Florida State University Libraries

Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School

2010

Interlace and Early BritainJoanna M. Beall

Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact lib-ir@fsu.edu

THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

INTERLACE AND EARLY BRITAIN

By

JOANNA M. BEALL

A Dissertation submitted to the

Department of English

in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Awarded:

Spring Semester, 2010

The members of the committee approve the dissertation of Joanna M. Beall defended on March 24,

2010.

__________________________________________

David. F. Johnson

Professor Directing Dissertation

__________________________________________

Lori Walters

University Representative

__________________________________________

Bruce Boehrer

Committee Member

__________________________________________

Eugene Crook

Committee Member

Approved: Nancy Bradley Warren

Committee Member

_______________________________________

Kathleen Yancey,

Chair, Department of English

The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members.

ii

I dedicate this to My Parents

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am glad of this opportunity to express my appreciation for the wisdom and patience of all my

Committee Members. Thank you, Dr. Johnson, for your high standards as a medievalist, and also for

understanding my independence–while always giving the right advice, or asking the right questions, at

the right time. Thank you, Dr. Walters, for your knowledge of interlace and your encouragement; and

Professor Crook for knowing so much about all things medieval, especially with regard to religion.

Thanks also to Dr. Warren and Dr. Boehrer for being helpful and pleasant over the years. My gratitude

is also due to Professor Jeremy Smith at Glasgow University, who supervised my MPhil. studies,

including the first version of what appears here as Chapter 5, on the Lindisfarne Gospels. You are all

wonderful models as scholars and teachers: I hope, in my brief turn, to follow your examples.

I am indebted, as well, to the moral support of my family in England, and their encouragement

to continue in my studies. I also owe much to a dear friend–Trixie was the best little dog in the world,

and she stayed by me through it all: "Little Lamb, God bless thee!"1

1Blake, William. "The Lamb." Songs of Innocence and Experience. Romanticism: An Anthology. Ed. Duncan

Wu. London: Blackwell, 1994. 56.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables........................................................................................................................................................vi

List of Figures.....................................................................................................................................................vii

Abstract................................................................................................................................................................viii

1. INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................................................1

2. CONTEXT-TEXTILE-TEXT: TRANSMISSION OF INTERLACE TO GREATBRITAIN...................................................................................................................................................8

3. HISTORICAL SURVEY: THE LINGUISTIC AND LITERARY CONTEXTS OF INTERLACE IN EARLY BRITAIN..........................................................................................................31

4. SCHOLARLY ANALYSES OF INTERLACE IN OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE........................53

5. INTERLACE AND THE LINDISFARNE GOSPELS............................................................................81

6. INTERLACE AND ENGLISH STONE CROSSES..............................................................................104

7. INTERLACE AND "THE DREAM OF THE ROOD".........................................................................1317.1 The Dream of the Rood........................................................................................................................1547.2 The Dream of the Rood (Translation).................................................................................................1587.3 Outline of Scenes in “The Dream of the Rood,” According to Huppe...........................................162

8. CONCLUSION...........................................................................................................................................164

APPENDICES

A. GLOSSARY OF TERMS ASSOCIATED WITH WEAVING............................................................167

B. TABLES SHOWING DEVELOPMENTS IN WEAVING...................................................................176

WORKS CITED..........................................................................................................................................181

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH...........................................................................................................................193

v

LIST OF TABLES

2.1 Weaving in the Stone Age.........................................................................................................................176

2.2 Weaving in the Bronze Age ......................................................................................................................177

2.3 Weaving in the Iron Age ............... ...........................................................................................................178

2.4 Weaving in the Roman Era .......................................................................................................................179

2.5 Weaving in the Post-Roman Age..............................................................................................................180

4.1 Techniques and Their Purposes in Interlace–After Bartlett......................................................................78

4.2 Techniques and Their Purposes in Interlace– After Leyerle.....................................................................79

4.3 Techniques and Their Purposes in Interlace– After Vinaver..................................................................80

vi

LIST OF FIGURES

2.1 Illustrations Showing Weaving Patterns from Anglo-Saxon England, and a WeavingSword..............................................................................................................................................................28

2.2 Roman Mosaic from Hinton St. Mary, Dorset.............................................................................29

2 3 Map Showing Viking Insurgency and Settlement in Britain and Europe, 700-941 ..............................30

5.1 Map Showing Northern Dioceses 700-850................................................................................................99

5.2 The First St. Matthew Incipit Page of the Lindisfarne Gospels, f. 27r..................................................100

5.3 The St. John Incipit Page of the Lindisfarne Gospels, f. 211r................................................................101

5.4 Zoomorphic Bronze Mask from Late Shang China.................................................................................102

5.5 Crowned Zoomorph: Bronze Finial from Late Shang China.................................................................103

6.1 Christ Acclaimed by Two Animals–On Two Crosses............................................................................125

6.2 The Ruthwell Cross, Engraving After Drawings by Henry Duncan, 1833...........................................126

6.3 Illustrations of the Bewcastle Cross by W. G. Collingwood..................................................................127

6.4 Illustrations of the North Sandbach Cross................................................................................................128

6.5 Illustrations of the South Sandbach Cross................................................................................................129

6.6 Illustrations of the Gosforth Cross by W. G. Collingwood ...................................................................130

7.1 Map Showing Viking Settlement in 9th-10th Century England.............................................................163

vii

ABSTRACT

This dissertation presents an interdisciplinary approach to the understanding of interlace in

Britain, while arguing that the Anglo-Saxons utilized the device as an instrument for uniting British

cultures under Christianity. Interlace is firstly defined in terms of weaving; and its inception and

evolution into other crafts, including literature, is summarized. The paths by which interlace is known

to have reached Britain are thus identified, and reasons for its use are considered. The study then

concentrates on development of interlace within the socio-historical and linguistic contexts of Great

Britain, which help to identify the characteristics of the genre that emerges. Focus on those elements

is refined by analysis and interpretation of interlace in the manuscript art of The Lindisfarne Gospels

(BL, Cotton Nero Div, f. 27), and on stone crosses at Ruthwell, Bewcastle, Sandbach, and Gosforth.

Finally, the text of the late tenth century poem, The Dream of the Rood, is analyzed as interlace and

interpreted under the lens of its religio-political and historical contexts.

viii

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

The Celts who migrated to Great Britain after the Younger Dryas imported materials that can

be used for weaving, and they afterwards produced textiles; it is therefore reasonable to suppose that

they, and tribes who arrived later, could perceive weaving as a process of creating a single object

from diverse threads. This dissertation hypothesizes that the British analogized the principle into other

arts including rhetoric and politics; and that as the Anglo-Saxons developed writing in English, they

turned interlace to the rhetorical purpose of integrating all British cultures under Christianity.

The study supports the hypothesis by seeking to deepen understanding of what interlace is,

how it reached Great Britain, and the ways in which the Anglo-Saxons adapted its patterns to their

manuscripts, stone crosses, language, and literature. The method used for exploring the claim is

interdisciplinarity, a theory described by Julie Thompson Klein, and which provides an integrative

framework for scholarship from diverse interests.2 Interdisciplinarity is intrinsic to the historical

nature of Anglo-Saxon studies as well as to analysis of interlace on various media; and it is also ideal

for a study of interlace which argues that the device itself depicts and participates in integration.

The disciplines used throughout the dissertation include Linguistics, in which etymology

provides the origin of terms that locate interlace in the art of weaving, but also defines both concepts.

References to “interlace,” “knotwork,” and “weaving” are interchangeable in the study unless it is

necessary to distinguish between them, for example when embroidery interlaces with a larger weave;

and the terms “interlace” and “knotwork” may also refer to patterns that re-present weaving on other

artwork. On a larger scale, this study discusses “cultural interlace,” by which I mean the lacing or

weaving together of ideas from disparate cultures; through this dynamic, cultures themselves might

interweave to form a unit, such as a nation, and the contacts may occur naturally–for example by

trade, or during education–or by imposition through empires. Terms used to indicate aspects of

interlace include: crossing and intersection, alternation, variation, mixture, juxtaposition, inset,

linking, and means of attachment. The Middle English Dictionary Online at the University of

Michigan,3 and The Oxford English Dictionary Online,4 are the authorities cited for the definitions,

2 Klein, Julie Thompson. Interdisciplinarity: History, Theory & Practice. Detroit: Wayne State University

Press, 1990. I am indebted to Professor David Johnson for guiding me to this theory.

3 “Las.” The Middle English Dictionary. Eds. Hans Kurath and M. Kuhn. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan

Press, 19522001. Medieval English Dictionary Online. Ed. Frances McSparran. University of Michigan. 2006.

Strozier Lib. F.S.U. Tallahassee, FL. 05 Dec. 2009.

<http://quod.lib.umich.edu.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/cgi/m/mec/med-idx?type=id&id=MED24706>

4 “Interlace.” The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989. Oxford English Dictionary Online. Oxford

University Press. Strozier Lib. Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL. 19 Feb. 2008.

<http://dictionary.oed.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/cgi/entry/50119164?query_type=word&queryword=interlace&first=1&

1

and they indeed associate the French-based word interlace and the earlier Anglo-Saxon one of

weaving. The Glossary attached to this dissertation stems from these sources and provides further

English terms that we still use in relation to fabric and weaving, the authority for Anglo-Saxon

terminology residing in Bosworth-Toller5 and J. R. Clark Hall.6 The University of Toronto has a

project underway to update the Dictionary of Old English, but that is incomplete at the time of

writing.

Other disciplines that contribute to the discussion are Archeology, the History of Textiles,

and Art-History: studies which locate the earliest known manifestations of weaving and identify the

earliest applications of interlace to other arts. The disciplines also make it possible to trace

transmission of the techniques to Britain. The dissertation also taps the insights of scholars who have

produced Theories of Interlace from different perspectives. Some, for example, have sought origins

and symbology in art-history; others have studied the device as rhetoric in Old English Literature.

The study notes that interlace, the Celtic indigenes of Britain, and the English language, all

branched from Indo-European roots–though not necessarily contemporaneously. The discussion thus

considers ways in which non-insular languages and cultures contributed to the versions of interlace

that developed in Great Britain, and for this it turns to the Theory and History of English Literacy.

Studies of this type provide insights that facilitate exploration of the uses of symbolism and literacy

among inhabitants who possessed different degrees of literacy in various languages. The Social and

Political History of England provides a necessary background for understanding such developments,

and the study therefore adduces the viewpoints of British scholars who seek to understand their

country; it also uses their knowledge to place interlace in the socio-historical and even the genetic

context of British society. The discussion can then approach examples of British interlace as insets in

the larger tapestry of the religio-political context that influenced their creation. Theology also

contributes by explaining perceptions that underlie imagery in the Christian art which formed part of

that context, and the study utilizes the suggestion that theology works as one of three strands. As

Stephen Noll argued when discussing the cord in Ecclesiastes 4.12: "Every Biblical text combines

historical, literary, and theological dimensions.”7 The insight informs my approach to texts including

those from Manuscript Studies. Illuminated Gospels contain some of the earliest examples of interlace

max_to_show =10&sort_type=alpha&search_id=buJJ-E0GChs-7671&result_place=1>

5 An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Based on the Manuscript Collections of the Late Joseph Bosworth. Ed. and

Enlarged T. Northcote Toller. An Electronic Application on CD-Rom. ver.0.2b. Digitised by Sean Crist et al.

2001-2007. Application by Ondrej Tichy, 2006-7. <http://lexicon.ff.cuni.cz/app>

6 Clark Hall, J. R. A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. 4th. ed. Supplement Herbert D. Merritt. Toronto:

University of Toronto Press, 1960.

7 Noll, Stephen. Looking at the Old Testament. Ambridge, PA: Trinity Episcopal Extension Ministries, 2003;

10. cf also Ecclesiastes 4:12, which advocates communal effort: "And if a man prevail against one, two shall

withstand him: a threefold cord is not easily broken."

2

in Britain, and I consider that the concepts behind their designs are essential to an understanding of

interlace from the island.

Scholarship from the disciplines referenced includes that of Nils Aberg, which is often

considered seminal for the origins and theory of interlace in plastic and manuscript arts. He produced

his work in three volumes, much of it while Sweden was under the influence of Nazi Germany: a

situation that may account for what I interpret as some denigration of Anglo-Saxons. His main

contribution to my work is, nevertheless, from the section on the British Isles, where he theorizes that

interlace with breaks was Coptic in origin, and that the Irish introduced it to the English.8 I also

adduce other art-historical expertise, for example from the series edited by Rosemary Cramp–a

catalogue of all the Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture in England that describes the stones, and in which

she categorizes types of interlace.9 Scholarship from the other fields includes that of Michael

Clanchy,10 Patrick Wormald,11 and Michael Lapidge,12 all of whom have contributed to knowledge

about literacy in early medieval England. Lapidge, especially, has performed valuable research on

the school of Theodore and Hadrian at Canterbury, and the glosses produced there.13 Also included is

work from the Oxford geneticist Bryan Sykes, who identifies the genetic substructure of the indigenes

of Great Britain as Celtic.14 In order to understand something of the early culture of the indigenes, I

have relied especially on Barry Cunliffe, a Celticist also from Oxford University.15

Both Celts and Anglo-Saxons maintained traditions of oral narrative before they acquired

literacy, as indeed did the Greeks; and John Niles is one scholar who has discussed ring structure as a

type of interlace that appears in such traditions.16 For theory of literary interlace, the study turns to

Daniel Calder, who ascribes the earliest description of the techniques to a German scholar, Richard

8 Aberg, Nils. The Occident and the Orient in the Art of the Seventh Century. Part I. Stockholm: Wahlstrom &

Widstrand, 1943-47; 92-96.

9 Cramp, Rosemary. General Introduction to the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture: Grammar of

Anglo-Saxon Ornament. Published for the British Academy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.

10 Clanchy, Michael T. From Memory to Written Record: England 1066-1307. 2nd. ed. Oxford: Blackwell,

2000.

11 Wormald, Patrick. “Anglo-Saxon Society and Its Literature.” The Cambridge Companion to Old English

Literature. Eds Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

12 Lapidge, Michael. “Gildas’s Education and the Latin Culture of Sub-Roman England.” Gildas: New

Approaches. Eds. Michael Lapidge and David N. Dumville. Woodbridge: Boydell, 1984. 27-50.

13 Bischoff B. and M. Lapidge. Biblical Commentaries from the Canterbury School of Theodore and Hadrian.

Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Thanks again to

Dr.Johnson, who mentioned the importance of the work on glosses. It proved to be a rich vein of information!

14 Sykes, Bryan. Blood of the Isles: Exploring the Genetic Roots of our Tribal History. London: Bantam

Press, 2006; 283, 287.

15 Cunliffe, Barry. The Ancient Celts. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

16 Niles, John D. “Ring Composition and the Structure of Beowulf.” Publications of the Modern Language

Association 94.5 (1979): 924-35.

3

Heinzel.17 Adeline Courtney Bartlett further outlined the techniques as the Anglo-Saxons applied

them to poetry.18 John Leyerle, however, identified and analyzed zoomorphic interlace and its insets

within Beowulf, thereby turning the focus towards the rhetorical purposes of Anglo-Saxon interlace, 19

and Arthur Brodeur, even more specifically, analyzed the technique of variation in that work.20

Eugene Vinaver discussed interlace in French romances, but their Arthurian matter commonly

employs material from British Celts, therefore Vinaver describes techniques and effects that pertain to

interlace in British culture.21 Bernard Huppe also produced close analyses of specific Anglo-Saxon

poems, in which he related syntax and diction to the patterns on Irish manuscript art and what is here

defined as interlace.22

English Runes are manifestations of a prototype Anglo-Saxon literacy, and they often appear

in association with interlace; R. I. Page, of Corpus Christi College Cambridge, is possibly the greatest

authority on these.23 For manuscript studies, Michelle Brown has produced a comprehensive and

modern discussion of The Lindisfarne Gospels (BL, Cotton Nero D.iv),24 although the earlier work of

Janet Backhouse remains valuable.25 In a discussion of interlace in other medieval manuscripts, Laura

Kendrick has alluded to use of knotwork as “a figure for the mystery of incarnation”; and she also

sees interlaced designs as “pictorial realizations of the exegetical metaphor of the “knots” of

Scripture; that is, the multiplex, associative, “intertextual” ways divinity was supposed to reveal (but

still partially conceal) itself in writing.”26 These insights, based especially on works of Gregory the

Great and Bede, help to integrate my readings of the texts chosen.

17 Calder, Daniel G. “The Study of Style in Old English Poetry: A Historical Introduction.” Old English

Poetry: Essays on Style. Ed. Daniel G. Calder. Berkley: University of California Press, 1979. 1-66 (4; 17).

18 Bartlett, Adeline Courtney. The Larger Rhetorical Patterns in Anglo-Saxon Poetry. Morningside Heights,

New York: Columbia University Press, 1935.

19 Leyerle, John. "The Interlace Structure of Beowulf." Interpretations of Beowulf : A Critical Anthology.

University of Toronto Quarterly 37 (1967): 1-17. Ed. R. D. Fulk. Bloomington & Indianopolis: Indiana University

Press, 1991. 146-67.

20 Brodeur, Arthur Gilchrist. “Variation.” Interpretations of Beowulf : A Critical Anthology. University of

Toronto Quarterly 37 (1967): 1-17. Ed. R. D. Fulk. Bloomington & Indianopolis: Indiana University Press, 1991.

66-87.

21 Vinaver, Eugene. The Rise of Romance. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971. I thank Professor Eugene Crook for

recommending this source to me.

22 Huppe, Bernard F. The Web of Words: Structural Analyses of the Old English Poems “Vainglory,” “The

Wonder of Creation,” “The Dream of the Rood,” and “Judith.” Albany: State University of New York Press, 1970.

23 Page, R. I. Reading the Past. London: Trustees of the British Museum. 1987.

24 Brown, Michelle P. The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality, and the Scribe. London: The British

Library, 2003.

25 Backhouse, Janet. The Lindisfarne Gospels. London: Phaidon, 1981.

26 Kendrick, Laura. Animating the Letter: The Figurative Embodiment of Writing from Late Antiquity to the

Renaissance. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1999; 87/8. This time my gratitude is due to Professor Lori

Walters, who recommended Animating the Letter.

4

The work of four scholars has proved invaluable for interpretation of designs: Jacques

Guilman has analyzed the construction and layout of interlace in the manuscripts,27 and three

exponents of the iconography of ornament in plastic arts are Eamonn O Carragain,28 Jennifer

O’Reilly,29 and Jane Hawkes.30 In addition, Michael Swanton produced the Exeter edition of “The

Dream of the Rood” (Cathedral Library Vercelli MS CXVII);31 and his work is like that of O

Carragain in providing a rich background against which to consider interlace.

Much of the dissertation focuses on the Kingdom of Northumbria: because the area produced

the earliest examples of interlace that survive in what is now England. For history and theology

contemporary to the place and period, I follow most scholars in turning to the Venerable Bede

(673-735 AD), particularly his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. The work pertains to the

discussion of interlace in that, as D.H. Farmer observes, “The main theme of the History was the

progression from diversity to unity. This was an idea worked out by Gregory the Great, whom Bede

admired so much both as a teacher and as the apostle of the English.”32 I would argue that later

disunity and re-unification of the area, when it was invaded by Hiberno-Vikings, is further

demonstration of the dynamics of cultural interlace. David Rollason, of the University of Durham

(UK), provides a present-day perspective that facilitates discussion of the history of Northumbria.33

Oxford University now devotes a website to the writing tablets recently unearthed at

Vindolanda; this offers more facts about Northumbria and the Scottish Marches, and so affords

up-to-date insight into the levels and use of literacy in Roman Britain.34 I argue that literacy and

interlace are related aspects of culture, and they need not have disappeared with the exodus of the

Romans; rather, people would have retained an interest in the uses of both forms. Their early

27 Guilman, Jacques. “The Composition of the First Cross Page of the Lindisfarne Gospels:“‘Square

Schematism’ and the Hiberno-Saxon Aesthetic.” The Art Bulletin 67. 4 (1985): 535-547.

28 O Carragain, Eamonn. Ritual and the Rood: Liturgical Images and the Old English Poems of the Dream of

the Rood Tradition. The British Library Studies in Medieval Culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005.

29 O’Reilly, J. “Patristic and Insular Traditions of the Evangelists: Exegesis and Iconography.” Le Isole

Britanniche e Roma in Eta Romanobarbarica. Eds. A. M. Luiselli Fadda and E. O Carragain Rome: Herder Editrice

e Libreria, 1998. 49-94.

30 Hawkes, Jane. The Sandbach Crosses: Sign and Significance in Anglo-Saxon Sculpture. Bodmin: Four

Courts Press,

31 Swanton, Michael, ed. The Dream of the Rood. Rev. ed. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1996. 2000.

32 Farmer, D. H. “Introduction.” Ecclesiastical History of the English People, with Bede’s Letter to Egbert,

and Cuthbert’s Letter on the Death of Bede. By the Venerable Bede. Trans. Leo Sherley-Price, rev. R. E. Latham.

Trans. of the minor works, new Intro. and Notes, D. H. Farmer. Rev. ed. New York: Viking Penguin, 1990; 19-38

(27).

33 Rollason, David. Northumbria, 500-1100: Creation and Destruction of a Kingdom. Cambridge: CUP, 2003.

34 Vindolanda Tablets Online. Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents, Director A. K. Bowman; and the

Academic Computing Development Team. 2009. Oxford University, England. 30 Nov. 2009.

<http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk>[VW].

5

appearance in the culture of the Scottish Marches may have inspired further development of the

achievements already manifest in Roman arts, and in development of the peace and unity forced upon

Celts by the multicultural Roman Army at Hadrian’s Wall. For information on the similar

environment of early Wales and the Welsh Marches, I adduce the work of John Davies, who was a

member of the Department of Welsh History at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.35 Reliable

description of the physical geography of these areas is scarce; however W. J. King provides details

that are relevant to the literature and history of the largest of the islands in the archipelago that is the

British Isles.36

The discussion begins by outlining the history of weaving in the West, while noting examples

of where the craft extended onto other artefacts–as “ornament.” My summary depends largely on the

work of scholars who contributed to The Cambridge History of Western Textiles (CHWT), most of

whom have used radio-carbon dating to enhance accuracy in chronology.37 I have tabulated

information that specifies interlace designs and applies to cultural exchange, and included that which

highlights the development of weaving and its designs in Britain. The discussion then moves towards

the linguistic and rhetorical environments that inhered during exacerbations of cultural interaction in

the island. The chapters that follow seek to deepen understanding of the rhetorical purposes of

interlace in specific texts, which are approached as insets in the religio-political backdrop of

Anglo-Saxon England. My analyses of interlace in manuscript and plastic arts provide a new focus on

their symbology, because the enquiry considers how the knotwork functioned: both in the texts

associated with the media and with respect to British audiences.

Scholars have previously discussed the device in light of a few literary texts, including

Beowulf, Judith, and The Dream of the Rood. The present study, though, suggests that the British

appreciated the technique more widely than has been recognized hitherto, and that specific analysis of

interlace provides new insights into the concerns of the people who produced and used the texts. That

the concept of weaving underlies the words “text” and “interlace” is key to these understandings: for

whether the weave appears on a material object or echoes through diction and alliteration in oral

poetry, the appeals of structure, texture, decoration, and symbolism, can lead audiences to

contemplate significance deeper than that of mere fashion. My contribution indicates that tribal

peoples in Great Britain appreciated intellectual, spiritual, and social concepts in the abstract designs,

and the discussion explores what some of those concepts were likely to be.

I suggest, ultimately, that Anglo-Saxons used scholarship of the Book–The Bible–to unite the

interests of their society under those of Christianity, which came from Rome and the Mediterranean.

35 Davies, John. A History of Wales. In Welsh, 1990; In English 1993. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1994.

36 King, W. J. The British Isles. The New Certificate Geography Series, Advanced Level. London: MacDonald

and Evans, 1970.

37 Jorgensen, Lise Bender. “Northern Europe in the Roman Iron Age, 1 BC-AD 400.” The Cambridge History

of Western Textiles. Ed. David Jenkins. Vol. 1. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 93-102 (99). (CHWT)

6

Analysis of The Lindisfarne Gospels illustrates this “cultural interlace” by first identifying and then

interpreting the integration of cultural effects on the first Incipit page of St. Matthew (f. 27). The

discussions of stone crosses show also how Anglo-Saxons used interlace to link their understandings

of matters temporal and spiritual; and the dissertation concludes by exploring how the poet displays

relationships between Christ the Word and human words in The Dream of the Rood. In so doing, the

study suggests that the poet applies the commentary of St. Augustine on the Gospel of St. John the

Evangelist, but also that intertextuality links the poem to the arts previously discussed. It is then

possible to see how interlace in Great Britain could participate in a program of religio-political

integration, and that the device is at least as structural and functional as it is decorative.

7

CHAPTER 2

TEXTILE-CONTEXT-TEXT: TRANSMISSION OF INTERLACE TO GREAT BRITAIN

Birds, spiders, and silk-worms are examples of animals that weave, either to trap food or to

form protective casings–but we cannot prove that any of them taught mankind to do so; neither can

we prove that the skill was a gift to Greek women from Athene, their goddess of wisdom and war.38

The history of weaving confirms that mankind has used the craft, in the fight for survival, to create

means of manipulating or responding to the environment–both physical and invisible; the story of

interlace in Britain also reflects those responses.

The discussion of interlace in this chapter seeks to clarify understanding of the routes by

which weaving reached Britain, and of how the techniques developed once there; the section also

touches upon the significance of interlace in imagery. Some of that imagery relates to religions of

which we know little, and some to Christianity; but I proceed on the assumption that such

organizations attempt to mediate between mankind and powers that are beyond control, and that

therefore affect survival. In this light, the section and its tables offer a basic review of the history of

textile production in its western context, after which the chapter focuses on the development of

interlace in Christian and Anglo-Saxon England. Our knowledge of the history of weaving is

incomplete, however. John Peter Wild, an historian of cloth-making, explains why lack of evidence

dictates the situation: natural fibers decompose unless preserved in a dry climate; or by the chemicals

in marshy environments; or by chemicals released from decaying metals.39 Some early textiles have

survived under such conditions, and archeology continues to unearth others, as well as evidence of

the technologies that produced them. Scholars supplement this knowledge of weaving through the

study of arts that incorporate it into more durable media, such as pottery, carvings, metalwork, and

literature.

The same sources contribute to the present discussion, which mentions the earliest known

occurrences, or recurrences, of interlace patterns that reached Britain–especially two- or three-strand

cords, checks, stripes,40 diamond and diaper shapes. The appearance of those structures in the weaves

of braids, damasks, tapestries, and embroidery is noted; as is that of weaves in diagonal patterns–or

twills–because Romilly Allen and Nils Aberg identified the diagonal trend plastic arts of "interlace

38 Jenkins, Ian. “The Greeks.” CHWT 75.

39 Wild, John Peter. “General Introduction.” CHWT. 9-25 (9).

40 See Glossary. Check patterns are intrinsic to the simplest weave: the tabby (see diagram from CHWT 1.11),

and diamond patterns are re-orientations or variations of the rectangle. Etymology suggests that stripes may also be

considered interlace because the changes of color are reminiscent of cords used in braiding, weaving, or pleating.

The sense would derive from the Old English bregdan to move quickly, flash, change color, plait, weave; ON

bregtha.

8

with breaks," and attributed the development to Irish Celts.41 The discussion especially notes the

relationship between weaving and Celts, because they are the people who settled Britain in Neolithic

times.

The study treats weaving and interlace as synonyms, but definitions of the word “interlace”

can clarify the history and relationships between the two concepts, and they also help to establish the

terms that refer to the technique throughout the discussion; for while it seems self-evident that

“Interlace” describes patterns in artwork we consider to be Celtic or Anglo-Saxon, the term does not

appear in Old English dictionaries. The Glossary appended to this study identifies the equivalent

words in Old English as: wefan (to weave), and also cnotta (knot), which we combine with weorc

(work; construction; structure) when we call interlace knotwork– that is, a “structure of knots.” The

Old English verb, nettian: to ensnare, is also relevant. Clark Hall is among the etymologists who

describe nett as “netting, network, a spider's web”; and Bosworth-Toller adds that it also is: “I. a net

for fowling, fishing or hunting;” “II. a mosquito net;” “III. a net-work, web.” Bosworth-Toller relates

the English term to Germanic cognates: “Goth. nati, O. Sax. netti, O. Frs. nette, O. H. Ger. nezzi,” all

of which might indicate that the Anglo-Saxons who migrated to England, in the 5th and 6th centuries

AD, were already familiar with this aspect of weaving. The Glossary appended to this study sets out

these terms in greater detail, and relates them to an English vocabulary that is still widely used for the

processes of weaving.

“Interlace,” however, belongs to a later period of French domination. The Middle English

Dictionary (MED), places the first English occurrence of “lace” in 1230 AD, in Ancrene Wisse

(Corpus Christi College, Cambridge MS. 402). Indicating that “lace” derives from the Old French

variants: laz, las, lace, lais; the MED includes the primary definition:

1a.Cord made of braided or interwoven strands of silk, threads of gold, etc; also, a length

of such cord; also, the thread of life controlled by the Fates.42

Other entries in the MED extend this definition of “lace”to, for example: 1b. “A piece of cord used to

draw together the edges of slits or openings in an article of clothing, or to attach one article of

clothing or armor to another; a lace.” The denotations, however, also include characteristics of lace

that are less obvious to us nowadays: 1d. “A cord used as a bond or fetter,” or: 4. “A net, noose, or

snare”–the latter definition therefore linking “lace” both to Old English nettian (above) and to Latin

Laqueus -i, m: a noose, halter, snare–from which the French originated.

The Oxford English Dictionary Online (OED) explains the French notion of interlace in terms

of the English one of weaving, and it offers later precedents for use of the concept in English. I

41 Aberg, Nils. The Occident and the Orient in the Art of the Seventh Century. Part I. Stockholm:Wahlstrom

Widstrand, 1943; 70-76.

42 “Las.” MED Online. University of Michigan. 2006. Strozier Lib. F.S.U. Tallahassee, FL. 26 Jan. 2010.

<http://ets.umdl.umich.edu>

9

include them here in some detail because the history of weaving will show that these features of

interlace in fact originated much earlier. The OED explains the following on the verb "to interlace:"

Etymology: entrelace, a. F. entrelace-r (OF. -ier), f. entre- (ENTER-, INTER- 1) +

lacer to LACE.]

1. trans. To unite two (or more) things by intercrossing laces, strings, or threads;

hence, to connect or bind together intricately; to entangle, involve, mix up. [Earliest

example dated c. 1374: CHAUCER Boeth. III. pr. xi. 82 (Camb. MS.) “The hows of

dydalus so entrelaced that it is vn-able to be vnlaced.”]

2 a.. To draw two series of threads, withes, or other things, across each other, passing

each alternately above and below the other, as in weaving; but implying a simpler and

less elaborate arrangement than interweave. [Earliest example dated 1523.]

b. fig. To intermix with constant alternation; to alternate; to interweave [Earliest

example dated 1576]

3. To interweave one thing or set of things into another; to introduce as by

interweaving; to insert, interpolate. Chiefly fig. or transf. Obs. [Earliest example

dated: 1532]

4. To cross, vary, or diversify a thing with interwoven or intermixed elements; to

intersperse, mingle, or mix with. Chiefly transf. and fig. [Earliest example dated 1531]

5. a. intr. for refl. To cross each other intricately, as if woven together; to lie between

each other in opposite directions, like the fingers of the two interlaced hands. [earliest

example dated 1596].

b. To mix oneself up, to become entangled or involved. Obs. rare. [Earliest

example dated c. 1380.]43

Section 1, above, cites a reference by Chaucer to the maze, or puzzle, a characteristic that Clark Hall

attributes to the Old English cnotta, and for which Chapters 3 and 7 find precedents in Old English

Literature. We see, otherwise, that the OED and MED include shades of meaning that have

developed within the concepts of uniting strands of various kinds into one fabric, and of using them

to join objects together. The dictionaries also specify terms such as: crossing, alternation, variation,

mixture, means of attachment, and their application to forms of netting–a word which, we have seen

above, clarifies the relationship between interlace and entrapment.

The history of weaving supports the suggestion by Wild that netting is the hand-worked and

43 “Interlace.” The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989. Oxford English Dictionary Online. Oxford

University Press. Strozier Lib. Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL. 19 Feb. 2008.

<http://dictionary.oed.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/cgi/entry/50119164?query_type=word&queryword=interlace&first=1&

max_to_show =10&sort_type=alpha&search_id=buJJ-E0GChs-7671&result_place=1> The stress on weaving is

mine.

10

immediate ancestor of mechanized weaving.44 Netting also has religious affiliations, however, and

Wild identifies one of the earliest examples as a ceremonial headdress in:

An important collection of Neolithic sacred objects including basketry, matting,

cordage, and very fine netting [which] was found stored in a cave in Nahal Hemar,

Palestine, on the Dead Sea. The collection has been dated to ca. 6,500 BC by

radio-carbon.45

Historians locate the earliest evidence of closer weaving to the Paleolithic Near East, the first

known fabric being linen that appeared in Turkey ca. 6,000BC.46 I believe it significant for the

discussion that the development coincided both with the earliest migrations of Turkish farmers to the

Balkans, and with the rising of seas that freed the British Isles from Europe, ca. 6,500-6,000 BC.

Bryan Sykes designates one set of these farmers, who migrated across the northern shores of the

Mediterranean and towards the Atlantic seaboard, as “Oceanic.” Some of them arrived as the first

Celtic settlers in Ireland, possibly between 5,500 and 2,500 BC. Another “Land” group moved

towards the Baltic and the North Sea.47 The evidence does not suggest that these Celtic migrants took

weaving with them from the beginning; nevertheless, they took the farming techniques that would

enable its later appearance.

Wild relates the development of fabric production to farming; that is, to the first indications of

sheep-rearing and cultivation of flax seeds, which occurred ca. 8,000 BC. Neither flax seeds nor

sheep confirm the existence of textiles, though; and he dates the first known woven artefacts, in the

Dead Sea collection mentioned above, to fifteen hundred years later.48 The growth of skills took time,

and Wild inclines to the view that people in the Near East began to produce tabby linen on ground

looms sometime later than 4,000 BC, 2,000 years after the first linen appeared in Turkey.49 He

cautions, further, that the evidence “suggest[s] an industry already well established in that region, but

one which was not necessarily the progenitor of the industries developing in prehistoric Europe.”50

Joan Allgrove-McDowell argues that both farming and the industry spread south and west to Egypt;

for she believes that hunter-gatherers who cultivated flax there (ca. 6,000 BC) used seeds from the

Levant, because: “Wild flax was not indigenous to Egypt.” McDowell dates the earliest linen

production in Neolithic Egypt to ca. 5,500 BC, noting that, at that time, women span the fiber for

cloth-making. Portable, horizontal ground looms were used in this area up to 1,550 BC, and these

44 Wild “Anatolia and the Levant c. 8000-3500/3300 BC.” CHWT 42.

45 Wild “Anatolia and the Levant in the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods, c.8000-3500/3300 BC.” CHWT

39-48 (42).

46 The Stone Age: ca. 8000-3500/3300 BC; cf. Table 2.1, also.

47 Sykes 138-40; Davies 1; also Sykes 141/2, and 156.

48 Wild 42, Ill. I.

49 Wild 40-42 (CHWT).

50 Wild 10 (CHWT).

11

allowed weavers to move between supplies of materials for their craft.51

The production of textiles thus diversified from farming, the source of subsistence and

materials, towards indirect means of survival through trade, which supplied a larger market with

clothing and furnishings in varying degrees of luxury. Both Pontic and Iranian regions have histories

of a luxury trade in Chinese silks. It is therefore relevant that Claudia Brown and other sericulture

historians cite archaeological finds which confirm that weaving existed in China by 5,000 BC and

silk-weaving from 4,000 BC.52 Wild notes that Byzantines wove silk twills from Chinese fibers even

after “Justinian obtained silk-worm eggs from travellers [sic] from central Asia,”53 ca. 552-4 AD; so

we see that the contribution of China continued throughout the period under discussion.

Artefacts from Prehistoric Europe may indicate independence of developments in the Middle

East, especially as Lise Bender Jorgensen identifies the oldest woven object in Europe, a cord from

Lascaux, as “Paleolithic.” She is vague about the dates of bast fishing-nets from Finland and

Germany, placing them in the “ninth or eighth millennium BC or an early part of the Mesolithic.”54

Perhaps lack of evidence is due to the Younger Dryas; for in the similar latitudes of Scotland and

northern England, as Sykes points out, only nomads–hunter gatherers–of the period left traces such as

microliths.55 The presence of nets, though, lends merit to the comment of J. G. D. Clark, that:

“[W]hatever the factors that have led men to traverse the seaways of Atlantic Europe, it seems safe to

assume that the routes were first opened up by men intent on catching fish.”56

The earliest remnants of textiles from Scandinavia, of ca. 4,200 BC, are later Mesolithic

clothing and basketry from Denmark; the weaves are in willow bast and include knotless netting,

couched buttonhole stitch, knitting, and netting.57 The northern textiles, though, are simple in contrast

to fabrics from the Lake Dwellings of Switzerland, where loom weights indicate that warp-weighted

technology was used from about 4,000 BC, and the weaves include knotless netting, basketry, and

51 Allgrove-McDowell, Joan. “Ancient Egypt, 5000-332 BC.” 31; 33; 48 CHWT.

52 Brown, Claudia, ed. The Amy S. Clague Collection of Chinese Textiles. Phoenix: Phoenix Art Museum,

2000, 16. Brown here quotes Zhao Feng. Zhixiu zhenpin: Tushuo Zhongguo sizhou yishu shi / Treasures in Silk: An

Illustrated History of Chinese Textiles. Trans. June Lee. Hong Kong: ISAT/Costume Squad, 1999, 38-9.

53 Wild. “The Later Roman and Early Byzantine East, AD 300-1,000.” 140-153 (141; 143) CHWT. The

Emperor Justinian reigned 527-65 AD .

54 Jorgensen . “Europe: The Stone Age c. 2000 BC.” CHWT 52-70 (53 Lascaux; 54 nets). She defines

Paleolithic as 10 to 15,000 years ago (53).

55 Sykes 148; 243; 282. He dates theYounger Dryas, a later Ice Age, to BC 9,000-8,000, observing:.“The sea

was frozen right down to northern Spain, and the plains of northern Europe reduced once again to barren and

inhospitable tundra,” 138-9.

56 Clark, J. G. D. “The Economic Context of Dolmens and Passage Graves in Sweden.” Markotic, V. ed.

Ancient Europe and the Mediterranean. Warminster: Arts and Phillips Ltd., 1977; 35-49. Qtd. in: Mercer, Roger J.

[f/n 18 cont’d] “The Early Farming Settlement of South Western England.” Neolithic Settlement in Ireland and

Western Britain [NS]. Eds. Ian Armit, Eileen Murphy, Eimear Nelis and Derek Simpson. Oxford: Oxbow Books,

2003; 59.

57 Jorgensen 54; 55.

12

some tabbies in linen. Decoration includes stripes, brocade, and embroidery. Jorgensen comments,

nevertheless, on the absence of wool in Switzerland, suggesting that although Neolithics had

introduced domesticated sheep into that area, they might not have been fleece-producing animals.58

Indeed, Wild indicates that the first such fleece, even in the Near East, appeared only ca. 3,000 BC.59

Jorgensen identifies the earliest known fragment of thread from Britain as Neolithic and from

Cambridge.60 If we accept the logic of the relationship between farming and weaving, the dearth of

textiles from Stone Age Britain is unsurprising because, as Sykes indicates: farmers only began

settling the islands in Neolithic times.61 Study of early British husbandry supports the statement, and

Dr. Anne Tresset notes that “Domestic animals seem to appear en masse in southern England around

3,800/3,700 BC (in calendar years).” She also maintains that goats and sheep had “no wild

progenitors [...] in Britain and Ireland (nor are there in Europe), so these two species must have been

imported.”62 Further evidence of sheep in Britain appears at Northton, Isle of Harris (Outer

Hebrides, ca.3360-2910 BC),63 signifying that both farming and the animals had then reached the

north of the islands. Archeologists have found flax seeds in the south. They are from ca. 4,310-3,705

BC, at Hembury Fort, Devon; 64 and from the similar settlement at Windmill Hill [Avebury,

Wiltshire];65 and while, at this stage, the plant may merely have provided food or linseed oil, the

presence of both flax and sheep farming confirms that Neolithic immigrants to Britain had imported

the resources for weaving fabric.

Wild indicates that, during the Bronze Age which followed, Palestine and Syria exported

linen to Mesopotamia where, contemporaneously, sheep-farming and wool production became

industries, and some sheep were bred for woolly fleeces.66 Tabby weaves predominated; and there

were ground looms, but by 2,500 and 2,000 BC, warp-weighted looms had appeared in Troy and

Palestine, respectively. The late appearance of the advanced looms suggests the possibilities that: i)

the technology could have originated in Switzerland and ii) knowledge of the technology was

traveling. It does appear, overall, that cloth and its manufacture moved in more than one direction: not

only did exchange with China continue but, as Wild mentions, the trade extended between

58 Jorgensen 55-57.

59 Wild 40.

60 Jorgensen 55.

61 Sykes 282

62 Tresset, Anne. “French Connections II: of Cows and Men.” Neolithic Settlement in Ireland and Western

Britain. Eds. Ian Armit, Eileen Murphy, Eimear Nelis and Derek Simpson. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2003. 18-30

(19; 20; 24). [NS].

63 Murphy, Eileen & Derek Simpson. “Neolithic Northton: A Review of the Evidence, The Early Farming

Settlement of South Western England.” [NS]. 101-111 (104; 109).

64 Mercer, Roger J. “The Early Farming Settlement of South Western England.” [NS]. 56-70 ( 67).

65 Gibson, Alex. “What Do We Mean by Neolithic Settlement?” [NS]. 136-145 (139).

66 Wild 40/43. cf Table 2.2: Bronze Age (c 3500-1100 BC).

13

“Mesopotamian cities and Asia Minor.”67

McDowell describes a fashion for kilts in Bronze Age Egypt (1,600-1,100 BC).68 This further

indicates the spread of interlace across cultures. Although we presently associate the pleated garments

particularly with Irish and Scottish Celts however, “Oceanic” Neolithics had not taken kilts across the

Balkans and beyond the northern Mediterranean, and Sykes considers the Celts of western Britain

unrelated to those “who spread south and east to Italy, Greece and Turkey from the heartlands of

Hallstadt and La Tene [...] during the first millennium BC.”69 As most commentators including Sykes

warn, indeed, the presence of a model in a place does not reveal how it got there.70 Similarly,

Jorgensen mentions the appearance in Bronze Age Denmark of checks,71 a pattern we know on kilts

as plaid, and which is also unlikely to have arrived there with the first “Land” Neolithics. The

presence of plaids and kilts could intimate, for example, that later Celts or Middle Easterners

interacted with northern peoples, or that each produced their own pattern. Etymology shows,

however, that we use the Scandinavian word for the styles (see Glossary).

We are fortunate that the ruling classes of the Near East were literate and left records of how

their culture used weaving.72 McDowell can consequently describe how clothing reflected social

classification in Egypt: aliens wore colors while wore white linen; and foreigners probably wove the

first wool because Egyptian religion forbade use of animal fibers.73 Egyptians also recorded their

practices in writing and tomb paintings, thus we know that the “Ceremonial dress of deities, royalty

and the priesthood” displayed color and decoration; and McDowell suggests that ancient tradition

dictated this exception.74 Such cases evidence continuation of the early associations between religion

and weaving; in addition, we see the influence of the craft extending to other arts, notably writing.

Jorgensen points out that most textiles from Bronze Age Europe are of vegetable fibers,

probably flax. She identifies the first woollen textile as mixed with vegetable fiber, the sample being

discovered near the Elbe, inside a flint dagger of 2,400 BC; and she thereby infers that sheep had

reached the area. The presence of loom weights suggests that weaving had arrived. A remnant of twill

from Lichtenstein might represent the earliest in Europe, the number of samples increasing after 800

67 Wild 46 (Troy and Palestine); 47 (extension of trade).

68 McDowell 36-9. Kilts are here considered representatives of interlace because of: I) the associated plaid or

check pattern– which is an enlarged representation of woven or crossed threads; and ii) pleating and its etymology:

cf “Plait” Chambers. Also, OE: “plett,” a fold [From Latin plecta a hurdle] Bosworth-Toller and Clark Hall. Latin:

“ plexus -a -um,” braided, plaited {from Latin Plecto; and Greek} Cassell’s.

69 Sykes 281 (first-century Celts).

70 Sykes 145.

71 Jorgensen 61.

72 Wild 43; 47.

73 McDowell 37; 30.

74 McDowell 30; 37.

14

BC .75

Although no British textiles seem to have survived the period, evidence of weaving remains

in a Late Bronze Age spindle whorl from Plumpton Plain, Sussex.76 Some knowledge of weaving had

certainly reached the island by 2,000 BC, for ceramics survive which were patterned with cords. The

artefacts were left by the Beaker people–whom John Davies describes as migrants “to Britain from

the estuaries of the river Rhine, but whose culture contained elements which may have originated in

the steppes of southern Russia [ . . ].” Davies also claims that weaving had reached Wales by 1,400

BC.77

Comparison of the information in Table 2.3 reveals that, during the Iron Age (ca. 1100-539

BC), twill weaves became common across Mediterranean and European cultures, which suggests

that the techniques underlying the diagonal patterns could have been widely known. Another aspect

of interlace appears late in the era, in a weave from the Crimea that Wild describes on "[...] shaded

bands in which a rainbow effect has minutely graduated colour changes in the wool weft."78 While

modern audiences may not easily recognize this as interlace, we saw above that Old English and Old

Norse associated braiding and the impressions of such color changes.79

The history so far shows that cultures interacted and exchanged their knowledge of weaving,

however cultures show signs that they themselves interlaced in the Iron Age, especially as empires

formed and attempted to unite many cultures under the power of one. Evidence of cultural exchange

appears on Persian designs that Wild observes from the Scythian tombs at Pazyryk, north of the

Black Sea; and in the growing of cotton, an Indian plant, in Assyria.80 Assyria would dominate the

Middle East from 900-625 BC, and it conquered Northern Israel in 722-721 BC.81 Prior to this,

Egypt had subjugated the Israelites ca. 2,000-1,200 BC;82 and the Jews recorded that experience in

the Book of Exodus, which also tells of Hebrew sheep-rearing, spinning, and weaving.83 We know,

therefore, that the people of Israel resisted the imposition of Egyptian culture, retaining their own

75 Jorgensen. “Europe: Bronze Age, c.2000-c.700 BC.” CHWT. 57-62 (61; 57, the wool. 62, the twill–

Jorgensen dates this as “thirteenth century BC;” it is in her Bronze Age section, so perhaps is a misprint and should

read 1,300 BC).

76 Wild 12 Illustration I.2 (b)(CHWT). The period is BC 1400-400, i.e. Later Bronze Age to Iron Age.

77 Davies 12, 13.

78 Wild 103 “The Hellenistic World, 323 BC- 31 BC.” CHWT. 102-103 (103).

79 Chapter I. Pg. 8 f/n 40; and Glossary.

80 Wild “The Achaemenid Persians, ca. 550-330 BC.” 52; “The Neo-Assyrians and Neo-Babylonians ca.

1100-539 BC.” 49. “Cotton” cotton tree: an Indian tree, Bombax malabaricum. Chambers.

81 Cook, William R, and Ronald B. Herzman. The Medieval World View: An Introduction. 2nd ed. New York:

Oxford University Press, 2004; 6.

82 Noll 10.

83 Unless otherwise stated, all Biblical quotations in this dissertation are from the Douay-Rheims translation:

The Holy Bible: Translated from the Latin Vulgate. Rev. Bishop Richard Challoner, A.D. 1749-1752. London:

Baronius Press, 2003.

15

when they left Egypt with “sheep and herds and beasts of divers kinds” [12:38]. Exodus explains that

their religion required them to sacrifice calves, rams [29:1], and a paschal lamb or kid [12:5]. They

provided their tabernacle with “curtains of fine twisted linen, and violet and purple and scarlet twice

dyed, diversified with embroidery,”84 [26:1]. The rules specified: “Thou shalt make loops of violet in

the sides and tops of the curtains, that they may be joined to one another,” which was to be

accomplished with “rings of gold” [26:4; 6]. Other curtains must be woven of goat hair and joined

with brass buckles [7-10]; and we learn also that the women span flax as well as goat hair [35:

25-26]. The people provided garments in linen for Aaron, their priest: the ephod having a woven

border at the neck and a hemline decorated by fabric pomegranates that alternated with golden bells

“that the sound may be heard, when he goeth in and cometh out of the sanctuary” [28: 32-35]. They

inscribed the names of the tribes of Israel on the “rational” of his tunic [28:29]; and when Beseleel

[37:1] constructed the garment, he did so “With embroidered work: he cut thin plates of gold, and

drew them small into threads, that they might be twisted with the woof of the aforesaid colours,”

[39:3].

The techniques specified in the Book of Exodus, then, illustrate how early our conceptions of

interlace manifested themselves. For by including: weaving decorated with embroidery; alternation;

variation or diversification; loops and means of attachment; mixture; and variation of color–the

practices of the Israelites match the definitions at the beginning of this chapter. I suggest that

inscription should now be included in the list, as it appears on fabric consistently throughout the

history of interlace. In addition, we see here that it contributes to the three strands mentioned by

Noll–history, theology, and literature.85

The historical and theological dimensions of writing also survive for us in the pagan context

of the Etruscan Linen Book, where text appears in black ink on linen, and cinnabar was used for

rubrics and dividers. The Zagreb Museum claims the ‘book’ to be:

[A] manuscript with the longest preserved text in the Etruscan language, and

simultaneously the only preserved example of a linen book in the entire classical

world. The book is something like a liturgical calendar, with dates cited and religious

precepts relating to sacrifices offered to individual deities.86

Although doubt remains as to whether the linen originated in Etruria or Egypt, L. B. Van der Meer

notes that recent analysis of the script indicates it was "almost certainly written in Perugia or in its

84 cf. Hatto, A. T. “Snake-swords and Boar-helms in Beowulf.” English Studies. Vol. 38. Amsterdam: Swets &

Zeitlinger,1957; 145-160. Hatto observes that the Latin rendition in Ex. 26.1 is “variatas opere plumario;” he says,

“Opus plumarium and ars plumaria refer to brocade work,” and he cites Bosworth-Toller for the OE glosses of

bleocræfte ('embroidery') ; wyndecræft ('An art of weaving') . He also opines that in the latter, “it is contrasting

colour-patterns (of silver, or gold, and colours) upon the weave that are important,” (152).

85 Noll 10.

86 “Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis.” The Archaeological Museum, Zagreb, Croatia. The Etruscan Collection.

2009. 30 Nov.2009. <http://www.amz.hr/home/departments/collections/collections-.aspx>

16

region, between ca. 200 and 150 BC."87

The Iron Age sites at Hallstatt and La Tene have yielded textiles of triple cords in colors.88

Once more a religious affiliation of interlace seems likely: as A. T. Hatto observed, “It is now fully

recognized that animal and vegetal motifs in the art of pre-literate and early civilised peoples may

have origins deeply embedded in their religious and magical beliefs.”89 The same cultures also

influenced metalwork. Cunliffe describes designs that include trumpets and peltas as well as the

vegetal style of scrolls, curls, and interlace on a 4th/3rd century sword scabbard from the Thames at

Standlake (Oxfordshire). He clarifies that “The basketry cross-hatching on the upper mount is

typically British.”90 The British Museum holds other objects, such as the Battersea Shield, which was

retrieved from the River Thames, “where,” they note, “many weapons were offered as sacrifices in

the Bronze Age and Iron Age.”91 Scholars do not know what beliefs led these people to leave

artefacts in watery places. However, the museum explains further of the patterns on the objects:

“Early Celtic art features stylized faces and entwined plant ornament; even precise patterns such as

those on the bronze Battersea Shield reveal owl-like faces.”92 The nature of the vegetal symbols is

again obscure, and Cunliffe writes of a “complex pattern of values and beliefs” associated with a

Celtic head cult. He suggests “Perhaps, here, too, we are seeing the shifting shapes of Celtic

mythology where visions appear and disappear and nothing is quite as it seems.”93 He also associates

the cult with power, noting that: “[T]o own and display a distinguished head was to retain and control

the power of the dead person, which was the inheritance of the lineage.”94 The Witham Shield

provides an even more striking example of a stylized head, set above interlace.95 Although interlace

appears on metal, no fabric survives from Iron Age Britain; loom weights from Winnall Down,

Hampshire, indicate nevertheless that the people practiced weaving.96

87 Turfa, Jean M. Rev. Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis. The Linen Book of Zagreb. A Comment on theLongest

Etruscan Text. By L. B. van der Meer. 2008.05.37; 23. Bryn Mawr Classical Review. 08 Nov. 2009.

<http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu.2008/2008-05-37.html>

88 Jorgensen 69 (CHWT).

89 Hatto 153.

90 Cunliffe 116-120; Ill 91; and 162; Ill 135.

91 The Battersea Shield. The British Museum, London. 05 Dec. 2009.

<http://www.britishmuseum.org/search_results.aspx?searchText=battersea+shield> cf I.M. Stead. The Battersea

Shield. London: The British Museum Press, 1985; S. James and V. Rigby. Britain and the Celtic Iron Age.

London: The British Museum Press, 1997; R. Bradley. A Passage of Arms . Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1990.

92 Early Celtic Art. The British Museum, London. 05 Dec. 2009.

<http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/article_index/e/early_celtic_or_la_t%c3%a8ne_art.aspx>

93 Cunliffe 127-8; 113.

94 Cunliffe 209-10.

95 Cunliffe 117; Ill X.

96 Wild 15, Illustration I.5(c).

17

Luxury fabrics survive from everywhere in the Classical world, however, and Romans

continued to import both silk and silk fiber, weaving damask from the latter.97 As Rome developed its

empire, Wild observes, “The conquered peoples, whether Celtic or Celt-Iberian, were absorbed at

varying rates into the Roman administrative and cultural system, but in some spheres, such as

clothing and textiles, they retained their individuality.” Part of that originality appears in stripes and

checks, woven in colored wools, Wild commenting further that: “Contemporary authors associated

the Celts with striped and check-patterned clothing, and the archaeological evidence supports them.”98

The northern Germanic areas remained free of Roman domination, and the tables in

Appendix B show their textile technology developing slightly later than that in the conquered areas.

Wild indicates, though, that even when industrial centers within the empire became urban, they

remained close to the producers of raw materials. Also within Romanized Europe, different areas bred

their own sheep, but those derived from Greek stock yielded the finest wool.99

Roman Britain followed the same pattern of integration of resources and weaving. Wild

suggests that “the predominantly brown Soay100 of St. Kilda may mirror the upland peasant farmer’s

stock in the north-west provinces, while the grey or white Orkney may resemble an early type of

Roman improved animal.” He also believes that Britain was a “less-developed province” in which

“weaving...was still largely a domestic craft carried out by women on a part-time or seasonal basis,”

but that larger groups existed at places such as Vindolanda.101 Such sites have yielded the earliest

samples of British textiles; and Vindolanda–near Hadrian’s Wall, Hexham, and the Tyne Gap–was

ideally situated for commerce. It lies near what is still sheep-farming country in both Scotland and

England; and it is a nodal point, accessible by sea and river (the Tyne flows east, and the Irthing

west), and by a natural land route that runs westward through the Pennines between Corbridge and

Carlisle.102 There the very landscape presents interlace. Wild records, too, that wool combs of iron

from the period have been found in East Anglia,103 so practice of the craft extended between

Vindolanda and London.

