Spiritual and Secular Worlds
The range of works copied or composed in Anglo-Saxon England reveals a culture indebted to the learning of antiquity, the early Christian world, the continent and eastern Christendom. Works by Pliny, Cicero, Dioscorides and Vitruvius might be found within English libraries, along with those by Augustine of Hippo, Gregory the Great, Ephrem the Syrian and other Church Fathers, and of important Christian scholars and poets such as Orosius, Isidore of Seville, Sedulius and Prudentius.
Inspired by this legacy, many new works were created. Bede explored the nature of time and the natural world, and created an influential brand of historiography out of a tradition of the annalistic recording of events and of semi-historical polemic.  | | The British Library | Marvels of the East.
Eleventh century, second quarter; Winchester or Canterbury (?).
The fabulous inhabitants of the East (including an elephant), illustrating a Late Antique treatise copied in this miscellaneous volume of world knowledge. (BL Shelfmark Cotton MS Tiberius B.V (pt.I), f.81.) |
Byrhtferth of Ramsey later continued to advance the frontiers of scientific knowledge in the Bedan tradition, whilst aspects of Anglo-Saxon medicinal knowledge (culled both from antiquity and from verbal and folk remedies, the latter often of a decidedly magical character) were preserved in the Leechbooks. Astronomical, astrological and calendrical information were also an important part of world knowledge for the Anglo-Saxons and their contemporaries, and a number of works contain information about these subjects. An interest in geography was also manifested in copies of texts such as the Marvels of the East, descriptions of the Holy Land and travellers' tales, such as that recounted to Alfred the Great by the Norseman, Ohthere. An advanced and intriguing world map also survives in an early eleventh-century English manuscript, prefiguring the later medieval mappae mundi.
Secular verse and Christian worship
A tenth-century trend towards the production of anthologies also led to the recording of a rich poetic tradition, many examples of which were originally composed for the mead hall and preserved orally. In addition to secular poems such as The Wanderer, The Wife's Lament and Wulf, and epics such as Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon, a number of moving Christian poems were composed at this time, such as Caedmon's Hymn, The Dream of the Rood and Judith. Rules of metre governing Greek and Latin verse were also brought to bear upon Anglo-Saxon poetic composition, largely through the agency of the Canterbury school under Archbishop Theodore and the Abbot Hadrian, and its pupils, notably Aldhelm. The Riddles, composed by authors such as Aldhelm and Tatwine, although often amusing, were designed to assist in the propagation of such rules.
Various books were required for the performance of worship. The Scriptures were available in several types of manuscript: Bibles, Gospel-books or lectionaries, groups of Old Testament books and Psalters. Missals and breviaries (or their components) were required to perform the mass and the divine office respectively (although the less lavish copies of these seldom survive). A few choir books still exist, along with some specific service books, such as the benedictionals containing episcopal blessings. The English, along with the Irish, were also much given to exegetical, or interpretative, writing and commentary upon the Scriptures, Bede and Alcuin being major exponents of this art. Homilies and sermons were also a strength, with Aelfric and Wulfstan excelling in this sort of composition during the late tenth century. A rich tradition of private devotion also existed, represented primarily by a group of early ninth-century Mercian prayer books, and by later anthologies.
The British Library | The Harley Psalter.
Early eleventh century (with later additions); Canterbury.
Detail from the illustration to Psalm 103, in the earliest of three surviving English copies of the Utrecht Psalter. This influential Carolingian book (of Antique inspiration) was made near Rheims, c.820, was present in England and gave rise to the 'Utrecht style'.
The differing responses of the various artists and scribes to their model is instructive: this artist followed it closely, enlivening certain details. This English copy also introduces more colour than the original. |
Lives of the saints and others
With such an impressive ecclesiastical tradition, it is not surprising that Anglo-Saxon England should have generated a number of local saints' lives, in addition to producing copies of more 'universal' hagiographical works. Bede's lives of St Cuthbert, Felix's Life of St Guthlac and lives of Swithin and Alphege are among the English contributions to the genre.
A secular biographical tradition also emerged, perhaps under Carolingian influence, manifested in Asser's Life of Alfred, the Life of Edward the Confessor and Edward's notorious 'Apology' or Encomium of his mother, Emma. The importance of lineage and kinship within Anglo-Saxon society is also displayed in the genealogies which were composed, tracing descent from figures such as Woden (and thereby often to biblical figures), to establish the worthiness and legitimacy of various individuals and their houses. The possibilities presented by the foregoing works for use as propaganda do not appear to have been overlooked, and nor (eventually) was that of another major work, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, commenced during Alfred's reign (871-99), and continued in a number of versions, one extending to 1154.
tion of these many and varied books was a tradition of pragmatic literacy represented by the charters (property documents), the records of ecclesiastical synods and councils, manumissions or records of liberation from slavery, the royal writs and major administrative records, such as the Tribal and Burghal Hidages. A number of wills (of both men and women) also survive, including that of Alfred the Great, which, along with the charters, provide an insight into property ownership. A rare survival of an estate document relating to the possessions of Ely Abbey gives a glimpse into the rural economy, whilst documents relating to trade and to guild regulations shed light upon urban life. Perhaps most important of all are the law-codes issued by rulers such as Ine of Wessex, Ethelbert of Kent and Alfred which furnish probably the most detailed and stimulating insight into life in Anglo-Saxon England. |
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