved friend or something went wrong for me in the course of this life. And then I presumptuously complained against you, Lord, because of the sadness which works death.’ The prayer may be indebted here to the Bigotian Penitential but there are no similarities between them in their treatment of the other sins. Fehr iii, §169: ‘Then the man grieves too much in his mind and complains against God irrationally.’ Fehr, p. 210, says that the source of the similar passage about complaint in Fehr iii is unknown. See Pulsiano and McGowan, ‘Four Unedited Prayers’, p. 191.

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The Vices and Virtues

Accidia Ælfric’s account of the sixth vice, acedia or, as he spelled it, accidia, is brief:498 Se syxta leahter is accidia gehaten; þæt is asolcennyss oððe slæwð on Englisc, þonne þam men ne lyst on his life nan good don. And bið him þonne micel yfel, þæt he ne mæge nan good don, and bið æfre ungearu to ælcere dugoðe.

This again resembles, but is somewhat shorter than, the accounts in CH II 12 and in Fehr iii.499 The vice is the one whose Old English name varies most in Ælfric; in CH II 12 he terms it ‘asolcennys. oððe æmelnys’, ‘sluggishness or sloth’, while in Fehr iii it is glossed ‘asolcennyss, ðæt is modes swærniss and ungemetegod slapulniss’, ‘sluggishness, that is heaviness of mind and excessive sleepiness’, and in De octo uitiis ‘asolcennyss oððe slæwð’. Bloomfield pointed out that Ælfric was the first to use slæwð as a translation of the Latin acedia;500 he also comments that his ‘treatment of accidie is rather colorless’.501 In each of his three accounts of acedia, Ælfric says that it makes a person lack any desire to do good, while stressing that this is an evil. Given the similarities, one would expect the sources to be the same, though the brevity of the treatment in De octo uitiis is not helpful; Godden cites Alcuin as a possible source for acedia in CH II 12, as does Fehr for this part of Fehr iii.502 De octo uitiis has some similarity with Alcuin in its emphasis on good work; Alcuin includes pigritia operis boni as one of the faults to which acedia gives birth and also says that the devil finds it 498

499 500 501 502

See Wenzel, The Sin of Sloth, p. 206, n. 1, on the spelling; he says that acedia is the exact transliteration of the Greek but that accidia ‘is found in manuscripts from at least the ninth century on’ and ‘became the normal form in the later Middle Ages’. CH II 12, lines 519–24, and Fehr iii, §§164–6. Bloomfield, The Seven Deadly Sins, p. 113. Ibid., pp. 112–13. Godden cites Alcuin as S3, a possible source, in Godden, ‘The Sources of Catholic Homilies 2 12’ (http://fontes.english.ox.ac.uk/); in CH III, p. 464, he also cites Alcuin, De uirtutibus, ch. XXXII, but says that it is not close. However, Cassian seems closer, in some respects at least, to Ælfric’s account in CH II 12 than does Alcuin. The sins to which acedia gives rise in Cassian’s Conlationes, ed. Petschenig, V.16 (142.21–143.1), are ‘otiositas, somnolentia, inportunitas, inquietudo, peruagatio, instabilitas mentis et corporis, uerbositas, curiositas’ (‘laziness, sleepiness, rudeness, restlessness, wandering about, instability both of mind and body, chattering, inquisitiveness’ (trans. Gibson, Conferences, p. 347); this is closer to CH II 12, lines 523–4, ‘idelnysse. and slapolnysse. gemagnysse. and wordlunge. worunge. and fyrwitnysse’ (‘idleness and sleepiness, importunity and idle talk, wandering and curiosity’) than is Alcuin’s ‘De qua nascitur somnolentia, pigritia operis boni, instabilitas loci, pervagatio de loco in locum, tepiditas laborandi, taedium cordis, murmuratio et inaniloquia’ (‘From sloth is born sleepiness, sluggishness for good work, instability of location, a wandering from place to place, lack of ardour for working, tedium of the heart, muttering and empty talk’, trans. Throop, Alcuin, p. 80). Although Alcuin’s list is clearly based on Cassian’s, he does not, as Förster (‘Über die Quellen’, p. 48) pointed out, include the importunitas and curiositas which are the sources for Ælfric’s gemagnysse and fyrwitnysse. Fehr, pp. 208–11, cites Alcuin as source for Fehr iii, §164 (though the resemblance is slight and is contained in Cassian as well as in Alcuin), for §165 (where, rather unconvincingly, a very general statement in Ælfric is sourced in much more specific statements in Alcuin) and §166 (again, Alcuin is much more specific than Ælfric and it is hard to see him as a convincing source for the Old English passage).

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Introduction more difficult to tempt someone engaged in good work than one whom he finds idle.503 Most of Alcuin’s discussion is more suited to monks and Ælfric avoids those parts of Alcuin and of Alcuin’s source, Cassian; when it is associated with lay people, however, acedia tends to be interpreted as idleness, as in Hrabanus Maurus, the penitentials and as Ælfric more or less does here.504 The Old English confession prayer already cited in connection with tristitia again has a similar focus to Ælfric here: ‘Ic syngode gelome þurh asolcennysse ða ða me god ne lyste don, ne gan to godes huse, ne nan ellen niman to ænigum godan weorce; ac ic lyfede min lif lange on solcennesse butan godum weorcum ⁊ godum biggenge.’505 Ælfric’s ‘þonne þam men ne lyst on his life nan good don’ is very similar to the prayer’s ‘ða ða me god ne lyste don’ as is, in meaning, his ‘bið æfre ungearu to ælcere dugoðe’ to the prayer’s ‘nan ellen niman to ænigum godan weorce’. Ælfric, therefore, can be seen to be within a tradition of adapting acedia to the laity506 and his very general treatment of it in De octo uitiis reflects this, offering a version of the vice that does not go beyond laziness and idleness leading to not doing good works. Cassian and Alcuin include the omission of good works as a small part of their concepts of acedia, but it seems probable that penitential texts such as the vernacular confession prayer played a part in Ælfric’s presentation of it and in the striking degree of his selectivity from his two principal sources. As Bloomfield commented, ‘it is obvious that Ælfric did not look upon this sin as the enemy of the mystic way. It seems to be similar to what we would today call indifference’.507 In contrast, Vercelli Homily XX, based on a reworking of Alcuin, preserves the monastic bias of the tradition with its faithful translation of the sermon from the Latin sermon collection preserved in Cambridge, Pembroke College 25.508

Iactantia The seventh vice in De octo uitiis is vainglory and of this Ælfric says: ‘Se seofoþa leahter is iactantia gecweden; þæt is idel gylp on Engliscre spræce, þonne se man bið lofgeorn and mid licetunge færð and deð for gylpe, gif he hwæt dælan wyle. And bið þonne se hlisa his edlean þære dæde and hys wite andbidað on þære 503 504 505

506 507 508

PL 101, 635A. See above, pp. 77–9, and Wenzel, The Sin of Sloth, p. 38. Pulsiano and McGowan, ‘Four Unedited Prayers’, p. 207, lines 38–40: ‘I frequently sinned through sloth when I did not care to do good or go to God’s house or apply myself with zeal to any good work; but I lived my life in sloth for a long time without good works and good observance.’ Wenzel, The Sin of Sloth, p. 179, comments on the ‘continuing process of de-monasticization or secularization’ as the most distinctive feature of acedia’s history between 400 and 1400. Bloomfield, The Seven Deadly Sins, pp. 112–13. Vercelli Homilies, ed. Scragg, XX, lines 104–8:‘Þonne ys se syxta heafodleahtor gecweden sleacnes, seo derað þearle foroft þam þe Gode þeowgean willað, for ðam þæt mod geondscrið geond eallo þing. Þis is se leahtor þe swiðost munecas utanytt of hyra mynstrum on worulde & hie ut awyrpð of hira regullican drohtnge on leahtra seaðas’ (‘Then the sixth capital vice is called sloth, which frequently harms those who desire to serve God, because the mind roams everywhere. This is the vice which most drives monks out of their monasteries into the world and throws them out of their life according to the rule into the pits of vices’).

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The Vices and Virtues toweardan worulde.’ Again, this account has some similarities to the CH II 12 and Fehr iii treatments of iactantia, as all three passages share, understandably, a concern with undeserved praise and with hypocrisy.509 Ælfric chose iactantia here as the name of the vice, following Cassian’s ‘cenodoxia, id est iactantia’, rather than Alcuin’s ‘cenodoxia, id est uana gloria’.510 Cassian’s treatment of vainglory, both in De institutis XI, the book devoted to the vice, and in Conlationes V, is aimed at monks and at combating vainglory’s dangers for those devoted to a spiritual life; he sees it as a very dangerous vice which can wound a monk through his virtues. Ælfric does not seem to have found Cassian’s treatment of vainglory useful for his text and, even though Alcuin’s treatise on virtues and vices was written for a layman, his very lengthy treatment of vainglory is largely derived from Cassian’s. Both Godden and Fehr cite Alcuin’s ch. 34, De cenodoxia, id est, uana gloria, as source for Ælfric, Godden as a possible source, but expanded, for the CH II passage, and Fehr quoting brief extracts as parallels to Fehr iii. In De octo uitiis also, Ælfric seems to pick up points in Alcuin: ‘þonne se man bið lofgeorn’ recalls ‘dum homo appetit in bonis suis laudari’511 and ‘mid licetunge færð’ recalls one of the many sins to which vainglory gives rise, ‘hypocrisis, id est, simulatio boni operis’.512 The remainder, ‘deð for gylpe, gif he hwæt dælan wyle. And bið þonne se hlisa his edlean þære dæde’ is an allusion to Matt. VI.2, where Christ says that those who give alms publicly, so that they may be honoured by men, have received their reward, a verse quoted by Alcuin both in the chapter on vainglory and in ch. 25, entitled ‘De humana laude non quaerenda’.513 Alcuin never explicitly mentions almsgiving in connection with vainglory, but it is implicit in this allusion. Ælfric himself may be responsible for adding the corollary to this – that, if the vainglorious man is rewarded in this life, only punishment will await him in the next. Cassian does mention the eternal punishment for deeds motivated by vainglory in De institutis XI.18,514 in the book devoted to this vice, but the context is rather different and it seems more likely that Ælfric added it here. Again, it seems that Ælfric felt that much of what Alcuin and Cassian had to say about vainglory was not suitable for his very different audience and so shortened and simplified it enormously, focusing on a condemnation of charitable giving that is motivated solely by a desire for praise. Aluin’s lengthy account of all the ways in which vainglory attacks a person is here essentially boiled down to avoiding vainglory in almsgiving.515 Ælfric even omits other aspects of vainglory 509 510

511

512 513 514 515

CH II 12, lines 524–31, and Fehr iii, §§172–3. Cassian, Conlationes, ed. Petschenig, V.2 (121.15–16), and PL 101, 635C. Ælfric does not use a Latin term in CH II 12 but in Fehr iii, §172, he includes both Latin terms: ‘cenodoxia, id est, iactantia uel uana gloria’. PL 101, 635D: ‘when a person seeks to be praised for his good deeds’ (trans. Throop, Alcuin, p. 81). PL 101, 636A: ‘hypocrisy, that is, the pretense of a good work’ (trans. Throop, Alcuin, p. 81). PL 101, 636A and 631D. Cassian, De institutis, ed. Petschenig, XI.18. Alcuin, PL 101, 636A-B, says, for example, that: ‘Ista pestis, id est, uana gloria, multiformis auaritia est, et undique bellatori contra uitia pugnanti, et ex omni parte uictori etiam uitiorum occurrit. Nam et in habitu et in forma corporis, in incessu, in uoce, et in opere, in uigiliis, in ieiuniis, in oratione, in remotione, in lectione, in scientia, in taciturnitate, in obedientia, in humilitate, in patientiae

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Introduction that he had mentioned in CH II 12 and that seem particularly appropriate for the laity, such as the desire to be renowned (lisful) or handsome (cyrten).516

Superbia The final vice is superbia: Se eahtoða leahter is superbia gehaten, þæt is on Englisc modignyss gecweden; seo is ord and ende ælcere synne. Seo geworhte englas to atolicum deoflum and þone mann macað eac, gif he modegað to swiðe, þæs deofles geferan, þe feoll ær þurh hi.

This is considerably briefer than his two other treatments of this vice, in CH II 12 and in Fehr iii.517 In all three texts, Ælfric calls pride ‘ord and ende ælcere synne’. Both Fehr and Godden cite part of Alcuin’s ch. 27 as source for this, ‘Primum uitium est spirituale, superbia, de qua dicitur: Initium omnis peccati superbia (Eccl. X.15), quae regina est omnium malorum’518 but Alcuin has another chapter on pride, ch. 23, which is much closer: Omnium uitiorum nouissimum est superbia, dum homo uirtutibus ornatur, et in his superbire coepit. Omnis quoque peccati initium superbia est, dum anima praecepta contemnit Creatoris, mox in cuiuslibet peccati corruit foueam. Omnis superbia tanto in imo iacet, quanto se erigit in alto. Tantoque profundius labitur, quanto excelsius eleuatur. Qui enim per propriam superbiam attollitur, per Dei iustitiam damnatur. Ante ruinam hominis exaltatur spiritus eius. Nihil magis Christiano uitandum est quam superbia, quae iram Dei prouocat. Nam superbia ex angelis daemones fecit . . .519

The last sentence quoted from this chapter in Alcuin is the source for ‘Seo geworhte englas to atolicum deoflum’ and the almost identical statements in CH

516 517 518

519

longanimitate militem Christi uulnerare conatur . . .’ (‘This pestilence, that is, vainglory, is multiformed avarice. It hurries from all sides to meet the warrior who is fighting against the vices, as well as the victor over the vices. It tries to wound the soldier of Christ in the bearing and beauty of his body, in his gait, in his voice and labor, in vigils, fasts, prayers, retreat; in his reading, knowledge, silence, obedience, humility and patient forbearance’, trans. Throop, Alcuin, p. 81). CH II 12, line 526. CH II 12, lines 531–41, and Fehr iii, §§147–51. ‘The first vice is spiritual pride, about which it is said (Sir 10.15) The beginning of all sin is pride. It is the queen of all evils’ (trans. Throop, Alcuin, p. 76). See Fehr, p. 205; Godden, CH III, p. 465, and Godden, ‘The Sources of Catholic Homilies 2.12’ (http://fontes.english.ox.ac.uk/). The Fontes entry cites Alcuin as a probable multiple source, along with Cassian’s Conlationes. PL 101, 630C: ‘Pride is the last of all of the vices, when a person is decorated by virtues and, through them, begins to be proud. Also (Sir. 10.15) Pride is the beginning of all sin. When the soul scorns the commandments of the Creator, it soon rushes into the pit of any sin. By as much as all pride lies in the depths, by that much it raises itself up high. The deeper it falls, the higher it is lifted up. One who is lifted up by his own pride, is condemned by God’s justice. Before a person falls, his spirit is exalted. A Christian should avoid nothing more than pride, which provokes the anger of God. Pride made demons from angels . . .’ (trans. Throop, Alcuin, p. 72). Alcuin took this idea from Cassian’s De institutis, XII.1 and 6. See my ‘The Source of Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies II 12, lines 531–539’, for a discussion of CH II 12’s passage on pride.

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The Vices and Virtues II 12 and Fehr iii; the second part of this sentence ‘and þone mann macað eac, gif he modegað to swiðe, þæs deofles geferan, þe feoll ær þurh hi’ is like Fehr iii’s ‘And se modiga mann ne mæg cuman to heofonum, ac byð ðara deofla gefera’.520 I have not been able to identify a source for this, nor could Fehr; it may well be Ælfric composing freely to underline the moral of the angels’ fall. THE VIRTUES Ælfric then turns to the virtues which can overcome the vices, as in CH II 12 where a short list of the contrary virtues follows the longer account of the eight vices; in Fehr iii, on the other hand, each vice-virtue pair is treated in turn. The military tone of the introduction of the vices is continued in introducing the virtues which can overcome or conquer (oferswiðan) them. The contrary virtues are much indebted to a summary list which Alcuin, building on Cassian, gave of vices and their opposing virtues.521 Ælfric, however, did not follow Alcuin’s ch. 34 in all respects and also produced a much fuller account of the contrary virtues than Alcuin had done, devoting a paragraph to each of the virtues in turn, as Alcuin had done earlier in De uirtutibus, but to other, largely different, virtues.

Temperantia Ælfric’s first virtue is temperantia, gemetegung, the virtue which can overcome gluttony: An is temperantia, þæt is gemetegung on Englisc, þæt man beo gemetegad and to mycel ne þicge on æte and on wæte, ne ær timan ne gereordige. Nytenu etað swa ær swa hi hyt habbað, ac se gesceadwisa mann sceal cepan his mæles, and þonne mid gesceade hys gesetnysse healdan. Þonne mæg he oferswiðan swa þa gifernysse.

Temperance is in some ways a surprising choice here,522 but gluttony is also conquered by temperance in CH II 12 and in Fehr iii.523 In Alcuin’s list of contrary virtues gula is conquered by abstinentia, not temperantia, and this seems logical, as the opposite of overeating is eating very little.524 Alcuin also gives ways of overcoming each vice at the end of the chapter devoted to it and, at the end of his chapter on gluttony, he suggests fasting and abstinence to conquer it.525 Other Carolingians, such as Ambrosius Autpertus and Theodulf of Orleans, like 520 521 522

523 524

525

Fehr iii, §149: ‘And the proud man cannot come to heaven, but will be the companion of the devil’. See above, p. 77. As C. Lee, ‘Reluctant Appetites: Anglo-Saxon Attitudes towards Fasting’, in Saints and Scholars: New Perspectives on Anglo-Saxon Literature and Culture in Honour of Hugh Magennis, ed. S. McWilliams (Cambridge, 2012), pp. 164–86, at 107–8, also points out. CH II 12, lines 528–9, and Fehr iii, §151. In the section of Vercelli XX translated from Alcuin, Vercelli Homilies, ed. Scragg, XX, lines 146–7, ‘gyfernyss byð oferswiþed þurh forhæfednysse’ (‘greed is conquered by abstinence’). PL 101, 633D.

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Introduction Alcuin, favoured abstinence.526 Aldhelm had already opted for the same contrary virtue.527 In Conlationes V, Cassian does not dwell much on the contrary virtue to gluttony, but he speaks of the necessity of fasting and abstinence and also of the need for moderation (gemetegung means both moderation and temperance in Old English): ‘et idcirco ita sunt moderanda ieiunia, ut non necesse sit per inmoderationem continentiae, quae defectione carnis uel infirmitate contracta est, reuerti rursus ad Aegyptiam terram, id est pristinam gulae et carnis concupiscentiam, quam cum mundo huic abrenuntiaremus abiecimus.’528 Cassian also stressed fasting to counter gluttony throughout De institutis V, the book devoted to gluttony, but with caveats, insisting again that there were dangers to excessive fasting and that temperance was necessary: ‘non habet perpetuae castimoniae puritatem, quisque non iugem temperantiae aequalitatem tenere contentus est. quamuis districta ieiunia succedente superflua remissione uacuantur et in gastrimargiae uitium protinus conlabuntur.’ 529 Cassian also mentions temperance as the virtue opposed to gluttony in De institutis XII.3 (book XII is devoted to pride); in the course of making the point that pride attacks all of the virtues, whereas the other vices attack only one, he gives three examples, saying that gluttony destroys the rigour of temperance, lust stains purity and anger destroys patience.530 Ælfric, then, seems to have taken the opposition gluttony-temperance from De institutis, books V and XII. He was probably particularly receptive to Cassian on this point as he was enthusiastic about temperance anyway; it is one of the four cardinal virtues which he discussed in LS i (and in its reworked version, Belfour ix) and in these texts he altered his sources to proclaim temperance the mother of virtues.531 Ælfric had qualms about the dangers of excessive fasting and abstinence and this presumably led him to reject Alcuin’s abstinence in favour of temperance, which by definition emphasises moderation rather than excess.532 I have not been able to find a source for the reference to animals eating when food is available to them, while humans observe proper mealtimes and then eat with moderation; clearly the two practices are the opposite of the two practices described under the vice of gluttony and it may be that Ælfric’s manifestations of temperance 526 527 528

529

530 531 532

Newhauser, ‘Preaching the “Contrary Virtues”‘, pp. 144–55. De uirginitate, ed. Ehwald, in Aldhelmi Opera, lines 2537–40. Cassian, Conlationes, ed. Petschenig, V.18 (144.11–16): ‘And for this cause our fasts ought to be made moderate, that there may be no need for us through excessive abstinence, which results from weakness of the flesh and infirmity, to return again to the land of Egypt, i.e., to our former greed and carnal lust which we forsook when we made our renunciation of this world’ (trans. Gibson, Conferences, p. 348). Cassian, De institutis, ed. Petschenig, V. 9 (88.4–8): ‘Holiness of mind does go with an empty stomach, but you cannot achieve lasting chastity without being content to observe a reasonable moderation. No matter how strict the fasting, if it is followed by over indulgence, it is useless, and much more likely to lead to the sin of gluttony’ (trans. Bertram, The Monstic Institutes, p. 74). Cassian, De institutis, ed. Petschenig, XII.3 (207.16–22). See my ‘Temperance as the Mother of Virtues in Ælfric’, Notes and Queries 55 (2008), 1–2. On Ælfric and fasting, see my ‘Suicide in the Works of Ælfric’ and Lee, ‘Reluctant Appetites: Anglo-Saxon Attitudes towards Fasting’, pp. 182–4.

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The Vices and Virtues were dictated by his treatment of gluttony. Lines 220–2 of The Seasons for Fasting, an Old English poem which has some connections with Ælfric in terms of thinking, makes a similar point in relation to priests who go to the tavern after morning mass, rather than waiting for the proper time to eat, saying that they behave like dogs and wolves:         þæs þe me þingeð þæt hund and wulf  healdað þa ilcan wisan on worulde  and ne wigliað hwæne hie to mose fon,  mæða bedæled.533

The point here seems to be that animals do not observe proper times for eating, whereas men should. It is possible that Ælfric and the author of the poem had a common source for this idea. Bloomfield shows the extensive links between sins and animals, but his examples are of specific animals, whereas Ælfric’s is not.534

Castitas The second vice, fornicatio, is overcome by castitas: Seo oðer miht is castitas, þæt is clænnyss on Englisc, þæt se læweda hine healde buton forligre on rihtum sinscipe, mid gesceadwisnysse, and se gehadoda Godes þeowa healde his clænnysse. Þonne bið oferswiðed swa eac seo galnyss.

De octo uitiis is very like CH II 12 and Fehr iii here; all three rely on Alcuin (in his summary of vices and contrary virtues he says that fornicatio is conquered ‘per castitatem’ and in the chapter on fornicatio he has it in first position among the remedies for the vice: fornication is overcome ‘per castitatem et continentiam consuetam, et recordationem ignis aeterni, et timorem praesentiae sempiterni Dei . . .’).535 Cassian also gives castitas as the virtue which is the opposite of fornicatio in his Conlationes book V and in book VI of De institutis, the book devoted to the vice. Castitas is, in general, a favourite theme of Ælfric’s, predictably for a Benedictine monk; in CH II 12, as in De octo uitiis, he expanded Alcuin’s castitas to explain what this virtue means for the married and the celibate, giving his two basic rules on sexuality, that lay people should have only lawful intercourse and ‘The Seasons for Fasting’, in The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems, ed. E. V. K. Dobbie, ASPR 6 (New York, 1942), pp. 98–104: ‘It seems to me that the hound and wolf act the same way in the world and do not hesitate when they seize food, lacking all continence’ (trans. M. P. Richards, ‘Old Wine in a New Bottle: Recycled Instructional Materials in Seasons for Fasting’, in The Old English Homily: Precedent, Practice, and Appropriation, ed. A. Kleist, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 17 (Turnhout, 2007), 345–64, at 362). See Richards’s article for the poem’s link with Ælfric’s (and Wulfstan’s) thinking and also H. Magennis, Anglo-Saxon Appetites: Food and Drink and their Consumption in Old English and Related Literature (Dublin, 1999), pp. 85–92. 534 The Seven Deadly Sins, pp. 245–9. 535 PL 101, 634A: ‘through habitual chastity and continence, remembrance of the eternal fire, and fear of the presence of the eternal God . . .’ (trans. Throop, Alcuin, p. 78). 533

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Introduction that those in orders should maintain virginity.536 Alcuin makes exactly the same point in De uirtutibus, ch. 18, the chapter on chastity.537

Largitas The third virtue is generosity or liberality: Seo þridde miht is largitas, þæt is cystignes on Englisc, þæt man wislice aspende, na for woruldgilpe, þa þing þe him God lænde on þisum life to brucenne. God nele þæt we beon grædige gitseras, ne eac for woruldgilpe forworpan ure æhta, ac dælan hi mid gesceade, swa swa hit Drihtne licige, and, gif we ælmyssan doð, don hi butan gilpe. Þonne mage we fordon swa þa deofollican gitsunge.