British weaving and religion also interacted during the occupation: a Christian church has

been unearthed at Vindolanda, although Rollason suggests that it indicates only the religion of the

commander, who was unlikely to be British.104 Neither do we know who commissioned the fourth

97 The Roman Era is here considered as: c 31 BC to 400 AD; cf Table 2.4.

98 Wild “The Romans in the West, 600BC to AD 400.” CHWT. 77-93 (79; 88/89).

99 Wild 79.

100 “Soay,” An Outer Hebridean breed of sheep. Chambers.

101 Wild 84.

102 King 266. Rollason 50-51.

103 Wild 80.

104 Rollason 111.

18

century Roman mosaic at Hinton St. Mary, in Dorset, but the tableau surrounds a central Chi-Rho

device set behind a probable head of Christ. Frames of interlace echo both the circularity of the

central frame and the shape of the chi cross. Corded or braided strands also frame other panels: four

are quarter sections in the corners, each containing a head–perhaps of an evangelist; and four are

semicircles depicting a chase, or hunt.105 The overall theme thus appears to be evangelical.

The Romans withdrew from Britain early in the fifth century.106 Cook and Herzman describe

the ensuing period as including: the fall of Rome to Germanic tribes; tensions between Rome and

Byzantium; and the loss of Byzantine territory to Muslims in the seventh and eighth centuries.107 Wild

observes that information about textiles in Mediterranean areas remains, but is incomplete because

documents, mosaics, and “official art,” record the clothing and fashions of the upper classes, but

ignore technology and simpler lifestyles.108 Romans and Byzantines continued to weave, though; and

in this period production of interlace as decoration seems to have become more deliberate. Wild

notes that the Romans had produced damask silks in “simple geometric patterns” as early as ca. 250

AD, but in the later empires geometric interlace decorated woven bands for clothing; in addition,

Byzantines adopted a diaper design in the fifth and sixth centuries.109 The Byzantines, especially,

continued to weave luxury fabrics in silk and to produce thread in precious metals.110 Trade and

cross-cultural influences continued, despite contention about control of the silk routes to and from

China, on which issue, McDowell points out, both Parthian (211-224 AD) and Sasanian Empires

(224-642 AD) “successfully waged war against Rome and Constantinople.”111 Wild indicates that the

two latter powers obtained wool from Anatolia, Syria, Greece and Egypt; and they used goat hair,

camel hair, and mohair. They imported linen cloth directly from Egypt and, later, indirectly through

the Syrians.112 After the sixth century, they imported cotton from southern and western Mediterranean

areas; and in the eighth and ninth centuries, they used Sasanian themes in their designs: the Royal

Hunt and “the senmurv, a mythical winged creature which appears on numerous textiles.”113

The appropriation of pagan mythology by Christian powers may give us pause; however

105 Campbell, James, ed. The Anglo-Saxons. New York: Penguin, 1991, 12. Illustration 7. [AS]

106 Table 2.5 covers the period from 300-1000 AD; while this isLate to Post-Roman and Early Byzantine, in

Britain it also includes the Viking Age of 750-1066.

107 Cook & Herzman 92-93.

108 Wild 140/141.

109 Wild 148; 146; 147, respectively.

110 Wild 142.

111 McDowell 153.

112 Wild 141; 151.

113 MacDowell 155: explains that the senmurv, a chimera of bird and dog, belonged to the Zoroastrians who

believed that it “roosts in the Tree of Seeds between Heaven and Earth bringing rain and fertility to humankind.”

They considered it a creation of Ahura Mazda. [“Ahura Mazda.” Creator of the universe aka Ormuzd. Chambers;

“Zoroaster.” Ahura Mazda was the spirit of light and good. OCEL].

19

McDowell, too, refers to a Byzantine “polychrome silk with nimbed”114 birds, noting its similarity to

the designs on Sasanian metalwork. She confirms that Sasanian designs survived, even when their

silks did not: “Their iconography of kingship, hunting and battle, expressed in semi-heraldic imagery,

also appealed to the feudal societies of early Islam, Christian Europe and T’ang China.”115 We saw

above, on the fourth century mosaic from Dorset, that a hunting motif could already be adapted to the

concept of Christian evangelism: the imagery extending to the hunt for souls; and we know also that

Christians signify sanctity by the nimbus or halo. Once more, then, we see how ideas associated with

weaving also served to interlace cultures at the hub of Mediterranean trade; and they did so in

association with religious sponsors.

The draw-loom appeared in the Near East early in the Arab period,116 and the variation in

technology contributed to an increased output of textiles, factors that Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood

indicates may have resulted in “the diversification of decorative techniques.”117 Gold thread

embroidery was common, and Eastwood notes: “During the Islamic period the emphasis gradually

changed to the use of colour in stripes, bands, checks, etc.”118 Other techniques included the painting

or embroidering on fabric of scripts like kufic.119 The continued appearance of script as a form of

interlace adds further weight to the suggestion already inherent in the "Linen Book" and in the ephod

of Exodus: that relationships between weaving, writing, and religion, existed continuously. They now

did so across cultures.

Eastwood makes several points about the socio-economic importance of weaving in the Near

East and Mediterranean areas. She says: “Furthermore it would appear that many, if not the majority,

of the people living in this region were involved in some manner with the manufacture of and trade in

textiles.”120 She also indicates that the relationship between trade and religion continued: “Islamic

textiles, especially those in silk, have been found in considerable quantities in cathedral and church

treasuries throughout Europe, and appear to have been regarded as both exotic and valuable items.”121

We have already noted the necessity of simpler cloth for clothing and furnishings, and Eastwood

points out that: “Material was also used outside the house, for example as horse trappings, awnings,

114 “Nimbus”: a cloud or luminous mist encircling a god or goddess.” Chambers. Latin “nimbus” cloud,

downpour, shower, bright cloud or splendour surrounding a god, in post-classical Latin also saint's halo, perh.

related to nebula. OED Online. 18 Apr. 2008.

115 McDowell 157/8.

116 Vogelsgang-Eastwood. “The Arabs, AD 699-1000.” CHWT. 158-165 (163).

117 Vogelsgang-Eastwood 161.

118 Vogelsgang-Eastwood 160-161.

119 cf Eastwood 161/2; (Ill. 3.26; 3.27).

120 Eastwood 159.

121 Eastwood 165.

20

travelling tents and covers for goods.”122 Perhaps sails and banners were important, especially as the

age of Viking piracy advanced. In this respect, Eastwood considers: “It is also worth noting that a

number of Islamic textiles which eventually reached Scandinavia were copied and re-copied in

various media until the designs became an accepted part of the Scandinavian artistic repertoire.”123 It

seems entirely possible, then, that Viking and Arabic influence on Britain began even earlier, in the

period referenced by Aberg when he observed that a Germanic style of interlace reached England–but

not Gaul–from Scandinavians and Franks of the early seventh century. He states that this interlace,

which was zoomorphic, developed more strongly in England and Scandinavia than elsewhere, adding:

“During the course of the 7th century the Nordic development frees itself entirely from the

Mediterranean interlace compositions, the free animal motif there being again finally restored.”124

Although Viking expansion had begun by AD 700, the Viking Age is generally considered

to have lasted from about 800-1050. Fabrics found at Birka, on the Baltic coast of Sweden, confirm

not only the significance of the cloth trade itself, but also the importance to Vikings of a port at which

trade routes converged. The routes continued through the Baltic, to Novgorod and thence to the

Volga; and then further–to the Dnieper, the Black Sea, Constantinople, and Trebizond.125 R. I. Page

refers to the same routes, along which Vikings traveled as traders, mercenary soldiers, or even as

pilgrims to Constantinople, and recorded their stories in runes, on stone or other artefacts.126

Even before the Vikings began to colonize Britain, cross-cultural trade there stimulated

increase in production and diversification of design. Accounts of Frisian cloth attest to

communication between England and Frisia, as do the Anglo-Frisian runes which arrived in the fifth

century.127 Penelope Walton Rogers explains that, ca. 450-650, earlier Anglo-Saxon migrants to the

eastern and southern lowlands of Britain had eschewed towns, producing textiles, for their private

use, from small farms. The domestic self-sufficiency is reminiscent of that Jenkins noted of the later

Iron Age, when Roman and Greek households kept sheep and produced wool for their own use, even

though professional cloth production had begun in the towns.128 It also recalls the customs mentioned

above as existing in Britain when the Romans arrived. Anglo-Saxons later expanded their system

into village workshops that produced wool and linen; and Rogers, suggesting that women did this

work, cites linguistic evidence of Old English words in the feminine form: spinster, webster, dyster,

folster, lister, and semester. Samples of the interlace these people produced in Britain survive and

122 Eastwood 164.

123 Eastwood 165.

124 Aberg III, 72; 76.

125 Gilbert, Martin. The Routledge Atlas of British History. 4th ed. New York: Routledge, 2007; 10.

126 Page, R. I. Reading the Past. London: Trustees of the British Museum. 1987; 48/9, 45.

127 Page 32.

128 Jenkins 71, 75 (CHWT).

21

include a three-colored diamond patterned braid, found at St. John’s College, Cambridge; and some

brocades remain from Kent, Essex, and Buckinghamshire, which interweave gold thread and other

fibers.129

Penelope Rogers observes the same association between the English Church and expensive

textiles as those described above, in Europe. As part of this, English nuns produced embroideries:

opus anglicanum. Mildred Budny and Dominic Tweddle identify the earliest extant works as “scraps

of wool twill decorated with coloured embroidery found (along with other textile fragments) in

amuletic boxes from seventh-century graves, such as those at Kempston in Bedfordshire.”130 Larger

and more famous are the gold and silk embroideries on linen, which survive at Maaseik in Belgium.

Budny and Tweddle judged these to be from southern England and of the late eighth or early ninth

centuries. They analyzed the pieces and concluded:

The linking or combination of different categories of ornament–with a mixture of

interlace, foliate and animal elements, places the embroideries within the phase of

Anglo-Saxon art exemplified by works in different media, such as the Priors Barton

shaft, the Brunswick casket [walrus ivory], the Bologna ring and the Canterbury

Bible.131

Budny and Tweddle date the stole, maniple, and girdle from the shrine of St. Cuthbert at Durham

from 909-916. Their opinion derives “from the inscriptions embroidered at the ends of both stole and

maniple,” which indicate that the Queen Aelflaed (d. before 916) ordered the work from Frithestan,

Bishop of Winchester.132 The relationship between writing, weaving, and religion remains evident.

As the Anglo-Saxon period matured, designs in interlace proliferated and developed in all media, and

runic text could be associated with interlace: the 2-strand cords that frame the panels of the

whalebone Franks Casket (8th century) exemplify this. Leslie Webster notes that the carvings depict

“scenes from Roman, Jewish, Christian, and Germanic tradition.”133 This, I argue, comprises cultural

interlace; it had been present throughout the history of weaving, but now it manifested itself in

conjunction with an interlace pattern–as if the artists were aware of a dynamic that drew several

cultures into a unit.

Similar interlace appears on stone crosses such as the 8th century Ruthwell Cross, which are

discussed later in this study; and it is worth noting that some Pictish stones in Scotland, which show

129 Rogers 125-7 (CHWT).

130 Budny, Mildred, and Dominic Tweddle. “The Maaseik Embroideries.” Anglo-Saxon England, 13. New

York: CUP, 1984; 65-96.

131 Budny and Tweddle 84.

132 Ibid 85.

133 Webster, L. “The New Learning,” Item 70: The Franks Casket. The Making of England: Anglo-Saxon Art

and Culture AD 600-900. Eds. Leslie Webster and Janet Backhouse. London: British Museum Press, 1991; 101-103.

[W&B]

22

interlace, are also of these dates.134 Nils Aberg, considered that Irish Celts copied the technique of

reproducing such interlace, with breaks and knots, from Coptic sources in Egypt, perhaps in the sixth

century, or certainly by the mid-seventh century AD. He noted that the Irish subsequently made the

most significant contribution to its proliferation and appearance in English artefacts.135 While later

evidence affirms Irish influence, however, Rosemary Cramp mentions that Adcock (1974) considers

metalwork and classical or Coptic sources as “decorative parallels,” not as models for the designs;

instead, “She sees the development of interlace through the use of “made” patterns in leather, metal,

or woven strands.”136 This dissertation, in its concentration on netting and weaving as prototypes,

plainly leans to the same view. In addition, weaves in diagonal patterns – or twills – are consistent

with the diagonal trend in “interlace with breaks,” that Romilly Allen and Aberg identified: in both

cases the displacement occurs when a woven strand misses its sequence and changes direction. At the

very least, then, British weavers knew enough to recognize the dynamic of the design; there is every

possibility that they also knew how to produce it. Whatever the origin of the patterns that developed

in England, therefore, I suggest that practitioners of the various crafts– be they men or women–must

have shared an appreciation of both the designs and the ability to engineer them: a respect that was

intellectual and continued, most often, to have spiritual associations.

Metal objects decorated with interlace designs appear throughout the period too, the Sutton

Hoo burial (ca. AD 620s) having preserved some of the most perfect examples, such as a gold belt

buckle, and enamel and gold shoulder-clasps.137 A contemporary hoard recently unearthed from

Mercian territory shows similar interlace; and at least one item has a Christian inscription, the religion

having been established in Anglo-Saxon England during the seventh century.138 Many commentators

consider such metalwork to have influenced the patterns on illuminated manuscripts like those of

Durham, Monkwearmouth/Jarrow, and Lindisfarne, which originated between the seventh and eighth

centuries, and Chapter 5 provides further discussion of The Lindisfarne Gospels. Leslie Webster

cites the close relationship between manuscript art and metal-work of the early ninth century.139

Michelle Brown similarly specifies that the Tiberius Bede (BL Cotton MS Tiberius C. ii) parallels the

finds in the Trewhiddle (Cornwall) hoard in decorative characteristics such as “beast-heads,

134 “Pictish Stones Search Facility.” University of Strathclyde: Statistics and Modelling Science. Strathclyde,

Glasgow, Scotland. 06 Dec. 2009. <http://www.stams.strath.ac.uk/research/pictish/database.php>.

135 Aberg, Nils. The Occident and the Orient in the Art of the Seventh Century: The British Isles. Part I.

Stockholm:Wahlstrom Widstrand, 1943; 70-76; 92-94.

136 Cramp xxviii

137 Campbell 32, Ill. 2; 77, Ill. 77 (AS).

138 “Huge Anglo-Saxon Gold Hoard Found.” BBC News online, UK. 24 Sept. 2009.

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/staffordshire/8272058.stm>. The inscription shown is in Latin and

the translation reads: "Rise up O Lord, and may thy enemies be dispersed and those who hate thee be driven from

thy face." The report cites the Book of Numbers or Psalm 67 [Ps. 67.2].Thanks to Dr. Johnson for this reference.

139 Webster L. “The Mercian Supremacy: Metalwork,” 220-1. (W&B).

23

independent beasts and grotesques, [...] use of interlace in white against a black ground [cp niello]”;

or the way in which the “bow of the exhibited initial b resembles a disc-brooch in its design.”140

The Viking era in Britain disrupted but also interwove with the Anglo-Saxon period, the

invaders eventually obtaining a foothold in the north and northeast. Rogers observes that, by the time

the Vikings had established themselves at York (ca. 876-1000/1050 AD), larger estates probably had

their own workshops, which “would have been staffed by bondwomen [. . .] although a male fuller

and a male seamster are also mentioned in later documents.”141 Workshops at Coppergate in the city

of York wove from imported silk, but Rogers argues that Vikings also influenced the English to

produce fabrics associated with what is here considered interlace, including: Birka twill; a

Scandinavian type of honeycomb weave; “silver wire embroidery;” and a twill patterned by

combining diverse threads into “a dark warp and a pale weft.”142 Rogers also suggests that Viking

trade routes to the East were under secular control, which resulted both in the variety of fabrics, and

in an availability and use of rich fabrics to people outside the religious and ruling classes.143

Viking culture influenced the Anglo-Saxons in other arts also. Richard Hall has noted that

excavations of Viking York revealed a trend in stone-carving, ca. 900, that applied traditional animal

interlace, but often now in chains, to new forms such as hogback stones; similar changes were also

applied to coinage.144 In contrast, Anne Savage suggests that the southern parts of England

responded to the Roman and French styles entering that area.145 By the early eleventh century the

Ringerike style had started to develop in the south, however. Savage defines it as a:

Viking interpretation of the Winchester art forms with which it seems to have co-

existed [...] Ringerike forms are lighter and the animal decoration is combined with

foliage itself derived from the Winchester models. Ringerike was too imitative to have

much influence on contemporary English art, and even Cnut preferred and

encouraged the Winchester artists.146

The Winchester School produced manuscripts which, Savage claims, incorporated “dignified, solid,

naturalistic figures and a lively, delicate line used to express emotion and movement– ultimately

derived from the ‘late antique’ art of Greece and Rome.” To Frankish art style, Winchester “added

140 Brown, M. P . “The Mercian Supremacy: item 170,” 215-7. (W&B)

141 Rogers Penelope Walton. “The Anglo-Saxons and Vikings in Britain, AD 450-1050,” 124-132. (CHWT).

124-132 (129).

142 Rogers 130. She notes “These diamond twills continued in use into the thirteenth century and represent one

of the few fabrics to survive transition from the Anglo-Saxon period into Norman and later medieval times.”

143 Rogers, 131-132.

144 Hall, Richard. “A Kingdom Too Far: York in the Early Tenth Century. “Edward the Elder: 899-924. Eds.

N. J. Higham and D. H. Hill. New York: Routledge, 2001. 188-199 (194-5).

145 Savage, Anne, ed. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. London: Phoebe Phillips/Heinemann, 1982; 156.

Illustrations of interlace on pages 130-1.

146 Savage 156.

24

brilliant colours, ornamentation and patterns.”147 It was then, a unification of cultural effects.

After Anglo-Saxons had accepted Christianity into their culture in 597AD, they developed

their literacy and literature also. Chapter 4 details the structures that comprise literary interlace, but it

is appropriate to mention here that the poet who recorded Beowulf in the later Anglo-Saxon period

used many terms that reflect the integration of weaving with other arts. A. T. Hatto analyzed some of

the diction in the poem that relates weaving to the patterns on swords, especially those that

incorporate reptilian designs. He attributes a pagan tradition to, for example, the kenning that

describes a sword as atertanum fah (Beowulf 459), which he interprets as “ 'gleaming with

serpent-osiers (of gold, interlaced as in basketry).' ” He relates the serpent imagery to Skaldic poetry,

where “not only swords but throwing-spears and arrows too were 'snakes' and like some swords may

well have been ornamented with snakes for magical and then traditional reasons.”148 Runic

inscription (1687ff) decorates the hilt of another sword that is represented by the noun brodenmæl

(1616; also brogdenmæl, 1667), which is generally glossed as a 'damascened sword.'149 Hatto

again cites the etymology mentioned above:

brogden, broden is the past participle of bregdan 'to move quickly to and fro (as

for example a weaver's shuttle), 'to brandish', 'to draw (a sword)', 'to weave', 'to

braid' (which is its surviving modern English form).

He concludes that here “We have to do with swords of which an outstanding feature is

decoration of interwoven type resembling chain-mail.”150 Building on this observation, it is

notable that Bosworth-Toller also assigns to mæl the meaning II: “a mark, sign, cross, crucifix,”

which I suggest may hint at Christian perception beneath the pagan concept of a decorated sword

or hilt that is also cruciform by nature. Professor Eugene Crook has also observed that the

weaving and flashing aspect of sword use refers to physical function, as when the weapon

weaves between the ribs of victims.151 Form followed function in more than etymology then, and

Anglo-Saxon sword structure reflected the same principle.

Herbert Maryon showed that what is usually glossed as a ‘damascened’ sword owes its

decoration to the structure and welding of the iron, and he therefore refers to the weapons as

147 Savage 130/1.

148 Hatto 150. Mitchell, Bruce and Fred C. Robinson, eds. Beowulf. Malden, Mass: Blackwell, 1998.

“Atertanum” ‘poisoned twigs.’ Swanton, Michael. “Ambiguity and Anticipation in “The Dream of the Rood.”

Neuphilologische Mitteilungen/Bulletin of the Modern Language Society 70 (1969): 407-425 (408). “fah” ‘hostile.’

This could, then, also read as: “hostile with poisoned twigs.”

149 Mitchell and Robinson. Beowulf. “brogdenmæl.”

150 Hatto 114.

151 Crook, Eugene. Verbal discussion and note to the author, March 24, 2010.

25

“pattern-welded.”152 Like weaving and the Celts–metalworking is Indo-European in origin. This

time it is in the sense that although iron smelting began in Asia Minor ca. 3,000 BC, the process

optimized in India. In 327 BC, Alexander the Great took samples to the Middle East from the

sub-continent, which then continued to supply the smelted metal to the Mediterranean. Maryon

notes: “Diocletian (AD 245-313) founded his armament factories at Damascus, and Syria

became famous for the fine weapons it produced, though the steel which it used for them was not

of Syrian but of Indian origin.”153 Maryon is precise about terminology however, pointing out

that ‘damascene’ patterns of the late Middle Ages inhere in the metallurgy of steel from

Hyderabad; but they differ from earlier pattern-welding, or even from inlay.154 Iron-age Celtic

swords had been weak and failed against sturdier Romans models, so Celtic smiths had

developed a new process for reinforcing the weapons, after the Romans withdrew. The type

known to the Beowulf poet was therefore pattern welded, as Maryon describes it:

Pattern welding is a method of strengthening and decorating the blades of iron or

steel weapons by welding into their fabric strips of iron and steel, variously

twisted, coiled, folded, or plaited. 155

Such a sword was discovered at Sutton Hoo, and Paul Mortimer commissioned a replica from

Patrick Barta of TEMPL Historic Arms. The process also involved insetting the hilt with garnets,

and the handle with bone.156 Interlace informed the structure of Anglo-Saxon swords, in short;

and it is clear that the poet of Beowulf was aware that his writing employed techniques related to

weaving, metalwork, and religion.

The history of weaving and interlace patterns shows that, from the earliest times, cultures

developed individual iconographies of interlace that related to their socio-economic, military, or

religious concerns–many of which involved some aspect of protection or survival.

“Nevertheless,” as Wild says, “ the greatest stumbling block remains our inability to shed our

modern preconceptions and enter the mind of the ancient spinner and weaver.”157 Cloth and

cloth-making remained part of everyday life, for both men and women, in ways that most of us

152 Maryon, Herbert. “Pattern-Welding and Damascening of Sword Blades: Part 1Pattern-Welding” Studies in

Conservation 5.1 (1960): 25-37.

Ibid. “Pattern-Welding and Damascening of Sword Blades: Part 2 The Damascene Process.” Studies in

Conservation 5. 2 (1960): 52-60. My thanks to Dr. Johnson for reading my draft and pointing out this structure and

the references used here.

153 Maryon 52 (“Part 2").

154 Maryon 52; 54.

155 Maryon 25 (“Part 1).

156 Mortimer, Paul, Rev. “TEMPL Historic Arms Sutton Hoo Sword.” 2003-2009. myArmoury.com: A

Resource for Historic Arms and Armour Collectors. 14 Jan. 2010.

<http://www.myarmoury.com/review_templ_suthoo.html>

157 Wild 10.

26

can no longer imagine; and the Roman period further increased the importance of weaving and

interlace to all western cultures. We see, though, that the greatest flowering in British culture

occurred after the Roman domination. The present section has shown ways in which that growth

related to Arab expansion, and later to a combination of Christianity and the influence of Viking

colonists on trade.

As this study continues, therefore, it reviews the factors that encouraged the interlace of

cultures within Britain, as well as of interlace designs in Old English art, rhetoric and literature.

Once the Anglo-Saxons converted to Christianity, part of the development would rely on the vast

estates where monasteries bred stock that supplied materials to workshops, scriptoria, and

schools; but Laura Kendrick supplies another clue when she observes “A knot was a crossing, a

“crux”–inevitably, then, a figure of the cross.”158 This dissertation goes further and builds on the

principle that the cross is the basic unit of interlace: for no weave occurs without the crossing of

threads. Whatever its earlier religious affiliations, then, interlace held particular significance for

Anglo-Saxon Christians, who left literary, theological, and historical records that can help us to

decipher the abstract art.

158 Kendrick 8

27

Figure 2.1: Illustrations Showing Weaving Patterns from Anglo-Saxon England, and a WeavingSword.159

159 Wild “Introduction,” CHWT provides the illustrations as follows: a) Page 23, Ill. I.14, where the editors

explain: “On the left is a weaving draft, on the right a diagram showing how the warp threads are displaced,”; b & c)

Page 21, Ill. I.11; d) Page 17, Ill. I.7, which identifies the sword as being from Spong Hill, in East Anglia.

28

Figure 2.2: Roman Mosaic from Hinton St. Mary, Dorset (British Museum).160

160 This image was acquired from <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/60/Mosaic2_-_plw.jpg>.

22.Feb.2010.

29

Figure 2.3: Map Showing Viking Insurgency and Settlement in Britain and Europe, 700-941161 .

161 Gilbert Map 10: “Viking Expansion in Europe 700-941." All data here are from Gilbert; backdrop modified by J. Beall; any errors are mine.

30

CHAPTER 3

HISTORICAL SURVEY: THE LINGUISTIC AND LITERARY CONTEXTS OF

INTERLACE IN EARLY BRITAIN

The history of languages and literacy in what is now England presents an interlacement

in which the diverse cultures of Celts, Romans, and Germanic tribes repeatedly met, crossed, ran

parallel, and diverged–until Anglo-Saxon Christians began to unite them and to analogize the

interweaving of cultures in the fabric of their rhetoric. The weave of Old English rhetoric

contributed to a wider literacy that empowered communication between the inhabitants of

Anglo-Saxon England and their rulers and, simultaneously, united the cultures of the English and

Celts under Christianity.

The previous chapter has shown that the people of Anglo-Saxon England shared an

understanding of the principles of weaving; and it seems reasonable to suppose that they were,

therefore equipped to recognize the dynamic Farmer identifies when he says that Bede moved

“from diversity to unity” in narrating The Ecclesiastical History of the English People (EHEP).

In that history, Bede sees Latin as the overarching purveyor of doctrine (I.1 45), but he also

recognizes the need for the Church to mediate by preaching to the people; and he was among

those who accomplished this by translating Scripture into English, so encouraging preaching in

the vernacular. While this chapter suggests that recognition of the need continued to grow after

Bede died (735 AD), the section also explores an inter-weaving of cultures that I call “cultural

interlace.” Such interlace had been underway even before Bede used Latin to integrate his

history: from a variety of sources and about diverse sets of people.162 While the chapter refers to

the origins of these cultural strands, it is chiefly concerned with those that reached Anglo-Saxon

England and contributed to religious and political unity there.

It is axiomatic that linguistic and rhetorical traditions manifest aspects of the cultures that

produce them; this section therefore reviews and seeks to clarify ways in which various

languages contributed to the fabric of a new English literacy that evolved from classical,

Hebrew, and insular cultures. The insular traditions were oral–as well as pragmatic in

depending on runes or trade, and the discussion notes contributions from the Celtic languages

that arrived first in Britain; from Latin, which the Romans imposed between 43 and ca. 407 AD;

162 Farmer 24-5: mentions contemporary sources from Anglo-Saxon and Ionian churchmen, some of whom

provided access to the letters of Pope Gregory. Bede 340-41 (“Letter to Egbert” EHEP): explains that the laity

should learn sacred texts and prayers in their own language as should trained teachers of religion, who know Latin.

The biographer and monk Cuthbert tells that Bede liked to recite English poetry, and also that he translated, for the

benefit of his students, the Gospel of St. John and “The Book of Cycles” by Isidore (358-9).

31

and from the Anglo-Saxon and Viking languages, which were the last to reach Britain. It is a

story of continuous interweaving, but we see that the strands ultimately united and flourished for

the main purpose that Bede identified: Christian learning and its propagation.

The languages involved are most likely to have been related early in their histories:

linguists hypothesize that they all stemmed from the “Centum” branch of Indo-European [IE].163

Cable and Baugh summarize the theories about the origins of I-E, noting that it probably

developed in “the district east of the Germanic area stretching from central Europe to the steppes

of Southern Russia.”164 Chapter 2 has already shown that movement through and from that area

took place when Turkish farmers migrated in the ninth and eighth centuries BC, but we do not

know whether the languages left the Indo-European homelands contemporaneously, or how long

they stayed in the Pontic and Balkan areas, or how much they changed while there.165 Sykes,

however, interprets genetic analysis as indicating that the Neolithic farmers diverged there about

8,500 years ago into “Land” and “Oceanic” groups, the first Celtic settlers from the “Oceanic”

faction arriving in Ireland between 7,500 and 4,500 years ago, where they joined Mesolithics

already there. The resulting DNA evidence reveals “a mixture of Iberian and European

Mesolithic ancestry that forms the Pictish/Celtic substructure of the Isles.”166 The Celts, then,

arrived in Britain at different times and possibly some went there by overland routes, which

factors could have contributed to the differences between the Celtic languages of the

archipelago.

These earliest inhabitants were pre-literate and took to Britain oral traditions in which

they wove narrative and mythology from history; and, in view of the common origins, the

tradition probably stemmed from prototypes for epic related to those which the Greeks

developed into Homeric oral tradition, and which the Romans later appropriated. The absence of

early texts from Britain supports these inferences, our earliest sources of Celtic narrative being

preserved in eleventh-century manuscripts written by British and Irish scribes. Although

Christianity therefore influenced these “scraps of folk tales and legends,”167 Cunliffe observes:

It is reasonable to assume that the warrior aristocracy of the Celts, like other

163 Cassidy, Frederic G., and Richard N. Ringler, eds. Bright’s Old English Grammar and Reader. 3rd ed. New

York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971; 1-2.

164 Baugh, Albert C, and Thomas Cable, eds. A History of the English Language. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice

Hall, 1993; 38. 161Baugh and Cable 35; they suggest that the Indo-Europeans were not homogeneous, racially; and

“It is customary to place the end of their common existence somewhere between 3500 and 2500 BC.”

165 Baugh and Cable 35; they suggest that the Indo-Europeans wre not homogeneous, racially; and “It is

customary to place the end of their common existence somewhere between 3500 and 2500 BC.”

166 Sykes 141/2; 156; 212; 281/282. Cunliffe 25, 155. He notes the traditional view that Ireland was part of a

“peripheral” or Atlantic area that became Celtic speaking between ca. 1300 and 600 BC. Sykes 137-8, mentions the

presence of Mesolithic hunter gatherers at Sandel, Ireland, about 4,000 years after the last Ice Age. Chapter 2 pg. 11

refers to the Celtic migration.

167 Cunliffe 257; 256.

32

warrior aristocracies throughout the pre-modern world, created and transmitted in

ever-changing form a rich oral history in cycles of epic narrative. In suitable

gatherings these epics would be recounted by storytellers to an audience keen to

hear the deeds of their ancestors unfold and the nature of their gods familiarized

through stories of them interfering in the lives of ordinary mortals. Such traditions

were important in giving the community its roots and providing models of

behaviour: above all they created a sense of identity.168

Cunliffe more specifically cites the eleventh-century manuscript version of the Irish epic

TainBo-Cuailgne, which he sees as “perhaps a dim and distorted reflection(,) of a Celtic epic

which may, in innumerable different versions, have been told from one end of Europe to the

other.”169 The Druids probably preserved this Celtic tradition of narrative and history:170 Julius

Caesar (BC 102/100-44) described the priestly class as arbitrators for the Celts in both religious

and secular affairs, including their education. While he observed a form of literacy in their use

of Greek characters for some pragmatic purposes, Caesar nevertheless portrays memorization as

the key to the learning Druids transmitted, and Cunliffe suggests that in so confining knowledge

to themselves, they monopolized society and created a demand for their services.171

Literacy and written literature had developed meanwhile in the Middle and Near East,

and the skills followed the route westward, through Greece and Rome.172 Chapter 2 has shown

that the connection between literacy and weaving appeared early, and several modern studies

have indeed focused on images of spinning and weaving in classical literature. Among them,

Jane McIntosh Snyder refers to the roots of the tradition when she cites an Italian study by M.

Durante: “For a discussion of Indo-European verbs for poetic activity that contain the notion “to

prepare with skill” (usually connected with blacksmithing, building, weaving or spinning).”173

Snyder herself, however, studies the Greek incorporation into verse of metaphors about weaving,

comparing the art to “a tapestry of words woven together in a controlled design.” Snyder uses

168 Cunliffe 25.

169 Cunliffe 257.

170 Cunliffe 190. He supplies the etymology: Druids “druides, druidae in Latin; druad in Old Irish; dryw

(singular) in Welsh), which may mean ‘knowledge of the oak’ or, less likely, ‘deep knowledge.’

171 Cunliffe 191. cf Caesar. The Gallic War. Trans. Intro. and Notes, Carolyn Hammond. Oxford World’s

Classics. Oxford: OUP, 1996. 126-7 (6.13-14).

172 The definition of literacy is a subject in its own right; I here refer to literacy as the ability to write and read

texts.

173 Snyder, Jane McIntosh. “The Web of Song: Weaving Imagery in Homer and the Lyric Poets.” The

Classical Journal 76. 3 (1981): 193-196 (193, f/n 2). She cites M. Durante. “Ricerche sulla preistoria della lingua

poetica greca. La terminologia relativa alla creazione poetica," Atti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Classe

di scienze morali, storiche, critiche e filologiche) 15 (1960): 231-49.

33

examples from The Iliad and The Odyssey to show how characters from Homer (9-8th cent. BC),

such as Odysseus and Athena, weave their schemes in words; or how Homer presents “Circe

weaving a great design while she sings a song.”174

Biblical narrative, commentary, and translation, though, include some of the earliest

historical record-keeping, and Bede and Anglo-Saxon England became part of this tradition as

their intertextual tapestry grew. Stephen Noll dates the stories of the Patriarchs of Israel to

2,000-1500 BC, and the Books of Exodus and the Law to 1500-1200 BC.175 Chapter 2 has

already noted references to weaving in Exodus, however intertextuality is another manifestation

of interlace, and Stephen Prickett links the Bible to narratives from Cana, Mesopotamia and

Egypt. He comments: “Since much of it appears to have originated as a critical and often hostile

commentary on those earlier religious writings, there is a real sense in which the Bible can be

said to owe its very origins to intertextuality.”176 Among his examples is the story of the Flood,

which he compares to a narrative in “Hurrian, the language of a tribe which seems to have

entered the ancient near East from north India around 1600 BC.”177 Intertextuality continued to

develop the Hebrew tradition once it was written: the Samaritans of the fifth century BC

produced the earliest extant copy of the Pentateuch, or Hebrew Torah; and our first Greek

version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, dates to the third century BC.178 Prickett mentions,

furthermore, that:

Herodotus (ca. 480-ca. 425 BCE), visiting Thebes in Egypt, gazed in awe at the

300 generations of high priests of the temple recorded on its walls, as he realized

that such a list went back for thousands of years before the dawn of Greek

history.179

Greek rhetoric, though, was woven into the Latin that the Anglo-Saxons would use for

studying Hebrew Scripture. Brian Stocks comments: “Romans had little or no native literature

of their own; so they imported and adapted what they did not have. Linguists roughly date the

earliest dissimilarities between spoken and literary Latin from the second half of the third

century.”180 Roman epic thus includes references to interlace, and Virgil (70-19 BC), having

modeled his style after Greeks such as Homer (9-8 cent. BC), also incorporates images of

174 Snyder 194-196.

175 Noll 10

176 Prickett, Stephen. “Introduction.” The Bible: Authorized King James Version with Apocrypha. Eds. Robert

Carroll and Stephen Prickett. Bibliography, notes, glossary, Robert Carroll. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford:

OUP, 1997; xxi. Chapter 2 of this dissertation quotes the Exodus descriptions.

177 Prickett xxi.

178 “The Bible.” OCEL 97.

179 Prickett xviii.

180 Stock, Brian. The Implications of Literacy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983; 20.

34

weaving into his poetry. In The Aeneid, for example, Aeneas wears a cloak woven by Dido; and

Circe sings as she weaves.181 Virgil also used Hesiod (eighth century BC) as a model for poetry

and mythology, and Theocritus (ca. 308-ca. 240 BC) for pastorals.182 Romans also educated the

leaders of their empire in Greek rhetoric: Balme and Morwood mention that ca. 76 BC, when

Julius Caesar was “On his way to Rhodes to study rhetoric under one of the leading teachers of

the time, he was captured by pirates and held to ransom.”183 Caesar later initiated the occupation

of Britain when he briefly invaded in 55 and 54 BC,184 and Romans thus took their rhetoric to

Britain. Alan Bowman argues that they recognized:

(1) the power of Latin literacy as an instrument of acculturation; (2) the use of

literacy by the imperial power as a tool of institutional control through the army;

(3) the power of the army and its penumbra to generate written material which

promotes the cohesiveness of the institution; (4) the power of individual to

generate and control texts beyond the restrictive bounds of a ‘chancery’ or

record-office.185

One might say, then, that the Romans used literacy as an aid to uniting disparate cultural

elements under the power of Rome.

Part of the system involved the writing of records, including history, which may have

linked to rhetoric in political campaigns–to persuade or to spread propaganda; and it is possible

that they used The Aeneid to these ends. Genealogy may have functioned as part of this interlace:

for Balme and Morwood indicate that Julius Caesar (gens Iulia) traced his “descent from Iulus,

181 Vergil. Publius. Bucolics, Aeneid, and Georgics Of Vergil. Ed. J. B. Greenough. Boston. Ginn & Co. 1900.

Aeneid. Trans. Theodore C. Williams. Boston. Houghton Mifflin Co. 1910. Perseus Digital Library. Ed. Gregory R.

Crane. Tufts University. 1985-2009. The National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. 06 Dec.

2009. <http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:> 1999.02.0054.

Book 4. 260-26: “[...]Aeneas building at a citadel, and founding walls and towers; at his side was girt a

blade with yellow jaspers starred, his mantle with the stain of Tyrian shell flowed purple from his shoulder,

broidered fair by opulent Dido with fine threads of gold, her gift of love.” Latin: “[...] Aenean fundantem arces ac

tecta novantem conspicit; atque illi stellatus iaspide fulva ensis erat, Tyrioque ardebat murice laena demissa ex

umeris, dives quae munera Dido fecerat, et tenui telas discreverat auro.

Book 7. 10-14. “Close to the lands of Circe soon they fare, /Where the Sun's golden daughter in far groves/

Sounds forth her ceaseless song; [...] the while she weaves/ With shrill-voiced shuttleat her linens fine. Latin:

“Proxima Circaeae raduntur litora terrae,dives inaccessos ubi Solis filia lucos adsiduo resonat cantu tectisque [...]

arguto tenuis percurrens pectine telas, (10-14).

182 “Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro).” OCEL 1062. Also, Stock, Brian. The Implications of Literacy.

Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983; 20.

183 Balme, Maurice and James Morwood, eds. Oxford Latin Reader. Oxford: OUP, 1997; 56.

184 Bede. Ecclesiastical History of the English People, with Bede’s Letter to Egbert and Cuthbert’s Letter on

the Death of Bede. Trans. Leo Sherley-Price, rev. R. E. Latham. Trans. of minor works, new Intro. and Notes D. H.

Farmer. Rev. ed. New York: Viking Penguin, 1990; 2; 47-8. [EHEP]

185 Bowman, Alan K. “The Roman Imperial Army: Letters and Literacy on the Northern Frontier.” Literacy

and Power in the Ancient World. Eds. Bowman, Alan K. and Greg Woolf. CUP, 1994; 109-125 (111).

35

son of Aeneas, and ultimately from Venus, Aeneas’ mother.”186 While the claim to Trojan

genealogy and use of the Roman epic may be only coincidence, it is also conceivable that,

together, they might have seemed to support the right of Caesar to ‘re-unite’ British tribes under

Roman rule: for the legend of Celtic origins runs parallel. The Leabhar Gabhala places Irish

origins in Scythia, Sykes maintains; and although the text was later recorded by Christians, it

probably had descended from oral tradition.187 Certainly, neither Caesar, nor Druids, nor monks

knew that modern archaeological and genetic analyses would support both claims to Pontic

origins. The Normans would later use a similar ploy when they invented the “history” of the

Arthurian legends which, as Professor Crook points out, served to associate Celts and Normans

against any remaining Anglo-Saxons.188 It would also serve to divide “English” from other

indigenous Celts, and thus prevent them from uniting against the invaders.

Michael Lapidge points out that Roman schools also used The Aeneid as a principal

model for rhetoric.189 Findings at Vindolanda confirm this, and we now see that while Chapter 2

has associated Vindolanda with the weaving industry, The Vindolanda Website (VW), suggests

that The Aeneid was “a 'mission statement' for Rome's role” in Britain, and VW notes that two

tablets from Vindolanda record lines from the text.190 The rhetoric and the connection with

weaving also extended to the south; for example, Romans depicted scenes from The Aeneid on a

mosaic, at Low Hampton in Somerset, which not only frames scenes from the narrative in cords,

but also associates the characters with various fabrics and depicts sails on the Trojan ships.191

The presence of interlace is unmistakable, and although we cannot know who commissioned the

work or what significance they attributed to the weaving. Dido seems about to clothe herself in

the cloak–the imagery therefore connects the craft and the literature, whether or not it refers

merely to the protective uses of cloth.

As the earliest British Celts left no written history of their own, we owe much of our

186 Balme and Morwood 56.

187 Sykes 131. Such practice could also later have influenced Anglo-Saxons who, John Niles notes, may have

originally practiced ancestor worship and sought prestige by deriving their ancestries from gods. cf Niles, John.

“”Pagan Survivals and Popular Beliefs.” The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature. Eds. Malcolm

Godden and Michael Lapidge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. 126-141 (130; 135).

188 Professor Crook. Note on manuscript, March 24, 2010. See also Geoffrey of Monmouth. The History of the

kings of Britain. Trans. and Intro. Lewis Thorpe. New York: Penguin, 1966. Thorpe comments: “In short, most of the material in

the History really is fictional and someone did invent it,” (“Introduction” 17).

189 Lapidge, Michael. “Gildas’s Education and the Latin Culture of Sub-Roman England.” Gildas: New

Approaches. Eds. Michael Lapidge and David N. Dumville. Woodbridge: Boydell, 1984. 27-50 (27-8).

190 “Vindolanda Tablets Online.” Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents. Director A. K. Bowman; and

the Academic Computing Development Team. 2009. Oxford University, England. 30 Nov. 2009.

<http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/exhibition/docs-5.shtml>

191 Balme and Morwood 157. Image Courtesy of Somerset County Museum.

36

knowledge about them to Roman perspectives, including that of Julius Caesar. Balme and

Morwood suggest that he recorded his Commentarii de Bello Gallico in order to justify his

expansionism to his compatriots.192 Ultimately the work would garner support for his invasion:

whether or not Britain was the home and source of Druidism, as Caesar claimed;193 Cunliffe

observes that the Druids inspired rebellion against Caesar in Gaul in 53 BC; and against later

Roman occupation of Britain by Claudius Caesar in 59 AD; and he infers that Romans may have

wanted to contain a cult they perceived “as the unifying force able to galvanize Celtic

opposition.”194 If they were such a force, then both they and the Romans seem to have

appreciated the dynamics and the usefulness of unifying separate tribes under one power.

Julius Caesar had maintained that British Celts engaged in civil wars before the Romans arrived,

but that they sometimes united in their resistance to the Romans.195

Among Celts who hampered Roman advance to the north and west were Boudicca (d. 61

AD) of the Iceni in the Midlands, and Cartimandua (43-69 AD) of the Brigantes in the north.

Cunliffe observes that consequently, “Much of Wales and the north remained in military

occupation.” R. M. Ogilvie records that Agricola made subjugation of Wales his first priority

once he became governor in 78AD. He then tackled the north; he knew the island well, having

served there twice before, and he continued to campaign against Britain until 84 AD.196 We owe

to his son-in-law Tacitus (ca. AD 55–after 115) some knowledge about relationships between the

British and the Romans. Tacitus promoted a moral approach to conquest, when he said: “For I

think it is a special duty of history to see that virtues are not left unrecorded, and also that fear

of disgrace in posterity attends iniquitous words and actions.”197 As Farmer indicates, Bede

paraphrased this statement into the Preface of his own history;198 so the strand of this tradition

later extended to the Anglian world.

The Romans left little of Celtic culture untouched in the areas they conquered–but it was

unusual and fortuitous that, in parts of Britain, Celtic culture remained free and would re-assert

itself later. Forty-one years after Claudius had first occupied Britain, Agricola won the battle of

192 Balme and Morwood 57.

193 Cunliffe 191. cf Caesar 6.13 (The Gallic War 127 ).

194 Cunliffe 191.

195 Caesar 5.12 (The Gallic War 95).

196 Ogilvie, R. M. “Introduction to the Agricola.” Agricola, Germania and Dialogus.by Tacitus. Ed. G. P.

Goold. Agricola. Trans M. Hutton. Rev. R. M. Ogilvie. Germania. Trans. M. Hutton. Rev. E. H. Warmington.

Dialogus. Trans. W. Peterson. Rev. M. Winterbottom. Loeb Classical Library 1914. Rev. ed. 1970. Cambridge,

MA: Harvard University Press, 1992; 3-24 (9-10).

197 Tacitus. The Annals: The Reigns of Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero. Trans. J. D. Yardley. Intro. and Notes,

Anthony A. Barrett. Oxford World’s Classics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008; Book 3.65, 129.

198 Farmer 25-26; n26 p. 37 (“Introduction” EHEP); cf Bede 41, “Preface.”

37

Mt. Graupius on the Moray Firth (84 AD). Rome, however, recalled Agricola at that point.

Cunliffe confirms that as the reason why Celtic culture survived beyond the Antonine Wall and

in Ireland. The lowlands in the south, especially south-east, nevertheless remained under control

of Romans, ruling through local people whom they educated in Latin.199 Thomas

Charles-Edwards also refers to their education of children of “local gentry (curiales)” so as to

incorporate them through government careers;200 and Tacitus was straightforward about the

system, by which Agricola manipulated the subjugated populace into peaceful co-existence:

[...H]e would exhort individuals, assist communities, to erect temples, market-

places, houses: he praised the energetic, rebuked the indolent, and the rivalry for

his compliments took the place of coercion. Moreover he began to train the sons

of the chieftains in a liberal education, and to give a preference to the native

talents of the Briton as against the trained abilities of the Gaul. As a result, the

nation which used to reject the Latin language began to aspire to rhetoric: further,

the wearing of our dress became a distinction, and the toga came into fashion, and

little by little the Britons went astray into alluring vices: to the promenade, the

bath, the well-appointed dinner table. The simple natives gave the name of

“culture” to this factor of their slavery.201

Unrest would continue nevertheless, and despite the urbanization of the southern coast of Wales

around Caerwent and Carmarthen; and an anonymous biographer of the later governor Hadrian

(AD 117-138) included the British in a list of colonials who resisted Roman domination.202 The

Romans strengthened their hold through an interlacement of transport, communication, and

military organization. They built forts near rivers, at strategic centers like Hereford, Chester,

York, Catterick, and Aldborough; and VW notes that some of the sites were centers of local

administration.203 The conquerors further linked the places by a network of roads. In the north,

Hadrian built his Wall,204 and the road along its western section, later known as ‘The Stanegate,'

199 Cunliffe 256.

200 “Introduction.” Charles-Edwards, Thomas, ed. After Rome. Short Oxford History of The British Isles. New

York: OUP, 2003; 2.

201 Cunliffe 256. Agricola. 21. Trans. Hutton and Ogilvie 67.

202 <http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/exhibition/history-1.shtml>. The reference is from the Vita Hadriani in

the Historia Augusta 5.10-15 [“Brittanni teneri sub Romana dicione non poterant.” Although this anonymous

history is not always considered reliable, Herbert Benario confirms the claim based on Juvenal XIV 196. Cf

Benario, Herbert W. ed. A Commentary on the Vita Hadriani in the Historia Augusta. Commentary by Benario. The

American Philological Association, American Classical Studies. Number 7. Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1980; 21 and

61-2.

203 <http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/exhibition/ history-3.shtml>

204 Bede V.50; note by D. H. Farmer 362. AD c.122. Severus rebuilt it AD 205-208; according to Bede, he did

so “to separate that portion of the island under his control from the remaining unconquered peoples.” 80 miles long,

the Wall runs from Wallsend to the Solway Firth.

38

runs from Carlisle to Corbridge and through the fort of Vindolanda. Recent archaeology has

supplemented our knowledge of literacy and life there, which Bowman dates to between AD 90

and 120.205

Modern commentators often perceive Roman Britain as a primitive outpost at the edge of

the known world: not only was it separated from Europe by sea, but London is 895 miles (as the

crow flies) from Rome, the place that considered itself the center of the world. Evidence from

Vindolanda has shown, though, that both literacy and the book of leaves laced together arrived in

northern Britain earlier than anyone supposed. Indeed, VW tells us:

The varied uses of writing were so deeply embedded as perhaps to have become

unremarkable, an exceptional situation for the ancient world and especially the

north-west provinces where literacy levels were otherwise low.206

Hadrian’s Wall was, in fact, a multi-cultural border separating the free Celtic north from

conquered Britain, a place where Latin served as the lingua franca for military administration,

trade, and education. VW indicates:

[...] names of the units stationed on Hadrian's Wall reveal how widely Rome

recruited its auxiliary regiments, from Spain, Gaul, Germany, the lands along the

Danube, Asia Minor, Syria and North Africa. Both of the principal units

identified at Vindolanda, the ninth cohort of Batavians and the first cohort of

Tungrians, were recruited from northern Gaul, in a mixed area of 'Germanic' and

'Celtic' peoples, languages and material culture.207

Documents from Vindolanda show that the Roman army kept financial records and duty rosters,

and recruited soldiers locally.208 They did not limit their interlacement of cultures to Britain

though, and VW notes:

Most British auxiliary units were posted to Rome's continental frontiers. They are

first mentioned in inscriptions in the mid second century on the German frontier,

but recruitment probably began earlier.209

The VW writers believe that possibly “a tutor” taught Latin to soldiers at Vindolanda.

Other writers were: clerks; prefects; household members, including women and slaves; junior

officers; individual soldiers; and civilian traders; but Bowman notes that the writers at

Vindolanda were not Britons.210 They wrote on wax, and on The Vindolanda Tablets, the earliest

205 Bowman 109.

206 <http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/exhibition/docs-4.shtml>.

207 <http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/exhibition/people-1.shtml >

208 <http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/exhibition/docs-3.shtml>

209 <http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/exhibition/people-3.shtml>

210 Bowman 116.

39

samples of what the VW commentators believe were “the most widely used type of portable,

everyday document in the north-western provinces and perhaps beyond.” 211 The website

describes them:

The Vindolanda Tablets are thin sheets of wood, pared from young birch, alder, or

oak trees; the leaves are usually less than .05 inches thick, and about 8 inches

wide by 3.5 inches long. These portable blocks for writing were discovered first

at Vindolanda; others were unearthed later at Carlisle and Caerleon.212

Texts were written in pen and ink and, if they were letters, “scored down the middle, folded and

the address written on the back of the right-hand half.”213 In addition:

Several leaves have matched notches cut in the left and right hand edges, which

probably served as anchors for binding strings to tie round the letters. Tie holes

also served the same purpose.214

Little evidence of written Celtic remains in “England” and the north-east, but onomastics

suggest that the language survived to some extent. According to VW the name 'Vindolanda' itself

might have been Celtic, meaning 'white' or 'shining enclosure.’215 In addition, Bowman and

Thomas show that the records also include possible Celtic words that had interlaced with Latin,

such as: raeda (a transporter or carriage, 185.20-1) and expressions for textiles, including:

“bedox (192.2 ) and tossea (192.6 ).” 216 Rollason notes, nevertheless, that “The dominance of

English names throughout Northumbria east of the Pennines is extremely striking,” and this

supports Bede’s claim that the English controlled that area by his day.217

Linguistics indicate that Celtic religions survived Romanization in “England,” although

other evidence suggests that Christianity existed in Wales and Scotland. Cunliffe describes

‘curses’ from third and fourth century Bath, one of which is completely in Celtic; others show

Celtic names, their existence displaying a script for writing in the language. Cunliffe also refers

to: “–a reality vividly shown by the maintenance of many Celtic religious sites of great antiquity,

temples such as Gournay [in France] and Hayling Island and sacred springs like those of Sulis

and Coventina in Britain and Sequana in Gaul.” 218 A “pre-Hadrianic” Celtic temple was found

211 <http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/exhibition/docs-1.shtml>

212 <http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/exhibition/docs-1.shtml>

213 <http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/exhibition/docs-3.shtml>

214 <http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/exhibition/docs-3.shtml>

215 <http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/exhibition/history-4.shtml>

216 Bowman, Alan, and David Thomas. Vindolanda: the Latin Writing Tablets. London: Society for the

Promotion of Roman Studies, 1983; 144: note to Tablet 185.20-1; 160: notes to Tablet 192 suggest: 2 bedocem:[...]

perhaps “bedspread;” 6 tosseas: [...] “some kind of a coverlet or rug.” Numbers above refer to writing tablets.

217 Rollason 61, 64.

218 Cunliffe 261.

40

near Vindolanda, in 2000/2001, but it had been demolished in the second century. Other

religious finds there and at Caerleon include seal rings (intaglios), and images of Roman deities

such as Minerva.219

Although different religions co-existed in Roman Britain, David Rollason sees little

evidence of Christianity in contemporary Northumberland. He nevertheless agrees that the

British population may have been Christian, and that an officer at Vindolanda may have kept a

church there; and he also notes that archeological evidence supports the claim that a British

church had existed at Whithorn, Scotland, before the Anglo-Saxons arrived. According to Bede,

Ninian, a fifth-century British monk who had trained at Rome, founded that church after he

converted the southern Picts.220 From the south, another possible survival from the period is a

chapel or monastery at Glastonbury, which the Saxons chronicled in 658 AD.221 The extent to

which Christianity and literacy survived after the Romans left is also debated, but Rollason

observes of York that “by 314 there was a bishop, so there must have been some literary activity

surrounding the Christian church; there must presumably have been schools for the children and

young people of York.”222 It is generally accepted that the religion and literacy continued in

Wales, also.

To what extent the Romans destroyed Celtic culture in what would become England

remains questionable, however. Simon James believes the damage was extensive, and that the

AngloSaxons entered an eastern Britain that was:

–not a depopulated wilderness, but a land where people had lost, or perhaps

rejected, their former cultural identity. Nominally Roman, the population on the

land probably had little clear sense of common ethnic identity, beyond their local

communities.223

James mentions that archaeology suggests the area remained populated largely by indigenous

Celts, an opinion that seems consistent with the genetic evidence from Sykes. Although the ratio

of invaders to indigenes may thus have been comparatively low in Northumbria, Celts integrated

with the new culture in preference to the Roman. James suggests, then: “As with La Tene art,

Anglo-Saxon artefacts are more often local variations on a common theme than foreign

219 <http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/exhibition/setting-3.shtml;> see also [...]<setting-3-1.shtml>; and

[...]<docs-2.html>.

220 Rollason 111, 119. Bede 148, III.4.

221 Ashe, Geoffrey. “Glastonbury.” The New Arthurian Encyclopedia. Ed. Norris J. Lacy. New York:

Garland, 1991; 199.

222 Rollason 111.

223 James, Simon. The Atlantic Celts: Ancient People or Modern Invention? Madison: University of Wisconsin

Press, 1999; 111-12.

