St Erkenwald imagines an encounter in the seventh century between the historical Erkenwald, Bishop of London 675 to 693, and a corpse from an even earlier period, the period before the Roman conquest of Britain. The poem's themes revolve around the complex history of Britain and England, and the possibility in fourteenth-century Christian thought of the salvation of virtuous pagans.
St. Erkenwald instructing monks. A historiated initial from the Chertsey Breviary (Bodley Ms Lat. liturg. d. 42, f. 46rv).
Manuscript
St Erkenwald survives in only one manuscript, British Library MS Harley 2250.[6] The document was discovered in 1757 by Thomas Percy; the manuscript had been in the possession of Sir Humphrey Pitt of Balcony House, Shifnal, and Priorslee, Shropshire.[7] Other important ancient literary materials narrowly avoided being burnt as kindling by household staff in the circumstances[clarification needed] in which Percy was discovering this important cultural survival.[8]
Priorslee Hall, an address in Shropshire occupied by Sir Humphrey Pitt from whom the only known copy was recovered
This is a composite manuscript, created by binding together two pre-existing manuscripts which were originally unrelated.[9] One of the other texts in the part which contains St Erkenwald, copied by the same scribe, ends with a scribal colophon noting the year, 1477; since this note is by the same scribe, the copy of St Erkenwald therefore dates from in or around 1477, roughly a century after the poem's probable composition.[10]
The first line of the surviving copy of the poem begins with a rubricated large initial "A", and line 177 begins with a similar letter "T".[11] Since this copy of the poem as a whole has 352 lines, the line 177 marks the beginning of its second half, and the marking of this point in the poem is probably intentional. Modern editions have therefore tended to reproduce the division.[12][13]
The rest of the related part of the manuscript contains many other works of a pious and devotional sort, including at least ten other stories about saints in Middle English verse (albeit rhyming verse rather than alliterative verse): although St Erkenwald has usually been edited or anthologised in isolation, the surviving copy appears to have been transmitted as part of a collection of saintly writings.[14]
The title of the poem in its manuscript copy is the Latin "De Erkenwaldo" ("About Erkenwald"); the poem's present-day title, St Erkenwald, is a modern imposition.[15]
A window at Wells Cathedral; the heads depict: Pope Stephen, St Blaise, St Erkenwald, and Pope Marcellus.
A typical line divides into two half-lines, each containing two primary beats; the beats are usually the lexical stresses of open-class words. The first three beats—that is, both beats of the first half-line and the first beat of the second half-line—normally alliterate together, while the fourth beat normally does not alliterate with the others. Sometimes the fourth beat may alliterate with the first three beats of the following line, possibly as a point of deliberate construction.[17]
Beat syllables which have no initial consonant and begin with any vowel (syllables with zero onset) alliterate with beat syllables beginning with any other vowel so that, for example, in the line "In Esex was Ser Erkenwolde || an abbay to visite" the "e-" and "a-" sounds alliterate together.[18]
All of these features of the poem's form are conventional for later fourteenth-century alliterative verse.
Summary
The most important collection of early materials concerning Erkenwald is the Miracula Sanct Erkenwaldi, preserved as a 12th century manuscript in the Matthew Parker collection (Parker 161) at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.[19] The miracle in the poem is not in these materials, suggesting the story post-dates this manuscript.
It is possible the plot of the poem is a development of an (in its time) well-known story relating to the discovery of the head of a dead judge and John de Beromyarde, a famous Dominican of the later 1300s; a source being Summa Praedicantum.[20]
St Erkenwald's story appears to come in two distinct sections, matching the division made by large initials in the surviving manuscript, noted above. The first provides a brief, historical context for the poem. The first section also depicts the discovery of an awe-inspiring sarcophagus and the concern and confusion of those that found it. The second focuses on St Erkenwald's dialogue with the re-animated corpse.