In CH II 12 and in Fehr iii the contrary virtue is the same. Alcuin’s contrary virtue in his summary list is, as pointed out above, incorrect in PL’s main text, where avarice is conquered ‘per abstinentiam’, with a variant, ‘largitatem et contemptum mundi’.538 Szarmach reports that the best early manuscripts have sapientia as the virtue which defeats avarice, but there is no trace of that in Ælfric, and it seems likely that his manuscript read ‘auaritia per largitatem’.539 Alcuin concluded his chapter on avarice by offering a variety of ways in which it can be conquered (tellingly, abstinentia is not included but almsgiving is mentioned twice): Quae fit [Ms., quae est] contraria misericordiae, eleemosynis in pauperes, et toti pietati in miseros. Quae uincitur per timorem Dei, et per fraternam charitatem, et per opera misericordiae, et per eleemosynas in pauperes, et per spem futurae beatitudinis, dum falsae huius saeculi diuitiae futurae beatitudinis ueris diuitiis uincuntur.540

Of the different ways to conquer avarice enumerated here, Ælfric takes only almsgiving, ignoring the others, and his remedy for avarice is an extraordinarily qualified and cautious exhortation to generosity – wise spending and discriminating charity.541 Alcuin’s ch. 17 is devoted to almsgiving and in it there is nothing of this 536 537 538 539

540

541

See CH II 12, lines 550–2, See also CH II 6, lines 115–57, especially lines 136–40, and the Letter to Wulfgeat (Assmann i), lines 155–60. PL 101, 627B–C. PL 101, 637A, and see above, p. 70, n. 419. Szarmach, ‘The Latin Tradition of Alcuin’s Liber de virtutibus et vitiis’, p. 17. Item 93 in the homiliary most fully represented by the English manuscript Cambridge, Pembroke College 25, draws on Alcuin and reads ‘auaritia per largitatem’ at this point (Cambridge Pembroke College 25, ed. Cross, p. 134); it is translated in Vercelli XX, Vercelli Homilies, ed. Scragg, XX, line 147, as rumgyfolnysse (‘generosity’). This also suggests that ‘auaritia per largitatem’ was the reading in Ælfric’s source manuscript. PL 101, 634B–C: ‘Avarice is the opposite of mercy, giving alms to the poor, and all piety towards wretched people. It is overcome by fear of God, brotherly love, works of mercy, giving alms to the poor, and hope of future happiness, when the false riches of this world are conquered by the true riches of future happiness’ (trans. Throop, Alcuin, p. 78). There are, however, precedents for advocating discrimination in charity; see B. Ramsey, ‘Almsgiving in the Latin Church: the Late Fourth and Early Fifth Centuries’, Theological Studies 43 (1982), 226–59, at 232–3. A. Olson, ‘Textual Representations of Almsgiving in Late Anglo-Saxon England’

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The Vices and Virtues caution about giving alms, although he does warn against giving for the wrong motives.542 There is no trace of influence from Cassian, either from Conlationes V or De institutis VIII, the book devoted to avarice; Cassian, writing for monks, advocates total renunciation of property, a remedy which evidently did not at all suit Ælfric’s thinking with regard to the laity. Malcolm Godden has shown how compromised Ælfric’s attitude to wealth was: ‘There is an evident anxiety in Ælfric’s writings not only to defend the rich from the criticism of the Bible but also to question that urge to renounce wealth that became such a vogue a century or so later. . . . For someone who was himself a monk, such reticence about the ideal of poverty is striking testimony to the need to provide some moral support for the wealthy.’543 The reasons are not far to seek, given that Ælfric’s patrons, to whom the Lives of Saints were dedicated, were among the wealthiest men in England.544 In his treatment of the virtue of generosity, then, we can see how Ælfric’s thinking was implicated, quite naturally, in his own personal position vis-à-vis the rich and powerful and that, in a sense, the pressure of patronage pushed him towards an original position with regard to the virtue of generosity, one that was far more limited and restrained than his sources. We can also see him tailoring this virtue for a lay audience, promoting a practice that was highly important in the late Anglo-Saxon church.545

Patientia The fourth virtue is patience, counteracting anger: Seo feorþe miht is patientia, þæt is geþyld gecweden, þæt se man beo geþyldig and þolmod for Gode and læte æfre his gewitt gewyldre þonne his yrre, for þam þe se Hælend cwæð þus on his godspelle: In patientia uestra possidebitis animas uestras. Þæt is on Engliscre spræce: On eowrum geþylde ge habbað

542

543 544

545

(unpubl. Ph.D .dissertation, York University, 2010), pp. 104–5, notes that she did not find anything in the Old English homilies like the patristic advice about caution in almsgiving, but this passage provides an example. For example, Alcuin, PL 101, 625D, says: ‘Quod reddituram se promittit Veritas, secura expendat [et tribuat] humanitas. Constans esto, Christiane largitor, da quod accipias, sere quod metas, sparge quod colligas. Noli metuere dispendium, noli de dubio suspirare prouentu’ (‘Because Truth promises to give repayment, humankind may spend and give without concern. Be constant, Christian giver: give what you receive, sow what you reap, scatter what you gather. Do not fear expense, do not sigh about a doubtful income’, trans. Throop, Alcuin, p. 63). Alcuin warns against giving alms for the sake of being praised in his ch. 25, ‘De humana laude non quaerenda’. ‘Money, Power and Morality’, p. 61. See Godden, ‘Money, Power and Morality’, p. 65: ‘Ælfric’s interest in defending the moral position of the rich is to be related to his involvement with the wealthy landowning class and his awareness of their creditable part in the revival and maintenance of the monasteries.’ On the importance of almsgiving in the late Anglo-Saxon church, see Olson, ‘Textual Representations of Almsgiving in Late Anglo-Saxon England’. In her discussion of Pope xxx, she points out that Ælfric ‘omits the biblical injunction to give one’s alms in secret, instead allowing that men could give alms publically, so long as they did so for the glory of God rather than to boost their own reputations’ (pp. 106–7). Ælfric says nothing here either about the necessity to give in secret but is again concerned with motive.

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Introduction eowre sawla soðlice gehealdene. Se heofonlica wisdom cwæð þæt þæt yrre hæfð wununge on þæs dysegan bosme, þonne he bið to hrædmod; and se eallwaldenda dema demð æfre mid smyltnysse, and we sceolan mid geþylde oferswiðan þæt yrre.

This is a much more substantial paragraph than the very short phrase in CH II 12 (‘weamette mid wislicum geðylde’) and the sentence in Fehr iii: ‘Þone mæg oferswyðan þæs modes geðild, seðe mid gesceade him sylfan gewissað.’546 Both Cassian and Alcuin have patience as the contrary virtue to the vice of anger. Cassian cites patience as the remedy for furor in Conlationes V and, in book VIII of De institutis, devoted to the vice of anger, he says ‘quem furor ceperat, patientia uindicabit’.547 Much of what Cassian has to say on anger and patience in book VIII is unsuited to Ælfric’s audience, as it is specifically geared towards monks and, especially, the solitary desert-dweller, who in his isolation can still be afflicted by anger. One thought in Ælfric, however, does seem to be prompted by Cassian and that is the idea that God judges with calmness or composure, ‘se eallwaldenda dema demð æfre mid smyltnysse’.548 Cassian goes to some lengths to explain biblical references to God’s anger and to his judging with anger, arguing that human understanding of these anthropomorphic interpretations of the Bible is necessarily restricted and that God is free from all passion;549 there is nothing similar in Alcuin, despite his chapters devoted to judges, irascibility and anger. Alcuin has ira overcome ‘per patientiam’ in his summary paragraph on vices and contrary virtues and, at the end of his chapter on anger, again offers a variety of remedies: Quae uincitur per patientiam et longanimitatem, et per rationem intellectualem, quam Deus, inserit mentibus humanis, et per recordationem [iniuriarum et passionum, quas pro nobis iniuste pertulit Christus; et per memoriam] Orationis Dominicae, ubi Deo dicitur: Dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.550 546 547

548

549

550

CH II 12, line 554 (‘anger with wise patience’), and Fehr iii, §163: ‘Patience of the spirit can overcome this [i.e. anger], in the person who can govern himself with reason.’ Cassian, Conlationes, ed. Petschenig, V.23 (148.4–5): ‘That which wrath had held, will be claimed by patience’ (trans. Gibson, Conferences, p. 310). Cassian also gives patience as the remedy in De institutis VIII.30. The same idea is found in Pope xv, line 221, a late text much concerned with anger and judgement, where it does not seem to have been prompted by his immediate source: ‘and he mid smyltnysse symble demð eallum’ (‘and he always judges everyone with composure’). Cassian, De institutis, ed. Petschenig, VIII.4 (153.27–154.2): ‘ita igitur et de ira dei uel furore cum legimus, non ἀνθρωποπαθῶς, id est secundum humilitatem humanae perturbationis, sed digne deo, qui omni perturbatione alienus est, sentire debemus . . .’ (‘In the same manner when we read about the wrath and anger of God we must understand this not anthropomorphically (that is, according to base human passions) but in a manner worthy of God who is free from all emotion’, trans. Bertram, The Monastic Institutes, p. 127). PL 101, 634D: ‘Anger is overcome through patience and forbearance, and through intellectual rationality, which God implants in human minds, and through the memory of the injustices and sufferings which Christ bore unjustly for us; and through the memory of the Lord’s Prayer, where it is said to God (Mt. 6.12) And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors’ (trans. Throop, Alcuin, p. 79).

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The Vices and Virtues Ælfric’s ‘geþyldig and þolmod’ was presumably prompted by Alcuin’s patience and forbearance, ‘per patientiam et longanimitatem’, in the passage just quoted and ‘læte æfre his gewitt gewyldre þonne his yrre’ was possibly suggested by Alcuin: ‘Ira una est de octo uitiis principalibus, quae si ratione non regitur, in furorem uertitur: ita ut homo sui animi impotens erit [Ms., fiat], faciens quae non conuenit.’551 Most of the rest of Ælfric’s paragraph is composed of two biblical quotations, Luke XXI.19 and Sir. VII.10; Alcuin had quoted Luke XXI.19 in the chapter ‘De patientia’, earlier in his treatise,552 and he has the Sirach quotation in ch. 24, De iracundia, as has Cassian in De institutis VIII.1.553 Ælfric’s choice of a New and an Old Testament quotation seems a very deliberate strategy to highlight the importance of the virtue throughout the Bible.

Spiritalis laetitia The fifth virtue is spiritual happiness: Seo fifte miht is spiritalis laetitia, þæt is seo gastlice bliss, þæt man on God blissige betwux unrotnyssum þissere reðan worulde, swa þæt we on ungelimpum ormode ne beon, ne eft on gesælðum to swiðe ne blissian; and, gif we forleosað þas lænan weoruldþing, þonne sceole we witan þæt ure wunung nis na her, ac is on heofenum, gif we hopiað to Gode. Þyder we sceolan eftstan of þissere earfoðnysse mid gastlicre blisse; þonne bið seo unrotnyss mid ealle oferswiðed mid urum geþylde.

Ælfric’s treatment here is again fuller than in CH II 12, where he said only ‘woruldlice unrotnysse. mid gastlicere blisse’ and Fehr iii: ‘Seo yfele unrotnyss byð eac oferswiðed þurh ða gastlican blisse, þe mann for Gode habban sceal’.554 For Cassian in the Conlationes, harmful dejection, tristitia mortem operans, the sadness that causes death, will be replaced by salutaris et plena gaudio tristitia, a salutary sadness full of joy, and in the final chapter of De institutis IX, devoted to tristitia, he suggested that it should be expelled by spiritali meditatione, meditation on spiritual things.555 Alcuin, however, has the much closer laetitiam spiritualem as the virtue which conquers tristitia mala in his summary list and as one of a number of virtues which conquer the sadness of this world in the chapter devoted to tristitia, and it is clearly from him that Ælfric took it.556 But Ælfric 551 552

553 554 555 556

PL 101, 634C: ‘Anger is one of the eight principal vices. If it is not controlled by reason, it turns to fury, so that a person will be powerless over his own mind’ (trans. Throop, Alcuin, p. 79). PL 101, 619A. The quotation from Luke is one which Ælfric seems to have particularly liked as he used it in CH II 6, lines 109–10 ( independently of the source, see CH III, p. 391), in CH II 37, lines19–20 and 122–4 (it is part of the biblical pericope for the day and Ælfric is following Gregory’s praise of patience) and in LS XXVII, line 144, where he was responsible for introducing it as part of a lengthy homiletic excursus on patience at the end of the narrative of St Maurice and his companions. PL 101, 631C. CH II 12, lines 554–5 (‘worldly sadness with spiritual happiness’), and Fehr iii, §171: ‘The evil sadness will also be overcome by spiritual happiness, which one must have for the sake of God’. Cassian, Conlationes, ed. Petschenig, V.23, and De institutis, ed. Petschenig, IX.13 (171.14). Alcuin’s full list, PL 101, 635C, at the end of ch. 33, is: ‘Quae uincitur per laetitiam spiritualem, et spem futurorum, et consolationem Scripturarum, et fraternum [in spirituali iucunditate] colloquium.’

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Introduction seems to take ‘swa þæt we on ungelimpum ormode ne beon, ne eft on gesælðum to swiðe ne blissian’ from De institutis IX.13; there Cassian says that, if we focus on meditating on hope of the future and on contemplating promised blessedness and are ‘nec casibus deiecti praesentibus nec prosperis fuerimus elati’, then we will conquer tristitia.557 The phrase ‘þonne sceole we witan þæt ure wunung nis na her ac is on heofenum’ is from Phil. III.20, ‘nostra autem conuersatio in caelis est’;558 it does not seem to have been prompted by his immediate sources. The closing passage also seems to be Ælfric’s and is similar to, for example, CH I 10, lines 161–4, or Pope xi, lines 157–8. The emphasis in this passage on losing worldly possessions reflects the very limited definition of tristitia that Ælfric had offered in his account of the vice, as one that can originate ‘þonne se mann geunrotsað ealles to swiðe for his æhta lyre, þe he lufode to swiðe’.

Instantia boni operis The sixth virtue is constancy or perseverance in good works: Seo syxte miht is instantia boni operis, þæt is anrædnyss goodes weorces. Gif we beoð anræde on urum goodum weorcum, þonne magon we oferswiðan þa asolcennysse swa, for þam þe hyt bið langsum bysmor gif ure lif byð unnyt her.

In CH II 12 Ælfric gives only the names of the vice and the virtue by which it is conquered, ‘Asolcennysse. mid soðre anrædnysse’, while in Fehr iii he says little more: ‘Se leahtor bið oferswiðed þurh þæs modes anrædnisse, þæt se mann beo anræde æfre on godum weorcum.’559 In each of these three texts, Ælfric translates the name of the virtue and in Fehr iii and De octo uitiis he expands minimally on this, saying essentially only what is implicit in the name of the virtue and adding that it will be a longlasting disgrace if one’s life is unnyt, useless or idle. The contrary virtue here comes from Alcuin, who in his summary of vices and opposing virtues in ch. 34 says that acedia is overcome by constancy in good work, ‘per instantiam boni operis’;560 Ælfric ignores the other virtues in Alcuin’s long list at the end of ch. 32, where he says that acedia can be conquered ‘per studium lectionis, per assiduitatem operis boni, per desiderium futurae praemiorum beatitudinis, per confessionem tentationis, quam in mente habet, per

557

558

559 560

(‘Sadness is overcome through spiritual happiness, and hope for the future, and the consolation of Scripture, and fraternal conversation with spiritual enjoyment’, trans. Throop, Alcuin, p. 80). Cassian, De institutis, ed. Petschenig, IX.13 (171.22–3) ‘we shall . . . be . . . neither cast down by present misfortune, nor elated by good chance’ (trans. Bertram, The Monastic Institutes, p. 143). Book IX of De institutis is devoted to tristitia. ‘But our conversation is in heaven.’ The Lambeth scribe supplied the Latin quotation in that version, as he/she does elsewhere in the text. See also M. Swan, ‘Preaching Past the Conquest: Lambeth Palace 487 and Cotton Vespasian A.XXII’, in The Old English Homily: Precedent, Practice and Appropriation, ed. A. Kleist, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 17 (Turnhout, 2007), 403–23, at 408–9. CH II 12, line 555 (‘sloth by true perseverance’) and Fehr iii, §167: ‘This vice is overcome by spiritual perseverance, in that a person is always constant in good works.’ PL 101, 637A.

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The Vices and Virtues stabilitatem loci et propositi sui, atque exercitium cuiuslibet artis et laboris, uel orationum et uigiliarum instantiam, ut nunquam otiosus inueniatur seruus Dei’.561 Cassian has fortitudo as the vice which overcomes acedia in Conlationes V.23, although he places great weight on manual work as a remedy in De institutis X, the book devoted to acedia. Ælfric’s reticence may be at least partly due to his very different interpretation of acedia to his main sources, Cassian and Alcuin.562 While his vice appears to be tailored to a lay audience, theirs is very much a monastic one. Ælfric’s instantia boni operis seems as anodyne as his acedia.

Seo soðe lufu [caritas]563 The seventh virtue is true love for God: Seo seofoðe miht is seo soðe lufu to Gode, þæt we on godum weorcum Godes lufe cepan, na ideles gylpes þe hym is andsæte. Ac uton don ælmessan swa swa he us tæhte, Gode to lofe, na us to hlisan, þæt God sy geherod on urum goodum weorcum, and se idela gilp us beo æfre unwurð.

In CH II 12 Ælfric formulated the name of the virtue slightly differently, saying that ydel gylp will be conquered ‘mid incundre lufe’ but in Fehr iii it is also soðe lufu: ‘Þone leahter oferswið se soðe lufu on Gode, on urum heortan agoten þurh þone haligan gast.’564 Cassian’s presentation of vainglory, like that of the vice of which it is the counterpart, was very much directed at monastic life, prayer and asceticism, and he included a discussion of how vainglory is mixed up with virtues in a way that other vices are not and so is harder to avoid. In book XI.19 of De institutis, the book devoted to vainglory, Cassian has a list of remedies but these are more advice on how to avoid vainglory than opposing virtues; he suggests doing nothing at the suggestion of vanity, maintaining care in doing something that has begun well, avoiding things which are of little use to the monastic fraternity and so on. Alcuin, while keeping much of this monastic emphasis in his discussion of vainglory, does, however, in his summary of vices and contrary virtues, say that uana gloria should be avoided per charitatem Dei and he is obviously Ælfric’s source for soðe lufu. Towards the end of ch. 34, on vainglory, Alcuin offers his own remedies, including ‘perpetua ipsius Dei charitas, in cuius laude omnia agere debemus, quidquid boni in hoc saeculo operemur’;565 this may have prompted Ælfric’s ‘þæt we on godum weorcum 561

562 563 564 565

PL 101, 635B: ‘through the study of the lectionary reading, through constancy in good work, through desire for the rewards of future happiness, through the confession of any temptation in his mind, through stability of his place and his monastic community, and the practice of any skill or labor, or sticking to prayers and vigils, so that the servant of God is never found at leisure’ (trans. Throop, Alcuin, p. 80). See above, p. 92. Ælfric translates caritas as seo soðe lufu earlier in LS xvi (line 247). CH II 12, line 556 (‘with inner love’), and Fehr iii, §174 (‘True love in God conquers this vice, poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit’). PL 101, 636C. The full passage is: ‘Cuius morbi medicina est recordatio diuinae bonitatis, per quam omnia bona nobis conlata sunt, quae habere uidemur; etiam et perpetua ipsius Dei charitas,

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Introduction Godes lufe cepan’. Ælfric then adds another exhortation to give alms in praise of God, rather than for the sake of one’s own reputation; this possibly owes something to Alcuin’s reference in the same chapter to Christ’s condemnation of the Pharisees’ almsgiving in Matt. VI.2: ‘Imo pene omnia quae facit, eo tenore agit, ut ab hominibus laudetur, de quibus ipse Dominus ait: Amen dico uobis, receperunt mercedem suam.’566 It also, of course, picks up his treatment of the corresponding vice, vainglory, where he had emphasised the need not to be vainglorious when giving charity; his very limited interpretation of the vice determines his equally limited interpretation of the contrary virtue. In choosing to pick up this association of vainglory and almsgiving, Ælfric again stresses an aspect of charity that was very accessible for the laity and which the late AngloSaxon church expended great effort on encouraging.567 He had already urged almsgiving as part of the virtue of largitas and he now urges it again as part of caritas.

Seo soðe eadmodnyss [humilitas] The final virtue is humility, the contrary virtue to pride: Seo ahtoþe miht is seo soðe eadmodnyss, ge to Gode, ge to mannum, mid modes hluttornysse; for þam se ðe wis bið, ne wyrð he næfre modig. On hwam mæg se mann modigian, þeah he wille? Ne mæg he on geþingcðum, for þam þe fela synd geþungenran; ne mæg he on his æhtum, for þam þe he hys endedæg nat; ne on nanum þingum he ne mæg modigian, gif he wis bið.

The same contrary virtue is given in CH II 12 and in Fehr iii.568 Cassian gives humility as the contrary virtue to pride in Conlationes V; in De institutis XII.8 (book XII is devoted to the vice of pride), he offers a variety of demonstrations of Christ’s humility and in XII.23 and XII.31–3 he stresses that perfection cannot be attained without true humility. Cassian repeatedly associates humility with purity of heart in De institutis XII, as Ælfric does with his ‘modes hluttornysse’. Alcuin, too, has humility as the virtue contrary to vice: in his summary list in ch. 34 he says that pride is conquered ‘per humilitatem’ and, at the end of ch. 27, he says: ‘Quae omnia mala uera humilitas famuli Dei perfacile uincere [Ms., curare] poterit. [Humilitas uera est, ut diximus, ueritatis sermonem humiliter in cuius laude omnia agere debemus, quidquid boni in hoc saeculo operemur, et magis desiderare a Deo laudari in die retributionis aeternae, quam ab homine quolibet in huius transitoriae uitae conuersatione’ (‘The remedy for this disease is the remembrance of divine goodness (through which were gathered all good things we are seen to have), and indeed, God’s perpetual love. In his praise we ought to do all things – whatever good we do in this world – and we ought to desire to be praised by God on the day of eternal retribution, more than we desire to be praised by any person whatsoever in this transitory life’, trans. Throop, Alcuin, p. 82). 566 PL 101, 636A: ‘Indeed, nearly everything he does, he does with that intent, that he be praised by people. About such, the Lord himself says (Mt 6.2) So it is, I tell you, they have received their reward’ (trans. Throop, Alcuin, p. 81). 567 See Olson, ‘Textual Representations of Almsgiving in Late Anglo-Saxon England’, passim. 568 CH II 12, lines 556–7 and Fehr iii, §151.

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The Vices and Virtues audire, memoriter retinere, uoluntarie perficere.]’569 Alcuin has separate chapters devoted to humility (ch. 10, ‘De humilitate’), to pride (ch. 24, ‘De superbia’) and to pride as the first of the eight vices (ch. 27, ‘De octo uitiis principalibus, et primo de superbia’). None of these, however, provides the source for the rest of Ælfric’s paragraph. Presumably that unknown source, assuming that there was one, was later used also in Fehr iii, where he says: ‘Forðonþe modigniss is swiðe micel dysig and se wisa mann nat, on hwan he modige.’570 In De octo uitiis we get an extended version of this, enumerating the things in which a wise man will not take pride: ‘On hwam mæg se mann modigian, þeah he wille? Ne mæg he on geþingcðum, for þam þe fela synd geþungenran; ne mæg he on his æhtum, for þam þe he hys endedæg nat; ne on nanum þingum he ne mæg modigian, gif he wis bið.’ Alcuin does have injunctions not to be proud and they may have had an influence on Ælfric but they are not similar in detail.571 The vices and virtues section of the composite text ends, as did LS xvi as written by the original scribe, with a summary paragraph: Nu ge habbað gehyred hu þas halgan mægnu oferswiðað þa leahtras þe deofol besæwð on us; and, gif we nellað hi oferswiðan, hi besencað us on helle. We magon þurh Godes fylst þa feondlican leahtras mid gecampe oferwinnan, gif we cenlice feohtað, and habban us on ende þone ecan wurðmynt a mid Gode sylfum, gif we swincað nu her.

In it Ælfric turns to address his readers or audience, using the martial imagery which is pervasive in both Cassian and Alcuin and drawing in particular on Alcuin: ‘Hi sunt octo totius impietatis duces cum exercitibus suis, et fortissimi contra humanum genus diabolicae fraudis bellatores. . . . Isti uero bellatores Deo auxiliante facillime uincuntur a bellatoribus Christi per uirtutes sanctas.’572 To sum up briefly on Ælfric’s sources for De octo uitiis: Alcuin’s De uirtutibus is certainly the principal source but Cassian’s Conlationes and De institutis were also drawn upon. The first two sources were already well recognised as sources for Ælfric’s vices and virtues material in CH II and in Fehr iii, but De institutis 569

PL 101 637A and 620B: ‘True humility of a servant of God will be able to overcome all these evils very easily. True humility, as I have said, is to humbly hear the word of truth, to keep it in mind, and to willingly carry it out’ (trans. Throop, Alcuin, p. 76). 570 Fehr iii, §150 (‘Because pride is very foolish and the wise man does not know in what he may take pride’). Fehr, p. 205, was unable to find a source for this sentence. 571 In his chapter on humility, for example, Alcuin says ‘Noli, o homo, in uirtutibus tuis gloriari’ (PL 101, 620B) and in the chapter on vainglory he quotes John XV.5, ‘sine me nihil potestis facere’, ‘without me you can do nothing’, in support of the point that man cannot have anything good without God, ‘Quapropter qui gloriatur, in Domino glorietur: quia nihil sine Deo donante boni habere poterit’ (PL 101, 635D). There is also some similarity of ideas to 1 Tim. VI.17–19, a passage which Ælfric had used in CH I 18, but no close verbal similarity. It is, of course, possible, that the idea is Ælfric’s own. 572 PL 101, 637A: ‘These eight vices, along with their armies, are leaders of all impiety. Against humankind, they are very strong warriors of diabolic deceit. . . . These warriors of the devil are very easily overcome, with God’s help, by Christ’s warriors, by means of the holy virtues’ (trans. Throop, Alcuin, p. 83).

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Introduction is a new addition.573 In addition, there are significant similarities to penitential literature, suggesting that Ælfric’s views were influenced by how the vices were conceptualised in penitentials and in penitential prayers; the parallels with the anonymous vernacular prayer are striking. What Ælfric has produced in De octo uitiis is very different from his main souces; the names of vices and virtues are the traditional ones, but his radical compression of the vices, in particular, demonstrates independence and awareness of his lay audience. His text is a vernacular ethical treatise which seems to be very much aimed at the laity and goes well beyond his principal source, Alcuin’s De uirtutibus, also composed for a layman, in adapting this traditional material to a lay readership, especially in the cases of tristitia and acedia. One of his significant contributions, compared to Cassian and Alcuin or to his own two other principal treatments of the vices and virtues, is in structure; he highlights the virtues by considering them separately and amplifying the description of them, in this way also throwing further light on how he viewed the vices.574 Many of Ælfric’s vices are considerably simplified in comparison to Cassian and Alcuin. In some cases, this results in a vice whose description would be unrecognisable to either of his main source authors, as with tristitia, for example, which has an entirely different significance in Ælfric. In the case of avarice, Ælfric’s personal circumstances appear to have influenced his judgement, leading him to a marked modification of traditional teaching on almsgiving. He also used the material as a vehicle for some of his most characteristic concerns, such as the dangers of drunkenness. If we use this text to imagine what a virtuous life for a layman would be according to Ælfric, we get a picture of someone temperate in eating and, very especially, drinking, who eats only at the correct times for meals, avoids adultery and maintains fidelity and rationality in marriage, who is generous but rational in almsgiving, does not boast, is patient in conquering anger with good sense, does not sorrow for the loss of the transitory things of this world but rejoices in spiritual things, perseveres in good works, avoids vainglorious display when giving alms and who realises that he has nothing of which he can be proud but maintains instead a wise humility. Reason or discrimination (gesceadwisnyss) and wisdom are very important for this ideal layman: he is ‘se gesceadwisa mann’, who is twice said to behave ‘mid gesceade’ and once more ‘mid gesceadwisnysse’; he is also wis and behaves wislice. In combining De octo uitiis with a complementary ethical treatise, De duodecim abusiuis, also enumerative in structure, Ælfric has created a memorable compendium of moral teaching, covering the capital vices and the virtues which govern each individual’s behaviour along with the characteristic abuses or vices of different types of people or of groups within society; the combined treatise Most of the parallels in De institutis are not definite sources, but it is the only parallel that I have found for the idea that God does not judge in anger (see above, p. 100). 574 This is always the case with the virtues, as Newhauser, ‘Preaching the “Contrary Virtues”’, p. 140, points out: ‘the individual contrary virtues can be used as guides to understand the precise quality identified in the range of possible meanings of the vices they oppose’. 573

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The Vices and Virtues moves, then, from a scrutiny of each aspect of an individual’s moral life to the moral life of society at large. His two chief sources, Alcuin’s De uirtutibus and the Hiberno-Latin De duodecim abusiuis, are the two most influential early-medieval ethical treatises, made available both separately and together in the vernacular for an Anglo-Saxon audience. It is an achievement that stands beside the Carolingian treatises on vices and virtues, written for lay intellectuals such as Wido, the dedicatee of Alcuin’s De uirtutibus, or Count Heiric of Friuli, the dedicatee of Paulinus of Aquileia’s Liber exhortationis.575

575

See Noble, ‘Secular Sanctity’.