41

imports.”224

The interlace of insular cultures was continuous. Cunliffe points out that, as early as the

third century, the Irish and Picts had begun invading the west of Great Britain. They attacked

through the Barbarian Conspiracy (367AD), when Germanic tribes might also have participated;

and the Irish colonized western Wales and Dalriada after the Romans left.225 As the AngloSaxons

began to settle, some Celts migrated to Europe; James, however, suggests their establishment of

Brittany was not peaceable.226 The tenth-century Annales Cambriae date a Saxon defeat at the

Battle of Mount Badon to 518;227 nevertheless, the Anglo-Saxons colonized what became

England. Anglo-Saxon culture was at first oral however, and left no records to show precisely

how it became dominant.

Rollason summarizes three main trends of scholarly opinion as to how this happened, two

of which suggest that Britons peacefully ceded power to some of the English. His third model is

perhaps the simplest and, in view of genetic evidence, the least likely. Model III: Claims that the

English invaded and either destroyed everything British, or “degraded” the indigenes and their

organizations.228 The English cannot have “exterminated, [or] expelled” the British if we accept

that the substrate DNA has remained Celtic.229 If the British were instead demeaned even more

than by the Romans, then they somehow left the English language intact, but reasserted their

genetic dominance. This seems unlikely, for an enslaved population.

The other two models are possible, and perhaps they could have existed in parallel in

different places. Model I: Suggests that, before leaving, the Romans ceded administrative powers

to English ‘federates.’230 The precedent lies in fifth-century Europe, where Romans “settled

barbarians as federates (that is groups of soldiers retaining their own organization and

command), with responsibility for assisting the Roman authorities in warfare;” and scholars

extrapolate that federates might have assumed further power when the Romans withdrew.231 One

possible example in Britain is at Bamburgh (Celtic Din Guaire232), which archaeological

evidence indicates may have “originally been the site of a Roman signal beacon, north of

224 James 112. cf Sykes 283; 286.

225 Cunliffe 263; cf Bede I:1, 47. cf also O Croinin, O Croinin, Daibhi. Early Medieval Ireland: 400-1200. New

York: Longman, 1995; 18. He notes Irish emigration to South Wales and the Devonian Peninsula, in the fifth century

(18). (EMI).

226 Cunliffe 264. James 114.

227 “Annales Cambriae” OCEL. Also Bede I.16, 64.

228 Rollason 66.

229 Sykes 286.

230 Rollason 65.

231 Rollason 66.

232 Rollason 81; cites Nennius.

42

Hadrian’s Wall and garrisoned by barbarians.” Rollason thus suggests: “Perhaps [...] those

barbarians had eventually assumed control, and Bamburgh as a Northumbrian royal centre

developed as a result.”233 Based on the preceding discussion on Vindolanda, such ‘barbarians’

could possibly have retained a basic literacy in Latin. In any case, like the ‘Welsh,’ who refused

to cooperate with Augustine,234 they would understand the power that inheres in literacy.

Model II: Postulates that, during Roman withdrawal, British kingdoms re-established

themselves, adopting either Roman administration or their own; however, they subsequently

effected a peaceful hand-over to the incoming Anglians.235 Perhaps the prototype for the model

is the account which Bede (after Gildas) gives of Vortigern, who invited Anglo-Saxons to help

repel Irish and Pictish invaders, ca. 445-7. The British provided land and pay in return for

security; but the Anglians then turned against the Britons and allied with the Picts.236

Rollason indicates that Bernicia could have been such a kingdom: archeology has

revealed a “pre-Roman Iron Age” fort at Yeavering (from Celtic gafr, “goat”) that was occupied

continuously up to the time Bede wrote about Paulinus there. Support may lie in the account

from Bede, that Paulinus baptized people ‘from the countryside’–so presumably not just English

nobility; and onomastics suggest that the names of the surrounding Northumbrian provinces of

Deira (meaning unknown) and Bernicia (possibly “land of mountain passes”) are British.237

Nevertheless, as Rollason explains, the take-over by Northumbria might have been forceful in

some cases, and although the dates of the Welsh poem Goddodin, and those in the fourteenth

century Book of Taliesin, are not contemporary with Anglo-Saxon times, they could have

originated then (Taliesin fl 550); and they depict reciprocal hatred between the British and the

English in western Northumbria.238

If any Latin literacy survived in the northeast, between the Roman exodus in 407 and the

arrival of the Augustinian mission in 597, it may have been pragmatic rather than scholarly, for

there is presently no evidence of it. Support for Model 2, above, lies elsewhere, however. James

Campbell notes Latin inscriptions on “some 200 memorial stones dating between the fifth

century and the seventh, to survive in the Celtic west”; others are from the Scottish borders.239

The rhetoric of Gildas is another example of the survival. Michael Lapidge, makes the point that

233 Rollason 66, 75.

234 Bede II.2, (EHEP 104-107).

235 Rollason 65/66.

236 Bede 61-3, I.15; Farmer 363 n.P62.

237 Rollason 81-4; cf Bede 132; II.14.

238 Rollason 89; 32-34; 100-2. “Aneirin” OCEL indicates that the author of Goddodin “lived in the second half

of the 6th cent. The poem commemorates a British defeat at Catraeth (Catterick, Yorkshire).”

239 Campbell, James, ed. “The End of Roman Britain.” The Anglo-Saxons. New York: Penguin, 1991; 8-19

(22).

43

secular teachers taught sophisticated Latin rhetoric in the sixth century, even though monasteries

provided a simpler education.240 He has closely analyzed De Excidio Britanniae, and argues: i)

that the Latin is above the level provided in monasteries, and was good enough to qualify Gildas

for a career in Roman law courts; ii) that Gildas wrote for an audience knowledgeable enough to

appreciate his Latin; and it is therefore possible that: iii) “some facsimile of Roman government

was still in operation in his youth.”241 According to Geoffrey Ashe, Gildas studied in Wales,

although: “Reputedly, he was the son of a chief in the Clyde area.”242 If so, perhaps better

secular education was available in Wales where, as Campbell notes, the sixth-century charters of

the Welsh Book of Llandaff are also in Latin.243

The interlace of languages and cultures continued in Wales, where Charles-Edwards

observes that British, Irish, and Latin were transforming into Welsh between 500 and 700.244

John Davies asserts that Brittonic Welsh245 was cognate with Latin, and that the oldest

inscription in Welsh dates to 700 AD, at a church in Tywyn. He also goes so far as to suggest:

“But at some stage, perhaps as early as 600, Welsh began to be written down.”246 None of the

early manuscripts survives; however the existence of a suitable script would support the

possibility of what Andy Orchard terms “a lengthy written transmission.” He observes: “The

widely circulated notion that no Welsh text was written down before the ninth century now

seems (to some, at least) unnecessarily pessimistic, despite the absence of direct manuscript

evidence before that date.”247 Notable, too, are the characteristics he ascribes to early Welsh

verse, for they are similar to those that distinguish Anglo-Saxon in their: “frequent use of

decorative devices such as alliteration, rhyme, assonance, and verbal repetition, which are used

not only within lines but also to link lines and stanzas together.”248

The second influx of Latin literacy arrived in England when Augustine established

Christianity among the Anglo-Saxons at Canterbury in 597. The purveyors of this Latin differed

240 Lapidge Michael. “Gildas’s Education and the Latin Culture of Sub-Roman England.” Gildas: New

Approaches. Eds. Michael Lapidge and David N. Dumville. Woodbridge: Boydell, 1984. 27-50 (30/31). Gildas

wrote De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae ca. 547.

241 Lapidge 49, 47- i; 49/50 - ii; 49 - iii.

242 Ashe 195.

243 Campbell 22.

244 Charles-Edwards 30.

245 Davies 7: notes that the Anglo-Saxon term 'Welsh' referred less to 'foreigners' than to people who had been

Romanized. Orchard 200: disagrees on the dating of the Tywyn inscription, placing it instead at “around the turn of

the ninth century.”

246 Davies 70.

247 Orchard, Andy. “Latin and the Vernacular Languages.” After Rome. Ed. Thomas Charles-Edwards. New

York: OUP, 2003; 191-219 (199).

248 Orchard 199.

44

from the first, however, in that the mission participated in development of literacy in the

vernacular. Andrew Prescott cites “the oldest known document in English” as the law code of

Aethelberht of Kent (560-616), of which we have a twelfth century copy: the Textus Roffensis

(Rochester Cathedral Library, MS A. 35).249 Scholars question why Aethelbert used English, and

Robin Chapman Stacey acknowledges approaches that stress either English inadequacy in Latin

or the urge to ape their would-be masters: the Franks. Stacey herself, though, sees “documents

as active constructors of hierarchies and relationships rather than as passive mirrors of events,”

and she argues the possibility that the use of English declared independence from European

powers.250 I support the latter view and would add, again, that the English shared Celtic

understanding of the value of literacy for maintaining at least a balance of power within Britain,

especially in the face of Welsh literacy; and this would be particularly true if any of the English

had retained the Roman presence in Britain as federates.

Prescott points out that in order to write in English, scribes developed a system that

included runes. He believes, therefore, that some of the scribes may not have come with

Augustine and adds: “This suggests that some form of written alphabet may already have been in

use in Kent before Augustine’s arrival.”251 The existence of federates would support this

possibility; but so does survival of the earliest English runes which, Page has indicated, date

from about the fifth century on a bone gaming piece from Caistor-by-Norwich, Norfolk.252 The

interlacement of script and the writing of laws also raise a question as to the extent of English, or

perhaps only Christian, contact with the Irish at the time. Daibhi O Croinin has remarked upon

the development of laws in Old Irish, the Irish having established literacy in their vernacular ca.

600.253 He makes the point that Irish clerics wrote the laws in Christian schools, the only places

where there was “access to literacy in the Latin alphabet and the Latin scripts used by Irish

scribes when writing both in Latin and in the vernacular.”254 Aethelbert was, therefore,

participating in a precedent set by the Irish and the Welsh: a precedent that was both insular and

Christian.

Whether or not Aethelbert inclined to independence, the Church in England now

encouraged use of the vernacular; as Backhouse observes, they understood the need to preach in

249 Prescott, Andrew. “Textus Roffensis.” The Making of England: Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600-900.

Eds. Webster, Leslie, and Janet Backhouse. London: British MuseumPress, 1991; 41-2 (W&B). Also Campbell 53,

fig 54. Campbell notes that the manuscript “ was in Kent County Record Office, Maidstone, in 1991.”

250 Stacey, Robin Chapman. “Texts and Society.” After Rome, Ed. Thomas Charles-Edwards. New York:

OUP, 2003; 220257 (255/6).

251 Prescott 40. (W&B)

252 Page 32.

253 O Croinin 113; 120; 203. (EMI)

254 O Croinin 120-121.

45

the language of the people. Backhouse assumes that the sixth-century Gospels of St. Augustine

(CCCC, MS 286), an illuminated manuscript, was one of many texts brought by the mission; it

contains insular glosses datable to the late seventh or early eighth centuries.255 The glosses,

furthermore, are evidence of the need that Bede had identified–as mentioned above–for Christian

scholars to translate the foreign Latin into the language of the people. Bede seems once more

not to have been original in his instinct, but to have continued in a tradition of interlaced

cultures.256 Pope Vitalian (657-72) had augmented this when he made the Greek Theodore of

Tarsus Archbishop (668-90 AD), sending with him another Greek scholar, the African Abbot

Hadrian (d. ca. 710) , and the Englishman Benedict Biscop (d.689-90). Biscop brought

additional books to England from Rome, and later established the monasteries and library at

Monkwearmouth-Jarrow. Prior to this, Vitalian had countenanced other cultural interlace when

he received gifts from Constantinople and introduced Byzantine rites and chanters to Rome.257

Theodore and Hadrian ran a school at Canterbury, and Patrick Wormald observed not

only that “The Eastern church always approved the use of native vernaculars more than the

aggressively Latin west,” but also:

Theodore’s school at Canterbury has recently been shown to have spawned a

family of glosses which have frequent recourse for vernacular translation, and

which are the oldest glosses of this type in Europe.258

Michael Lapidge confirms the work at Canterbury, indicating that commentaries on the

Pentateuch and Gospels produced there reference Mediterranean authorities, including

Chrysostom; and that the schools maintained the glossaries of Latin words.259

Lapidge went further in corroborating with Bernhard Bischoff to produce analyses of

two sets of the glosses, one from Leiden and another from Milan. Some of the study pertains to

rhetoric as taught by Greek scholars with whom Theodore is likely to have studied, and which

was no longer taught in the Christian context at Rome after the fall of the “worldly” empire;

which, as we have seen, had used it for administration. The continuation in Byzantine centers

255 Backhouse 17 (W&B).

256 Backhouse 17 (W&B). cf EHEP 340.

257 “Vitalian.” Oxford Dictionary of Popes. Ed. J. N. D. Kelly. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.

76. [ODP]. Bede234-5, IV.18 refers to Biscop and Monkwearmouth. Several commentators mention that Biscop

made five trips to Rome, returning always with books; Bede explained this in Lives of the Abbots, (“Benedict

Biscop.” OCEL 87.) He founded the monasteries in 674 and 681 respectively (Charles-Edwards. “Chronology.”

288). Rollason mentions that he used Gaulish masons and glaziers for the project (125).

258 Wormald, Patrick 8 (W&B).

259 Brown 72 (W&B).

46

ensured the survival of classical rhetoric, however. 260 Chapter 4 refers to the glosses in more

detail, but in general terms it transpires that indigenous students at Canterbury benefitted from

the teaching of these pedagogues who trained clerics to convert Anglo-Saxons and nurture

Christianity among them. It is clear that the rhetoric they imparted to Englishmen not only

enhanced the survival of the Greek tradition, but also encouraged its development in a new

context. Like the glosses themselves, the process involved interlace of languages and cultures.

Furthermore, the principle of the literary vernacular so engendered in England returned to

Europe disseminated, as Farmer points out, by missionaries like Boniface (680-754) in Germany,

and Willibrord (658-739) in Frisia.261

Latin scholarship continued as an overarching influence on all the insular literacies; but,

in encouraging them to flourish, the Church differed from earlier Roman hegemony. Latin had

advanced in the north when King Oswald brought the Irishman Aidan, to Lindisfarne in 635: so

near to Bamburgh and the old literacy at Hadrian's Wall and York. The education then came

from Iona; but it cannot be accidental that Theodore later appointed Benedict Biscop to

Monkwearmouth-Jarrow where, Brown explains, the monastic scriptoria would supply

schoolbooks as well as liturgical and luxury manuscripts.262 Both Canterbury and the northern

monasteries were situated at geographical nodes where insular land and river routes intersected

with sea routes to Europe; and north and south now became centers at which Greek, Latin,

Gaulish, Germanic, Hebrew, and Irish and/or other Celtic traditions met, interacted, and

informed an eclectic scholarship within Christianity. In the north, Bede was a product of this

new tradition; so was Willibrord, who came from Ripon.

Aldhelm, who became Bishop of Sherborne in 705, had studied in Canterbury at the

school of Theodore, and he subsequently bequeathed us other examples of the effects of

interlacement of literacies. He is especially known for his “Aenigmata,” which later students,

like Boniface, emulated. The intertextuality here probably derived from North Africa, Orchard

identifying Symphosius as the source, “whose works were brought into Anglo-Saxon England by

Hadrian.”263 Michael Lapidge notes that Aldhelm’s prose style was labyrinthine–another form of

interlace, as the quote from Chaucer in Chapter 2 (page 10) suggests–and later students worked

260 Bischoff B. and M. Lapidge. Biblical Commentaries from the Canterbury School of Theodore and

Hadrian. Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England, 10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

(“Preface” vi-vii; 260 on the disuse of rhetoric in monasteries.). Lapidge adduces evidence from the Canterbury

commentaries to suggest that the young Theodore had studied “either at Antioch or at a monastery in the Syrian

interior, perhaps Edessa,” (249).

261 Farmer 29 (EHEP).

262 Brown, Michelle P. “Manuscripts,” 73-4 (W&B).

263 Orchard 209.

47

on his De Virginitate, “attempting to unravel its meaning.”264 The interlace of languages affected

English at the level of syntax, too: Lapidge observes that Aldhelm’s Latin verse has “a curious

ring, which is partially explained by the assumption that he was attempting to follow the

conventions of Old English verse (such as alliteration) in his Latin poetry.”265 We have seen, in

addition, that alliteration was also in the tradition of Welsh poetry. Cahill points out that

Aldhelm had also studied classics in Ireland, so at this point in the discussion it is also

interesting that Orchard should identify 'alliterative linking' and accentual stress that had

appeared in Irish verse of perhaps the late sixth century. He observes that it “seems both a

mnemonic and an ornamental device, and serves to connect consecutive stanzas in an unbroken

sequence.”266 Chapter 4 will show that alliteration similarly provided structure for Old English

writing.

Alcuin of York (ca. 740-804) was another writer and teacher in the new scholarship who

had known Irish influence. Cahill points out that “Alcuin’s first master, Colgu, had been Irish,

as was his best friend, Joseph, who accompanied him to France and died beside him; and he was

succeeded at the court school by the Irish scholar Clement Scotus.”267 Alcuin also returned the

old rhetoric to Europe–this time to Charlemagne who, interestingly, had his own agenda for

uniting Christians under one power.

Alcuin wrote a poem itemizing books in the library at York that had contributed to his

own pre-eminence; J. D. A. Ogilvy has listed the authors, some of whom include:

Ambrose (CI, vs. 1541, p. 203); Athanasius (CI vss. 1541-2, p. 204); Augustine

(CI vs. 1541, p. 203); Boethius (CI vs. 1547, p. 204); Cassiodorus (CI vs. 1545, p.

204); Cicero (CI vs. 1549, p.204); Lucan (CI vs. 1553, p.204); Orosius (CI vs.

1542, p. 204); Pliny (CI vs. 1548, p.204); Priscian (CI vs. 155, p. 204); Prosper of

Aquitaine (CI vs. 1551, p. 204); Sedulius (CI vs. 1550, p. 204); Statius (CI vs.

1553, p.204); Virgil (CI vs. 1553, p. 204).268

Ogilvy also refers, in his general list, to Horace, and we will see in Chapter 4 that John

Leyerle cites the influence of a commentary, Scholia Vindobonensia ad Horatii Artem Poeticam,

264 Lapidge, Michael. “The New Learning,” 71-73 (W&B).

265 Lapidge 73 (W&B).

266 Cahill 159. Orchard 205-6.

267 Cahill, Thomas. How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall

of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe. New York: Doubleday, 1995; 206. Cahill 200: stresses Irish influence in

that Aidan was a disciple of Columba.

268 Ogilvy, J. D. A. Books Known to Anglo-Latin Writers from Aldhelm to Alcuin (670-804). Cambridge, Mass:

Medieval Academy of America, 1936: under the names. “C I” indicates Carmina Alcuini I, and is followed by

page references to Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini, ed. E. Dummler. I. 160-351.

48

in relation to artificial order and interlace in “Beowulf.”269 As suggested above, Bede had been

another scholar in this tradition of intertextuality, and Farmer lists some of his un-cited sources

as: “Orosius, Pliny and Solinus as well as Gildas and the Life of Germanus by Constantius, ”

suggesting further that Bede probably had an unidentified source from Iona.270 We have already

seen, too, that Bede resorted to both Tacitus and Gregory the Great.

The Viking raids, which continued from the late eighth to the tenth centuries, almost

destroyed learning in England. The Scandinavians sacked Lindisfarne in 793 and captured York

in 863, probably destroying the library there. Although King Alfred (871-899) limited their

settlement to the Danelaw in 878, the invasions recurred, with the help of the Irish, until the

establishment of Viking York.271 Scandinavian elements are consequently common in the

topography of both the Danelaw and Cumbria, where many Norwegians settled and

intermarried. Thus we have Whitby (by= ‘farm’ or ‘town’); Gawthorpe (thorpe = ‘village’);

Braithwaite (thwaite = ‘an isolated piece of land’). Cable and Baugh suggest that Anglian and

Norse were similar, and there was no difficulty, therefore, in merging the languages.272

The syncretization of cultures manifests itself in the interlaced crosses of the period,

which often, in the north, display Viking runes. R. I. Page suggests that they “were used in a

bilingual community that mixed the Norse and English tongues.”273 Many British-Viking runes

survive in the Isle of Man and, again, Page infers that they signify “a multi-racial society, with

Norseman marrying Celt.” The tenth-century stones use Norse inscription, but include Celtic

personal names and “the Celtic word kross,” and Page suggests that “the Vikings were

presumably politically dominant.”274

King Alfred (871-899) responded to Viking destruction of Anglo-Saxon culture by

restoring education, in English, to all free Anglo-Saxons. Some learning had survived in Mercia;

as Lapidge points out, the king found scholars there who could help with his program.275Among

the texts Alfred considered important to education was De Consolatione Philosophiae, and it is

interesting that while Boethius wove sections of poetry and prose within the text of his Latin

269 Ogilvy 46 (although this does not include Ars Poetica.). cf also Leyerle, John. “The Interlace Structure of

Beowulf.” Interpretations of Beowulf. Ed. R. D. Fulk. Indianapolis: Indiana UP, 1991; 146-167 (150/1).

270 Farmer 25, 37 (“Introduction,” EHEP).

271 In 876 Harald Halfdane established Viking York–using a third of the Viking “Great Army”: (cf Rollason

212). A second part attacked and shared Mercia in 877; and a third took East Anglia in 880 (Crawford 59).

272 Baugh an.d Cable 90-103.

273 Page, R. I. An Introduction to English Runes. London: Methuen, 1973; 53-54. Print.

274 Page 59.

275 Lapidge, Michael. “The Present State of Anglo-Latin Studies.” Insular Latin Studies: Papers on Latin Texts

and Manuscripts of the British Isles: 550-1066. Ed. Michael W. Herren. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval

Studies, 1981; 45-82 (55).

49

Preface,276 Alfred presented two versions of translation–one in each form.277 I suggest that the

juxtaposition is in a tradition Gernot Wieland has called the geminus stilus, a term he attributes

to Hrabanus Maurus (ca. 780-856) who cited Prosper and Sedulius as his models, and for which

the original definition involved: “writing on one subject in both prose and verse.”278

Anglo-Saxon practitioners of the skill in Latin included Aldhelm (de Virginitate), Bede (Vita

Sancti Cuthberti), and Alcuin (Vita S. Felicis); and Wieland notes that Aldhelm separated ‘high’

and ‘low’ style by placing them in parallel as prose and verse; but then re-uniting them as one

work.279 The dynamic clearly describes a form of interlace. It is interesting also that Orchard

describes a work, from the Irish tradition of the early seventh century, which includes both forms

of composition as well as “metrical prose.”280 Once more, the strands of rhetoric derived from

Latin learning, and they would continue throughout insular scholarship, both temporally and

geographically.

Alfred also sought to stabilize his kingdom by recording and propagating his laws–again

in the vernacular. Wormald indicates that this time the Preface referred to Old Testament Law,

and the text also mentions the legal tradition of Aethelbert, Ine, and Offa. The Christian king

thus awakened in his people both spiritual and legal awareness: as Wormald suggested,

ignorance of the law is impossible if it is declared publicly and in the vernacular.281 Wormald

also noted that, in the tenth century, Aelfric (ca. 955-ca. 1010) and Wulfstan (1002-23)

familiarized the people with the same principles: through their preaching in English. Wulfstan is

notable for having written laws for Aelthelred and Cnut;282 and Chapter 4 will demonstrate ways

in which both he and Aelfric and Wulfstan applied the rhetoric of poetry and alliteration to their

prose homilies.

The two preachers continued in a tradition that seems to have survived despite Viking

depredations. Orchard identifies the first insular homily, the Irish “ ‘Cambrai Homily’

276 Wieland, Gernot. “Geminus Stilus”: Studies in Anglo-Latin Hagiography.” Insular Latin Studies: Papers

on Latin Texts and Manuscripts of the British Isles: 550-1066. Ed. Michael W. Herren. Toronto: Pontifical Institute

of Mediaeval Studies, 1981, 113-133 (113).

277 Mitchell, Bruce, and Fred. C. Robinson, eds. A Guide to Old English. 5th ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992;

226. The editors publish the prose text from Bodleian Library MS 180; and the verse from Bodleian Library MS

Junius 12; 227-230.

278 Wieland 127. He uses an image from Aldhelm that prose was like the walls of a building, poetry the roof;

and he concludes that the two styles complemented each other: both in the interests of praising God. He also

indicates that development of facility in both was an academic exercise in paraphrase.

279 Wieland 125; 114.

280 Orchard 206. He refers to the “so-called ‘Alphabet of Piety’ (Apgitir Chrabaid), attributed to Colman

moccu Sailni, abbot of Lann Elo (Lynally), who died in 611.”

281 Wormald 16-18. The later writer was possibly Aelfric (118).

282 Wormald 17..

50

(composed around 630),” as a composition that owes much to Latin models.283 The point is

relevant to my suggestion that development of the vernacular in Anglo-Saxon England

ultimately produced a prototype for uniting disparate tribes into a unit, for the insular people

shared similar traditions. The attempt at integration was not entirely successful. John Davies

comments:

The recognition by Welsh rulers that the king of England had claims upon them

would be a central fact in the subsequent political history of Wales. There was an

attempt to portray the submission as the result of a desire for unity among

Christian rulers against the pagan Danes and as a tribute to the greatness of

Alfred. Nevertheless, it undoubtedly contained an element of coercion, as is

demonstrated by the fate of Idwal ab Anarawd, who raised the standard of revolt

and who was killed by the English in 942.284

As Wormald says, however: “[I]t is surely arguable that the English kingdom was ultimately the

most successful ‘Dark Age’ state, because it alone effectively harnessed native speech.”285

After the age of Alfred, the state organized English as the language of government and

law: not only at a courtly level, but at the interface where a mediating class of literate “gentry”

met ordinary people–through the language already familiar to the people.286 As Susan Kelly has

said in this respect, “it seems likely that, as in the case of young men intended for the priesthood,

education was bilingual and any training in the skills of literacy would begin (and sometimes

end) with the vernacular.”287

Patrick Wormald agrees that the church probably produced charters, the “Title deeds of

property or privilege.”288 Orchard notes that although some charters were written early,

“significant vernacular charters only really begin to appear around the eighth century.”289

Scholars have insufficient evidence to determine the extent to which lay literacy in Anglo-Saxon

England participated in this documentation, but Kelly observes: “Nevertheless it seems clear

that already by the ninth century the written word had been accommodated within secular

283 Orchard 206.

284 Davies 85.

285 Wormald 19.

286 cf Wormald 19.

287 Kelly, Susan. “Anglo-Saxon Lay Society and the Written Word.” The Uses of Literacy in Early Mediaeval

Europe. Ed. Rosamund McKitterick. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990; 36-62 (59; 46). Kelly notes that

English appears in many legal documents “From at least the beginning of the ninth century onwards.” Glosses also

appear on many manuscripts, necessarily as an aid to translation.

288 Wormald, Patrick. “Anglo-Saxon Society and its Literature.” The Cambridge Companion to Old English

Literature. Eds. Michael Godden and Michael Lapidge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991; 1-22 (10).

289 Orchard 114.

51

society.”290

It seems likely that the new sophistication of pragmatic literacy could only increase lay

interest in Old English literature, especially as that literature participated in oral tradition. The

principle extends from that Noll noted in Biblical Literature, of the strength of a three-strand

cord: history, literature, and theology.291 Anglo-Saxon Christians included ‘law’ in each of the

strands, and the resulting culture proved strong indeed. Wormald indicates the re-emergence of

English after Norman subjugation as proof of its strength, and I believe that he is right in saying:

“There is an indirect, yet also a real connection between the two facts that England is [was] the

world’s oldest continuously functioning state, and that English is now its most widely spoken

language.”292

The interlace of cultures and development of English in early Britain laid the

foundations for those conditions, and the present section suggests that writers knew they were

participating in the formation of a new tradition–if only for their time and place. They

understood that different Celtic tribes had fought each other, in early Britain, but had often

united against the Romans. They saw how the Romans had imposed unity on this diversity.

After the Romans left, the continuing threat of the Picts and Irish split Romanized Britain into

factions, which some Britons may have attempted to re-unite under the protection of Germanic

tribes. Although the Anglo-Saxons could initially unite neither themselves nor the British, Bede

described another movement toward unity under the aegis of Christianity–albeit in Latin.

However, if the Church was to convert the illiterate people it had to do so in English. We can

only speculate as to how it came about that Celts in “England” participated in this, but it seems

possible that the Romans had at least facilitated the process by weakening use of Celtic

languages in that area; and it is arguable that the story Bede tells, of the cowherd with the British

name, factors choice into the emergence of English as the new vernacular. Caedmon (ca. 680)

chose to sing in neither British nor Latin.293

The discussion has shown that English authors, after the arrival of Theodore and his

party, produced literature that incorporated interlace through alliterative techniques of linking,

and that these were compatible with those already used by the Irish, and by the British in Wales.

I believe such rhetorical techniques would appeal not only to an over-class of soldiers and those

who had absorbed varying degrees of classical literacy, but also to ordinary people: the ones who

practiced the techniques for producing cloth, metalwork, and carvings; and who might observe

similar linking, patterning, and iconography in the rhetoric of the religion they now all shared.

290 Kelly 61.

291 Noll 10.

292 Wormald 19. My insertion of [was] recognizes present-day subjugation to Europe.

293 Bede IV.24, 248-51.

52

The point supports Kelly, who discusses the advantages of developing literacy in the vernacular,

concluding: “Above all, the value of English lay in its accessibility to a wider public;”294 It thus

seems likely that greater availability and use of rhetoric in the vernaculars was a form of

democratization and that, through it, writers and scholars consciously participated in the

development of the new island culture. Anglo-Saxon rhetoric thus developed as a strand in

parallel with other insular traditions and languages, and so it could contribute to the ideal of

weaving the inhabitants of the archipelago into cultural unity–even as they retained their

individual characters under Christianity.

294 Kelly 56.

53

CHAPTER 4

SCHOLARLY ANALYSES OF INTERLACE IN OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE

We recognize texts as 'weaves' by denotation that may have descended from Indo-

European analogy of the two concepts, and also by etymology, because the methods used to

create textile inform production of texts;295 therefore this study now reviews scholarly analyses

of the structures underlying Old English rhetoric. Consideration of the techniques, their literary

precedents, and their rhetorical purposes, supports the probability that writers in Anglo-Saxon

deliberately used interlace: not only to shape meaning, but also to found a literary tradition that

would unite the interests of insular cultures.

Much of the interlace discussed in this chapter describes poetry because scholarly

analysis on the topic has usually focused on poetry, indeed, most specifically on Beowulf. Also,

the techniques are easier to demonstrate and analyze in poetry that has been re-arranged by a

modern editor; however, Anglo-Saxon scribes lineated poetry and prose alike on the parchment

page. Descriptions in the present section often indicate that the principal difference in forms lay

in use of poetic diction and in stress patterns discernible by ear; and Chapter 3 has suggested

that much of what was written in the period under consideration–between the eighth and

eleventh centuries–was intended to be read aloud to an indigenous audience that was not

necessarily literate. We find, accordingly, that poetry and prose intended for the Anglo-Saxon

audience share techniques that involve stress and alliteration. Janet Bately has indicated, further:

Many of the features admired in late Old English prose are already to be found in

the early laws and charters and in the works of the Alfredian period,

‘developments’ being as much the result of changing fashions as of accumulated

experience and expertise. Indeed, the two major sources of stylistic

influence–Old English poetry and Latin prose–were both available to the literate

Anglo-Saxon as models from the time of the conversion right up to the Norman

conquest. . .296

The discussion that follows therefore defines literary interlace in terms of Old English poetry,

295 cf Chapter 2 on defining the techniques for creating a united fabric from diverse threads, which include

crossing, alternation, variation, mixture, and means of attachment. Chapter 3 mentioned the Indo-European roots of

the Greek oral tradition. Also cf “text” : [“...from L. Textus structure, texture, from texere, textum to weave].

Chambers.

296 Bately, Janet. “The Nature of Old English Prose.” The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature.

Eds. Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 71-87 (81-2).

54

and then cites some of the applications to prose, particularly the “rhythmical” style developed by

Aelfric and Wulfstan.

One might argue that interlace is intrinsic to the structure of Anglo-Saxon poetry, a line

of which consists of two halflines (a and b) “separated by a caesura and linked by alliteration.”297

I therefore include here a summary of the meter of Anglo-Saxon poetry as Eduard Sievers (1885)

systematized it. My outline adapts that of Cassidy and Ringler:298

Rhythmic Types:

In the following: / = stressed syllables (arsis)

x = unstressed syllables (thesis)

\ = secondary or half stress.

Types of Halfline (simplified):

Type A: (/x /x) [trochaic rhythm]

Type B: (x/ x/) [iambic rhythm]

Type C: (x/ /x)

Type D: (// x\) or (// \x)

Type E: (/\ x/) [or /\ xx (Mitchell & Robinson 30)]

Hypermetric Lines expand the beginning of a halfline by one or two unstressed

syllables (i.e. by anacrusis).

Alliteration: occurs on the stressed syllables, thus emphasizing them; it may occur on

theses, but that could be accidental.

In the first halfline ‘a’- stresses 1 and 2 may alliterate; stress 1 alone may alliterate;

stress 2 alone may alliterate.

In the second halfline ‘b’- stress 1 is the only arsis and it always alliterates.

Rhythmic Stress (ictus): The stress emphasizes the importance of words within the

context of the passage: and so contributes to the meaning. Alliteration, therefore, combines with

stress in structuring the composition, although the device may also be decorative in its appeal to

the ear. Donald Scragg points out further: “In Old English too a half-line is frequently a sense-

unit, but the dividing-point or caesura is stressed by a change of rhythm, for example the trochaic

pattern might become iambic or anapestic [xx/], as in Beowulf (MS. BL Cotton Vitellius A. xv,

297 C&R 276.

298 C&R 274-287.

55

ff. 94-209):

/ x / x x x / x x /

feasceaft funden, he þæs frofre gebad (7)

([Scyld] was found destitute; he lived to see consolation for that).299

Daniel Calder is among those who credit the recognition of crossed alliteration to the

German critic Richard Heinzel (ca.1875). Calder says, “More sophisticated analysis will

eventually call this feature “interlace,” however, Heinzel deserves credit for having seen the

alternation as deliberate and valid rather than accidental and inept.”300 Some critics also see

Heinzel as the inventor of the term “variation.”301

In 1935, Adeline Courtney Bartlett discussed alternation and variation in her study of

interlace, and she suggested that although an Anglo-Saxon poem may present the same story in

different ways, “Its allusive habit indicates that readers are supposed to know the story already.

It must be read for the sentiment and for the ornament.”302 Her work is important to the present

study partly because she analogizes tapestry and Anglo-Saxon verse, seeing the latter as “filled

with essential but greatly elaborated pictorial groups and, in addition, heavily incrusted with

superimposed (or interposed) ornament.”303 In addition, she describes the technique that

produces alliterative and chiastic patterns. I have tabulated part of her analysis so as to correlate

structure and purpose (Table I a), but Bartlett outlines her description as follows (the stress is

mine, throughout):

1. The Anglo-Saxon poets use an Envelope organization of the verse paragraph,

in which the end of the passage returns to, in some way repeats, the beginning.

2. The Anglo-Saxon poets elaborate into long rhetorical passages the simple

parallel arrangement which is common in sentence parts and in shorter

sentences.

3. The longer Parallel passages are sometimes so constructed as to produce an

Incremental pattern.

299 Scragg, Donald G. “The Nature of Old English Verse.” The Cambridge Companion to Old English

Literature. Eds. Michael Godden and Michael Lapidge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. 55-70 (59).

300 Calder, Daniel G. “The Study of Style in Old English Poetry: A Historical Introduction.” Old English

Poetry: Essays on Style. Ed. Daniel G. Calder. Berkley: University of California Press, 1979. 1-66 (4; 17).

301 Calder 13.

302 Bartlett, Adeline Courtney. The Larger Rhetorical Patterns in Anglo-Saxon Poetry. New York: Columbia UP: 1935;

303 Bartlett 109. She cites in F/n 6: Ker, W. P. The Dark Ages. (New York, 1904); 335-336.

56

4. The Anglo-Saxon poets tend to use expanded [hypermetric] lines in groups,

sometimes employing a pattern of distribution which resembles a bell-shaped

curve, and at other times massing the expanded lines at the beginning or at the

end of logical groups.

5. Ornamental digressions in Anglo-Saxon poetry are: gnomic, homiletic,

elegiac, lyric descriptive, runic and macaronic, and (especially in Beowulf304)

narrative.

6. The Anglo-Saxon poets make use of introductory formulas and concluding

formulas; and they use dialogue in a thoroughly conventional way.299

Bartlett argues that the Envelope Pattern: “Is a conscious unit, consciously designed.”305I

would add that, like all the patterns involving chiasmus and parallelism in Old English, it clearly

utilizes the arrangement of halflines. Bartlett provides an example:

25 Þa stod on stæðe, stiðlice clypode

26 wicinga ar, wordum mælde

27 se on beot abead brimliþendra

28 ærænde to þam eorle, þær he on ofre stod: “Battle of Maldon” 25-28.306 Bartlett

also provides a diagram to illustrate the chiasmus:

a halfline b halfline

25 A B

26 C B

27 (B) C

28 (B) A (Bartlett 10)

She points out that the verbal basis of the structure lies in wicinga [“of the Vikings”] and

brimliþendra [“of the seafarers:], as well as Þa stod on stæðe and þær he on ofre stod. However,

in this analysis A= the shore; B = “the central idea of calling and delivering the message"; C =

304 British Library MS Cotton Vitellius A. XV. 299 Bartlett 107.

305 Bartlett 18.

306 “Then there appeared at the waterside and fiercely shouted out a messenger from the vikings who

swaggeringly announced a message fom the ocean-wanderers to the earl where he was standing on the foreshore.”

[Trans. Bradley, S.A.J. ed. “The Battle of Maldon.” Anglo-Saxon Poetry. London: J. M. Dent, 1982; 519-528 (520).

57

“the idea of the pirates’ messenger”; and the pattern therefore “Is dependent on verbal agreement

of parts and logical unity of the whole,”307 [my stress]. The chi crosses in the diagram, too,

illustrate the point made at the end of Chapter 2: for the basis of this weave is clearly cruciform,

and therefore appropriate to Christianity.

Bartlett defines parallelism as: “A correspondence of rhetorical or syntactical

characteristics.”308 In her chapter on such arrangements, she distinguishes between patterns of

repetition and of balance. In balance the correspondence involves variation of the members: they

are similar, but not identical. One of her examples is from Psalm 23.2: “He maketh me to lie

down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters.”309 Parallelism also includes echo,

which occurs, for example in Beowulf with wlanc “proud” (341), and wlonc “proud” (331), and

for wlenco “out of daring; pride; bravado” (338).310 Bartlett attributes parallelism to Germanic,

possibly even Indo-European origins; but when it is antithetical she also relates it to Latin

homilies.311 Nevertheless, she follows Hart in recognizing that the Psalms might be the source of

chiastic and envelope arrangements; and she lists, from The Paris Psalter, several examples of

the patterns.312 A glance at the Jewish Encyclopedia suggests that more recent study of

parallelism in the Bible bears out this perception. I. M Casanowicz indicates: “It is now

generally conceded that parallelism is the fundamental law, not only of the poetical, but even of

the rhetorical and therefore of higher style in general in the Old Testament.”313 We also know

that the Psalms were central to the education and devotions of Benedictine monks, and therefore

scribes. As Caroline White observes, in Chapter 18 of the Rule:

Benedict advises that all 150 psalms should be recited each week, though he

admits that this represents a fall in standards as in the past many recited all the

psalms every day), together with readings and prayers form other parts of the

Bible.314

307 Bartlett 10.

308 Bartlett 30.

309 Bartlett 33.

310 Bartlett 35.

311 Bartlett 30.

312 Bartlett 25; at 11 f/n 1 cites Hart, Walter Morris. “Ballad and Epic.” Harvard Studies and Notes, XI.

Boston, 1907; 200201. The list of psalms translated into Anglo-Saxon includes 66, 69, 83, 102,103, 117, 121, 135,

138, 144.

313 Casanowicz, I. M. “Parallelism in Hebrew Poetry.” 2002. Jewish Encyclopedia.com. 24 March 2010.

<http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=67&letter=P>. My thanks to Professor Crook for pointing out

this reference.

314 White, Caroline, ed. “Introduction.” The Rule of St. Benedict. New York: Penguin, 2008. xii. She notes that while

it is unclear whether the Rule reached England in 597 (the saint died ca. 545), it had done so by the mid-seventh

century (xxii).

58

My description can only paraphrase Bartlett; I suggest, however that she indicates

parallelism as the organizing principle underlying not only her category 3, but also categories 4,

5, and 6. Clusters of hypermetric lines, therefore, can be placed in parallel to form outlines and

frames, or can form central cores when placed between normal lines.315 Opening and closing

formulae similarly work as framing devices, and dialogue can do the same–or provide a “kernel”

between the parallel lines. Ornamental digression, too, can form either a frame or its content;

and Bartlett notes that, especially when it is elegiac, the dilatatio provides both sense and

decoration. She adds, “Often the weaver need not have used so large an ornamental inset, even if

one be disposed to grant that any such inset was, at that point, judicious.”316 She is, nevertheless,

clear that most “episodic” insets are functional, as in Beowulf:

Not only are they not interpolations, they are not even mere ecphrasis. Sigemund

and Heremod are example and warning to Beowulf; the necklace is a property of

the hero; Thryth describes Hygd by the method of contrast; the prophecy of the

Heathobard-Dane feud is not unnaturally evoked by the mention of Freawaru’s

betrothal.317

The same is true of homiletic insets; it is worth noting, though, that Bartlett considers

runic and macaronic insets to be decorative.318 They occur in cryptic settings and in riddles,

however, and I think it reasonable to suppose that the incorporation of these unconventional

elements– specifically: Anglo-Saxon orthography, its symbolism, and Latin diction–encourage

habits of mind that are associative and creative, as well as logical. They would, therefore,

provide suitable exercise for the training of writers, interpreters, and preachers. In light of the

present discussion, also, it is possible to see such appropriations from diverse literary traditions

as a means of weaving together aspects of different cultures, under the influence of Christianity.

Bartlett analyzed the structures that contribute to interlace, and later scholars expanded

on the effects of the rhetoric. Arthur Brodeur, for example, does so when he discusses variation

in Beowulf.319 Writing twenty-four years after Bartlett, he defines variation as: “ . . . [A] double

315 Bartlett 62-71; 67. The examples she cites that contain hypermetric lines at the core are: Boethius 25:

37b-53; Christ 868-899; Genesis 2399-2418.

316 Bartlett 80.

317 Bartlett 88.

318 Bartlett 84-85. As examples of runic variation she includes “the four Cynewulf signatures (Christ 707-808a;

Elene 1256b-1270a; Fates of the Apostles 96-106; and Juliana 703b-711a); “The Rune Poem”; “The Lover’s

Message”; Riddles 20 and 65, as well as fragments of Riddles 75, 25 (7b-9a), 43 (5b-15a), 59 (14b-15), 91 (3-7);

“Salomon and Saturn” (84-140); and “Waldere A” (29b-32a). She identifies the only “macaronic passage combining

Anglo-Saxon and Latin in one line” as “Phoenix” 667-677; and she mentions “Summons to Prayer” as containing

“Greek as well as Latin words, and the arrangement is irregular, not verse by verse.”

319 Brodeur, Arthur Gilchrist. “Variation.” Interpretations of Beowulf: A Critical Anthology. Ed. R. D. Fulk.

Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1991. 66-87.

59

or multiple statement of the same concept or idea in different words, with a more or less

perceptible shift in stress,” this varies specificity and areas of emphasis; and it can involve

parallelism.320 Brodeur echoes Bartlett in believing that as the concepts accumulate details they

also augment affect;321 indeed, he claims: “The primary vehicle of emotion is variation.”322

Brodeur also recognizes variation as decoration, claiming that: “In both parts of the poem there

are many variations which have no other function than that of an ornament of style.”323

Brodeur nevertheless considers that some variations develop meaning. In discussing

reiterations of the reactions of Hrothgar to the depredations of Grendel, he suggests: “The

consequences are, first, an increasingly developing awareness in the listener of the tragic

situation; secondly, a deepening perception of the universality of its meaning; thirdly,

appreciation of a continuous texture in the dramatic narrative.”324 I believe, further, that Brodeur

describes a crucial step in the creation of interlace from variation when he says: “It may indeed

[...] carry over from scene to scene; even from one structural block of the poem to another.” He

adds, “The emotion thus communicated may dominate a long narrative passage; it may provide

the point of departure for a new train of consequent action.”325 Brodeur, then, moves the

hermeneutics of variation in interlace away from both decoration and affect–and towards action.

In the essay, “The Interlace Structure in Beowulf,” John Leyerle adds: “When variation

on two or more subjects is combined, the result is stylistic interlace, the interweaving of two or

more strands of variation.”326 Leyerle, rejects the concept of decorative digression, though,

maintaining: “There are no digressions in Beowulf.”327 He insists, rather, that interlace: a

structure of variation, juxtapositions, parallelisms, reversals, and intersections, produces a

tightly woven narrative in which “relations between events are more important than their

temporal sequence.”328

In addition, Leyerle compares the structure of Beowulf to the designs on Anglo-Saxon

manuscripts, stone crosses, and other artefacts. The analogy depends on the “knotwork”

produced when narrative strands “plaited together to form a braid or rope pattern [. . .] are turned

320 Brodeur 66-7.

321 Brodeur 71.

322 Brodeur 74.

323 Brodeur 86

324 Brodeur 75.

325 Brodeur 72.

326 Leyerle, John. “The Interlace Structure of Beowulf.” Interpretations of Beowulf: A Critical Anthology. Ed.

R. D. Fulk. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1991. 146-167 (149). The essay was reprinted, by permission, from The

University of Toronto Quarterly 37 (1967); 1-17.

327 Leyerle 156.

328 Leyerle 156.

60

back on themselves to form knots or breaks that interrupt the linear flow of the bands.” Here he

describes what Chapter 2 identified as interlace with breaks, which can include both reversals

and juxtapositions of ends and beginnings. I notice that this is especially evident in a

honeycomb weave, for example. Leyerle refers to interlace with knots, though, as found in

sculpture and manuscripts, and he analogizes the knots as narrative “episodes,” whose themes

link the parts of the design into a whole.329

Leyerle exemplifies this by observing that four episodes (knots) relate the Fall of

Hygelac to the life of Beowulf. During the episodes and the stories told within them, the

audience interprets, without intrusion from the narrator: I) juxtapositions; ii) recurrences of

human behavior (repetitions) and iii) circularity of time. Leyerle models such interpretation by

suggesting:

The references to Sigemund and Heremod, after Beowulf kills Grendel, foreshadow

Beowulf’s later career as a king. He kills a dragon, as Sigemund did, and leaves the Geats to

suffer national calamity, as Heremod left the Danes to suffer fyrenthearfe (14), “terrible

distress.”330 Leyerle also shows how the parallel arrangements of strands and episodes allow for

the possibility of allegory. Relating the structure of Beowulf to zoomorphic interlace in

manuscripts like The Lindisfarne Gospels,331 he compares the lacertine strands to monsters and

dragons in the poem. He suggests, for example, that the method leads to perception of Grendel as

a symbol: “He is an eoten, or “eater,” and swallows up the society he visits almost as if he were

an allegorical figure for internecine strife.” To show how this allegory weaves into the larger

tapestry of the poem, Leyerle traces the theme about Monsters as it links to others of:

Internecine Strife; Visits to Halls; Women as Binders of Society; and Treasure.332

Intersection of strands within the narrative affords different views of the themes. Leyerle

provides an example when he considers a theme of: "conflict between the personal glory of a

hero and his responsibility to the common good," and suggests that the poet leaves audiences to

draw parallels between two historical realities: the battle at Nechtanesmere (685 AD), and the

battle mentioned in the poem–of Hygelac in Frisia.333 In the former, as AngloSaxons would

know, the Picts had avenged themselves for the actions of King Edwin, who had quelled their

rebellion in AD 671-3. Ecgfrith and Northumberland subsequently lost both the overall war and

329 Leyerle 146-148. Leyerle observes that “Interlace designs go back to prehistoric Mesopotamia;” and he

references, for an account of the origins of the designs: Aberg, N. F. The Occident and the Orient in the Art of the

Seventh Century. Stockholm: Wahlstrom & Widstrand, 1943-1947. Part. I. The British Isles.

330 Leyerle 152/3.

331 Leyerle 147; 157 on reversals.

332 Leyerle 152, 154, 155 ( cf 157 on allegory).

333 Leyerle 153.

61

the territory.334 Stanley Greenfield similarly examined the historic associations of the Frisian

raid, and argued that parallels between the 'heroic' actions of Hygelac and Beowulf reveal that

heroism ultimately results in the demise of the Geatish nation.335 The audience, however,

receives the Hygelac story piecemeal, from the viewpoints of the poet (2349b-2399a), Beowulf

(2325-2515), and Wiglaf’s Messenger (2910b-3000).336 Leyerle concludes that, in light of the

intersections and parallels so produced: “The Hygelac episodes show the social consequences of

rash action in a king and they become more frequent as the dragon fight develops.”337 What

becomes clear is that, through this method of narration, the audience is free to interpret–to derive

meaning from the logic of the poetry, without being told what to think. They must engage their

own intellects to see that everything is relevant to something else in the tapestry. This view of

Anglo-Saxon interlace accords with the claim of Peter Dronke,

[T]hat at the heart of the mediaeval rhetorical tradition, in some of its central

texts, there existed a profoundly functional approach to artistic expression, a

refusal to see the problem of style divorced from that of meaning, an unequivocal

condemnation of verbal ornament and display for their own sakes.”338

Bernard Huppe demonstrates the perception further in his study of interlace, The Web of

Words, where he provides readings of four Old English Poems: Vainglory, The Wonder of

Creation, The Dream of the Rood, and Judith. He bases his interpretations on close analysis of

syntax, frames, and introductory phrases–elements of interlace that Bartlett had described–but he

also scrutinizes diction and the ways in which variation of words, word forms, and symbolism,

participate in antithesis and parallelism and contribute to the development of meaning.339 In

addition, he further classes the rhetorical units as follows:

� half-lines, which are as described above;

� clausules, which he describes as clusters of half-lines; they can be simple or compound,

and function like the modern subordinate clause (xviii).

� periods; Huppe says: “The period makes a single complete statement and may consist

of two or more clausules, simple or compound–”(xix).

334 Rollason 41-42.

335 Greenfield, Stanley B. “Geatish History: Poetic Art and Epic Quality in Beowulf.” Interpretations of

Beowulf: A Critical Anthology. Ed. R. D. Fulk. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1991; 120-126 (121).

336 Greenfield 121.

337 Leyerle 153.

338 Dronke, Peter. “Mediaeval Rhetoric.” The Mediaeval World. Literature and Civilization. Vol. 2. Eds.

David Daiches and Anthony Thorlby. London: Aldus, 1973. 315-346. (317).

339 Huppe, Bernard F. The Web of Words: Structural Analyses of the Old English Poems “Vainglory,” “The

Wonder of Creation,” “The Dream of the Rood,” and “Judith.” Albany: State University of New York Press, 1970;

xiii-xxi; and 64-112.

62

� verse paragraphs; he says: “the verse paragraph consists of one or more periods

together making a fully developed statement” (xix). Huppe acknowledges that “Adeline

Bartlett has shown the considerable frequency of employment in the verse paragraphs of such

elements of design as envelope and parallel pattern, etc. These elements of design are also

extended frequently to the structure of periods," (xx)

! parts or scenes; which he sees as consisting of clusters of verse paragraphs (xix).

While Huppe describes interlace in ways the above discussion has identified, he

identifies also the important point that alliteration and stress combine with allusiveness in

developing themes; observing that, as a result, “The rhetorical structure of an Old English poem

is complex, involved, and yet at bottom clear and rational.”340

In The Rise of Romance (RR), Eugene Vinaver had preceded Leyerle by producing

another important analysis of interlace.341 RR deals with French epic tradition about the knights

of Charlemagne (742-814 AD), and with later French Romances, but it also supplements insight

into the techniques and interpretation of interlace; I have therefore tabulated some of the

analysis to facilitate comparison with Bartlett and Leyerle. RR demonstrates, in addition, how

interlace develops analogy and so encourages understanding: I) by consideration of the

interactions of two views of the same thing; and ii) by drawing parallels not only through the

narrative and the realities of history and geography, but also through symbols. Analogy,

therefore, relates to symbolism, and Vinaver explains that successive prefigurations, such as

“warnings, premonitions, and symbolically similar manifestations of human destiny” (my

stress), can elicit foreboding, or even thought.342 As we saw above in relation to Hygelac’s raid

and the expected demise of the Geats, Leyerle and Greenfield both show the effect of historical

comparisons to be proleptic. Perhaps the sense of prescience also owes something to the

reversals that Leyerle saw as “inherent in the structure” because, as we saw in weaving and

“interlace with breaks,” reversals disrupt sequence. In narrative, the re-positioning that

juxtaposes events from different times invites comparison of their significance.343 In turning the

ends of strands towards their beginnings, reversals also imply circularity, and that is one reason

why ring structure can be a type of interlace; and scholars of ring structure describe the same

effect.

340 Huppe. “Introduction” xxiii-xxi, (xvi).

341 Vinaver, Eugene. The Rise of Romance. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971. Leyerle 156: also observes that

Vinaver had already shown that “Entrelacement was a feature of prose romances, especially those in the Arthurian

tradition,” and he refers to f/n 16 “Form and Meaning in Medieval Romance,” The Presidential Address of the

Modern Humanities Research Association (1966).

342 Vinaver 101-2.

343 Leyerle 154-5, 157.

63

H. Ward Tonsfeldt agrees with J. R. R. Tolkien on the dynamic of reversal in Beowulf:

“It is essentially a balance, an opposition of ends and beginnings;” and the structure is “static.”

For Tonsfeldt, each ring of narrative presents “a microcosm of the whole work. Each involves

“static presentation of events, repetition of significant details, and the framing of a central key

detail." Within this structure, details from a past or present incident vary those of a second event,

and so reflect some common idea or theme: for example, disaster.344 Thus, “ring structure not

only arranges the details of the episode to develop its theme, but connects the episode to the

main narrative in a way that makes the connection and its implicit comment quite clear.”345

Ward. Parks suggests also that digressions link the rings and their themes and so enable the

narrative to progress.346

Scholars of ring structure, then, recognize similar arrangements to those already

identified: the rings work in parallel arrangements, and the juxtapositions develop allusiveness

and mental association. Parks illustrates a frame and ring structure in Beowulf thus:

A The Danes lie down to sleep 1251

B Grendel’s avenger still survives 1255-58

C Grendel’s mother remembers her misery 1259-60

X The family history of Grendel’s mother 1260-76

C The Sorrow of Grendel’s mother 1274-1278

B Grendel’s mother wants to avenge her son’s death 1278

A The Danes lie sleeping 1279-80.347

John Niles provides a macrocosmic view of the same structure in the poem: “(A) introduction,

(B) fight with Grendel, © celebrations, (D) fight with Grendel's dam, © celebrations, (B) fight

with dragon, (A) close.” Niles relates the ‘kernel’ of this structure [D - the underwater fight] to

the Iliad, the Aeneid, the New Testament, and to the Gospel of Nicodemus: because both

Odysseus and Aeneas descended to the Underworld, and the Christian story includes the

Harrowing of Hell.348 Allusion, and so interlace by intertextuality, is therefore a distinct

possibility for this ‘kernel,’ given the place of the Aeneid in British education and the Christian

context of Beowulf.