The poem begins with a brief historical description of England's shift from pagan belief to Christendom. The poem says that when, after the passing of the Roman Empire, the pagan Saxons invaded Britain, they drove the British into Wales and established pagan beliefs in the newly created England. St Augustine of Canterbury was sent to convert the English and to purify the pagan temples, replacing them with churches. The poem says that London was then called "New Troy".
The poem proceeds to an incident in the life of St Erkenwald. During the construction of St Paul's Cathedral in London on the site of a former pagan temple, a mysterious tomb is uncovered. Adorned with gargoyles and made of grey marble, the tomb is inscribed with a series of golden characters, but no scholar is able to decipher them.
Once granted permission by the sextons, the mayor takes control of the sanctuary and tomb for further investigation. As they open the lid of the tomb, they find a perfectly preserved body and the garments of a king. Since those present are mystified, St Erkenwald is summoned to the tomb.
After Erkenwald prays, hoping to learn the identity of the body, and performs a mass, a "goste-lyfe" animates the corpse, and it begins to reply to his questions. The corpse reveals that he is a pre-Christian Briton, a just judge who lived under the rule of the mythological King Belinus. He was given royal attire in his burial to honour his impartial rulings throughout his time as a judge, and after his death God preserved his clothing and his body on account of his righteousness.
This prompts Erkenwald to ask the judge about the state of his soul. The corpse says that his soul languishes in Limbo. All present weep to hear this, and one of Erkenwald's tears falls on the corpse. Erkenwald promises to prepare water to baptise the corpse, but because he has just invoked the Trinity, his tear accidentally already constitutes baptismal water,[21] and the corpse immediately dissolves into dust, as the soul of the man finally enters heaven.
Themes
By presenting an exemplum, this poem addresses, in an accessible and vivid way, the question of whether salvation was possible to persons who lived morally admirable lives without having the opportunity to receive baptism. This was a question which interested and troubled Christians in the period.[22] The story of St Erkenwald suggests that a physical body is necessary for baptism and salvation. It is implied that the judge's body miraculously remained intact only to enable its salvation, since the body dissolved immediately following its baptism. Critics have compared it to the Beowulf poem for reasons allied to this.[23]
The poem is also engaged with fourteenth-century England's sense of its own complicated religious history, as a land which was thought to have been pagan (before the coming of the Romans and for much of the Roman period), Christian (in the late Roman period), pagan (under the earliest English) and then Christian again (after evangelisation by Augustine of Canterbury).
The Curfew Tower of Barking Abbey The Curfew Tower was one of the three gateways to Barking Abbey, founded in 666 by Erkenwald, later Bishop of London.
Sources
There is no direct source for this poem. The known lives of Erkenwald do not contain a miracle concerning the salvation of a pagan judge. The closest analogue is the story of Pope Gregory the Great and the Roman Emperor Trajan. In several versions of the story, Gregory learns of Trajan's just life, and is able to help Trajan's soul enter heaven. This might be the inspiration for St Erkenwald.
The story of Trajan was popular, and can, for example, be found in Langland's Piers Plowman and in an early commentary on Dante's Divine Comedy.[24][25] In Langland's version of the Trajan story Trajan was saved simply by Gregory's desires and weeping, but in the Dante-commentary tradition the specific sacrament of baptism was necessary; by describing a specific baptism, St Erkenwald aligns itself more closely with this second view on the question of the salvation of righteous pagans.[26]
Shrine of St Erkenwald in St Paul's Cathedral, relics removed 1550, lost as a monument in the Great Fire of London
Language and dialect
Past scholarship agrees that the language of the circa 1477 manuscript copy of St Erkenwald can be placed somewhere in the north-west Midlands.[27][28] The evidence at least strongly suggests that it can be more precisely placed in Cheshire.[29]
However, the language of one late surviving copy—created roughly a century after the poem's composition—cannot be taken as a wholly accurate representation of the poem's original language.[30]
The two obsolete characters within the St Erkenwald excerpt below are the letters yogh (ȝ) and thorn (þ).