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DE DUODECIM ABUSIVIS Text and Translation

Editorial Introduction There are three manuscripts of the stand-alone text of Ælfric’s De duodecim abusiuis: P, fols. 116–21, C, pp. 296–301, and G, fols. 15–21. Of these, only G has already been edited, in the edition of the entire manuscript by Warner in Early English Homilies.1 The twelve abuses text also forms part of the composite text in R, S and Xi. P has been chosen as the base manuscript for this edition. It is the earliest manuscript of the stand-alone text, and, apart from some short omissions which can be supplied from the other manuscripts, it generally offers a very good text. P’s language is close to that of the late West-Saxon of the earliest Ælfric manuscripts.2 For this edition, P has been collated with C, G, R and S. Xi has not been collated as the extent of linguistic change in its version is too extensive. While four manuscripts have been collated with P, their variants are treated differently in the apparatus. As this volume contains a separate edition of the composite text, based on R with collations from S, only substantive variants from R and S have been noted in the apparatus here; other variants are noted in the edition of the composite text. Since the G text is easily available and since its language, reflecting twelfth-century developments, would have resulted in a long list of spelling variants and other variants resulting from changes in the inflectional system and orthographical confusion, I have also excluded all but its substantive variants from the apparatus. C variants are all given in the apparatus, apart from some very common ones which have been excluded; these are: þ/ð; i/y; -nysse (P’s form) and -nesse (C uses both forms); –nyss and –ness; single and double l (e.g. sacful/sacfull; eal/eall; nelle/nele); and -an/-on in butan/buton (both P and C use both forms). I have also excluded –ig– /–i– variations in verbal forms, as C almost always has –i– where P has –ig–, e.g. locigende P, lociende C.3 G invariably reads larðeaw for lareow; this has not been included in the variants. Corrections in C, G, R and S are not recorded. Corrections in P have been incorporated in the text and noted in the apparatus.4 In cases where the P reading does not agree with all of the other manuscripts, it has been emended. This is often a matter of minor changes in word order. So, for example, in the second abuse, P has lybban moton where all of the other manuscripts read moton lybban and P has therefore been emended. In the tenth abuse, P is the only manuscript with the wording his blod mid graman, where all the others have the order mid graman his blod and I have therefore emended P. These cases are not generally discussed in 3 1 2

4



Early English Homilies, ed. Warner, pp. 11–16. As Pope, p. 177, points out, it is ‘extremely conservative’. There are only three forms where C retains –ig– in verbs (clypige (line 74); geðafige (line 128) and wunigenne (line 155). The correction fon for the erroneous fan in line 132 has not been adopted in the text, as it is clearly not original; C, R, S and Xi read faran and G faren.

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De duodecim abusiuis the notes to the text, as many of them are very minor; only the more significant cases are discussed. Where P has been emended, either in supplying an omission or correcting a word form, the spelling in the edited text follows C.5 The aim is to produce an edition which follows the linguistic forms of P as much as possible but which represents the text as Ælfric intended it. I have followed P’s numbering of the sections of the text, but have placed the numbers at the beginning of each abuse rather than in the margin, where P places them. P was glossed by the ‘tremulous hand’ in Worcester but these glosses have not been noted here, except for two: the seoruwe gloss where the tremulous hand has supplied the missing part of the word orsorge and speculator where the tremulous hand has supplied the missing a.



5

The exception is uneawfæstlice at line 130, where the spelling is that of P’s unþeawfæstlice, without the þ.

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DE DUODECIM ABUSIVIS SECUNDUM DISPUTATIONEM CYPRIANI EPISCOPI ET MARTIRIS a 1 a

 Nu synd twelf abusiua, ðæt b synd twelf unðeawas, þa c we eow secgað on Leden and syððan on Englisc. Duodecim abusiua sunt seculi. Hoc est: sapiens sine operibus bonis; senex sine religione; adholescens d sine obedientia; diues sine elemosina; femina sine pudicitia;e dominus sine uirtute; Christianus contentiosus; pauper superbus; f rex iniquus; episcopus neglegens; gplebs sine disciplina; populus sine lege.g 2 Et sic suffocatur iustitia h Dei. Twelf unþeawas syndon on þysre worulde to hearme eallum mannum, gif hi imoton rixian,i and hi alecgað rihtwisnysse and þone geleafan amyrrað and mancynnj gebringað, gif hi moton, to k helle. Ðæt is: gif se wita byð butan godum weorcum; and gif se ealda byð l butan eawfæstnysse;m 3 n se o iunga p butan gehyrsumnysse;n and se welega butan ælmysdædum;q wif butan sydefulnysse; and hlaford butan mihte; and gif se Cristena byð sacfull; and gif þearfa byð modig; gif se cyning byð unrihtwis; and se bisceop gymeleas; þæt folc butan steore; oððe folc r butan æ. b

5

10

15

complete title in rubics P; Sermo de duodecim abusiuis secundum disputationem sancti Cypriani (in rubrics) C; De .xii. abusiuis secundum disputationem sancti cipriani martyris G b–b in capitals P, with Nu in green c þe G d adolescens C, G e pudicicia C f superbos P g–g populus sine disciplina. plebs sine lege P h iusticia C, G, S i–i rixian moton C j mancyn C k on C l om. R m eawfestnysse C n–n added in margin, with signe de renvoie R; om. S o and se R p geonga C q ælmesdædum C r om. R a–a

1



2



3



The title is slightly different in all three manuscripts, with P having the longest version as it calls Cyprian both bishop and martyr. C terms the text a sermo. This form of the title is not recorded in the apparatus of either Hellmann’s or Breen’s edition, both of which lack any manuscript witness to ‘secundum disputationem’; the manuscript unanimity on this point, coupled with its unusual nature, suggests that it may go back to Ælfric. The P reading, populus sine disciplina. plebs sine lege, is unique among the Old English manuscripts and does not agree with the Latin manuscripts either. eawfæstnysse has much the same range of meaning as Latin religio, meaning both religion and piety.

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De duodecim abusiuis DE DUODECIM ABUSIVIS SECUNDUM DISPUTATIONEM CYPRIANI EPISCOPI ET MARTIRIS Now there are twelve abusiua, that is twelve abuses, which we will say to you in Latin and afterwards in English. Duodecim abusiua sunt seculi. Hoc est: sapiens sine operibus bonis; senex sine religione; adholescens sine obedientia; diues sine elemosina; femina sine pudicitia; dominus sine uirtute; Christianus contentiosus; pauper superbus; rex iniquus; episcopus neglegens; plebs sine disciplina; populus sine lege. Et sic suffocatur iustitia dei. There are twelve abuses in this world which will harm all people, if they are allowed to rule, and they put an end to righteousness and corrupt the faith and bring mankind, if they are allowed, to hell. That is: if the wise man is without good works; and if the old man is without religion; the young man without obedience; and the rich man without almsgiving; a woman without modesty; and a lord without power; and if the Christian is contentious; and if the poor man is proud; if the king is unjust; and the bishop negligent; the people without discipline; or a people without law.

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De duodecim abusiuis

20

25

30

.i. Nu gif se wita byð butan godum weorcum, se þe oðrum mannum sceolde syllan gode bysne, hu ne byð sona his lar a þam læwedum mannum unwurð, gif he sylf nele don swa swa he him to donne tæcð? Ne byð se blareowdom þam læwedum fremful,b gif se lareowc mid weorcum towyrpð his bodunge. Eft gif se lareow dwelað, hwa byð his lareow syððan? Gif d þæt eage ablindað, ne byð seo hand locigende. .ii. Se ealda mann e þe byð butan eawfæstnysse f byð þam g treowe gelic, þe leaf byrð and blostman, and nænne wæstm ne byrð, and byð unwurð his hlaforde. Hwæt byð æfre swa stuntlic h swa þæt se ealda nelle his mod to Gode awendani mid godum ingehyde, þonne his lima him cyðað þæt he ne byð cucu lange? Iungum mannum mæg twynian hwæðer hi j moton lybban j and se ealda mæg k witan gewis him k þone deað. Ðam ealdan is to warnigenne wið ða yfelan geþohtas, for þan l ðe seo heorte ne ealdað, ne eac seo tunge, ac þas twegen dælas deriað oft m þam ealdum. Wite forði se ealda hwæt his ylde gedafenige and þa ðing forseo þe his sawle deriað.

-e inserted superscript, probably by tremulous hand P; lare C, G lare G; lareowdom fremfull þam læwedum S c lareo P d and gif R e man C f eawfestnesse C g ðan C h stunlic C i gewænden G j–j lybban moton P k–k him wytan gewis S l ðam C m of G

a

b–b

114

De duodecim abusiuis .i. Now if the wise man, who ought to give other people a good example, is without good works, how is his teaching not immediately worthless to lay people, if he himself is not willing to do as he teaches them to do? The teaching will not be beneficial to the unlearned, if the teacher overturns his preaching by his actions. Moreover, if the teacher errs, who will be his teacher afterwards? If the eye goes blind, the hand will not see. .ii. The old man who is without religion is like the tree which bears leaves and blossoms and does not bear any fruit and is worthless to its lord. What is ever so foolish as that the old man should not wish to turn his spirit to God with a good intention, when his limbs show him that he will not be alive for long? It can be a matter of uncertainty for young people whether they may live but the old man can know that death is certain for him. The old man must guard against evil thoughts, because the heart does not grow old or the tongue either, but these two parts often harm the old. Let the old man know therefore what may be appropriate for his old age and let him abandon those things which harm his soul.

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.iii. Se þridda unþeaw is on þyssere a worulde þæt se b iunga man beo butan gehyrsumnysse. Unwyrðe c byð se on ylde þæt him oðre men þenion, se ðe on iugoðe nele his yldrum gehyrsumian. Ure hælend on his iugoðe wæs d gehyrsum e his magum and his heofonlican fæder hef gehyrsumode oð g deað. Swa swa þam ealdan gedafeniað h dugende þeawas and igeripod syfernyss,i 4 swa gerist þam iungan þæt he hæbbe gehyrsumnysse and underþeodnysse. Godes æ bytt j eac þæt man arwurðige symle his fæder and moder k mid mycelre underþeodnysse and, gif he hi wyrigeð,l he byð wyrðe m deaðes.5

c d e f g h

ðisre C om. S unwurðe C wes C gyrsum R om. S oþæt S geðafniað C i–i R, S; geripod syfernys C; geripode syfernysse P, G j bit C k modor C; his modor S l wyrigð C m wurðe C a

b

4



5



P has geripode syfernysse here where C, R and S have forms without –e endings; all other instances of a nominative in –nys/-nyss in P are endingless and therefore this form has been emended. Matt. XV.4 (for the commandment, see also Deut. V.16 and Eph. VI.2)

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De duodecim abusiuis .iii. The third abuse in this world is that the young man be without obedience. He who in youth is unwilling to obey his elders will be unworthy in his old age of being served by other people. Our Saviour in his youth was obedient to his parents and he obeyed his heavenly father until death. Just as worthy behaviour and mature sobriety befit the old, so it is fitting for the young man that he have obedience and submission. God’s law commands also that one should always honour his father and mother with great submissiveness and, if one should curse them, he will be worthy of death.

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45

50

.iiii.  Se feorða unþeaw is þæt se welega a man beo butan ælmysdædum b and bediglige his feoh and geornlice healde him to helle wite. Ungesælig byð se gitsere þe ðurh his gesælða losað and for ðam gewitendlicum þingum forwyrð a on ecnysse; and gesælige c beoð symle þa mildheortan, for þan d ðe hi gemetað þa mildheortnysse e eft.6 Se þe dælð f ælmyssan g for his Drihtnes lufon, se behyt h his goldhord on heofonan rice,7 þær nan sceaða ne mæg his maðmas i forstelan,8 ac hi beoð be hundfealdum gehealdene him ðær. On manegum wisum j man mæg wyrcan k ælmissan:l on æte and on wæte and on gewædum eac; and on cumlyðnysse, þæt man cuman underfo; and gif man seocne geneosað; oððe sarigne m gefrefrað;n oððe blindne læt;o oððe byrð wanhalne; oððe unhalne p gelacnað, gif he læcedom can; oððe q gif he q ræd tæcð þamr ðe rædes behofað; oððe gif he miltsað s þam men þe him t abealh;u oððe gif he vgehergodne of hæftnede gedeð; oððe gif he v 9 forðfarenne ferað to byrgenne.w Eal þis byð ælmysse,x and eac þæt man beswinge þone stuntan y for steore,z se þe styran sceal, for þan ðe he deð mildheortnysse gif

c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u

weliga C ælmesdædum C gesælig C þam C miltheortnysse C dealð C ælmessan C behydt C madmas C þingen G wyrcean C ælmyssam C sarine C frefrað R lædt C wanhale G om. G þan C mildsað C hine G abeah P v–v om. C apart from subpuncted gew byrigenne C x ælmyssa C y stundan C z steoræ C a

b

8 9 6 7

Matt. V.7. cf. Matt. XIX.21. cf. Matt. VI.20/Luke XII.33. ‘gehergodne of hæftnede gedeð; oððe gif he’: Omitted from C because of eye-skip from one gif he to the next.

118

De duodecim abusiuis .iv. The fourth abuse is that the rich man should be without almsgiving and should hide his money and should diligently keep it for himself as a torment in hell. Accursed is the miser who is lost by reason of his prosperity and perishes for all eternity because of these transitory things and blessed are the merciful always, because they shall find mercy in return. He who distributes alms for love of his Lord hides his treasure in the kingdom of heaven, where no thief can steal his treasures, but they will be kept a hundredfold for him there. One can give alms in many ways: in food and drink and in clothing also; and in hospitality, in that one takes in strangers; and if one visits a sick person; or comforts a sorrowful one; or guides a blind person; or carries an infirm person; or heals a sick person, if one is skilled in healing; or if one gives advice to someone who is in need of advice; or if one pardons someone who offended one; or if one releases a captive from captivity; or if one conveys a dead person to burial. All this is almsgiving, and also that the one whose duty is to discipline should flog the foolish man for

119

De duodecim abusiuis 55

60

65

he þone man gerihtlæcð.a Ne licge b on þinum horde þæt þam c hafenleasan mæg d fremian to bigwiste, for þan ðe þu ne brucst e ana þinra f welena, þeah g þu hi h wolice healde. Ðu gaderast i ma j and ma, and men cwelað hungre,k and þine welan forrotiað ætforan l þinum eagum. Doð swa swa Drihten cwæð: Dælað m ælmyssan and ealle þing eow beoð n clæne.10 Ðis he cwæð on his godspelle. .v.  Se fifta unþeaw is þæt wif beo unsideful. Unsidefulnys o byð sceamu for worulde, and þæt unsidefulle wif byð unwurð on life and eft æfter life nan edlean næfð æt Gode. Wisdom gerist werum and wifum sidefulnyss,p for þan ðe q seo sydefulnys r gescylt hi wið unþeawas. Ðær þær seo sydefulnys byð, þær byð eac seo s clænnys; and þæt sidefulle wif onscunað t gitsunge and ceaste ne astyrað, ac gestilð graman and forsyhð galnysse and grædignysse gemetegað. Heo hi warnað wið druncennysse and wordlunga ne lufað. Witodlice seo u sidefulnyss gewilt ealle unþeawas and gode þeawas heo hylt,v þe w Gode liciað and mannum.

c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w a

b

rihtlæcð R licgæ C ðan C mæge R, S brycst C þinre C þeah ðe P om. R gegaderast C followed by erasure of three letters P on hungre R (`on´ in margin by correcting hand), S ætforen C dæled C bið C unseodefull G om. R , which has an erasure of c. eleven letters here; sidefulnys C om. R, G sidefulnyss C om. G onscunæð C se R healt C þæt S

Luke XI.41.

10

120

De duodecim abusiuis the sake of discipline, because he practises mercy if he corrects the man. Do not let lying in your treasury that which could be of use to the needy as sustenance, because you alone will not enjoy your riches, though you may hold them wrongly. You gather more and more and men die of hunger and your riches rot in front of your eyes. Do as the Lord said: Give alms and all things will be clean for you. He said this in his gospel. .v. The fifth abuse is that a woman be immodest. Immodesty is a disgrace in the eyes of the world and the immodest woman is worthless in her lifetime and then after her lifetime she will have no reward from God. Wisdom is fitting for men and modesty for women, because modesty protects them against vices. Where there is modesty, there is purity also; and the modest woman rejects avarice with abhorrence and does not stir up strife, but calms anger and scorns lust and restrains greed. She guards herself against drunkenness and does not love idle talk. Truly modesty has power over all abuses and preserves good habits, which please God and men.

121

De duodecim abusiuis

70

75

.vi.  Se a 11 syxta unðeaw is þæt se, þe to hlaforde byð b gesett,c þæt he d for modleaste ne mage e his mannum don steore, ac byð him f swa mihtleas on his modes strece þæt he his underþeoddan egsian ne dear, ne to nanum wisdome hi g gewissian nele. Sume hlafordas h genealæcað þurh heora hlafordscipe to Gode,h swa swa i Moyses se arwurða, þe to þam Ælmihtigan spræc, and sume on heora anwealde j þone Ælmihtigan gremiað,k swa swa Sawul dyde, ðe forseah l Godes hæse. Se hlaford sceal beon liðe m þam godum and egeful þam n dysegum, þæt he heora o dysig alecge, and he sceal beon wordfæst and witan hwæt he clypige. Hine man sceal lufian for his liðnysse and þa dysegan p sceolon ondrædan hine q symle, elles ne byð his gefadung r ne fæst ne langsum. He sceal beon swa geworht þæt him man s t wið mote t sprecan and, swa hwæt swa he u wrece, wrece u for rihtwisnysse, na for his hagenum v yrre, ac for Godes ege. Hit is awriten w on bocum þæt se byð ealswa scyldig se x þe þæt y yfel geþafað z swa swa aa se ab þe hit deð,12 gif c d e f g a

b

h–h

j k l m n o p q r s t–t



i

u–u

w x y z aa ab v



seo C, R beo G geset C om. G mæge C he G he G genealæceað þurh hira hlafordscipe to gode C þurh heora hlafordscipe genealæcað godæ S om. R anweardæ C græmiað C foseah R liða C þan C hira C dysegan him S om. S gefaðung C om. G mote wið R, S sprece sprece C agenum C awriton C; gewriten G om. C om. R geðafeð C om. C þe R

There is an odd agreement in error here between C, a copy of the stand-alone text, and R, a composite text, in that both have seo rather than se. Given that every abuse from the third to the twelfth begins in the same way and that the gender of the demonstrative is correct in all of the manuscripts in every other case, this is hard to explain. Agreement in error between C and R is rare. 12 Rom. I.32. 11

122

De duodecim abusiuis .vi. The sixth abuse is that he who is appointed as lord cannot, because of lack of mental resolution, correct his men but his firmness of mind is so weak that he does not dare to instil fear into those subject to him or does is he willing to direct them to any wisdom. Some lords draw near to God by means of their lordship, like the venerable Moses who spoke to the Almighty, and some in their power anger the Almighty, as did Saul who scorned the Lord’s command. The lord must be gentle to the good and terrifying to the foolish, so that he may put an end to their folly, and he must be true to his word and know what he says. He must be loved for his gentleness and the foolish must fear him always, otherwise his rule will be neither secure nor long-lasting. He must be so disposed that one may speak with him and whatever he may punish, let him punish for the sake of justice, not because of his own anger but for fear of God. It is written in books that he who consents to evil is just as guilty as he who does it, if he can remedy it and

123

De duodecim abusiuis 80

85

90

95

he hit gebetan mæg and embe a þa bote ne hogað. He sceal hine geþeodan mid þeawfæstnysse b to Gode, for þan ðe he nane mihte habban ne mæg to rihte butan Godes fylste, swa swa God c sylf cwæð.13 Se hlaford sceal hogian þæt he hæbbe Godes fultum d and he ortruwian ne sceal ahwar e be Godes fultume. Gif God byð his gefylsta, ne byð his miht forsewen, for þan f ðe nan miht nis butan of Gode,14 se þe ahefð g of meoxe þone man þe he h wyle, i þeah ðe he i wædla wære,j and wyrcð hine to ealdre.15 He awyrpð þa modigan of heora k mihtesetle l and ahefð þa eadmodan, þæt eall middaneard beo Gode underþeod and beþurfe his wuldres.16 .vii.  Se seofoða unþeaw is þæt se Cristena man beo sacful. Of Cristes naman is Cristianus gecweden,m þæt is, se Cristena man þe on Criste is gefullod.n Gif he þonne byð sacful, ne byð he soðlice Cristen. Nis nan man rihtlice o Cristen, buton se þe Criste geefenlæcð. Crist sylf nolde flitan, swa swa his fæder cwæð be him: Efne her is min cild þe me is swyðe leof and ic sette minne gast soðlice ofer hine. Ne flit he mid ceaste, ne sace ne p astyrað, ne on strætum ne gehyrð ænig mann q his stemne.r  17 He cwæð eac on his godspelle þæt þa beoð Godes bearn þa s ðe gesibsume beoð 18 and sace ne astyriað. Swa swa þa gesibsuman t  beoð soðlice Godes bearn,t swa beoð eac þa sacfullan soðlice u deofles bearn.19 Ealle we clypiað to Gode and cweþað: Pater noster, þu ure fæder ðe eart on heofonum;20 ac we ne magon habban þone heofonlican eðel, buton we fram eallum sacum v orsorge 21 beon.v c d e f g h

embæ C þeawfestnysse C crist C fylst G ahwær C ðam C ahæfð P, with æ altered to e by erasure om. C i–i þeah ðe P; þeh he G j wære ær S k hyre C l mihtæsetle C; heahsetle S m gehaten G n gefulled C o soþlice S, G p he C q man C r stæmne C s om. C t–t soðlice godes bearn byð G u om. C, R v–v beon or at the end of a line and ge- at the beginning of the next P, with seoruwe inserted in margin by tremulous hand, after or; beon orsorhge S a

b

15 16 17 18 13 14

cf. John XV.5. Rom. XIII.1. cf. 1 Sam. II.8/Ps. CXII.7–8. Luke I. 52 and Rom. III.19 and 23. Matt. XII.18–19 (cf. Is LII.1–2). Matt. V.9.

cf. 1 John III.10. Matt. VI.9. 21 Franzen, The Tremulous Hand, p. 48, points out that the tremulous hand must have been consulting another copy of the text in order to be able to supply seoruwe reading in P. This could 19 20

124

De duodecim abusiuis does not busy himself about the remedy. He must join himself to God by adhering to good behaviour because he cannot have any power to do what is right without the help of God, as God himself said. The lord must take care that he have God’s help and he must not despair in any way about God’s help. If God is his helper, his power will not be despised, because there is no power except from God, who raises up from dung whatever man he wishes, even if he were a beggar, and makes him a ruler. He casts down the mighty from their thrones and exalts the humble, so that all the earth may be subject to God and be in need of his glory. .vii. The seventh abuse is that the Christian man be contentious. A Christian is called after Christ’s name, that is, the Christian man who is baptised in Christ. Then if he is contentious, he is not truly a Christian. No man is rightly a Christian except he who emulates Christ. Christ himself was not accustomed to be quarrelsome, as his father said about him: Behold here is my child who is very dear to me and truly I will place my spirit upon him. He will not dispute in a quarrelsome way nor stir up contention nor will any person hear his voice on the streets. He said also in his gospel that they are the children of God who are peaceful and do not stir up contention. Just as the peaceful are truly the children of God, so the contentious are truly the children of the devil. We all call to God and say: Pater noster, you, our father, who art in heaven; but we cannot have the heavenly homeland unless we be free from all contention.

have been Hatton 116, also at Worcester in this period and also glossed by the tremulous hand. As she points out: ‘The best evidence that the scribe consulted another copy of a text while glossing MS E [Hatton 115] is found on f. 119 where the text reads: ‘buton we fram eallum sacum or | gebeon’; compare F [Hatton 116] 341 ‘butan we fram eallum sacum beon or | sorhge’. Clearly the MS E scribe dropped the rest of orsorhge at the end of the line. The M state has written ‘seorwe’ in the margin beside ‘or’, correcting the error. It seems unlikely that he could have recovered the reading without recourse to another copy of the text.’