It seems, then, that similarities of theme could render such diverse traditions compatible,

344 Tonsfeldt 448.

345 Tonsfeldt 451.

346 Parks, W. “Ring Structure and Narrative Embedding In Homer and Beowulf.” Neuphilologische

Mitteilungen 3.89 (1988): 237-251(250).

347 Parks 249.

348 Niles, John D. “Ring Composition and the Structure of Beowulf.” Publications of the Modern Language

Association 94. 5 (1979): 924-35 (930).

64

although the question of how ring structure came to inform Old English poetry remains open.

Niles observes that ring composition structures the Old Testament Jacob cycle; so that is one

possibility.349 Parks and Tonsfeldt also cite another in the argument of J. A. Notopoulos: that

Homeric techniques of ring structure originated in oral narrative.350 S.A.J. Bradley infers from

Tacitus:

“[... A]mong the early Germanic peoples poets were the sole formal keepers of

their nation’s history–a function which probably continued with increasing

importance once the Anglo-Saxons had become immigrants to Britain, and even

after the Church had introduced the Roman alphabet and the scriptorium.”351

Chapter 3 noted the same continuity of ancient oral tradition in the Druidic culture of the Celts,

but suggested further that, by retaining such individual traditions while drawing on those of the

Church, the developers of insular literacies deliberately produced their own cultural tapestry.

Anglo-Saxon manuscripts that have survived to the present day are products of this

rhetorical interface; and while the Roman Church continued to use Latin in writing and teaching,

it moved towards incorporation of the vernacular in areas where the new clerics would mediate

with indigenes, as we have seen in the writing of Laws, homilies, histories, and charters.

Chapter 3 showed that the Church helped to produce the first pragmatic prose in English–the

Law Codes of Ine (688-726) and of Aethelberht of Kent (560-616)–of which, incidentally, the

first item interweaves secular and Church interests by referring to “[Theft of] God’s property and

the Church’s.”352

Among the first prose texts in English are the vernacular glosses and the commentaries

associated with Canterbury: pedagogical texts which, by their nature, interlace both Latin and

English. Michael Lapidge has related the major set of Anglo-Saxon glosses to the School of

Theodore and Hadrian at Canterbury and to the biblical commentaries produced there on the

Pentateuch and the Gospels.353 The commentaries, he explains, “represent the lecture notes of

anonymous students recorded from the viva voce explanations given by the two masters;” in

addition, the glossaries “show that Theodore and Hadrian gave instruction in books of the Bible

other than the Pentateuch and gospels (the subjects of the present biblical commentaries), as well

349 Niles 924. He cites: Fishbane, Michael. "Composition and Structure in the Jacob Cycle (Gen.

25:19-35:22)." Journal of Jewish Studies 36 (1975); 19-32.

350 Tonsfeldt 443-4; Parks 237-239. cf Notopoulos, J. A. “Continuity and Interconnection in Homeric Oral

Composition.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 82 (1951): 81-102 (98).

351 Bradley, S. A. J., ed and trans. Anglo-Saxon Poetry. London: J. M. Dent; xiv/xv.

352 Attenborough, F. L., ed. and trans. The Laws of the Earliest English Kings. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1922; 5.

353 Lapidge, Michael, ed. “Foreword.” Studies in Early Mediaeval Latin Glossaries. By W. M. Lindsay.

Varorium Collected Studies Series, CS467. Brookfield, VT: Ashgate Publishing Co; 1996. xvi-xvii.

65

as a wide range of other patristic and grammatical texts.”354 Another set of glosses from

Germany references the latter texts, and the main Leiden Glossary (Leiden, Bibliotheek der

Rijksuniversiteit, Voss. Lat. Q. 69, 20r-36r) “itself consists of forty-eight batches of glosses, or

chapters;” the entire group, however is of “some twenty glossaries all containing some version

[...] of the batches of glosses contained in the Leiden Glossary itself.” Lapidge suggests that

when the entire set of texts has been analyzed and recorded in detail: “it is possible that the

Canterbury school of Theodore and Hadrian will emerge from its present obscurity to be

considered as one of the most influential sources of exegetical thought in the early

MiddleAges.”355

Description of the use of glosses in monastic schools indicates that the word-lists both

contributed to and derived from monastery word-collections: that is monks and their librarians

may sometimes have been the first to gloss some manuscripts marginally, but they otherwise

transcribed and copied translations for words from previous glosses: either from their own

manuscripts or from those they had obtained from other libraries. Ultimately, each establishment

amassed its glosses, and maintained its own “dictionaries” for the purpose of instructing its

students.356

We might consider the interests of the Canterbury teacher to be interdisciplinary, for

Lapidge indicates that they include such diverse subjects as “medicine, philosophy, rhetoric,

metrology and chronology;” but he observes, most importantly for the present discussion, that

the commentaries often explain scripture in terms of Greek rhetoric–something that exegetes at

Antioch had done. Lapidge illustrates this with examples from the tradition of “Theodore of

Mopsuestia who used the rhetorical devices of epopoeia and prosopopeia in his commentary on

The Psalms in order to facilitate his historical exegesis.” Adducing such evidence to identify

Theodore as the “Canterbury Commentator,” Lapidge suggests that the Archbishop, who

probably began his career at Antioch or Edessa, had also studied some rhetoric at

Constantinople, where the curriculum derived from the work of an “early third-century rhetor

Hermogenes,” and included “such subjects as rhetorical invention and the forms of a successful

speech.” The Leiden Glossary, which is now in Germany but acknowledged to have originated

at Canterbury, reflects interest in another Greek rhetor, Cassiodorus.357 Thus the school

354 Bischoff B. and M. Lapidge. Biblical Commentaries from the Canterbury School of Theodore and

Hadrian.” Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England, 10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994; 173.

(T&H).

355 Lapidge 173-4: Leiden; 175-6: the group; 179: the probable significance of the school. (T&H).

356 Lapidge “Preface” v-xi; 17 on the final ‘amassing’ into ‘dictionaries,’ (Lindsay).

357 Lapidge 249: on the education and interests of Theodore; 259: on Antiochene rhetoric and Mopsuestia;

260-61: Hermogenes, Theodore and Constantinople; 261-2: cites lines 18-88 of Ch. xxviii of the Leiden Glossary

as being “entirely of Greek rhetorical terms for figures and tropes extracted from the Expositio psalmorum of

66

produced rhetoricians from the tradition that we know had informed Roman rhetoric, but with an

added concentration on philology that Lapidge identifies as Antiochene.358

I suggest that the bias, which would extend from Canterbury to all the monasteries for

whom they supplied scholars and preachers, would have sharpened sensitivity to words and their

meanings: to wordplay and polysemy. This would accord with the forms of variation that were

already part of the oral tradition in England. Scragg, for example, explains some Anglo-Saxon

“poetic diction” as compound words that allowed the poet to manipulate stress as well as

meaning. Some of these, such as fyrgenbeamas “mountain trees” (Beowulf 1414), are hapax

legomena and Scragg admits the possibility that poets invented them as their contexts demanded.

Sometimes compounds appear also as phrases, such as a description of God as tyres brytta

‘distributor of glory’ (Judith 30) which allows antithetical reference to the tyrant Holofernus as

morðres brytta ‘distributor of murder’ (90). Scragg uses this example to suggest: “It was this

ability to transfer epithets from heroic concepts to religious ones that encouraged the use of

traditional verse forms for Christian purposes.” Other words in the poetic lexicon occur

frequently as kennings, which Scragg defines as “metaphorical” and “descriptive terms, often

periphrastic.” His example, from Beowulf 1012, is: “sincgyfan ‘giver of treasure,’ a reference to

the pervasive image of the comitatus ... that is, a body of men who vow total loyalty to a lord in

return for gifts.”359 Once more we see a concept –“lord”–that enables heroic/Christian

association and variation. In Britain, then the study of words can only have enhanced

development of techniques by which concepts echo and re-echo within texts, utilizing

alliteration to help link them and so interlace themes–and vernacular techniques themselves–into

the cohesive unit of a Christian work. The techniques were especially appropriate to works that

would appeal to the ear, whether in poetry or prose.

Indeed we find, in Anglo-Saxon prose, many of the same characteristics discussed above

for poetry: parallel and chiastic arrangement of clauses, variation and allusion, analogy and

allegory. Alliteration, stress, and rhythm all augment and develop these arrangements.

Recognizing the devices as “patterns of sound,” Bately includes in the list items that closely

resemble “poetic” diction”: “... [V]erbal parallelisms, such as the repetition of a word-stem or

word-ending and the use of balanced phrases or clauses, are also commonplace features, along

with the use of word-pairs that are either synonymous or closely related in meaning.”360 Thus, I

argue, echoes and paranomasia weave meaning into the fabric of poetry or prose: the technique

constitutes interlace at a verbal level.

Cassiodorus” (261-2). (T&H)

358 Lapidge 245. (T&H)

359 Scragg 65-66.

360 Bately 83.

67

Little prose in Old English survives from the period succeeding the Canterbury

productions, and most commentators attribute the lack to Viking depredations; however, the

raids also contributed to the dissemination of English texts to Europe. Orchard indicates that the

mission of Boniface, too, contributed to the depletion of English resources–of both books and

scholars–a situation which did not improve until the time of Alfred. Orchard notes the few texts

that survived in the somewhat less maritime Mercia, such as “the Old English Martyrology (a

series of brief extracts on individual saints, following the order of the year), the Life of Chad, and

the Letter of Alexander to Aristotle.”361 The next collection of prose survived after the inception

of Alfred’s eighth-century program to reinstate literacy which, as we saw in Chapter 3,

produced laws and many translations, including the Preface to the Cura Pastoralis of Pope

Gregory, with its interlace of poetry and prose. Another work attributed to Alfred, as Marsden

explains, is the prose translation of the first fifty Psalms, which is now in The Paris Psalter (MS.

Bibliotheque Nationale fonds latin 8824), the remaining one hundred Psalms being in poetry.362

Orchard comments further that the prose style of Alfred: “.... employs a wide range of rhetorical

devices evidently drawn from both written (Latin) and oral (native) traditions.” The king begins

his “Preface” in the style of a Latin letter, but:

“...[H]e also employs a number of patterns of alliteration, doublets, wordplay, and

other techniques familiar from vernacular Old English verse [...] he even uses a

technique found also for example in some early Welsh poetry, where it is

described as ‘incremental repetition’: the repetition of words and phrases at the

beginning of successive stanzas (or in this case paragraphs).”

Orchard believes the inspiration to have been Old English poetry rather than Latin anaphora;363

though I think we should also remember that Alfred experienced Welsh influence, for example

through Asser.

The extant versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (MSS A - H364), also have insets of

poetry, and date from the late ninth century. Cassidy and Ringler indicate that the tradition may

have begun as entries in the margins of Easter tables, in Latin, recording major annual events;

but historical record in the vernacular took over the Chronicles in the ninth century, possibly as

361 Orchard 210 (Boniface); 214 (Mercian texts).

362 Marsden 116-7: notes that the surviving text is a late eleventh century copy of the original, and that it

contains “a Latin text in adjacent columns, though it differs somewhat from the one that must have been used by the

translators.”.

363 Orchard 215-216.

364 Mitchell, Bruce, and Fred C. Robinson, eds. A Guide to Old English. 5th ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992; 142:

251.1. cf: C&R 135-137; they list 5 main MSS: A. CCCC 173 (Parker Chronicle); B. BL Cotton Tiberius A. vi; C.

BL Cotton Tiberius B. I; D. BL, Cotton Tiberius B. iv; E. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 636 (Peterborough

Chronicle) . The Battle of Brunanburh took place in 937 AD; the location is uncertain.

68

part of the reform program under Alfred, and the record-keeping continued in one–the

“Peterborough Chronicle”–until 1154. Five of the manuscripts include a version of the Anglo

Saxon poem, The Battle of Brunanburh;365 and The Battle of Maldon survives in Bodleian MS.

Rawlinson B. 203, as a copy from Cotton MS Otho A. xii.366

The interlacement of poetry and prose returns the discussion to the geminus stilus

mentioned in Chapter 3. Wieland extends his analysis to include Aelfric (ca. 955-1010), who

was a translator and exegete of Biblical texts, as well as a writer of homilies and alliterative

prose. Wieland concludes: “Perhaps Aelfric brings the geminus stilus to its logical conclusion in

these works: rather than two works on the same subject, one in verse and one in prose, he writes

only one in which he combines both styles.”367 Thus, instead of juxtaposing the two forms in

parallel, or of using one to frame the other, Aelfric plaited them together. Peter Clemoes

describes the sentences as typically having pairs of phrases–usually two accented elements that

are linked by alliteration. He also exemplifies how, by adapting the allegorical method of

Gregory the Great, Aelfric uses analogy to illustrate the story in which Christ stands and heals a

blind man before moving on into Jericho:

Hwæt is þæs Hælendes stede, oððe hwæt is his fær?

(What is the saviour’s standing, or what is His moving?)

The response:

He ferde ðurh his menniscynysse, and he stod þurh þa godcundnysse.

(“He moved through His humanity, and He stood through the divinity.’)

The stress is mine, showing that alliterations of ‘H’ and ‘f” are notable, but that the crossed

alliteration at stede/stod and fær/ferde is especially so: both cases involve polyptoton, a form of

variation. The alliteration also stresses the incremental repetition of “hwæt is” and “He ferde

ðurh/ he stod þurh;” and further parallelism highlights the wordplay/variation in the antithesis of

‘menniscynysse’ and ‘godcundnysse.’ Clemoes interprets the catechetical structure as reflecting

“the two contrastive narrative features of stopping and walking.” He observes:

Moreover the referential order of the Gospel narrative, in which Christ’s walking

precedes His stopping, is reversed in the question but restored in the answer. A

365 Cassidy, Frederic G., and Richard N. Ringler, eds. Bright’s Old English Grammar & Reader. 3rd ed. 2nd

Corrected Printing. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971; 162-167, 135-137. [C&R]. cf Marsden, Richard,

ed. The Cambridge Old English Reader. Cambridge: CUP 2004; 86. See also Gransden, A. Historical Writing in

England c 550-c 1307 1974; 32-41; also Garmonsway, G. N. ASC. Rev. ed. London 1954; xix-xxv. The Battle of

Maldon, in Essex, occurred in 991 AD.

366 Whitelock, Dorothy, ed. Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Reader In Prose and Verse. Rev. Dorothy Whitelock. 15th

ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967; 116.

367 Wieland, Gernot. “Geminus Stilus: Studies in Anglo-Latin Hagiography.” Insular Latin Studies: Papers on

Latin Texts and Manuscripts of the British Isles: 550-1066. Ed. Michael W. Herren. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of

Mediaeval Studies, 1981; 113-133 (126).

69

criss-cross patterning thus binds the allegorical process together as a spiritual

whole. The stylistic basis which is essential to this is a formal correspondence

between parts.

Clemoes, explains further: “Aelfric believes that episodic gospel narrative is in an

allegorical relationship with general spiritual concepts, in this case Christ’s union of the human

and the divine and the operation of his humanity and divinity towards us.”368 Clemoes is

concerned with the relationship to music and rhythm and does not here designate the technique

as interlace, however he relates the rhetoric to Cicero, who said: “multo maiorem habent apta

vim quam solute (‘things that are bound together have much more force than things that are

loose’).”369 The discussion reflects the view of Vinaver above, which showed how interlace

facilitates analogy; and, further still, the manifestation of divinity through humanity illustrates

the insight achieved by Kendrick, when she described “the multiplex, associative, “intertextual”

ways divinity was supposed to reveal (but still partially conceal) itself in writing.”370

Although Bately considers that prose writers did not use poetic diction, it is clear that

metrical prose shares some of the structure of poetry, and the linking by alliteration is

reminiscent of that already witnessed in Irish and Welsh traditions.371 Late tenth-century

Christian writers, then, clearly retained insular traditions despite losses while under attack, and

Bately indicates:

Aelfric certainly knew and used works by Alfred and his contemporaries, and

Wulfstan was apparently responsible for the glosses in an early copy of the

Pastoral Care. The rhythmical prose of Aelfric and Wulfstan was foreshadowed

in earlier homilies in, for instance the Vercelli Book, while Byrhtferth had as one

of his sources Aelfric’s De temporibus anni.372

Wulfstan, Archbishop of York, also demonstrates familiarity with both insular and Latin

tradition when, in his most famous homily–“Sermo Lupi ad Anglos,” he cites Gildas.373

Wulfstan wrote in both Latin and English, his vernacular works including a number of

368 Clemoes, Peter. Rhythm and Cosmic Order in Old English Christian Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1979; 18-19. He cites: The Homilies of th Anglo-Saxon Church. The First Part containing the

Sermones Catholici, or Homiles of Aelfric. Ed. B. Thorpe, I (London 1844).156, line 33-158, line 10; and 11-12.

The Biblical citation is: Luke 18.35-43; 18.1: Christ, about to enter Jericho, stands to heal the blind man; and then

walks through to the city.

369 Clemoes 24. Cites Cicero. Orator. The Loeb Classical Library. Lxviii. 228.

370 Kendrick, Laura. Animating the Letter: The Figurative Embodiment of Writing from Late Antiquity to the

Renaissance. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1999; 87/8.

371 Ochard 199 (Welsh); 206 (Irish).

372 Bately 82.

373 Wulfstan. “Sermo Lupi ad Anglos.” (Cotton MS. Nero A.I in the British Museum, ff. 110 ff). Sweet’s

Anglo-Saxon Reader in Prose and Verse. 15th ed. Rev. Dorothy Whitelock. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967. 85-93

(92, line 176).

70

homilies as well as laws produced for Kings Aethelred (ca. 968/9-1016) and Cnut (ca.

995-1035). The “Sermo” is usually dated to 1014, and a section appears below, demonstrating

the techniques often attributed to Wulfstan, such as those Bately mentions: rhythmical

alliteration, which appears in: “series of two-stress phrases;” use of the “intensifiers”– “ever,”

“greatly,” “widely,” etc; and parallel arrangements of syntax and vocabulary.374 Clemoes

suggests: “His practice is more likely to have been an extension of the occasional rhythm of

earlier English prose than a direct debt to poetry.”375 Wulfstan wrote:

Ac soð is þæt ic secge, / þearf is þære bote / for þam Godes

gerihta / wanedan to lange / innan þysse þeode / on æghwylcan

35 ænde, / & folclaga wyrsedan / ealles to swyþe, / & halignessa

syndan / to griðlease wide, / Godes hus syndan / to clæne

berypte / ealdra gerihta / & innan bestrypte / ælcra

gerisena / & wydewan syndan fornydde /on unriht to ceorle / & to

mænege foryrmde / & gehynede swyþe, / & earme men syndan /

40 sare beswicene / & hreowlice besyrwde, / & ut of þysan earde /

wide gesealde / swyþe unforworhte / fremdum to gewealde /&

cradolcild geþeowede / þurh wælhreowe unlaga / forlytelre

þyfþe / wide gynd þas þeode / & freoriht fornumene / & þrælriht

genyrwde / & ælmæsriht gewanode / &, hrædest is to

45 cweþenne, / Godes laga laðe / & lara forsawene; / & þæs we

habbað ealle / þurh Godes yrre / bysmor gelome, / gecnawe se þe

cunne; / & se byrst wyrð gemæne, / þeh man swa ne wene, /

eallre þysse þeode, / butan God beorge.376

(But what I say is true: there is need for that penance because the dues of God have diminished

too long in every region within this land, and the laws of the people have worsened all too

greatly, and sanctuaries are too widely violated, and the houses of God too cleanly robbed of all

tithes and stripped within of all that is seemly, and widows are wrongly compelled into marriage

and too many are impoverished and completely humiliated, and poor men are sorely deceived

and cruelly defrauded and are sold far and wide out of this homeland, completely uncondemned,

given up to the power of foreigners; and infants enslaved for petty theft by means of cruel

distortions of justice, widely throughout this nation, and the rights of freemen are taken away

and the rights of slaves restricted and the rights to alms diminished and, in short, the laws of God

374 Bately 84.

375 Clemoes 21.

376 Wulfstan 87 (ll. 33-48). cf Clemoes 22; I have used his punctuation, as he says: “to relate it to the syntax,”

and I have stressed to the tironian signs for the same reason. The translation is mine.

71

are hated and his doctrines rejected; and therefore we all are often subject to disgrace, through

the anger of God, let him perceive it who can; and this calamity will become common to all this

nation, although one may not think so, unless God delivers [us].)

The “Sermo” is set in the socio-historical context of an England harried by Vikings; and

Wulfstan, seeming to relate the destruction to the imminence of Doomsday, urges the English

look to their own Salvation: because their backsliding surpasses even that of the Britons from

whom they won the country (cf lines 176, ff).377 Inset within the larger tapestry of words, the

section above is both decorative and functional, and it takes the form of a verse paragraph: a

single period of the kind identified by Huppe in his analysis of interlace.378 A thesis frames the

structure by parallel references to God, and it argues the need to atone for perversion of what is

due to Him (Godes gerihta, 34) “... unless He delivers us (God beorge, 48).” The prepositions

for þam “because” and butan “unless” form an envelope within which Wulfstan details offenses

that occasion the need. The list, as Clemoes observes, constitutes “a single subordinate

clause.”379 It is a series of phrases and clausules that depend from “because” in a chain formed

by syndetic parataxis. The chain, as we have seen, lies between references of what is due to God

(34), but which also frame the description of corruption that results from the laws of men

(folclaga wyrsedan, 35) when they ‘reject the laws and lore of God’ (Godes laga laðe / & lara

forsawene, 45). Alliteration and echo here highlight the theme of “law” and contrast the laws of

God and men; in addition, to an audience who “can hear” and remember, the alliterative echo of

folclaga /forsawene extends to resonate with the similar sounds of the verb sawan, “to sow,

disseminate.” Wulfstan therefore links to, and intensifies, his earlier theme that God punishes

people for their sins: that is, they reap as they sow; and the same suggestion attaches to the

Gildas citation at the end of the homily. This period/inset, then, serves as a node or intersection

for that theme.380 Variation of riht throughout the section modifies base meanings like “right,

377 The Sermon begins: Leofan men gecnawað þæt soð is: ðeos worolde is on ofste and hit nealæcð þam ende

(1-2). [Beloved men, know that which is true: this world is in haste and it nears the end]. Wulfstan confirms the

Apocalyptic reference by suggesting referring to the future arrival of AntiChrist (4).

378 Huppe xviii-xx. At xvi Huppe compares the syntax of the poetry to ‘a maze’ - his subject is ‘The Web of

Words.’

379 Clemoes 23.

380 cf lines 9-13, where Wulfstan asserted: ...dæghwamlice man ihte yfel æfter oðrum, and unriht rærde and

unlaga manege ealles to wide gynd ealle þas geode, And we eac forþam habbað fela byrsta and bysmara gebiden,

and gif we ænige bote gebidan scylan þonne mote we þæs to Gode ernian ... [daily they added evils upon one

another and promoted injustice, and many abuses of law, all too widely throughout all this land, and we also

therefore have suffered many injuries and insults; and if we are to experience any relief then we must earn this from

God ...]. The Gildas reference is: An þeodwita wæs on Brytta tidum, Gildas hatte. Se awrat be heora misdædum, hu

/hy mid heora synnum swa oferlice swyþe God gegræmedan, þæt He let æt nyhstan Engla /here heora eard

gewinnan, and Brytta dugeþe forðon mid ealle (176-9). There was a learned man, in the time of the Britons, called

Gildas. He wrote about their misdeeds, how through their sins they angered God so very excessively that He well

nigh allowed the English army to conquer their land, and so the entire host of the Britons.

72

straight, and justice,” and it shows through the compounds: freoriht, þrælriht, ælmæsriht (43-4)

that rights fail to materialize for different types of people when riht is corrupted to unriht

(wrong, injustice, 38) and laga to unlaga (injustice, violation of law, 42). Thus although

Wulfstan may not adduce a stock of poetic diction, he applies the principle of variation to a legal

lexicon, and so presents a strand–or theme–that distinguishes between good and bad laws, right

and wrong, justice and injustice.

Clemoes notes that “The references to specific abuses give cumulative actuality to the

general proposition enclosing them.”381 So too, I would add, does the repetition of the

conjunction “and”–which is woven into the section seventeen times; and so does use of

intensifiers in series: the to’s, and the prefixes for-, and be-, and ge- which stress and re-stress

the extent, duration, and degree of the crimes being committed. Triple repetition of wide

(widely), swyþe (very much, exceedingly), and ealle (all), reinforces the effect, especially in

conjunction with references to the echoic earde and þeode, the ‘country’ and ‘homeland’ that

should provide justice and security against the invaders.

Wulfstan unifies his theme into a dense verbal and syntactic weave, and so produces an

intense, even urgent, affect that is designed to motivate the audience to action. As Clemoes puts

it, “His forceful denunciation of the abuses of English society is meant to emphasize a moral

message.” Clemoes, discussing the rhythmical aspect of the pattern, adds also that “the regularly

rhythmed language is emblematic of the divinely ordained moral order with which our social

evils are in conflict.” This study has described interlace, too, as analogizing the spiritual and

physical worlds. Here it does so through syntactical rhythm, through clashing and reverberation

of diction, and by framing the kingdom and law of England within the Kingdom and Law of

God. Clemoes says similarly:

My claim is that, literary artists as they [Aelfric and Wulfstan] were, they gave

their prose an abstractly conceived rhythmical structure in order to extract from

language itself the regular, patterned relationships which they and their

contemporaries believed were ubiquitous in a divinely created universe, and

which they believed were common to the immaterial and the material and were

the apprehensible manifestation of ideal truth.382

Bately considers that Old English prose-writers used the structure but not the diction of

poetry–although some applied imagery and enlivened translations by using language that would

appeal to the insular imagination: thus they resorted to maritime imagery, and concrete, practical

381 Clemoes 23.

382 Clemoes 22; 23; 24, respectively.

73

comparisons.383 An example occurs at the beginning of the “Sermo” discussed above, when

Wulfstan uses litotes to highlight the intensity of the remedy the English require if they are to

redeem themselves:

and to miclan bryne wæter unlytel, gif man þæt fyr sceal to ahte acwencan

(‘and for a great conflagration not a little water, if one is to quench that fire at all’ 18-19)

A contemporary of Aelfric and Wulfstan, Byrhtferth of Ramsey, seems also to have

practiced geminus stilus, for Bately observes that he interlaced “simple and flamboyant styles;

and flowery poetic prose and scientific discourse.” Byrhtferth was a Benedictine monk who

was also a teacher, as evidenced by his “Enchiridion, a manual composed ca. 1011 in both Latin

and English, whose primary purpose was to instruct pupils about computus, but which also

included discussion of figures of speech and numerology.”384 He seems, then, to have continued

in a Latin tradition, but one that retained the interdisciplinary elements practiced at Canterbury in

the seventh century.

The wide range of literature produced in late English schools also extends intertextuality

to an incomplete translation of Apollonius of Tyre, which Philip Goepp has described as “the

earliest-known version in a European vernacular” of a ‘Romance’ that probably originated in

Greece, but now survives only in Latin manuscripts. Goepp comments on the faithfulness of the

translation to the original, but notes that the “greater discursiveness and simplicity of the English

tends to bring the action closer to the reader.”385

Leyerle discussed one other influence of Roman rhetoric on interlace, when he identified

the latter with artificial order as defined in the Scholia Vindobonensis, a text that may have been

produced by Alcuin, or his students. This commentary on the Ars Poetica of Horace refers to the

technique of beginning a narrative in medias res: “[A]s does Virgil in the Aeneid when he

anticipates some things which should have been told later and puts off until later some things

which should have been told in the present.” 386 It is possible, even probable, that the producers

of the Scholia knew the Ars Poetica itself, and a review of the poem reveals that Horace

addresses “order” in the Aeneid thus: 387

383 Bately 85.

384 Bately 85-6 on style; 73 on purpose and content.

385 Goepp, Philip H, 2nd. “The Narrative Material of Apollonius of Tyre.” English Literary History 5. 2

(1938): 150-172 (150 the origin; 172 the English translation).

386 Leyerle 151. He explains: “The Scholia is an 8th century commentary on Horace’s Ars Poetica, which

Josephus Zechmeister associated with Alcuin or his school” (iii). Leyerle cites: Scholia Vindobonensia ad Horatii

Artem Poeticam, ed. Josephus Zechmeister (Vienna, 1877); 4-5.

387 Leyerle 152 (achronicity and association). Horace. The Art of Poetry: A Verse Translation with an

Introduction by Burton Raffel (AP) . With the original Latin text of Horace’s Ars Poetica. Prose Trans. and

Biographical Note, James Hynd. Notes, David Armstrong. Afterword W. R. Johnson. New York: State University

of New York Press; 1974.

74

As to order, what gives it excellence and appeal, unless I am mistaken, is this: that

in the poem he proposes an author should say now what requires to be said now,

should put most things off and omit them under the demands of the present,

embrace this, scorn that.388

The technique encourages juxtaposition and achronicity, and therefore freedom of mental

association, as Leyerle recognized. Horace is also consistent with other characteristics of

interlace when he speaks of mixing and separating things appropriately so as to produce a

unified work, one that is: “simple in material, single in form.”389 The discussion in this chapter

suggests that decorative insets in Anglo-Saxon poetry are ways of presenting various

perspectives on a single topic, thus contributing both to unification and to development of

themes. W. R. Johnson offers a present-day commentary on this aspect of variation in AP:

Horace’s poem is simple only in the sense that it makes sense; it has admirable

unity, and that unity is supplied by incredible and audacious variations. What

Horace is telling prospective poets is: learn the art of variation after you have

learned how to play the scales.”390

Johnson also notes how Horace responds to disagreements about the roles of art and nature in

poetry: the poet suggests extending those attributes to include genius on the side of art, and hard

work on that of nature.391 Horace concludes: “You find that, as the subject varies, it calls for

the help of one or the other and reconciles the two [art and nature] without trouble.”392

The conflict between genius and discipline in literary work has parallels in the

interlacement of cultures, and Nils Aberg infers such conflict between Anglo-Saxon, Classical,

and Irish approaches to the plastic and manuscript arts. He thus describes insular decoration and

animal interlace as “overloaded,” applying the epithet especially to “the most magnificent”

example, the Book of Kells, which he dates to ca. 800. He claims that the “restless dynamics” of

the Celts conflicted with Classical restraint and balance, and that English students of zoomorphic

interlace brought similar “orderliness and precision” to the work, and “balance and sobriety” to

the decoration; and he views the effects as combining and reconciling in the Kells and

Lindisfarne manuscripts. The conclusion Aberg reaches, though, is that Irish and Germanic

animal interlace had developed separately until they met in Northumbria; and that: “from the

388 Horace 33, 42-45: “ordinis haec virtus erit et venus, aut ego fallor,/ ut iam nunc dicat iam nunc debentia

dici,/pleraque differat et praesens in tempus omittat;/hoc amet, hoc spernat promissi carminis auctor.” Trans. Hynd

45, sect. 16.

389 Horace 32; 23: “ simplex dumtaxat et unum.” Trans. Hynd 44, sect. 9.

390 Johnson 78 (AP).

391 Johnson 77 (AP).

392 Horace 40-41; 408-411 (410-411). “... alterius sic/ altera poscit opem res et coniurat amice.” Trans. Hynd

60, sect. 129.

75

very beginning the Irish style stands out as the superior and the influencing element, before

which the Germanic elements retire.”393

However accurate Aberg may be about plastic arts, his perception clearly does not extend

to the literature of the Anglo-Saxons, which did not retreat from the Irish. The evidence

suggests, rather, that they developed their tradition in parallel with those of the Celts. As we

have seen above, it seems possible that the writers who followed Theodore, Hadrian, and Bede

may have learned from other models, like Horace, how to reconcile the conflict between

discipline and emotion; and perhaps they would agree with Johnson that: “Freedom and

discipline are more or less the same thing after you have learned to fly.”394 In their case, that

might mean: ‘once Celts and Anglo-Saxons both understand how to apply the techniques of

knotwork.’

Horace in fact comments on the interweaving of literary cultures, and on reinforcing the

power of a nation by use of rhetoric. He initially upholds Greek examples for rhetoric, exhorting

his writer: “You should return again and again, day and night, to the models offered by the

Greeks.”395 He continues, though:

Our poets left nothing untried; and not the least glory was won by those who

dared to depart from the path of the Greeks and to celebrate national

achievements, those who produced Roman comedy of both types–refined and

common. And Rome’s power would be felt not less in its language than in its

courage and success in war, if our poets, one and all, did not balk at the labor and

time required in giving a work finish. 396

If the Romans were encouraged to emulate the Greeks, then surely the people who had

successfully evaded Roman conquest–Anglo-Saxons, Scandinavians, the Irish, and some

Britons–would recognize that their traditions already had elements by which they too could

augment secular power: through achievement in vernacular literature? The foregoing analyses

suggest that they aimed for such achievement by combining their literary resources and

traditions under the scholarship of the Church. I believe they did so by weaving together the

techniques from different cultures as described above. Since, as Lapidge has observed, “no

393 Aberg I.107, 110, 118-119.

394 Johnson AP 78-79.

395 Horace 37, 268-269: vos exemplaria Graeca/nocturna versate manu, versate diurna.Trans. Hynd 54, sect.

85.

396 Horace 38, 285-288: “nil intemptatum nostri liquere poetae,/nec minimum meruere decus vestigia

Graeca/ausi deserere et celebrare domestica facta,/ vel qui praetextas vel qui docuere togatas./ nec virtute foret

clarisve potentius armis/quam lingua Latium, si non offenderet unum/quemque poetarum limae labor et mora.”

Trans. Hynd 55, sects. 90, 91. David Armstrong explains: “Fabulae praetextae, tragedies on Roman historical

themes; togatae, comedies with Roman, instead of conventional Greek New Comedy, settings,” 68, note 90.

76

schools of rhetoric were still functioning in the Latin West during the seventh century,” it seems

likely that Anglo-Saxon education continuously developed a precedent first encouraged in the

schools of Theodore the Greek educator and Archbishop, and Hadrian, the African Abbot.397 By

juxtaposing and interweaving insular and Mediterranean traditions, the English not only wove

the separate strands into one Christian fabric, they also acted as an intersection: from which they

contributed to the survival and growth of rhetoric in Christian Europe. As Thomas Cahill

remarked of the relationship between Anglo-Saxon and Irish scholars, “If Christians of different

tribes had in all ages cooperated with one another as did these men and women, the world would

be a very different place.”398

397 Lapidge 261 on the Latin West; on the English schools cf Bede, “Preface” 42; Farmer, “Introduction” 29.

398 Cahill 202.

77

TABLE 4.1: Techniques and Their Purposes in Interlace–After Bartlett.

Technique Purpose

Envelope organization of verse paragraphsusing: Repetition of (1) words, or (2) ideas,or (3) words and ideas that enclose the unit(9). Chiasmus (19).

To frame or bind logical units (19).

Parallel Groups: elaborate simple parallelsentences into longer passages. A Parallelgroup has two or more parts that are balancedin structure or phraseology (30).Subdivisions include:Repetition, (a variation or echo; -- “notexactly apposition,”) (31; 30-33). Balance: the members differ in -- content -form a pair or series (33).Antithesis (31).

To “give the effect of close similarity ofform”(30).Vary, augment, and emphasize the originalthought (31).

Relate thoughts (or pictures)to each other(33).

Parallels create contrasts (not agreements) oftypes or logic (46, 48).

Incremental Pattern (49-61): Narrativeprogression in a series -- of up to fiveparallel steps; each step is a logical unitrepeating, varying, or amplifying the first(49).

Cumulative force (47). To repeat, vary,amplify, or reinforce the original thought (49,57).cf: Beowulf 702 ff; Judith 199 ff.

Rhythmical Pattern: Clustering of Expanded[hypermetric] lines) (62-71).A)In a pattern of distribution -- whichresembles a bell-shaped curve (63). B) Massed at beginnings or ends -- of logical units (68).C) In “interlaced parallels”(65). --

Logic and rhetoric build to a climax;gradually decline to conclusion (63).Purpose obscure. Suggestions include: I)organizing principle is emotion not rhetoric;ii) poet was a singer and the pattern is forbreathing; iii) pattern misunderstood:inherited from earlier Saxon culture (68-71).Ornamentation: “like arabesque motif in acurtain or carpet” (65).

Decorative Inset[Ornamental Digression] (72-90)

Decorative; Gnomic, homiletic, lyric,didactic, elegiac, runic, macaronic descriptive, narrative (109).

Introductory formulas. Concludingformulas. Dialogue (91-106).

[Provide frame] Introductory. Explanatory, homiletic, summary.

Overall Purpose: Production of pictures and spaces in a tapestry; decorative, non-narrativefeeling; to elicit emotions (108, 110, 113).

78

TABLE 4.2: Techniques and Their Purposes in Interlace–After Leyerle.

Anglo-Saxon Beowulf

Technique Purpose

Strands of theme and narrative connect

one section of narrative to another to

complete an overall design (148).

Overall Purpose of Interlace Technique:

Produce an overall design made up of narrative “episodes”

(148).

Understatement (152). Inherent in interlace structure. Leyerle associates this with

juxtaposition, absence of authorial commentary, etc (152).

As a form of irony, it fits well with what Leyerle identifies

as “the major theme of Beowulf, “the fatal contradiction at

the core of heroic society” - the hero as the seeker of

individual glory vs “a king who acts for the common good,

not for his own glory” (152/3).

Juxtaposition (152) Allow audience to interpret without intervention by

narrator; Reveal the meaning of coincidence; show–

without telling the related significance of incidents. (152).

Themes cross and juxtapose: give tension and force (156)

Repetition (152) e.g. Show recurrences of human behavior (152).

Circular structure; circularity of events

in time (152)

Enable juxtapositions and reversals (152).

Reversals inhere in the structure (157):

[either in circularity, or in ‘bending

back’ of strands]

Juxtapose: beginnings and endings; victories and defeats

(157).

Intersections (153) Present the viewer with different viewpoints on narrative

or theme (153).

Complex interconnections (156) Reveal “interwoven coherence” [and] “resonances” [of

meaning] (156).

(Complex) artificial order: begins in

medias res and order of events is

atemporal (151)

Produce interlace structure (for narrative poetry) (151).

‘Complex’ from plicare: to pleat, fold.

Leyerle suggests this might indicate that Beowulf was for

private (not public) readers(151).

Render relations between events more important than

temporal sequence (156).

79

TABLE 4.3: Techniques and Their Purposes in Interlace–After Vinaver.

13th Century French

Technique Purpose

Interweaving of themes.

and units of narrative.Overall Purposes of Interlace Technique:

Provide unity and diversity as well as growth.

Present character as driven by Destiny.

Aesthetics and Ornament. Entertain and fascinate (91/920).

Juxtaposition of analogous incidents. Clarify and explain details (105).

Repetition.

- of tragic pattern (83/4).

Add depth; interaction of different incidents

intensify and foreground tragedy (85).

Cyclic: narrative threads in curves, spirals,

and entwined vegetation (77).

Give “movement and depth” - sense of “potential

infinity,” unending growth (78).

Amplificatio (74/5; 85). Provide growth (75/6).

Digressio. Remind of past events, or anticipate the future.

Diversio. Introduce new matter; change themes; provide

growth (75/6).

Analogy.

-presenting material on 2 levels:

multiple approaches.

-“Historical” and Geographical

detail like real chronicle.

-combine fiction and chronicle.

Deepen significance by interaction and resonance

(101/2).

Achieve credibility (100).

Arrive at knowledge and understanding.

Induce awe by comparing real with supernatural

(95).

Induce emotional response: e.g. foreboding (101).

Provide verisimilitude (111).

Provide similarity to contemporary hagiographies.

Symbolism (105). Connect natural and supernatural; enables analogy

(105).

Combination of atemporal and

chronological storylines.

Provide causal order within narrative (99).

80

CHAPTER 5

INTERLACE AND THE LINDISFARNE GOSPELS

It is reasonable to suppose that study of the readership, authorship, and use of the

Lindisfarne Gospels (BL, Cotton Nero Div) can contribute to understanding of the culture for

which the manuscript was produced. The present section therefore suggests that we can derive

such insight about intellectual and social responses to the Gospels if we identify and interpret

some of the clues in the script, illustration, and various kinds of space surrounding the text.

This chapter discusses the factors in terms of interlace, because that is a salient

characteristic of the Lindisfarne Gospels (LFG) which, like all texts, provide an intersection

between their producers and audiences. The approach is to survey cultural factors informing the

context and provenance of the manuscript and then to consider how such concerns interlace

within it. Michael Clanchy, however, made an important point about our position, as we try to

understand Anglo-Saxon England:

Everything to do with writing in medieval Christendom had a potential

transcendent significance, and this creates difficulties for the modern historian

asking utilitarian questions and looking for representation of actual daily life in

medieval images.399

Although anachronism darkens the view, Christians today study the same Bible, and we retain

insight into the traditions by which it presents the relationship between mankind and God. This

section therefore turns on the role of Christianity in post-Roman Northumbria, where codices

like LFG were made, used, and glossed into English; and it explores the intellectual dynamics

between the theology and literacy of the Christian producers of the Codex and the interests of

Anglo-Saxons, who transmitted their culture by oral and visual means. The discussion

accomplishes this first by general consideration of provenance, context, and codicology of the

manuscript, and then by closer analysis of the illuminated Latin script, the interlace, and the

English gloss. As the latter elements are typically present in the Generationis Page of St.

Matthew’s Gospel,400 analysis of this page sharpens the focus of the study.401

The first objective in contextualizing the manuscript and the events leading to its

399 Clanchy, Michael. From Memory to Written Record: England 1066-1307. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell,

1993; 118.

400 “The Lindisfarne Gospels.” London BL., Cotton Nero D. IV. F27 (cat 9). Lindisfarne Gospels, The. The

British Library, London. 05 Dec. 2009. <http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/lindisfarne.html ad link> Also

the facsimile edition: Evangeliorum Quattuor Lisfarnensis. Eds. Thomas D. Kendrick et al. Oltun et Lausanna:

Helvetiae, MCMLX, 27r.

401 cf also Backhouse, Janet, ed. The Lindisfarne Gospels. London: Phaidon, 1981; 43.

81

production is to establish date and provenance; and in fact both are approximations. Although

tradition dates the manuscript to AD 698, Michelle Brown argues that it was probably produced

ca. 710-25.402 Of the possible origins of LFG, one is Ireland; three, however, are in Great Britain:

Iona, Monkwearmouth-Jarrow, and Lindisfarne. Scholarly opinion therefore favors sites which

are near the Scottish Marches and Northumbria. Brown concedes that Lindisfarne, the

traditionally accepted provenance, is most likely.403

History shows that influences on the area continued to be cosmopolitan in range even

after the Roman occupation, and that the Anglo-Saxons at Lindisfarne and Bamburgh had links

to Canterbury as well as to Ireland, Scotland, Gaul, and Rome. The society included both pagans

and Christians, often from mutually hostile tribes: Pictish, Irish, and British Celts; and the

Anglo-Saxons contended for survival against them and each other. Some of their warrior and

scholar kings, however, acted to unite the tribes under Christianity: that is, they practiced

cultural interlace.

Chapter 3 evidenced pre-Anglian Christianity at Vindolanda and also at Whithorn, in

Scotland, where Ninian had founded the Candida Casa ca.401 AD; and by the time Bede wrote,

Whithorn was a province of Bernicia. After the Romans left, the Irish had colonized the Solway

Plain, north of Dumbarton, ca.500 AD; the area was named Dalriada after them. Further north,

ca.565 AD, an Irish Prince, Columba (521-597) converted the northern Picts and founded a

monastery on the Island of Iona.404 Furthermore, Brown adduces onomastics to suggest that, to

the east, Eccles (near Coldstream) “lying inland from Bamburgh on the middle Tweed, may

signify an earlier Christian presence in the vicinity of Holy Island itself.”405 To the south, in

central Northumberland, Roman troops at York had proclaimed Constantine Emperor in AD 306,

significance lying in his introduction of religious tolerance through the Edict of Milan in AD

313; he discouraged the persecution of Christians pursued by Diocletian (284-305).406 Bede

records the disruptive effects of Arian and Pelagian heresies on sub-Roman Britain ca. AD 324

and 394 respectively), and he notes also the backsliding of Christians after the Roman exodus.407

402 Brown, Michelle P. The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality, and the Scribe. London: British Library,

2003; 7, 84.

403 Brown 8; 396.

404 Bede 47: I.1; Aberg 9, f/n 13 cites Kenney, J. F. The Sources for the Early History of Ireland. NY:

Columbia UP, 1929; 423. Farmer believes Columba was not so influential; and, “According to Adomnan (Abbot of Iona

679-704) there were some Anglo-Saxon monks at Iona in Columba’s day before 597,” (EHEP, f/n P148, page 368. cf

“Columba.” Oxford Dictionary of Saints. Ed. D. H. Farmer. Oxford: OUP, 1987.)

405 Brown 17.

406 Bede 54/5: I.8. Cook, William R. and Ronald B. Herzman. The Medieval World View: An Introduction

(C&H). 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004; 54, 91.

407 Bede 54-5, I.8; 56, I.10; and 61-2, I.14. “Sylvester I” [314-35] ODP 28: The Nicene Creed pronounced “the

Son ‘one in being’ with the Father” in rejection of “the teaching of Arius that he was a creature, inferior to the

Father.” “Innocent I” ODP 37 discusses Pelagius. cf “Pelagius ca. 354-419." The Oxford Companion to English

82

Some scholars, too, argue that paganism continued among the British, 408 and we do not know

whether Christianity continued at Lindisfarne; however, Chapter 3 of this study mentions that

Germanic federates could have retained Bamburgh as a stronghold or signal station, and they

were probably pagans.409 The earliest Northumbrian king Bede mentions, however, is Ida (AD

547-559);410 and the later Anglo-Saxon settlers brought an influx of paganism.

Literacy in runes, too, may have arrived with the Anglo-Saxon settlers: Chapter 3

mentioned that the earliest runic inscription in England is probably fifth century and Danish.

Runes had certainly reached Lindisfarne by 698, when monks carved them into the coffin of St.

Cuthbert, to identify the figures of Christ, Matthew, Mark, and John; Roman characters flagging

St. Luke and other figures.411 The interlacing of scripts that began at Canterbury to allow

transcription of English phonology had, then, already reached Northumbria, and it would appear

also in LFG. Such blending of Christian and pagan literacies in a sacred book reflects the

approach to conversion that Gregory the Great sanctioned in 597, when he approved the

adaptation of pagan shrines into Christian churches.412

The re-conversion of Northumbria began when Paulinus, who had been sent to Britain by

Pope Gregory, became the first Bishop of York (AD 625-633). He brought with him from

Canterbury the daughter of Ethelbert of Kent, as bride for Edwin (ca. 616-32), thus uniting the

interests of two Anglo-Saxon tribes. Brown indicates that Gregory wanted “a second

metropolitan see” at York;413 and Edwin was baptized in 627, Paulinus proceeding then to

evangelize the kingdom until Edwin was killed in 633.414 Rollason notes that, after Edwin died,

“His two successors, Osric who ruled Deira, and Æthelfrith’s son Eanfrith who returned from

exile in the north to rule Bernicia, reverted to paganism.”415 The next son of Æthelfrith to reign

was Oswald (ca. AD 633-642), however; and he and his half-brother Oswiu (ca. 642-670)

Literature. Ed. Margaret Drabble. 6th ed. Oxford: OUP 2000.[OCEL]: states that Pelagius was a British monk called

Morgan, who “denied the doctrine of original sin,” believing that mankind chooses goodness out of free will,

without grace.

408 Rollason 117 n.14 cites: Blair, John. “Anglo-Saxon Shrines and their Prototypes.” Anglo-Saxon Studies in

Archaeology and History 8 (1995): 1-28; Ross, Anne. Pagan Celtic Britain: Studies in Iconography and Tradition.

London: Routledge, 1967; Thomas, Charles. Christianity in Roman Britain to AD 500. London: Batsford, 1981.

409 Rollason 66; 75.

410 Bede 326, V.24.

411 Page, R. I. Reading the Past. London: Trustees of the British Museum. 1987; 9, 42.

412 Bede 92: I.30.

413 Brown 78, n. 11.

414 Rollason 118. Bede 131, II.14.

415 Rollason 119. See attached Genealogy from Farmer 380 (EHEP).

83

became Christian while exiled and growing up in Iona. They therefore restored the status of

Christianity and, in 635, Oswald extended the Irish-Celtic element to the east coast by bringing

Aidan and his disciples from Iona to establish a monastery at Lindisfarne.416 The king thus

began to stabilize a Christian matrix, uniting the cultures in his kingdom under one religion.

Later, and further south, a disciple of Aidan, Chad, would seat his Bishopric at Lichfield from

AD 669-672.417 Thomas Cahill views such expansion as part of a “spiritual invasion” by the

Irish, observing: “Nor was Lindisfarne the only launching pad for the Irish monks: they were on

good terms with the British Celts and began to set up bases in the western territories as well.”418

The hegemony of Anglo-Saxon Christians ensured that more strands of cosmopolitan

culture interlaced on the coast near Bamburgh, from which Lindisfarne is visible. It was during

the reign of Egfrith (r.670-85, son of Oswiu), that Benedict Biscop (AD ?628-89) established

two more Christian foundations nearby: at Monkwearmouth (AD 674) and Jarrow (AD 681). He

had, however, begun amassing libraries as early as AD 665. Brown notes:

So Benedict collected books from Italy, where he may also have acquired

Byzantine tomes, from Gaul and presumably also from southern England, bearing

in mind that he served for a time as abbot of St. Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury

where the school of Theodore and Hadrian flourished.

After Benedict died, Abbott Ceolfrith continued to build the libraries in the area.419

Strands of insular culture still contributed to the fabric of Northumbria. Charles-Edwards

suggests that the defeat and death of Egfrith at Nechtanesmere (AD 685) set the stage for a

Pictish-Irish comeback; and certainly King Nechtan’s correspondence with Abbot Ceolfrid, ca.

AD 710, reflects subsequently happier relations between Picts and Northumbrians.420 Although

the Synod of Whitby (AD 664) ensured the dominance of Roman rather than Celtic orthodoxy,

Irish influence persisted in Northumbria, and doubtless supplemented interest in the libraries.

Janet Backhouse points out that Aldfrith (ca. 685-705), had returned from exile in Ireland to

succeed Egfrith: and Aldfrith spoke Irish; remained friendly with his teachers and Adamnan of

Iona; and encouraged Latin scholarship.421

Precedents from these influences could have prompted the production of a codex such as

416 Bede 140-147, III.1-3.

417 “Chad Gospels, The.” Lichfield Cathedral: Lichfield Cathedral Inspires, Cathedral Treasures. 2005-2009.

Arka Design. 05 Dec. 2009. <http://lichfield-cathedral.org/inspires/cathedral-treasures/the-chad-gospels> . See also

“History.” The cathedral is home to the St Chad Gospels, a manuscript similar to LFG; the website provides a

description. cf. Bede IV.3 (206-211); and III.29 (197).

418 Cahill 200.

419 Brown 22; 57.

420 Charles-Edwards 40-45; Bede 308-321, V.21.

421 Backhouse 63.

84

LFG. Among the possible sources for intertextuality, Brown and Backhouse cite:

1) Codex Usserianus Primus (Dublin, Trinity College Library MS 55; late 6th or

early 7th century).422

2) Cathach of St. Columba (Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, MS s.n; 6th or early 7th

century).

3) Book of Durrow (Dublin, Trinity College Library MS 57; post 660s A.D.).423

In addition, other Gospel Books were being produced in the insular context, two of which

Brown attributes to Irish or Columban inspiration:

1) Durham Gospels [DG] (Durham Cathedral Library, MS A,II,17; approx.

contemporary with LFG).424 Backhouse identified this as “the first such work

from an English centre to display interlace patterns and to be executed in several

colours.” [Yellow, orange, green and blue.]425

2) Echternach Gospels (Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, MS lat, 9389); which are

contemporary with DG, but could have been produced in Frisia.426 In addition,

possible influences from European Codices include:427

1) Codex Grandior - Possibly by Cassiodorus. (Illustrated). 6th century.4282.

2) Novem Codices - Possibly by Cassiodorus. (‘Old Latin’). 6th century.

3) The Septuagint - Vulgate, by St. Jerome transmitted via Cassiodorus and

Hadrian. Italian Gospelbook with Neapolitan Pericopes.429

While Brown considers the Septuagint to be the main exemplar for LFG,430 she believes

that Monkwearmouth and Jarrow subsequently produced other books, including the Codex

Amiatinus. Like LFG, these codices adapted outside sources; however, Brown indicates that they

were all based on the Vulgate of Jerome, and she argues that he and Pope Damasus (r.366-384)

promoted translation of the Gospels into vernacular languages. She says:

The prefaces to the Gospels known as the Monarchian prologues (that

422 Brown 230; item 2 also..

423 Backhouse 36.

424 Backhouse, Janet. The Lindisfarne Gospels. London: Phaidon, 1981; 36, It. 5.

425 Backhouse 111.

426 Brown 55; 30.

427 Brown 63.

428 Brown 155: Cassiodorus ca. 485-580; a Roman Senator who founded the Vivarium on his own estate.

Ceolfrith probably brought a copy of Codex Grandior (not extant) to Wearmouth-Jarrow; the Gospels are believed

to have been Vulgate, other NT in Old Latin.

429 Brown 34. 79 n 41; Cites Bischoff B. and M. Lapidge. Biblical Commentaries from the Canterbury School

of Theodore and Hadrian. Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England, 10. Cambridge: CUP, 1994; 133 n. 1;

158-60.

430 Brown 55, 63, 158.

85

summarized conventional wisdom concerning the authorship of the four Gospels),

which are embedded in the arguments preceding each of the Gospels in

Lindisfarne, reinforced the idea of committing oral tradition to writing, stating as

they do the authority from whom each evangelist heard their Gospel.431

The Prologues, then, seem to indicate a precedent for Hadrian and Theodore, who had

encouraged writing and preaching in the vernacular.432 However, the vernacular gloss to LFG

was added only in the tenth century; and the scribe of LFG, therefore, seems to have needed to

find other ways to appeal to his contemporary audience.

It is axiomatic that the Bible is essential to the preaching of Christianity, and missionaries

may have seen that it held relevance for a Northumbrian audience. Patrick Wormald suggests

that use of the Book “gave Anglo-Saxons a warrant for a sincere change in their faith without a

revolution in their society,” because the Old Testament “was the story of another tribal people

with a special relationship to the God of Battles.”433 Although Gospel books contain the New

Testament, this discussion will show that LFG interlaces with the Old Testament; and

missionaries in Great Britain certainly addressed warriors who expressed themselves orally, and

in military and visual arts–like metalwork–rather than Latin literacy. Patterns of interlace could

interest such an audience. Further still, the members of Northumbrian audiences spoke a variety

of languages and engaged in other occupations such as sheep and cattle farming, and in the

domestic weaving industry.434 They thus could provide skills, as well as parchment and other

materials, for constructing the manuscript.

Neil Ker describes LFG as containing 258 folios of 340 x 250 mm, and as having the

general layout:

Written space 235 x 190 mm. Two cols. Of 24 lines. Quires of 8 leaves. Hair

normally outside all sheets. Pricks to guide ruling on the outer pair of bounding

lines in each margin. Ruling often on both sides of the leaf. Latin text written

between a pair of ruled lines. Binding of A.D. 1853, set with silver and polished

stones. MS. in Anglo-Saxon majuscule of s. viii in., described by Lowe 1935,

no.187. OE gloss of s.x.435

On the lacing together of the quires, Brown observes:

The Lindisfarne Gospels is now sewn upon five cords, and the sewing holes

431 Brown 156-159.

432 Ch. 4 pg. 46ff. cf. Wormald 8 (W&B).

433 Wormald, Patrick. “Anglo-Saxon Society and its Literature.” The Cambridge Companion to Old English

Literature. Eds. Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. 1-22 (6-7).