At London in Englond noȝt full long [time] Sythen Crist suffrid on crosse and Cristendome stablyd, Ther was a byschop in þat burgh, blessyd and sacryd; Saynt Erkenwolde as I hope þat holy mon hatte. In his tyme in þat toun þe temple alder-grattyst Was drawen doun, þat one dole, to dedifie new, For hit hethen had bene in Hengyst dawes Þat þe Saxones vnsaȝt haden sende hyder. Þai bete oute þe Bretons and broȝt hom into Wales And peruertyd all þe pepul þat in þat place dwelled; Þen wos this reame renaide mony ronke ȝeres.
At London in England not very long ago Since Christ suffered on the cross and established/ founded Christianity, There was a bishop in that burgh (town), blessed and holy; Saint Erkenwald, as I believe that holy man was called. In his time in that town the greatest temple Was drawn down, that one part of it, to dedicate a new one, For it had been heathen in Hengest's days When the Saxons hostilely had come there. They beat out the Britons and brought them into Wales. And perverted (led astray) all the people that dwelled in that place; Then was this realm renegade (i.e. pagan) many rebellious years.
—lines 1-11
Contemporary engagement with the material
The poetry has been engaged with in current culture and scholarship in the several ways, including:
Old English literature refers to poetry and prose written in Old English in early medieval England, from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066, a period often termed Anglo-Saxon England. The 7th-century work Cædmon's Hymn is often considered as the oldest surviving poem in English, as it appears in an 8th-century copy of Bede's text, the Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Poetry written in the mid 12th century represents some of the latest post-Norman examples of Old English. Adherence to the grammatical rules of Old English is largely inconsistent in 12th-century work, and by the 13th century the grammar and syntax of Old English had almost completely deteriorated, giving way to the much larger Middle English corpus of literature.
Patience is a Middle English alliterative poem written in the late 14th century. Its unknown author, designated the "Pearl Poet" or "Gawain-Poet", also appears, on the basis of dialect and stylistic evidence, to be the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Cleanness and may have composed St. Erkenwald. This is thought to be true because the techniques and vocabulary of regional dialect of the unknown author is that of Northwest Midlands, located between Shropshire and Lancashire.
In prosody, alliterative verse is a form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal device to indicate the underlying metrical structure, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The most commonly studied traditions of alliterative verse are those found in the oldest literature of the Germanic languages, where scholars use the term 'alliterative poetry' rather broadly to indicate a tradition which not only shares alliteration as its primary ornament but also certain metrical characteristics. The Old English epic Beowulf, as well as most other Old English poetry, the Old High German Muspilli, the Old Saxon Heliand, the Old Norse Poetic Edda, and many Middle English poems such as Piers Plowman, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Layamon's Brut and the Alliterative Morte Arthur all use alliterative verse.
A skald, or skáld is one of the often named poets who composed skaldic poetry, one of the two kinds of Old Norse poetry in alliterative verse, the other being Eddic poetry. Skaldic poems were traditionally composed to honor kings, but were sometimes ex tempore. They include both extended works and single verses (lausavísur). They are characteristically more ornate in form and diction than eddic poems, employing many kennings, which require some knowledge of Norse mythology, and heiti, which are formal nouns used in place of more prosaic synonyms. Dróttkvætt metre is a type of skaldic verse form that most often use internal rhyme and alliteration.
The "Gawain Poet", or less commonly the "Pearl Poet", is the name given to the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, an alliterative poem written in 14th-century Middle English. Its author appears also to have written the poems Pearl, Patience, and Cleanness; some scholars suggest the author may also have composed Saint Erkenwald. Save for the last, all these works are known from a single surviving manuscript, the British Library holding 'Cotton MS' Nero A.x. This body of work includes some of the most highly-regarded poetry written in Middle English.
