The Origins of Beowulf: From Vergil to Wiglaf

387 Pages·2007·2.89 MB·English

by  Richard North

THE ORIGINS OF BEOWULF
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The Origins of Beowulf
From Vergil to Wiglaf
RICHARD NORTH
1
3
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For Miriam and Alexander
and in memory of
Patrick Wormald
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Preface
The Kingdom ofGod istobe sought above allearthly gains, for Paul the
Apostleiswitnessthat‘whatisseenistransient,butwhatisnotseenlivesfor
ever’.Whatdoesitserveamantogainthewholeworldifhissoulshould
sufferharm?
Wiglaf,kingofMercia,836
This book suggests that Beowulf was composed in the winter of 826–7 by
Eanmund,abbotoftheminsterofBreedonontheHillinnorth-westLeicester-
shire, not only as a requiem for King Beornwulf of Mercia who was killed in
battle earlier that year, but also as a work of recommendation for Wiglaf, an
ealdormanwhowasplottingtosucceedhim.
If I sketch out my view of how Beowulf was composed, the story goes
something like this. The poet had seen a few changes by the time he wrote
Beowulf.Fortyyearsearlier,whenhewasachild,hiscountrywasrising,jubilant
underKingOffa(757–96),buttherewasapurgeofprincesinOffa’slastyears.
AftertheheadydaysofhavingCenwulfasanewking(796–821),Merciafellinto
such wrangling and torpor that under King Beornwulf (823–6) she slid into
economicdecline.In826memoriesofOffawerepositive,despitehismurderof
the king of East Anglia more than thirty years earlier; those of Cenwulf were
bitter, because he and his family robbed the Church of land; on Beornwulf’s
deathinEastAnglia,fewMercianshadanyhopeforthefutureunlessthiswasin
theWestSaxonsrulingforthem.InMerciathetruelineofkingswasbroken.
Thegoodnewsin826wasthattheFrankshadbaptizedthekingofDenmark.
HereatlastwasachanceoftheDanesstayingathome,ratherthancominghere
tosackoneminsterafteranother.NotthatBreedonhadmissed(orwouldmiss)
the Vikings. In 809 an early band of them sold an important captive there, a
papalenvoy,backtotheking of Northumbria.Hostingthedealwastheabbot,
Wigmund (c.792–814 (cid:1) 816). Both Priest Abbot Wigmund and the monk
Eanmund had grown up with verse on Danish kings. Back in the days of
Unwona, bishop of Leicester (c.785–c.800), Wigmund had heard the perform-
anceof agreatpoemonIngeld,kingofthe Heathobards,andhisweddingtoa
Danish princess in Norway. There had been complaints, but if Ingeld was a
damned heathen, still he was the ancestor of Ealdorman Æthelmund of the
Hwicce.WigmundpassedthepoemontoEanmund.WhenWigmunddied,the
monkselectedEanmundtotheabbacy(814(cid:1)816–848),althoughhehadgone
further with heathens than Unwona everdid: at the meeting of 809, Eanmund
hadquestioned the Danesabout theirgods; andin 826, whenthe news arrived
confirming the baptism, Eanmund hoped that more heathens could be saved.
viii Preface
Likemostoftheclergyabouthim,however,hedoubtedKingBeornwulfcould
be,forhehadcovetedearthlymorethanheavenlyrewards.
That summer, after Beornwulf’s death, Mercia lay open to infighting and
attack.WithLudeca,Beornwulf’scousin,holdingpower(826–7),Eanmundput
his hopes in the old abbot’s nephew. Ealdorman Wiglaf was close to their
community. Indeed he named his son after Wigmund when he died. To win
support in the south-west he had recently married the boy to Cenwulf’s niece.
But Wiglaf was a stranger there, he would still have to persuade Beornwulf’s
peoplethatheandnotLudecawasthedeadking’schoicetosucceed.Thatwould
be hard for neither Cenwulf nor Beornwulf had honoured Wiglaf’s family.
Nonetheless, Wiglaf came to Eanmund before the summer was out. Could he
composeamemorialtoBeornwulf,onetoheraldWiglafashislong-lostkinsman
andheir?SomethinginthestyleofoldWigmund’slays.CouldEanmunduseone
ofthesetomournBeornwulfasakingofold?YetalsototelltheMerciansthatit
wasWiglafwhohadthebloodtosucceedhim.
Eanmund took up an old theme about King Hrothulf’s bearlike champion,
changing it so as to let the monster-slayer become a king. ‘Beowulf’ had to be
royalbythetimehewenttoSwedentohelpKingEadgilsinbattleagainstOnela,
otherwise the poem would fail. This meant forgetting Beowulf’s service with
KingHrothulf;better,itmeantbringinghimtoDenmarkearlier,inthedaysof
King Hrothgar. How else to raise Beowulf to his own kingship, if not by
measuring him against Ingeld, Hrothgar’s son-in-law? It was a rivalry he could