434 Rogers 129 (CHWT).

435 Ker, N. R. Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon. Oxford: Clarendon, 1957; 216. [The size

translates as: 13.386" x 9.843"]

86

would tend to suggest that this is likely to have been the original arrangement:

sewing on supports with five sewing stations (the points at which the sewing

needle penetrated the gutter of the quire to allow it to loop round the cord), kettle

stitches (the long stitches which took the needle from the upper and lower sewing

stations to the endbands) and endbands (or headbands, additional cords at head

and foot which were oversewn to consolidate the spine and prevent insect

penetration). There are some small additional adjacent holes which suggest that

the placing of the sewing stations was initially laid out with dividers.

Brown believes that ‘Coptic’ sewing technique was never used on the manuscript.436 The sewing

of the quires shows that the producers used their own needlecraft and did not rely on outsiders

for learning the skill. This, along with the prickings, parchment arrangement of “hair side out,”

and script, all confirm the insular origin of the manuscript. The large size and number of pages

both suggest contents of sufficient significance to the producers to justify the slaughter of a large

number of calves for reasons other than food and clothing; and the intensive work, time, and care

involved in production of the codex supports that observation. The existence of Anglo-Saxon

majuscule informs us of sufficient insular literacy for its development; however, the origin of the

script is Roman, like the Latin of the text; and the Anglo-Saxon adaptation indicates a tendency,

noticeable throughout this discussion, for insular culture to incorporate external systems for its

own purposes. The survival of LFG, through Viking invasions, the Norman Conquest, and the

Dissolution of the Monasteries, bespeaks a tradition of valuing the manuscript, a suggestion

confirmed by the richness of its nineteenth century rebinding.

The contents of the Codex, as described by Janet Backhouse, include a variety of styles:

A Cross Carpet Page; Saint Jerome’s Letter to Pope Damasus; Saint Jerome’s Commentary on

Matthew; an Explanatory Letter of Eusebius to Carpianus, and sixteen consecutive pages of

decorated Eusebian canon tables. Preceding each Gospel is: an Introduction, a list of liturgical

readings, and another of festivals appropriate to passages from the Gospel; a Miniature of the

Evangelist; a Cross Carpet Page; and an Incipit or Initial Page, of which St. Matthew’s Gospel

has two. The second, the Chi-Rho Page, announces the birth of Christ.437

The tenth century Northumbrian glossator translated the Latin text into the literary

vernacular of a later insular audience. This suggests that a sufficiently large or powerful

audience required translation into English, and not in a Scandinavian language, Irish, Welsh, or

Pictish. As Chapter 4 showed, Lapidge has determined that glosses were used as references for

students and translators in monastery schools. Demand for glosses to this manuscript may,

436 Brown 205-6.

437 Backhouse 17, 33.

87

therefore, have increased if the monastic community grew during the tenth-century Benedictine

reforms. Brown has suggested, also, that “promotion of Old English” in the area may have

participated in resistance against Viking expansion during the reign of Eric Bloodaxe (d. 954);

and it is possible that the glosses could also indicate support for the kingdom of Wessex and its

“agenda of translation as an essential adjunct to unification and national spiritual wellbeing.”

Such support could have been politically expedient in view of the vulnerability of the monks of

St. Cuthbert, near the Scottish border. Barbara Crawford notes that, by 1000 AD, the Irish had

crossed from Dalriada to incorporate central and eastern Scotland: “into Pictland and up the

Great Glen into Moray and Ross.” While this had the advantage of a strengthening resistance to

Vikings, she continues:

They had subsumed the Pictish kingdom and engineered–unwittingly or

deliberately–the collapse and disappearance of Pictish language and culture,

although the joint kingdom of the Picts and Scots was probably based on remnant

Pictish institutions.

The area, which would eventually be recognized as “the medieval kingdom of the Scots,” was

described as Alba “ca. 900.”438 It is in this context then, that Brown mentions: “Bishop Aelfsige

and Aldred accompanying Kenneth, King of Alba, to Wessex, perhaps as diplomatic mediators

and presumably with the intention of safeguarding the community of St. Cuthbert’s interests in

negotiations concerning the English/Scottish frontier zone.”439

The tenth century Colophon (f. 259r), names the producers of the book. Brown

translates, conceding that the attributions might be accurate:440

Eadfrith, Bishop of the Lindisfarne church, originally wrote this book, for God

and for St. Cuthbert and – jointly – for all the saints whose relics are in the island.

And Æthelwald, Bishop of the Lindisfarne islanders, impressed it on the outside

and covered it– as he well knew how to do. And Billfrith, the anchorite, forged

the ornaments which are on it on the outside and adorned it with gold and with

gems and also with gilded-over silver– pure metal. And (I) Aldred, unworthy and

most miserable priest, [He] glossed it in English between the lines with the help

of God and St. Cuthbert [...].441

Brown suggests, though, that Billfrith might have applied his skill, in the Coptic

438 Crawford. “The Vikings.” (After Rome) 41-71 (44).

439 Brown 85: mentions that the community was very small until the reforms; 98: refers to the political

situation. cf Ch.4 on Lapidge.

440 Brown 114, 208.

441 Brown 103-4.

88

tradition, to a case for the manuscript rather than to a binding.442 Either way, the value of the

metal and jewels described manifests the reverence in which the clerics held their legacy of the

Word of God; and it invites comparison with the armor within which the Anglo-Saxon warrior

enclosed his breast and heart. The chest was also where the scop locked the wordhord (or

breosthord) for his tribe; and we have seen that Druids had also prized a tradition of esoteric

learning for the Celts. The Levites, though, had kept the Law of Moses in the Ark of the

Covenant, as St. Paul reminded the Hebrews:

And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of all; (4.)

Which had the golden censer and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about

with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron’s rod that

budded, and the tables of the covenant; (Epistle to the Hebrews 9. 3-4).

In all these examples, words, wisdom, and history, were viewed as community treasures, and

along with Judaeo-Christian theology they became intellectual meeting points for the audiences

of LFG–whether their cultures were oral or literate.

The foregoing remarks about LFG offer suggestions as to its cultural appeal and

interlacement with Christian theology: and analysis of the St. Matthew Generationis page of the

Codex (f. 27) further supports the argument. Wormald comments that genealogies interested

English Christian society because it was aristocratic; Rollason indicates, though, that the houses

of Deira and Bernicia were among the Anglo-Saxon nobility who traced their origins to the

pagan god, Woden.443 John Niles has shown that Christians recognized such characters early,

without crediting divinity to them: “Instead, they euhemerized them: they identified them as real

human beings, and thus they yoked them into history and into the Christian worldview.”444 At

this intersection with paganism, Christian art presented the Germanic tribes with another

perspective; as Jane Hawkes has explained: “The significance of the genealogy of Christ thus

highlighted in the manuscripts was the demonstration it was perceived to offer of Christ’s human

and divine descent.”445 While St. Matthew traced Christ to Abraham, the Book of Genesis traces

all human descent beyond that, through Noah to Adam;446 and Niles mentions that by the ninth

century the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle extended West-Saxon lineage through Woden to Noah,

thereby relating the nobility to Christ–as well as integrating them into the Christian family.447

442 Brown 208.

443 Wormald 7. Rollason 114: on genealogies and Woden.

444 Niles, John. “”Pagan Survivals and Popular Beliefs.” The Cambridge Companion to Old English

Literature. Eds. Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1991; 126-141

(135).

445 Hawkes 120.

446 Matt. 2; Genesis chapters 4 through 11.

447 Niles 135.

89

Since LFG was a monastic book, some of the audience would understand the Latin text,

and the symbolism of the design would also resonate for them because it enhances the theology

of the words. Although the lettering seems at first more decorative than decipherable, the

richness of the illumination parallels the significance of the binding: as a physical manifestation

of spiritual value. To achieve this, the artist used the Columban technique of diminuendo, added

gilding, and further adapted the handicraft techniques by applying Hiberno-Saxon interlace: an

abstract patterning that decorates: I) the shapes of the Great Letters (LIb); ii) the background

frame of the plain e and r of Row One; iii) the outer frame of the design; and also, iv) forms

horizontal bands in which are set Rows Two and Three of the text.

The script of St. Matthew f. 27 begins above the framed text. There, a cross that is also a

chi-rho symbol is followed by Ihs, and Χρs (Christ. Jesus Christ). Latin text in half-uncial

characters introduces the Gospel writer, Mattheus homo, thus stressing the symbol of St.

Matthew: “the man.” Brown indicates that St. Ambrose had suggested the symbol could be a

reminder of Christ Incarnate.448 The facsimile of the Codex explains that here, as at the

beginning of each Gospel, the top line was originally in powdered gold. Gold leaf appears

elsewhere on the page: in the tail of the I, six circular patches are gilded, as are two triangular

patches at the tops of L and b;449 and although the gilding is incomplete, it indicates the precious

quality of the text. As Wormald observes, decoration of this kind “reproduces the motifs hitherto

used by smiths to adorn the weapons and jewellery of a warrior elite.”450 Such ornament also

parallels that of textiles and embroidery (especially opus anglicanum), where gold threads were

woven into textiles produced for monastic and aristocratic markets.451

The introduction continues at top right, within the frame that surrounds the main text,

where rubricated script in two rows reads: incipit evangelii/genelogia mathei (The genealogy of

the gospel of Matthew begins). The decorated script of the page reads: LIBER

GENERATI/ONIS IH(es)U/ XRI (CHRISTI) FILII DAVID FILII ABRAHAM (The book of the

generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Matt: 1.1).452

The text proceeds from the left with three interlaced great letters: LIB, which continue

into the first line as the word LIber; the I stretching within the left side frame for the full length

448 Brown 346.

449 Codex Lindisfarnensis 271. O’Reilly 161 (AA): Attributes the first evidence of diminuendo to the Cathach

of Columba (early 7th or late 6th century).

450 Wormald 2-4.

451 Rogers 129 (CHWT).

452 Matt. 1.1; The Holy Bible: Translated from the Latin Vulgate, Diligently compared with the Hebrew, Greek,

and Other Editions in Divers Languages. The Old Testament: First Published by the English College at Douay, A.D.

1609; and The New Testament: First Published by the English College at Rheims, A.D. 1582. Revised by Bishop

Richard Challoner, A.D. 17491752. London: Baronius Press, 2003.

90

of the page. The verse then continues in Insular Majuscule, the undecorated letters ER being

outlined in black and set into a band of interlace that extends between the bowl of the b and the

right frame. This interlace, woven between horizontal edgings of red dots, is zoomorphic,

ribbon-like, and splashed with patches of red, green, brown, and yellow. Thereafter, under ber,

are three lines of black-filled lettering:

Row 2 GENERATI

––––3 ONISIhU

——4 XRIFILIIDAVIdΦLIIAbRahAM The artist applied diminuendo from top to bottom of the page, although the first e and the

t of GENERATIONIS are smaller than the other letters in Row 2, and are not disciplined by

sequence, uniformity, or ruled guidelines. That is: e is enclosed in G; T hangs suspended–like a

Greek Tau cross–between A and I; furthermore, O is rhomboid in shape; S forms two triangles;

and h has a hooked upper seriph, which Brown attributes to Greek epigraphy, and of which

(elsewhere, on a b) another critic has said: “That loop is typical of a Christological monogram of

the chi-rho, which simultaneously acts as both the sign of the Cross and the abbreviated name of

Christ, and is frequently alluded to on early Christian monuments.”453 Here, the seriph echoes

that on the cross at the beginning of the page, as well as that on the chi-rho symbol of Row 4.

Abbreviation also diminishes words–the IhU of Row 3 shortens “Ihesu,” as XRI in Row 4

does “Christi.” In Row 4, “Jesus” is again abbreviated as IHU; while the second “son” appears

as ΦLII [Greek phi + LII = filii]. The Anglo-Saxon “ger” rune for “j,” replicates Φ; and perhaps

the audience might have recognized this as meaning “the fruitful time of the year’ or

“harvest.”454 Those accustomed to weaving words in Roman script would notice that in both

instances of filii the IIs sit above one another to the right of the Ls and almost transform them

into Us; but the serifs from the As of “David” and “Abraham” extend to prevent this. In

“David” the A is contained above V and within the D, for the letters are not uniform or

consecutive; and the final round-backed d is of insular minuscule–which had developed in

Ireland. In short, the script is multicultural.

The diminuendo on this page also provides a perspective on time: the smallest name,

“Abraham” (Row 4), is the most historically distant. The letters of the name divide into two

rows, AbRa sitting above hAm; the left foot of each A touching the preceding letter. The foot of

453 Krasnodebska-D'Aughton, Malgorzata. "Decoration of the In Principio Initials in Early Insular

Manuscripts: Christ as a Visible Image of the Invisible God." Word & Image 18 (2002): 105-22 (106).

454 Page, R. I. An Introduction to English Runes. 2nd ed.. Rochester, N.Y: Boydell and Brewer, 1999. 40. April

15, 2010. <http://www.netlibrary.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/Details.aspx>. Page notes this rune as a variation for the ‘j’

rune [ge(a)r or jera] “which appears rarely in inscriptions but is the common form in Old English manuscript

accounts of runes.” Page elsewhere provides the name “year, fruitful part of the year” for the rune (Runes 15),

which seems to indicate ‘harvest.’ cf also footnote 419, in this chapter, on the ancient agricultural imagery of the

regenerative cycle of seeds and plants.

91

the bottom A stretches into the space of the preceding h, while its top serif curves

to echo the arch of the h; and the ‘lower case’ a of AbRa remains attached to the break in the

frame. The letters, then, link: to each other and the frame.

In Rows 2 and 3, the black letters seem cushioned; they almost float between lines of

Celtic spirals that interconnect to suggest waves. Like the letters, the spirals are set against bands

of interlace– most like lace– where red dots delineate a lattice pattern, each lozenge of which

contains central dots (three–a trinity; or one); and the lozenges are often set in a chain pattern we

will see replicated on the Sandbach crosses.

Red dots, which signify many things, also outline the letters; in this case they may

indicate Mediterranean influence on the design. Nils Aberg believed dot-contouring to have

originated in the “East,” though he did find it in decorated initials on the Dioscourides

alphabetical plant list. There, some similarity extends to LFG as letters in the text have “dotted

animal motifs at the bases, in one case a cuttle-fish, in the other a dolphin.”455 Dots in the insular

context also relate to patterns on metalwork; once again, though, I would point out the

relationship to embroidery where, on the underside, a pattern appears in dotted outline.

Needle-workers in the audience of LFG would know that, from the ‘wrong’ side, only the tracery

of a finished design is visible. Such viewers might therefore infer that neither a congregation nor

a scribe can perceive or re-present the complete plan of God; indeed, it is presumptuous to

believe one can–and I offer this as one possible explanation for the incomplete sections and

‘disorderly’ letters that occur throughout LFG. A rebuke from God supports the suggestion and

once more links the Gospel with the Old Testament:

1 Then the Lord answered Job out of a whirlwind and said:

2 "Who is this that wrappeth up sentences in unskilful words? [...]

4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?

Tell me if thou hast understanding.” (Job 38.1, 2, 4)

From the viewpoints of warriors or embroidresses, in addition, red dots on skin must signify

blood: a comparison that connotes both the wounds of Christ and the Eucharistic imagery of His

Body and Blood.

The symbolism of lozenges or rhomboids is important here too, and it applies to interlace

throughout this dissertation; Jane Hawkes explains:

As the cross fills and divides the field into four quadrants, symbolizing the

breadth and length and depth and height of the Love of Christ (Eph. 3:18) so too

does the rhombus that fills and quarters the field of decoration. The nature of this

geometric shape, however, is such that its mathematically symmetrical

455 Aberg I. 92, 81.

92

appearance (that potentially incorporates the cross in the intersecting lines joining

its angles) has the capacity to signify the cosmic dimension of the divine order

and authority informing the fourfold harmony of the universe.”456

This explication also highlights the significance of the cross in interlace for, as noted in

Chapter 2, the Christian emblem, and therefore its connotations, underlies the production of all

interlace. On this Incipit page, the majuscule lettering–some in rhomboid shapes, as we have

seen–forms decorative insets against the background of laced rhomboids. Plain, jewel-like

coloring (red, yellow, and green) in-fills some of the shapes, so suggesting enamel on

metalwork, appliques in embroidery, or the colored glass that Benedict Biscop had used for the

stone church at Monkwearmouth- Jarrow.457 As in the E and R of Row 1, the seriphs of G and S

end in the plumed heads or beaks of birds, which thus emerge from words into interlace. The

whole suggests the power of the Word to create and to form flesh.

In all the Incipit pages of LFG, the text breaks the interlaced frame at the bottom right,

and again at top left; in all but the incipit page of Luke, the initial capitals also break the frame at

the bottom left. On Matthew f. 27, the stylized, zoomorphic heads of the letters ‘LIb’ irrupt at top

left, and the sword-point of I breaks the interlace at bottom left; the heads of lesser zoomorphs

(crowned with stylized horns) branch from the broken frame with expressions that readers must

interpret for themselves. However, Eamonn O Carragain indicates that images of Christ and the

Beasts, on the Ruthwell and Bewcastle crosses, might suggest that all lesser kings must

ultimately give way to Christ.458 The frame of the Matthew Incipit f. 27, in LFG, could well

reflect this notion, whether the interlaced word ‘Liber’ symbolizes the irruption of Christ

Incarnate into, or from, the world, or both: Christians maintain that those events changed the

world by liberating mankind from Original Sin. The smaller heads give way to the word

L-I-b-E-R, which suggests a triple pun: as the Latin can mean “book,” or “free,” or also “wood”

in the sense of “the inner bark of a tree.” Such wood was used at Vindolanda for writing tablets,

and is therefore related to words. In the context of the Gospels, wood formed the Cross of Christ:

it signifies Christ, whom St. John identifies as the Word.459

Brown links the idea of ‘freedom’ to imagery in the Matthew portrait page (f. 25b) and to

the unity of the Old and New Testaments by recalling Matthew 5.17, in which Christ asserts that

He came to fulfil the Law of Moses; as Brown says: “Belief in Christ entails keeping the Law:

456 Hawkes, Jane. The Sandbach Crosses: Sign and Significance in Anglo-Saxon Sculpture. Bodmin: Four

Courts Press, 2002. 99.

457 O’Reilly 145-6 [AA].

458 O Carragain, Eamonn. Ritual and the Rood. Toronto: The British Library and University of Toronto Press,

2005; 294.

459 John 1.1-5. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

93

the Ark contains that hidden wisdom and the Gospels reveal it.”460 I extend this interpretation to

suggest that the word “LIbER” reflects those same themes and further illustrates the freedom

Brown cites from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews:

We have then complete freedom to go into the Most Holy Place by means of the

death of Jesus. He opened for us a new way, a living way, through the

curtain–that is, through his own body. We have a great high priest in charge of

the house of God. So let us come near to God with a sincere heart and a sure

faith, with hearts that have been purified from a guilty conscience and with bodies

washed with clean water.”461 (Hebrews 10. 12-22)

The many crosses incorporated in the design of Lib participate in multivalent imagery.

Viewers could not miss that the formation of the L and I might allude to a sword, a weaving

sword, or a cross: perceptions would depend on the observers who, whether or not they were

monastics, might have also have been warriors, weavers, farmers, scribes or other clerics, all of

whom were united in the presence of this Christian Book. On closer contemplation they would

see, where L and I intersect, a cross-shaped panel containing four interlaced birds–who might be

the evangelists; and, at the junction of L and b, they would see interlace that forms a blue cross–

with a red center. As Christian audiences contemplate LIb, linked as a Trinity, they cannot fail to

remember that the Incarnation and Passion of Christ offer salvation to humankind, and to

recognize their duty in nurturing and propagating His Word, which bursts from the page before

them. This interpretation suggests that the imagery of the Matthew Incipit parallels that of the

Matthew miniature (f.25b) as Brown perceived it, in that: “Both Scripture and hagiography

thereby urge the living out of the message, to instruct the faithful, by imitation, to make of

themselves God’s sanctuary.”462

In size, sequence, and sense, the last (Christ) in this genealogy becomes First, and the

first (Abraham) last; the emblem of death generates Life; and the Word, represented by many

crosses, interlaces into flesh, not least because the words are part of the flesh that is vellum. The

iconography thus illustrates the dynamic that, when the Word (here the crossed L and I) leaves a

gospel page as verbal utterance, it re-incarnates itself in the congregation. The seed is sown, and

the generative cycle continues even as it is harvested–an impression supported by the Φ rune.

When the Word leaves LFG, it also reaches into the observer through the eyes staring

from great letters like those in the syllable Lib–which consists of stylized, Germanic zoomorphs.

On closer examination, the circles remind us of Celtic motifs: peltas which contain triskeles or

460 Brown 360.

461 Brown 362.

462 Brown 361.

94

trumpets. Viewers might also recognize Christian applications of these as, respectively, shields

(of faith), symbols (of Life), or harbingers (of Doomsday).463 Furthermore, the circles give the

impression of whirling or flashing light, and in this way may refer to the evangelists, as Ezekiel

foresaw those propagators of the Word: “and the appearance of the wheels was to the sight like

the chrysolite stone:” (10.9); “And as to their appearance, all four were alike: as if a wheel were

in the midst of a wheel” (10.10). “And their whole body, and their necks, and their hands, and

their wings, and the circles were full of eyes, round about the four wheels” (10.12). The symbols

are then differentiated from the wheels:

14 And every one had four faces: the first face was the face of a cherub, and the

second face was the face of a man, and the third the face of a lion, and the fourth

the face of an eagle.

15 And the cherubims were lifted up: This is the living creature that I had seen by

the river Chobar.464

As Jennifer O’Reilly points out, St. Jerome links the Old and New Testaments in the Plures

Fuisse, the preface to the Gospel of St. Matthew: for he connects the Ezekiel vision to that of St.

John (Rev. 4.7-8), where the creatures appear as a lion, a calf, a man and an eagle; and Jerome

relates the figures to the evangelists.465 The apposite image appears with each evangelist

portrait in LFG, thus referencing the Old Testament and its representation of the evangelists as a

unit (ff. 25b; 93b, 137b, 209b).

The great initials in the St. Matthew incipit are like three living creatures in one: from

this viewpoint the interlacement provides figural representation of the Trinity. Within or from

this, faces are discernible at the heads (and feet), just as they are in some of the vegetal Celtic

interlace described in Chapter 2.466 Brown, as well, relates zoomorphic interlace in LFG to

Germanic Salin II style, and illustrates her comparison with the seventh century Faversham

buckle.467 However, the faces also resemble those on ancient Chinese bronzes, especially the

zoomorphic masks that adorn artefacts ranging from harness tackle to ritual vessels.468 I argue

463 Brown 381, informs us that the swastika was an ancient symbol of life found in Egyptian and Roman art: it

is the design underlying the Celtic triskele. St.Paul to the Ephesians: 6:13-17 describes the armor of Christians; and

Matt. 24.31 tells us, for the Second Coming: “And he shall send his angels with a trumpet [...]”

464 Douay-Rheims; Ezekiel 10: 14-15. Ezekiel 1 records the same vision, but as the faces of man, ox, lion, and

eagle (1.10).

465 O’Reilly 170 (AA).

466 Chapter 2, page 17.

467 Brown 333-4. Fig. 145.

468 Rawson Jessica. Chinese Bronzes: Art and Ritual. London: British Museum Publications, 1987. See Figures

5.4 and 5.5 for examples of such masks. On the use of ritual masks in ancient Chinese culture, cf also Yang, Liu, and

Edmund Capon. Masks of Mystery: Ancient Chinese Bronzes from Sanxingoui. Sydney: Art Gallery of New South

Wales, 2000; 37-38. Yang indicates that probably Chinese “masks represent the spirits of dead forebears,” (38). “In a

ritual ceremony, to put on a mask representing a mythological figure or spiritual force is to become that figure or

95

the merit of this perception given the combination of the contemporary trade in Chinese silks,

and the Byzantine influence on Anglo-Saxon scholarship, through Hadrian and Theodore; and

also considering how the Byzantines had incorporated other pagan designs (Sasanian) into

Christian schemata, as described in Chapter 2.469 In LFG the heads, crowned as they are by

stylized zoomorphic horns, and touched with gold, also seem suited to a royal iconography and

genealogy that might appeal to the aristocrats of Bamburgh.

All the techniques of interlace that encourage such mental association are here:

juxtaposition, insets, parallelism, reversals, connections, variation, intersections and chiasmus,

and symbolism. As a result, layers of meaning break through layers of framing, like branches or

buds from a tree–or perhaps from the Root of Jesse. Indeed, the coloring is like the cross-section

of a newly cut tree: for the main frame of the page and the great initials are outlined in black,

inside which is a dull ivory that the facsimile commentators say was “originally a bright

yellow.”470 Within the outlines, as in the main frame, abstract interlacing alternate with

rectangles inhabited by contorted and entwined animals and birds–the whole interlace being

imprisoned within the zoomorphs whose heads emerge from the frame. However, the initials

have an additional outer layer–a triple row of red dots that differentiates them from the frame

they cut through, and binds them to the other letters and words in the text. A viewer who

meditates on the page might suppose that the Cross and the Word are freeing some of the

prisoners from the power of the lesser zoomorphs in the frame.

This page, alive with abstract and zoomorphic interlace, suggests that meditation rather

than legibility could have been the main purpose for the original readers. Mary Carruthers

discusses similar monastic books intended for community reading or display. The more one

looks at the designs, she says, the clearer the fragmentary detail becomes, until finally

“contemplation forges a meaningful pattern.”471 In this way, spirituality links with oral-visual

appeal; and the page demonstrates how words, their depiction, and the materials used in the

manuscript depend on each other for meaning. As we see, their orchestration in LFG provides

an experience for readers of any language, whether or not they are literate.

force. A magico-religious transformation is brought about by wearing a mask” (37). In addition, “All representations

of ancestors are the media through which the forebears speak to the present generation” (38). Yang also relates

ancestor worship to the symbolism of regeneration of plants through seeds, which he says “is common to all ancient

agricultural societies” (38); he cites Andreas Lommel, Masks: Their Meaning and Function. Trans. Nadia Fowler.

London: Paul Elek Books, 1972. All these points have parallels in the present discussion of the genealogy of Christ,

the mystery of His Incarnation, and the spreading of His gospel; especially since the page includes the “fruitful” ger

rune.

469 Chapter 2 pg 19-20; cf McDowell 157-8 (CHWT).

470 Codex 237-8.

471 Carruthers, Mary. The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture. Cambridge: CUP, 1990;

254-5.

96

The tenth-century Northumbrian gloss, though, is understandable only to someone who is

literate in the Anglo-Saxon that emerged after the time of King Alfred. We know that the

glossator, Aldred, was at Chester-le-Street, where the Gospels were housed in AD 883: ninety

years after Lindisfarne had been sacked by Vikings (AD 793). He expressed a dedication for his

work on each gospel; and Backhouse suggests that one motive for writing the gloss was to

facilitate his acceptance into the community.472 We have already hypothesized as to the use of

the gloss, which is sometimes marginal and sometimes interlinear, and contrasts with the original

in being plain script. Perhaps, in addition, it was an aid to reading, if the new, non-monastic

congregation, was literate only in English. Perhaps it was to help a priest who knew little Latin

to read to that congregation, which may still have been orally and visually oriented. In either

case, Latin was not sufficient or preferable, and cultural change required use of Old English for

the reading. That the glossator freely desecrated a venerable book may mark linguistic

assertiveness.

Clanchy recognizes that copying or reading from holy Scripture in general was “an act of

worship in itself.”473 Bede explains a more specific application of this practice when he mentions

a visitor to Monkwearmouth-Jarrow from Pope Agatho in AD 680:

“Abbot John taught the cantors of the monastery the theory and practice of

singing and reading aloud, and put into writing all that was necessary for the

proper observance of festivals throughout the year.”474

Jane Hawkes has identified some occasions particular to genealogies:

[. . .] Matthew’s gospel (1:1-16) was sung as part of the western monastic

celebrations of Matins at Christmas, while that set out in Luke’s gospel (3:23-38)

was sung as part of the secular liturgies of Epiphany.475

Such uses of Gospel books refer to an element of drama that remains part of Church liturgy, and

of the congregational participation that integrates the doctrine into society. It is profitable,

therefore, to consider the ‘theaters’ in which the books participated.

We noted above that glass windows in the churches Biscop and Wilfrid built would echo

the illumination in manuscripts, and the parallel would surely compound the effect of analogy

described by Eugene Vinaver, in which “mystical reality becomes palpable to the senses.”476

Chapter 4 has already referred to this function of interlace in literature, but here was a practical

472 Backhouse 16-17.

473 Clanchy 109.

474 Bede 234, IV.18.

475 Hawkes 120; at f/n 56 she notes also: “Sermons on the genealogy of Christ, such as that by Augustine, were

reserved for Christmas. See also Schiller 1917a:12-15.”

476 Vinaver, Eugene. The Rise of Romance. Oxford: OUP, 1971; 100-101, and f/n 1. Vinaver cites St.

Augustine De Genesi ad literam, iv.28 and also Etienne Gilson. The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy, 100.

97

application of the technique; furthermore, the added approaches of reading and chanting from the

Gospel books, under the high roofs,477 would combine with liturgy to enhance the effect and to

guide the congregation to thoughts that transcended temporality.

Carruthers relates imagery in churches to the temporal sense of representation. That is:

because the Latin repraesentare, “to represent,” derives from praesens: “present in time,”

imagery can re-present memories.478 We have seen from St. Matthew’s Generationis page that

the same is true of illuminated interlace, because the designs can lead viewers to recall familiar

themes, associate them with religious texts, and meditate on the juxtaposed meanings. Thence,

the experiences of church, liturgy, and a book like LFG, would expand temporally and spatially

as audiences generated further thoughts and took them from the ‘theater’ of worship. The

evangelists who thus propagated the Word of God also encouraged intellectual exploration:

backward to pagan and Judaeo-Christian origins; outward to the worlds of war, farming,

weaving, and monasteries; inward to meditation; and forward to action.479

Our interpretation of LFG remains anachronistic, and I have suggested the impossibility

of judging how much we can deepen our understanding. Nevertheless, this discussion has

revealed that audience response to the interlace on the page of a Gospel book could be

instrumental in weaving the fabric of a new culture from diverse origins: by uniting the strands

in light of Christian teaching.

477 O’Reilly 145-6 (AA).

478 Carruthers 221-2.

479 Vinaver 81.

98

Figure 5.1: Map Showing Northerly Dioceses in Great Britain, 700-850.480

480 Gilbert Map 9: “The Church 700-850.” Modified by J. Beall to show northern and cross locations, but

retaining the diocesan boundaries defined by Gilbert. Any errors are mine..

99

Figure 5.2: The First St. Matthew Incipit Page of the Lindisfarne Gospels, f. 27r (BritishLibrary).481

481 Backhouse 43.

100

Figure 5.3: The St. John Incipit Page of the Lindisfarne Gospels f.211r (British Library).482

482 Backhouse 57.

101

Figure 5.4: Zoomorphic Bronze Mask from Late Shang China (ca. 1200-1100 BC). 483

483 This photograph is copied from: Yang, Liu and Edmund Capon. Masks of Mystery: Ancient Chinese Bronzes from

Sanxingdui. Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 79.

102

Figure 5.5: Crowned Zoomorph on Bronze Finial from Late Shang China (ca. 1200-1100 BC).484

.

484The photograph is copied from: Yang and Capon 91.(Art Gallery of New South Wales).

103

CHAPTER 6

INTERLACE AND ENGLISH STONE CROSSI.ES

This section argues that interlace on stone crosses participates in an iconography which

the Anglo-Saxon Church and rulers directed towards the people, through the Cult of the Cross.

In so doing, governments invoked the conciliatory power of the Cross in order to unite diverse

cultures–in recognition of the humanity and divinity combined in Christ, and in acceptance of

His dominion over all earthly rulers.

The Ruthwell, Bewcastle, Sandbach, and Gosforth Crosses survive in borderlands where,

between the eighth and tenth centuries, cultures contended against each other. I suggest that the

use of crosses reveals the centrality of Christian power there, and that we can deepen our

understanding of how the concerns of the people interacted with the monuments if we analyze

the role of interlace in the iconography. The discussion therefore adduces information about the

politics involved as well as about the Cult of the Cross; and it references Biblical and art

historical scholarship to support my assertion that interlace participates in and, often, integrates

the iconographic scheme.

The argument turns on the perception that the cross is the essential unit of interlace. As

definitions in Chapter Two and the Glossary indicate: a weave results only when threads cross

and when intersections pass above and below each other.485 The process of weaving,

furthermore, produces a fabric united from diverse threads, and I suggest that the Christian

symbol, being intrinsic to the process, analogizes this power to unify. Scriptural authority for

associating the power with peace-weaving rests with St. Paul:

19 Because in him, it hath well pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell;

20 And through him to reconcile all things unto himself, making peace through

the blood of his cross, both as to the things that are on earth, and the things that

are in heaven. (Col. 1)

The high crosses under discussion all stand in borderlands that were associated with

Northumbria. The eighth century Bewcastle Cross is a few miles north of Hadrian’s Wall, and

the slightly later Ruthwell Cross is less than thirty miles to the east, on the north coast of the

Solway Firth.486 The two ninth century Sandbach Crosses are in the Welsh Marches, close to the

485 cf Chapter 2, page 10, 27.

486 Swanton, Michael, ed. The Dream of the Rood. New ed. Exeter: Exeter University Press, 1996; 11:

Indicates that Ruthwell is ca. 17 ft. 4 ins. high (5.28 m) . Bewcastle is 14ft. 6ins. (without head): Page, R. I. Runes

and Runic Inscriptions. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1995; 47. Gosforth is 15 ft. according to the website. N.

Sandbach is 15 ft. 9 ins. (Hawkes 149 “4.8m”); S. Sandbach is 10 ft. 6 ins (Hawkes 164 “3.2m”).

104

borders of Mercia, Wales, and Northumbria; and the tenth century Gosforth Cross stands near

the Northumbrian coastal plain, between Ruthwell and Sandbach.487 The Bewcastle and

Ruthwell monuments are the most nearly contemporary with the gospelbooks discussed in the

last chapter, and the locations of the crosses–in and adjacent to the diocese of Lindisfarne–488

suggest that similar influences and motivations could have prompted their production. The

history that follows indicates that, once more, Anglo-Saxon and Irish churchmen sought to unite

the interests of the cultures in the area.

The producers of the Ruthwell and Bewcastle crosses were in Northumbria, where

Anglian power declined after the death of Egfrith at Nechtanesmere (AD 685); but the Christian

scholar-king, Aldfrith (ca. 685-705), had remained friendly with Adomnan, Abbot of Iona (679-

704). As Michelle Brown has observed:

From the end of the seventh century onwards there are signs of a new irenic

atmosphere of reconciliation and collaboration pervading the thought of many of

the leading ecclesiastical figures of Northumbria and Ireland.489

Brown suggests also that, from the beginning of the eighth century, Lindisfarne and

Monkwearmouth-Jarrow designed their Christianity:

[T]o maximise [sic] the benefits of a new culture which was fully integrated into

the Christian Oecumen (an eternal fellowship transcending individual traditions

and which celebrated a new confidence and acknowledged all of its formative

influences).490

Adomnan again favored the project, and Brown sees the bishopric of Lindisfarne as contributing

to: ”[A] measure of unification within the northern territories traditionally held by the Picts and

the British kingdoms of Strathclyde and Rheged, which had been annexed by Anglo-Saxon

Northumbria or which needed to be diplomatically stabilised as neighbours.”491

These, then, were the producers of the crosses, and the audience to whom the

iconography was directed; and because the Cross is the Christian symbol, it is significant that the

influence of the Church on the area became especially evident when Eadberht reigned (737-58)

and his brother Egbert was Archbishop of York (735-66). David Rollason believes that although

487 Hawkes, Jane. The Sandbach Crosses: Sign and Significance in Anglo-Saxon Sculpture. Bodmin: Four

Courts Press, 2002, 137. Hawkes suggests dates of early and slightly later 9th century for N & S Sandbach,

respectively. cf also O’Carragain (213; 284) who dates Ruthwell between 730 and 735, and Bewcastle slightly

earlier, in the first half of the eighth century (36).

488 Gilbert, Martin. The Dent Atlas of British History. 2nd ed. London: J. Dent Ltd. 1993; 9.

489 Brown 34.

490 Brown 8.

491 Brown 9.

105

secular power destabilized as the eighth century progressed, the power of the Church increased

at York. Indeed, he suggests that the continued unity of Northumbria owed much to the Church

at York.492

Perhaps the Cult of the Cross could escalate in Northumbria because Christian York

remembered its connection to Constantine493–who began the cult, as Eamonn O Carragain says,

“in the name of the victory-sign he saw in the sky” before his battle at Milvian Bridge in 312.494

New sensitivity to the Second Commandment against image-making might also have contributed

to strengthening of the cult in the eighth century–for, as Brown notes: “In the 720s the iconoclast

party erected a tablet above the great gate of the imperial palace in Constantinople recording the

substitution of a cross for the figure of Christ.”495 Northumbrian artefacts of the era thus

symbolized Christ, of whom images appear only later. The Ruthwell Cross displays one image

that O Carragain suggests was added in the late eighth century;496 and a crucifix appears on the

ninth-century Sandbach Crosses; but the depictions occur only after 769, when several synods

and councils had allowed veneration, not adoration, of images.497

Jennifer O’Reilly explains that Constantine had a fragment of the True Cross preserved

in the Church of the Holy Cross in Rome,498 his mother, Helena, having purportedly discovered it

at Jerusalem in 326.499 O Carragain notes, however, that the relic was taken to Constantinople to

preserve it from Arab invaders, in 635:500 the very year in which, Bede tells us, Oswald set up a

wooden cross before his victory at Heavenfield, thus instigating a parallel cult. O’Reilly sees the

new Anglian cult as extending beyond the temporal:

The story is not simply of a new Constantine, but of the extension to the ends of

the earth of Christ’s spiritual empire, more lasting than the might of imperial

Rome, whose monumental remains now littered the landscape,

–near Hadrian’s Wall, as Bede recounts.501

Other factors seem to have contributed to the development of the cult in eighth-century

Northumbria. O’Reilly mentions that, during the reign of Aldfrith, Adomnan had circulated the

492 This was the same Egbert to whom Bede had written, complaining of declining morality in the monasteries

owned by aristocrats. Cf. Rollason 164; Bede.“Bede’s Letter to Egbert.” EHEP 337-351.493

Chapter 5 pg. 82. 494

O Carragain, Eamonn. Ritual and the Rood: Liturgical Images and the Old English Poems of the Dream of

the Rood Tradition. London: The British Library and University of Toronto Press, 2005; 231.495

Brown 74.496

O Carragain 2111-214. “Hadrian I” ODP 96-97.497

“Hadrian I” ODP 96-97.498

O’Reilly 151 (AA).499

Swanton 43. N.4 cites Ambrose PL, xvi. 1463, or Rufinus, PL, xxi. 475-7.500

O Carragain 192.501

O’Reilly 151 (AA); cf Bede 144-5, III.2.

106

depiction of a pilgrimage at Jerusalem that included Golgotha and the Holy Sepulcher.502 O

Carragain observes that similar ritual pilgrimages for Good Friday had developed in Rome “in

emulation of the worship of the Holy Cross at Jerusalem and Constantinople;” and he suggests

that Pope Sergius (687-701) responded by reviving the Roman Cult of the Cross. O Carragain

adds that “Wilfrid of York and Acca of Hexham visited Rome together in 703.”503 It was in this

cultural climate that some of the earliest stone crosses in Britain appeared at Hexham, near

Heavenfield.504

Clerics at Lindisfarne, York, Hexham, and Whithorn appear to have encouraged the Cult

of the Cross where it would appeal to the Irish and Anglians as well as to Celts and Picts.

Although the popularity of crosses extended throughout Britain, Michael Swanton notes, “The

remains of some one and a half thousand survive–most of them in Northumbria. Many others

made of wood have certainly decayed.”505 Crosses were neither the first standing stones, though,

nor the only ones that had functioned communally. Megaliths had existed in Britain and Ireland

since approximately 4500 BC.506 By 3500 BC British Celts had proliferated the neolithic

meeting-places we call henges, two of which still survive in Northumbria: at Thornborough in

the Vale of Pickering; and at the Devil’s Arrows near Boroughbridge, which Bowman and

Thomas identify as the former capital of the Brigantes.507 Sykes is among the critics who

mention, furthermore, that between the fourth and seventh centuries AD, the Picts had produced

monuments in carved stone, of which approximately 200 survive in the north and east of

Scotland and Orkney.508 Stone crosses could thus inter-weave local traditions and Christianity in

communal ways like those Chapter 5 suggested for LFG, and it is probable that Celts were

amenable to the adaptation of stones for Christian purposes. The existence of Pillar Stones

supports the suggestion by presenting a transition. Insular Celts had developed them during their

conversion to Christianity; and William Stevens followed J. R. Allen in noting that the stones

502 O’Reilly 150 (AA).

503 O Carragain 189, 192, 230, 231.

504 Rollason 192-95 describes the instability; the influence of York: 207-8.

505 Swanton 47.

506 Sykes, Bryan. Blood of the Isles: Exploring the Genetic Roots of our Tribal History. London: Bantam

Press, 2006; 58 and 143. Sykes believes the mesolithic monuments to be “a purely Atlantic phenomenon, owing

nothing at all to the Mediterranean world,” and possibly related to ritual burials like that of the Red Lady of

Paviland.507

Neolithic Monument Complex Of Thornborough, North Yorkshire. University of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.

2003. Historical Studies. In Association with English Heritage. 05 Dec. 2009. <http://thornborough.ncl.ac.uk>. See also

Bowman and Thomas 144.23 on Aldborough/Boroughbridge.508

Sykes 179. Also: “Pictish Stones Search Facility.” University of Strathclyde: Statistics and Modelling

Science. Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland. 06 Dec. 2009.

<http://www.stams.strath.ac.uk/research/pictish/database.php>.

107

often display a rough cross or inscription.509 Stone crosses succeeded such monuments. Michelle

Brown describes the first, in either Britain or Ireland, as that raised at Lindisfarne on the death of

Aethilwald (740)–the same bishop whom Aldred credited with the “sewing and covering” of

LFG.510 Elizabeth Coatsworth has recognized, at Whitby and the monastery of Hilda, a

surviving cross which dates from 657.511

The details above support the argument that authorities in Lindisfarne/Northumbria

initiated a program for peace within their multi-ethnic environment. Referring especially to the

audience at Ruthwell, which was probably monastic, O Carragain describes the effect as “co-

existence as part of an integrated synthesis.”512 For them, he says, “The cross provided a visual

paradigm of the unity, centred [sic] on Christ’s victory over death, behind the diversity of

community life.”513 Perhaps some community members were also familiar with traditions at

nearby Whithorn which, Rollason records, became “a Northumbrian bishopric by the early

eighth century at the latest.” He observes, nevertheless, that a tradition of venerating the British

founder Ninian continued through the eighth century;514 and he notes that: “The Ruthwell ‘Paul

and Anthony’ panel, a symbol of monastic welcome and hospitality, recalls Adomnan’s

friendship with Ceolfrith and suggests close contacts with Iona.”515 In short, because the cultural

appeal of crosses was multivalent, they reconciled Roman, Irish, British Celtic, and Anglo-

Saxon ideas: they were instrumental in encouraging peace. The iconography and interlace on the

crosses support this contention.

Both the Ruthwell and Bewcastle crosses exemplify how symbology can contribute to

concepts of unity and peace-weaving. Each cross has a panel depicting John the Baptist pointing

to the Agnus Dei, below which another panel portrays Christ standing above animals with chi-

crossed paws; and it seems that placement of the animals on a Cross, under the Lamb, must

signify their recognition of Christ as Sacrifice, and as Redeemer of humanity. O Carragain,

however, goes further in explaining that the beasts defer to Christ and recognize Him alone as

509 Stevens, William O. The Cross in the Life and Literature of the Anglo-Saxons. Yale Studies in English. Ed.

Albert S. Cook. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1904; 40.510

Brown 317, 104-106. The cross is no longer at Lindisfarne; it “accompanied the community on its travels

and was finally transported to Durham,” (106). It may have been described in 1538 by Leland, but no longer exists.511

Coatsworth, Elizabeth. “The Cross in the West Riding of Yorkshire.” The Place of the Cross in

Anglo-Saxon England. Eds. Catherine E. Karkov, Sarah Larratt Keefer, and Karen Louise Jolly. New York: Boydell

and Brewer, 2006; 14-28 (18).512

O Carragain 57/8.513

O Carragain 296.514

Rollason 119; cites Bede [148-9], III.4; Levison, Wilhelm. “An Eighth Century Poem on St. Ninian,”

Antiquity 14 (1940): 280-91; MacQueen, John. St. Nynia: With a Translation of the Miracles of Bishop Nynia.

Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990; and Hill, Peter. Whithorn and St. Ninian: The Excavation of a

Monastic Town 1984-91. Stroud: The Whithorn Trust/Sutton Publishing; 1997.515

O Carragain 57.

108

the Judge of mankind: evidenced by “the globes under the Baptist’s feet” at Ruthwell, and by the

inscription on the right-hand frame, which specifies that He is ‘iudex aequitatis’” [‘the impartial

judge’].516 O Carragain thus interprets the images as suggesting that “human power structures

and racial divisions are evanescent, subordinate to a higher set of values, and subject to Christ’s

judgment.” I would add that contemplation of the panels could have encouraged the original

viewers in the Scottish Marches to live in light of such concepts, and to transfer their allegiance

to the Christ who also ruled their chieftains.

The nearby Bewcastle Cross coincides with this suggestion, for the monument is situated

within the site of a former Roman camp, and runes identify it as “þis sigbecn,” (this victory-

sign).517 O Carragain points out that the Bewcastle Cross symbolizes spiritual and heroic victory,

and he describes the overall inscription as commemorative; it seems to form a Liber Vitae to

which names of those to receive prayers could be added as necessary. O Carragain also relates

the ‘Falconer’ panel to the list, suggesting that the figure holding the bird represents a nobleman

who had contributed to the community or the cross. He notes of the scheme: “It implicitly

affirms that in the area secular and religious social structures were interdependent and mutually

supportive.”518 Both crosses, then, encourage audiences to move outward from them and weave a

new cultural tapestry, a dynamic that parallels the function imputed to LFG in Chapter 5.

The concept of weaving would be especially significant to audiences in areas of sheep-

rearing, like the Scottish or Welsh Marches, where large monastic estates had their workshops.

Chapter 2 indicates that weaving infused the lives of such people: the producers and interpreters

of the iconography.519 Adcock (1974) thus seems practical when, as Rosemary Cramp says,

“She sees the development of interlace in the arts through the use of ‘made’ patterns in leather,

metal, or woven strands.”520 In categorizing the types of these patterns, Cramp considers

Interlace and Vine-Scroll mostly as separate motifs.521 My discussion counts vine-scroll as a type

of interlace, however: because the patterns involve crossing of strands, and also because the

symbolism is a variation on the theme of the Cross as a figuration of Christ. That symbolism, as

Jane Hawkes has explained, proceeds from the Gospel of St. John, where Christ says:

I am the true vine and my father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that

beareth not fruit, he will take away: and one that beareth fruit, he will purge it that

516 O Carragain 294. O Carragain applies the same Apocalyptic significance to the globes as to the Sundial at

Bewcastle; saying in consequence: “the heavens, like the animals, show forth the glory of God, rather than the glory

of earthly powers.”517

O Carragain 47 (the Roman Camp); 232 (the victory sign).518

O Carragain 40-42.519

Chapter 2 p. 28.520

Cramp xxviii.521

Cramp xxiv-xxv.

109

it may bring forth more fruit [...] Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot

bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; so neither can you, unless you abide

in me. I am the vine; you the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him: the

same bringeth forth much fruit: for without [me] ye can do nothing.522

In vine-scroll imagery, the fruit often appears as berries or grapes, which traditionally produce

wine. The fruit therefore refers to the redemption of believers: either through the sacrificial body

and blood of Christ symbolized by the Eucharist, or through the sacrifice of Christ as the Agnus

Dei, at the crucifixion. In inhabited vine-scroll, as Hawkes points out:

[T]he plant, that nurtures and provides the animals with food, shelter and

protection, ensuring that they grow and ripen, functions pictorially as a potential

symbol of Christ, the source of salvation and everlasting life, and of the Church,

the preserver of Christianity on earth and the dispenser of the life saving

sacraments that maintain Christians and their faith.523

In this symbology, animal and human forms on the scroll can represent the members or the Body

of the Church. St. Paul reminds us of their relationship to Christ, the Head (Col. 1):

17. And he is before all, and by him all things consist.

18. And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the first-

born from the dead; that in all things he may hold the primacy.

Birds are among the forms that inhabit the vine-scrolls on the Ruthwell and Bewcastle crosses,

and the scroll on the south face of the North Sandbach cross (NS) also includes one.524 Michael

Swanton makes the point that birds often signify the Christian soul, and he also mentions that

“The cross traditionally conveys the soul to heaven.”525 The two concepts combine to provide

further reason for interpreting vine-scrolls as variations for the Cross and Christ: the overall

message remaining that Christ enabled the redemption of Christian souls through his incarnation,

death, and resurrection.

The message is also that of the Gospels, and in discussing the interlace on the first Carpet

Page of LFG (f.2b), Jacques Guilman adduces the theories of W. Horn (1975) to suggest that

artists who produced interlace could use measurement and “create ordered forms that appeared

to do no less than reflect the divine will.” Guilman suggests:

[. . .] –with its central theme the ultimate symbol of Christian truth, elaborated

522 Hawkes 91; cites John 15.1-5.

523 Hawkes 91.

524 Hawkes 85. For ease of reference, this study henceforth utilizes the system Hawkes has devised for

discussion of the Sandbach crosses: For the first letter N=the North Cross; S= the South Cross. For the second letter,

N, S, E, and W refer to the points of the compass. Thus here, NS= the south face of the North Cross.525

Swanton 20; and 78 f/n 1.

110

through and surrounded by a labyrinth of convoluted paths, knots, and creatures,

[the artist] found the task of giving it final form nothing less than a mystical

experience.

Guilman argued that this concept of creativity might have later inspired Theophilus, in De

Diversis Artibus, to say: "Through the spirit of counsel, you do not bury your talent given you by

God, but, by openly working and teaching in all humility, you display it faithfully to those

wishing to understand.526 Surely the same technique and purpose lie behind the display of stone

crosses and their iconography?

Chapter 2 has identified chequered patterns and rhomboids as interlace and indeed, some

Christian applications, like the Carpet Page LFG f.2b, project crosses from the inner angles of

rectangles. Chapter 5 mentioned similar figures and their potential crosses as alluding to cosmic

order and harmony, but Jennifer O’Reilly also relates those concepts to unity:

As early as Irenaeus [ca. 131-200] patristic interpretation of the four living

creatures as figures of the four Evangelists used the evidence of creation itself, in

which the Creator is also revealed, in order to demonstrate the divinely-inspired

unity of the Gospel’s fourfold testimony. Irenaeus’s allusion to the divine

Artificer who made all things in due proportion and measure is to Wis. 11:21,

omnia in mensura et numero et pondere disposuisti.527

The comments above relate to both the Ruthwell and Sandbach crosses where they use

the imagery of the evangelists, and to the Bewcastle and Sandbach crosses–which include, and

sometimes combine, knotwork and lozenge patterns. Hawkes has pointed out, for example, that

the knotwork on the lowest panel on the south side of the Bewcastle cross not only encloses a

lozenge design, but also contains a cross-shaped space.528 The same panel shows, in addition,

how chains of rhomboids–a form of interlace we observed on the Matthew Incipit page–form chi

crosses.529

A cross obviously alludes to the Crucifixion and the salvation it afforded; because the

icon is also a figuration of Christ, however, it follows that any cross can symbolize the

Incarnation. So, then, must a complex of crosses: a weave, or an interlace pattern. Laura

526 Guilman, Jacques. “The Composition of the First Cross Page of the Lindisfarne Gospels: ‘Square

Schematism’ and the Hiberno-Saxon Aesthetic.” The Art Bulletin 67. 4. (1985): 535-547 (546/7). Quotes C.R.

Dodwell, tr. Theophilus. London, 1961; 62.527

O’Reilly, J. “Patristic and Insular Traditions of the Evangelists: Exegesis and Iconography." Le Isole

Britanniche e Roma in Eta Romanobarbarica. Eds. A. M. Luiselli Fadda and E. O Carragain. Rome: Herder

Editrice e Libreria, 1998. 49-94.( 90). [E&I]528

Hawkes 101; fig. 3.7.529

Hawkes 101. Chapter 2 of this study recognized this form of interlace as “the Byzantine diaper design,” of

the fifth and sixth centuries (20; 8).

111

Kendrick has indicated that both Gregory the Great and Bede related knotwork to that

symbolism through the claim of John the Baptist, “that he was unworthy to untie Christ’s

shoelace,” (Luke 3.16); the exegetes interpreting the shoelace as “a figure for the mystery of the

incarnation.”530 This symbology combines with that of the vine scroll to throw light on Sandbach

SE, where a chain of inhabited lozenges is set within a frame of abstract interlace; for we might

now interpret the scheme as a variation on “Christ Incarnate, who, through His all encompassing

Love, provides the Tree of Life.” Analysis of interlace in both the Lindisfarne Gospels and stone

crosses, then, reveals the union of multiple crosses and interpretations in each design; and it

shows how interlace integrates symbolism into coherent messages; so many, indeed, that no

single interpretation is necessarily “the only correct solution.”

The association of interlace and the Incarnation allows further permutation of the

possibilities for symbolism including, again, that of unity. Michelle Brown has observed that,

after the Council of Constantinople in 681, “It also became important to stress the unity of

Christ’s incarnation, from conception to crucifixion, which were thought to have taken place on

the same date–March 25.”531 O Carragain has shown, further, how the iconography on the

Ruthwell Cross unites scenes from the Life of Christ that range from the Annunciation to the

Crucifixion, so revealing the union of humanity and divinity within Christ.532 This trend, then,

suggests that interlace on crosses is an integral part of symbolism that refers to any incident in

the Life of Christ Incarnate.

The Ruthwell and Sandbach crosses also share the iconography of the evangelist

symbols, imagery that, as we saw above, links the crosses to LFG and its counterparts. In both

contexts, the evangelist symbols present facets of Divinity and Humanity that unite in Christ.

Gregory the Great, in his homilies of 593, confirmed and expanded on the links Jerome (AD

342-420) had identified in Plures Fuisse as being from the Apocalyptic vision of Ezekiel.

