"Books Most Necessary": The Literary and Cultural Contexts of Alfred’s Boethius [thesis]

221 Pages·2000·10.53 MB·English

by  John H. Brinegar

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"BOOKS MOST NECESSARY": THE LITERARY AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS OF
ALFRED’S BOETHIUS
by
John H. Brinegar
A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the
Department of English.
Chapel Hill
2000
Approved by
jPo'/\jeuX^
Advis«ffc Profess ick P./ONeill
Reacur: Ciofessor Joseph S. WIttia
Reader: Professor Theodore H. Leinbaugh
Reader: Professor Connie Eble
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Reader: Professor Petrus Tax
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Copyright 2000 by
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ii
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ABSTRACT
JOHN H.BRINEGAR: "Books Most Necessary": The Literary and Cultural Contexts of
Alfred’s Boethius
(Under the direction of Patrick P. O’Neill)
King Alfred’s Old English translation of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae
(Consolation of Philosophy) differs significantly from the original Latin text. Alfred
omits much of Boethius’s text and includes material concerning natural history, classical
mythology, Roman history, and Christian doctrine. Scholars historically have assumed
that Alfred’s additions to his translation were drawn mainly from glosses in his copy of
the Consolation, but this assumption is questioned in articles by Joseph Wittig and Janet
Bately. Following the conclusions reached by Wittig and Bately, this study presents
evidence that Alfred’s additions come from a small group of classical and patristic
sources. Comparison of the additions with the most plausible sources identifies the texts
Alfred most probably used: Bede’s De natura rerum. Ambrose’s Hexameron. Virgil’s
Aeneid and Georgies along with Servius’s commentary on them, Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
Eutropius’s Breviarium ab urbe condita. Orosius’s Historiarum adversus paganos libri vii.
Gregory’s Homilia XXXIV in Evangelia. and biblical wisdom literature. The final
chapter argues that Alfred adapts Boethius’s text using these sources in order to celebrate
divine wisdom rather than human philosophy and to compare the Anglo-Saxons
favorably with the Romans. In doing so, Alfred consciously figures himself as a wise
and effective ruler after the biblical example of King Solomon.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
1. Introduction......................................................................................................................1
2. De Natura Rerum: Alfred's Sources For Natural History.........................................18
3. Leasum Spellum: Alfred's Sources For Mythology..................................................60
4. Historia Romana: Alfred's Sources For Classical History......................................100
5. Liber Sapientiae: Alfred's Sources For Christian Doctrine....................................130
6. The Rule of Solomon: Alfred's Aims in the Boethius............................................168
7. Bibliography...............................................................................................................205
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1. Introduction
Alfred’s translation of Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae (DCP) is noteworthy
for several reasons. It is the earliest vernacular version of Boethius’s work, dating from
the late ninth century, and is part of the general translation project famously outlined in
Alfred's preface to his translation of Gregory the Great’s Cura Pastoralis. The
translation, known as the Boethius (Bo), is the first attempt to express a prolonged
philosophical argument in English; as a result, it is a landmark in the history of English
prose. Perhaps the most striking feature of the Boethius, though, is the degree to which it
alters the Latin text. Alfred omits much of Boethius’s text and adds a great deal of
material not found in DCP. and this has been the focus of much scholarship devoted to
his translation. Early studies assumed that Alfred had only imperfectly understood DCP
and that his alterations were attempts to render Boethius’s text as accurately as he could,
perhaps with the aid of a marginal commentary. Until relatively recently, studies of
Alfred's sources focused on trying to identify the commentary that he was supposed to
have used. An important 1983 article by Joseph Wittig effectively put an end to this
trend, however, by arguing that Alfred had not used a commentary; instead, his additions
might reflect knowledge of a small number of separate works. The present study follows
up some of the implications of Wittig’s article by examining all of Alfred’s major
additions in the Boethius and proposing plausible sources for many of them; it then
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proceeds, based on the results of this examination, to discuss the use Alfred made of his
sources and suggest some possible goals of his reworking of DCP.
Background
Before turning to prior studies on the sources of the Boethius, a general overview of
the Alfredian translations may be helpful. Seven prose translations are associated with
Alfred's reign; in addition to the Boethius, these include Old English versions of Gregory
the Great's Dialoei and Cura Pastoralis (CP). Orosius’s Historia Adversus Paeanos.
Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica. Augustine's Soliloquia (Sol), and Psalms 1-50 (PsP). The
translations of Orosius, Bede, and Gregory’s Dialoei are not by Alfred. Asser's Life of
King Alfred ascribes the Old English Dialogues to Werferth, bishop of Worcester, the
Bede is of Mercian authorship, and Janet Bately has argued that the Orosius is not
Alfred's work1.
In addition to these seven translations, the fragmentary Old English Martvrologv may
be a product of Alfred's reign. The two surviving manuscript fragments of the
Martvrologv. British Museum Additional MSS 23211 ansd 40165 A, ff. 6f, both date
from the ninth century; while the text cannot thus be later than Alfred's reign, it may
perhaps be earlier. The compilation of the pre-892 portion of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
certainly took place during Alfred’s reign, but the Chronicle is not a translation and hence
provides little evidence about books that might have been available to Alfred. _
1 See both her edition of the Orosius and her article “King Alfred and the Old English Translation of
Orosius” (Anglia 88 (1970): 433-60).
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In her article “The Prose of Alfred’s Reign,” Dorothy Whitelock establishes a
generally accepted chronology for these works (73-77). The Dialogues and Orosius are
the earliest of the translations, probably written shortly before 890. The Old English
Pastoral Care (CP) is the first of Alfred’s translations and. as its preface suggests, the first
book to be circulated as part of Alfred’s plan to improve learning in England. It could
have been completed as early as 890, when Plegmund, referred to in the preface as
Archbishop of Canterbury, was raised to that see. and must have been finished by 896,
since Swithulf, one of the bishops who received a copy, had died by that year. The
original Chronicle, as mentioned above, was completed by 892. Some passages in the
Old English Soliloquies (Sol) are influenced by CP. indicating that Sol is a later
translation. Depending on the date of CP. Sol could have been completed as early as the
beginning of the 890s or as late as 897. It is perhaps most sensible to assign Sol a later
date, as Alfred was engaged in military campaigns from 892 to 896 and would have had
little leisure for translation. The Boethius (Bo) must be very close in date to Sol, since
they share many details of phrasing and content. Whitelock came to no definite
conclusion on which is the earlier work. Frank Hubbard, writing in 1896, argued that Bo
preceded Sol because Sol contains ideas taken from Boethius. The most recent editor of
Sol. Thomas Camicelli, does not dispute this ordering, but finds the evidence less strong
than Hubbard suggests. It is entirely possible that Alfred was working on both
translations simultaneously. In any case, both are probably best dated around 897. The
prose versions of Psalms 1-50, found in the Paris Psalter (BN, MS Fonds Latin 8824), are
generally considered to be Alfred’s last work, completed shortly before his death in 899.
Until relatively recently, their attribution to Alfred rested solely on the testimony of
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