baseonabigoneintheAeneid.KingHrothgarhewouldmodelonWulfred,the
oldarchbishopwhohadbeenCenwulf’senemyandwasnowWiglaf’sfriend.He
putBeowulfinaroyalfamily,onehemadeupforHygelacinGeatland.
With his triumphant return from Denmark begins Beowulf’s own political
career.So,too,theroyalallegoryleadingintoWiglaf’shoped-forreign:firstOffa
ofAngeln,thenHygelac,thenBeowulf,thenWiglaf.KingOffahadalwaysbeen
linked with his namesake. Few, therefore, would fail to grasp the manner in
which Eanmund made Hygelac match the asset-stripping Cenwulf point for
point. In due course after Hygelac’s sudden death, as after Cenwulf’s, the
kingdom would pass to Beowulf. The poet could then retell the battle against
OnelawithEadgilsasarenegadeandBeowulfashisbacker.LaterKingBeowulf
wouldhavetodiefarawayfromHrothulf.TheEastAngliandisasterwasstilltoo
freshforBeowulftobeseendyinginbattlewithhisarmy.Yetwhatofthedrab
cause,Beornwulf’sneedofmoney?EanmundgaveBeowulfSigemund’spartwith
thedragonalongwiththecursedhoard.HewouldletthisgoldgiveBeowulfhis
choiceforheavenorhell.
By now the abbot’s friends were asking for Beowulf’s young comrade, so far
missing.EnterasonofWeohstan,theSwedishprincefromwhomtheoldabbot
usedtoclaimdescent.HeshouldhaveWiglaf’snameandabloodtietoBeowulf.
ThenameoftheirfamilywouldalsoremindMerciansofyoungWigmundand
his claim to rule. With Beowulf dead, Wiglaf would arrange for the funeral,
Preface ix
deliver an epitaph of unwitting Christian efficacy, then disappear, perhaps to
Britain.FortheGeatsWiglafisalostopportunity;fortheMercians,anewking.
Andthepoet?EveryonewouldhearthatEanmund’spoem,likehissword,wasat
Wiglaf’sservice.
Everythinginthissketchisinsomewayarguedbelow.Ofcourse,notallofit
canbetrueandIknowthatsomewillcontinuetotreatthisstoryasafantasyeven
after finishing my book. It would be a shame, however, if such readers did not
offeracaseforBeowulf’soriginsthatworksbetterthanmine.Iwouldwelcome
this development as constructive. The problem is that little can be proved in
Anglo-Saxon literature or history. Consequently I must build my case on a few
factsandastringofincrementalsuppositions.AlthoughIamhardlyaloneinthe
need to trust likelihood rather than fact, I invite serious critics to turn their
attention to the premiss which grounds one sequence in another, Beowulf–
Wiglaf in Beornwulf–Wiglaf; then to the correlations that follow: between the
murder of a suitor by ‘Thryth’ and Cynethryth’s alleged martyrdom of
St Æthelberht of East Anglia; between the Offas; and between nine motifs to
do with Hygelac and Beowulf and nine episodes in the reigns of Cenwulf and
Beornwulf in Mercian history. Here are some twelve parallels which must be
explainedascoincidencesifmycaseistofail.Thatmayhappen,forcoincidences
arenotunknowninAnglo-Saxonstudies.Onecaseinpointistwoabbotsnamed
Eanmund of Bre(e)don. Another thing worth noting here, however, is my
integration of the passage on Offa into Beowulf’s main purpose, for I argue
that the poet presents Offa as the first in a line of three, soon to be four, great
Mercian kings. Offa is the signal for his allegory to start. I also give reasons to
believethatthepoetinnovatedwitheachtreatise,poem,legend,ormythwhich
he took as his source. Essential to my case is his style, not only the eclectic
reading,baroquecreativity,andflashesofbrilliantsardonichumour,butalsothe
gatheringgloomofhisconcentrationonBeowulf’ssoul.Myaimisnottorecord
theseandotherelementsforthemselves,buttousethemtofindoutwhen,how,
where,andbywhomthepoemwascomposed.
InthewritingofthisbookIowedebtsofvarioussortstomanypeopleovera
period of twenty years. First and foremost, I talked about Beowulf with Patrick
Wormaldoffandonfortenyearsonafewalltoobriefoccasionsbeforehisdeath.
HisgentleadvocacyoftheBeornwulf–Wiglafpremissdecidedthecourseofmy
book. Further back, I owe longer-standing debts to teachers, fellow students,
friends,andcolleagues.UrsulaDronketaughtmethatthepoetcouldinnovate;
Ray Page, to study the cruces. Michael Lapidge introduced me to Donald
Bullough’s article on Ingeld and both he and Andy Orchard straightened me
out in other ways. Orchard’s great knowledge of Beowulf led me down many
productiveavenuesofresearch.Eachinhisownfield,JamesGraham-Campbell,
E´amonnO´ Carraga´in,andAlanThackerpointedmeinwhatIbelievetobethe
rightdirection.IamgratefultomystudentDong-IllLeeforilluminatingtome
Beowulf’s youth and sense of honour; to Rolf Bremmer, Sally Burch, David