125

De duodecim abusiuis 100

105

110

.viii.  Se eahteoða a unðeaw is þæt se þearfa beo modig. Manig b man næfð æhta, and hæfð modignysse swaþeah, and is c earm for worulde and ungesælig for Gode þonne he arærð his mod mid modignysse dongean God, and nele on his yrmðe eadmodnysse d healdan. Crist cwæð on his godspelle be ðam gastlicum e þearfum: Beati pauperes spiritu, quoniam ipsorum est regnum celorum.22 Eadige f synd g þa ðearfan h þa ðe h on gaste synd i þearfan, for þan ðe him byð forgifen heofonan rices myrhð. Ða beoð þearfan on gaste j þa ðe j for Godes lufan beoð eadmode, for þan k ðe þæs modes eadmodnys mæg begitan Godes rice raþor l þonne seo m hafenleast þe of hynðum becymð. Witodlice þa rican n þe rihtlice lybbað magon beon getealde betwux Godes þearfum, gif hi eadmodnysse habbað and oferflowednysse forlætað, swa swa Dauid cyning cwæþ be him sylfum: Ego uero egenus et pauper sum; Deus adiuua o me.23 Ic eom wædla and þearfa; God fylst þu me. Se modiga þearfa, for his modes upahefednysse,p is to rican geteald rihtlice on bocum; and se eadmoda rica,q þeah ðe r he sæhta hæbbe,s mæg beon Godes þearfa, gif he Gode gecwemð. c a

b

d–d

f g



e

h–h





i

l m n o p q r s–s j–j k

eahtoða C mænig C byð P om. C gastlice C eadiga C beoð P þe C; þa þa G syndon C þa þa G ðam C hwæðer C se G racan altered to rican by erasure P adiuuat P upahæfednysse C; upahafennysse G rice C om. C, G habbe æhte G

Matt. V.3. Ps. LXX.6.

22 23

126

De duodecim abusiuis .viii. The eighth abuse is that the poor man be proud. Many a person does not have possessions, and nevertheless has pride, and he is poor in the eyes of the world and accursed in the eyes of God when he raises up his spirit with pride against God and does not wish to preserve humility in his poverty. Christ said in his gospel concerning the poor in spirit: Beati pauperes spiritu, quoniam ipsorum est regnum celorum. Blessed are the poor who are poor in spirit, because the joy of the kingdom of heaven will be given to them. They who are humble for the love of God are the poor in spirit, because humility of spirit can obtain the kingdom of God more quickly than the poverty that comes from loss. Indeed the rich who live justly can be counted among God’s poor, if they have humility and abstain from excess, as King David said about himself: Ego uero egenus et pauper sum; Deus adiuua me. I am needy and a pauper; help me, God. The proud poor man, because of his spirit’s arrogance, is rightly considered as a rich man in books and the humble rich man, although he may have possessions, can be God’s pauper, if he pleases God.

127

De duodecim abusiuis 115

120

125

.ix.  Se nigoða unþeaw is þæt se cyning beo unrihtwis. Se cyning byð gecoren a to þam þe him cyð his nama. Rex we cweþað b cyning, þæt is gecweden c wissigend,d e for þan ðe he sceal wissian e mid wisdome his folc and unriht alecgan and þone geleafan aræran. Ðonne f byð hit earmlic gif he byð unrihtwis, for þan g ðe he ne gerihtlæcð h nænne,i gif he unrihtwis byð sylf.j Ðæs cyninges k rihtwisnys arærð his cynesetl, and þæs folces steore gestaðelað his soðfæstnys.l Ðæt is cyninges rihtwisnys m þæt he mid riccetere ne ofsitte ne earmne n ne eadigne,o ac ælcum deme riht. He sceal beon bewerigend p wydewena and steopbearna,q and stala alecgan, and forliger r gewitnian, and þa arleasan adræfan of his earde mid ealle, wiccecræft alecgan s and wigelunga t ne gyman. Witan him sceolon rædan and he ne sceal beon weamod. Godes mynstra u 24 he sceal mundian æfre, and fedan þearfan, and fæstlice v winnan wið onsigendne w here, x and healdan his eðel.x He sceal soðfæste men settan him to gerefan,y and for Gode lybban his lif rihtlice, and beon z on earfoðnysse anræde z and eadmod on stilnysse, and his ofspringe ne geðafige þæt hi arlease beon. He sceal hine gebiddan on asettum aa tidum and ær c d

gecorenan C cweðeð C gecweðen C wissiend C e–e om. C f þone C; and þonne R g ðam C h rihtlæceð G i om. G j him sylf S k cuninges C l soðfestnyss C m rihtwisnyss C n armne C o eadine C p bewerige`n´d P q steopcilda R; steopcildena G r forligr C s alecgean C t wiglunge C u mynstru C; mynster G v fæslice C w onsigendum C x–x om. P y gerefum C z–z earfoð on ræde G aa gesetten G a

b

24

The word mynster almost always means monastery in Ælfric but here it translates ecclesias and there are some other instances of it meaning ‘church, minister’ (e.g. Pope 30, line 95) elsewhere in Ælfric’s work.

128

De duodecim abusiuis .ix. The ninth abuse is that the king be unjust. The king is chosen for what his name reveals to him. We call the king rex, that is interpreted ruler, because he must rule his people with wisdom and put an end to injustice and promote the faith. Therefore it is a wretched thing if he is unjust, because he will not correct anyone, if he is unjust himself. The king’s justice exalts his throne and his truth strengthens his rule of the people. This is a king’s justice that he should oppress neither the poor man nor the wealthy one with his power but judge each one justly. He must be a defender of widows and stepchildren and put an end to theft and punish adultery and entirely drive out the impious from his country, suppress witchcraft and not heed auguries. Wise men must advise him and he must not be prone to anger. He must always protect God’s churches and feed the poor and fight resolutely against an attacking army and guard his country. He must appoint honest men as his reeves and live his life justly for the sake of God and be resolute in times of difficulty and humble in times of peace and he must not permit his offspring to be impious. He must pray at set times and not partake of

129

De duodecim abusiuis 130

135

mæltiman a metes ne onbyrigan;b for þan c ðe hit is awriten þæt wa þære leode,d þær se cyning e byð cild and þær þa ealdormen etað on ærnemerigen f uneawfæstlice.g 25 Gif se cyning wyle mid carfulnysse healdan þas h foresædan beboda, þonne i byð his rice gesundful on life and æfter life he mot j faran k 26 to þam ecan l 27 for his arfæstnysse.m Gif he þonne forsyhð þas gesetnyssa n and lare, þonne byð his o eard p geyrmed q foroft, ægðer ge on heregunge r ge on hungre, ge on cwealme ge on ungewederum,s ge on wildeorum.t Wyte eac se cyning hu hit is gecweden on bocum, gif he rihtwisnysse ne hylt,u þæt, swa v swa he ahafen is on his cynesetle toforan oðrum mannum, swa he byð eft w genyðerod on þam nyðemystum witum, under þam x unrihtwisum þe he unrædlice y 28 ær z geheold. c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z a

b

mæltidum R, C onbyrge C; abitan R; abyrgean S ðam C þeode G cinge C ærnemorgen C unþeawfæstlice P; uneawfestlice C; unæwfæstlice S þa`s´ P; þa G þonum C mod C f[a]`o´n P ecean life C eaffoðnysse C; earfoðnysse G gesetnysse C om. P, S earð C gehyrmed C; gehearemed G hergunge C wederen G wilde deorum S; wild deoran G healt C followed by erasure, probably of swa P om. G ðan C unrihtlice P; om. S om. R

Ecc. X.16. P’s reading here, unþeawfæstlice, does not agree with any other manuscript; they all (apart from Xi, which reads unlaheliche) read –eaw- rather than –þeaw- for the second syllable. This idea of eating before the proper time is a very common one in Anglo-Saxon England and is discussed by Frank in ‘Old English Æræt: “Too Much” or “Too Soon”?’. 26 The P scribe erroneously wrote fan here, where the other manuscripts (including all manuscripts of the composite text) have faran, and the attempts to correct it, by subpuncting a and adding a superscript o, show that the reading caused unease. 27 C here has supplied life but ecan more probably refers to ric than lif in this sentence, given the closeness to the Latin: ‘Haec regni prosperitatem in praesenti faciunt et regem ad caelestia regna meliora perducunt.’ (Hellmann, p. 52, lines 7–8: ‘These things create the kingdom’s prosperity in the present and lead the king to the better celestial kingdom’ (trans. Throop, Pseudo-Cyprian, p. 128).) 28 P is the only manuscript to read unrihtlice; C, G and R read unraedlice, while Xi has þan unrihtwise deoule here. Given that the P scribe is inclined to make small changes (see above, p. 4) and that both 25

130

De duodecim abusiuis food before mealtimes, because it is written that woe to the people whose king is a child and whose chief officers eat in the early morning impiously. If the king is willing to keep the aforementioned commands with care then his kingdom will be prosperous in his lifetime and after his lifetime he may go to the everlasting [kingdom] because of his piety. If he neglects these decrees and teachings then his country will very often be afflicted both by attack and by hunger, by pestilence and bad weather and wild animals. Let the king know also how it is said in books that, if he does not uphold justice, just as he is elevated on the throne above other people, so afterwards he will be humiliated in the lowest punishments beneath those unjust people whom he had ill-advisedly governed.

the other manuscripts of the stand-alone text and R agree on unraedlice, I have adopted it here, even though the Latin reads ‘si iustitiam non fecerit’.

131

De duodecim abusiuis 140

145

150

.x. Se teoða unþeaw is þæt se a biscop beo gymeleas.b Episcopus is Grecisc nama, þæt is on Leden speculator c and on Englisc d sceawere, for þan ðe he is geset to þam e þæt he ofersceawian sceole mid his gymene þa læwedan, swa swa God sylf cwæþ to Ezechiele 29 þam witegan:e Speculatorem dedi te domui Israhel.f Ic þe gesette to sceawere soðlice minum folce,g Israheles hirede, þæt þu gehyre mine word and of minum muðe mine spræce him cyðe. Gif þu þam h arleasan nelt his arleasnysse secgan,i þonne swylt se arleasa on his arleasnysse and ic ofgange j æt þe k mid graman his blod.k Gif þu þonne l warnast þone arleasan wer and he nelle m gecyrran fram his synnum þurh þe, he swylt on his unrihtwisnysse and þin sawul n byð alysed.30 Gif o se bisceop byð gymeleas, þonne p he Godes bydel is and to lareowe geset þam q læwedum r folce, þonne s losiað feala t sawla and he sylf forð mid, for his gymeleaste. Ac þæt folc byð gesælig u þurh snoterne v bisceop þe him segð Godes lare and hylt w hi under Gode, swa swa god hyrde, þæt hi beon gehealdene x and he hæbbe þa mede.

om. C gyme`le´as P specul`a´tor P, with a probably by tremulous hand ænglisc C e–e `þæt he ofersceawian sceole mid his gymene þa læwedan, swa swa God sylf cwæþ to þam´ witegan ezechile (all but last two words inserted in margin) P f Israhel þæt is G g feolce C h ðan C i asecgen G j ofga G k–k his blod mid graman P l þonum C m nelle þeah C n sawle C o gif þonne P p þonum C q þan C r lewedan C s þonum C t fela C u gesæli C v snotorne C w healt C x gehealden P c d a

b

P’s reading here, ‘to þam witegan ezechile’, is a result of its initial omission of ‘þæt he ofersceawian sceole mid his gymene þa læwedan, swa swa God sylf cwæþ to’. Having omitted the intervening passage, the scribe was left with þam and then rewrote the phrase to suit this, rather than copying ‘Ezechiele þam witegan’. As Ælfric’s spelling is normally Ezechiele, I have emended the P spelling, which, uniquely among all the manuscripts and uniquely in Old English, omits an –e. 30 Ez. XXXIII.7–9. 29

132

De duodecim abusiuis .x. The tenth abuse is that the bishop be negligent. Episcopus is the Greek name, which is speculator in Latin and watchman in English, because he is appointed in order that he should watch over the lay people with his care, as God himself said to the prophet Ezekiel: Speculatorem dedi te domui Israel. Truly I have appointed you a watchman for my people, the house of Israel, so that you may hear my words and from my mouth make my speech known to them. If you are not willing to tell the wicked man his wickedness, then the wicked man will die in his wickedness and I will require his blood from you in anger. But if you warn the wicked man and if he be unwilling to turn from his sins because of you, he will die in his unrighteousness and your soul will be saved. If the bishop is negligent, when he is God’s messenger and appointed as a teacher for the lay people, then many souls will be lost and he himself along with them, because of his negligence. But the people will be blessed by means of a wise bishop who will tell them God’s teaching and will protect them under God, as a good shepherd, so that they may be saved and he may have the reward.

133

De duodecim abusiuis

155

160

.xi. Se endlyfta unþeaw is þæt folc beo butan a steore. Feala b beoð stuntnyssa c þær þær d nan steor ne byð and þær þæt dysig byð orsorh and þæt gedwyld rixað; þær byð e yfel to wunigenne ænigum wisan men. Be ðam cwæð se sealmwyrhta, þysum wordum clypigende: Adprehendite f disciplinam ne quando irascatur Dominus et pereatis de uia g iusta. Ðæt is: Underfoð steore þy h læs ðe God yrsige wið eow and ge þonne losian of þam i rihtan wege.31 Eac Paulus se apostol cwæð on his pistole: Þurhwuniað on steore and ge witodlice beoð swylce forligras gif ge lybbað butan j steore.32 Eft se witega Isaias be ðam k ylcan cwæð: Quiescite agere peruerse, discite bene facere. Geswicað þwyrlicra dæda and leorniað god to wyrcenne.l 33 Dauid cwæð eac: Declina a malo et fac bonum. Buh fram yfele and do god.34 Gif þu unscæððig m sy, gescyld þe wið yfel and, gif ðu scæððig n wære, gewend o þe fram yfele, ðy p læs þe ðu steorleas losige on ende.

c d e f g h i j k l m n o p

wiðutan C fela C stundnyssa C om. R beoð C apprehendite C om. S þe C, G ðan C abuten G ðan C done G unsceaði C sceaði C gewænd C þe C

33 34

Ps. II.12. Hebr. XII.7–8. Is. I.16–17. Ps. XXXVI.27.

a

b

31 32

134

De duodecim abusiuis .xi. The eleventh abuse is that a people be without discipline. Many are the follies where there is no discipline and where the foolish man is secure and where error reigns; it is evil for any wise man to live there. The psalmist spoke concerning this, calling out these words: Adprehendite disciplinam ne quando irascatur dominus et pereatis de uia iusta. That is: Receive discipline, lest God become angry with you and you be lost away from the just way. Also Paul the apostle said in his epistle: Persevere in discipline but truly you will be like bastards if you live without discipline. Again the prophet Isaiah said concerning the same thing: Quiescite agere peruerse, discite bene facere. Cease from perverse deeds and learn to do good. David said also: Declina a malo et fac bonum. Turn away from evil and do good. If you be innocent, protect yourself against evil and, if you were guilty, turn away from evil, lest in the end you perish without discipline.

135

De duodecim abusiuis 165

170

175

180

.xii. Se twelfta unðeaw is þæt folc beo butan æ. We ne moton a nu healdan a Moyses æ on þa ealdan wisan æfter ures Hælendes tocyme; ac we sceolon gefyllan, b swa swa b we fyrmest c magon, þæs Hælendes d beboda e and þa beoð us for æ,e for þan ðe we beoð butan him gif we his beboda ne healdað.f Manega wegas synd,g swa swa se wisdom clypað, þe mannum þincað rihte,h ac hi swaþeah gelædað to deaðe on ende þa ðe i him dyslice folgiað.35 Se ðe Godes æ forlæt, seo þe is ure weg, se sceal mislice faran on manegum gedwyldum. Crist sylf is se weg, swa swa he j sæde be him: Ego sum uia et  k ueritas et uita. Ic sylf eom se weg and soðfæstnys and lif. lNan man ne mæg l becuman to minum heofonlican m fæder buton þurh me.n 36 Ac we beoð þurh Crist to heofonum gebrohte, gif we his bigengas healdað.o Ða þe p buton Godes æ and Godes gesetnyssum q lybbað, þa beoð rbuton Gode æfre r wunigende. Drihten sylf behet þis þam s ðe healdað t his beboda: Ecce ego uobiscum sum omnibus diebus usque ad consummationem saeculi. Ic sylf beo mid eow soðlice eallum dagum oð u geendunge ðyssere v worulde.37 Se hælend us gewissige to his willan w symle, þæt ure sawla x moton siþian eft to him æfter urum life to þam ecan y life, þæt he ure sawla underfo þe hi z asende to þam lichaman. Sy him a wuldor and wurðmynt.aa AMEN.ab healdan nu S swa C, R, S formest C hælendas C e–e om. C f healdeð C g syndan C h rihta C i þa G j he sylf P k om. C, S l–l ne mæg nan man P m heofonlicum C n me preceded by erasure of one letter P o gehealdaþ S p þa G q gesetnysse P r–r æfre buton Gode P s þan C t healdeð C u oððe C, G v ðisre C w wille C x sawle C y ecean C z hi ær S; he G aa wurðment C ab rubricated, P a–a

c d b

Prov. XVI.25/XIV.12. John XIV.6. 37 Matt. XXVIII.20. 35 36

136

De duodecim abusiuis .xii. The twelfth abuse is that the people be without law. We may not now, after the coming of the Saviour, observe Moses’s law in the old manner, but we must fulfil, as much as we can, the commands of the Saviour and they are the law for us, because we will be without him if we do not keep his commands. There are many ways, as wisdom says, which seem right to people, but nevertheless they lead those who foolishly follow them to death in the end. He who abandons God’s law, which is our way, must travel aimlessly among many errors. Christ himself is the way, as he himself said about himself: Ego sum uia et ueritas et uita. I myself am the way and the truth and the life. No person can come to my heavenly father except through me. But we will be brought to heaven through Christ if we faithfully observe worship of him. Those who live without God’s law and God’s decrees will always remain without God. The Lord himself promised this to those who observe his commands: Ecce ego uobiscum sum omnibus diebus usque ad consummationem saeculi. Truly I myself will be with you all the days until the end of this world. May the Saviour guide us always in accordance to his will so that our souls may go back to him after our life to the eternal life, so that he who sent them to our bodies may receive our souls. To him be glory and honour always. Amen.

137

DE OCTO VITIIS ET DE DUODECIM ABUSIVIS GRADUS Text and Translation

Editorial Introduction There are three manuscripts of the composite text which adds De duodecim abusiuis to the account of the eight vices and virtues: R, pp. 73–88, S, pp. 329–47, and Xi, fols. 37v–45r. R and Xi have already been edited by Morris1 and Xi again in Sarah O’Brien’s unpublished thesis. These three manuscripts are the only ones to have the opening paragraph, added when the composite text was put together.2 In addition to this, we have four further manuscripts of the vices and virtues section of the text: W, C and L all include this as part of the Sermo de memoria Sanctorum, or LS xvi, and G has the same material arranged as two separate texts, De .VIII. principalibus uiciis and De .VIII. uirtutibus. The second part of the text, on the twelve abuses, can be found as a separate text in P, C and G. The text, therefore, presents challenges for the editor. R, the earliest manuscript of the composite text, has been chosen as the base text for this edition. As with the text of the stand-alone version, the other manuscripts which contain all or part of the text are treated differently in the apparatus. Full variants, apart from some excluded ones, listed below, are given from S. Only substantive variants are given from P (for the abuses only), C (for the vices and virtues and abuses, which are in two separate texts in C), G (for the vices and virtues and abuses, which are presented as three separate texts in G), W (for the vices and virtues only) and L (for the vices and virtues only). Xi’s variants have been excluded from the apparatus. Xi is a very late version of the text and the number of variants would make the apparatus cumbersome to use, as it also re-writes the text to a greater degree than other manuscripts.3 The variants from S which have been excluded from the apparatus are: þ/ð; i/y; ælmyssan / ælmessan; cwæð/cweð; good/god;4 hwæt/hwet; leahter/leahtor; man/mann; men/ menn; sceal/sceall; variations in the suffixes -nysse/nesse; -nyss/-ness; -nys/-nes. R’s text has been carefully corrected by a contemporary corrector and these corrections have generally been incorporated in the text; they are all noted in the apparatus. Corrections in the other manuscripts have not generally been noted.5 1 2



3



4



5



Morris, Old English Homilies, pp. 296–304 (R) and pp. 107–19 (Xi). Parts of this paragraph are paralleled in LS i and LS xiv but I have not included these brief parallels in the apparatus. Xi in this respect is different from G; although also a late text, G has not been extensively rewritten in the way that Xi has. As Pope, p. 178, pointed out, a feature of R’s orthography is ‘its fondness for doubling the o in good to distinguish it from God.’ R only twice has god in the sense of ‘good’ and in one of these instances there is an erasure of a letter in the word. S has the spelling good twice. In W, for example, contemporary or near-contemporary hands have made a number of independent alterations, such as adding superscript þæt is before þonne in the fifth vice ‘þæt is ðissere worulde unrotnyss,  ̀ þæt is ́  þonne se mann geunrotsað’ or adding is þæt se superscript to give ‘þæt ̀is þæt se ́ man for his synnum geunrotsige’, also in the fifth vice (LS xvi, line 290 and 294). Such superscript additions are incorporated by Skeat in his text, but are not supported by any of the other manuscripts. They have been excluded from the apparatus here.

140

De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus My aim here is to produce an edition which follows the linguistic forms of R but whose readings represent the common ancestor of R and S. Pope pointed to how the R scribe ‘introduces little deviations’ in the text of both De octo uitiis and De auguriis.6 I have attempted to restore the original readings in these cases. So, where S and the other manuscripts of the vices and virtues or of the abuses sections of the text agree against R, R has been emended. This is on the assumption that, if the common ancestor of R and S had a reading that was different from the P tradition, then it would be unlikely that S would revert to the P tradition independently. I have, therefore, assumed that in these cases S represents the common ancestor; where a variant R reading is given in the apparatus, this means that all of the other manuscripts containing this part of the text agree against R. In a few cases, R and S agree on a reading against the other manuscripts and this reading has been retained in the edited text. It is possible, in some cases, that this was not the reading of the archetype of the composite text. In the third vice, for example, R and S read gemacað where W, C, G and L read macað; Xi agrees with W, C, G and L, suggesting that the composite text may also have originally read macað. These instances are few and the differences minor, however. The numbering of the paragraphs follows the practice in R, which begins its numbering afresh for the vices, virtues and abuses. R, and S have both been extensively glossed by the tremulous hand of Worcester but these glosses have not been noted here. Some earlier vernacular glosses have, however, been included in the apparatus.



6

Pope, p. 68.

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De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus DE OCTO VITIIS ET DE DUODECIM ABUSIVIS GRADUS a 1

5

10

Omnia nimia nocent et temperantia mater uirtutum dicitur. Þæt is b on Englisc: Ealle oferdone þingc c deriað and seo gemetegung is ealra mægna d modor.2 Se oferlyfa e on æte and on wæte deð þone man unhalne, and his sawle f Gode læðetteð,g swa swa h ure Drihten on his godspelle cwæð.3 Eft i þær j togeanes, ungemetgod k fæsten and to mycel forhæfdnyss l on æte and on wæte deð þone man unhalne and on mycelre frecednysse gebringð, swa swa us secgað bec, þæt sume men m fæstan n swa þæt hi geswencton o hy sylfe forþearle, and nane mede p næfdon q þæs r mycclan s geswinces, ac t þæs u þe fyrr wæron from v Godes miltsunge.4 Eaðe mæg se mann findan hu he hine sylfne amyrre, ac we sceolan w witan x þæt nan sylfcwala, þæt is agenslaga, ne becymð to Godes rice.5 c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x

Title rubricated R; DE octo uitiis et DE xii ABUSIVIS S `is´ R þing S mægena S oferlife, with a over e S sawl S laþetteð S a corrected from u R t perhaps added by corrector R þer S ungemetegod S forhæfdnes S om. C, W fæston S swencton S mæde S first two letters protrude into left margin (on top line of page) R þes S miclan S and S þes S fram S; om. W sculan S witon S



The following notes do not duplicate notes to the text of De duodecim abusiuis where the two texts overlap. The titles of the text are different in each of the manuscripts of the composite text. R, with DE OCTO VITIIS ET DE DUODECIM ABUSIVIS GRADUS, is the only Old English manuscript to contain the word gradus, used in the first phrase of each abuse in the Latin (‘Primus abusionis gradus est . . .’). S simply has De octo uitiis et de xii abusiuis. Xi has De octo uiciis et de duodecim abusiuis huius seculi, showing familiarity with the Latin. cf. LS i, lines 162–4 (see pp. 25–6). Luke XXI.34. ‘swa swa us secgað . . . Godes miltsunge’ cf. LS xiii, lines 98–101. For a discussion of this introductory paragraph, see Ch. 2, pp. 25–7.

a

b

1



4 5 2 3

142

De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus DE OCTO VITIIS ET DE DUODECIM ABUSIVIS GRADUS ‘Omnia nimia nocent et temperantia mater uirtutum dicitur.’ That is in English: ‘All excessive things are harmful and temperance is the mother of all virtues.’ Excess in eating and drinking makes a man unhealthy and makes his soul hateful to God, as our Lord said in his gospel. Then, as against that, intemperate fasting and too much abstinence in eating and in drinking make a person unhealthy and lead him into great danger, as books tell us, with the result that some people have fasted in such a way that they ill-treated themselves very severely and had no reward for their great effort but were the further from God’s mercy. A man can easily discover how he may kill himself but we must know that no suicide, that is self-slayer, will come into God’s kingdom.

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De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus

15

20

25

.i. Nu a syndon eahte b heafodleahtras þe c us onwinnað swiðe. An is gecweden gula, þæt is gifernyss on Englisc; seo deð þæt d e man ytt ær timan e and drincð,6 oððe he eft to mycel nimð on æte oððe on wæte.f Seo fordeð ægðer ge sawle ge lichaman, for þam g þe heo macað þam menn mycele untrumnysse and to deaðe gebringð h mid ormætum h drencum;i heo j fordeð eac þa sawle, for þan þe k he sceal syngian oft þonne he sylf nat hu he færð, for his feondlicum drencum. .ii. Se oðer leahter is l forliger and ungemetgod m galnyss. Se is gehaten fornicatio,l and he befylð þone mannan,n and macað of Cristes limum myltestrena lima 7 and of Godes temple gramena wununge. .iii. Se þridda is auaritia,o þæt is seo yfele gitsung, and seo is wyrtruma ælcere wohnysse.8 Heo gemacað p reaflac and unrihte domas, stala and leasunga q and forswornysse.r Heo is helle gelic, for þam s þe hi habbað butut unafylledlice u grædignesse, þæt hi v fulle ne beoð næfre.v .iiii. Se feorða w leahter is ira,x þæt is on Englisc weamodnyss;y z se deð z þæt se mann nah his modes geweald and aa macað manslyhtas and mycele yfelu.

c d a

b



e–e

g f

h–h

j k



i

n o p q r s t u l–l m

v–v

x y



w



z–z



aa

6



7



8

preceded by De .viii. principalibus uiciis G eahta S a altered to e R þæt þæt W mar ær timan et C wiste G þan S for `ðam´ ormæta`n´ W drænce W he G om. W fornicatio se is gehaten forligr ⁊ ungemetegod galnyss C ungemetegod S mann[..] W, mann G, man C auaricia S macað W, C, G, L leasinga S forsworennesse S þan S buta S unafyllendlice S næfre fulle ne beoð C feorðe S ira gehaten R wea[d]modnyss oððe yrre C om. C; seo `deð´ W ac G

On eating and drinking before the proper time, see also the ninth abuse, lines 217–18, and the discussion by Frank in ‘Old English Æræt: “Too Much” or “Too Soon”?’. 1 Cor VI. 15–19. 1 Tim. VI.10.

