the meaning, practice and context of private prayer in late anglo-saxon england kate heulwen ...

337 Pages·2012·2.08 MB·English

THE MEANING, PRACTICE AND CONTEXT OF PRIVATE PRAYER
IN LATE ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

KATE HEULWEN THOMAS

PHD

THE UNIVERSITY OF YORK

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND RELATED LITERATURE

AUGUST 2011
ii

ABSTRACT

This thesis is a detailed discussion of the relatively neglected subject of private
prayer in late Anglo-Saxon England, mainly focusing on three eleventh-century
monastic codices: the Galba Prayerbook (London, British Library Cotton Nero A. ii
+ Galba A. xiv), Ælfwine’s Prayerbook (London, British Library Cotton Titus D.
xxvii + xxvi) and the Portiforium of St Wulstan (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College
391). Chapter One provides a background to the following chapters by introducing a
wide variety of English and Continental texts from the ninth century. This chapter
demonstrates the many different prayer genres, prayer guides and attitudes to prayer
which would be inherited by the late Anglo-Saxons. Chapter Two, which focuses on
private adaptations of the canonical Offices, examines the different manuscript
contexts in which private prayers were found. It argues that series of prayers were
combined into increasingly sophisticated ordines for personal devotion, and that it
was from these that the Special Offices arose. Chapter Three applies these concepts
to prayers to the Holy Cross. After a discussion of the evidence for prayer before a
cross, and involving the sign of the cross, it examines private prayer programmes
based on the liturgy for Good Friday and those from which the Special Office of the
Cross developed. Chapter Four turns to private confessions, arguing that these
prayers were somewhat different from those hitherto discussed. It therefore begins
with an exploration of the many kinds of confession which existed in the late Anglo-
Saxon church, before examining a number of private confessional prayers in detail.
Throughout this thesis, emphasis is placed on the bodily experience of prayer in its
time and place, and upon the use of each text as it is found in the prayerbooks of
eleventh-century England.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
Abstract ii
Table of Contents iii
Notes on Biblical iv
references, translations
and names
Index of tables v
Acknowledgements vii
Author‟s declaration viii
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER 1 The Background to Anglo-Saxon Private Prayer 26
CHAPTER 2 Late Anglo-Saxon Private Prayerbooks and the 81
Monastic Hours
CHAPTER 3 Private Devotion to the Holy Cross 157
CHAPTER 4 Confession and Private Prayer 221
CONCLUSION 283
ABBREVIATIONS 289
BIBLIOGRAPHY 294
iv

NOTES ON BIBLICAL REFERENCES, TRANSLATIONS AND NAMES

Quotations from the Bible are taken from Robert Weber, B. Fischer, J. Gribomont,
H. F. D. Sparks, W. Thiele and Roger Gryson, eds., Biblia sacra iuxta vulgatam
versionem, 4th edn. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1983), and are indicated
in the text with book, chapter and verse references. Abbreviations of Biblical books
are taken from this edition.

Translations from the Bible are taken from the Douay-Rheims translation.

All non-Biblical translations are my own except where stated.

Modern forms of names are used in preference to historical forms: for example,
„Alcuin‟ rather than „Alcuinus‟.
v

INDEX OF TABLES

Chapter 1 1.1 Private prayer texts from the late eighth and ninth centuries
1.2 De laude psalmorum
1.3 The private prayers referred to in this chapter in my main
manuscripts
Chapter 2 2.1 A common sequence of „short prayers‟
2.2 A simplified table of contents for Ælfwine’s Prayerbook
2.3 Ælfwine‟s „Devotions to the Holy Cross‟, Cotton Titus D.
xxvii, ff. 66r-73v
2.4 Personal liturgical ordines in the Galba Prayerbook
2.5 Latin analogues to the Prayers ad horas identified by R. A.
Banks
2.6 The conventional Prayers ad horas sequence and its
appearance in a select manuscript record
2.7 The Prayers ad horas in three manuscripts
2.8 The private prayers referred to in this chapter in my main
manuscripts
Chapter 3 3.1 The private prayers in the Portiforium of St Wulstan, indicating
the prayers to the cross
3.2 Eleventh-century additions to the end of the Vespasian Psalter,
indicating the prayers to the cross
3.3 Texts for the Regularis concordia liturgy of the Veneration of
the Cross
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3.4 The private prayers in London, British Library Arundel 155
3.5 The developing Offices based on the Veneration of the Cross in
the Portiforium of St Wulstan
3.6 In honore sanctae crucis: an Office of the cross in Ælfwine’s
Prayerbook (no. 50)
3.7 Oratio in .I. mane ad crucem: a possible Office of the cross in
Ælfwine’s Prayerbook (nos. 46.16-21)
3.8 A comparison of the antiphons used in five prayer programmes
dedicated to the cross
3.9 The private prayers referred to in this chapter in my main
manuscripts
Chapter 4 4.1 Evidence for private confessional prayer
4.2 The private prayers in the Portiforium of St Wulstan, indicating
the confessional prayers
4.3 Solitary confessional prayers in London, British Library Cotton
Tiberius A. iii (Ker, no. 186.9, a-f)
4.4 The private prayers referred to in this chapter in my main
manuscripts
vii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There are many people whom I would like to thank for assisting me in the
completion of my thesis. I am grateful to the Arts and Humanities Research Council
for funding my studies at both MA and PhD level. I would very much like to thank
the community at the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of York for
making the past few years such a pleasure. In particular, for their helpful
suggestions, assistance and friendship, I would like to thank Charlotte Kingston,
Ellie McCullough, Els Schröder, Debs Thorpe, and all those who have offered me
support from near or far. Ellie Bird, Marijana Cerović and Laura Elizabeth Rice
deserve special thanks for their friendship and encouragement over the last four
years. Matt Townend has been extremely helpful with his comments on my writing
and in assisting the progress of my work, and Mary Garrison has been very generous
with her time and suggestions. I am especially grateful to Gabriella Corona and
Christine Phillips for supervising my studies, and for doing so much to ensure that
my thesis is the best that it could be. Finally, I would like to thank my parents for
always being so supportive and encouraging in all I have done.
viii

