'Charms', Liturgies, and Secret Rites in Early Medieval England: 32

289 Pages·2018·6.329 MB·English

by  Ciaran Arthur

How did Anglo-Saxons refl ect on the experience of growing old? Was
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it really a golden age for the elderly, as has been suggested? This fi rst Old Age in Early Medieval England
l
full survey of the Anglo-Saxon cultural conceptualisation of old age, d

as manifested and refl ected in the texts and artwork of the inhabitants A
g A Cultural History
of early medieval England, presents a more nuanced and complicated
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picture. The author argues that although senescence was associated i
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with the potential for wisdom and pious living, the Anglo-Saxons also A

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anticipated various social, psychological and physical repercussions Thijs Porck
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of growing old. Their attitude towards elderly men and women – l r
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whether they were saints, warriors or kings – was equally ambivalent.
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Multidisciplinary in approach, this book makes use of a wide variety H e
of sources, ranging from the visual arts to hagiography, homiletic i d
s
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literature and heroic poetry. Individual chapters deal with early to e
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medieval defi nitions of the life cycle; the merits and drawbacks of y a
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old age as represented in Anglo-Saxon homilies and wisdom poetry;
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the hagiographic topos of elderly saints; the portrayal of grey-haired n
warriors in heroic literature; Beowulf as a mirror for elderly kings; g
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and the cultural roles attributed to old women. a
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THIJS PORCK is Assistant Professor of Medieval English, Leiden
University Centre for the Arts in Society, Leiden University.
Cover image: The Three Patriarchs as the three ages of man
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© The British Library Board. Harley 603. h
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Anglo-Saxon Studies 33
OLD AGE IN EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
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Anglo-Saxon Studies
ISSN 1475-2468
GENERAL EDITORS
John Hines
Catherine Cubitt
‘Anglo-Saxon Studies’ aims to provide a forum for the best scholarship on
the Anglo-Saxon peoples in the period from the end of Roman Britain to
the Norman Conquest, including comparative studies involving adjacent
populations and periods; both new research and major re-assessments of
central topics are welcomed.
Books in the series may be based in any one of the principal disciplines
of archaeology, art history, history, language and literature, and inter- or
multi-disciplinary studies are encouraged.
Proposals or enquiries may be sent directly to the editors or the pub-
lisher at the addresses given below; all submissions will receive prompt
and informed consideration.
Professor John Hines, School of History, Archaeology and Religion,
Cardiff University, John Percival Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff, Wales,
CF10 3EU, UK
Professor Catherine Cubitt, School of History, Faculty of Arts and
Humanities, University of East Anglia, Norwich, England, NR4 7TJ, UK
Boydell & Brewer, PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, IP12 3DF, UK
Previously published volumes in the series are listed at the back of this book
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OLD AGE IN EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
A CULTURAL HISTORY
Thijs Porck
THE BOYDELL PRESS
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© Thijs Porck 2019
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
The right of Thijs Porck to be identified as
the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
First published 2019
The Boydell Press, Woodbridge
ISBN 978-1-78744-469-0
The Boydell Press 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
PORCK (ASE33) 9781783273133 PRINT.indd 4 20/12/2018 08:05
Contents
Illustrations vi
Acknowledgements vii
Abbreviations ix
Introduction 1
1 Definitions of Old Age 16
2 Merits of Old Age 52
3 Drawbacks of Old Age 76
4 frode fyrnwitan: Old Saints in Anglo-Saxon Hagiography 110
5 hare hilderincas: Old Warriors in Anglo-Saxon England 135
6 ealde eðelweardas: Beowulf as a Mirror of Elderly Kings 177
7 gamole geomeowlan: Old Women in Anglo-Saxon England 212
Conclusion 232
Bibliography 237
Index 264
v
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Illustrations
1. Adoration of the Magi on the Franks Casket (© Trustees of
the British Museum) 26
2. The Three Patriarchs as the three ages of man (© The British
Library Board. Harley 603) 29
3. Abraham and his servants on their way to free Lot in
Prudentius’ Psychomachia (© The Parker Library, Corpus
Christi College, Cambridge) 140
4. An elderly warrior to the left of Patientia in Prudentius’
Psychomachia (© The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College,
Cambridge) 141
5. Abraham meets the king of Sodom in the Old English
Hexateuch (© The British Library Board. Cotton Claudius B.
iv) 142
6. War of the Kings in the Old English Hexateuch (© The British
Library Board. Cotton Claudius B. iv) 143
7. Illustration of Psalm 7 in the Harley Psalter (© The British