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De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus .i. Now there are eight capital sins which attack us fiercely. The first is called gula, which is greed in English; it makes one eat and drink before the proper time or, on the other hand, to take too much in food or in drink. It destroys both soul and body because it causes a person much illness and leads him to death with excessive drinking; it also destroys the soul, because he will often sin when he himself does not know how he is behaving, because of his diabolic drinking. .ii. The second vice is adultery and intemperate lust. This is called fornicatio and it defiles a person and makes prostitutes’ limbs out of Christ’s limbs and a dwelling of fiends out of God’s temple. .iii. The third is auaritia, that is evil avarice, and it is the root of all evil. It causes robbery and unjust judgements, theft and lies and perjury. It is like hell because they both have insatiable greed, so that they will never be full. .iiii. The fourth vice is ira, which is anger in English; it causes a person not to have control over his mind and results in manslaughters and many evils.

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30

35

40

.v. Se fifta a is tristitia,b þæt is þisre c worulde unrotnyss,d þonne se mann geunrotsað ealles to swiðe for his æhta lyre, þe he lufode to e swiðe, and cit þonne wið God and his synna geeacnað.f Twa unrotnyssa synd: an is þeos yfele; oðer g is halwende, þæt man for his synnum h geunrotsige.9 .vi. Se syxta leahter is accidia gehaten, þæt is asolcennyssi oððe slæwðj on Englisc,k þonne þam men ne lyst l on his life nan good don.l And bið him m þonne micel yfel, þæt he nen mæge nan good don, ando bið æfre ungearu p to ælcere dugoðe.q .vii. Se seofoþa leahter is iactantia r gecweden,s þæt is idel gylp on Engliscre t spræce,u þonne se man bið lofgeorn and mid licetunge færð and deð for gylpe, gif he hwæt dælan wyle. And bið þonne v se hlisa his edlean þære dæde and hys wite w andbidað on þære toweardan x worulde. .viii. Se y eahtoða leahter is superbia gehaten, þæt is on Englisc modignyss gecweden; seo is ord and ende ælcere synne. Seo geworhte z englas to atolicum aa deoflum and þone ab mann macað eac, gif he modegað to swiðe, þæs ac deofles geferan, þe feoll ær þurh hi. c d e f g h i j k

fifta leahter L tristicia S þissera S unrotnes S om. R geecnaþ S and oðer W, C, G, L u corrected from a R asolcennes S slæp with p subpuncted and w added above (by tremulous hand?) S ænglisc S l–l nan good don on his life R m om. S n om. C o ac C p ungeru R q duguþe S r iactancia S; ian`c´tantia L s gehaten R; om. G t ængliscre S u p altered from o R; sprece S v om. R w wite his G x towordan S y seo W z geworte R aa atelicum S ab erasure of a letter after o, probably n R; þoň S ac þes S a

b

9



cf. 2 Cor. VII.10.

146

De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus .v. The fifth is tristitia, which is sadness of this world, when a person is all too sad on account of the loss of his possessions, which he loved too much, and complains against God and adds to his sins. There are two sadnesses: one is this evil one; the other one is salutary, in that one is sad on account of one’s sins. .vi. The sixth vice is called accidia, which is indolence or sloth in English, when a person does not desire to do any good in his life. And it will then be a great evil for him, that he cannot do any good, and he will always be unprepared for any virtuous action. vii. The seventh vice is called iactantia, which is vainglory in the English language, when a person is eager for praise and behaves with hypocrisy and, if he be willing to give something in alms, he does it for vainglorious display. And then the good reputation will be his reward for the deed and his punishment will await him in the next world. .viii. The eighth vice is named superbia, which is called pride in English; it is the beginning and end of every sin. It changed angels into horrible devils and will also make man, if he is too proud, into the companion of the devil, who formerly fell because of it.

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De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus

45

50

55

Nu a syndon eahta heafodmægna,b þe c magon oferswiðan þas d foresædan deoflu e þurh Drihtnes f fultum.g .i. An is temperantia,h þæt is gemetegung on Englisc, þæt man beo gemetegad i and to mycel ne þicge on æte and on wæte, ne ær timan ne gereordige. Nytenu etað swa ær swa hi hyt habbað, ac se gesceadwisa mann sceal cepan his mæles, and þonne j mid gesceade hys gesetnysse j healdan. Þonne mæg he k oferswiðan swa þa gifernysse. .ii. Seo oðer miht is castitas,l þæt is m clænnyss on Englisc,m þæt se læweda n hine healde o buton p forligre on rihtum sinscipe,q mid gesceadwisnysse, and se gehadodar Godes þeowa healde his clænnysse.s Þonne bið oferswiðed t swa eac t seo galnyss.u .iii. Seo þridde miht is largitas, þæt is cystignes v on Englisc, þæt man w wislice aspende, na for woruldgilpe, þa þing þe him God lænde x on þisum y life to brucenne. God nele þæt we z beon grædige  aa gitseras, ne eac for woruldgilpe forworpan ab ure æhta,ac ac dælan hi mid gesceade, swa swa hit Drihtne ad licige, and, gif we ælmyssan doð, don hi butan gilpe. Þonne mage we aefordon swa ae þa deofollican af gitsunge. preceded by De viii. uirtutibus G heafodmægnu S ða W, C, G þa S deofla S godes C fylste L, G temperancia S gemetegod S j–j hys gesetnysse mid gesceade R; mid `ge´sceade his gesetnysse W k heo G l cas`ti´tas R m–m clænnes on englisc S; on englisc clænnys C n leweda S o healda S p butan S q gesinscipe R r gehadode S s clennesse S t–t om. R u galnes S v cystignesse S w se mann L x lende S y þissum S z ge C aa gredige S ab forwurpan S ac eahta S ad gode G ae–ae swa fordon G af deoflican S c d e f g h i a

b

148

De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus Now there are eight capital virtues, which can overcome the aforementioned devils through the help of the Lord. .i. The first is temperantia, which is temperance in English, that a person be temperate and not consume too much in food and drink, nor eat before the proper time. Beasts eat as soon as they have it, but the rational person must keep to the proper time for meals and then observe his established practice with reason. Then he will be able to overcome gluttony in this way. .ii. The second virtue is castitas, which is chastity in English, that the lay person should keep himself free from adultery in lawful marriage, with rationality, and the consecrated servant of God should preserve his chastity. Then lust will likewise be overcome. .iii. The third virtue is largitas, which is generosity in English, that one should spend wisely, not for worldly ostentation, the things which God lent one to enjoy in this life. God does not wish that we should be greedy misers or throw away our possessions for the sake of worldly ostentation, but that we should give them charitably with discrimination, as it may please the Lord, and, if we give alms, give them without ostentation. Then we destroy diabolical avarice in this way.

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65

70

.iiii. Seo feorþe miht is patientia,a þæt is geþyld b gecweden, þæt se c man beo geþyldig and þolmod for Gode and læte æfre his gewitt gewyldre d þonne his yrre, for þam e þe se Hælend cwæð þus on his godspelle: In patientia uestra possidebitis animas uestras.10 Þæt is on Engliscre f spræce:g On eowrum geþylde ge habbað eowre sawla soðlice gehealdene. Se heofonlica wisdom cwæð þæt þæt h yrre hæfð wununge on þæs dysegan bosme, þonne he bið to hrædmod;i 11 and se eallwaldenda j dema k demð æfre mid smyltnysse, and l we sceolan mid geþylde oferswiðan þæt yrre. .v. Seo m fifte n miht is spiritalis laetitia,o þæt is seo p gastlice bliss, þæt man on God q blissige betwux unrotnyssum þissere reðan worulde, swa þæt we on r ungelimpum ormode ne beon, ne eft on gesælðum to swiðe ne blissian; and, gif we forleosað þas lænan s weoruldþing,t þonne sceole we witan þæt ure wunung nis na her, ac is u on heofenum,v 12 gif we hopiað to Gode. Þyder we sceolan eftstan of  w þissere earfoðnysse mid gastlicre x blisse; þonne bið seo unrotnyss mid ealle oferswiðed mid urum geþylde.

c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x a

b

pacientia S geþyld and þolmod`nys´ W; geðyld and ðolmod C om. L wuldre C ðan S ængliscre S sprece S om. G hredmod S ealwealdenda S dema god C þy G se R fifta S leticia S se`o´ R gode L, G `on´ R lenan S woruldþing S; wurdþing G preceded by erased letter, possibly þ R heofonum S on L gastlicere S

Luke XXI.19. Sir. VII.10. 12 Phil. III.20. 10 11

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De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus .iiii. The fourth virtue is patientia, which is called patience, that a person should be patient and forbearing for God’s sake and always let his understanding be more powerful than his anger, because the Saviour spoke thus in his gospel: In patientia uestra possidebitis animas uestras. In the English language that is: By your patience you shall possess your souls. The heavenly wisdom said that anger has its dwelling in the bosom of the fool, when he is too hasty; but the allruling judge will always judge with calmness and we must overcome anger with patience. .v. The fifth virtue is spiritalis laetitia, which is spiritual happiness, that one should rejoice in God amidst the sadnesses of this cruel world, so that we be not despairing in misfortunes, nor on the other hand that we not rejoice too much in good fortunes; and, if we lose these transitory worldly possessions, then we must know that our dwelling is not here, but is in heaven, if we hope in God. We must hasten there with spiritual happiness, away from this hardship; then this sadness will be entirely overcome by our patience.

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.vi. Seo syxte miht is instantia a boni operis, þæt is anrædnyss goodes weorces.b Gif we beoð anræde on urum c goodum weorcum, þonne d magon e we oferswiðan þa asolcennysse swa, for þam f þe hyt bið langsum bysmor gif ure lif byð unnyt g her. .vii. Seo seofoðe miht is seo soðe lufu to Gode, þæt we on godum h weorcum Godes lufe i cepan,j na ideles gylpes þe hym is andsæte.k Ac uton don ælmessan swa swa he us tæhte, Gode to lofe, na us to hlisan, þæt l God sy geherod on urum goodum weorcum, and se idela gilp us beo æfre unwurð.m .viii. Seo ahtoþe n miht is seo soðe eadmodnyss, ge to Gode, ge to mannum, mid modes hluttornysse; for þam o se ðe p wis bið,p ne wyrð q he næfre modig. On hwam mæg se mann modigian,r þeah s he wille? Ne mæg he on geþingcðum,t for þam u þe fela synd geþungenran;v ne mæg he on his w æhtum, for þam x þe he hys endedæg nat; ne on nanum þingum he ne mæg modigian,y gif he wis bið. Nu ge habbað gehyred hu þas halgan mægnu oferswiðað z þa leahtras þe deofol besæwð aa on us; ab and, gif we nellað hi oferswiðan, hi besencað us ab on helle. We magon þurh Godes fylst ac þa feondlican leahtras mid gecampe oferwinnan, gif we cenlice feohtað, and habban ad us on ende þoneae ecan wurðmynt a mid Gode sylfum, gif we swincað nu her. c d e f g h i j k l m n o

instancia S wyrces S om. R þone C magen S; mage W, C; maga L þan S on unnyt S erasure of one letter, probably d, between d and u R lufu S cepon S andsete S ac þæt C unweorð S eahtoþa S ðam ðe C p–p bið wis G q byð G r modegian S s þeah ðe R t geþingþum S u þan S v geþungenra S w om. S x þan S y modegian S z oferswiþeð S aa w altered from o R ab–ab om. C ac fultum R ad habbeð G ae þonne S a

b

152

De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus .vi. The sixth virtue is instantia boni operis, which is perseverance in good work. If we are constant in our good works, then we can overcome sloth in this way, because it will be a long-lasting disgrace if our life here is useless. .vii. The seventh virtue is true love for God, that through good deeds we seek to have God’s love, not vainglory, which is repugnant to him. But let us give alms as he taught us, for the love of God, not for the sake of our own reputations, so that God may be praised by our good deeds, and vainglory may always be worthless in our eyes. .viii. The eighth virtue is true humility, both towards God and towards men, with purity of mind; because he who is wise will never become proud. Even if a person may wish it, of what can he be proud? He cannot be proud of his rank, because many are more distinguished; he cannot be proud of his possessions, because he does not know the day on which he will die; nor can he be proud of anything, if he is wise. Now you have heard how the holy virtues overcome the vices that the devil sows among us; and, if we are not willing to overcome them, they will cause us to sink into hell. Through God’s help we can defeat the diabolic vices by combat, if we fight boldly, and can in the end have eternal honour for ourselves for ever with God himself, if we toil now here.

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95

100

105

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Nu synd twelf abusiua, þæt synd twelf unþeawas, þa a we eow secgað on Leden b and syððan on Englisc. Duodecim abusiua sunt seculi. Hoc est: sapiens sine operibus bonis; senex sine religione; adolescens sine oboedientia;c diues sine aelemosina;d femina sine pudicitia; dominus sine uirtute; Christianus contentiosus; pauper superbus;e rex iniquus; episcopus neglegens; fplebs sine disciplina; populus sine lege.f Et sic suffocatur iustitia g Dei. Twelf unþeawas syndon on þyssere worulde to hearme eallum mannum, gif hi hmoton ricsian,h and hi alecgað rihtwisnysse and þone geleafan amyrrað and mancynn gebringað, gif hi motan,i to j helle. Þæt is: gif se wita bið butan k goodum weorcum; and gif se ealda bið l butan eawfæstnysse;m n and o se iunga butan gehyrsumnysse;n 13 and se welega butan ælmæsdædum;p wif butan sydefulnysse; and hlaford butan mihte; and gif se Cristena bið sacfull; and gif þearfa bið modig; gif se cyning bið unrihtwis; and se biscop gymeleas; þæt folc butan steore; oððe folc q butan r æ. .i. Nu gif se wita bið butan goodum weorcum, se ðe oþrum mannum sceolde syllan gode bysne, hu ne bið s sona his lar þam læwedum mannum unwyrð,t gif he sylf nele u don swa swa he hym to donne tæcð? Ne bið se v lareowdom þam læwedum fremfull,v gif se lareow mid weorcum towyrpð his bodunge. Eft gif se lareow dwelað, hwa bið his lareow syððan? Gif  w þæt eage ablindað, ne bið seo hand lociende. c d e a

b



f–f g



h–h

j k l m



i

n–n

p q r s t u



o

v–v w





þe G lædæn S obedientia S elemosina S superbos P populus sine disciplina; plebs sine lege P iusticia S moton rixian S; rixian moton C moton S on C buton S om. R æwfæstnesse S in margin in contemporary hand, with signe de renvoie R; om. S om. P, C, G -dæ- written over erasure R; ælmesdædum S om. R over erasure R followed by erasure of five to seven letters R unwurð S næle S lareowdom fremfull þam læwedum S; lare freomful G and gif R

It looks as if there was a problem with ‘and se iunga butan gehyrsumnysse’ in the composite text, as it was originally omitted in R and then supplied in the margin, while S omits it altogether.

13

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De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus Now there are twelve abusiua, that is, twelve abuses, which we will say to you in Latin and afterwards in English. Duodecim abusiua sunt seculi. Hoc est: sapiens sine operibus bonis; senex sine religione; adolescens sine oboedientia; diues sine aelemosina; femina sine pudicitia; dominus sine uirtute; Christianus contentiosus; pauper superbus; rex iniquus; episcopus neglegens; plebs sine disciplina; populus sine lege. Et sic suffocatur iustitia Dei. There are twelve abuses in this world which will harm all people, if they are allowed to rule, and they put an end to righteousness and corrupt the faith and bring mankind, if they are allowed, to hell. That is: if the wise man is without good works; and if the old man is without religion; and the young man without obedience; and the rich man without almsgiving; a woman without modesty; and a lord without power; and if the Christian is contentious; and if the poor man is proud; if the king is unjust; and the bishop negligent; the people without discipline; or a people without law. .i. Now if the wise man, who ought to give other people a good example, is without good works, how is his teaching not immediately worthless to lay people, if he himself is not willing to do as he teaches them to do? The teaching will not be beneficial to the unlearned, if the teacher overturns his preaching by his actions. Moreover, if the teacher errs, who will be his teacher afterwards? If the eye goes blind, the hand will not see.

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125

.ii. Se ealda mann þe bið butan eawfæstnysse a bið þam treowe gelic, þe leaf byrð and blostman, and nænne b wæstm ne byrð, and bið unwurð his hlaforde. Hwæt bið æfre swa stuntlic swa þæt se ealda c nelle his mod to Gode awendan d mid goodum inngehyde,e þonne his lima hym cyðað þæt he ne bið cucu f lange? Iungum mannum mæg twynian g hwæðer h hi i motan libban i and se ealda mæg j witan gewiss himj þone deað. Ðam ealdan k is to warnienne l wið þa yfelan geþohtas, for þam þe seo heorte ne ealdað, ne eac seo tunge, ac þas twegen dælas deriað oft m þam ealdum.n Wite forþi se ealda hwæt his ylde gedafenige and þa þing forseo þe his sawle deriað. .iii. Se þridda unþeaw is on þissere worulde þæt se o iunga p mann beo butan gehyrsumnysse. Unwyrðe q bið se on ylde þæt him oðre menn þenion, se þe on iuguðe r nele his yldrum s gehyrsumian. Ure hælend on his iugoðe wæs gehyrsum t his magon and his heofonlican fæder he u gehyrsumode oð v ðeað. Swa swa þam ealdan gedafeniað w dugende þeawas and x geripod syfernyss,x swa gerist þam iungan þæt he y hæbbe gehyrsumnysse and underþeodnysse. Godes æ byt eac þæt man arwurþige z symble hys fæder and aa modor mid mycelre underþeodnysse and, gif he hi wyrigð, he byð wyrðe ab deaðes. c d e f g h a

b



i–i j–j

m n o p q r s t u v w k l

x–x

z aa ab y



æwfæstnesse S nenne S eallda S gewænden G ingehyde S cwicu S tweonian S hweðer S moton libban S; lybban moton P him wytan gewis S second a altered from u, with contraction mark over it R warnigenne S of G ealdan S om. S iung S unwurðe S iugoðe S followed by erased letter R S; gyrsum R om. S oþæt S gedafeniat S geripode syfernysse P, G e altered from y R arwuþige R and his S wurðe S

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De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus .ii. The old man who is without religion is like the tree which bears leaves and blossoms and does not bear any fruit and is worthless to its lord. What is ever so foolish as that the old man should not wish to turn his spirit to God with a good intention, when his limbs show him that he will not be alive for long? It can be a matter of uncertainty for young people whether they may live but the old man can know that death is certain for him. The old man must guard against evil thoughts, because the heart does not grow old or the tongue either, but these two parts often harm the old. Let the old man know therefore what may be appropriate for his old age and let him abandon those things which harm his soul. .iii. The third abuse in this world is that the young man be without obedience. He who in youth is unwilling to obey his elders will be unworthy in his old age of being served by other people. Our Saviour in his youth was obedient to his parents and he obeyed his heavenly father until death. Just as worthy behaviour and mature sobriety befit the old, so it is fitting for the young man that he have obedience and submissiveness. God’s law commands also that one should always honour one’s father and mother with great submissiveness and, if one should curse them, he will be worthy of death.

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De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus 130

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.iiii. Se feorþa unþeaw is þæt se welega mann beo butan ælmesdædum and bediglige hys feoh and geornlice healde hym to helle wite. Ungesælig bið se gitsere þe þurh hys gesælþa losað and for þam gewitendlicum þingum forwyrð a on ecnysse and gesælige beoð symle þa mildheortan, for þam a þe hi gemetað þa mildheortnysse eft. Se þe dælð ælmyssan for his Drihtnes lufan,b se behyt his goldhord on heofonan c rice, þær nan sceaða ne mæg his madmas forstelan, ac hi beoð be hundfealdum gehealdene him þær.d On manegum e wisum f man mæg wyrcan ælmyssan: on æte and on wæte and on gewædum eac; and on cumliðnysse, þæt man cuman underfo; and gif man seocne geneosað; oððe sarigne gefrefrað;g oððe blindne læt; oððe byrð h wanhalne; oððe unhalne i gelacnað, gif he læcedom can;j oððe k gif he k ræd tæcð þam þe rædes behofað; oððe gif he miltsað þam menn þe himl abealh; oððe gif he m gehergodne of hæftnyde n gedeð; oððe gyf he m forðfarene o ferað to byrgene.p Eall þis bið ælmysse,q and eac þæt man beswinge þone stuntan for steore,r se þe styran s sceal, for þam t þe he deð mildheortnysse gif he þone mann gerihtlæcð.u Ne licge on þinum horde þæt þam hafenleasan mæge v fremian to bigwiste, for þam w þe þu ne brycst ana þinra welena, þeah x þu hi y wolice healde. Þu gaderast z ma and ma, and menn cwelað aa on hungre,aa 14 and þine welan forrotiað ætforan þinum eagum. Doð swa swa Drihten cwæð: Dælað ælmyssan and ealle þing eow beoð clæne. Þis he cwæð ab on his godspelle. c d e f g h i j

þan S lufon S heofona S þer S manege S wisan S; þingen G frefrað R berð S wanhale G cann S k–k om. G l hine G m–m om. C, apart from subpuncted gen [h]æftnyde R; hæftnede S o forðfarenne S p byrgenne S q ælmesse S r styre S s steoran S t þan S u rihtlæcð R v mæg P, C; mæig G w ðan S x þeah ðe P y om. R z gegaderast C aa–aa `on´ in margin by correcting hand R; on hungre S; hungre P, C, G ab cweð S a

b

The archetype of the composite text probably read on hungre, rather than hungre, as in the stand-alone text. It is added by the correcting hand in R and present in S and in Xi. Ælfric uses the combination on hungre in the ninth abuse.

14

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De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus .iv. The fourth abuse is that the rich man should be without almsgiving and should hide his money and should diligently keep it for himself as a torment in hell. Accursed is the miser who is lost by reason of his prosperity and perishes for all eternity because of these transitory things and blessed are the merciful always, because they shall find mercy in return. He who distributes alms for love of his Lord hides his treasure in the kingdom of heaven, where no thief can steal his treasures, but they will be kept a hundredfold for him there. One can give alms in many ways: in food and drink and in clothing also; and in hospitality, in that one takes in strangers; and if one visits a sick person; or comforts a sorrowful one; or guides a blind person; or carries an infirm person; or heals a sick person, if one is skilled in healing; or if one gives advice to someone who is in need of advice; or if one pardons someone who offended one; or if one releases a captive from captivity; or if one conveys a dead person to burial. All this is almsgiving, and also that the one whose duty is to discipline should flog the foolish man for the sake of discipline, because he practises mercy if he corrects the man. Do not let lying in your treasury that which could be of use to the needy as sustenance, because you alone will not enjoy your riches, though you may hold them wrongly. You gather more and more and men die of hunger and your riches rot in front of your eyes. Do as the Lord said: Give alms and all things will be clean for you. He said this in his gospel.

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.vi. Se fifta unþeaw is þæt wif beo unsydefull. Unsydefulnys a bið sceamu b for worulde, and þæt unsydefulle wif bið unwurð on life and eft æfter life nan edlean c næfð æt Gode. Wisdom gerist d werum and wifum sidefulnyss,e for þam f þe g seo sidefulnyss gescylt h hi wið unþeawas.15 Þær þæri seo sidefulnyss bið, jðær biðj eac seo k clænnyss;l and þæt sidefulle wif onscunað gitsunge and ceaste ne astyrað, ac gestilð graman and forsihð galnysse and grædignysse m gemetegað. Heo hi warnað wið druncennysse and wordlunge ne lufað. Witodlice seo n sidefullnyss o gewylt ealle unþeawas and goode þeawas heo hylt,p þe q Gode liciað and mannum.

c d e f g h i

unseodefull G scamu S eadlean S geriseþ S om. R, which has an erasure of c. eleven letters here; sidefulness S þan S om. R, G gescylt written before for þam, with signe de renvoie in the manuscript R; gescild S þer S j–j `ðær bið´ in correcting hand R; þer bið S k om. G l clenness S m gredignesse S n se R o sidefullnesse S p healt S q þæt S a

b

15

‘Wisdom gerist wifum sidefulnyss, for þam þe seo sidefulnyss gescylt’: The R scribe seems to have had eyeskip from one sidefulnyss to the next, which he then attempted to rectify by erasing the first sidefulnyss. R therefore reads here ‘Wisdom gerist werum ⁊ wifum . . . forþam seo sidefulnyss gescylt . . .’.

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De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus .v. The fifth abuse is that a woman be immodest. Immodesty is a disgrace in the eyes of the world and the immodest woman is worthless in her lifetime and then after her lifetime she will have no reward from God. Wisdom is fitting for men and modesty for women, because modesty protects them against vices. Where there is modesty, there is purity also; and the modest woman rejects avarice with abhorrence and does not stir up strife, but calms anger and scorns lust and tempers greed. She guards herself against drunkenness and does not love idle talk. Truly modesty has power over all abuses and preserves good habits, which please God and men.

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.vi. Se a syxta unþeaw is þæt se, ðe to hlaforde bið b geset, þæt he c for modleaste d ne mæge his mannum don steore;e ac bið him f swa mihtleas on his modes strece þæt he his underþeoddan egesian g ne dear,h ne to nanum wisdome hi i gewissian nele. Sume hlafordas jgenealæcað þurh heora hlafordscipe to Gode,j swa swa k Moyses se arwurða, þe to þæm Ælmihtigan l spræc,m and sume on heora anwalde n þone Ælmihtigan o gremiað, swa swa Saul p dyde, þe forseah q Godes hæse.r Se hlaford sceal beon liðe þam goodum and egefull þam dysegam,s 16 þæt he heora dysig alecge, and he sceal beon wordfæstt and witan hwæt he clypige. Hine u man sceal lufian for his liðnysse and þa dysegan v sceolon w ondrædan x hyne y symle,z elles ne bið his gefadung ne fæst ne langsum. He sceal beon swa geworht þæt him man aa ab mote wið ab sprecan and, swa hwæt swa he ac ad wrece, wrece ad for rihtwisnysse, na for his agenum yrre, ac for ae Godes ege. Hyt is awriten af on bocum c d e f g h i

seo R, G beo G om. G `mæign´ over modleaste R styre S he G egsian S dearr S he G j–j þurh heora hlafordscipe genealæcað godæ S k om. R l followed by gode in a different hand in margin R m sprec S n anwealde S; anweardæ C o followed by god in a different hand in margin R p sawl S q foseah R r hese S s dysegum S t wordfest S u h`i´ne R v dysegan him S w sceolan S x ondrædon S y om. S z simble S aa om. G ab–ab wið mote P, C, G ac `he´ S ad–ad sprece sprece C ae f `o´r, with r in corrector’s hand R af gewriten G a

b

dysegam: the -am ending in the dative plural is rare but ‘far from unknown in the eleventh century’ (Don Scragg, personal communication). It is probably a variant of -um but perhaps of -an (a combination of confusion of back vowels and of n/m).