AUTHOR’S DECLARATION

The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own and that appropriate
credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. Some
material in Chapters Two and Three was presented in a different form at the Leeds
International Medieval Congress in 2009 and 2010.
1

INTRODUCTION

[E]t cum oratis non eritis sicut hypocritae qui amant in synagogis et in
angulis platearum stantes orare ut videantur ab hominibus amen dico vobis
receperunt mercedem suam
tu autem cum orabis intra in cubiculum tuum et cluso ostio tuo ora Patrem
tuum in abscondito et Pater tuus qui videt in abscondito reddet tibi
Orantes autem nolite multum loqui sicut ethnici putant enim quia in
multiloquio suo exaudiantur nolite ergo adsimilari eis scit enim Pater vester
quibus opus sit vobis antequam petatis eum
sic ergo vos orabitis Pater noster qui in caelis es sanctificetur nomen tuum
veniat regnum tuum fiat voluntas tua sicut in caelo et in terra
panem nostrum supersubstantialem da nobis hodie
et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimisimus debitoribus nostris
et ne inducas nos in temptationem sed libera nos a malo (Matt. 6:5-13).1

Post haec cursum diurnum, id est celebrationes horarum, ac deinde psalmos
quosdam et orationes multas ‹didicit›; quos in uno libro congregatos in sinu
suo die noctuque, sicut ipsi vidimus, secum inseparabiliter, orationis gratia,
inter omnia praesentis vitae curricula ubique circumducebat (ch. 24, ll. 1-6).2

Private prayer has been part of the Christian tradition from the very beginning.
Furthermore, as the quotation from Matthew‟s gospel above shows, set prayers have
always been regarded as a major component of private prayer, which can, of course,
also include spontaneous prayer. By the time of King Alfred (c. 848-899), about
whom Asser writes in the second quotation above, the corpus of texts believed to be

1 „And when ye pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, that love to stand and pray in the synagogues
and corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men: Amen I say to you, they have received their
reward. But thou when thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber, and having shut the door, pray to thy
Father in secret: and thy Father who seeth in secret will repay thee. And when you are praying, speak
not much, as the heathens. For they think that in their much speaking they may be heard. Be not you
therefore like to them, for your Father knoweth what is needful for you, before you ask him. Thus
therefore shall you pray: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our supersubstantial bread. And forgive
us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from
evil.‟
2 „After this he learned the daily course, that is, the celebrations of the Hours, and after that certain
psalms and many prayers, gathered together in one book for the sake of prayer, which he carried
around with him everywhere on his person by day and night, just as we have seen, inseparable from
himself, in all of the doings of this present life.‟ William Henry Stevenson, ed., Asser’s Life of King
Alfred, Together with the Annals of Saint Neots Erroneously Ascribed to Asser (Oxford: Clarendon,
1959).
2

suitable for private prayer had expanded greatly, to include both Biblical texts such
as the Paternoster and psalms, as well as compositions from late Antiquity and the
early Middle Ages.
Indeed, Asser‟s reference to „celebrationes horarum‟ reveals that some of the
set prayers intended for the king‟s personal use were derived from the monastic
liturgy for the Divine Office. Private prayer has always been an integral part of the
Christian tradition and, during Late Antiquity, it would appear that such prayers were
commonly undertaken at the third, sixth and ninth hours of the day. Evidence for
this practice can be seen in Hippolytus‟ Apostolic Tradition:

if indeed thou art at home pray at the third hour and praise God; but if thou
art elsewhere and that time comes, pray in thy heart to God. For in this hour
Christ was seen nailed upon the tree.3

One must praise God not only in words, but also in one‟s inner thoughts.
As Christian worship developed, however, these hours ceased to be part of
private lay observance, but instead became the basis of communal prayer in the
monasteries.4 St Benedict of Monte Cassino (c. 480-c. 550) used these set times of
prayer as the basis of his monastic rule, which, of course, established a schedule of
psalms to be sung at each of the canonical Hours (Rule, chs. 8-13, 16-19).5 With the
spread of Benedictine monasticism and other forms of the ascetic life across Europe,

3 Gregory Dix, ed., The Treatise on the Apostolic Tradition of St Hippolytus of Rome, Bishop and
Martyr (London: SPCK, 1937), repr. with corrections by Henry Chadwick (London: SPCK, 1968),
ch. 36.2-3.
4 Josef A. Jungmann, The Early Liturgy to the Time of Gregory the Great, trans. Francis A. Brunner
(London: Darton, Longmann and Todd, 1959), 106. For more on the origins of the Offices, see
Robert Taft, The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West: the Origins of the Divine Office and its
Meaning for Today (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1986, 2nd edn., 1993); James W. McKinnon,
„The Origins of the Western Office‟, in The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages: Methodology and
Source Studies, Regional Developments, Hagiography, Written in Honor of Professor Ruth Steiner,
eds. Margot E. Fassler and Rebecca A. Baltzer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 63-73. For
the development of Christian monasticism in general, see Marilyn Dunn, The Emergence of
Monasticism from the Desert Fathers to the Early Middle Ages (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), especially
chs. 5-6.
5 Timothy Fry et al., eds., The Rule of St. Benedict in Latin and English with Notes (Collegeville, MN:
Liturgical Press, 1981).