The Late Age

Most of what we call Old English literature was not written down in Cædmon's time or Alfred's, but around the year 1000. This chapter looks at why: a church reform that built writing workshops, two prolific authors, and two great manuscripts that preserve the poems read in Old English Reading 1.

The Benedictine reform

According to Wikipedia's English Benedictine Reform article, the reform was a movement to restore strict monastic life, drawing on Continental houses such as Fleury and Ghent. It gained force under King Edgar, from about 959 to 975.

The article says that by 975 about 30 male houses and 7 or 8 nunneries had been reformed, perhaps 10% of religious establishments. The Regularis Concordia, written by Æthelwold, aimed to standardise church services and monastic practice across England; the article dates its adoption to about 970 and says it may belong to the 960s. After Edgar died in 975 an "anti-monastic reaction" set in, and renewed Viking attacks from the 980s hit the reformed houses.

The article says the reform was not simply a recovery from the Vikings. It records that scholars such as Blair argue the secularisation of minsters began before the reform and mattered more than the raids themselves. I did not read further into that argument.

What it did for written English

• Translation: the Rule of St Benedict was translated into Old English, probably by Æthelwold, and the article calls it the only surviving prose translation of the Rule into a European vernacular from this period.
• Standard language: the article says Æthelwold's school aimed to establish a standard West Saxon literary language, probably started by Æthelwold himself, and that Hofstetter argues Winchester's efforts shaped the literary standard across late Old English England.
• The copying: the article notes that most surviving vernacular literature came from followers of the reformers, and that much Old English poetry, including the Beowulf manuscript, survives in late tenth- and early eleventh-century copies.

This is the Late West Saxon of Chapter 3, and the written standard taught in Old English Grammar 1. The word "standard" here means a deliberate school habit, not a spoken language everyone shared.

Ælfric

Wikipedia's Ælfric of Eynsham article gives his life as c. 955 to c. 1010. He was educated at the Old Minster, Winchester, under Æthelwold, was sent to teach at Cerne Abbey in 987 (one of only two certain dates, says the article), and became first abbot of Eynsham in 1005.

The article calls him "the most prolific writer in Old English" and says he translated Genesis by meaning rather than strictly word for word. It does not discuss his dialect, so I say nothing about it.

Wulfstan

According to the Wikipedia article on Wulfstan (died 1023), he was Bishop of London from 996, then in 1002 was elected to both Worcester and York, and remained Archbishop of York until his death on 28 May 1023. He wrote the royal law codes for Æthelred II from about 1005 to 1016, and laws for Cnut issued at Winchester in 1021 or 1022.

His best-known work is the Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, "Sermon of the Wolf to the English", written in 1014. The article says it treats the raids as God's punishment for English sins and urges repentance. It describes his homilies as using alliterative word pairs and repetition, giving them an urgent rhythm, and says he wrote plainly for ordinary parishioners. The article is inconsistent on attribution: one section says over 30 Old English sermons, another says 26 sermons, 22 of them in Old English.

Ælfric and Wulfstan are the two best-known prose writers of the age. The contrast, which is my summary of the two articles and not a claim either makes: Ælfric as a teacher and translator, Wulfstan as a preacher and law-writer.

The poetry manuscripts

Two manuscripts carry the poetry read in Old English Reading 1. According to the Beowulf article, the poem survives in one manuscript, the Nowell Codex (British Library, Cotton Vitellius A.xv), made about AD 975 to 1025. The article says this is "the only certain dating", since estimates for when the poem was composed range from about 700 to 1000, and scholars disagree.

• Two scribes: the first copied the opening prose and lines up to 1,939, regularising the spelling into West Saxon. The second copied the rest and kept more archaic dialect forms.
• The fire: a fire at Ashburnham House in 1731 charred the margins and some readings were lost. Later crumbling and rebinding caused further loss.
• Rediscovery: Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin made the first transcriptions in 1786 for a Danish commission, and later produced the first complete edition, in Latin.

The Exeter Book article says it was probably produced in the late tenth century, with proposed dates from 960 to 990. Its traceable history begins in 1072, when Leofric, the first bishop of Exeter, left a large English book of verse to the Exeter monastery. It holds saints' lives, wisdom poems, heroic poems, about 90 to 100 riddles, two poems signed by Cynewulf, and the elegies, including The Wanderer (the subject of Old English Reading 1, Chapter 9). Poems have no titles in the manuscript, and the original first leaves are lost. The article does not discuss the dialect of the manuscript.

Old English Reading 1, Chapter 8 reads the opening lines of Beowulf, Chapter 9 reads The Wanderer, and Chapter 10 reads The Battle of Maldon. I did not check, in this chapter's sources, where the manuscript of Maldon comes from, so I say nothing about it.

Words to know

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