16

162

De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus .vi. The sixth abuse is that he who is appointed as lord cannot, because of lack of mental resolution, correct his men but his firmness of mind is so weak that he does not dare to instil fear into those subject to him nor is he willing to direct them to any wisdom. Some lords draw near to God by means of their lordship, like the venerable Moses who spoke to the Almighty, and some in their power anger the Almighty, as did Saul who scorned the Lord’s command. The lord must be gentle to the good and terrifying to the foolish, so that he may put an end to their folly, and he must be true to his word and know what he says. He must be loved for his gentleness and the foolish must fear him always, otherwise his rule will be neither secure nor long-lasting. He must be so disposed that one may speak with him and whatever he may punish, let him punish for the sake of justice, not because of his own anger but for fear of God. It is written in books that he who consents to evil

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185

þæt se bið eallswa scyldig se a þe þæt b yfel geþafað c swa swa d se e ðe hyt deð, gyf he hyt gebetan mæg and ymbe þa bote ne hogað. He sceal hyne geþeodan mid þeawfæstnysse to Gode, for þam f þe he nane mihte habban ne mæg to rihte butan Godes fylste, swa swa God g sylf cwæð. Se hlaford sceal hogian þæt he hæbbe Godes fultum h and he ortruwian ne sceal ahwær i be Godes fultume. Gif God bið his gefylsta, ne bið his miht forsewen,j for þam þe nan miht nis butan of Gode, se ðe ahefð of meohse k þone mann þe hel wile, m þeah þe he m wædla wære,n and wyrcð hine to ealdre. He awyrpð þa modigan of heora mihtesetle o and ahefð þa eadmodan, þæt eall middaneard beo Gode underþeod and beþurfe his wuldres. .vii. Se seofoþa unþeaw is þæt se Cristena mann beo sacfull. Of Cristes naman is Cristianus gecweden,p þæt is, se Cristena q mann þe on Criste is gefullod. Gif he þonne bið sacfull, ne bið he soðlice Cristen. Nis nan man rihtlice r Cristen, butan se ðe Criste geefenlæcð. Crist sylf nolde flitan, swa swa his fæder cwæð be hym: Efne her is min cild þe me is swiðe leof and ic sette minne gast soðlice ofer hine. Ne flit he mid ceaste, ne sace ne s astyreð,t ne on strætum u ne gehyrð ænig mann hys stemne. He cwæð eac on his godspelle þæt þa beoð Godes bearn þa v þe gesibsume beoð and sace ne astyriað. Swa swa þa gesibbsuman w beoð soðlice Godes bearn,w swa beoð eac þa x sacfullan soþlice y deofles bearn. Ealle we clypiað to Gode and cweðað: Pater noster, þu ure fæder þe eart on heofenum; ac we ne magon habban þone z heofonlican aa eþel, buton we fram eallum sacum ab orsorge beon.ab om. C om. R geþafoð S om. C þe R þan S crist C fylst G ahwer S forsegen S meoxe S om. C m–m þeah ðe P; þeh he G n wære ær S o heahsetle S p gecweðen S; gehaten G q cristene with a over second e S r soþlice S, G s he C t astyrað S u stretum S v om. C w–w soðlice godes bearn byð G x þa eac with sign to indicate that these two words should be reversed R y om. R, C z o corrected from e R aa heofenlican S ab–ab beon orsorhge S; beon or/ge, with seoruwe inserted in margin by tremulous hand, after or P c d e f g h i j k l a

b

164

De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus is just as guilty as he who does it, if he can remedy it and does not busy himself about the remedy. He must join himself to God by adhering to good behaviour because he cannot have any power to do what is right without the help of God, as God himself said. The lord must take care that he have God’s help and he must not despair in any way about God’s help. If God is his helper, his power will not be despised, because there is no power except from God, who raises up from dung whatever man he wishes, even if he were a beggar, and makes him a ruler. He casts down the mighty from their thrones and exalts the humble, so that all the earth may be subject to God and be in need of his glory. .vii. The seventh abuse is that the Christian man be contentious. A Christian is called after Christ’s name, that is, the Christian man who is baptised in Christ. Then if he is contentious, he is not truly a Christian. No man is rightly a Christian except he who emulates Christ. Christ himself was not accustomed to be quarrelsome, as his father said about him: Behold here is my child who is very dear to me and truly I will place my spirit upon him. He will not dispute in a quarrelsome way nor stir up contention nor will any person hear his voice on the streets. He said also in his gospel that they are the children of God who are peaceful and do not stir up contention. Just as the peaceful are truly the children of God, so the contentious are truly the children of the devil. We all call to God and say: Pater noster, you, our father, who art in heaven; but we cannot have the heavenly homeland unless we be free from all contention.

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.viii. Se eahtoða unþeaw is þæt se þearfa beo modig. Menig mann næfð æhta, and hæfð modignysse swaþeah, and is a earm for worulde and ungesælig for Gode þonne he arærð his mod mid modignysse b ongean God, and nele on his yrmðe eadmodnysse b healdan. Crist cwæð on his godspelle be þam gastlican þearfum: Beati pauperes spiritu, quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum. Eadige synd c þa þearfan d þa þe d on gaste synd þearfan, for þam ðe hym bið forgifen heofonan rices myrhðe.e Þa beoð þearfan on gaste f þa þe f for Godes lufan g beoð eadmode, for þam h þe þæs i modes eadmodnyss mæg begitan Godes rice hroðor j þonne seo k hafenleast þe of hynþum becymð. Witodlice þa rican þe rihtlice libbað magon beon getealde betwux Godes þearfum, gif hi eadmodnysse habbað and oferflowednysse forlætað, swa swa Dauid cyning cwæð be him sylfum: Ego uero egenus et pauper sum; Deus adiuua l me. Ic eom wædla and þearfa; God fylst þu me. Se modiga þearfa, for his modes upahefednysse,m is to rican geteald rihtlice on bocum, and se eadmoda rica, þeah ðe n he oæhta hæbbe,o mæg beon Godes þearfa, gif he Gode gecwemð.

byð P om. C c beoð P d–d þe C; þa þa G e myrhð S f–f þa þa G g lufon S h þan S i þes S j raþor S; hwæðer C k se G l adiuuat P m upahefdnesse S; upahafennysse G n om. C, G o–o æhta hebbe S; habbe æhte G a

b–b

166

De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus .viii. The eighth abuse is that the poor man be proud. Many a person does not have possessions, and nevertheless has pride, and he is poor in the eyes of the world and accursed in the eyes of God when he raises up his spirit with pride against God and does not wish to preserve humility in his poverty. Christ said in his gospel concerning the poor in spirit: Beati pauperes spiritu, quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum. Blessed are the poor who are poor in spirit, because the joy of the kingdom of heaven will be given to them. They who are humble for the love of God are the poor in spirit, because humility of spirit can obtain the kingdom of God more quickly than the poverty that comes from loss. Indeed the rich who live justly can be counted among God’s poor, if they have humility and desist from excess, as King David said about himself: Ego uero egenus et pauper sum; Deus adiuua me. I am needy and a pauper; help me, God. The proud poor man, because of his spirit’s arrogance, is rightly considered as a rich man in books, and the humble rich man, although he may have possessions, can be God’s pauper, if he pleases God.

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.ix. Se nigoþa unþeaw is þæt se cyning beo unrihtwis. Se cyning bið gecoren to þam þe him cyð his nama. Rex we cweþað cyning, þæt is gecweden wissigend, a for þam þe he sceal wissigan a mid wisdome his folce and unriht alecgan and þone geleafan æræran.b Þonne c byð hit earmlic gif he bið unrihtwis, for þam d þe he ne gerihtlæcð e nænne,f gif he unrihtwis bið sylf.g Þæs cyninges rihtwisnyss arærð h his cynesetl, and þæs i folces steore j gestaþelað his soðfæstnyss. Þæt is cyninges rihtwisnyss þæt he mid riccetere k ne ofsitte ne earmne ne eadigne, ac ælcum deme riht. He sceal beon bewergend l wydewena m and steopbearna,n and stala alecgan, and forliger o gewitnian, and þa arleasan adræfan p of his earde mid ealle, wiccecræft alecgan and wiglunge ne gyman. Witan hym sceolan rædan and he ne sceal beon weamod. Godes mynstra q he sceal mundian æfre, and fedan þearfan, and fæstlice winnan wið onsigendne here, r and healdan his eðel r. He sceal soðfæste menn settans hym to gerefan, and for Gode lybban hys lif rihtlice, and beon ton earfoðnysse anræde t and eadmod on stilnysse, and his ofsprynge ne geþafige þæt hy arlease beon. He sceal hyne gebiddan on asettumu tidum and ær mæltimanv metes ne abyrgean;w 17 for þam þe hit is awritenx þæt wa þære y leode,z þar aa se cining bið cild and þar ab þa ealdormenn etað on ærnemergen uneawfæstlice.ac c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r–r s t–t u v w x y z aa ab ac a–a b

for þam þe he sceal wissian S; om. C areran S and þonne R þan S rihtlæcað G nenne S; om. G him sylf S arerð S þes S styre S ricetere S bewerigend S wudewena S steopcilda R; steopcildena G forligr S adrefan S mynster G om. P setton S earfoð on ræde G gesetten G mæltidum R, C S; abitan R; onbyrigan P; onbyrge C; onbyrigen G awritæn S þere S þeode G þær S þær S unæwfæstlice S; unþeawfæstlice P; uneawfestlice C

P here reads onbyrigan, C onbyrge and G onbyrigen so the P group manuscripts agree. R, however, has abitan, S abyrgean and Lambeth arinan; this creates a difficulty in trying to decide on the original

17

168

De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus .ix. The ninth abuse is that the king be unjust. The king is chosen for what his name reveals to him. We call the king rex, that is interpreted ruler, because he must rule his people with wisdom and put an end to injustice and promote the faith. Therefore it is a wretched thing if he is unjust, because he will not correct anyone, if he is unjust himself. The king’s justice exalts his throne and his truth strengthens his rule of the people. This is a king’s justice that he should oppress neither the poor man nor the wealthy one with his power but judge each one justly. He must be a defender of widows and stepchildren and put an end to theft and punish adultery and entirely drive out the impious from his country, suppress witchcraft and not heed auguries. Wise men must advise him and he must not be prone to anger. He must always protect God’s churches and feed the poor and fight resolutely against an attacking army and guard his country. He must appoint honest men as his reeves and live his life justly for the sake of God and be resolute in times of difficulty and humble in times of peace and he must not permit his offspring to be impious. He must pray at set times and not partake of food before mealtimes, because it is written that woe to the people whose king is a child and whose chief officers eat in the early morning impiously. If the king

reading in the composite text. The Latin reads gustare here, equivalent to Old English onbyrigan/ abyrgean and so I have adopted the S reading.

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De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus 220

225

Gif se cyning wile mid carfulnysse healdan þas a foresædan beboda, þonne byð his rice gesundfull on life and æfter life he mot faran b to þam ecan c for his arfæstnysse.d Gif he þonne forsyhð þas gesetnyssa e and lare, þonne byð his f eard geyrmed g foroft, ægðer ge on heregunge ge on hungre, ge on cwealme ge on ungewyderum,h ge on wildeorum.i Wite eac se cyning hu hyt is gecweden on bocum, gif he rihtwisnysse ne hylt,j þæt, swa swa he ahafan k is on his cynesetle toforan oðrum mannum, swa he bið eft l genyþerad m on þam nyþemestam n witum, under þam unrihtwisum þe he unrædlice o ær p geheold.

c d e f g h i j k l m n o p a

b

þa G f[a]`o´n P ecean life C arfestnesse S; eaffoðnysse C; earfoðnysse G gesetnesse S om. S, P gehearemed G wederen G wilde deorum S; wild deoran G healt S ahafen S om. G genyþerod S nyþemæstum S om. S; unrihtlice P om. R

170

De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus is willing to keep the aforementioned commands with care then his kingdom will be prosperous in his lifetime and after his lifetime he may go to the eternal [kingdom] because of his piety. If he neglects these decrees and teachings then his country will very often be afflicted both by attack and by hunger, by pestilence and bad weather and wild animals. Let the king know also how it is said in books that, if he does not uphold justice, just as he is elevated on the throne above other people, so afterwards he will be humiliated in the lowest punishments beneath those unjust people whom he had ill-advisedly governed.

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230

235

240

.x. Se teoða unþeaw is þæt se a bisceop b beo gymeleas.c Episcopus is Grecisc nama, þæt is on Leden speculator and on Englisc sceawere, for þam d þe he is geset to þam þæt he ofersceawian sceole mid hys gymene þa læwedan, swa swa God sylf cwæð to e Ezechiele þam witegan:e Speculatorem dedi te domui Israhel.f Ic þe gesette to sceawere soðlice minum folce, Israheles hirede, þæt ðu gehyre mine word and of minum muðu g mine spræce h hym cyðe. Gif þu þam arleasan nelt hys arleasnysse secgan,i þonne swylt se arleasa on his arleasnysse and ic ofgange j æt þe k mid graman his blod.k Gif þu þonne warnast þone arleasan wer and he nelle l gecyrran fram his synnum m þurh þe, he swylt on hys unrihtwisnysse and þin sawul n bið alysed. Gif  o se bisceop p bið gymeleas, þonne he Godes bydel is and to lareowe geset þam læwedum folce, þonne losiað fela sawla and he sylf forð mid, for his gimeleaste. Ac þæt folc bið gesælig þurh snotorne bisceop q þe him segð r Godes lare and healt hy under Gode, swa swa good hyrde, þæt hi beon gehealdene and he hæbbe þa mede. om. C biscop S gemeleas S þan S e–e þam (written in margin) witegan ezechile P f Israhel þæt is G g muþe S h sprece S i asecgan G j ofga G k–k his blod mid graman P l nele S; nelle þeah C m synum S n sawl S o gif þonne P p biscop S q biscop S r sægð S c d a

b

172

De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus .x. The tenth abuse is that the bishop be negligent. Episcopus is the Greek name, which is speculator in Latin and watchman in English, because he is appointed in order that he should watch over the lay people with his care, as God himself said to the prophet Ezekiel: Speculatorem dedi te domui Israhel. Truly I have appointed you a watchman for my people, the house of Israel, so that you may hear my words and from my mouth make my speech known to them. If you are not willing to tell the wicked man his wickedness, then the wicked man will die in his wickedness and I will require his blood from you in anger. But if you warn the wicked man and if he be unwilling to turn from his sins because of you, he will die in his unrighteousness and your soul will be saved. If the bishop is negligent, when he is God’s messenger and appointed as a teacher for the lay people, then many souls will be lost and he himself along with them, because of his negligence. But the people will be blessed by means of a wise bishop who will tell them God’s teaching and will protect them under God, as a good shepherd, so that they may be saved and he may have the reward.

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.xi. Se endlyfta unþeaw is þæt folc beo butan a steore. Fela beoð stuntnyssa bþær þær b nan steor c ne bið and þær d þæt dysig bið orsorh and þæt gedwyld ricsað;e þær f bið yfel to wunienne g ænigum wisan men. Be þam cwæð se sealmwyrhta, þisum wordum clypiende:h Adprehenditei disciplinam ne quando irascatur Dominus et pereatis de uia j iusta. Þæt is: Underfoð steore þe k læs þe God yrsige wið eow and ge þonne losian of þam rihtan wege. Eac Paulus se apostol cwæð on his pistole: Þurhwuniað on steore and ge witodlice beoð swylce forligeras gif ge libbað butanl steore. Eft m se witega Isaias be þam ilcan cwæð: Quiescite agere peruerse, discite bene facere. Geswicað þwyrlicra dæda and leorniað good to wyrcanne.n Dauid cwæð eac: Declina a malo et fac bonum. Buh fram yfele and do good. Gif þu unsceððig o si, gescyld þe wið yfel and, gif þu sceððig p wære, gewend þe fram yfele, þy q læs þe þu steorleas r losige on ende.



wiðutan C þær R; þer þer S c steorr S d þer S e rixað S f þer S g wunigenne S h clypigende S i apprehendite S j om. S k þy P l abuten G m ef R n done G o unscæððig S p scæððig S q þe S r steorlas S a

b–b

174

De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus .xi. The eleventh abuse is that a people be without discipline. Many are the follies where there is no discipline and where the foolish man is secure and where error reigns; it is evil for any wise man to live there. The psalmist spoke concerning this, calling out these words: Adprehendite disciplinam ne quando irascatur Dominus et pereatis de uia iusta. That is: Receive discipline, lest God become angry with you and you be lost away from the just way. Also Paul the apostle said in his epistle: Persevere in discipline but truly you will be like bastards if you live without discipline. Again the prophet Isaiah said concerning the same thing: Quiescite agere peruerse, discite bene facere. Cease from perverse deeds and learn to do good. David said also: Declina a malo et fac bonum. Turn away from evil and do good. If you be innocent, protect yourself against evil and, if you were guilty, turn away from evil, lest in the end you perish without discipline.

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De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus 255

260

265

.xii. Se twelfta unþeaw is þæt folc beo butan æ. We ne a moton b nu healdan b Moyses æ on þa ealdan wisan æfter ures Hælendes tocyme, ac we sceolan gefyllan, swa c we fyrmost d magon, þæs Hælendes beboda e and þa beoð us for æ,e for þam þe we beoð butan him gif we hys beboda ne healdað. Manega wegas synd, swa swa se wisdom clypað, þe mannum þincað f rihte, ac hi swaþeah gelædað to deaðe on ende þa þe g hym dyslice folgiað. Se þe Godes æ forlæt, seo þe is ure weg,h se sceal mislice faran on manegum gedwyldum. Crist sylf is se weg, swa swa he i sæde be hym: Ego sum uia et  j ueritas et uita. Ic sylf eom se weg and soðfæstnys and lif. k Nan man ne mæg k becuman to minum heofonlican l fæder buton þurh me. Ac we beoð þurh Crist to heofenum gebrohte, gif we his biggengas healdað.m Ða þe n butan Godes æ and Godes gesetnyssum libbað, þa beoð o butan Gode æfre o wunigende. Drihten sylf behet þis þam þe healdað hys beboda: Ecce ego uobiscum sum omnibus diebus usque ad consummationem seculi. Ic sylf beo mid eow soðlice eallum dagum oð p geendunge þissere worulde. Se hælend us gewissige to hys willan symble, þæt ure sawla q moton r siðian eft to him æfter urum life to þam ecan life, þæt he ure sawla underfo þe hi s asende to þam lichaman. Sy him a wuldor and wurðmynt. Amen. `ne´ in later, probably tremulous, hand R healdan nu S c swa swa P, G d fyrmest S e–e om. C f c altered from g R; þincað S g þa G h wæg S i he sylf P j om. S, C k–k ne mæg nan man P l heofenlican S m gehealdaþ S n þa G o–o æfre buton gode P p oððe C, G q sawle S r final n altered from m by erasure R s hi ær S; he G

a

b–b

176

De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis gradus .xii. The twelfth abuse is that the people be without law. We may not now, after the coming of the Saviour, observe Moses’s law in the old manner, but we must fulfil, as much as we can, the commands of the Saviour and they are the law for us, because we will be without him if we do not keep his commands. There are many ways, as wisdom says, which seem right to people, but nevertheless they lead those who foolishly follow them to death in the end. He who abandons God’s law, which is our way, must travel aimlessly among many errors. Christ himself is the way, as he said about himself: Ego sum uia et ueritas et uita. I myself am the way and the truth and the life. No person can come to my heavenly father except through me. But we will be brought to heaven through Christ if we faithfully observe worship of him. Those who live without God’s law and God’s decrees will always remain without God. The Lord himself promised this to those who keep his commands: Ecce ego uobiscum sum omnibus diebus usque ad consummationem seculi. Truly I myself will be with you all the days until the end of this world. May the Saviour guide us always in accordance to his will so that our souls may go back to him after our life to the eternal life, so that he who sent them to our bodies may receive our souls. To him be glory and honour always. Amen.

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Editorial Introduction As pointed out in the introductory chapter, we have no pre-Conquest Latin manuscript of De duodecim abusiuis from England. The earliest surviving manuscript from England is probably Salisbury, Cathedral Library, 168, but this is a text of the Augustine recension, whereas Ælfric certainly used a manuscript of the Cyprian recension. I have chosen, therefore, to transcribe the text from Oxford, Jesus College 3, fols. 120v–128r, as a good example of the kind of text that Ælfric used: this is a text of the Cyprian recension, in a manuscript written in England (probably Cirencester) in the twelfth century. The text is set out here in accordance with the conventions of modern punctuation and abbreviations have been silently expanded. Some obvious errors have been corrected. Some omissions, necessary for the sense, have been supplied. References to Breen in the apparatus are to what he terms his interim edition, ‘Towards a Critical Edition’.

De duodecim abusiuis Incipit epistola sancti Cipriani martyris de duodecim abusiuis

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Duodecim abusiua sunt seculi. Hoc est: sapiens sine operibus; senex sine religione; adolescens sine obedientia; diues sine elemosina; femina sine pudicitia; dominus sine uirtute; christianus contentiosus; pauper superbus; rex iniquus; episcopus negligens; plebs sine disciplina; populus sine lege. Sic suffocatur iusticia. Haec sunt duodecim abusiua seculi per quae seculi rota, si in illo fuerit, decipitur et ad tartari tenebras nullo impediente iusticiae suffragio per iustum Dei iudicium rotatur. Primo sine bonis operibus sapiens et predicator si fuerit, qui quod sermone docet, actibus explere negligit. Auditores enim doctrinae dicta contempnunt, cuma predicatoris opera a predicationis uerbis discrepare conspiciunt. Numquam enim fit efficax predicantis auctoritas, nisi eam effectu operis cordi affixerit audientis,b presertim cum et ipse doctor, sic in uitiorum amorem delapsus fuerit, alterius doctoris medicamentum suis uulneribus adhiberi paruipendat. Unde et ipse Dominus in euuangelio de doctrina pariter et bono opere discipulos instruere uolens, qualem in his cautelam haberent, ammoneret dicens: Si sal euanuerit, in quo salietur? Hoc est, si doctor errauerit, a quo iterum doctore emendabitur? Et si lumen quod in te est tenebrae sunt,d ipsae tenebrae quantae erunt? Si namque oculus a uidendi offitio desiuerit, quis a manu aut pede uel a reliquo corpore illud ministerium exiget? Quapropter lectores cogitent, ne ampliori uindictae a

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Oxford Jesus College 3: De duodecim abusiuis subiaceant, si plurimorum perditionis occasionem abundantius prestent. Nam et Salomon dum multae sapientiae transgressionem incurrit, totius Israeliticae plebis regni dispersionem solio suo merito prestitit. Quibus ergo committuntur multa, maiora perdunt, si non recte dispensauerint rectorisa sui munera, quae perceperunt. Cui enim plus committitur, plus ab eo exigitur, et seruus qui domini sui uoluntatem intelligens non facit, acrioribus et grauioribus flagris uapulabit. Secundus abusionis gradus est si sine religione senex esse inueniatur, cui cum membra exterioris hominis ueterascunt, uires animi, id est interioris hominis membra, incrementa roboris non capiunt. Plus enim omnibus religioni operam dareb senibus conuenit quos presentis seculi florida aetas transacta deseruit. Licet namquec in lignis ipsa reproba arbor comparet quae post flores fructusd optimos cultori suo non exhibet, sic et in hominibus ipse reprobus est quem flos iuuentutis deserit et tamen in sui corporis senectute bonorum operum maturos fructus preferre paruipendit. Quid enim stolidius potest fieri, si mens ad perfectionem festinare non contendat, quando totius corporis habitus senectute confectus ad interitum properat? Dum oculi caliginant, auris grauiter audit, capilli fluunt, facies in pallore mutatur, dentes lassi numero minuuntur, cutis arescit, flatus non suauiter olet, pectus suffocatur, thussis cachynnat, genua trepidant, talos et pedes tumor inflat, homo interior qui non senescit his omnibus aggrauatur, et haec omnia ruituram iam iamque domum corporis cito prenuntiant. Quid ergo superest, nisi dum huius uitae defectus appropiat, nichil aliud cogitare quam quomodo futurae aditus prospere comprehendatur quisque senex appetat? Iuuenibus enim incertus huius uitae terminus instat, senibus uero cunctis maturior ex hac luce recessus. Cauendae sunt ergo hominie duae particulae, quae in illius carne non ueterescunt et totum hominem ad peccandum pertrahunt, cor uidelicet et lingua, quia cor semper nouas semper cogitationesf machinari non desinit, lingua impigreg loquitur quodcumque cor machinari senserit. Caueat ergo senilis aetas, ne istae iuuenescentes particulae totam sibi armoniam decipiant et per res ineptas reliqui corporis grauitatem illudant. Unicuique namque considerandum est qui aetate et eminentia dignus est, ut hoc agat quod nec uitam nec aetatem nec ministerium uilem reddat. Tercius deinde gradus est adolescens sine obedientia, quo mundus a recto rationis ordine deprauatur. Qualiter namque in senectute ministrare ille sperauit, qui in adolescentia senioribus obedientiam exhibere contempnit? Unde et in prouerbio apud ueteres habetur, quod seruiri nequeat qui prius alicui seruitutem prebere nequeat. Propter quod et Dominus Iesus in temporibus suae carnis, dum adhuc ad legitimam aetatem doctoris non peruenit, obedienter ministrationem parentibus suis exhibuit. Sicut ergo in senibus sobrietas et morum perfectio a