Jennifer O’Reilly summarizes these: “[T]he man signifies Christ’s humanity, the lion his

kingship, the calf or ox his priesthood, and the eagle his divinity.”533 Michelle Brown

summarizes another reading according to St. Ambrose: “Matthew [Man] - Christ incarnate; Mark

[Lion] – the King of kings who triumphed over death; Luke [Calf] - the immolatory victim and

530 Kendrick, Laura. Animating the Letter: The Figurative Embodiment of Writing from Late Antiquity to the

Renaissance. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1999; 87/88. Kendrick cites: Gregory the Great, Quadraginta

homiliarum in evangelia 1.20.4 (PL 76:1162B); and Bede, In Lucae evangelium 1.3.16 (PL 92:356A; CCL 120:80). 531

Brown 32. In denouncing the Monothelite heresy, “The Council proclaimed that in Christ the divine and

human will were coherently united and that as Christ was incorruptible he never conflicted with the divine will.”532

O Carragain 88/9.533

O’Reilly 170 (AA). Elsewhere O’Reilly also notes that Gregory stressed on the redemptive aspect of Christ,

“whobecame a man at his birth, a (sacrificial) ox at his death, a (waking) lion at his resurrection and an eagle at his

ascension” (E&I 58).

112

high priest of the Passion; John [Eagle] - the triumphant Christ of the Resurrection and

Ascension.”534

As O’Reilly further indicates, Jerome argued in his Letter to Damasus (Novum Opus) that

the Gospels themselves demonstrate a story of unity stemming from diversity.535 O Carragain

suggests that Ruthwell augments this concept: on the first side of the Cross, images survive of St.

John and his eagle; the Eagle on a branch;536 and of St. Matthew and his angel. O Carragain

suggests, therefore, that the damaged second side probably presented a central image of Christ

(maybe Agnus Dei) set between the symbols of SS. Mark and Luke.537 Such imagery could have

served a communal function in the Apertio aurium at Lent, a ceremony during which four

Gospel-books were carried to the corners of the altar; the meaning of gospels and the evangelist

symbols explained; the incipits chanted; and illuminated pages exhibited to the inductees. O

Carragain thus stresses that, participating in such rituals: “The second side of the crosshead was

designed to make clear the unity of the gospels as well as their diversity.”538

The ceremony also illustrates several points Richard Gameson makes about the function

of writing for early audiences: “Manifest to the eye, yet occult in meaning to those who could

not themselves read, prominent inscriptions were mysteriously potent;” they create, he adds, a

“forceful statement about the mystical power and status of the written, Christian word.” Chapter

2 has already suggested that script is a form of interlace, and the nature of its use in the

iconography of gospelbooks and crosses strengthens the suggestion, especially if we consider

script another way of making visible that which is invisible, whether it be the Word or human

words. Gameson indicates that medieval society was familiar with the concept: “ ‘Letters’ as we

are told by Isidore, ‘are symbols of things, signs of words whose power is so great that without a

voice they speak to us the sayings of the absent.’ ”539

The Bewcastle and Ruthwell crosses are like the gospelbooks in linking script and

534 Brown LFG 346

535 O’Reilly 170 (AA).

536 O Carragain 145. Here identifies this eagle as “a symbol of Christ whose youth was renewed like the

eagle’s in hisResurrection and Ascension; but it is also a symbol of how all Christians participate in the fruits of

Christ’s victory.” cf also Brown LFG, 2003; 369-70 and note 239 on p. 174. O Carragain refers to “the first broad

side at Ruthwell as ‘the east side’ (itnow faces south), and the second broad side as the west side’(it now faces

north.)” (36).537

O Carragain 143-4.538

O Carragain 144.539

Gameson, Richard. “Inscriptions.” The Role of Art in the Late Anglo-Saxon Church. Oxford: The

Clarendon Press, 1995. 72, 76-77; at 92, f/n119 he cites: Isidore. Isidore Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum sive

Originum, Libri XX. Ed. W. M. Lindsay. 2 Vols. Oxford, 1911. Bk. 1, Sect. 3, Lines 6-8. ODP 107: Isidore of

Seville d. 636. Although Bede did not always consider Isidore reliable, Chapter 3, pg. 31 of this dissertation

indicates that Bede translated some of his work (EHEP 358-9, and 377: note by Farmer P.359).

113

imagery, a tradition that Cramp observed may have stemmed from Lindisfarne.540 As in the

gospelbooks, too, the iconography and scripts on Ruthwell interlace cultures. Latin tituli frame

pictures on the east and west sides of the cross; the panels illustrate the Annunciation, the

Visitation, the Crucifixion, and other scenes from the story that originated east of the

Mediterranean. Because Christianity had been accepted by northern Britons before the pagan

Anglo-Saxons arrived, the images were probably intelligible to the audience: whatever language

they spoke; indeed, the style of sculptured panels would have been familiar to those who had

seen carvings at the Roman Walls of Hadrian and Antonine. The communities at both Ruthwell

and Bewcastle may have done so. Rollason confirms that Bewcastle had been a Roman fort;541

and O Carragain notes not only that Ruthwell had associations with Hadrian’s Wall, but also that

archaeological evidence suggests that ‘there was a Christian settlement on this site from the sixth

century down to the eleventh.”542 The religious audience O Carragain envisages, then, probably

could read Latin, and interpret word and image.

Unique to Ruthwell, however, is the intertextual link between the Anglo-Saxon poem

Dream of the Rood, which is formed by runic tituli on three borders of the vine-scroll panels on

the north and south sides of the cross. The runes would appeal to Germanic members of the

community, although R. I. Page has indicated that their arrangement renders them difficult to

read, which leads him to ask “What then is the intended audience?” Page concludes that “There

was a specialist reading audience, not a general one.” Rather, he suggests, an interpreter who

already knew the text guided visitors and recited to them.543 The vine-scroll motif would also

appeal to Germanic interests. Richard North has related that imagery to the World Tree, and

demonstrated its significance for pagans in Northumbria, suggesting: “Roman vine-scroll could

assist the transition from superstition to doctrine.”544 In thus leading diverse viewers to

understand Christianity, both vine-scroll and runes assisted cultural interlace.

As noted above, Bewcastle and Ruthwell share the iconography of John the Baptist and

the Agnus Dei acclaimed by the animals. The design of Bewcastle is otherwise mostly abstract,

the interlace encoding the inter-weaving of cultures, the Incarnation, and the dual nature of the

540 Cramp, Rosemary. “The Artistic Influence of Lindisfarne within Northumbria.” St. Cuthbert, his Cult and

His Community to AD 1200. Eds. Bonner, Gerald, David Rollason and Clare Stancliffe. Woodbridge: Boydell Press,

1989; 213-28 (221, 225). This dissertation mentions script as interlace: Ch. 2 pg. 17ff.541

Rollason 52.542

O Carragain 54; f/n 212: cites Crowe, Christopher. “Excavations at Ruthwell, Dumfries, 1980 and 1984.”

Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Atiquarian Society. Third Series, 1987; 41-2.543

Page, R. I. “Runeukyndige Risteres Skriblerier: The English Evidence.” Runes and RunicInscriptions:

Collected Essays on Anglo-Saxon and Viking Runes. Ed. David Parson. New York: Boydell and Brewer, 1995. 295-

314 (297-8).544

North, Richard. Heathen Gods in Old English Literature. Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England,

22.Cambridge: CUP, 1997; 290. Qtd. in O Carragain R&R 47.

114

Savior, messages it presents chiefly through vine-scroll, knotwork, and chequer-board: which

Richard Bailey indicates as hiding other cross patterns within its design.545 Chapter 2 of this

study associates checks with Celtic and Scandinavian traditions, and the image would therefore

be familiar to the audience at Bewcastle. Jennifer O Reilly has shown, as well, that counterparts

to chequer-board appear at the fringes of the Roman world: on metal shoulder clasps from Sutton

Hoo, in the Book of Durrow, and in the eastern tradition manifested in an Armenian gospel

book.546 The pattern had long participated in intertexuality then, and the now the runes at

Bewcastle and Ruthwell formed another such link. For while the runes at Bewcastle name those

memorialized in what O Carragain identifies as a Liber Vitae, the interlace of Christ and the

Vine images hope of Salvation and Resurrection for the faithful. The runes at Ruthwell are from

DOR, a poem which also expresses a hope that those who have gone before “dwell in glory,”

adding:

[...] Ond ic wene me

daga gehwylce hwænne me Dryhtnes rod,

þe ic her on eorðan ær sceawode

on þysson lænan life gefetige

ond me þonne gebringe þær is blis mycel. (DOR 135-139)547

( And I look forward, each of my days, to the time when the cross of the Lord, that I once beheld

here on earth, will fetch me from this fleeting life, then bring me where there is much bliss ...)

Hopes of salvation might have quickened in Northumbrian Christians when the Viking

campaigns of the eighth century targeted their foundations at Lindisfarne and Iona.548 Rollason

suggests, however, that the invaders concentrated on “Gaul, Ireland and Pictland” during the

early ninth century and on Germany and France in the 840s and 850s;549 they overran Repton

only in 874. Jane Hawkes dates the Sandbach Crosses to the earlier part of the ninth century.550

Hawkes observes that both crosses “offer a sustained presentation of the celebration of

the divine and human nature of Christ, the source of salvation and eternal life,”551 her comment

revealing that the iconography at Sandbach participates in a theme discussed throughout this

chapter. My analysis leads to the further suggestion that the iconography interweaves cultures in

545 Bailey, Richard N. England’s Earliest Sculptors. Publications of the Dictionary of Old English, 5. Toronto:

PontificalInstitute of Mediaeval Studies, 1996; 66.546

O’Reilly 164 [AA]. She cites, respectively: Dublin, Trinity College MS A.4.5 (57), fol. 21v; and Baltimore,

Walters ArtGallery MS W.537, fo. 114v. cf Ch. 2 pg. 18 on the association of Celts and check-patterns.547

Swanton 100.548

Crawford 44; lists attacks at Lindisfarne in 793; Iona in 795, 802, 806, and 825.549

Rollason 212.550

Hawkes 137.551

Hawkes 120.

115

ways that could encourage members of the Church–within and without Britain–to unite against a

common enemy, the pagan Vikings.

Although Hawkes believes the carvings were produced near Sandbach, she found no

indication of whether the users were “monastic,” “ecclesiastical,” or “more generally secular.”552

Clues as to use nevertheless remain in location, affiliation, and imagery, and the present chapter

shows these factors to be compatible with the art-historical parallels identified by Hawkes. In

light of such evidence, I suggest that the location of Sandbach was ideal for cultural

interweaving; that affiliation with the diocese of Lichfield augmented the potential for peace-

weaving;553 and that imagery on the crosses addresses these interests.

The location was conducive to cultural weaving. Lying in the northeast of the Welsh

Marches, Sandbach is less than 20 miles from Chester and the River Dee, and so from the sea-

lanes to Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Solway Firth, as well as to the passage Crawford

mentions: “across the southern Pennines to York.”554 To the north and east lie other

Northumbrian areas that included what may have been Celtic ‘Elmet’ and ‘Rheged’ with which,

Elizabeth Coatsworth infers, there could have been “a hard-fought and highly permeable

frontier.”555 Far to the southwest the Marches connect to the southern shores of the Severn

Estuary, and thence to the Devonian Peninsula.556 Sandbach also lies approximately fifty miles

north and west of Lichfield, through which Anglo-Saxon Mercia could have effected cultural

interlace with all its Celtic neighbors.

Although Offa had campaigned against South Wales in 778 and built Offa’s Dyke in 790,

Daibhi O Croinin observes that “contacts between Mercia and Wales remained fluid enough.”557

The history of Chad and the Lichfield Gospels suggests a longstanding relationship between

Lichfield and Northumberland,558 but it also evidences Welsh contacts. The whereabouts of the

Gospels before the tenth century are unknown, but Daibhi O Croinin notes that the manuscript

contains glosses in Welsh and Latin.559 Christian scholarship, then, had long superseded some

cultural barriers in this area, and it is likely that the Church expected producers and users of the

552 Hawkes 138; 148.

553 Hawkes 15 n2; 145.

554 Crawford 55.

555 Coatsworth, Elizabeth. Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture Volume VIII: Western Yorkshire. The

British Academy: OUP, 2008; 17. Coatsworth cites: Higham, N.J. “Northumbria’s Southern Frontier: A Review.”

Early Medieval Europe. XIV, pt. 4, 2006, 391-418; and Cox, B. “The Pattern of Old English burh in Early Lindsey.”

Anglo-Saxon England,VIII,1994;35-56,(53).556

King 377. Trewhiddle is near St. Austell, Cornwall.557

O Croinin, Daibhi. “Writing.” From the Vikings to the Normans. Ed. Wendy Davies. Oxford: OUP, 2003.

169-200(176).558

Chapter 5 .559

O Croinin 172-6.

116

Sandbach crosses to utilize Celtic designs to the same end. Hawkes indeed identifies Celtic

elements in the iconography of the crosses, noting that “the presence of the scenes appears to

have been motivated, not solely by iconographic, logistic or aesthetic reasons, but by the specific

cultural associations they carried.”560 Examples are mainly Columban and Cornish, Hawkes

considering the chain of inhabited rhombi on SE, and the pendant triangles at the base of the

panels, as being in the Trewhiddle style and modeled on metalwork.561 Other elements at

Sandbach that parallel insular metalwork include: “the positioning of figures within the variously

shaped frames [. . .] the frames themselves, and particularly the large bosses set at the

intersections of the lozenges.”562 It is relevant to this discussion that the Glossary definitions

include ‘boss’ as a form of interlace or knot:563 the bosses here can therefore be read as

emphasizing the all-encompassing quaternity of the Cross, and also as places where the

incarnation (symbolized by the interlace) interconnects Divinity and the world. Hawkes

identifies further Celtic parallels between the Virgin and Child scenes on NE and the Book of

Kells; and between SW and crosses at Iona and Islay. Other Columban imagery includes the

figure-of-eight interlace framing this scene on both the Iona and SW crosses, and she notes that

“continuing contact” between Irish and Mercian churches, was contemporaneous with the

Crosses.564

The evidence also points to foreign influence on Mercia. Hawkes suggests that, under

Offa (757-96) and Coenwulf (796-821), Mercians maintained a policy of communication with

Charlemagne (768-814).565 She adds that this might have affected the politics of Lichfield, which

gained an archbishopric in 787, but lost it in 803; and she believes the policy might explain

parallels between artwork from Mustair in Carolingian Switzerland and the Sandbach panels that

depict The Road to Calvary (NW), the Transfiguration (NE & SW), and Traditio Legis cum

Clavis (NE).566 Hawkes remarks of this iconography: “It is a theophany that has special

relevance to the institution of the Church on earth.”567 She reminds us that the Transfiguration

specifies union of the human and divine in Christ; that the Traditio bespeaks the righteousness of

560 Hawkes 141.

561 Hawkes 95/6.

562 Hawkes 137.

563 See Appendix sv.

564 Hawkes 142.

565 Cook, William Rand Ronal B. Herzman. The Medieval World View: An Introduction. 2nd ed. NewYork:

OUP, 2004; 143-163 [C&H]. Pope Leo III had declared this Frankish king Emperor of Rome in 800 (145). These

editors view Charlemagne as a protector of the Church and papacy, but who treated Christianity as the principal

means of uniting his own empire (144/5; 148). He established Roman, rather than Gaulish, liturgy as orthodox

throughout his empire (C&H 149).566

Hawkes 144.567

Hawkes 144.

117

unity under the Church; and that the Road to Calvary represents the humility of Christ in

submitting to Incarnation,568 a characteristic that I think is an inherent aspect of His combined

humanity and divinity. Hawkes further believes that a possible genealogy of Christ (SS) might

contribute to the themes because of “the human and divine nature of Christ on which the Church

was founded.”569 I suggest, too, that all such references would remind viewers of their unity

under the Church, and could encourage them to weave greater unity–both to resist the heathen

and to convert them–themes and motives that consist with those discussed above for the

Northumbrian monuments.

The Sandbach and Northumbrian crosses also share the symbolism of vine-scroll

interlace, Sandbach developing variations through stepped/ladder schemes (NN & SN) and

chains of rhombi. On NS, the scroll is unusual in combining with abstract interlace; in including

a human among the animals; and in that the ‘inhabitants’ merge either into the vine or the

knotwork–a characteristic of all the inhabited interlace at Sandbach. Hawkes suggests that the

interconnection implies mutual dependence between participants in Christianity.570 Indeed, if the

vine and the abstract interlace it grows from represent Christ–then these figures dwell within

Him, and they become the branches of the Vine (John 15: 1-5). The arrangement thus asserts

unity of Christ and members of His Church.

As the above discussion shows, the chain of inhabited rhombi on SE varies the theme of

ascent on the vine; and it does so via a series of chi crosses. Here, the triangular spaces to the

sides (suggestive of the Holy Trinity, like those on the Matthew Page of LFG) are filled with

figures; and their appendages, too, merge with the frame that nurtures them.. Occupying the top

rhombus is a “prancing beast,” which Hawkes sees as a possible figure of Christ, an Agnus Dei;

and she relates the rhomboid pattern to the all-encompassing power and “... love of Christ.”571

Another interpretation of the image could stem from that which Bailey attributes to the Fishing

Stone at Gosforth, which depicts an encounter between a hart and a snake. Bailey says:

Thanks to a combination of information from Pliny’s Natural History about the

hart’s traditional enmity for the snake, and passages from Psalm 42 (‘as the hart

panteth after the waterbrooks’), this type of encounter had become a conventional

568 Hawkes 142-5. The Transfiguration refers to Matt 17.1-9; Mark 9.2-9; Luke 9. 28-36–in which the Voice

[of God] identifies Christ “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye him” (Matt 17.5). Hawkes

explains the Traditio as a “scene that illustrates Christ committing the keys of heaven to Peter and the scroll(or book)

of the New Law to Paul 56. Peter and Paul appear in both scenes, so reflecting the interpretation of patristic writers

that the two were authorized as “the teacher[s] of nations” (61). 569

Hawkes 120.570

Hawkes 93.571

Hawkes 101; 166/7 (description of stones); 98/99.

118

symbol for the struggle of Christ and the individual Christian with the Devil.572

The stone below the Sandbach beast is damaged and unreadable however, in view of the overall

iconography it is possible that a sinuous beast was once amid the knotwork . We will see that

such defeat of Satan is part of the theme this cross presents: that of the nurture and salvation

provided by a Church founded because of the Incarnation (seen in the abstract interlaced frame)

and the Sacrifice of Christ (signified by all the crosses involved), which defeated Death. We will

see that defeat of the Devil also coordinates with the theme of SN.

The pattern of stepped rectangles on NN and SN also varies inhabited vine-scroll.

Hawkes argues that the scheme represents a ladder like that of Jacob, a version of the Tree of

Life by which the souls of the faithful attempt to ascend to heaven.573 Remaining unexplained

above both these ladders, however, are winged, interlaced, fork-tongued beasts. Although

Hawkes refutes earlier interpretations of them as the “Breath of God,” or the “Descent of the

Holy Ghost,” she offers no alternatives. Hawkes explains that those who read the Beast as

Paraclete claim the possibility that twelve figures should appear on NN as they do on SN, and

they could then represent apostles; but she finds no art-historical sources for such a scheme. The

parallel she does identify is the “so-called ‘Temptation’ (fol. 202v.) of the Book of Kells,” in

which evil spirits threaten ascent of the faithful.574 I suggest what seems most obvious: that

serpentine creatures with forked tongues usually represent the un-Holy Ghost and therefore

threaten the ascent of souls. Such an image, furthermore, was appropriate to a Christian world

raided by pagan Vikings.

The tongues of the two serpents at the top of SN entwine in knotwork, which extends to

enmesh the animals in a rhombus that then links to their own tails. The creatures are, therefore,

trapped by the symbol that Hawkes elsewhere recognizes as signifying “the divine order and

authority informing the fourfold harmony of the universe.”575 The present study suggests that

such authority is clearly that described in Rev. 20: 1-3, which specifies that an Angel descended

and bound Satan and: “set a seal upon him, that he should no more seduce the nations, ‘till the

thousand years be finished. And after that, he must be loosed a little time,” [my stress]. In such a

reading, the interlace binding the beasts symbolizes Christ Incarnate; whom Bede, for example,

572 Hawkes 102-3. Bailey, Richard N. England’s Earliest Sculptors. Publications of the Dictionary of Old

English Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1996. 90.573

Hawkes 72/3. F/n 140: Scriptural Authority for the Tree includes St. Paul (Epistle to the Ephesians 3:

17-19); Apoc:22.2; Daniel 4: 7-14; and for the Ladder cf Genesis 28: 12-13. F/n 143: On the Cross as Christ, tree,

and ladder cf Augustine, P.L. Homily De Catachysmo ad Catechumenos; 40:696 574

Hawkes 70.575

Hawkes 99. She cites O’Reilly Jennifer (1998 85; and 89).

119

identified as the Angel when he said: “The Lord, therefore, endued with His Father's power,

descends and is incarnate, to wage war with the prince of the world, and when he is bound to

spoil his goods.”576 This concept echoes that of the Kells exemplar cited by Hawkes, in which the

figure at the top of the ladder (cp NN) is Christ welcoming the faithful after their trials.577 It is

also consonant with my suggestion for the prancing animal at the top of SE, who would have

won his battle with the serpents.

Sandbach NE presents a Crucifixion scene, and here Hawkes considers that the

evangelist symbols parallel a type from Trier.578 Above the NE Crucifixion, the sun and moon

indicate the cosmic scale of the event, while Mary in a Nativity scene provides a link with the

Incarnation.579 The scene also includes Beasts, and so Hawkes classifies it as an Adoration at the

Manger, reflecting an interpretation by St. Ambrose that “the beasts in their stalls symbolise [sic]

the peoples of the pagan world to be nourished by the abundance of ‘sacred food’ (alimoniae

sacrae).”580 The theme links to the Christ and the Beasts panels at Ruthwell and Bewcastle, and

could also apply to the figures in the triangles outside the rhomboid chain on SE; and, given the

references to evangelism on NE,581 we can see that stress now seems to fall on the need to

convert and nurture the heathen. As Hawkes also notes that the figure of St. John, near the Cross,

signifies the Apocalypse, I suggest that perhaps the Sandbach scheme coordinates the two

themes.582

NW displays a cross below the Road to Calvary sequence. The figures in its upper

quadrants are unidentifiable, but below the arms of the icon and extending to the inverted V of

its root, is another pair of winged beasts; the animal on the right is the less damaged, and we can

see that its tongue and legs are bound into knotwork. This enlacement of lacertine beasts could

be coincidental if just one example appeared at Sandbach; but there are three instances, as well

as allusions to the Apocalypse. These two animals could, once more, refer to the binding of

Satan in Revelation 20.1; or possibly also to his unbinding in 20.7: “And when the thousand

years shall be finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go forth, and seduce the

nations, which are over the four quarters of the earth ...” I believe that if Mercians by the “sandy

576 “Abyss.” “The Binding of the Devil.” The Explanation of the Apocalypse by Venerable Beda. Trans.

Edward Marshall. Book III. James Parker and Co.; Oxford; 1878. 20:1. [OOP]. Explanatio Apocalypsis: By the

Venerable Bede. 710-716 AD. 07 Dec. 2009. <http://www.apocalyptic-theories.com/theories/bede/bede.html>577

Hawkes 73.578

Hawkes 41/2.579

Hawkes 45/6.580

Hawkes 48. She cites Ambrose Expos. Lucam 2. 43 (Adriaen, 1957:50).581

cp: The evangelist symbols, the beasts–here and perhaps in the interlace panels, and Traditio Legis cum

Clavis.582

Hawkes 44-6.

120

valley stream”583 were as worldly as Hawkes suggests,584 they saw the dangers around them–nine

centuries after Christ–and they could have reacted by thinking in these terms; even as Chapter 4

records that Wulfstan would in 1014.585

For Hawkes, the crosses reflect materialism because the patterns in the iconography

replicate those on metalwork.586 The monuments were probably embellished with metal

appliques that connected to the cross at the bosses, and while Hawkes attributes such ostentation

to Anglo-Saxon tastes, she also acknowledges that allusion to, or use of, metalwork could also

reference: “the richly decorated and gem-encrusted crux gemmata of the Apocalypse and, by

extension, the future (re)establishment of Christ’s Kingdom on earth at the Second coming.”587

Again, the reading is in keeping with a world in danger of demolition by pagans.

At what might have seemed to be the loosing of Satan, all Christendom faced a common

enemy: the Vikings had sacked Lindisfarne, Iona, and the Holy Roman Empire. Sandbach, in

the 830s, faced those of them who turned on Ireland and western Britain.588 I believe a question

remains as to whether the call to unity at Sandbach was military as well as spiritual, and the

answer may depend on information we do not have about the date of the crosses in relation to

specific developments in the Viking situation. It is clear, however, that the Sandbach icons

encourage the evangelizing of pagans.

The iconography of the Gosforth Cross presents images that reveal interaction between

Viking paganism and Christianity. The Vikings had founded Dublin in 841-2, thence raiding

Western Britain until King Alfred (871-99) defeated Guthrum in 878.589 The ensuing treaty

required Guthrum to adopt Christianity, a conversion that Barbara Crawford considers was

essential for the resolution of cultural differences, and the stabilizing of society.590

Gosforth lies near the coast that faces the Isle of Man, and which therefore provided

landing grounds for raiders in the tenth century, and later for Norse colonists.591 As with all the

583 “Sandbach” Institute for Name Studies. University of Nottingham. 2002. Dir. Dr. David Parsons. A Key to

English Place-Names: Sandbach: SJ 75 60 Cheshire 'Sandy valley-straem'. OE sand, OE *baece. 02 Feb. 2010.

<http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~aezins//kepn/results_county.php?>search=Cheshire,CHE ;and

<http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~ aezins//kepn/detailpop.php?>placeno=11875 .584

Hawkes 147/8.585

Chapter 4 , pg. 72. 586

Hawkes 146.587

Hawkes 146/7.588

Crawford, Barbara E. “The Vikings.” From the Vikings to the Normans. Ed. Wendy Davies. Short Oxford

History of the British Isles. Oxford: OUP, 2003. 41-71 (44-51).589

cf Rollason 212.590

Crawford 57-8.591

Rollason 240. Cites Bailey and Cramp (1988) pp. 100-4, indicating that they dated the interlace on the cross

to the first half of the tenth century.

121

large crosses, it is possible that Gosforth served as a sign-post, or beacon, for travelers; this one

may also have offered something of a welcome. The website explains that: “the lower rounded

part of the Gosforth Cross is thought to represent Ygdrasil, the Viking World Tree.”592 The

monument also depicts several Norse gods, and the website explains the ambivalence of one

frame, which may: “[...] either represent the rebirth of Balder, son of Odin and the Viking god of

light, or the crucifixion of Christ.” While the pagan scenes would have been familiar to

Scandinavians, for Christians the second image refers to Redemption and the rebirth of hope for

mankind: because this Tree is also the Cross. It remains to ascertain which interpretation

predominates.

The “crucifixion” scene includes a soldier impaling his victim with a weapon, so

Christian reading of the panel rests on the parallel incident involving Longinus, in Gospel

accounts of the Crucifixion (John 19:34).593 William Stevens and, later, Richard Bailey, provide

further justification for drawing a Christian parallel, because they identify one of the two women

standing by as Mary Magdalene (John 19: 25).594 Bailey interprets both Mary and Longinus as

representing “the converted heathen,” referring to the latter as “Longinus, whom tradition saw as

(symbolically) blind until the flow of blood from Christ’s side revealed the nature of Christ to

him.”595 The Christian reading is less obvious in another panel that both Stevens and Bailey

describe. Here Loki, “the Teutonic Prometheus,” effects the first earthquake when he is bound

and cannot escape the dripping venom of a snake.596 In light of the understanding of knotwork

presented in the present study, that which binds Loki is likely, once more, to indicate that Christ,

Incarnate and crucified, overcame evil: at which point also “the earth quaked” (Matt: 27.51).

As the drawing made by Collingwood shows (Fig. 6.6), further references to the binding

of evil forces occur: for example, a prancing hart stands above another that struggles with a

serpent: the imagery I have referenced for Sandbach SE.597 Further still, wolf-like heads emerge

from the chains of interlace on all aspects of the tree-trunk. The figures seem refer to the legend

later recorded by Snorri Sturluson in the Edda, where the Norse gods bound Fenrir the wolf, son

of Loki, to prevent him from killing Odin; and Bailey references that imagery, identifying the

battle where Vidar is later “avenging the death of Odin by breaking the jaws of the wolf who had

592 “Gosforth: Gosforth Cross.” English Lakes: An Illustrated Guide to the Lake District: West Coast. 2005-6.

05 Dec. 2009. <http://www.english-lakes.com/gosforth.htm> . “Ygdrasil:” “the ash tree binding together heaven,

earth and hell, and extending its branches over the whole world and above the heavens: Chambers Dictionary.593

<http://www.english-lakes.com/gosforth.htm> 05 Dec. 2009.594

Stevens 88.595

Bailey 89.596

Stevens 90.597

Bailey 90.

122

swallowed his father.”598 If we accept interlace as symbolizing Christ, then He here overcomes

evil and pagan forces, presumably as manifestations of Satan. Bailey moves towards a similar

reading of the overall imagery. He sees the Viking scenes as paralleling Ragnarok and

Doomsday; and also, because the cross presents four horsemen-warriors, he identifies another

parallel with the Apocalypse. He concludes that “The message of the Gosforth cross is that

pagan narrative can be used to celebrate Christian truth and be shown to anticipate some of its

perceptions.”599 The suggestion is compatible with that of Rollason who also specifies that the

Viking scenes are from the “end of the gods–the Ragnarok,” and who believes “the theme was

either the transition of pagans to become Christians, or the end of the pagan order to be replaced

by that of Christ represented by the Crucifixion.”600 Depiction of these possibilities would

consist with the requirement of the Guthrum treaty, that Norsemen must accept Christianity.

The scheme at Gosforth nevertheless concedes to Viking taste: the similarity between

Ygdrasil and the World Tree mentioned above acknowledges the Germanic origins of

Scandinavians. Anglians shared those roots, and they understood how the imagery conflates

with that of the Cross. Michael Swanton explains:

This conception had been common to western thought since the pseudo-Cyprian

poem ‘De Pascha’ had ascribed to the cross a vertebral place in cosmography,

conceived as a great tree towering to unite heaven and earth, at once identical

with the Saviour and church, and embracing all creation.601

At Gosforth, the style of the abstract interlace, too, is Scandinavian: Coatsworth categorizing it

as a “multiple ring-chain type” of the Borre style.602 The chain runs the length of the cross-shaft,

between the images and the wheel-head, and the ‘vertebral’ nature of the chains is apparent at

Gosforth. Interlace thus literally connects all the cultures involved. According to the symbology

ascribed to interlace in this chapter, however, and remembering that Anglo-Saxons also

euhemerized Viking gods, use of the device at Gosforth suggests that all human souls can aspire

to eternal life (represented by circles of the wheel-head and the interlace): but only through the

598 Sturluson, Snorri. Edda: A New and Complete Translation by Anthony Faulkes. London: J. M. Dent and

Sons Ltd, 1987. 26-29 (Gylfaginning) 26-29 the provenance and binding of Fenrir; 54 Death of Odin and vengeance

of Vidar. See also Bailey 88.599

Bailey 90.600

Rollason 254.601

Swanton, Michael. “Ambiguity and Anticipation in “The Dream of the Rood.” Neuphilologische

Mitteilungen/Bulletin of the Modern Language Society 70 (1969): 407-425 (418). Swanton (f/n 2) traces the history

of the idea from Augustine, Jerome, Bede, and Alcuin.602

Coatsworth, Elizabeth. Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Sculpture: Volume VIII, West Yorkshire. Oxford: OUP,

2008; 151, 108. Also cf Rollason 240. He explains the style as a variety found at Borre in Norway, and being of the

first half of the tenth century.

123

salvation afforded by the Incarnation and Crucifixion.

Rollason observes that the plaitwork, triquetrae, and wheel-head at Gosforth may have

come with the Vikings, from their bases in Ireland.603 Once again, the iconography of a cross

manifests cultural interlace; but the design falls under the authority of Christianity, which the

Viking newcomers accepted and adapted, or may have previously adopted. The Church therefore

never lost the power to participate in the development of multiculturalism and peace.

This section has shown, then, that the Church and rulers of Northumbria and Mercia used

stone crosses as they did manuscripts: to invoke the unifying power of the Cross; and that they

wove peace by providing spiritual strength for the newly established union against its enemies,

but also by eventually including those enemies in the fabric of their society. Knotwork on the

crosses participated in integration by framing, linking, or binding the concepts depicted, and we

see also that the abstract device–including the Cross itself–simultaneously analogizes the

omnipresent Divinity by revealing it in physical terms.

603 Rollason 242.

124

a) Bewcastle Cross b) Ruthwell CrossFigure 6.1: Christ Acclaimed by Two Animals-On Two Crosses604

604 O Carragain 205, Figure 37. He attributes the photo to Hewison, James King. The Runic Roods of Ruthwell

and Bewcastle, with a Short History of the Cross and Crucifix in Scotland. Glasgow: Smith, 1914; Plate XV, BL

7709. d. 24).

125

Figure 6.2: The Ruthwell Cross, Engraving After Drawings by Henry Duncan, 1833.605

605 O Carragain 22, Fig. 12. He attributes the illustration to Duncan, Henry. “An Account of the Remarkable

Monument in the Shape of a Cross, Inscribed with Roman and Runic Letters, Preserved in the Garden of Ruthwell

Manse, Dumfriesshire.” Archaeologica Scotica: or Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 4. Pt. 2,

1833: 313-26.

126

Figure 6.3: Illustrations of the Bewcastle Cross by W. G. Collingwood 606

606 Thomson, Bishop David. “Bewcastle Cross.” 20 Feb. 2010.

<http://www.bewcastle.com/images/cross-3.jpg>. Dr. Thomson provided the following citation by email, 21 Feb.

2010: “The illustration of the Bewcastle Cross first appeared in W G Collingwood’s book Northumbrian Crosses of

the Pre-Norman Age (London 1927), on page 113 as figure 135.”

127

a) NN b) NW c) NS d) NE Figure 6.4: Illustrations of the North Sandbach Cross. Images by Jane Hawkes. 607

607 Hawkes. NN: 65/Fig 2.14. NW: 76/Fig. 2.22.. NS: 86/Fig. 2.26. NE: 31/Fig. 2.1

128

a)SN b)SW c)SS d)SE

Figure 6.5: Illustrations of the South Sandbach Cross. Images by Jane Hawkes.608

608 Hawkes. SN: 69/Fig. 2.17. SW: 104/Fig.3.8. SS:116/Fig.3.18 SE: 95/Fig. 3.1

129

Figure 6.6: Illustrations of the Gosforth Cross by W. G. Collingwood.609

609 Bailey 86, Fig. 43. He attributes the illustration to Collingwood, W. G. Northumbrian Crosses of the Pre-

Norman Age. London: Faber and Gwyer. Repr. Felinfach, Lampeter: Llanerch, 1989.

130

CHAPTER 7

INTERLACE AND "THE DREAM OF THE ROOD”

The poem we know as "The Dream of the Rood" illustrates the conciliatory power of the

Cross by presenting the image of a cross which towers between heaven and earth: but earlier

chapters have shown the cross to be also a figuration of the Word.610 That Word deploys words

through the structure of interlace in the poem, where its multiplicity of crosses could have

“underpinned” its evangelical message in contributing to a campaign for weaving peace: in an

England ruled by Christian kings–under the aegis of the One Almighty God.

The authority of St. Paul once again supports theology as to the unifying power of the

Cross. He wrote to the Colossians that the Father sent Christ, "Who is the image of the invisible

God," adding: "And through him to reconcile all things unto himself, making peace through the

blood of his cross, both as to the things that are on earth, and the things that are in heaven."611

Paul explains further that the Crucifixion and Baptism redeem us from Original Sin:

And he hath taken the same out of the way, fastening it to the cross: / And

despoiling the principalities and powers, he hath exposed them confidently in

open shew, triumphing over them in himself."612

This theology also links my claims about DOR and LFG, and suggests some similarity in

their rhetorical purposes. For LFG, Paul supports the concept that, on the St. Matthew Incipit

page (f27), the zoomorphs who ‘decorate’ the frame could signify lesser kings who suddenly

recognize the authority of the Word Incarnate; and these are kings who have imprisoned even

lesser creatures, which appear as panels of zoomorphic interlace.613 The interpretation, though,

can extend to the St. John Incipit page (f211), where the words "In Principio erat verbum, et

verbum erat apud d(eu)m et d(eu)s [erat verbum]’614 are illuminated, and the lesser zoomorphs

610“The Dream of the Rood” [DOR] is Codex CXVII, Cathedral Library, Vercelli, ff. 104v-106. On the Cross

as a figure of Christ[the Word] cf Chapter 6 pg. 106. See also Treharne, Elaine. "Rebirth in The Dream of the Rood."

The Place of the Cross in Anglo-Saxon England. Eds. Catherine E. Karkov, Sara Larratt Keefer, and Karen Louise

Jolly. New York: Boydell and Brewer, Inc., 2006. 145-157. cf also 149/50: Treharne quotes an earlier source for this

convention, from the second century Apocryphal Acts of John: "This cross of light is sometimes called the Word by

me for your sakes . . ." Text from: Bremmer, Rolf Jr., "The Reception of the Acts of John in Anglo-Saxon England."

The Apocryphal Acts of John. Ed. Jan N. Bremmer. Kampen, The Netherlands: Kok Pharos (1995): 183-96. 611

St. Paul. Epistle to the Colossians. cf 1.15 and 1.20. 612

St. Paul, Col 2.14-15613

Chapter 5 pg. 93; 96. 614

cf Janet Backhouse 55. She translates: "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and God

[was the word]." The tenth century Old English interlinear gloss supplies the words: "in fruma wæs word & word

wæs godes sunu wæs mid god fæder "(In the beginning was the Word and the Word [that] was the Son of God was

with God the Father).

131

of the frame, now without their own crowns (horns), seem happily to contemplate the crowned

majuscule initials. The petty kings here enclose panels only of abstract interlace–an analogy for

Incarnation–and so could represent powers who accept and nurture the dominion of the Word.

The present chapter supports the view that, during campaigns to defeat pagan Vikings and to

subjugate the Danelaw, the Wessex dynasty of the ninth and tenth centuries sought similarly to

unite England and Wales under one government and one Church. This section suggests further

that, in the cause of weaving the new society, the Cult of the Cross provided a further means of

activating the power of the Word: by incorporating interlace into the oral traditions of homily

and poetry. To demonstrate this, the discussion focuses on interlace in DOR and considers the

relationship between the poem and the St. John Incipit. Firstly, though, an overview of the

codicological and historical contexts associated with DOR provides insight about the producers

of the text and its audience.

The manuscript of DOR survives in the codicological context of the Vercelli Book: a

collection of Old English homilies and the poems: Andreas, Elene, and The Fates of the

Apostles, as well as a prose Life of St. Guthlac.615 Michael Swanton categorizes the language of

DOR as "predominantly late West Saxon with a strong Anglian element."616 He indicates that

paleographical evidence supports claims for West Saxon origins and a date in the second half of

the tenth century,617 and Donald Scragg argues, more specifically, that a Canterbury scriptorium

produced the book.618 The evidence, then, suggests a Wessex provenance and use of the codex.

The survival of the poem in two areas–Northumbria and Wessex–indicates that it might

have been an instrument of the all-encompassing English Church rather, than of any secular

faction. Although we cannot know whether the prototype for DOR was Northumbrian or

southern, Swanton agrees with most scholars that the DOR runes at Ruthwell may derive from an

early version of the poem that was extant in Northumbria ca. 700, and O Carragain supports the

views of Rosemary Cramp and Uta Schwab that the Ruthwell inscription is probably

contemporaneous with the cross.619 Northumbrian culture was not esoteric, however; as David

Rollason says: "Rather it was a more wide-ranging one, an identity which embraced western

Christendom at large."620 This study has shown, throughout, that interlace similarly participated

in a larger identity; and one reason for suggesting that DOR might also have done so is that

615 Swanton 5 (DOR)..

616 Swanton 9.

617 Swanton 1.

618 Scragg, Donald. "The Nature of Old English Poetry.” The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature.

Eds. Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991; 55-70 (57)619

Swanton 39-42; O Carragain 52-53 agrees with Cramp on this; but notes that R. I. Page disagrees. 620

Rollason 170.

132

Bernard Huppe has demonstrated how the poem is structured by what this study has explained as

interlace.621 Another reason is that the work relates to overarching liturgical, Biblical, and

patristic traditions. As O Carragain argues: "The Dream is a classic example of the ancient

Christian tradition of thinking theologically by means of inventing original narratives."622 The

poem could have been used and developed elsewhere than Northumbria, therefore, and analysis

of dialect forms within the extant text led Swanton to opine: "The small number of early West

Saxon forms might indicate at least one intermediate version, perhaps stimulated by Alfred's

acquisition of important cross relics in 885."623

That Alfred showed interest in the Cults of the Cross and St. Cuthbert is also significant,

because he affected the outlook of his descendants during their campaigns against the Danelaw.

Rollason views Northumbrian culture as continuing throughout the Viking hegemony in the area.

He hypothesizes that councils of indigenous Archbishops and aristocracy continued to govern

while Vikings “disposed of” Northumbrian kings and fragmented the kingdom,624 and that the

process of Christianization still proceeded throughout the area.625 The new Northumbria included

areas in the northeast that were not under Viking authority: one was ruled by a House of

Bamburgh, and another by what appears as the 'liberty' of St. Cuthbert in 883. It is relevant,

though, that King Alfred probably later granted similar sanctuary rights to Durham; and that

Athelstan might have confirmed them for the Community of St. Cuthbert, because the grants

indicate that Wessex power extended into that area of the Danelaw.626 Rollason records further:

Alfred is supposed to have attributed his victory at Edington [AD 878] to

Cuthbert's intercession and to have recommended his son Edward the Elder [AD

899-924] to venerate the saint. Athelstan [AD 924-939] is said to have visited the

shrine and to have made rich gifts, Edmund to have visited the shrine, and Cnut

[AD 1016-1035] to have given the wide estate of Staindrop to the community.627

621 Huppe, Bernard F. The Web of Words: Structural Analyses of the Old English Poems “Vainglory,” “The

Wonder of Creation,” “The Dream of the Rood,” and “Judith.” Albany: SUNYP, 1970; xiii-xxi; and 64-112. 622

O Carragain 331.623

Swanton 39.624

Rollason 244625

Rollason 230.626

Rollason 244-9. See also 272-3, where he describes a ‘liberty’ as a place of sanctuary for those accused of

criminal activity; and discusses the Wessex interests in the area. See also Hall, David. "The Sanctuary of St. Cuthbert."

St. Cuthbert and His Community to AD 1200. Eds. Bonner, Gerald; David Rollason, and Clare Stancliffe. Rochester, NY:

Boydell, 1989; 425-436 (430-1). (SC)627

Rollason, David. "St. Cuthbert and Wessex: The Evidence of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 183."

St. Cuthbert, His Cult and His Community to AD 1200. Eds. Gerald Bonner, David rollason, and Clare Stancliffe.

Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1989; 413-424 (413). Rollason refers to Historia de sancto Cuthberto, the History

of St. Cuthbert. Volume I of Symeonis monachi Opera omnia ed. T. Arnold, RS (2 vols; London, 1882-5); 14-19,

25-8 and 32, and above, pp. 389-95 and 404-11.

133

As Michelle Brown observes: "The community of St. Cuthbert seems to have been 'doing its bit'

to keep the region 'English' and the promotion of Old English may have been a part of this."628

In so promoting the language, the community would have continued a tradition of their

region. Brown reminds us that translation of religious works into English began earlier; for

example: "Bede was engaged in translating St. John's Gospel, for the good of his soul and for

those of all people, on his deathbed (dictating to an assistant) in 735"; and she adds that, in his

gloss to that gospel, "Aldred confirms Bede as one of the sources of his scholarship."629 The

process of translating into the vernacular also extended to the program Alfred had outlined in his

"Preface to the Cura Pastoralis of Gregory the Great" (Bodleian Library, Hatton MS 20). There

the king wrote to his bishops:

Forðy mē ðyncð betre, gif iou swæ ðyncð, ðæt wē ēac sume bēc, ðā ðe

nīedbeðearfosta sīen eallum monnum tō wiotonne, ðæt wē ðā on ðæt geðīode

wenden ðe wē ealle gecnāwan mægen, ond gedōn, swæ wē swīðe ēaðe magon

mid Godes fultume, gif wē ðā stilnesse habbað, ðætte eall sīo gioguð ðe nū is on

Angelcynne frīora monna, ðāra ðe ðā spēda hæbben ðæt hīe ðæm befēolan

mægen, sīen tō liornunga oðfæste, ðā hwīle ðe hīe tō nānre ōðerre note ne mægen,

ōð ðone first ðe hīe wel cunnen Englisc gewrit ārædan.630

(Therefore it seems better to me, if it seems so to you, that we also should translate some

books, those that are most necessary for all men to know, into that language that we can

all understand, as we can very easily do with God's help, if we have the peace, so that

all the youth of free men who are now among the English people, of those who have

the means, may be set to a task of learning, so long as they may not be of any other

occupation, until the time that they know well how to read English writing.)

The texts of the Vercelli Book follow this precedent of bringing wisdom to the people: they

preach Christian doctrine in English, not Latin. It is also noteworthy that Alfred considered

‘peace’ a necessary environment for the endeavor.

The Wessex dynasty may well also have prioritized the reinforcement of power through

language–a lingua franca–in emulation of the Romans, a dynamic discussed throughout Chapter

4. It seems, in addition, that these rulers had every reason to understand the place of interlace in

the Cult of the Cross: especially as the Northumbrians had used it to reconcile diverse cultures

establish peace, and convert pagans. The visits of these kings to north-eastern Northumbria

628 Brown 97.

629 Brown 96; 97.

630 Alfred the Great. "Preface to the Cura Pastoralis of Pope Gregory the Great." A Guide to Old English. Eds.

Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson. 5th ed. Cambridge, Mass: Blackwell, 1992. 205-207, lines 54-61.(Mitchell

and Robinson).

134

suggest that they probably knew LFG; in any case, they certainly knew St. John's Gospel. It is

thus reasonable to suppose that they consciously combined the Cult with the interlace in their

Germanic rhetoric–their oral tradition of alliterative poetry, following a precedent modeled, for

example, by Aldhelm. It is similarly possible that Alfred extended use of the device into the

literary program in Wessex, especially as his "Preface" mentions the bishops Asser and

Plegmund – two men whose origins point to their probable knowledge of interlace. Asser was

Welsh, Mitchell and Robinson explain, and he "became Bishop of Sherborne and wrote a Latin

biography of King Alfred"; "Plegmund was a Mercian who became Archbishop of Canterbury

in 890."631 Whether or not these churchmen encouraged the tradition of interlace in Wessex, the

following analysis indicates that, by the late tenth century, the Church at Canterbury applied it to

DOR.

This study has already viewed intertextuality as a form of interlace,632 and the Vercelli

Book illustrates this codicologically, not only by binding together a variety of texts in poetry and

prose, but also by including texts about the Cross: Elene, and DOR. Scholars also attest that

DOR refers to various sources from the larger Christian context. They have identified allusions

to Scripture, by which the poem develops its themes. Elaine Treharne, for example, examines the

theme of rebirth, tracing its sources to Patristic literature that includes the Apocryphal Acts of

John and Cyril of Jerusalem's “Letter to Constantine.”633 Michael Swanton is among those who

discuss the eschatological aspects of the poem, and his references include a hymn of St. Ephraem

of Syria and the Apocrypha.634 Eamonn O Carragain suggests the liturgy of the Vatican Mass

"Adnuntiatio Domini et Passsio Eiusdem" as a source for the theme of Incarnation and

Passion.635 Rosemary Woolf has been especially influential for her exposition of communicatio

idiomatum (communion of properties) in the poem, a principle which Pope Leo I (AD 440-61)

took from Alexandrian teaching and used in his “Tome,” where he sought to resolve the

631 Mitchell and Robinson 207 f/n 70-2. The editors note: The first Bishop of Sherborne (705) had been

Aldhelm (ca. 639-709)– who had been known for his riddles, and whose Latin work also shows Irish influence. This

is mentioned in Chapter 3, as is the Welsh tradition of interlace. The Mercian tradition has has already been

mentioned in Chapter 5 in relation to Chad of Lindisfarne and Lichfield, and in Chapter 6 on Stone Crosses,

especially Sandbach. 632

Chapter 3 pg. 37.633

Treharne, Elaine. "Rebirth in "The Dream of the Rood." The Place of the Cross in Anglo-Saxon England.

Eds. Catherine E. Karkov, Sara Larratt Keefer, and Karen Louise Jolly. New York: Boydell and Brewer, Inc., 2006;

145-157. cf also 149-50, where Treharne cites both these texts as possible sources for the concept of the cosmic

cross of light. 634

Swanton 64 f/n 2: cf 2 Esdras 5; p. 66: the Gospel of Peter, which combines the cosmic cross with

paronomasia. At 75 f/n 2 Swanton refers to a hymn of Ephraem Syrus, "whose writings," David Johnson says further, "were

instrumental in establishing early medieval Judgement Day iconographical conventions,” (Payne, 1976:331). cf Johnson, David.

"Old English Religious Poetry.” Companion to Old English Poetry. Eds. Henk Aertsen and Rolf H. Bremmer Jr. Amsterdam:

VU University Press, 1994. 159-187 (179).635

O Carragain 355.

135

Monophysite controversy.636 Bernard Huppe revealed a theme in which DOR presents Christian

life as a pilgrimage towards the Heavenly Home;637 he also produced a close analysis of the

interlace, the “web of words,” in the poem, and Chapter 4 includes a summary of his description

of that structure in Old English poetry. For ease of reference, this discussion follows the scenes

of DOR as Huppe outlined them; I have, therefore, shown the structure at the end of this chapter.

My discussion of interlace in DOR highlights the evangelical aspect of the poem, which

renders it an instrument for soldiers of the one Almighty King, and therefore suitable for every

individual in Wessex and Northumbrian audiences: be they military or religious. The analysis

shows how the poet enables development of themes by techniques described in Chapter 4:

antithesis, juxtaposition, intersection, variation, allusiveness, and analogy; and by parallelism

and framing, the forms of which are often chiastic when applied to the alliterative half-line. The

study focuses through development of the concepts “Word” and “Cross” in the poem, showing

how they provide an interlacement that provokes both thought and action in response to the

Gospel of St. John, particularly according to the commentary by St. Augustine.638

Tractate 2 of that commentary concentrates on the "In Principio" section of the Gospel,

relating it to the wood of the Cross which, Augustine maintains, provides passage between this

world and the heavenly homeland: "For no one can cross the sea of this world unless carried by

the cross of Christ."639 Augustine states also that Christ became incarnate so that men could first

see Him, and then act as "witness," a doctrine that suggests, overall, how individuals can

participate in their own redemption–by evangelizing their faith. Augustine continues, "Thus he

showed that it was for the sake of men that he wanted himself to be clearly revealed to the faith

of the believers by his lamp, so that his enemies might be confounded by the same lamp."640 I

interpret Augustine as thus expressing a requirement for evangelism to strengthen the faithful

and to confute the pagan; and the Cross in DOR commands the Dreamer to bear such witness: as

part of the Way of the Cross (beacen) that appears to him DOR 6, 21, 83; 95-100).

The command exemplifies the prosopopeia by which the poet of DOR presents words

636 Woolf, Rosemary. "Doctrinal Influences on "The Dream of the Rood." Art and Doctrine: Essays on

Medieval Literature. Ed. Heather O'Donoghue. London: The Hambledon Press, 1986. 29-48 (32 ff.) “Leo I

(440-61)” ODP: explains that the Tome was a letter from Leo to Flavian, Bishop of Constantinople 13 June, 449;

ODP 44 describes communicatio idiomatum as explaining how Christ Incarnate incorporated both human and

Divine Natures. 637

Huppe xiii-xxi; and 64-112. 638

Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo. Tractates on the Gospel of John. Trans. John W. Rettig. Washington,

D.C: Catholic University of America Press, c.1988.639

This image of the Cross is also relevant to the "Andreas" text in the Vercelli Book: where God provides the

saint with a ship, in which he crosses stormy seas while conversing with "The Lord of angels, Saviour of men

(290)." Translation from: Bradley, S. A. J. ed. and trans. Anglo-Saxon Poetry. London: J. M. Dent, 1982; 110-153. 640

Augustine Tr. 2. 67(3); 68.9.

136

that purport to be spoken by the Word; so it is logical, even necessary, that the poet should

derive his representations of the Word from the Bible, which is also known as the Word of God.

John is the evangelist who discusses the Word: he identifies the Word as the Creator, saying,

"All things were made by him," (John 1.1-3). Augustine enlarges on the first chapter of John, to

the effect that it was the Word who came to mankind, incarnate from the Beginning, and who

allowed Himself to be crucified in order to: Manifest Divinity by appearing as man (64/5 (4));

Exemplify humility (64.(4)); Kill Death (74): and bring Redemption and Salvation to the fallen

race of mankind–so showing the way for us to return to the Heavenly Homeland (64ff). The

present analysis indicates that this is the plot of DOR; and because the message shares the

concerns presented in the visual arts already discussed, the poem, too, reflects the

religio-political aims of those who produced the interlace.

As the beginning of the chapter suggests, the key to the claim lies in recognition of the

Cross as the figuration of Christ, who is also the Word. A second key, however, lies in the

parallel understanding that–because the cross is the basic unit of weaving–interlace in words

analogizes His Divinity. This poet thereby presents an image of Divinity in the Wood, but also

re-presents the abstract part of the concept in the fabric of his text: crosses infuse the text and

symbolize the invisible Word while holding together the construction of words. Such a poem,

furthermore, is both a physical and spiritual metaphor for the process of Creation: in which the

poet analogizes the principle of John 1.2, "All things were made by him: and without him was

made nothing that was made." Saint Augustine expands:

(But) God constructs while infused in the world. He constructs while situated

everywhere. He does not withdraw from anywhere; he does not direct the

structure which he constructs as someone on the outside. By the presence of his

majesty he makes what he makes; by his own presence he governs what he has

made. He was, then, in the world as the one through whom the world was made.

For "the world was made through him, and the world knew him not."641

St. Paul had similarly explained this aspect of creation:

"For the invisible things of him are clearly seen from the attributes of the world,

being understood by the things that are made. His eternal power also and divinity,

so that they are inexcusable."642

The poet also specifies the infusion of the Word in Creation by describing the state of the Cross,

which is beg(e)otan "sprinkled" or "infused" with gold and/or blood (7a, 48/49), thus appearing

alternately in glory or as gallows. It is a concept that echoes the gilding and red dots on the St.

641 Augustine 69.(2); [quotes John 1.10].

642 St. Paul. Rom. 1.20-22.

137

Matthew page of LFG; and, as Huppe said, this Cross is both “triumphant” and “the cross of

suffering”;643 it manifests “the mystery of Redemption, the triumph of mortification.”644 I suggest

further that in so presenting Christ the Word as both Divine and human, the flashing of both

image and verbal antitheses analogizes communicatio idiomatum.

The infusion of the Word in Creation is also manifest in verbs that refer to weaving and

clothing: the Cross is bewunden–"wrapped" or "entwined" with light (5b); (ge)gyred, gegyrwed,

or gyredon - "adorned" or "dressed" with gold, treasure, gold and silver (16a, 23b, 77a). The

Word Incarnate ongyred–symbolically "prepared" or "stripped" Himself of man-made clothing:

before he ascended the Cross and quit the garment of flesh bestowed by God (39a). Gems

bewrigene (fr. bewreon) "cover" or "clothe" His Cross (17a) as clouds do His corpse (53a). It is a

list in which analogy develops through polyptoton, variation, and antithesis; and by the echoes

set up between concepts, as words connect meanings and effect coherence in the verbal textile.

Using these techniques, the dreamer allows us to discern that the poem itself is the creation of a

man who responds to the call of the Cross: to evangelize the narrative of Volition, Fall, and

Redemption; that is, to "reveal" or "uncover"–onwreon it with words (95-100).