Pearl is a late 14th-century Middle English poem that is considered one of the most important surviving Middle English works. With elements of medieval allegory and from the dream vision genre, the poem is written in a North-West Midlands variety of Middle English and is highly—though not consistently—alliterative; there is, among other stylistic features, a complex system of stanza-linking.
Cleanness is a Middle English alliterative poem written in the late 14th century. Its unknown author, designated the Pearl poet or Gawain poet, also appears, on the basis of dialect and stylistic evidence, to be the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Patience, and may have also composed St. Erkenwald.
Saint Earconwald or Erkenwald was a Saxon prince and Bishop of London between 675 and 693. He is the eponymous subject of one of the most important poems in the foundations of English literature. He was called Lundoniae maximum sanctus, 'the most holy figure of London', and Lux Londonie, "the light of London". Peter Ackroyd has said of him, "we may still name him as the patron saint of London, [his]... cult survived for over eight hundred years, before entering the temporary darkness of the last four centuries".
Layamon's Brut, also known as The Chronicle of Britain, is a Middle English alliterative verse poem compiled and recast by the English priest Layamon. Layamon's Brut is 16,096 lines long and narrates a fictionalized version of the history of Britain up to the Early Middle Ages. It was the first work of history written in English since the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Named for Britain's mythical founder, Brutus of Troy, the poem is largely based on the Anglo-Norman French Roman de Brut by Wace, which is in turn a version of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin Historia Regum Britanniae. Layamon's poem, however, is longer than both and includes an enlarged section on the life and exploits of King Arthur. It is written in the alliterative verse style commonly used in Middle English poetry by rhyming chroniclers, the two halves of the alliterative lines being often linked by rhyme as well as by alliteration.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Edward Oswald Gabriel Turville-Petre was an English philologist who specialized in Old Norse studies.
Joan Elizabeth Turville-Petre was an English philologist at the University of Oxford who specialized in Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse studies.
The Three Dead Kings is a 15th-century Middle English poem. It is found in the manuscript MS. Douce 302 in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, and its authorship is sometimes attributed to a Shropshire priest, John Audelay. It is an extremely rare survival from a late genre of alliterative verse, also significant as the only English poetic retelling of a well-known memento mori current in mediaeval European church art.
Wynnere and Wastoure is a fragmentary Middle English poem written in alliterative verse around the middle of the 14th century.
The Awntyrs off Arthure at the Terne Wathelyne is an Arthurian romance of 702 lines written in Middle English alliterative verse. Despite its title, it centres on the deeds of Sir Gawain. The poem, thought to have been composed in Cumberland in the late 14th or early 15th century, survives in four different manuscripts from widely separated areas of England.
The Alliterative Revival is a term adopted by literary historians to refer to the resurgence of poetry using the alliterative verse form in Middle English between c. 1350 and 1500. Alliterative verse was the traditional verse form of Old English poetry; the last known alliterative poem prior to the Revival was Layamon's Brut, which dates from around 1190.
Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology, is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia, and into the Nordic folklore of the modern period. The northernmost extension of Germanic mythology and stemming from Proto-Germanic folklore, Norse mythology consists of tales of various deities, beings, and heroes derived from numerous sources from both before and after the pagan period, including medieval manuscripts, archaeological representations, and folk tradition. The source texts mention numerous gods such as the thunder-god Thor, the raven-flanked god Odin, the goddess Freyja, and numerous other deities.
Exodus is the title given to an Old English alliterative poem in the 10th century Junius manuscript. Exodus is not a paraphrase of the biblical book, but rather a re-telling of the story of the Israelites' flight from Egyptian captivity and the Crossing of the Red Sea in the manner of a "heroic epic", much like Old English poems Andreas, Judith, or even Beowulf. It is one of the densest, most allusive and complex poems in Old English, and is the focus of much critical debate.
John Massey is one conjectured name of the Gawain Poet, author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and probably of several other 14th-century Middle English poems. Internal evidence from the text of the poems and marginalia of the manuscript suggests the name "John Massey" or similar; contemporary records of people of the name who might have been poets include one from the village of Cotton in Cheshire.