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requiritur, ita in adolescentibus obsequium et subiectio et obedientia rite debetur. Quapropter et in mandatis legis primum in his quae ad homines pertinent patris et matris honor imperatur, quia quamuis carnalis pater non superuixerit aut indignus fuerit, alicui tamen patri digno et uiuenti paternus honor usque ad dignam aetatem a filiis prebendus esse ostenditur. Quatuor etenim modis per scripturas diuinas patres uocantur, hoc est natura gente ammonitione et aetate. De patre namque naturaliter Iacob ad Laban loquitur: nisi timor patris mei Ysaac affuisset, tulisses omnia quae mea sunt. Gente uero pater dicitur, quando Dominus ad Moysen de rubo loquebatur, ego sum, inquiens, Deus patrum tuorum, Deus Abraham, Deus Ysaac et Deus Iacob. Aetate autem pater dicitur et monitione pater dicitur, cum Moyses ina cantico Deuteronomii loquitur: interroga patrem tuum et annuntiabit tibi. Quodsi ergo naturalis pater superstes non fuerit aut indignus fuerit, ammonenti tamen aut seniori adolescentibus obedientia prebenda erit. Quomodo enim honoratus in senectute apparebit, qui disciplinae laborem in adolescentia non sustinuerit? Quodcumque etenim homo laborauerit, hoc et metet. Omnis namque disciplina in presenti non uidetur esse gaudii sed meroris; postea autem fructum paccatissimum exercitatis per eam reddit iusticiae. Sicut enim fructus non inuenitur in arbore in qua pampinus aut flos prius non apparuerit, sic et in senectute honorem legitimum consequi non poterit qui in adolescentia disciplinae alicuius exercitationibus non laborauerit. Disciplina igitur absque obedientia qualiter fieri potest? Adolescens sine obedientia adolescens sine disciplina est, quoniam et ipsa obedientia quae omnium disciplinarum mater est magna exercitatione indiget, ut sui normam studii Christo Domino exhibeat, qui obediens patri usque ad mortem crucis ignominiam libenter sustinuit. Quartus abusionis gradus est diues sine elemosina, qui superflua usus sui quae custodienda in posterum recondit indigentibus et nichil habentibus non distribuit. Per quod efficitur, ut dum in terra quesita diligenti cura custodit, caelestis patriae perhennem thesaurum amittat. Ad quem thesaurum Dominus Iesus adolescentem diuitem qui illum de perfectione interrogauerat ita respondens inuitauit: si uis perfectus esse, uade et uende omnia quae habes et da pauperibus,b et ueni, sequere me, et habebis thesaurum in caelo. Quem thesaurum nullus umquam hominum habere potest, nisi qui pauperibus solatia prestat aut per semet ipsum pauper est. Non ergo dormiat in thesauris tuis,c quod pauperi prodesse potest. Nam diues qui congregauerit, his frui solus nequaquam poterit. Quid ergo stultius est quam propter unius hominis uictum et uestimentum totam regni caelestis iocunditatem perdere et aeternos inferni cruciatus absque consolationis prestolatione subire? Quod ergo aliquando per necessitatem amittendum est pro aeterna remuneratione sponte distribuendum est. Omnia enim quae uidentur temporalia sunt, quae autem non uidentur aeterna. Quamdiu namque temporales sumus temporalibus temporalia deseruiunt, et cum hinc transierimus, aeternis aeterna solatia a

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Oxford Jesus College 3: De duodecim abusiuis praestabuntur. Iccirco diligere non debemus ea quae non semper habemus, presertim cum expertem rationis auarum diuitem thesauri sui et agri et omnia quae habet ostendanta uicem se amoris ei rependereb non posse. Quid enim a ratione longius est quam diligere quod te amare non ualet, et negligere illum qui tuae ditioni omnia cum dilectione prebet? Propter hoc igitur non diligi mundus et diligi proximus a Deo precipitur, quia proximus uicem sui amoris potest rependere,c quod mundus minime posse non dubitatur. Licet enim inimicum esse diligendum Dominus imperet ut illa dilectio amicum illum ex inimico efficiat. Quique ergo diues cupidus si uult aeternas habere diuitias, distribuendo egenis perdat interim non mansuras. Sid enim quod diligit non uendit, nemo emere poterit quod cupit. Auari namque ideo in iuditio a rectissimo iudice nuncupantur maledicti, quia qui preteribant eorum habitacula non dicebant: benedictio Domini super uos, benediximus uobis in nomine Domini. Infelices ergo sunt auari diuites propter res transitorias in aeternam dampnationem dilabuntur, et e contrario beati sunt misericordes,e quoniam ipsi misericordiamf consequentur. Felix est misericors, dum in hac uirtute non substantiam sed effectum Deus requirit. Quintus abusionis gradus est femina sine pudicitia. Sicut enim omnes mores bonos procurat et custodit in uiris prudentia, sic in feminis cunctos honestos actus nutrit et fouet et custodit pudicitia. Pudicitia namque castitatem habet, auaritiam refrenat, lites deuitat, iras mitigat, libidinem occupat, cupiditatem temperat, lasciuiam castigat, ebrietatem cauet, uerba non multiplicat, gulae concupiscentiam obpurgat, furtum omnino dampnat. Quid plura? Omnia uitia restringit et omnes uirtutes et quicquid coram Deo et hominibus bonis laudare est nutrit. Impudicag uita nec laudem ab hominibus in presenti seculo nec remunerationem a Deo expectat in futuro. Pudica uero uita famam bonam inter homines possidet et de spe futurae beatitudinis gaudet, presentibus semet ipsam imitabilem facit, posteris memoriam amabilem relinquit, bonis semper moribus delectatur et consentit et assiduis scripturarum meditationibus et eloquiis animum uegetat, bonorum precedentium exempla custodit et inseparabilia perfectis contubernia nectit. Duobus ergo modis constat uerae pudicitiae exercitatio, id est corporis habitu et superfitie et animi effectu interno. Per exteriorem hominemh iuxta apostolum coram hominibus exempla, per interiorem coram Deo prouidemus opera bona. Pudicitia namque est corporis alienas resi non appetere, omnem inmunditiam deuitare, ante horam congruam non gustare uelle, risum non excitare, uerba uana et falsa non loqui, habitum per omnia ordinatum propositoque conuenientem tam capillorum quam uestium sicut decet habere, cum indignis contubernia non inire, a

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supercilioso intuitu neminem aspicere, uagari oculos non permittere, pompatico et illecebroso gressu non incedere, nullo inferior in cepto bono opere apparere, nulli contumeliam aut ruborem incutere, neminem blasphemare, senes non irridere, meliori non controuersari,a de his quae ignoras non tractare, etiam quae scis non omnia proferre. Haec cum proximis amabilem hominem reddunt, et Deo acceptabilem faciunt. Pudicitia uero animae est, plus propter oculos Dei quam hominis omnia bona facere, appeticiones turpium cogitationum compescere, omnes meliores esse se estimare, nemini inuidere, de semet ipso nichil confidere, Dei autem auxilio res omnes committere, ante Dei oculos semet ipsum constituere, heretica prauitate sensum non maculare, catholicis per omnia consentire, Deo soli adherare, castitatem internae mentis Domino Ihesu Christo offerre, omnia cepta bona opera mortis tantum termino finire, presentes tribulationes animi fortitudine paruipendere, in terra preter proximos nil amare, cuncti amoris in caelo thesaurum constituere et pro boni omni actu mercedem in caelestibus a Deo sperare. Pudicitia est ornamentum nobilium, exaltatio humilium, nobilitas ignobilium, pulchritudo uilium, prosperitas laborantium, solamen merentium, augmentum omnis pulchritudinis, decus religionis, defensiob criminum, multiplicatio meritorum, creatoris omnium Dei amicicia. Sextus abusionis gradus est dominus sine uirtute, quem nichil proficit dominandi habere potestatem, si dominus ipse non habeat et uirtutis rigorem. Sed hic uirtutis rigor non tam exercitus fortitudinem, quae et ipsa secularibus dominis necessaria est, indiget quam animi interiorem fortitudinem per bonos mores exercere debet. Saepe enim dominandi uirtus per animi negligentiam perditur, sicut in Heli sacerdote factum fuisse comprobatur. Qui dum per seueritatem iuditii peccantes filios non cohercuit, eorum uindicta dominus uelut consencienti non pepercit. Tria ergo necessaria hos qui dominantur habere oportet, terrorem scilicet et ordinationem et amorem; nisi enim ametur dominus et metuatur, ordinatio eius constare minime poterit. Per benefitia ergo et affabilitatem procuret ut diligatur, et per iustas uindictas non propriae iniuriae, sed leges Dei studeat utc metuatur. Preterea quoque dum multi pendunt in eo, ipse Deod adherare debet qui illum in ducatum constituit, qui ad portandum multorum onerae ipsum ueluti fortiorem solidauit. Paxillus enim nisi bene fixus firmiter alicui fortiori hereat, omne quod in eo pendet cito labitur et ipse solutus a rigore suae firmitatis cum oneribus ad terram dilabitur. Sic et princeps nisi suo conditori pertinaciter adheserit, et ipse et omnis qui ei consentit cito deperit. Quidam namque per is dominandi solidius Deo appropinquant, quidam imposito sibi dignitatis honore deteriores fiunt. Moyses enim accepto ducatu familiarius Dei locutionibus utebatur, Saul uero filius Chis postquam sceptra regni suscepit, per inobedientiae superbiam Deum offendit. Rex Salomon postquam patris sui Dauid sedem optinuit, Deum offendit. Deus a

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Oxford Jesus College 3: De duodecim abusiuis illum ultra omnes mortales uelut ad innumerosi populi gubernationem sapientiae munere donauit; e contrario uero Hieroboam seruus Salomonis, postquam regni domus Dauid partem accepit, ad idolorum cultum decem tribus Israel quae erant in partes Samariae attraxit. Per quae exempla euidenter ostenditur quosdam in sublimiori statu ad maiorem perfectionem crescere, quosdam uero per supercilium dominationis ad deteriora defluere. Per quod utrumque intelligitur eos qui ad meliora conscendunt per Dei auxilium et uirtutem animi posse id facere et eos qui ad deteriora diuertunt per mentis imbecillitatem pariter et negligentiam errare. Unde dominus absque uirtute fieri non debet, quam uirtutem sine Dei auxilio nullatenus habet. Qui enim multa tuetur, si non habet fortitudinem, non ualet id agere, quoniam magna infestationibus et aduersitatibus solent laborare. Omnis igitur qui preest hoc primitus animi tota intentione procuret, ut per omnia de domini adiutorio omnino non dubitet. Si namque coeperit in actibus suis auxiliatorem habere Deum, nullus hominum contemptum habere poterit eius dominatum. Non est enim potestas nisi a Deo. Ipse eleuat de stercore egenum et sedere facit cum principibus populi sui; deponit potentes de sede et exaltat humiles, ut subditus fiat omnis mundus Deo et egeat gloria Dei. Septimus abusionis gradus est Christianus contentiosus, qui cum participatione nominis Christi per fidem et baptismum suscepit, contra Christi dicta et propositum mundi caduca delectamenta diligit. Omne enim quod tenditur aut propter propriam eius dilectionem rei qua agitur aut propter alterius amorem qui sub odiosa spetie latet appetitur. Quemadmodum uerbi gratia bellum animoso pugnantium conflictu cum odiosa res fit, propter amorem uictoriae et libertatis peragitur et multae aliae dilectae speties sub odioso labore uel formidine satis contentiose expetuntur. Unde patenter intelligitur nichil contendere posse, nisi propter dilectionem, subsequentem scilicet amabilemque remunerationem. Qui igitur mundum presentem ex quacumque causa contendit, perspicue ostenditur mundum diligere. Quod per Iohannem spiritus sancti sermones interdicunt, quibus ait: nolite diligere mundum, neque ea quae in mundo sunt. Mundi enim amor et Dei pariter in uno corde cohabitare non possunt, quemadmodum oculi caelum pariter et terram nequaquam conspiciunt. Sed requirendum est, si uere in mundo aliquid sit quod amari debeat et quid sit ille mundus quem diligi diuina eloquia uetant. Terra ergo cum nascentibus ex ea et metallis et animantibus et pulchritudine uestium et oblectationibus ciborum et his quae ad haec pertinent non diligi precipitur, sed proximus propter quema haec omnia facta sunt amari iubetur. Haec enim omnia predicta uelut non mansura ad caelestem patriam pergentes comitari nequeunt, proximi uero uelut mansuri reges coheredes semet ipsos licenter inuicem diligunt. Quod ergo semper in mundo se non manet et quod in mundo pariter deficiet, ipse mundus non amari imperatur. Proximus autem qui est pars regni caelestis in terra, interim a regni caelorum appetitoribus non incongrue amatur, dum in summa illa patria in aeternum coheres habebitur. Propterea uero mundus presens non diligi imperatur, ne a Dei dilectione alienus seculi dilector quisque efficiatur. Non ergo debet contendi quod non licet amari. a

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Igitur Christianus quia nominis Cristi similitudinem tenet morum quoque similitudinem habere debet. Christianus enim nemo recte dicitur nisi qui Christo moribus coequatur. De Christo uero per prophetam ita describitur: Ecce puer meus quem elegi, electus meus complacuit sibi in illo anima mea, ponam spiritum meum super eum. Non contendet neque clamabit neque audiet aliquis in plateis uocem eius. Ecce Christus non contendit neque clamauit; et tu, si morum Christi similitudinem retinere cupis, non contendas, ne abusiuus in aecclesia Christiana existas. Suis enim sectatoribus Christus precepit: nolite uocari rabbi, unus est enim magister uester, qui est Christus, et patrem nolite uocare super terram, unus est pater uester qui in caelis est. Omnes enim uos fratres estis. Quibus ad supplicandum imperauit dicere: sic autem orabitis, Pater noster qui es in caelis sanctificetur nomen tuum. Frustra enim pater contendit in terra qui patrem et patriam profitetur habere se in caelo;b cuius possessor nemo efficitur, nisi qui de terrenae patriae contentione securus habetur. Octauus abusionis gradus est pauper superbus, qui nichil habens in superbiam extollitur, cum e contrario diuitibus seculi non superbe sapere per apostolum imperatur. Quid ergo stolidius potest fieri quam illum qui per infimam miseriam uelut in terra abiectus, extremus et humilis incedere et contristari debuerat, supercilioso superbiae tumore inflatam mentem contra Deum erigere? Per quod uitium lapsi corruerunt qui summo caeli conditi erant culmine. Quid ergo uult quasi potens in terra superbire, qui pre omnibus hominibus debuerat humilis apparere? Sed ne de paupertate sua tristiciam habeant, quid a Deo accepturi sunt pauperes attendant. Ipse etenim inquit: beati pauperes spiritu, quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum. Recta namque dispensatione misericors caeli regnum illis committit qui regni terrarum participationem abstulit, ut ipse diues in caelis se appareat qui in terra penitus nichil procurat. Cauendum ergo pauperibus est, ne dum per necessitatem terrae regnum perdunt, per mentis imprudentiam etiam caelorum regna amittant. Cum enim Dei dispensatione paupertatem necessariam acceperint, in ipsorum arbitrio pendet utrum pauperes spiritu sint. Non enim quibuscumque pauperibus caeli regna promittuntur, sed his tantummodo quibus diuitiarum inopiam animorum humilitas comitatur. Pauper enim humilis pauper spiritu appellatur, qui cum egenus foras cernitur, numquam in superbiam eleuatur, quoniam ad appetenda regna caelorum plus ualet mentis humilitas quam presentium diuitiarum temporalis paupertas. Etenim humiles qui bene diuitias possessas habent possunt pauperes spiritu appellari, et superbi nichil habentes haut dubium est beatitudine paupertatis priuari. De quibus utrisque sancta scriptura ita loquitur: est diues cum nichil habeat et est quasi pauper cum in multis diuitiis sit; quasi diues est pauper superbus mentis effectu et quasi pauper est diues mentis humilitate. Diues ergo inopia est mentis humilitatis et ineptae diuitiae sunt animorum enormitas.c Prouidendum ergo pauperibus est, ut et semet ipsos quales sint intelligant et quod rebus consequi non ualent mentis tumore superbire desistant. a

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Oxford Jesus College 3: De duodecim abusiuis Nonus abusionis gradus est rex iniquus. Etenim regem non iniquum sed correctorem iniquorum esse oportet, unde in semet ipso nominis sui dignitatem debet custodire. Nomen enim regis intellectualiter hoc retinet, ut in subiectis omnibus rectoris offitium procuret. Sed qualiter alios corrigere potuit qui proprios mores ne iniqui sint non corrigit? Quoniam iusticia regis exaltatur solium et ueritate solidantur gubernacula populorum. Iusticia uero regis est neminem iniuste per potentiam opprimere, sine acceptione personarum inter uirum et proximum suum iudicare, aduenis et pupillis et uiduis defensor esse, furta cohibere, adulteria punire, iniquos non exaltare, impudicos et istriones non nutrire, impios de terra perdere, parricidas et periurantes uiuere non sinere, aecclesias defendere, pauperes elemosinis alere, iustos super regni negotia constituere, senes et sapientes et sobrios consiliarios habere, magorum et ariolorum phitonisarumque supersticionibus non intendere, iracundiam differre, fidem catholicam in Deum habere, patientiam fortiter et iuste contra aduersarios defendere, per omnia in Deo uiuere, prosperitatibus non eleuare animum, cuncta aduersa patienter ferre, filios suos non sinere impie agere, certis horis orationibus insistere, ante horas congruas cybum non gustare. Ve enim terrae, cuius rex est puer et cuius principesa mane comedunt. Haec regni prosperitatem in presenti faciunt et regem ad caelestia regna meliora perducunt. Qui uero secundum hanc legem non dispensat, multas nimirum aduersitates imperii tolerat. Iccirco enim sepe pax populorum rumpitur et offendicula etiam de regno suscitantur, terrarum quoque fructus diminuuntur et seruitia populorum prepediuntur, multi etiam dolores prosperitatem regni infitiunt, carorum et liberorum mortes tristiciam conferunt, hostium incursus prouintias undique uastant, bestiae armentorum et pecorum greges dilacerant, tempestates ueris et hiemis terrarum fecunditatem et maris ministeria prohibent et aliquando fulminum ictus segetes et arborum flores et pampinos exurunt. Super omnia uero a regis iniusticia non solum presentis imperii faciem fuscat, sed etiam filios suos et nepotes, ne post se regni hereditatem teneant, obscurat. Propter piaculum enim Salomonis regnum domus Israel Dominus de manibus filiorum eius dispersit,b et propter iusticiam Dauid regis lucernam de semine eius semper in Ierusalem reliquit. Ecce quantum iusticia regis seculo ualet, intuentibus perspicue patet. Pax populorum est, tutamentum patriae, inmunitas plebis, munimentum gentis, cura languorum, gaudium hominum, temperies aeris, serenitas maris, terrae fecunditas, solatium pauperum, hereditas filiorum et sibimet ipsi spes futurae beatitudinis. Attamen sciat quod sicut in throno hominum primus constitutus est, sic et in penis, si iusticiam non fecerit, primatus habiturus est. Omnes namque quoscumque peccatores sub se in presenti habuit, supra se modo plagalic in illa plagalid pena habebit. a

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principes] princeps with i over subpuncted e and superscript e between second p and s dispersit] erasure of er after second s plagali] according to Breen, possibly an orthographic corruption of placabili (‘by way of atonement for’) via plagabili plagali] J seems to be alone in reading plagali here (probably due to repetition of the previous plagali); other manuscripts read futura

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Decimus abusionis gradus est episcopus negligens, qui gradus sui honorem inter homines requirit, sed ministerii sui dignitatem coram Deo, pro quo legatione fungitur, non custodit. Primum namque ab episcopo quid sui nominis dignitas tenet inquiratur, quoniam episcopus cum Grecum nomen sit, speculator interpretatur. Quare uero speculator ponitur et quid a speculatore requiritur Dominus ipse denudat, cum sub Ezechiele propheta persona episcopi offitii sui rationem denudat, ita inquiens: speculatorem dedi te domui Israel. Audiens ergo ex ore meo sermonem nunciabis eis ex me. Si autem uideris gladium uenientem et tu non annuntiaueris ut conuertatura impius a uia sua, ipse quidem impius in iniquitate sua morietur, sanguinem autem eius de manu tua requiram. Si autem tu annuntiaueris et ille non fuerit reuersus, ipse quidem in iniquitate sua morietur, sed tu animam tuam liberasti. Decet ergo episcopum qui omnium speculator positus est peccata diligenter intendere audiens ergo et postquam attenderit, sermone si poterit et actu corrigere, et si non poterit iuxta euuangelii regulam scelerum operarios declinare. Si enim, inquit in euuangelio, peccauerit frater tuus, corripe illum inter te et ipsum solum. Si te audierit, lucratus eris fratrem tuum. Si te non audierit, adhibe tecum adhuc unum uel duos, ut in ore duorum testium uel trium stet omne uerbum. Sib illos non audierit, dic aecclesiae; si aecclesiam non audierit, sit tibi sicut ethnicus et publicanus. Tali ordine expellendus est quicumque doctori uel episcopo adherere noluerit, et qui tali ordine fuerit expulsus, ab aliquo doctore siue episcopo recipi non debet. De sacerdote in lege scribitur: uiduam aut repudiatam non accipiet uxorem. Qui ergo excommunicatum, a catholico illo non permittente, bucina irac sancti sacerdotii, in quod christianorum electus est, excedit. Hac ratione episcopum ad eos quibus in speculatione positus est esse oportet. Ceterum uero qualis in semet ipso esse debeat Paulus apostolus exponit: ut ad gradum episcopi ueniens sit sobrius, prudens, castus, sapiens, modestus, hospitalis, filios habens subditos cum omni castitate, testimonium habens bonum ab his qui foris sunt, proferens doctrinarum fidelem sermonem, ante episcopatum non plures habens uxores quam unam, non percussor, non bilinguis, non ebriosus, non neophitus, ut per haec ipse prius ostendat in opere quod alios docet in sermone doctrinae. Caueant ergo negligentes episcopi, quod in tempore uindictae Dominus per prophetam conqueritur: pastores multi moliti sunt populum meum, et non pascebant pastores gregem meum, sed pascebant pastores semet ipsos. Sed potius procurent quos constituit Dominus supra familiam suam dare illis in tempore suo mensuram tritici, purumd scilicet et probatam doctrinam, quatinus ueniente Domino mereantur audire: euge serue bone et fidelis, quia supra pauca fuisti fidelis supra multa te constituam: intra in gaudium Domini tui. a

b c

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ut conuertatur] in margin J si] sic with c subpuncted bucina ira] this is a corrupt reading, ultimately derived from recipit iura in the original text; recipit seems to have been lost and hac in iura inserted as an emendation. This then became corrupted to bacchina ira, which in turn gave bucina ira (see Breen, ‘De xii abusiuis: Text and Transmission’, p. 86). purum] parum J

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Oxford Jesus College 3: De duodecim abusiuis Undecimus abusionis gradus est plebs sine disciplina, quae dum disciplinae exercitationibus non seruit, Domino absque disciplinae uigore non euadetur, atque iccirco psalmistae uocibus indisciplinatae plebi predicatur: apprehendite disciplinam ne quando irascatur Dominus. Disciplina uero est morum ordinata correctio et maiorum precedentium regularum obseruatio. De qua disciplina Paulus apostolus ita loquitur dicens: In disciplina perseuerate, tanquam filiis uobis offert se Deus; quod si extra disciplinam estis, cuius participes facti sunt omnes, ergo adulteri et non filii estis. Qui ergo adulteri sine disciplina sunt, et caelestis regni hereditatem non capiunt, filii autem paternae disciplinae correctionis fuerunt et hereditatem quandoque recipere posse non desperant. De qua etiam disciplina Ysaias idem indisciplinatae plebi predicat dicens: Quiescite agere peruerse, discite bene facere. Et eadem psalmista consona uoce conpsallit dicens: Declina a malo et fac bonum. Infelix ergo est qui abicit disciplinam; audient enim extra milites aliquid, qui Dominum crucifigentes non consciderunt tunicam, qui aecclesiam Christi scindit disciplinam. Sicut enim tunica totum corpus preter caput tegitur, ita disciplina omnis aecclesia preter Christum, qui aecclesia et disciplina est,a per Christum cuius ecclesia pretegitur et ornatur. Ipsa uero tunica contexta desuper fuerat per totum, quia eadem aecclesiae disciplina a Domino de caelo tribuitur et integratur. De qua Dominus cum ad patrem ascendisset, postquam resurrexisset a mortuis, ad apostolos suos loquebatur: uos autem sedete hic in ciuitate, quoadusque induamini uirtute ex alto. Tunica ergo corporis Christi disciplina aecclesiae est; qui autem extra disciplinam est alienus est a corpore Christi. Non scindamus igitur illam, sed sortiamur de illa. Non soluamus quicquam de mandatis Christi sed unusquisque in quo uocatus est in eo permaneat apud Deum. Duodecimus abusionis gradus est populus sine lege, qui dum Dei dicta et legum scita contempnit per diuersas errorum uias eundem perditionis laquem incurrit. De quibus uiis sub persona preuaricatoris populi humanum genus propheta ita deplangit: Nos autem sicut ouesb errauimus, unusquisque in uiam suam declinauit. De quibus etiam eadem sapientia loquitur per Salomonem: Multae uiae uidentur hominibus rectae, et nouissima earum ducunt ad mortem. Quae utique multae perditionis uiae tunc inceduntur, cum una regalis uia, lex Dei uidelicet, quae neque ad dexteram neque ad sinistram declinat, per negligentiam deseritur. De qua scilicet uia Dominus Christus qui est finis legis ad iusticiam omni credenti denuntiat: Ego sum uia et ueritas et uita; nemo uenit ad patrem nisi per me. Ad quam uiam omnes communiter inuitat dicens: Uenite ad me omnes qui laboratis et onerati estis et ego uos reficiam quia non est personarum acceptio apud Deum. Ubi non est Iudeus et Grecus, masculus et femina, seruus et liber, barbarus et Scita, sed omnia in omnibus Christus; omnes ergo unum sunt in Christo Ihesu. Dum ergo Christus finis est legis, qui sine lege sunt sine Christo sunt. Igitur populus sine lege populus sine Christo est. Abusiuum ergo in temporibus euuangelii populum fieri sine Christo, quando apostolis in cunctas gentes licentia a

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per Christum cuius ecclesia] in margin oues] omitted J

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predicationis data est, quando tonitruum euuangelii per cunctas seculi partes innotuit, quando gentes quae non sectabantur iusticiam apprehenderunt iusticiam, quando qui longe fuerunt facti sunt prope in sanguine Christi, qui aliquando non populus, nunc autem populus sanctus in Christo, quando est tempus acceptabile et dies salutis et tempora refrigerii in conspectu altissimi, quando unaquaeque gens habet testimonium resurrectionis, quando protestatur Dominus: ecce ego uobiscum sum omnibus diebus usque ad consummationem seculi. Non fiamus ergo sine Christo in hoc tempore transitorio, ne sine nobis Christus esse incipiat in futuro.