Nouns for weaves or textiles work similarly to weave the Cross into Creation. The Tree

is wædum geweorðode “honored by clothing” (15a) and wendan wædum “[seen] to change

clothing”(22a). Commentators speculate as to what clothing might be intended, “But,” Swanton

points out, “the most straight-forward reference would seem to be to the ritual shrouding of

crosses with a veil or pall on good Friday to be dramatically revealed with the Resurrection

services of Easter Sunday.”645 These are like the weeds of mourning still worn by widows.

Another such noun, sceat, means "sheet, covering, cloak, or garment,” and is usually translated

in DOR as "corner" or "surface." The word appears as sceatum (8a) where gems meet the surface

of the earth; and the gems there, being faegere, provide a link with the spirits who were fægere

þurh forðgesceaft "fair from the beginning of Creation," or “throughout Creation.” (10a)– those

who, in antithesis to the reordberend, “speechbearers” (3a), exercised willpower so as not to

Fall. Repetition of sceatum (43a), at the Crucifixion scene, provides further contrast to this

fairness when the Word ascends the gallows that wills itself not to bend or fall to the same earth

(42b). Yet the situation is also a paradox, for while the Crucifixion shows the vileness of

mankind, the acts of Christ and the Cross exceed heroism or fairness: because the resolution of

the paradox–Redemption–epitomizes Grace. In the interim, the Cross has seen the sceatas

(polyptoton) “surfaces” of the earth quake (37a) as God their Creator approached the cross

643 Huppe 76. On gilding and red dots in LFG see Chapter 5, pgs. 90/92.

644 Huppe 75.

645 Swanton 110, note 15.

138

created by men. Interlace as a process of Creation/creation thus allows us a glimpse of cosmic

dimensions: through a dream vision that spans space and time, and by the sublimity of antitheses.

The gems on the cross are also attributes of interlace in their function as decorative insets

(7b, 16b), and they parallel the knots in manuscript or woven fabric, or the bosses that enabled

the connection of metal to stone crosses. The gems in the poem alternate with bloody wounds:

they are placed where Christ was nailed to the Cross. The gems are also at points of connection

between the Creator and His creation, including at the surface of the earth (7b-8a), and there are

five on the eaxlegespanne (9a). Swanton indicates that the translation for the latter word is

usually “shoulder beam”; however, the component gespanne means “that which links or

stretches.”646 In light of the present discussion the term could then refer to the junction of the

beams in forming the interlace that is the Cross, and the jewels would then would work as Huppe

pointed out, because "The Passion explains the mystery of the interweaving of radiance and

suffering, communicato idiomatum."647 The gems on the cross, therefore, also analogize the

Christian paradox that contains its own solution–Redemption: where evil is transmuted to good,

and Death becomes Eternal Life. They represent points where a thesis of spiritual glory (gold

and gems 7)648 meets an antithesis of wounds caused by nails (46a) and arrows (62b) and

there–through the synthesis of sacrifice–the Son-Word redeems mankind.

In DOR, intensified verbs that are also homonyms frame and interlace the lines that

illustrate synthesis (“they drove dark nails through me”) and sacrifice in the Crucifixion scene:

þurhdrifan hi me mid deorcan næglum; || on me syndon þa dolg gesiene;

—and

standan steame bedrifenne;|| eall ic wæs mid strælum forwundod. (46 & 62)

Steame bedrifenne “‘drenched,’ ‘soaked’ with blood, ” and forwundod both produce echoes,

furthermore, and so can remind the audience that the dreamer, like all mankind, is synnum fah,

and forwunded mid wommum ('stained with sins'/'badly injured with wounds' 13b/14a). Swanton

adduces evidence from glosses to indicate that fah also indicated ‘hostile’ or ‘proscribed’, while

womm can connote ‘noise or harbinger of terror,’ meaning, by extension, that: “Not only is this

considered to be in some way appropriate to dreams, it is a feature of war, winter, Doomsday and

Hell.”649 In these lines, also, the intensifier for, in forwunded, also implies that the wounding

646 Swanton 107, note 9.

647 Huppe 76.

648 Swanton 52 cites a precedent for this perception from the Egbert Pontifical: “radiet hic Unigeniti Filii tui

splendor divinitatis in auro, emicet gloria passionis in ligno, icruore rutilet nostrai mortis redemptio, in splendore

cristalli nostrae vitae purificatio,”[my emphasis]." cf H. A. Wilson, The Benedictional of Archbishop Robert

(London, 1903), p. 184."649

Swanton, Michael. “Ambiguity and Anticipation in ‘The Dream of the Rood.’ ” Neuphilologische

Mitteilungen/Bulletin of the Modern Language Society. 70 (1969): 407-425 (408-9).

139

occurred 'previously'; which could remind the audience that all mankind is stained and wounded

by its willful fall through Original Sin. The concept therefore functions with the repetition of

synnum in framing the Vision and Narrative (at 13b and 99b), and it anticipates the moment in

the Exhortation: when the Cross commands the dreamer to reveal the news of Redemption from

that fall:

[...] mancynnes||manegum synnum

ond Adomes ealdgewyrhtum. (99-100)

The instruction, contained in lines 95-100, echoes still further with the introduction to the

poem (1-3). As Swanton points out, "The Apocryphal Gospel of Peter, for instance, tells of a

cross towering into the skies that at the Resurrection is given a divine errand to preach to those

that sleep."650 The Cross in DOR fulfills this mission: the first people to appear in the poem are

'speechbearers' who are in bed, and presumably asleep, for they participate no further in the

Vision (syðþan reordberend|| reste wunedon! 3). That is reasonable in the midnight context of

the narrative (2); however, men who sleep are deaf and mute; further still, reste can also mean

“grave.” These sleepers therefore represent those who are oblivious, if not spiritually dead, to

the vision of the Maker who gifted them with speech.

Perhaps the Dreamer exemplifies the audience Augustine addressed: “My beloved

people, exercise your understanding; for he came to weak minds, to wounded hearts, to the

vision of bleary-eyed souls. He had come for this reason."651 It is significant, consequently, that

the treow appears at night, leohte bewunden (5b)–because that is how St. John said Christ came

to the world that was oblivious of Him: "And the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness

did not comprehend it."652 The reason unbelieving mankind is in darkness, and is darkness,

Augustine explains further, is because of the Fall; and that is why the Light came to the world:

"For if man had not departed from that light, he would not have to be enlightened."653 John

Rettig, who translated the Tractates, notes:

The Latin metaphor contains a play on words that is untranslatable; Latin cadere,

"to fall," and occidere, "to fall down," or, for heavenly bodies, "to set," and the

derivative nouns, casus and occasus. The enlightening God never stops shining

on men; but a person's sin blocks out that light and, so to speak, God the sun sets

on that person who then is darkness and not light.654

650 Swanton 66, f/n 2: cites Harnack, A. Bruchstucke des Evangeliums und der Apocalypse des Petrus.

(Leipzig, 1893), 11.651

Augustine 66.7.652

John 1.5. 653

Augustine 66/7.3.654

Rettig 2.67. (2) Footnote 20.

140

From this we may understand why the Cross in DOR should appear so unstable when it ought to

symbolize the epitome of constancy and safe transportation. The fault lies in the eyes of the

beholder: the sins of the Dreamer darken and obscure his view even as the Cross reveals the

consequences of those sins. The very flickering of the Cross (18-23), then, is interlace as

variation, and it encourages us to exercise our perception and to develop understanding.

Through this poem, we can discern that the apparition of the Cross-Word works as a lamp (a

beacon) that helps the Dreamer and his audience clear their perceptions. For although Christ

described John the Baptist as "a burning and shining light,"655 Augustine explained that the

original Light was Christ himself (the Word), and: "In him was life, and the life was the light of

men."656 He shows that the Cross fulfills the same function:

(4) And even the man with poor eyesight sometimes embraces this cross. And he

who does not see from afar where to go, let him not depart from that [cross], and

it will lead him over.657

DOR, like St. John's Gospel itself, clearly needs explication. Proceeding on the principle that the

poet analogizes the Word through the words and crosses of the text, therefore, it is useful to

consider his variation of the words for "cross" and to note that, from the beginning, they signify

the symbol as Truth, Light, and the Way - that is, as Christ, the Redeemer.

The Vision (1-23) introduces most of the words the poet will use for the Cross. They are:

treow (4b, 14b, 17b); beam (6a, 13a); beacen (6b, 21b); and engel (9b). It is not, the dreamer

asserts, the gealga (“gallows”: of a criminal, 10b). The other terms all have meanings that can

deepen our understanding of the nature of the cross. Thus while the cosmic treow (on lyft lædan||

5a) is “more rare than any other” (4b), a “tree of Glory” (14b), the “tree of the Ruler” (17b), and

the “tree of the Saviour” (25b)–the word treow also means “truth, fidelity, trust, and promise.”

Knowing that this is the Word, the individual can therefore recognize it as Truth, and place faith

in the promise of Redemption that it carries.

A beam is both a beam of wood and a beam of light; therefore this tree also represents the

Light. When compounded into sigebeam (13a, 127) the tree becomes a light or sign of Victory;

and we will see that the poem develops that concept as victory over the death occasioned by

Original Sin, the death already symbolized by the sleepers. As beacen, “beacon,” the Cross is

again the sign of enlightenment, and a guiding light towards victory; while as an engel, or 'angel'

it is also a messenger, a holy spirit of and from the Lord. The towering celestial Cross, then,

appears in sublime contradistinction to the sleeping speechbearers; and the Dreamer is, for us,

655 Augustine Tr. 2. 66.7; cites Jn 5.35.

656 Augustine 67/8; cites Jn. 1.4.

657 Augustine 62.(4).

141

the individual one–chosen as a spokesperson among men.

The Narrative (24-77) uses the verb hleoðrian (“to speak”) to introduce the Cross as a

speaker. The past tense hleoðrode (26b), however, includes another word for Cross –rod, and

thus synthesizes the characteristics of Cross and Word into communicatio idiomatum. Use of rod

also frames the description the central scene of the Crucifixion (44a, Rod wæs ic aræred; and

56b, Crist wæs on rode), once more stressing the synthesis. In discussing the use of rod, it is

noteworthy that the poet uses this Anglo-Saxon word for “cross,” but never applies the Celtic-

Norse word kross. It is possible that this, like the gloss in LFG, implies linguistic assertion or

political dominance; but it may simply have been inherited with an older, Northumbrian version

of the poem. It is rhetorically purposeful, however, that the word rod would echo the name of

the Anglo-Saxon rune–rad [R], which means “road,” or “way.”

We encounter yet another aspect of the Word-Tree at the beginning of Scene II, before

the Crucifixion scene begins. The dreamer tells us:

Ongan þa word sprecan || wudu selesta (27)

St. Augustine also uses the word 'wood' when he discusses the Crucifixion. He proceeds from

John 1.1 and asks:

But why was he crucified? Because the wood of his lowliness was necessary for

you. For you had swollen with pride and had been cast forth far from that

homeland; and the way has been washed out by the waves of this world, and there

is no way by which you can cross over to the homeland unless you are carried by

the wood.[...] But you, who cannot in any way yourself walk on the sea, be

carried by the ship, be carried by the wood!658

The consonants of wudu and word alliterate and the words echo, which would be obvious to an

audience of oral poetry, especially; the words therefore hint at the synthesis of properties of the

Wood that is the Word and the Way. The Cross-Word in DOR thus appears as the Way, the

Truth, and the Light.

Humanity, in contrast, displays little brilliance. Men, as feondas (fiends or enemies, 30b),

single out and cut the tree down from among others at the holtes on end (the edge of the wood,

29b); and here the poet begins a parallel that he continues throughout DOR, because the phrase

echoes wealdend (53, 67, 111, 121, 155) , and although the weald component means "ruler" and

"Lord," the word also refers to “weald–a wood or forest” (17). The wordplay has several

functions. Swanton observes that weald also connotes ‘power’ and, consequently, “this could

be seen to anticipate both the intermediate role of the cross, representative of the great power of

658 Augustine 64 (3).

142

nature (37-8), and at the end its transformation from tree to eternal emblem of heavenly authority

(80 ff).”659 In view of Augustinian doctrine, the polysemy also suggests the infusion of the Lord

into His Creation, and it stresses His Omnipresence. That context highlights the contrast with a

fallen perception of creativity: the blindness that leads men as feondas (30b) simultaneously to

deprive the Word-Tree of its "root" and its "voice" (stefn, 30a), and then to use their own voices

to command it to kill other men for "spectacle" (31a). The audience of DOR enjoys further

dramatic irony when mortal "speechbearers" bear the Eternal Word to what they think will be its

death. That they carry the tree on their shoulders (eaxlum, 32a) echoes the previous reference to

eaxlegespanne (9a), and only the enlightened in the audience, or those who have meditated on

the poem, will recognize the paradox by which ‘speechbearers' (3) ensure that their mortality

will become eternal Life:

Bæron me ðær beornas on eaxlum, || oððæt hie me on beorg asetton,

gefæstnodon me þær feondas genoge. || (32-3)

As they re-root the tree on that hill, we may suspect that willful men, the fallen ones, are

unwitting agents of God. The end of the word-frame around the crucifixion scene (beorg,

32b–50a), in which the concepts of ‘bearing’ and ‘enduring’ are also linked, confirms the

suspicion:

Feala ic on þam beorge || gebiden hæbbe

wraðra wyrda. (50-1)

where wyrda means “events,” but also hints at “destiny” or “fate.”

By stressing the placement of the Wood on the hill (beorg), the poet illustrates the

spiritual insight of this one, chosen tree and confirms it when the Cross–at first sight–recognizes

Christ as Lord:

[. . .] || Geseah ic þa Frean mancynnes

efstan elne mycle || þæt he me wolde on gestigan. (33-4)

St. Augustine had explained, with respect to men of vision, like John the Baptist and John the

Evangelist:

They were able to do this, the mighty minds of the mountains; they have been

called mountains whom the light of justice especially illumines. They were able;

and they saw that which he is. For John saw and said, "In the beginning was the

Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."660

The perceptiveness of the Cross on the hill parallels that of John the Evangelist who is

believed also to have witnessed the Crucifixion–along with Mary; and the poet will juxtapose the

659 Swanton 410-11 “Ambiguity and Anticipation.”

660 Augustine 63 (2).

143

Cross and Mary further at holmwudu (91a)– “wood [or ‘trees’] on the hill;” or, as we have

interpreted it above, the “Word” on the hill.661 There he parallels the special quality of the one

woman and the one tree chosen by God from among their kinds. St. Augustine points out that

each man, too, must maintain an ability to recognize the continual presence of God; He is still

here, and no one must fall away again:

If you have caused your fall, he causes his setting for you; but if you stand

upright, he is present to you.

But you have not stood upright: recall from where you have fallen, from where he

who fell before you cast you down. For he cast you down not by force, not by

compulsion, but by your own will. For if you did not consent to evil, you would

stand upright, you would remain enlightened. [My stress]662

In this view, the narrator of DOR once more highlights the shortcomings of men by ironic

contrast: the Cross did not cause its own fall–men felled it just as they felled themselves (29a).

As the Word approaches, furthermore, the Cross exercises volition and stands–in obedience to

His will:

þær ic þa ne dorste || ofer dryhtnes word

bugan oððe berstan, || (35-6)

Further still it has the will-power to refrain from vengeance in kind, it does not fell the enemy:

[...] || Ealle ic mihte

feondas gefyllan, || hwæðre ic fæste stod. (37-8)

The triple repetition of this courage, steadfastness and strength is one of the best known parts of

the poem.

Bifode ic þa me se beorn ymbclypte. || Ne dorste ic hwæðre bugan to eorðan,

feallan to foldan sceatum. || Ac ic sceolde fæste standan. (43-3)

The third refusal to fall follows rapidly, and the repetition–at the center of a hypermetric

group–intensifies the drama:

Rod wæs ic aræred. || Ahof ic ricne cyning,

heofona Hlaford; || hyldan me ne dorste. (44-5)

Restraint still characterizes the strength, though:

[...] ||Ne dorste ic hira nænigum sceððan

Bysmeredon hie unc butu ætgædere.|| [...] (47-8)

The properties of Wood and Word had been united when Christ was nailed to the gallows (46a),

661 cf Jn 19.26-7. Swanton glosses holmwudu as “wood on the hill.” Line note: “a powerful oblique reference

to the gallows of Golgotha (cf beorg 32) the wood on the hill now made into a towering symbol of victory,” (132). 662

Augustine 67.

144

so Christ and the Cross now act together. St. Augustine considered why the Word might have

withstood the insults.

(2)Was it because he could not? Obviously he could. For what is greater, to come

down from a cross or to rise up from the tomb? [...]

(3) But he endured the insulters; for the cross was taken up not as a demonstration

of power but as an example of suffering. There he cured your wounds where so

long he endured his own; there he healed you of eternal death...663

Now we may understand why the Dreamer depicts himself as forwunded mid wommum (14a): he

is a Son of Adam, and he may have further compounded that Fall during this life. Like all

mankind, he suffers both mortality and the threat of spiritual death. Almighty and Eternal God

cannot die, however. To stress this, the poet interlaces and varies the idea of His death with the

theme of the "Fall" by presenting the Crucifixion from a viewpoint familiar to Anglo-Saxons: the

Fall of a King:

[...] || Weop eal gesceaft,

cwiðdon cyninges fyll. || Crist wæs on rode. (55-6)

As this discussion has already intimated, in addition, death in DOR appears as sleep. Rosemary

Woolf explains the convention:

The author of the Dream of the Rood similarly does not speak of Christ's death:

the climax of the poem is simply, Crist waes on rode [Christ was on the Cross],

and His death is thereafter described as a sleep, in terms which with cathartic

effect suggest exhaustion, release, and temporary rest.664

The poet uses this concept to create a word-frame that interlaces with the reste (3b) of the

speechbearers in DOR:

[...] ||ond he hine ðær hwile reste

[...] ||Reste he ðær mæte weorode (64b; 69b)

Contained within the envelope created by reste, men mimic their Creator by creating a moldaern

(“earth-urn” 65b) for the Word–where they unwittingly echo and contribute to the creation of life

for themselves. As St. Augustine said: "there he healed you of eternal death." He added later:

[B]ecause he cured [us] we see. For this, namely, that "the Word is made flesh and dwelt among

us," became a medicine for us, so that since we were blinded by earth we might be healed by

earth." 665

663 Augustine Tr. 3: 77.

664 Woolf, Rosemary (42-43). Woolf cites the authority of Augustine In Joannis Evangelium Tractatus cxxiv

P.L. xxxv 1952; and also recommends a study by M. B. Ogle. "The Sleep of Death. “Memoirs of the American

Academy in Rome, X (1932). 81-117.665

Augustine Tr. 3: 77.(3); and Tr. 3: 81.3.

145

The mourners at the Crucifixion do not realize that they are helping Christ to bury death;

however the Anglo-Saxon audience would have recognized the reference during the Peroration

(Scene III, 78-121):

Deað he þær byrigde, || hwæðere eft dryhten

aras mid his miclan mihte || mannum to helpe (101-2)

Huppe, too, noted of Paragraph ii: "Period 2 [101-9] begins with wordplay on byrigde, 101,

"tasted," "buried,” which suggests a characteristic antithesis; in tasting death and in his burial,

Christ buried (i.e. conquered) death."666 St. Augustine had mentioned the precursor to burial

when he related the concept to the Gospel of St. John: “And because he came in such a way that

by his flesh he might extinguish the faults of the flesh and by his death he might kill death, it

was therefore effected in you that, because "the Word was made flesh," you could say, "And we

saw his glory," (My stress).667 This is what the Dreamer partly saw, and what he tries to reveal

to us.

Shortly after the burial of Christ, the Cross endures the “event/fate” of its second felling:

[...] || þa us man fyllan ongan

ealle to eorðan; || þæt wæs egeslic wyrd! (73b-4)

This time men re-root the Word/wood into a deep pit (75a), from which "friends" will resurrect

and clothe it in gold and silver:

freondas gefrunon, .....................

gyredon me || golde ond seolfre (76-77)

Gyredon here is both the antithesis to the action of the Warrior Christ (ongyrede 39a), and the

result of His heroism–for the gealgan heanne (“high gallows” 40b) is now transformed into the

syllicre treow (4b) as it first appeared to the Dreamer. In that manifestation of the Word, the

Angel-Messenger practiced and exemplified evangelism.

Scene II, the Crucifixion, is the node or eaxlegespann of the poem–an intersection from

which the interlaced themes extend to the other scenes. The themes relevant to the present

discussion are clearly those of the Fall, Creation, Redemption, and Evangelism; and we have

seen that contributory themes include Volition, which the poem shows is necessary to ensure

Redemption, as is Humility. The theme of the Fall develops in Scene II as an echo of its

anticipation in Scene I (1-3; 10a). The theme of Creation, Gesceaft, similarly branches out to the

rest of the poem; and so it reiterates the communion between God and Creation as well as the

eternity of both. This is clear when Scene I situates the negative assertion about the gallows

between uses of gesceaft.

666 Huppe 104.

667 Augustine Tr. 2. 73/4.(2); Jn. 1.14.

146

[. . .] ||Beheoldon þær engel dryhtnes ealle

fægere þurh forðgesceaft.||Ne wæs ðær huru fracodes gealga,

ac hine þær beheoldon ||halige gastas,

menn ofer moldan, || ond eall þeos mære gesceaft. (9-12)

The crucifixion scene itself is set between Scenes II and III, and framed by repetition of line 12:

[. . . ] || wide ond side

menn ofer moldan, || ond eall þeos mære gesceaft

gebiddaþ him to þyssum beacne. || [...] (81-83)

By variation, then, we see Creation behold the Messenger (12 ), weep at the Gallows (55), and

pray to the Beacon (82). The engel though, the Cross in its manifestation as a Holy Messenger

who exemplifies the will not to fall, is echoed by the unfallen spirits in Scenes I (10a) and III

(106b) and, in the latter it connects the foregoing men to Judgment Day. There, in the future–as

Man sees it–the Ruler will judge each one, according to his or her deserts–choices. The

alliteration and assonance of wile, geweald, gehwylcum echo to accentuate the point:

on domdæge ||dryhten sylfa,

ælmihtig god, ||ond his englas mid,

þæt he þonne wile deman,||se ah domes geweald

anra gehwylcum || swa he him ærur her

on þyssum lænum || life geearnaþ. (105-109)

Here also anra gehwylcum “each individual” closes a frame with the parallel “æghwylcne anra”

“each one of those ...” who can be healed by the Cross

|| ond ic hælan mæg

æghwylcne anra || þara þe him bið egesa to me. (85-6)

At the heart of this envelope structure lie references to the two models of strength we have

already noted: Mary who was unique among women, and the cross unique among trees (94; 91).

The thread of englas and eternal, unfallen, spirits continues to the end of Scene IV and a

vision of Glory in the Native Land of the Son (150-156):

anwealda ælmihtig, || englum to blisse

ond eallum ðam halgum || þam þe on heofonum ær

wunedon on wuldre, || þa heora wealdend cwom, (153-155)

The Son–the One Almighty God–who is victorious is also the Word; therefore–in light of

John 1.1–the poet returns us full circle to the Beginning and provides a figure of eternity. The

double references to weald highlight recognition of the power of the Creator, which the Dreamer

had hinted about at wealdes treow (17b) and at Doomsday (wealdend, 111b); but now we

147

comprehend the infusion of power not only in the forest–but throughout Eternity. The Cross

had recognized this when men did not, after the Crucifixion:

[...] || Geseah ic weruda God þearle þenian. (51-2)

For although the God of Hosts is þenian “stretched out” on the cross, in another sense he is “very

much” extended: infused throughout Creation. Bosworth-Toller observes that þearle “tends to

become an adverb of degree, rather than one of manner or quality,” so that the meaning becomes

“very, very much, exceedingly, excessively.”668 Several Biblical precedents allow this

possibility. As Richard Gameson has pointed out in another context, Jeremiah 23: 24 provides

the reference: “Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord.” Gameson notes that this also calls

to mind Matthew 28.18: “Data est mihi omnes potestas in caelo et in terra,” [All power is given

to me, in heaven and in earth]; but that the idea simultaneously evokes the words of the Sanctus

of the Mass: “Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua,” and of the Te Deum “Pleni sunt caeli et

universa terra honore gloriae tuae.”669 Thus I suggest that the Cross here sees the glory of Christ

extend to fill all heaven and earth.

St. Augustine argued that Christ submitted to the Crucifixion in order to demonstrate

humility–through his humanity;670 and the Crucifixion scene in DOR also develops a theme of

humility which interlaces with the second half of the poem. The Cross, for example,

demonstrates humility when it bends to deliver Christ to the warrior friends.

Sare ic wæs mid [sorgum] gedrefed,|| hnag ic hwæðre þam secgum to handa,

eaðmod elne mycle. || Genamon hie þær ælmihtigne God,

ahofon hine of ðam hefian wite.|| (59-61)

It would be difficult to appreciate the juxtaposition of eaðmod “meek, humble” and elne “zeal,

courage, strength” were it not for the conflicting doctrines of dyo- and monothelitism.671Through

sensitivity to those concepts we witness the humility of the Divine Word, and the Will–the

courage and restraint–required to accomplish the mission of Redemption while in human form.

The poet would have been sensitive to the controversy but, as Woolf suggests, avoids

668 “þearle:” An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Based on the Manuscript Collections of the Late Joseph Bosworth.

Ed. T. Northcote Toller. An Electronic Application on CD-Rom Ver. 0.2b. Digitised by Sean Crist et al. 2001-2007.

Application by Ondrej Tichy, 2006-7. <http://lexicon.ff.cuni.cz/app>.669

Gameson, Richard. “Inscriptions.” The Role of Art in the Late Anglo-Saxon Church. Oxford: The

Clarendon Press, 1995, 90.670

Augustine 2 (4), 64-5. 671

Swanton 57: Defines the 7th century argument: “that the divine and human natures of Christ, while quite

distinct in one person, were subject to but one activity or will, thelos.” Controversy raged from the 5th through the

8th centuries, the issue remaining unresolved. cf also Chadwick, Henry. “Theodore, the English Church and the

Monothelete Controversy.” Archbishop Theodore: Commemorative Studies on his Life and Influence. Ed. Michael

Lapidge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 88-95. Chadwick suggests that Theodore was deeply

knowledgeable about the controversy as a Greek doctrine, but also about its rejection at the Lateran synod in 649–

which was supported under his authority at Hatfield in 679.

148

participating in it by relaying the narrative in prosopopoeia.672 The Cross sees Christ as both God

and man; the interlace thus leaves the audience to draw their own conclusions on the nature of

His will.

Two instances of elne mycle occur within a chiastic frame of Genamon (30b; 60a “they

seized,”), and each is associated with the idea of removal from a root or trunk. The first refers to

the seizure of the cross from its stefn (“voice/root”) and the second to the seizing of Christ (the

Word) from the Cross. Within that frame, the Cross stands firm because he sees that Christ will

ascend:

efstan elne mycle || þæt he me wolde on gestigan. (34)

Use of 'wolde' in this line underscores the will of Christ, as man and as Word, in ascending the

gallows-tree, but it also echoes with 'wood' (wudu). The concepts of 'wood' and Word begin to

fuse in this part of the narrative, and their association with 'Will' models what is required of each

individual if we are to participate in redemption from the Fall. Huppe viewed this section

similarly, but in terms of oxymoron:

The verb and adjective [hnag/eaðmod] (bowed, humble) provide a set of

meanings antithetical to the adverbial phrase [elne micle] (very bravely). The

effect of the oxymoron and the use of elne mycle is to remind the reader of the

dilemma of the cross when Christ approached it elne micle, "very bravely," 34.

The cross desired in humility to bow and to fall bravely upon its Lord's enemies,

but it stood fast, and with a higher fortitude of obedience, accepted its humiliating

gallows role. The Lord had embraced the cross, and now the Lord will be

separated from it, but the separation, too, the cross accepts humbly and with

fortitude (elne micle) in imitation of its master.673

The third echo of elne mycle (123) occurs just after the end of Scene III, when the voice

and light of the Cross have departed from the Dreamer,

Gebæd ic me þa to þan beame || bliðe mode,

elne mycle, || þær ic ana wæs (122-3)

... and he proceeds to pray to the beame with “joy” and great "zeal" or "courage"; that is, he

directs words from this world towards the Word. The interlace reveals a human "speechbearer"

(3a; 89b) who at last turns the gift of language in the direction of good instead of evil. As

Richard Marsden has observed of this sequential use of elne mycle, "it becomes a paradigm for

the evangelical dynamic of the poem and forces us to ask what 'heroic' action is in a Christian

672 Woolf 48.

673 Huppe 94.

149

context."674 It also provides the answer, which accords with Chapter 7 of the Rule of St.

Benedict, who sets out twelve steps of humility for ascending Jacob’s Ladder to “ ‘the perfect

love of God, which casts out all fear,’ (1 John 4.18).”675

The Peroration of Scene III explains the vision. Referring to itself as beacne (83a) “a

beacon, sign,” or, as we have seen–a lamp–the Cross reiterates the sublimity of its relationships

to suffering and glory. It explains its role as the healer of Original Sin, and therefore of Death:

þrowode hwile. || Forþan ic þrymfæst nu

hlifige under heofenum, || ond ic hælan mæg

æghwylcne anra, || þara þe him bið egesa to me (84-6)

St. Augustine had said similarly: "[...]by the nativity itself he made a salve by which the eyes of

our heart may be wiped clean and we may be able to see his majesty through his lowliness."676

The parallel with Mary and the Nativity is well attested, for the tree and she both bore

Christ–at the beginning and end of His Incarnation, respectively. Among the scholars who

discuss this, O Carragain has ascribed the doctrine which relates the Latin echo: virgo/virga

(/branch) to a text from Isaiah 11: 1-5:

And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse/and a flower shall rise up

out of his root/And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.(Et egredietur virga

de radice Iesse, Et flos de radice eius ascendet, [...]).677

This passage relates to the tree-imagery discussed thus far, and it enriches the

significance of the ambiguous references to 'voice' and 'root' (stefn) in the Old English of the

poem. The significance will be highlighted when the cross instructs the dreamer to preach

(95-100); but we see further irony in the chiastic frame that reminds us of the (reordberend

'speechbearers' 3a and 89b), this time contrasting the deadened men and the one for whom life is

renewed; this is accompanied by the contrast between the gallows, wita heardost ‘cruellest of

tortures,’ and the syllicre treow ‘most wonderful tree’ that last appeared at 4b:

Iu ic wæs geworden || wita heardost,

leodum laðost, || ær þan ic him lifes weg

rihtne gerymde, || reordberendum.

Hwæt, me þa geweorðode || wuldres ealdor (87-90)

Here the tree has cleared the way through the forest; an inversion of the view of mankind–who

674 Marsden, Richard, ed. The Cambridge Old English Reader. Cambridg: CUP, 2004; 193.

675 White 22-26.

676 Augustine Tr 2:73.16. Rettig f/n 41 observes that many codices read 'through his humanity.'

677 O Carragain 108.

150

believes he must clear the trees to make a rihtne (“straight”) way through the world. Yet again,

the poem is teaching mankind that we can use trees for that purpose if, as Augustine

recommends, we use the Cross as a ship for travelling to the heavenly home! Another

intertextual allusion to Isaiah links to this part of the poem through John's reference to

evangelism: "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord,"

(John 1.23).678 The Adjuration of the Cross (95-121) requires the dreamer to do the same–not

least because Doomsday (105a) stands between each individual human and final Redemption.

References to Judgment Day are now clear, although they have been implicit throughout the

poem: Swanton points out that it is prophesied that trees will bleed, on that day, which also was

expected to begin at midnight, like this poem.679

When the poem moves into its final image in Scene IV (122-156), the poet reiterates

many of the words for “Cross” that he used earlier. Now, though, he does more than look, he

responds in words and action: he prays to the beam 122a; he hopes to honor the sigebeam (127)

for the rest of his life; and he hopes that the rod (131, 136) will both protect and carry him

home–to the native land and feast among the saints–essentially because Christ suffered on the

gealgtreowe (146a) to redeem men.

We have seen throughout this analysis that, like the diction, themes and images

continually link to the beginning of the poem; it thus is no accident that the final image returns

us full circle to eternal glory, the hoped for telos of the dreamer–and for each individual in his

audience. It is probable that they, like him–the beorn (42a) and hæleð whom the Cross addresses

(78a and 95b)–were of a noble and military class. His friends might well have died in fighting

for a Christian England; and such a dreamer might have suffered and inflicted physical wounds,

as well as spiritual ones. Certainly, the tone of the poem has become noticeably more military

towards the end, where Christ appears as a victorious prince and warrior–consolidating the

impressions that have gone before. The dreamer thus celebrates Redemption as a successful

military campaign (150-156), a concept first intimated when the geong hæleð (“hero” 39b)

ascended the Cross. It now resonates that feondas (“enemies” 30, 33, 38) who were also beornas

(“warriors” 32a), transplanted the Tree; and that beornas buried him. Indeed, the poet reminds us

that Christ the Drihten (es) (a “lord”–earthly or heavenly–136, 140, 144) and Wealdend (155)

returns to his kingdom as the anwealda almihtig "the one almighty ruler" (153),680 Almighty

678 Isaiah 40.3: Prophesies the Redemption, and advocates “The voice of one crying in the desert; Prepare ye

the way of the Lord, make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God.”679

Swanton 65; he cites Christ 1174-6, and Apocrypha 2 Esdras V.5 “And blood shall drop out of wood, and

the stone shall give his voice, and the people shall be troubled.” On the midnight aspect, Swanton 75 cites the

contemporary Christ III, 867-89.680

My stress, translation from Bradley 163.

151

God, who returns to His ethel, or native land (156). It is surely a scene that would have appealed

either to warriors or to preachers, who had campaigned to preserve England, and to unite it in

peace under the rule of that God.

As I have shown by highlighting the use of “an,” throughout my discussion of the

poem, the author of DOR has also stressed that each individual must exercise will and take

responsibility for him or herself, as Mary did among women, the Cross among trees and indeed,

the dreamer among those who rested on the night of the vision. These exemplify how an

individual can benefit all mankind–but the poet does not explain this to the audience, who

already know the ‘historical’ cases. Each hearer must interpret the parallels alone, just as he will

face God alone. The contrast of each Anglo-Saxon individual with eternal God is indeed

sublime; and perhaps that is why the dreamer, praying ‘alone,’ requires courage as well as zeal,

as did Christ and the Cross in achieving their greater mission in the human world.

The poet has also analogized the integration of individuals at a tribal and cultural level,

for he has woven some effects from other insular cultures into the fabric of his narrative. When

the narrative returns the Word to the Beginning, for example, the circle is reminiscent of the

wheel-head crosses that we have already seen may have come from Ireland with the Vikings; and

the multiplicity of inter-connecting circles (word-frames, or envelopes) echoes the “vertebral”

structure of the Borre interlace. Swanton suggests that the jewels “at the corners of the earth,’

also indicate the “World Tree,” as we have already seen it in Chapter 6, especially in relation to

the Gosforth Cross and the integration of Viking culture into Anglian Christianity.681 Further,

Swanton derives another meaning for the other emblems of synthesis in the poem, the “dark

nails,” 46.’ He observes: “If it is right to link OE deorc with the Celtic forms: O Irish derg,

Gaelic dearg, Manx jiarg, then ‘red, bloody’ might represent a further, and perhaps more

expected sense at this point.”682 At the same time, especially with the return of Christ to his

Kingdom, the poet has drawn a parallel between temporal power and Omnipotence, a

comparison which, I suggest, provides sufficient contrast to argue for the wisdom of a united

acquiescence to the will of God, similar to that depicted in the St. John Incipit page of LFG.

We saw earlier that St. Augustine suggested that fallen humanity needs intellectual

challenge in order to participate in its own salvation.683 This analysis has illustrated that the poet

who contributed this version of DOR to the Vercelli Book provided such exercise in a learned

and sophisticated tradition of vernacular rhetoric; at the same time, he followed the imperatives

681 Swanton 418 (“Ambiguity and Anticipation)”.

682 Swanton 424 (“Ambiguity and Anticipation”). He bases the philology on, e.g: B. Dickins and A. C. Ross.

The Dream of the Rood. London: Methuen, 1954; 23.683

Augustine 66.7. cf pg. 140.

152

of his own vision, as well as those of St. Augustine and John the Evangelist: about the use of

words in the campaign for Redemption. That campaign sought to strengthen the interests of the

individual through Christianity, that is, to weave them into the greater fabric of not only the

nation, but also of Creation.

153

7.1: THE DREAM OF THE ROOD 684

I

[I] Hwæt! Ic swefna cyst || secgan wylle, f. 104v

hwæt me gemætte || to midre nihte, reordberend || reste wunedon!

[ii] Þuhte me þæt ic gesawe || syllicre treow on lyft lædan, || leohte bewunden, 5 beama beorhtost. || Eall þæt beacen wæs begoten mid golde.|| Gimmas stodon fægere æt foldan sceatum; || swylce þær fife wæron uppe on þam eaxlegespanne.|| Beheoldon þær engel Dryhtnes ealle, fægere þurh forðgesceaft.|| Ne wæs ðær huru fracodes gealga. 10 Ac hine þær beheoldon || halige gastas, men ofer moldan,|| ond eall þeos mære gesceaft. Syllic wæs se sigebeam, || ond ic synnum fah, forwunded mid wommum. ||

[iii] Geseah ic wuldres treow, wædum geweorðode, || wynnum scinan, 15 gegyred mid golde; || gimmas hæfdon bewrigene weorðlice || wealdes treow.Hwæðre ic þurh þæt gold || ongytan meahte earmra ærgewin, || þæt hit ærest ongan swætan on þa swiðran healfe. || Eall ic wæs mid sorghum gedrefed. 20 Forht ic wæs for þære fægran gesyhðe.||

[iv] Geseah ic þæt fuse beacen wendan wædum ond bleom; || hwilum hit wæs mid wætan bestemed, f. 105r

beswyled mid swates gange,|| Hwilum mid since gegyrwed. II[I] Hwæðre ic þær licgende || lange hwile beheold hreowcearig || Hælendes treow, 25

oððæt ic gehyrde || þæt hit hleoðrode. Ongan þa word sprecan || wudu selesta

[ii] " Þæt wæs geara iu, || (ic þæt gyta geman), þæt ic wæs aheawen || holtes on ende, astyred of stefne minum.|| Genaman me ðær strange feondas, 30 geworhton him þær to wæfersyne, || heton me heora wergas hebban.Bæron me ðær beornas on eaxlum, || oððæt hie me on beorg asetton, gefæstnodon me þær feondas genoge. ||

[iii] Geseah ic þa Frean mancynnes efstan elne mycle || þæt he me wolde on gestigan. Þær ic þa ne dorste || ofer dryhtnes word 35 bugan oððe berstan, || þa ic bifian geseah eorðan sceatas.|| Ealle ic mihte feondas gefyllan, || hwæðre ic fæste stod. Ongyrede hine þa geong hæleð, || (þæt wæs God ælmihtig), strang ond stiðmod; ||gestah he on gealgan heanne, 40

684 Swanton, M. ed. The Dream of the Rood. New ed. Exeter:University of Exeter Press, 1996; 93-101. This text is that

published by Swanton, however I have modified it to reflect Scenes and paragraphs as described by Huppe. Any errors are mine.

154

modig on manigra gesyhðe, || þa he wolde mancyn lysan. Bifode ic þa me se beorn ymbclypte.|| Ne dorste ic hwæðre bugan to eorðan, feallan to foldan sceatum.|| Ac ic sceolde fæste standan. Rod wæs ic aræred. || Ahof ic ricne cyning, heofona Hlaford; || hyldan me ne dorste. 45

[iv] Þurhdrifan hi me mid deorcan næglum; || on me syndon þa dolg gesiene, opene inwid-hlemmas. || Ne dorste ic hira nænigum sceððan.

Bysmeredon hie unc butu ætgædere. || Eall ic wæs mid blode bestemed, begoten of þæs guman sidan, || siððan he hæfde his gast onsended.

Feala ic on þam beorge || gebiden hæbbe 50wraðra wyrda. || Geseah ic weruda God þearle þenian. || Þystro hæfdon bewrigen mid wolcnum || Wealdendes hræw, scirne sciman; || sceadu forð eode, wann under wolcnum. || Weop eal gesceaft, 55 cwiðdon Cyninges fyll.|| Crist wæs on rode.

[v] Hwæðere þær fuse || feorran cwoman to þam æðelinge. || Ic þæt eall beheold. Sare ic wæs mid [sorgum]685 gedrefed,|| hnag ic hwæðre þam secgum to handa, eaðmod elne mycle.|| Genamon hie þær ælmihtigne God, 60ahofon hine of ðam hefian wite.|| Forleton me þa hilderincas f. 105v

standan steame bedrifenne;|| eall ic wæs mid strælum forwundod.[vi] Aledon hie ðær limwerigne,|| gestodon him æt his lices heafdum

beheoldon hie ðær heofenes Dryhten, || ond he hine ðær hwile reste, meðe æfter ðam miclan gewinne. || Ongunnon him þa moldaern wyrcan 65 beornas on banan gesyhðe; || curfon hie ðæt of beorht stane, gesetton hie ðæron sigora Wealdend. || Ongunnon him þa sorhleoð galan earme on þa æfentide; || þa hie woldon eft siðian, meðe fram þam mæran þeodne; || reste he ðær mæte weorode.

[vii] Hwæðere we ðær [h]reotende || gode hwile 70 stodon on staðole, || syððan [stefn]686 up gewat

hilderinca; || hræw colode, fæger feorgbold. || Þa us man fyllan ongan ealle to eorðan; || þæt wæs egeslic wyrd! Bedealf us man on deopan seaþe. || Hwæðre me þær Dryhtnes þegnas, 75 freondas gefrunon, ..................... gyredon me || golde ond seolfre.

III[I] Nu ðu miht gehyran, || hæleð min se leofa,

þæt ic bealu-wara weorc || gebiden hæbbe, sarra sorga. || Is nu sæl cumen 80

þæt me weorðiað || wide ond side menn ofer moldan, || ond eall þeos mære gesceaft, gebiddaþ him to þyssum beacne. || On me Bearn Godes þrowode hwile. || Forþan ic þrymfæst nu hlifige under heofenum, || ond ic hælan mæg 85 æghwylcne anra || þara þe him bið egesa to me Iu ic wæs geworden || wita heardost,

685 Swanton 97. Sorgum supplied from the Ruthwell text.

686 Ibid. stefn supplied by Kluge.

155

leodum laðost, || ærþan ic him lifes weg rihtne gerymde, || reordberendum.

Hwæt, me þa geweorðode || wuldres Ealdor 90 ofer holmwudu, || heofonrices Weard! Swylce swa he his modor eac, || Marian sylfe, ælmihtig God || for ealle menn geweorðode || ofer eall wifa cynn.

[ii] Nu ic þe hate, || hæleð min se leofa, 95 þæt ðu þas gesyhðe || secge mannum,

onwreoh wordum || þæt hit is wuldres beam, se ðe ælmihtig God || on þrowode for mancynnes || manegum synnum ond Adomes || ealdgewyrhtum. 100 Deað he þær byrigde, || hwæðere eft Dryhten aras mid his miclan mihte || mannum to helpe. He ða on heofenas astag. || Hider eft fundaþ on þysne middangeard || mancynn secan

on domdæge || Dryhten sylfa, 105 ælmihtig God, || ond his englas mid, f. 106r

þæt he þonne wile deman, ||se ah domes geweald, anra gehwylcum || swa he him ærur her on þyssum lænum || life geearnaþ.

Ne mæg þær ænig || unforht wesan 110 for þam worde || þe se Wealdend cwyð.

Frineð he for þære mænige || hwær se man sie, se ðe for dryhtnes || naman deaðes wolde biteres onbyrigan, || swa he ær on ðam beame dyde. Ac hie þonne forhtiað, || ond fea þencaþ 115hwæt hie to Criste || cweðan onginnen. Ne þearf ðær þonne ænig || anforht wesan þe him ær in breostum bereð || beacna selest. Ac ðurh ða rode sceal || rice gesecan

of eorðwege || æghwylc sawl, 120seo þe mid Wealdende || wunian þenceð."

IV [i] Gebæd ic me þa to þan beame || bliðe mode,

elne mycle, || þær ic ana wæs mæte werede. || Wæs modsefa afysed on forðwege, || feala ealra gebad 125 langung-hwila. || Is me nu lifes hyht þæt ic þone sigebeam || secan mote ana oftor þonne || ealle men, well weorþian. || Me is willa to ðam mycel on mode, || ond min mundbyrd is 130 geriht to þære rode. ||Nah ic ricra feala freonda on foldan. || Ac hie forð heonon gewiton of worulde dreamum, || sohton him wuldres Cyning, lifiaþ nu on heofenum || mid Heahfædere, wuniaþ on wuldre. || Ond ic wene me 135 daga gehwylce || hwænne me Dryhtnes rod,

156

þe ic her on eorðan || ær sceawode, on þysson lænan || life gefetige ond me þonne gebringe. || Þær is blis mycel, dream on heofonum, || þær is Dryhtnes folc 140 geseted to symle, || þær is singal blis, ond he þonne asette || þær ic syþþan mot wunian on wuldre, || well mid þam halgum dreames brucan. ||

[ii] Si me Dryhten freond, se ðe her on eorþan || ær þrowode 145 on þam gealgtreowe || for guman synnum. He us onlysde || ond us lif forgeaf, heofonlicne ham. || Hiht wæs geniwad mid bledum ond mid blisse || þam þe þær bryne þolodan.

Se Sunu wæs sigorfæst || on þam siðfate, 150mihtig ond spedig, ||þa he mid manigeo com, gasta weorode, || on Godes rice, Anwealda ælmihtig, || englum to blisse ond eallum ðam halgum || þam þe on heofonum ær wunedon on wuldre, || þa heora Wealdend cwom, 155

ælmihtig God, || þær his eðel wæs.

Key: Upper case Roman numerals denote Scenes described by Huppe.687 Lower case Roman numerals denote paragraphs described by Huppe.

687 Huppe, Bernard F. The Web of Words: Structural Analyses of the Old English Poems “Vainglory,” “The

Wonder of Creation,” “The Dream of the Rood,” and “Judith.” Albany: SUNYP, 1970; 65-73.

157

7.2 THE DREAM OF THE ROOD (Translation)

I Listen! I will relate the best of dreams, and what I dreamt at midnight when speech-bearers remained asleep.

It seemed to me that I saw the most wonderful Tree 5extend into the air, wound about with light,the brightest of Beams. All that Beacon was suffused with gold. Beautiful gems flashed outat the surfaces of the earth, there were five alsoon the shoulder-beam. All who are fair throughout eternity beheld the messenger of 10the Lord, there. Indeed, it was not the gallows of a criminal. Moreover, holy spirits gazed on it there, men throughout the earth, and all this glorious creation. The Victory-Light was wondrous; and I was stained with sins deeply wounded with sins.

I saw the Tree of Glory, exalted with robes, shining brilliantly, 15adorned with gold. Gems had worthily covered the Tree of the Ruler; yet, through that gold I could perceive the former hostility of wretched men–when it first beganto bleed on the right hand side. I was thoroughly afflicted with sorrows. 20I was fearful before that beauteous sight.

I saw that Beacon, ready to die, change its apparel and its color: at times it was wet through with moisture, drenched with the flow of blood; at times adorned with treasure.

IINevertheless, lying there a long time,

I gazed, sorrowful, at the Tree of the Savior 25 –until I heard that it spoke. Then the most noble Tree began to say the words:

“It was very long ago, (I remember it still), that I was felled at the edge of the forest,removed from my root. Strong enemies seized me there, 30made me into a spectacle then for themselves, commanded me to bear up their criminals.Then the warriors carried me on their shoulders, until they set me on a hill.Many evil men made me fast, there. Then I saw the Master of Mankindhastening with great courage, when he intended to climb up on me. Then, there, I dared not, against the word of the Lord, 35bend or break. Then I saw the surface-coverings of the earth quake. I could have felled all the fiends; nevertheless, I stood fast. Then, the young manprepared himself, (that was God Almighty),strong and resolute. High-souled in the sight of many, 40He ascended the lofty gallows, where He willed to redeem mankind.I trembled when the warrior clasped me; yet I still dared not stoop to the ground,

158

fall to the surfaces of the earth–because I had to stand fast.I was the Rood raised up. I held up the mighty King, 45Lord of the Heavens. I dared not give way. They pierced me through with dark nails; the wounds are visible on me, the open, malicious wounds. I dared not injure any of them.They mocked us two, both together. I was thoroughly wet with blood shed from the side of that hero, after he had sent forth his spirit. On that hill I endured 50many terrible, fateful events. I saw the God of Hosts stretched out to a great extent. Darkness had covered with clouds the corpse of the Savior, the bright radiance. Shadow went forth, dark under the clouds. All creation wept. 55They mourned the fall of the King. Christ was on the Rood. Nevertheless, noble men hastened from afar to that Prince. I saw all that.I was sorely distressed with sorrows, yet I bowed down against the hands of the warriors,humble and willing. Then they seized Almighty God, 60lifted Him from that grim torment. Those warriors left me to stand steeped in moisture; I was thoroughly wounded with arrows. They laid the limb-weary one down there. They placed themselves at the head of Hisbody, where they gazed on the Lord of Heaven; and He rested Himself there for a time, weary after the great conflict. Then the warriors began to build an earth-urn for Him, 65within sight of the instrument of His death. They carved that from shining stone and set therein the Ruler of Victories. Desolate, they began to sing a dirge for Him there, in the evening-time; then they wished to travel back, sorrowful, from that glorious prince. He remained there with a small band. We, however, stood there weeping for a good while, 70in our place. After the voice of the warriors departed,the corpse grew cold,the fair dwelling-place of the soul. Then someone began to fell us all to the ground; that was a terrible fate!The man buried us in a deep pit. Nevertheless, retainers of the Lord, 75friends, sought me out there .............................. they adorned me with gold and silver.

III Now you can hear, my beloved warrior, that I have endured the pain of evil men,of sore sorrows. Now the time is come 80that they honor me, far and wide.Men throughout the earth, and all this glorious creation, pray to this Beacon. On me, the Son of God suffered for a while. Because of that, I nowtower glorious under the heavens, and I can heal 85every one of those who is in awe of me.Once I was made the cruellest of tortures, most hated by people, until I clearedthe right way of life for them: for the speech-bearers. Behold, then! The Prince of Glory, the Guardian of the Kingdom of Heaven, 90

159

honored me above the forest on the hill! Just as He, Almighty God, also honored his mother Mary herself, before all people, Above all woman-kind. Now, I command you, my beloved warrior, 95that you report this vision to men, uncover with words that it is the Beam of Glory, that on which Almighty God suffered for the many sins of mankind and Adam’s deeds of old. 100He tasted death there; nevertheless, the Lord soon arose, with His great might, as a help to men.He then ascended into the heavens. He will come here again to this middle earth, to seek out mankindat Doomsday: the Lord Himself, 105Almighty God–and together with His angels.Because, at that time, He who has the power of judgement will judge all individuals as they will have earlier merited for themselves, in this fleeting life. No one there can be unafraid 110about the Word that the Ruler will say.He will ask, before the many, where the man may be who, for the name of the Lord, would taste of bitter death, as He previously did on the Rood.And then they will be afraid. And few think 115what they will undertake to say to Christ. But no one need be very frightened then who bears before him, on his breast, the best of signs. Because through that Rood every soul who seeks to dwell with the Ruler shall come to 120the Kingdom from the earth-way.” IV I prayed then, to that Tree, with a joyful spirit, with great zeal, when I was alone with little company. My spirit wasurged forward to the journey ahead; I endured, in all, many 125 times of weariness. There is now hope of life for me, in that I may go fully to honor the Victory-Beam alone, more often than all men. The will for that isgreat in my mind, and my hope of protection is 130 directed at that Rood. I do not have many powerful friends on earth. Because they went forward from here, from the joys of the world–they sought the King of Glory for themselves–they now live in the heavens with God the Father.They dwell in glory. And I look forward 135each of my days to the time when the Rood of the Lord, that I once saw here on earth in this fleeting life, will fetch and then bring me where there is much bliss,

160

joy in the heavens. Where the army of the Lord is 140seated at the feast, there is perpetual bliss, and He will then set [me] down where I may afterwards dwell in glory, among the saints, to partake fully of joy. May the Lord be a friend to meHe who here on earth previously suffered 145 on that Gallows-Tree for the sins of men. He redeemed us and gave us life, a heavenly home. Hope was renewed,with glory and with joy, for those who there [previously] suffered burning.The Son was victorious on that expedition, 150mighty and successful. When He came with a multitude, a host of spirits, into the Kingdom of God– the One Almighty Ruler–to delight among the angelsand all the saints, those who in the heavens first dwelt in glory: then their Ruler, 155Almighty God, came to where his native land was.

161

7.3 OUTLINE OF SCENES IN "DREAM OF THE ROOD" ACCORDING TO

HUPPE688

Scene I (1-23)................Vision

I. 1-3......................Introduction

ii. 4-14a.................Creation views the Cross

iii. 14b-21a..............Beacon

iv. 21b-23...............Recapitulation

Scene II (24-77)..............Narrative of the Cross

I. 24-27.................Transition from Vision

ii. 28-33a...............Preparation of Cross

iii. 33b-45...............Ascent of Cross

iv. 46-56................Crucifixion

v. 57-62.................Descent from Cross

vi. 63-69.................Entombment of Christ

vii. 70-77.................Entombment and Resurrection of Cross

Scene III (78-121)..........Peroration and Exhortation of the Cross

I. 78-94............... .Peroration and Explanation of Vision

ii. 95-121..............Adjuration: Cross suggests evangelism

Scene IV (122-156)........ Dreamer's Prayer to the Cross and Christ

I. 122-144a...........Address to the Cross

ii. 144b-156...........Prayer to the Cross

688 Huppe xiii-xxi; and 64-112.. The outline is derived from the text provided by Huppe: any errors are mine.

162

Figure 7.1: Map Showing Viking Settlement in 9th-10th Century England.689

689 Gilbert 12. The map is by Martin Gilbert.

163

CHAPTER 8

CONCLUSION

The tradition of English Literature and its interlace survived after the Normans destroyed

Anglo-Saxon England–and it did so at least partly because of the association with Scripture.

John the Scot (ca. 1266 or 1270-1308) would later consider the maze, or puzzle of doctrine,

ascribing "Daedalus-like twists and turns" to the Holy Spirit when it challenges the intellect

with the "concatenated" text of Scripture. He says:

Non enim alio modo sanctorum prophetarum multiplex in divinis intellectibus

contextus potest discerni, nisi per frequentissimos no solum per periodos, verum

etiam per cola et comata transitus ex diversis sensibus in diversos, et ab eisdam

iterum in eosdem per occultissimas crebrissimasque reversiones.690

(For in no other way may the complicated text of the holy prophets, in their divine

intelligence, be explicated—except by very frequent transition from various senses to others, not

only from one sentence to the next and back again from these to those by the most secret and

repetitive returns).

The words recall the descriptions of interlace seen in this study, and they indicate its

continuity in Latin, but the definitions in Chapter 2 illustrate that association of interlace and

English also continued. The interdisciplinarity of the foregoing discussion, though, indicates

that both Latin and English are only strands in an ancient technique that was shared by many

forms of art. It is clear that interlace in Old English participated in a larger identity than each of

its component parts–except for weaving itself.

