The Early Middle Ages PDF
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ACTA VOL. VI THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES The Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies State University of New York at Binghamton CONTENTS INTRODUCTION iii I. OLD NORSE MEMORIAL EULOGIES AND THE ENDING OF BEOWULF 1 Roberta Frank University of Toronto II. A LOST LIFE OF HILDA OF WHITBY: THE EVIDENCE OF THE OLD ENGLISH MARTYROLOGY 21 J. E. Cross University of Liverpool III. CASSIODORUS AND THE UTRECHT PSALTER ILLUSTRATIONS 45 Grace L. Houghton SUNY-Binghamton IV. THE ART OF BEDE II: THE RELIABLE NARRATOR AS PERSONA 63 Donald K. Fry SUNY-Stonybrook V. SOME NEW ENGLISH DRAWINGS OF THE TENTH CENTURY 83 K. D. Hartzell SUNY-Albany VI. THE SWINGING PENDULUM AND THE TURNING WHEEL: THE ANGLO-SAXON STATE BEFORE ALFRED 95 Joel T. Rosenthal SUNY-Stonybrook VII. SACRED DRAMA AND COMIC REALISM IN THE PLAYS OF HROTSWITHA OF GANDERSHEIM 117 Sandro Sticca SUNY-Binghamton li INTRODUCTION The articles included in the present collection were originally read at the Conference on the Early Middle Ages held on April 20 and 21 in 1979 on the campus of the State University of New York at Binghamton. The call for papers for this conference asked only for reports on work in progress rather than work on a particular theme. The response brought a number of interesting and valuable studies on an equally great variety of topics. Because of previously set limita tions on the length of this volume, only a few of the papers could be included here and by way of making a virtue of this restriction I have chosen to emphasize the variety of research problems and methods and the breadth of topics as a principle for organizing this collection of papers. Advances in scholarship usually expand our understanding of some area of knowledge, filling in gaps much as adding a piece to a jigsaw puzzle completes a picture. Occasionally, however, some new insight alters radically our picture and, unlike the addition of a piece to a puzzle, obliges us to reconsider our entire perception of the sub ject. Larry Benson’s re-examination of the criteria on which the dating of Beowulf is based has led to the conclusion that the text as we know it is of far more recent origin than had previously been thought. The consequences of this fact have necessarily been taken into consideration in Roberta Frank’s critical examination of the Viking influences in this work. It has long been an accepted fact that there are in Viking literature many parallels to passages in Beowulf, but the absence of an adequate critical comparison of the two liter ary traditions and the presumed early origin of Beowulf have aided little in understanding the similarities. Drawing on her sound grasp of Old Norse philology and a broad knowledge of the Viking literature, Frank has given us the first thorough and reliable comparison with Beowulf and added significantly to the understanding of the origins of this work. in A very different type of research is presented in James E. Cross’s “A Lost Life of Hilda of Whitby: the Evidence of the Old English Martyrology,” where the process of reconstructing the histor ical tradition of the biography of the saint involves a careful sifting and comparison of many different sources in order to isolate and identify the many strands of this larger fabric. The validity of the re search derives from numerous sources examined and, even more importantly, from the meticulous comparison which makes possible the identification of elements of this life of Hilda and their origins. The result is a reliable reconstruction of the essential elements of a lost text and a model of scholarly research. In her paper of “Cassiodorus and the Utrecht Psalter Illustra tions,” Grace Houghton combines the methodology of the literary historian with that of the art critic and provides thus the necessary connection between the literary sources and the illustrations. In this study the detailed and systematic examination of the work of Cassio dorus forms the basis for the comparison with a similarly thorough analysis of the illustrations. The comparison of such disparate genres of human expression as art and literature is always difficult since there seems to be no middle ground where both might be logically equated. The common meeting point is provided here in the rigorous analysis of the comparable themes of both genres, which alone pro vides a read path between the two. In establishing the English origin of an illustration found in a collection of French manuscripts of the mid-ninth century, Drew Hartzell approaches art with the same systematic and meticulous at tention to detail which James Cross displays in his examination of a literary tradition. It is the careful description of the particular work and the accurate characterization of the comparable tradition which allows Hartzell to identify its place and time of origin. The Middle Ages saw in the past presages of the coming of Christ or the historic struggle between good and evil. One could find in the Cantica Canticorum deep Christian symbolism, in the medieval German Kaiserchroniken and Weltchroniken events of the past show the omnipresence of good in the affairs of man, and in the increasing temporal authority of the papacy one saw the emergence of the forces of good on earth. This view of history as the blind struggle toward some distant goal, hampered by error and the influence of IV evil persists still today, despite Leopold von Ranke’s search for a scientific study of history and the nineteenth and twentieth century trappings of objective inquiry. Joel Rosenthal contrasts the tradition al picture of England before Alfred as a series of misadventures lead ing inevitably to the reign of Alfred with one of constant dynamic change and development seen in terms of those elements which bring about change. The difference in perspective is dramatic, the argu ment cogent and convincing. It is not the actual manuscripts or fragments of evidence which Donald Fry examines in his study of Bede, the reliable narrator, but rather the author of the sources or, perhaps more accurately, the author of the author. Bede has always appeared to us as the objective reporter, the careful historian whose authority can be trusted, but Fry, in a thoroughly intriguing critical analysis of Bede’s literary art, points out that this authority is most certainly the product of the mind of this creative genius, leaving us to ponder the ultimate relia bility of this persona. It is a literary study that is at once methodo logically sound and intellectually provocative. It is against a carefully sketched historical background that Sandro Sticca presents, the humor of Hrothswitha of Gandersheim, that gentle and pious sister who turned her creative talents to the writing of the first works of drama in Germany. Hrothswitha com bined her two great loves, i.e., the church and the beauty of the language of the great works of Latin literature, and created works that would recall the courageous deeds of the Christian martyrs and, at the same time, present to her colleagues Latin texts which could vie with the language of Terence and Plautus, whose writing ability she admired, but whose morals she abhorred. Sticca succeeds in bringing into focus her genuine humor in a study which shows both insight and sensitivity to Hrothswitha’s peculiar genius. I need to express here my indebtedness to those many helpers whose assistance has been essential to the completion of this volume. In particular I would like to mention Virginia Oggins whose help in editing some of these papers has been invaluable and Dorothy Huber and her staff whose efforts in organizing the conference and in put ting together this volume has been vital. We also wish to acknowledge our indebtedness to the SUNY Research Foundation and to Assistant Vice Chancellor Herbert McArthur whose support and cooperation V have made the conference and this volume possible. Finally, I wish to acknowledge my own personal debt to Paul Szarmach who has helped greatly in the course of the production of this volume; I sin cerely trust that the completed work will in some degree reward his commitment and effort. William H. Snyder SUN Y-Binghamton VI
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