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Bibliography Full details of items cited more than once in the footnotes are given in the bibliography. The Vulgate is cited from Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam Versionem, ed. R. Weber, 2 vols. (Stuttgart, 1969), and translations are from the DouayRheims version, The Holy Bible (Rheims, 1582, Douay, 1609; London, 1914).

Editions, facsimiles and translations [Ælfric], Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies. The First Series. Text, ed. P. Clemoes, EETS ss 17 (Oxford, 1997) — Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: The Second Series: Text, ed. M. Godden, EETS ss 5 (Oxford, 1979) Ælfrics Grammatik und Glossar, ed. J. Zupitza, Sammlung englischer Denkmäler 1 (Berlin, 1880; repr. with introduction by H. Gneuss, 1966) — Die Hirtenbriefe Ælfrics in altenglischer und lateinischer Fassung, ed. B. Fehr, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 9 (Hamburg, 1914; repr. with a supplementary introduction by P. Clemoes, Darmstadt, 1966) — Homilies of Ælfric: A Supplementary Collection, ed. J. Pope, 2 vols., EETS os 259 and 260 (Oxford, 1967–8) — Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, 4 vols., ed. W. Skeat, EETS os 76, 82, 94, 114 (Oxford, 1881–1900; repr. as 2 vols., 1966) [Alcuin], De uirtutibus et uitiis, PL 101, 613–38D — Alcuin: The Life of Alcuin of York, Alcuin’s Treatise On Virtues and Vices and the Dialogue between Alcuin and Pepin, trans. P. Throop (Charlotte, VT, 2011) [Aldhelm], Aldhelmi Opera, ed. R. Ehwald, MGH, Auct. antiq. 15 (Berlin, 1919) — Aldhelm: The Poetic Works, trans. M. Lapidge and J. Rosier (Cambridge, 1985) [Anon.], Breen, A., ed., ‘Towards a Critical Edition of De XII abusiuis: Introductory Essays with a Provisional Edition of the Text’ (unpubl. Ph.D. dissertation, Trinity College, Dublin, 1988) Assmann, B., ed., Angelsächsische Homilien und Heiligenleben, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 3 (Kassel, 1889; repr. with a supplementary introduction by P. Clemoes, Darmstadt, 1964) [Augustine], Enchiridion, ed. E. Evans, CCSL 46 (Turnhout, 1969) [St Basil], The Anglo-Saxon Version of the Hexameron of St. Basil . . . and the AngloSaxon Remains of St. Basil’s Admonitio ad filium spiritualem, ed. H. Norman, 2nd edn (London, 1849) [Bede], Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. and trans. B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (London, 1969) [Benedict], Benedicti Regula, ed. R. Hanslik, CSEL 75 (Vienna, 1960)

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Bibliography Ker, N., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957) — Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, 2nd edn (London, 1964) Kleist, A., ‘Assembling Ælfric: Reconstructing the Rationale behind Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Compilations’, in A Companion to Ælfric, ed. H. Magennis and M. Swan (Leiden and Boston, 2009), pp. 369–98 Lee, C., ‘Reluctant Appetites: Anglo-Saxon Attitudes towards Fasting’, in Saints and Scholars: New Perspectives on Anglo-Saxon Literature and Culture in Honour of Hugh Magennis, ed. S. McWilliams (Cambridge, 2012), pp. 164–86 Lees, C., ‘The Dissemination of Alcuin’s De virtutibus et vitiis liber in Old English: A Preliminary Survey’, in Sources and Relations: Studies in Honour of J. E. Cross, Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 16 (1985), 174–89 Magennis, H., Anglo-Saxon Appetites: Food and Drink and their Consumption in Old English and Related Literature (Dublin, 1999) McCarthy, D., ‘On the Shape of the Insular Tonsure’, Celtica 24 (2003), 140–67 McCone, K., Pagan Past and Christian Present in Early Irish Literature, Maynooth Monographs 3 (An Sagart, 1991) McIntyre, E. A., ‘Early-Twelfth-Century Worcester Cathedral Priory with Special Reference to the Manuscripts Written There’ (unpubl. D.Phil. dissertation, Oxford University, 1978) McKitterick, R., The Frankish Church and the Carolingian Reforms 789–895 (London, 1977) Newhauser, R., The Treatise on Vices and Virtues in Latin and the Vernacular, Typologie des Sources du Moyen Âge Occidental 68 (Turnhout, 1993) — ‘Preaching the “Contrary Virtues”’, Mediaeval Studies 70 (2008), 135–62 Noble, T., ‘Secular Sanctity: Forging an Ethos for the Carolingian Nobility’, in Lay Intellectuals in the Carolingian World, ed. P. Wormald and J. Nelson (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 8–37 Ó Cróinín, D., ‘A Seventh-Century Irish Computus from the Circle of Cummianus’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 82 (1982), 405–30, repr. in his Early Irish History and Chronology, pp. 99–130 — ‘New Heresy for Old’: Pelagianism in Ireland and the Papal Letter of 640’, Speculum 60 (1985), 505–16, repr. in his Early Irish History and Chronology, pp. 87–98 — Early Irish History and Chronology (Dublin, 2003) Olson, A., ‘Textual Representations of Almsgiving in Late Anglo-Saxon England’ (unpubl. Ph.D .dissertation, York University, 2010) Ó’Néill, P., ‘Romani Influences on Seventh-Century Hiberno-Latin Literature’, in Irland und Europa, ed. P. Ní Chatháin and M. Richter (Stuttgart, 1984), pp. 280–90 Richards, M., ‘The Date and Provenance of MS. Cotton Vespasian D.xiv, ff. 4–169’, Manuscripta 17 (1973), 31–5 — Texts and their Traditions in the Medieval Library of Rochester Cathedral Priory, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 78 (Philadelphia, 1988) Robinson, P., ‘Self-Contained Units in Composite Manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Period’, Anglo-Saxon England 7 (1978), 231–8, repr. in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: Basic Readings, ed. M. Richards (New York, 1994), pp. 25–35 Schipper, W., ‘A Composite Old English Homiliary from Ely: Cambr. Univ. Lib. MS Ii.1.33’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 8 (1983), 285–98

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196

Index

Abbo of Fleury, Collectio canonum  53 Abuses, see under Ælfric, De duodecim abusiuis, and De duodecim abusiuis (Latin) Adomnán  44 Ælfric Admonitio ad filium spiritualem  85 n. 466, 86 Assmann III  5, 13, 70 Assmann IV  12, 13, 33, 33 n. 170 Belfour IX  96 Catholic Homilies I  4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 18, 31, 33;  Preface  3, 12;  I 1  8, 12;  I 2  12, 17;  I 6  12;  I 9  12;  I 10  9, 102;  I 12  59 n. 326;  I 13  9, 12;  I 14  12, 14, 84;  I 15  12;  I 16  12;  I 17  69, 85 n. 466;  I 18  9, 85 n. 466;  I 19  3, 9, 12, 63 n. 351, 65, 68–9, 84;  I 20  3, 8;  I 21  2, 8, 12;  I 22  12, 14;  I 24  12;  I 25  8, 13;  I 26  8, 13;  I 27  9, 13, 17;  I 28  8;  I 30  8, 13;  I 31  13;  I 32  13, 84;  I 34  8, 13;  I 36  8, 13;  I 37  9, 13;  I 38  13;  I 40  8 Catholic Homilies II  5, 6, 9, 18, 19, 31, 32, 34;  Ammonitio, 26, 83 n. 452;  II 3  12;  II 6  98 n. 536;  II 7  12;  II 11  17;  II 12  59 n. 326, 71, 81–2, 83, 86, 87–9, 91, 93, 94–5, 97, 98, 100, 101, 102, 104;  II 13  17, 65;  II 14  12, 28;  II 19  3, 54–5, 59 n. 326, 61 n. 338;  II 20  3, 9, 63 n. 349;  II 21  3, 9;  II 22  12;  II 24  8;  II 25  60;  II 26  12, 85 n. 466;  II 27  8;  II 28  8, 12, 64;  II 29  8;  II 30  8, 9, 89;  II 31  85 n. 466;  II 32  8;  II 35  3, 4;  II 36  3;  II 38  3;  II 39  3, 12;  II 40  3, 84 De cogitatione  3, 13 De duodecim abusiuis  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 16, 18, 19, 23, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 54–71;  first

197

abuse  58;  second abuse  58;  third abuse  58–9;  fourth abuse  57, 59–60;  fifth abuse 57, 61–2;  sixth abuse 57, 62–4;  seventh abuse  57;  eighth abuse  65–6;  ninth abuse  57, 66–8;  tenth abuse  57, 68–9;  eleventh abuse  69;  twelfth abuse  57, 69–70 De infantibus  3, 4 n. 15, 12, 13 De octo uitiis  1, 2, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 23, 24–30, 34, 71–107, 140–1 De penitentia  30, 31 De sanguine  3, 4 n. 15, 11 n. 58, 12, 13, 13, n. 67 De septiformi spiritu  3, 11, 13 De temporibus anni  31 Genesis  17 Grammar  2, 55, 67–8 n. 365 Glossary  2 Hexameron  3, 12, 13, 86 Interrogationes  3, 4, 6, 12, 13, 16, 30, 32 Judith  6 Judges  3 Letters:  Letter to Sigefyrth  8;  Letter to Sigeweard  83 n. 452;  Letter to Wulfgeat  3, 26, 83 n. 452;  Letter for Wulfsige  31, 83 n. 452;  First Old English Letter for Wulfstan  8, 33 n. 170;  Second Old English Letter for Wulfstan  8, 28, 29 n. 142, 71, 81–2, 83, 86, 87–90, 91, 93, 94–5, 97, 98, 100, 101, 102, 104–5 Lives of Saints  6, 16, 18, 29 n. 142, 30, 31–2, 33, 99;  Preface  25, I  25–6, 28, 71 n. 382, 96;  X  17;  XII  6, 30;  XIII  6, 27, 28, 32–3, 55;  XVI  1, 5, 6, 8, 10, 16–18, 20, 21, 23, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 n. 160, 33, 71, 71 n. 380, 105;  XVII  3, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13, 25, 28, 31, 34;  XVIII  3, 4;  XIX  3, 6,

Index 28, 30;  XX  17;  XXI  30;  XXV  3, 6, 12 Pope Homilies  IV  8, 71 n. 382, 84–5, 100 n. 548;  XI  12, 102;  XIV  70;  XVIII  3, 12;  XIX  3, 6, 71 n. 382;  XX  3;  XXI  4 n. 21, 6, 12, 13, 13 n. 68, 16, 30, 31, 32;  XXII  3;  XXVIII  3 Preface to Genesis  17, 70 Æthelbald of Mercia  52 Æthelmær  33 Æthelred of Northumbria  53 Æthelweard  33, 33 n. 167 Æthelwold  54 Æthelwold the Younger  33 n. 170 Alcuin  De animae ratione  71 n. 382 De uirtutibus et uitiis  9, 29 n. 143, 71 n. 382, 76–8, 79–80, 81–2, 84–5, 86, 87–90, 91–2, 93, 94, 95–6, 97–8, 100–1, 102, 104–7 Letter to Æthelred of Northumbria  53 Letter to Charlemagne  53 Prayer  76, 90 Aldhelm  45, n. 231, 77 De uirginitate  74–5, 83, 88 Letter to Geraint  45 n. 231 Almsgiving  35, 57, 59–61, 70, 93, 98–9, 106 Ambrose  50 Ambrosius Autpertus  76, 95–6 Ansegisus  53, 76 n. 409 Assmann XII (Anonymous homily for the fifth Sunday in Lent)  83 Audacht Morainn  39, 39 n. 195 Augustine  23, 37, 50, 51, 51 n. 277, 61, 67 n. 365 Enchiridion  60, 60 n. 333 and 334 Basil of Caesarea, Admonitio ad filium spiritualem  86 Béccán  43 Bede, Historia ecclesiastica  43 n. 218, 44, 45 n. 231 Benedictine Rule see Regula Benedicti Bible (see also Vulgate)  35, 40, 48 Gen. XXVIII.12  48;  Lev. XXI.7  68;  Deut. V.16  116 n. 5;  1 Sam. II.8  64, 124 n. 15;  Ps. II.12  56 n. 313, 69, 134 n. 31;  Ps. XXXVI.27  69, 134 n. 34;  Ps. XLIV.17  67 n. 365;  Ps. LXIX.6  66; 

Ps. LXX.6  126 n. 23; Ps. CXII.7–8  64, 124 n. 15;  Prov. XIV.12  69, 136 n. 35;  Prov. XVI.25  69, 136 n. 35;  Prov. XXIX.4  39, 39 n. 195;  Eccl. X.15  94;  Eccl. X.16  130 n. 25;  Sir. VII.10  101, 150 n. 11;  Is. I.16–17  69, 134 n. 33;  Is. LII.1–2  124 n. 17;  Is. LIII.6  69;  Jer. XII.10  68;  Ez. XXXIII.6–9  68, 132 n. 30;  Ez. XXXIV.8  68;  Matt. V.3  66, 126 n. 22;  Matt. V.7  118 n. 6;  Matt. V.9  65, 124 n. 18;  Matt. V.13  58;  Matt. VI.2  93, 104;  Matt. VI.12  100 n. 550;  Matt. VI.19  61, 124 n. 20;  Matt. VI.20  60, 118 n. 8;  Matt. XI.28  70;  Matt. XII.18– 19  64, 124 n. 19;  Matt. XV.4  59, 116 n. 5;  Matt. XVIII.15–17  68; Matt. XIX.16–22  59; Matt. XIX.21  60, 118 n. 7;  Matt. XXIII.8–10  65;  Matt. XXV.21  68; Matt. XXV.23  68;  Matt. XXV.34– 46  60;  Matt. XXVIII.20  70, 136 n. 37;  Luke I. 52  64, 124 n. 16;  Luke XI.41  61; Luke XII.33  60, 118 n. 8;  Luke XII.42  68; Luke XXI.19  101, 150 n. 10;  Luke XXI.34  26;  John XIV.6  70, 136 n. 36;  John XV.5  64, 105 n. 571, 124 n. 13;  Rom. I.32  63, 122 n. 12;  Rom. II.11  70;  Rom. III.19  64, 124 n. 16;  Rom. III.23  64, 124 n. 16;  Rom. X.4  70;  Rom. XIII.1  64, 124 n. 14;  1 Cor. VI.15–19  84, 144 n. 7;  2 Cor. VII.9–10  75 n. 405;  2 Cor. VII.10  88, 90, 146 n. 9;  Gal. III.28  70;  Eph. V.5  84;  Eph. VI.2  116 n. 5;  Phil. III.20  102, 150 n. 12;  Col. III.5  84;  Col. III.11  70;  1 Tim. III.2–7  68;  1 Tim. VI.10  85, 144 n. 8;  1 Tim. VI.17–19  105 n. 571;  Tit. I.6–9  68;  Hebr. XII.7–8  69, 134 n. 32;  1 John III.10  65, 124 n. 19 Boniface  52 Burchard of Rheims, Decretum  76, 79 n. 433 Bury St Edmunds  17, 18

198

Index Caesarius of Arles  83 Canterbury  1, 2 n. 3, 7, 8, 10, 10 n. 53, 18, 29 n. 142 Capitula ecclesiastica 813  76 Cassian  50, 73, 74, 81–2, 84, 86, 88, 89, 89 n. 487, 91 n. 502, 92, 95, 106 Conlationes  73, 75, 77, 86, 88, 93, 96, 97, 99, 100, 101,104–5 De institutis coenobiorum  73, 77–8, 88, 93, 94 n. 519, 96, 97, 99, 100, 102, 104–5, 106 n. 574 Cathwulf  37, 37 n. 182, 51 n. 277, 52, 53 Charlemagne  37, 52, 53 Coleman  12, 12 n. 62 Collectio canonum Hibernensis  37, 41–2, 51 n. 277, 52, 53, 54, 55 Columbanus  43 n. 219, 47 confession  75, 76, 80, 81, 90, 92 coronation rites  54 Cronanus sapiens (Mo-Chúaróc maccu Neth Sémon)  47–8 Cú Chuimne of Iona (author of Hibernensis)  37 Cummian  Letter  43, 45 Penitential  75, 87 n. 476 Cyprian  37, 50, 51, 54, 54 n. 305, 56 De duodecim abusiuis (Latin)  34–71, 107 date  41–8 individual abuses:  (i) the wise man without good works  35, 58;  (ii) the old man without religion  35, 53, 55, 58;  (iii) the young man without obedience  35, 58–9;  (iv) the rich man without almsgiving  35, 59–60;  (v) the woman without modesty  35, 61–2;  (vi) the lord without strength  35, 40, 62–4;  (vii) the contentious Christian  35–6;  (viii) the poor man who is proud  36, 65–6;  (ix) the unjust king  36, 37, 38–40, 52, 53, 54, 55, 66–8;  (x) the negligent bishop  36, 68–9;  (xi) the people without discipline  36, 69;  (xii) the people without law  36, 69–70 dissemination  52–6 manuscripts  50–2 place of origin  37–41 textual history  50–2, 57 use by Ælfric  54–71 Wycliffite translation  56, 56 n. 312

Defensor, Liber scintillarum  76, 84–5 De mirabilibus sacrae scripturae  45 n. 236, 47 Dionysiac-Alexandrian Easter Tables  43 drinking/drunkenness  62, 83, 106 Easter controversy  42–6, 69 Ely  18 Eutropius  73 Evagrius  72, 73 Exeter  2 fasting  74, 95–6 Gregory the Great  45, 46, 50, 77, 81 Dialogues  46 Moralia in Iob  74 Halitgar of Cambrai, De uitiis et uirtutibus et de ordine poenitentium libri quinque  76, 80 Haymo  26 Heiric, count of Friuli  107 Heli  62, 63, 63 n. 350 Hesychius of Jerusalem  50 Hibernenses  44 Hibernensis  see Collectio canonum Hibernensis Hincmar, De cavendis vitiis et virtutibus exercendis  76 Honorius of Autun  8, 9 Honorius, Pope  43 Hrabanus Maurus  78–9 De ecclesiastica disciplina  78–9, 92 sermons  76 Iona  43, 44 Isidore of Seville  41, 45–6, 47, 50, 74, 77, 89 De differentiis rerum  74 De ecclesiasticis officiis  46 De ortu et obitu patrum  46 Eymologiae  41, 41 n. 208 and n. 209, 46, 47 n. 247 Quaestiones in Deuteronomium  74 Sententiae  41, 74, 84–5 Jeroboam  63 Jerome  50 Job  89–90 John IV, Pope  44 Jonas of Orleans  Acts of the Synod of Paris  53 De institutione regia  53

199

Index kingship  38–40, 66–8 Laidcend  45 n. 236 Liber de ordine creaturarum  45 n. 236 Mag Léne, synod,  43–4, 46 Manuscripts Cambridge Corpus Christi College:  CCCC 162  7, 9, 11–13, 32;  CCCC 178  1, 10 n. 49, 11–13, 18, 20–3, 24–5, 28, 30, 33–4, 110, 140–1;  CCCC 198  9;  CCCC 279  54 n. 302;  CCCC 303  1, 5–7, 16, 18, 19, 28, 29, 34, 110–11, 140;  CCCC 419  2 n. 3;  CCCC 421  1, 2 n. 3, 18 Cambridge, Pembroke College 25  53–4, 79–80, 92, 98 n. 539 Cambridge, University Library:  Add. 3319  52;  Gg. 3. 28  18, 30, 31, 31 n. 156;  Ii.1.33  1, 16, 17–18, 28, 29, 30, 31, 31 n. 158, 140;  Ii.6.55  56 n. 312 Dublin, Trinity College 600  56 n. 312 London, British Library: Cotton Faustina A. x  2, 4 n. 4;  Cotton Julius E. vii  1, 6, 16–17, 18, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 140; Cotton Otho E. xiii  54 n. 302;  Cotton Tiberius A.iii  80, 90;  Cotton Vespasian D. xiv  1, 7–11, 16, 18, 19, 28, 29, 30, 110–11, 140;  Egerton 2877  56 n. 312;  Harley 2330  56 n. 312;  Harley 3027  52;  Royal 2.B.v  90;  Royal 5.E. xiii  54 n. 302;  Royal 5. F. x  52;  Royal 6. B. xiii  52 London, Lambeth Palace Library 487  1, 14–16, 18, 20–3, 26 n. 129, 34, 56, 110, 140–1 Oxford, All Souls College 24  56 n. 312 Oxford, Bodleian Library:  Bodley 340 and 342  7, 9;  Bodley 343  13;  Bodley 800  51 n. 274, 52;  Canon. Pat. Lat. 49  52, 56;  Hatton 42  54 n. 302;  Hatton 113+114  13;  Hatton 115  1, 2–5, 9, 18, 19, 20–3, 34, 110–11, 140–1;  Hatton 116  1, 13–14, 18, 23–4, 110;  Laud Misc. 350  52 Oxford, Jesus College 3  52, 180–90 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale:  lat. 2331  51 n. 274;  lat. 15146  51 n. 274

St Omer, Bibliothėque Municipale 267  51 Salisbury, Cathedral Library 168  52 Martin of Braga  73–4 Metz, Synod of  53 Moses  63 Oda of Canterbury, Constitutions  54 Origen  50 Paris, Synod of  53 Parker, Matthew, Archbishop  11 Patrick  37, 46–7, 51 n. 277 Synodus I Patricii  41, 46–7, 49 Synodus II Patricii  41, 46–7 Paulinus of Aquileia  76, 107 Penitentials  79, 83, 86–7, 92, 106 continental  76, 79, 80, 92 Irish  75:  Bigotian Penitential  75, 87 n. 476, 89, 90, 90 n. 494;  Old Irish Penitential  75, 87 n. 476, 89 n. 488, 89 n. 490;  Penitential of Cummian  75, 87 n. 476;  Penitential of Finnian  75 Peterborough  54 Prayer  106 Alcuin’s Latin prayer  76 Old English confessional prayer (ed. Pulsiano and McGowan)  87, 90, 92 Promissio regis  55 Prudentius  77 Psychomachia   73 Pseudo-Bede Collectanea  42, 52–3, 54 Ralph D’Escures  8, 9 Regula Benedicti   37, 40, 45, 46, 48–9 Regula Magistri  40, 49 Rochester  7, 7 n. 34, 8, 10, 18 Romani  37, 42–6 Rome  43–4, 45, 46 Ruben of Darinis  37 Rufinus  50 St Père de Chartres homiliary  53–4, 79–80, 92, 98 n. 539 Saul  63 Seafarer  55, 58 n. 319 Seasons for Fasting  97 Sedulius Scottus  53 Collectaneum miscellaneum  42, 51 n. 277, 53 Liber de rectoribus  53 Ségéne, abbot of Iona  43 Senchas Már  38, 38 n. 187 Sinlán of Bangor  47–8

200

Index tristitia  72, 73, 74, 78, 87–90, 101–2, 106 uana gloria  72, 73, 74, 93, 104 uentris ingluuies  74

Solomon  63 suicide  28 Sulpicius Severus  43 n. 219 temperance  26, 27–8, 72 Theodulf of Orleans  95–6 Capitula  75–6, 79 n. 433, 80, 80 n. 436 Tonsure  44, 44 n. 229 Tremulous Hand of Worcester  4, 11, 12, 14, 111, 124–5 n. 21, 141 Trosly, Synod of  53 Vercelli Homilies III  80;  IX  3; XIX  80 n. 435;  XX  80, 83 n. 449, 92, 98 n. 539 Vices and Virtues genre  71–81 Vices  1, 29 acedia  72, 72 n. 391, 73, 74, 77–9, 91–2, 102, 106 auaritia  72, 73, 74, 85–6, 98, 106 cenodoxia  74, 93 fornicatio  73, 74, 77, 77 n. 422, 84–5, 97 gastrimargia  73 gula  72, 73, 74, 82–3, 97 iactantia  92–4 inanis gloria  74 inuidia  72, 74, 81 ira  72, 73, 74, 86–7, 99–101 luxuria  73, 74 philargiria  73, 74 stuprum  74 superbia  72, 73, 74, 94–5, 104–5

Victorius of Aquitaine  43 Virtues  1, 29 cardinal virtues  29 n. 143, 77, 96 contrary virtues  29, 72, 73, 74–5, 77, 79, 81 theological virtues  29, 77 virtues, individual:  abstinentia  27, 31, 77, 95–6;  caritas  103– 4;  castitas  73, 97–8;  fortitudo  73;  humilitas  73, 74, 104–5;  instantia boni operis  102–3;  largitas  98–9, 104;  patientia  73, 74, 99;  salutaris tristitia  73, 74, 101;  spiritalis laetitia  101– 2;  temperantia  26, 27–8, 72, 95 Vitae patrum  89 Vulgate  37, 40, 45–6, 48 Whitby, Synod  44, 45 n. 231 Wido, Count  76, 77, 107 Worcester  4, 5, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 111 Worcester, Tremulous Hand, see Tremulous Wulfstan of Worcester  12 Wulfstan of York  14, 15, 61, 79 n. 433, 97 n. 533

201

anglo-saxon texts

1. Wulfstan’s Canon Law Collection J. E. Cross (†) and Andrew Hamer 2. The Old English Poem Judgement Day II: A Critical Edition with Editions of De die iudicii and the Hatton 113 Homily Be domes dæge Graham D. Caie 3. Historia de Sancto Cuthberto: A History of Saint Cuthbert and a Record of his Patrimony Ted Johnson South 4. Excerptiones de Prisciano: The Source for Ælfric’s Latin-Old English Grammar David W. Porter 5. Ælfric’s Life of Saint Basil the Great: Background and Context Gabriella Corona 6. Ælfric’s De Temporibus Anni Martin Blake 7. The Old English Dialogues of Solomon and Saturn Daniel Anlezark 8. Sunday Observance and The Sunday Letter in Anglo-Saxon England Dorothy Haines 9. Anglo-Saxon Prognostics: An Edition and Translation of Texts from London, British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius A.iii R. M. Liuzza 10. The Old English Martyrology: Edition, Translation and Commentary Christine Rauer