Thorlac Francis Samuel Turville-Petre is an English philologist who is Professor Emeritus and former head of the School of English at the University of Nottingham. He specializes in the study of Middle English literature.
References
↑ Frank Grady, "St. Erkenwald and the Merciless Parliament", Studies in the Age of Chaucer 22 (2000), pp. 179–211.
↑ Ruth Nissé, "'A Coroun Ful Rich': The Rule of History in St. Erkenwald", English Literary History 65 (1998), pp. 277–95.
↑ Larry Benson, "The Authorship of St. Erkenwald", Journal of English and Germanic Philology 64 (1965), pp. 393–405 (arguing against common authorship).
↑ London, British Library, MS Harley 2250, ff. 72v to 75v.
↑ William Langland, The Vision of Piers Plowman: A Complete Edition of the B-Text, edited by A. V. C. Schmidt, Passus XI, lines 141–69; Passus XII, lines 281–92.
↑ A Book of Middle English, edited by J. A. Burrow and Thorlac Turville-Petre, 3rd edition (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), p. 221.
↑ Saint Erkenwald, edited by Clifford Peterson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977), pp. 23–6.
↑ Friedrich Knigge, Die Sprache des Dichters von "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", der sogenannten "Early English Alliterative Poems"", und de "Erkenwalde" (Marburg: Elwert, 1885), pp. 118–20.
↑ Saint Erkenwald, edited by Clifford Peterson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977), pp. 23–4.
↑ Saint Erkenwald, edited by Clifford Peterson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977), p. 23.
↑ Gollancz, I., St. Erkenwald (Bishop of London 675-693) an alliterative poem, 1922, Oxford University Press, p. 1.
J.A. Burrow and Thorlac Turville-Petre. A Book of Middle English, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996) ISBN0-631-19353-7
Clifford Peterson (ed.) and Casey Finch (trans.). In The Complete Works of the Pearl Poet (Berkeley: University of California Press. 1995) ISBN0-520-07871-3 (with facing page Modern English translation).
Ruth Morse. St. Erkenwald (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer Ltd, 1975) ISBN0-87471-686-1.
Henry L. Savage. St. Erkenwald (Hampden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1972) ISBN0-208-01136-6
Clifford Peterson. St. Erkenwald (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977) ISBN0-8122-7723-6
Commentary and criticism
Larry D. Benson, 1965 “The Authorship of St. Erkenwald.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 64: 393–405.
Christine Chism, Alliterative Revivals (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2002) ISBN0-8122-3655-6.
Seeta Chaganti, The Medieval Poetics of the Reliquary: Enshrinement, Inscription, Performance (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 47 - 71.
J. R. Hulbert, 1918 - 1919 “The Sources of St. Erkenwald and the Trental of Gregory,” Modern Philology 16: 485 - 93.
T. McAlindon, 1970 “Hagiography into Art: A Study of St. Erkenwald.” Studies in Philology 67: 472 -94.
Ruth Nissé, "'A Coroun Ful Riche': The Rule of History in St. Erkenwald." ELH 65.2 (1998): 277–95.
Monika Otter, "'New Werke': St. Erkenwald, St. Alban's, and the Medieval Sense of the Past," Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies. 24.3 (1994): 387–414.
William A. Quinn, 1984 “The Psychology of St. Erkenwald.” Medium Aevum 3, No. 2: 180 - 93.
G. Whatley, “Heathens and Saints: St. Erkenwald and its Legendary Context.” Speculum 61.2 (1986): 330–63.
Helen Young, 2007 "Refusing the Medieval Other: A Case Study of Pre-Modern Nationalism and Postcoloniality in the Middle English "St Erkenwald"." 'The Politics and Aesthetics of Refusal.' Eds Caroline Hamilton, Michelle Kelly, Elaine Minor, Will Noonan. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 140 - 65.
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