Library Board. Harley 603) 144
8. Elderly warriors on the Bayeux Tapestry (Details of the
Bayeux Tapestry, 11th century, by special permission of the
City of Bayeux) 147
The author and publisher are grateful to all the institutions and indi-
viduals listed for permission to reproduce the materials in which they
hold copyright. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright
holders; apologies are offered for any omission, and the publisher
will be pleased to add any necessary acknowledgement in subsequent
editions.
vi
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Acknowledgements
“As soon as a man recognizes that he has drifted into age, he gets
reminiscent. He wants to talk and talk; and not about the present or
the future, but about his old times” (Mark Twain, ‘Frank Fuller and
My First New York Lecture’, 1897). This book was written during the
formative years of my academic life and would not have been possible
without the generous help of many individuals.
First and foremost, I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to
my teacher and mentor, Rolf H. Bremmer Jr, for his support, inspiration
and advice on all matters of language and life, ranging from Old English
inflections to proper table manners. Further thanks are due to various
colleagues at Leiden University, past and present, for their support,
encouragement and advice: Wim van Anrooij, Luisella Caon, Marcelle
Cole, Rosanne Hebing, Krista Murchison, Nienke Venderbosch, Geert
Warnar and Katinka Zeven. I also thank my students for making teach-
ing Old English my dream job, joining me for film nights and field trips,
and trusting me with the supervision of their theses.
The book has benefitted from the comments of the anonymous
reviewers, as well as various individuals who have generously
read draft versions of individual parts: Wim van Anrooij, Berber
Bossenbroek, Rolf H. Bremmer Jr, Kees Dekker, Peter Hoppenbrouwers,
Manfred Horstmanshoff, Susan Irvine, Jenneka Janzen, Miriam Jones,
Christina Lee, Gerard Limburg, Jodie Mann, Krista Murchison, Gale
Owen-Crocker, Henk Porck, Christine Rauer and Jenny Weston. Parts
of this book were presented at conferences in Brussels, Leeds, Leiden,
Manchester and Granada; I would like to thank the organisers and
participants for their insightful remarks and questions. I also owe
a debt of gratitude to my editorial assistant Amos van Baalen who
carefully proofread this entire book and helped with the index. All
remaining mistakes are, of course, my own.
Writing this monograph would also have been impossible without
the support of various institutions and organisations. The Leiden
University Centre for the Arts in Society, first of all, has provided
me with stability and administrative support. The staff of the British
Library and the Parker Library have been particularly helpful in
guiding me through the process of acquiring permissions for the repro-
duction of images. I would also like to thank the staff at Boydell and
Brewer, especially Rob Kinsey and Caroline Palmer, for their patience,
advice and support for the project.
On a more personal note, I thank my parents, Breca and Cnut (for
life, love and indifference, respectively), and anyone else who has read
vii
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Old Age in Early Medieval England
this preface looking for their own names but has now discovered I
accidentally left them out (I apologise). Last but not least, my heartfelt
thanks go to Laura Limburg, who has been by my side for the last
fifteen years and keeps me healthy and sane. While ‘growing old’ may
be a daunting prospect, she makes ‘growing old together’ something
to look forward to!
viii
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Abbreviations
ÆCHom I Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: The First Series, ed.
P. Clemoes, EETS ss 17 (Oxford, 1997) (cited by
homily and line number)
ÆCHom II Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: The Second Series, ed.
M. Godden, EETS ss 5 (London, 1979) (cited by
homily and line number)
ÆLS Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, ed. W. W. Skeat, EETS os 76,
82, 94, 114 (London, 1881–1900) (cited by text and
line number)
Archiv Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und
Literaturen
ASE Anglo-Saxon England
ASPR Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records
Assmann Angelsächsische Homilien und Heiligenleben, ed.
B. Assmann (Kassel, 1889) (cited by homily and
line number)
Battle of Maldon ‘The Battle of Maldon’, ed. and trans. D. G. Scragg,
in The Battle of Maldon, AD 991, ed. D. G. Scragg
(Oxford, 1991)
Bazire and Cross Eleven Old English Rogationtide Homilies, ed.
J. Bazire and J. E. Cross (Toronto, 1982) (cited by
homily and line number)
Bede, HE Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed.
and trans. B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford,
1969; rpt. 1992) (cited by book and chapter)
Beowulf Klaeber’s Beowulf, ed. R. D. Fulk, R. E. Bjork and
J. D. Niles, 4th ed. (Toronto, 2008)
BGdSL Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und
Literatur
BHL Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina, ed. Bollandists, 2
vols (Brussels, 1899–1901)
Blickling Homilies The Blickling Homilies of the Tenth Century, ed.
R. Morris, EETS os 58, 63, 73 (London, 1874–80)
(cited by homily and page number)
CCCC Cambridge, Corpus Christi College
CCSL Corpus Christianorum, Series Latin
DOE Dictionary of Old English: A to H online, ed.
A. Cameron, A. C. Amos, A. diPaolo Healey et
al. (Toronto, 2016), http://www.doe.utoronto.ca/
index.html
ix
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