The point may not be immediately obvious to us in the twenty-first century: the

decoration of crosses with carved interlace virtually ceased with the advent of the

Normans–although later monuments like the Cenotaph would vary the function of standing

stones; and we no longer use interlace to decorate cruciform weaponry. Our relationship with

embroidery continues, but the process is often mechanized and the product is seldom valuable;

and unless we are professional weavers, most of us are far removed from the process that our

ancestors encountered every day. Our perceptions of the skills have changed, then; and the

knowledge we apply to interpreting them is limited by our place and time. We have moved from

manuscripts to Microsoft, and the World-Wide Web–in all its secularity–appears as an original

concept rather than an adaptation.

When we try to understand these matters as they were in the past though, we necessarily

690 John the Scot. “De Divisione Naturae 5.” Patrologia Cursus Completus, Series Latina. Paris: J. P. Migne,

1841-64; 122:1010AB. Quoted and translated by Kendrick 254, Note 60.

164

turn first to specialists in individual disciplines; and perhaps ancient people did the same, when

interpreting their oral cultures and their imagery. However, their use of interlace suggests that

they appreciated the antiquity and diversity behind the designs, and the present study has begun

to explore how we can do the same. As Klein put it, the approach of inter-disciplinarity helps to

show, “How knowledge and information move across disciplines.”691

It is helpful that rhetoric about the interdisciplinary approach runs parallel to the

techniques of interlace. Klein remarks:

The tendency to describe knowledge in the language of natural organic properties

is pervasive in the discourse because it directs attention to “links,” “symmetry,”

convergence,” “conjuncture,” “interactions,” “interfaces,” and “integration” itself.

Interdisciplinary work is described as a natural mediation along “intercultural,”

“interdependent,” “interstitial,”“intersectional,” and “interdepartmental” lines.

Problems anthropomorphically elude the “grasp” of a single discipline and

“refuse” to stay within boundaries. Ultimately the cumulative effect of the organic

metaphor is to assert interdisciplinarity’s “natural” place and “inherent” need in a

predominantly geopolitical environment.692

Precisely.

The method has a precedent in literary theory, which often discusses networks. Klein

suggests that Edward Said saw “Orientalism” as a network of interests brought to bear upon

“the Orient.”693 He later added that a variety of approaches to his subject had “been used in ways

that cannot be understood if discipline is isolated from discipline, or interpretation from history

and political purpose.”694 This dissertation, indeed, has sought to integrate history and political

purpose in order to interpret the use of interlace in early Britain and Anglo-Saxon England. As

Chapters 5 and 6 indicate, the project built upon the suggestions of scholars like Michelle Brown

and Eamonn O Carragain, who had already observed that the crosses and manuscripts of

Northumbria seemed to participate in an ecumenical program of Christian unity.662 In further

integrating scholarship on the symbology of the artefacts, the present study has deepened that

perception to show how the Church and political leaders of the era could have used imagery of

the Cross, and its inherent part in interlace: in order to promote peace through political and

religious unity.695 In focusing further on rhetoric, the study has suggested that Anglo-Saxon

England played a unique role in preserving classical rhetoric, incorporating it into insular and

691 Klein 81.

692 Klein 81.

693 Klein 188. She cites: Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon, 1978.

694 Klein 188. She cites: Said, Edward. “Orientalism Reconsidered.” Cultural Critique, 1 (Fall 1985): 89-107.

695 Brown 8-9. cf. Chapter 5 .

165

vernacular culture, and disseminating it by returning scholarship to Europe: all acts that

interlaced diverse cultures and united them under Christianity. The dissertation has also begun

to explore the possibility that the Kingdom of Wessex continued that policy in attempting to

unify disparate tribes and areas–in an England partly settled by Vikings. Analysis of The Dream

of the Rood indicates also that, in the way Horace had recommended, Anglo-Saxons had begun

to achieve a rhetoric of power with which to augment their military strength.696 The role of

religion remained integral, though, as it was with the very first interlace.

A large body of Anglo-Saxon literature and manuscript art remains from which we might

achieve new insights about the concerns of people who produced and used interlace in English. I

believe that the later and larger tapestry also has much to reveal through the recognition of

interlace, and much insight to offer about our literary, religious, and political heritage, as well as

those of others. Perhaps such an approach can also sharpen perceptions about the political uses

of interlace in the present-day context.

696 Horace 38, 285-288. Trans. Hynd 55, sections 90, 91. cf Chapter 3 .

166

APPENDIX A

GLOSSARY OF TERMS ASSOCIATED WITH WEAVING

B

Bast: n phloem; inner bark, {Chambers: OE baest; Ger Bast}.

Bind: vt To make fast with a band or bond; tie or fasten together; restrain; fix; sew a border on;

bandage or tie (up); fasten the sections together and put a cover on (a book); oblige

by oath or promise; hold or cement firmly.

vi to become bound; restrict free movement, {Chambers: OE. bindan. OFris., ON.

binda (Sw. binda, Da. binde)}.

Braid: vt to plait, intertwine; arrange in plaits; thread, wind about or through; trim, bind, or

outline with braid.

vi change colour or appearance, {Chambers: OE bregdan ; ON bregtha. Bosworth

Toller: bregdan: I. v. a. To move to and fro, vibrate, cast, draw, drag, change**,

bend, weave. II. v. n. To turn into. The examples given for change** and II involve

change of color. Clark Hall: also includes–to move quickly; bend; shake; 'braid';

knit; join together. Change colour; vary; be transformed. Bind; knot; move; flash.

Bring up (a charge); scheme; feign; pretend. Draw breath; breathe. }

C

Canvas: n a coarse cloth made of cotton, hemp or other material; open weave material on which

embroidery or tapestry is worked, {Chambers: Lat: cannabis, fr. Gk. kannabis hemp}.

Check: n a pattern of cross lines forming small squares as in a chessboard; any fabric woven with

such a pattern.

adj divided into small squares by crossing lines, {Chambers: OFr eschec, eschac,

originally in the chess sense, through Ar. from Pers. shah king}.

Complex: n a collection of units forming a whole.

adj composed of many parts; not simple or straightforward; intricate; difficult.

vt Complicate: to combine into a complex, {Chambers, L: com: with plicare: to fold. Cp.

Complicate, complicity}.

*Complico -are -avi -atum, to fold together, fold up.

TRANSF., confused, intricate. {Cassells, Lat.}

*Complector -plecti -plexus, dep. (Cum/plecto) to embrace, to clasp. LIT., to embrace,

encircle, surround, encompass

TRANSF., (1) to hold fast, master

167

(2) to attach oneself to, esteem

(3) of the mind, to embrace, grasp, comprehend

(4) to unite in oneself or itself; esp. to include, of speech or writing (cf

Cicero). {Cassells, Lat}

*Complexio -onis, f: (complector), connection, combination.

TRANSF., (1) in rhetoric: a short summary of the whole matter; a period.

(2) in logic: a, the statement of a syllogism;

b, a dilemma: Cic. {Cassells, Lat}.

*Complexus -us, m: (complector), an embrace.

TRANSF., (1) affection, love

(2) in discourse, connexion: Quint. {Cassell’s Lat}.

Context: n the parts of a piece of writing or speech which precede and follow a particular word

or passage and may fix, or help to fix, its true meaning; associated surroundings;

setting, {Chambers: L contextus, contexere, from con and texere, textum to weave}.

Cord: n a string composed of several strands twisted or woven together; in present-day use now

restricted to small ropes, and thick or stout strings; formerly applied more widely. {F.

corde, string of a musical instrument, string, rope, cord: L. chorda, Gr. gut, string of a

musical instrument (made of gut) OED Online, accessed 2/20/08; 12:17 p.m.}.

Cross: n a gibbet of the type used by the Romans formed by placing two pieces of wood

transversely to each other; when capitalized refers to the Cross of Christ, the

Christian symbol; “any object, figure or mark formed by two parts or lines transverse

to each other.”

vt to make the sign of the cross upon or over; mark with a cross; cancel by marking with

a cross or by drawing lines across; lay a thing across another; set (things) across each

other; place crosswise; to lie or pass across.

vi intersect, {Chambers: [...] ON Kros, from L crux, crucis. Neither Bosworth-Toller

nor Clark Hall includes an Anglo-Saxon word “cros”.}.

D

Diaper: n linen or cotton cloth with a square or diamond pattern; the pattern itself; a pattern not

colored, but woven in, for ornamentation of textiles; paving in a checkered pattern.

{Chambers: OF diaspre, from LL diasprus, from Byzantine Gr diaspros from dia

through, and aspros white.}

Dye: n tinge, stain; a coloring liquid.

vt to stain, give new color to, {Chambers: OE deag, deah from deagian to color.

Clark Hall: hue, tinge, 'dye.' }.

168

F

Flax: n the plant Linum; the fibers of the plant, which are woven to make linen cloth, {Clark

Hall: OE flaex; fleax: 'flax,' linen. Bosworth-Toller: also include fleax-æcer a

flax-field; and fleax-line a cord for hanging flax on.}.

G

Goat: n a horned ruminant animal of Europe, Asia and N Africa, related to the sheep; (in pl)

the wicked (Bible). {Chambers and Clark Hall: OE gat, she-goat}.

H

Hypha: n (pl hyphae): a thread of fungus mycelium, {Gr. Hyphe web; According to OED

Online, not used in English until the nineteenth century. Accessed 02/19/08 at 12:53

a.m.; Chambers: vt: hyphainein cognate with OE wefan; ON vefa; Ger weben: to

weave}

I

Implicate: vt to involve; to entangle; to imply, show to be, or to have been, a participator; to

entwine, enfold.

n a thing implied.

adj. intertwined, {Chambers: L implicare, -atum, from in, in and plicare, -atum or

-itum, to fold}.

Intertext: n in literary theory, a text evaluated in terms of its relation (e.g. by allusion) to other

texts, {Chambers}.

Intertexture: n interwoven state, {Chambers}

J

Junction: n a joining, a union or combination; a place or point where (...) lines meet,

{Chambers}.

*Iugo, iugare [Latin]: To bind together, connect, couple *Iungo, iungere, iunxi,

iunctum to join, unite, connect, {Cassells Latin}.

K

Kilt: n a short pleated skirt, usu of tartan, traditionally worn by Celts; any similar garment.

vt to tuck up skirts, pleat vertically, hang, (archaic), {Chambers: Scand cf Dan kilte to

tuck up; ON kilting a skirt}.

Knit: vt (knitting; knitted; or knit) to form (wool, etc) into network by needles; to

intertwine; to unite closely, to draw together; to form into a knot (archaic); to tie

together (archaic).

vi to knit something {Chambers: OE cnyttan; & cnotta, knot. Bosworth-Toller:

cnyttan, to tie, bind, knit. B-T suggests the Sanskrit cognate nah, to bind, tie.}

169

Knitch: (dialect) n a faggot, a bundle of wood, etc tied together, {Chambers: OE gecnycc

bond}.

Knittle: n a small line made of two or three yarns twisted with the fingers (naut); (in pl) the

halves of two yarns in a rope, {Chambers. Clark Hall OE: cnyttels sinew, string}.

Knot: n interlacement of parts of a cord or cords, rope, ribbon, etc. formed by twisting the

ends around each other and then tightening the loops thus formed; a piece of ribbon,

lace, etc.folded or tied upon itself as an ornament; anything like a knot in form; a

bond or union; a tangle, intricacy, problem, or difficulty; a complex of lines,

mountains, etc; the base of a branch buried in a later growth of wood; a node or joint

in a stem; hard lump; a concretion; a swelling; a knob; a boss; a bud; a hill (dialect); a

clump or cluster.

vt to tie a knot, unite closely; make by knotting.

vi to form a knot or knots; to knit knots for a fringe, {Chambers: OE cnotta; Ger.

Knoten, Dan knude, L nodus}. Bosworth Toller: cnotta, a knot, fastening, knitting;

nexus; and offers a verb: to loosen. Clark Hall adds: a knotty point, a puzzle.

Knotwork: n ornamental work made with knots; carving or decoration in interlaced forms,

{Chambers}.

L

Lace: n a string or cord for passing through holes, e.g. to tie up a shoe or garment etc; a

delicate ornamental fabric made by looping, knotting, plaiting or twisting threads into

a definite pattern.

vt to fasten with lace, put lace or laces into; intermingle; intertwine, {Chambers

French; from L laqueus}.

*Laqueus -I, m: a noose, halter, snare.

TRANSF: a trap {Cassells Latin}.

Lattice: n a network of crossed laths or bars, also called latticework; anything of a similar

pattern; a window with small, esp. diamond-shaped panes set in lead, {Chambers: Fr

lattis, from latte a lath. Clark Hall OE: laett f. (pl. latta) beam, ‘lath.’}.

Linen: n cloth made of flax, {Cassells Latin: Linea ae, f. a linen thread, string}; {Clark Hall

OE: Lin n. flax, linen, cloth, napkin, towel}.

Loom: n a machine for weaving; a tool; an instrument, {Chambers and Clark Hall: OE

[ge]loma] tool, instrument, article of furniture}.

N

Net: n an open fabric, knotted into meshes; a piece of such fabric used for catching prey,

retaining hair, etc; machine-made lace of various kinds; a snare; a plan to trap or

170

catch someone or something; a difficulty.

vt to form into a net or network; to mark or cover with a net or network; to fish with

nets; to form by knotting threads into meshes; also

vi to capture.

vi to form a net or network {Chambers: OE net, Du net, Ger. netz. Clark Hall: nett

netting, network, a spider's web. Bosworth-Toller: I. a net for fowling, fishing or

hunting; II. a mosquito net; III. net-work, web (Goth nati, O Sax netti, O Frs. nette,

O. H. Ger. nezzi).}

*net-gearn net-yarn; string for making nets (B-T); knitting yarn (Clark Hall).

*nettian to ensnare.

P

Plaid: n a long woollen cloth, worn over the shoulder, usu in tartan as part of Highland dress,

or checked as formerly worn by Lowland shepherds; tartan.

adj like a plaid in pattern or colors. Also:

n plaiding a strong woollen twilled fabric, {Chambers: Perh Gaelic or Scottish plaide

a blanket}.

Plait: n a braid in which strands are passed over one another in turn; material so braided; a

braided tress; a pleat (rare).

vt to braid or intertwine; to pleat (now rare), {Chambers: from L: plico -are -ui and

-avi -atum and -itum to fold, to fold together}. Also {Cassells, Latin:} *plicatrix

-icis f: one who folds clothes.

*plexus -a -um braided, plaited {(from Latin Plecto; and Greek)}.

Pleat: n any of several types of fold sewn or pressed into cloth; a plait or braid (rare).

vt to make pleats; plait or intertwine (rare), {Chambers: from plait. Bosworth-Toller

and Clark Hall OE: plett, a fold [From Latin plecta a hurdle]}.

R

Repp: n a corded cloth (also reps or Rep), {Chambers: Fr reps, perh from Eng ribs}.

Rope: n a stout twist of fibre.

vt to fasten, bind, enclose, mark off or catch.

vi to form into a rope, {Chambers: OE rap; ON reip}.

S

Sheep: n (pl sheep) a beardless, woolly ruminant animal of the goat family (genus Ovis),

{Chambers: OE scëap}.

Shroud: n cloth used to wrap a corpse; a winding sheet; garment, clothes (obs); enveloping or

protective covering.

171

vt to enclose in a shroud; cover, envelop; hide.

vi to take shelter, {Chambers: OE scrud; ON skruth, clothing, gear, from Gmc base

skraud-, skreud-, skrud, cut; also: shred}.

Silk: n fiber from the larva of a silkworm moth; similar fiber from another insect or a

spider; a thread, cloth, clothing made from such fibers, {Chambers: OE seolc, silk

[fr L sericum: Chinese]}.

Spatula: n a broad, blunt, flexible blade or flattened spoon, {Chambers: L spatula, spathula,

dimin. of spatha from Gr spathë a broad blade}.

*Spatha -ae, f: a wooden instrument for stirring or mixing, a spatula, an instrument

of similar shape used by weavers. a broad two-edged sword without a point:

Tacitus. {Cassells Latin}.

Spin: vt to draw out and twist into threads; to draw out a thread as spiders do; to form by

spinning.

vi to practice the art or trade or perform the act of spinning; to rotate rapidly; to whirl.

n the act or result of spinning, {Chambers: OE spinnan; Ger spinnen}.

Stripe n a band of color; striped cloth or pattern; a strip.

vt to make stripes on; mark with stripes, {Chambers: ON strip striped fabric}.

T

Tabby: n a coarse waved or watered silk fabric {Chambers: Fr tabis appar. from ’Attabiy, a

quarter in Baghdad where it was made};{ CHWT: “The simplest weave is a tabby

or plain weave in which the weft passes under and over one warp thread (1/1

warp/weft (20)}; {Clark Hall: taber a weaving tool?; tenterhook?}.

Tapestry: n ornamental textile used for curtains or for covering walls or furniture, made by

passing colored threads or wools through a fixed-warp fabric; anything like a

tapestry in being intricate and with many closely interwoven elements (fig),

{Chambers: Fr tapisserie from tapis a carpet, from LL tapetium, from Gr tapetion

dimin. of tapes, -etos, prob of Iranian origin}; {Chambers and Clark Hall: L.

tapete, perhaps through OE taeppet or taepped: figured cloth, tapestry, carpet}.

Tape: n material woven in long narrow bands; a strip of such material, used for tying up,

connecting, etc. {Chambers and Clark Hall: OE taeppe tape, fillet}.

Tapet:(Spenser) n a piece of tapestry, {Chambers and Clark Hall: L. tapete, perhaps through

OE taeppet or taepped: figured cloth, tapestry, carpet}.

Tent: n (obs) an embroidery or tapestry frame, {Cassells, Latin:

*Tendo, tendere, tetendi, tentum and tensum, to stretch, stretch out, extend, spread.

TRANS: could include literary meanings of to string, or even to present}.

172

Text: n the words of a book, poem, etc; a book of such words; the main body of matter in a

book; the exact wording of a book or piece of writing as opposed to a translation,

paraphrase or revision; a short passage from the Bible taken as the ostensible

subject of a sermon, quoted in authority, displayed as a motto, etc; a theme,

{Chambers}.

*Texo, texere, texui, textum: to weave {Cassells: Latin} LIT: of cloth

TRANSF:(1) to twine together, intertwine, plait; to put together, construct, build.

to compose of speech or writing.

Noun or participle as substantive:

*Textum -I, n. LIT: woven cloth, a web.

TRANSF. (1) any material plaited or put together; a fabric, texture, style

(Quint) of written composition.

*Textilis -e: (texo) woven, textile; also plaited as subst.

*Textile -is, n. a woven fabric, a piece of cloth.

*Textor -oris, m: (texo) a weaver.

*Textorius -a -um: (textor) of weaving.

*Textrinum -I, n: (textor) weaving.

*Textrix -tricis, f: (f. of textor), a female weaver.

*Textura, -ae, f: (texo), LIT: a web, texture.

TRANSF: a putting together, construction.

*Textus -us, m: (texo) a web; hence texture, structure. TRANSF: mode of putting

together, connexion; Quint.

Textile: n a woven fabric; fibre; yarn, {Chambers: L. Cp text and texture. See also textilis from

texere, textum}.

Texture: n general quality, character or tenor. Structural impression resulting from the way that

the different elements are combined or interrelated to form a whole; the manner of

weaving or connecting; [archaic: anything woven, a web].

vt to give a certain texture to, texturize, weave, {Chambers: L textura web; from

texere, textum: to weave}.

Thread: n a very thin line of any substance, esp linen or cotton, twisted or drawn out; several

strands of yarn twisted together for sewing; a filament, a fibre; a continuous

connecting element in a story, argument, etc. vt to pass through; to fit or supply with a

thread.

vi to twist, {Chambers: OE thraed; cf also Clark Hall: ðræd, ‘thread’; ðrāwan ‘to

turn, twist, curl [‘throw’]}.

173

Twine: n a twisted cord; string or strong thread; a coil; a twisted stem or the like; an act of

twisting or clasping.

vt to wind, coil, wreathe, twist, encircle, to make by twisting.

vi to wind, coil, twist, rise or grow in spirals {Chambers}.

{Clark Hall twin n double thread, twist, ‘twine,’ linen-thread, linen}.

Twill: n woven fabric showing diagonal lines, the weft yarns having been worked over, on,

and under two or more warp yarns, {Clark Hall: twilic double, woven of double

thread}.

Twist: vt to twine; to unite; to form by winding together; to form from several threads; to wind

spirally; to wring; to distort; to force, pull out of natural shape, position, etc.

vi to twine; to coil; to move spirally or tortuously; to turn aside; to revolve; to writhe.

a thing twisted or formed by twisting; a cord; a strand; thread; silk thread; warp yarn,

{Chambers: OE twist, rope}.

V

Vexillum n (pl vexilla): the series of barbs on the sides of the shaft of a feather; a Roman

standard; a vexillation (company under one vexillum; a scarf on a pastoral staff,

{Chambers; Cassells: L veho vehere vexi vectum to carry, to convey}.

W

Warp n the threads stretched out lengthways in a loom to be crossed by a woof (also fig ); a

twist, shift or displacement to a different or parallel position within a (usu

conceptual) framework or scale, etc.

vt to twist out of shape; turn from the right course; distort; to pervert; arrange (threads)

so as to form a warp; entwine (obs); lay (eggs) or to bring forth (young).

vi to be twisted out of shape; become perverted or distorted (fig); swerve; move with

effort, or on a zigzag course, {Chambers: OE weorpan, werpan to throw, cast; ON

verpa}.

Weave: vt to make (cloth, tapestry, basket-work etc.) by crossing threads, strands, strips, etc.

above and below one another; to interlace; to depict (figures, a story, etc) in

woven-work; to combine, mingle, or work together into a whole; to introduce an

ingredient or element into something; to construct, fabricate, or contrive.

vi to practice weaving.

n the structure or texture of woven fabric, {Chambers OE wefan; ON vefa; Ger

weben; cognate with Gr hyphe a web, and hyphainein to weave}.

Web: n structure of threads spun by a spider to entrap insects; that which is woven; the skin

between the toes of waterfowl, etc; in birds, the vexillum of a feather; anything like a

174

cloth web in its complication, or a spider’s web in its flimsiness or power to

entangle; a plot, snare, intrigue or fabrication.

vt to envelop or to connect with a web.

vi to make or weave a web, {Chambers: OE webb; ON vefr.} {Clark Hall: web, webb

n. ‘web,’ weft: woven work, tapestry. cf :

*webba m. weaver;

*webbeam m. weaver’s beam; treadle of a loom.

*webbestre f. female weaver.

*webbgeweorc n. weaving.

*webbian to contrive, devise.

*webbung f. plotting, conspiracy.

*webgerēðru np. weaver’s tool.

*webgerod n. weaver’s implement.

*webhōc m. weaver’s comb.

*weblic pertaining to a weaver.

*websceaft m. weaver’s beam.

*webtāwa m. thread, line.

*web-tēag f. weaving-thread.

*webwyrhta m. fuller.}

Weft: n threads woven into and crossing the warp; thread carried by a shuttle (woof); web.

vi (rare) to form a weft, {Chambers: OE weft, wefta; related to wefan; see weave}.

Wind: vt to turn, to twist or coil; to (cause to) encircle or enfold; to traverse, by turning and

twisting.

vi to twist; to move or go by turns and twists, or deviously; to meander, {Chambers:

OE windan; cf Gr wenden, ON binda, Gothic windan; cf wend, wander}.

Woof: n weft; thread for a weft; texture, {Chambers: ME of, with w added by association

with warp, etc (of being the normal development of OE owe, from on and wefan to

weave)}.

Wool: n a modified soft, fine hair that forms the fleece of sheep, goat, yak, etc; this spun into

yarn or thread for knitting or weaving; fabric woven from such yarn, {Chambers:

OE wall; Gothic Walla, Ger wolde, L vellum}.

Y

Yarn: n spun thread; one of the threads of a rope, or these collectively, {Chambers: OE

gearn thread; ON gearn, Ger gearn}.

175

APPENDIX B

TABLES SHOWING DEVELOPMENTS IN WEAVING

TABLE 2.1: Weaving in the Stone Age

Stone Age Middle Eastern and Pontic Central European Scandinavian and N. Germanic British

Pre-8000 BCPaleolithic

Lascaux, France: Cord of vegetable fiber,(Jorgensen 53).

ca. 8000 BCMesolithic

Syria and W. Iran: First domestication ofsheep (Wild 40). They also farmed the firstflax, (Wild 40).

Finland; and Potsdam Germany:Fishing nets made of willow bast.

ca. 6500 Palestine, near the Dead Sea: First wovenobjects: basketry, matting, cordage, finenetting:“Sophisticated netting andinterlacing techniques” characterize aceremonial headdress, (Wild 42).

ca. 6000 Turkey: Earliest linen: part of a shroud fromCatal Huyuk, (Wild 40).Egypt (northern): Hunter gatherers cultivatedflax (McDowell 31).

ca. 5500 Egyptians wrapped mummies in linen,(McDowell 31).

ca. 4200 4200 BC Denmark: Willow bastfabric includes knotless netting;couched buttonhole stitch,(Jorgensen 54).

ca. 4000 Neolithic

Lake Dwellings, Switzerland; and nearBern: Fabrics of flax and wood basis;basketry; knotless netting; knottedfringes; embroidery; brocade–some striped and fringed, (Jorgensen 55).

Denmark: Knotless netting of limebast, (Jorgensen 54).

Etton, Cambridgeshire: Asample of “twine made ofvegetable fibres” exists,(Jorgensen 55).

176

TABLE 2.2: Weaving in the Bronze Age

Bronze Age

Middle Eastern and Pontic Greek and Roman Central Europe Scandinavian and N. Germanic British

ca. 3500 BC Denmark: Textiles of vegetable fiber; noextant wool or flax (Jorgensen 54/5).

ca. 3000 BC Syria/Iran: First “woolly fleece” (Wild 40).Egypt: Lozenge pattern on a king’s cloak, ca..2920-2770 (McDowell 37).

ca. 2800 BC Egypt: Evidence of pleating (36/37).

ca. 2400 BC Near the Elbe: First wool weavein European -mixed withvegetable fibers (Jorgensen 57).

ca. 2000-700 BC Egypt: Weaving workshops attached to palaces,temples and estates (McDowell 32).c.1991-1783--Egypt: colored clothes, oftendecorated with geometric patterns and“repeating lozenges” (McDowell 37).

c.1800-500–Denmark: Loom-wovenfabric and braids in “coarse tabby” and “aprimitive wool,” possibly from wild sheep.Samples include corded skirts, shirts, caps,cloaks, and hairnets. Decoration includesembroidery; or edgings of fringes, tassels,or bronze tubes. Plaid patterns. (Jorgensen57-61).

ca. 1600-1100 BC c.1550 Egypt: tomb paintings depict the verticalloom. After this date, also, men took weavingover from women (McDowell 31; 34).Egypt:Men wore kilts (McDowell 37).

Greece and Crete: Participated inwool trading (Wild 48).Athens:Silk probably imported(Jenkins71). c.1300–Lichtenstein: A possible

twill weave has beenidentified(Jorgensen 62).

ca. 1350 BC First Egyptian wool woven: possiblyby‘Asiatics’ (McDowell 32/33).

ca. 1333-1323 BC Egypt: Kilts in tomb of Tutankhamun. “Egyptian motifs mingle with Syrian andMesopotamian winged griffins” (McDowell36/7; 39).

Late Bronze Age to 1100 BC

Palestine: Clothing included “kilts and drapedcloaks for men and off-shoulder long dressesand cloaks for women...with shirts being wornby both sexes”(Wild 47).

177

TABLE 2.3: Weaving in the Iron Age

Iron Age Middle Eastern and Pontic Greek and Roman Central European Scandinavian

ca. 1100-500 BC Mesopotamia: grew cotton, (Wild 49).Israel: Bred sheep for white wool; grew flax; wove plain, figured,and multi-colored fabric; left “cloth impressions on pottery”; andrecorded weaving activities in Exodus, (Wild 51). Phoenicians: made purple dye at Tyre and Sidon, (Wild 51).

ca. 900-680 BC Phrygians Wove fine wool and linen; looped pile; 2-color weaves; tapestries with geometric designs. Used warp-weighted looms(Wild 50).

ca. 800-700 BC Latium: A boat burial included “woolchevron twills, woven selvedges, and pilefabrics (Wild 77).

After 800 BC: “Germany, France, the Netherlands,Ireland and Denmark [sic]” Twill weaves invegetable fibers remain (Jorgensen 61/2).

Denmark: A tabby cloth innettle fibers is extant.(Jorgensen 62).

ca. 700-500 BC c600–Bologna: a bronze rattle depictsloom- weaving (77). Greeks and Romans: used mainly wool;women probably wove flax from importedfiber and made tapestry at home. Sprangwas probably woven.Greek vases illustrate loom use, (Jenkins71-75).

Hallstatt: wools and linens in diagonal and diamondpatterned twills; embroideries in wool.Germany (Stuttgart): braids remain in “complicatedpolychrome patterning.”France, Spain, Germany, and Austria: braids withcolored strands (67). Wool is often in undyed stripesand checks.Hungary: Checked and striped woollen twill, andsprang hairnetting, (Jorgensen 64/5).c.500–La Tene: tabby, twills, and basket weaves - inflax

.

c.700-100 BC–Jutland: woolclothing in twills, some incheck paterns (Jorgensen62/5).

ca. 550-330 BC Scythian tombs at Pazyryk included Persian fabrics of this date: atapestry and “a famous knotted pile-carpet with registers ofmounted riders and elks” (Wild 52).

600-300–Etruscans: some linens andcheck patterns; later some had wovenborders (Wild 77).

and wool, (Jorgensen) 69

ca. 400-100 BC Hellenic Period: 323-331 Alexander the Great: 353-323

400-300–Kertch: wool tapestry decoration includes ducks/deerheads, buds and lotus flowers (Wild 103).Greeks + sheep... migrated to Egypt (Wild 102).The Crimea: “A coverlet enlivened with shded bands in which arainbow effect has minutely graduated colour changes in the woolweft.: (Wild 103).

Etruscans: left the ‘linen book,’ “inscribedbandage dated to c400 BC, now inZagreb,” (Wild 77).Throughout the area: Silk more commonafter Alexander the Great conqueredeastern areas, (Jenkins 72).

c.400-200–Sweden: wooltwill in dogstooth patternsurvives; also in Jutland,(Jorgensen 65).

178

TABLE 2.4: Weaving in the Roman Era

Roman Era Middle Eastern and Pontic Greek, Roman, and Western European Scandinavian and N. Germanic British

From ca. 31BC

Throughout the area: Trade in fine woollen clothing and rugcommon throughout the area; cashmere and mohair may alsohave appeared (Wild 106).Egyptians: Used “resist dyeing” to produce a “light-on-dark” effect, (Wild 152).

The Roman Empire: Production of wool and linen: cotton was rare;gold was spun into thread.Romans prized silk, probably still imported from China (Wild 81/2).Western Provinces: wove linen, and produced wool especially in “diamond” (lozenge) and herringbone twills, and in basket weaves(Wild 87). The Spanish made rope from Esparto grass (Wild 81-82). Gauls used vegetable dyes; along the Atlantic coast, shellfishprovided purple dyes (Wild 91/2). Celts were associated with stripes and checks in colored yarns. (Wild 88/89).Gaul, Spain and northern Africa: Workshops existed: i) on privateestates ii) in urban areas, where they were small and “semi-professional” - wove and sold textiles, (Wild 84)

1-175 AD–Throughout the area:rough, hand-plucked, un-dyed woolwas produced on un-weightedlooms. Twills were common, some were diamond types(Jorgensen 94-96).

175-400AD–Scandinavians:sheared their sheep, and usedweighted looms to produce finerwools, some with coloredstripesand checks Linens survive. Some textiles and dyes may havebeen imported. (Jorgensen 95/6;101/2).

Vindolanda: Groups traded “...a range of locally made and imported fabric types” [see illustration 2.11] (Wild 84).

Vindolanda, London, [and Mainz], produced fabric that incorporated purple tapestry bands, the fashion probably originating in the eastern Mediterranean, (Wild 88). “The dog whelk . . . is native to Britain and could have provided a purple dye,” (Wild 91).

ca. 206-220 AD Scythian tombs at Pazyryk contained some Chinese textiles of this date (Brown 15).

ca. 250 AD Romans began producing damask silks in “simple geometricpatterns” (Wild 148)

ca. 300-400 AD Late Roman/EarlyByzantine

c 300 AD– The Western Provinces: State established factories forweaving linen and wool (Wild 84).

300-400 AD–Northern Greece: Tapestries fragments “woven inpurple wool and gold were found in the so-called Tomb of Philip ofMacedon, at Vergina...” (Jenkins 71; Wild 106). c 300-500 AD–Greece and Rome: uncut looped pile was sometimesadded to drapery fabric. Geometric interlace decorated the frontbands of tunics, etc; linen/wool weaves simulated embroidery. Decoration included “human figures drawn from pagan and Christianiconography and animals” (Wild 146/7).

179

TABLE 2.5: Weaving in the Post-Roman Age

Post-Roman

Imperial Roman/Byzantine Persian and Arabic North, Central, and WesternEurope

Scandinavian and N. Germanic British

ca. 400-500 c 400-500 Throughout the area: “The two beamvertical loom” superseded earlier technology(Wild 151).c 400-600 Byzantium: produced silk damask andtwills on horizontal looms; span gold and silverthread. Patterns included : “...hearts, swastikas,palmettes and leaves arranged in rows to give adiaper effect, with or without actual latticedivisions,” (Wild 151;149).

224-642 AD SasanianIran:“developed aniconography of hunting,battle, and banqueting”(McDowell153). Theyprobably wove fromChinese silk. Other extanttextiles show “geometric"designs (McDowell 153/5).

Germanic: wool tabby; and linens in plain, diamond, and rosettetwills; and honeycomb, striped,or checked weaves.Holland, Frisia [and England]:Diamond twills common. Theweaves indicate advancedtechnology (Jorgensen 118/21).

475 AD - Norway: braids found; also fabrics decorated with animal motifs, or colored checks and stripes (Jorgensen133/34).

450-650 AD - England: Anglo-Saxons wove textiles for personal use and introduced different loom weights and weaving tools. Village workshops produced wool and linen (Rogers 125). Tabby and twill weaves predominated; there were diamond and chevron patterns, sometimes in colored threads e.g. blue from woad and purple from lichen. Some brocades included gold thread (Rogers 125/7).

ca. 500-600Mohammedca. 570-632

Rome and Byzantium: imported cotton from thesouthern and western Mediterranean seaboards(Wild 141).

Cologne and Marseilles: importedfabric from the EasternMediterranean (Wild 153).

550-600 AD Scandinavians: importedFrankish and Alemannic fabrics; linen commoner (Jorgensen135).

ca. 600-700 Rome and Byzantium: imported cotton from thesouthern and western Mediterranean seaboards(Wild 141).

600-1000 AD Arab Period:Embroidery increased; also patterns in checks, stripes,and bands; brocades,damasks and resist dying. State workshops producedbands of embroidered texts.Women span, at home;weavers were men(Eastwood 160/61). Egypt: Early Europeantechniques of nalebindingand sprang appeared here(Wild 151).Egypt produced flax, butless linen.Iran: famed for silk. (Eastwood159/60).

Paris: A late Sasanian silkincludes senmurvs in royal andZoroastrian iconography(McDowell 155).

600-1050 AD, Scandinavians: produced“Birka” diamond twill in fine worsted(Jorgensen 135).

c 620's Sutton Hoo: fabrics“decorated with soumak andtabbies with a looped pile,” were probably imports (Rogers127).

650-850 AD - Durham: St. Cuthbert’s shrine includes silksimported from Byzantium and the Middle East

Throughout the area: English nuns embroidered in silk andgold: opus anglicanum (128). The textile trade probablydeveloped for courtly and monastic markets, (Rogers 129)

.850-1000/1050 AD- Coppergate, York: Workshops wovesilk braids from imported fibers. “Birka” twill and silverwire embroidery signify Viking influence. Trade increasedvia Viking routes; luxury textiles became available tomany, (Rogers (131/2).

ca. 700-800 Throughout the area: Silk patterns included“rows of large, almost contiguous medallions,containing human and animal figures reversed inmirror image over a vertical axis;” Sasanianthemes of Royal Hunt and Senmurv; andinscriptions woven in Greek (Wild 151; 149)

700-900 - Carolingian sites: plainlinen tabby and plain twill; some“Spong Hill” type diamond twills(Jorgenen 123). Throughout thearea: A scarce new weaveappeared-“broken twill withdisplacement after each twothreads” (Jorgensenson 123).

Throughout the area: manors housed workshops, which were inlonghouses later (Jorgensen123/4).

ca. 800-1050

900-1050- Italians: used water power to drivefulling mills (Wild 151),

800-1050 Scandinavia: Linenwidespread. Tabby and twill silksimported at Birka from the Near East: “one is a monochrome- patterned fabricfrom China. Other imports includedtapestry and gold braids from China andByzantium. (Jorgensen 136/7 133/4)

180

WORKS CITED

PRIMARY SOURCES

Alfred the Great. "Preface to the Cura Pastoralis of Pope Gregory the Great." A Guide to Old English. Eds. Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson. 5th ed. Cambridge, Mass: Blackwell,

1992. 205-207.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, The. Ed. Anne Savage. London: Phoebe Phillips/Heinemann, 1982.

Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo. Tractates on the Gospel of John. Trans. John W. Rettig.Washington, D.C: Catholic University of America Press, c1988.

Bede. Ecclesiastical History of the English People, with Bede’s Letter to Egbert and Cuthbert’sLetter on the Death of Bede. Trans. Leo Sherley-Price. Rev. R. E. Latham. Minorworks, Trans, New Intro. and Notes, D. H. Farmer. Rev. ed. New York: Viking Penguin,1990.

Benario, Herbert W. ed. A Commentary on the Vita Hadriani in the Historia Augusta.Commentary by Benario. The American Philological Association, American ClassicalStudies. Number 7. Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1980.

Beowulf. Eds. Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson. Malden, Mass: Blackwell, 1998.

Caesar, Julius. The Gallic War. Trans. Intro. and Notes Carolyn Hammond. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Blake, William. "The Lamb." Songs of Innocence and Experience. Romanticism: AnAnthology. Ed. Duncan Wu. London: Blackwell, 1994.

Dream of the Rood, The. Ed. Michael Swanton. Rev. ed. Exeter: University of Exeter Press,

Evangeliorum Quattuor Codex Lindisfarnensis. Eds. Thomas D. Kendrick et al. Oltun et Lausanna: Helvetiae, MCMLX.

Holy Bible, The: Translated from the Latin Vulgate. The Old Testament: First Published by the English College at Douay, A.D. 1609. The New Testament: First Published by theEnglish College at Rheims, A.D. 1582. Rev. Bishop Richard Challoner, A.D. 1749-1752.London: Baronius Press, 2003.

Horace. The Art of Poetry: A Verse Translation with an Introduction by Burton Raffel. Latin text of Horace’s Ars Poetica, Prose Trans. and Biographical Note James Hynd; Notes DavidArmstrong; Afterword W. R. Johnson. New York: State University of New York Press,1974.

John the Scot. “De Divisione Naturae” 5. Patrologia Cursus Completus, Series Latina. Ed. J.Migne, Paris: 1841-64; 122:1010AB.

Tacitus. The Annals: The Reigns of Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero. Trans. J. D. Yardley. Intro. and Notes, Anthony A. Barrett. Oxford World’s Classics. New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 2008.

—. Agricola, Germania and Dialogus. Ed. G. P. Goold. Agricola. Trans M. Hutton Rev. R.

181

Ogilvie. Germania. Trans. M. Hutton. Rev. E. H. Warmington. Dialogus. Trans. W.Peterson. Rev. M. Winterbottom. Loeb Classical Library 1914. Rev. ed. 1970. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.

Wulfstan. “Sermo Lupi ad Anglos.” (Cotton MS. Nero A.I in the British Museum, ff. 110 ff). Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Reader in Prose and Verse. 15th ed. Rev. Dorothy Whitelock.Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967. 85-93.

SECONDARY SOURCES

Aberg, Nils. The Occident and the Orient in the Art of the Seventh Century. Stockholm:Wahlstrom & Widstrand, 1943-47.

Ashe, Geoffrey. “Glastonbury.” The New Arthurian Encyclopedia. Ed. Norris J. Lacy. New York: Garland, 1991. 198-202.

Attenborough, F. L., ed. and trans. The Laws of the Earliest English Kings. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1922.

Backhouse, Janet. The Lindisfarne Gospels. London: Phaidon, 1981.

Balme, Maurice and James Morwood, eds. Oxford Latin Reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Bailey, Richard N. England’s Earliest Sculptors. Publications of the Dictionary of Old English Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1996.

Bartlett, Adeline Courtney. The Larger Rhetorical Patterns in Anglo-Saxon Poetry. MorningsideHeights, New York: Columbia University Press, 1935.

Bately, Janet. “The Nature of Old English Prose.” The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature. Eds. Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press. 71-87.

Baugh, Albert C, and Thomas Cable, eds. A History of the English Language. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1993.

Bischoff B. and M. Lapidge. Biblical Commentaries from the Canterbury School of Theodore and Hadrian. Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England, 10. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1994.

Blair, John. “Anglo-Saxon Shrines and their Prototypes.” Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 8 (1995): 1-28.

Bowman, Alan, and David Thomas, eds. Vindolanda: The Latin Writing Tablets. London: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, 1983.

Bowman, Alan K. “The Roman Imperial Army: Letters and Literacy on the Northern Frontier.” Literacy and Power in the Ancient World.. Eds. Alan K. Bowman and Greg Woolf. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994; 109-125.

Bradley, R. A Passage of Arms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Bradley, S.A.J., ed. Anglo-Saxon Poetry. London: J. M. Dent, 1982.

182

Bremmer, Rolf Jr., "The Reception of the Acts of John in Anglo-Saxon England." The Apocryphal Acts of John. Ed. Jan N. Bremmer. Kampen, The Netherlands: Pharos,1995.183-96.

Brodeur, Arthur Gilchrist. “Variation.” Interpretations of Beowulf: A Critical Anthology. Ed. R.Fulk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991. 66-87.

Brown, Claudia, ed. The Amy S. Clague Collection of Chinese Textiles. Phoenix: Phoenix Art Museum, 2000.

Brown, Michelle P. “The Mercian Supremacy” The Making of England: Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600-900. Eds. Leslie Webster and Janet Backhouse. London: BritishMuseum Press, 1991. 215-7.

—. “The New Learning: Manuscripts.” The Making of England: Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600-900. Eds. Leslie Webster and Janet Backhouse. London: British Museum Press,1991. 73-4.

—. The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality, and the Scribe. London: The British Library,2003.

Budny, Mildred, and Dominic Tweddle. “The Maaseik Embroideries.”Anglo-Saxon England 13.New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984. 65-96.

Calder, Daniel G. “The Study of Style in Old English Poetry: A Historical Introduction.” Old English Poetry: Essays on Style. Ed. Daniel G. Calder. Berkley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1979. 1-66.

Campbell, James, ed. The Anglo-Saxons. New York: Penguin, 1991.

Carruthers, Mary. The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Cassidy, Frederic G., and Richard N. Ringler, eds. Bright’s Old English Grammar & Reader. 3rd

ed. 2nd Corrected Printing. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971.

Chadwick, Henry. “Theodore, the English Church and the Monothelete Controversy.”Archbishop Theodore: Commemorative Studies on his Life and Influence. Ed. MichaelLapidge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 88-95.

Charles-Edwards, Thomas, ed. After Rome. Short Oxford History of The British Isles. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Clanchy, Michael T. From Memory to Written Record: England 1066-1307. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000.

Clark, J. G. D. “The Economic Context of Dolmens and Passage Graves in Sweden.” Ancient Europe and the Mediterranean. Ed. V. Markotic. Warminster: Arts and Phillips Ltd.,1977. 35-49.

Clemoes, Peter. Rhythm and Cosmic Order in Old English Christian Literature. Cambridge: University Press, 1979.

183

Coatsworth, Elizabeth. Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture Volume VIII: Western Yorkshire.The British Academy: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Cook, William R. and Ronald B. Herzman. The Medieval World View: An Introduction. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Cox, Barrie. “The Pattern of Old English burh in Early Lindsey.” Anglo-Saxon England 8. New York: Cambridge University Press, (1994): 35-56.

Cramp, Rosemary. General Introduction to the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture:Grammar of Anglo-Saxon Ornament. Published for the British Academy. Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1984.

—. “The Artistic Influence of Lindisfarne Within Northumbria.” St. Cuthbert, His Cult and His Community to AD 1200. Eds. Gerald Bonner, David Rollason and Clare Stancliffe. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1989. 213-28.

Crawford, Barbara. “The Vikings.” From the Vikings to the Normans. Ed. Wendy Davies. Short Oxford History of the British Isles. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. 41-71.

Crowe, Christopher. “Excavations at Ruthwell, Dumfries, 1980 and 1984.” Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society. 3rd Series, 1987.

Cunliffe, Barry. The Ancient Celts. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Davies, John. A History of Wales. In English, 1993; In Welsh, 1990. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1994.

Dronke, Peter. “Mediaeval Rhetoric.” The Mediaeval World: Literature and Civilization. Vol. 2.Eds. David Daiches and Anthony Thorlby. London: Aldus, 1973. 315-346.

Eastwood, Gillian V. “The Arabs, AD 699-1000.” The Cambridge History of Western Textiles. Ed. David Jenkins. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 158-165.

Farmer, D. H. “Introduction.” Ecclesiastical History of the English People, with Bede’s Letter toEgbert, and Cuthbert’s Letter on the Death of Bede. By the Venerable Bede. Trans. LeoSherley-Price, rev. R. E. Latham. Trans. minor works, new Intro. and notes, D. H.Farmer. Rev. ed. New York: Viking Penguin, 1990. 19-38.

Feng, Zhao. Zhixiu zhenpin: Tushuo Zhongguo sizhou yishu shi / Treasures in Silk: An Illustrated History of Chinese Textiles. Trans. June Lee. Hong Kong: ISAT/CostumeSquad, 1999. 38-9.

Fishbane, Michael. "Composition and Structure in the Jacob Cycle (Gen. 25:19-35:22)," Journalof Jewish Studies 36 (1975): 19-32.

Gameson, Richard. “Inscriptions.” The Role of Art in the Late Anglo-Saxon Church. Oxford:The Clarendon Press, 1995.

Gibson, Alex. “What Do We Mean by Neolithic Settlement?” Neolithic Settlement in Ireland and Western Britain. Eds. Ian Armit, Eileen Murphy, Eimear Nelis and Derek Simpson. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2003. 136-145.

Gilbert, Martin. The Routledge Atlas of British History. 4th ed. New York: Routledge, 2007.

Goepp, Philip H. “The Narrative Material of Apollonius of Tyre.” English Literary History 2 (1938): 150-172.

184

Greenfield, Stanley B. “Geatish History: Poetic Art and Epic Quality in Beowulf.” Interpretations of Beowulf: A Critical Anthology. Ed. R. D. Fulk. Bloomington: IndianaUP, 1991. 120-126.

Guilman, Jacques. “The Composition of the First Cross Page of the Lindisfarne Gospels: ‘Square Schematism’ and the Hiberno-Saxon Aesthetic.” The Art Bulletin 4.67 (1985):535-547.

Hall, David. "The Sanctuary of St. Cuthbert.” St. Cuthbert and His Community to AD 1200. Eds. Gerald Bonner, David Rollason, and Clare Stancliffe. Rochester, New York: Boydell,1989. 425-436.

Hall, Richard. “A Kingdom Too Far: York in the Early Tenth Century.” Edward the Elder: 899-924. Eds. N. J. Higham and D. H. Hill. New York: Routledge, 2001. 188-199.

Hart, Walter Morris. “Ballad and Epic,” Harvard Studies and Notes XI (1907): 200-201.

Hatto, A. T. “Snake-swords and Boar-helms in Beowulf.” English Studies XXXVIII. (1957):144-160

Hawkes, Jane. The Sandbach Crosses: Sign and Significance in Anglo-Saxon Sculpture. Bodmin: Four Courts Press, 2002.

Higham, N.J. “Northumbria’s Southern Frontier: A Review.” Early Medieval Europe XIV.4 (2006): 391-418.

Hill, Peter. Whithorn and St. Ninian: The Excavation of a Monastic Town 1984-91. Stroud: The Whithorn Trust/Sutton Publishing, 1997.

Huppe, Bernard F. The Web of Words: Structural Analyses of the Old English Poems “Vainglory,” “The Wonder of Creation,” “The Dream of the Rood,” and “Judith.”Albany: State University of New York Press, 1970.

James, Simon. The Atlantic Celts: Ancient People or Modern Invention? Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999.

James, S, and V. Rigby. Britain and the Celtic Iron Age. London: The British Museum Press, 1997.

Jenkins Ian. “Industries of Early Historic Europe and the Mediterranean: The Greeks.” The Cambridge History of Western Textiles. Ed. David Jenkins. Vol. 1. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2003. 71-76.

Johnson, David. "Old English Religious Poetry." Companion to Old English Poetry. Eds. Henk Aertsen and Rolf H. Bremmer Jr. Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit University Press, 1994.159-187.

Jorgensen, Lise Bender. “Europe: The Stone Age c. 2000 BC.” The Cambridge History of Western Textiles. Ed. David Jenkins. Vol 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2003. 51-70.

— “Northern Europe in the Roman Iron Age, 1 BC - AD 400.” The Cambridge History of Western Textiles. Ed. David Jenkins. Vol. 1. New York: Cambridge University Press,2003. 93-102.

Kelly, Susan. “Anglo-Saxon Lay Society and the Written Word.” The Uses of Literacy in Early Mediaeval Europe. Ed. Rosamund McKitterick. New York: Cambridge University Press,

185

1990. 36-62 .

Kendrick, Laura. Animating the Letter: The Figurative Embodiment of Writing from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1999. Kenney, J.F. The Sources for the Early History of Ireland. NY: Columbia UP, 1929.

Ker, N. R. Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon. Oxford: Clarendon, 1957. King,W. J. The British Isles. The New Certificate Geography Series, Advanced Level. London: MacDonald and Evans, 1970.

Klein, Julie Thompson. Interdisciplinarity: History, Theory & Practice. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990.

Krasnodebska-D'Aughton, Malgorzata. "Decoration of the In Principio Initials in Early Insular Manuscripts: Christ as a Visible Image of the Invisible God." Word & Image 18 (2002):105-22.

Lapidge, Michael. “The Present State of Anglo-Latin Studies.” Insular Latin Studies: Papers onLatin Texts and Manuscripts of the British Isles: 550-1066. Ed. Michael W. Herren.Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1981. 45-82.

—. “Gildas’s Education and the Latin Culture of Sub-Roman England.” Gildas: New Approaches. Eds. Michael Lapidge and David N. Dumville. Woodbridge: Boydell, 1984. 27-50.

—. “The New Learning.” The Making of England: Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600-900. Eds. Leslie Webster and Janet Backhouse. London: British Museum Press,1991. 71-73.

—, ed. “Foreword.” Studies in Early Mediaeval Latin Glossaries. By W. M. Lindsay. Varorium

Collected Studies Series, CS467. Brookfield, VT: Ashgate Publishing Co; 1996. xvi-xvii.

Levison, Wilhelm. “An Eighth Century Poem on St. Ninian.” Antiquity 14 (1940): 280-91.

Leyerle, John. "The Interlace Structure of Beowulf." University of Toronto Quarterly 37 (1967):1-17. Rpt. in Interpretations of Beowulf. Ed. R. D. Fulk. Bloomington andIndianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991. 146-167.

Lommel, Andreas. Masks: Their Meaning and Function. Trans. Nadia Fowler. London: Paul Elek Books, 1972.

MacQueen, John. St. Nynia: With a Translation of the Miracles of Bishop Nynia. Edinburgh:Edinburgh University Press, 1990.

Marsden, Richard, ed. The Cambridge English Reader. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Maryon, Herbert. “Pattern-Welding and Damascening of Sword Blades: Part1 Pattern-Welding” Studies in Conservation 5.1 (1960): 25-37.

— . “Pattern-Welding and Damascening of Sword Blades: Part 2 The Damascene Process.” Studies in Conservation 5.2 (1960): 52-60.

186

McDowell, Joan Allgrove. “Industries of the Near East and Europe in Prehistory: Ancient Egypt, 5,000-332 BC.” The Cambridge History of Western Textiles. Ed. David Jenkins.Vol. I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 31-39.

Mercer, Roger J. “The Early Farming Settlement of South Western England.” Neolithic Settlement in Ireland and Western Britain. Eds. Ian Armit, Eileen Murphy, Eimear Nelisand Derek Simpson. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2003. 56-70.

Mitchell, Bruce, and Fred C. Robinson, eds. A Guide to Old English. 5th ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992.

Murphy, Eileen & Derek Simpson. “Neolithic Northton: A Review of the Evidence, The Early Farming Settlement of South Western England.” Neolithic Settlement in Ireland andWestern Britain. Eds. Ian Armit, Eileen Murphy, Eimear Nelis and Derek Simpson. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2003. 101-111.

Niles, John D. “Ring Composition and the Structure of Beowulf.” Publications of the Modern Language Association 94.5 (1979): 924-35.

—. “Pagan Survivals and Popular Beliefs.” The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature. Eds. Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1991. 126-141.

Noll, Stephen. Looking at the Old Testament. Ambridge, Pennsylvania: Trinity Episcopal Schoolfor Ministry, 1993.

North, Richard. Heathen Gods in Old English Literature. Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 22. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Notopoulos, J. A. “Continuity and Interconnection in Homeric Oral Composition.” Transactions of the American Philological Association. 82 (1951): 81-102.

O Carragain, Eamonn. Ritual and the Rood: Liturgical Images and the Old English Poems of the “Dream of the Rood” Tradition. The British Library Studies in Medieval Culture.Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005.

O Croinin, Daibhi. Early Medieval Ireland: 400-1200. New York: Longman, 1995.

— “Writing.” From the Vikings to the Normans. Ed. Wendy Davies. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2003. 169-200.

Ogilvie, R. M. “Introduction to the Agricola.” Agricola, Germania and Dialogus.by Tacitus. Ed. G. P. Goold. Agricola. Trans M. Hutton. Rev. R. M. Ogilvie. Germania. Trans. M.Hutton. Rev. E. H. Warmington. Dialogus. Trans. W. Peterson. Rev. M. Winterbottom.Loeb Classical Library 1914. Rev. ed. 1970. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,1992; 3-24.

Ogilvy, J. D. A. Books Known to Anglo-Latin Writers from Aldhelm to Alcuin (670-804). Cambridge, Mass: Medieval Academy of America, 1936.

Orchard, Andy. “Latin and the Vernacular Languages.” After Rome. Ed. Thomas CharlesEdwards. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. 191-219.

187

O’Reilly, J. “Patristic and Insular Traditions of the Evangelists: Exegesis and Iconography." Le Isole Britanniche e Roma in Eta Romanobarbarica. Eds. A. M. Luiselli Fadda and E. OCarragain. Rome: Herder Editrice e Libreria, 1998. 49-94. .

—. “The Art of Authority.” After Rome. Ed. Thomas Charles-Edwards. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. 140-189.

Page, R. I. An Introduction to English Runes. London: Methuen, 1973.

—. Reading the Past. London: Trustees of the British Museum. 1987.

—. Runes and Runic Inscriptions. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1995.

Parks, W. “Ring Structure and Narrative Embedding In Homer and Beowulf.” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 3.89 (1988): 237-251.

Philip, George, FRGS, ed. Philips’ Modern School Atlas of Comparative Geography. London: George Philip and Son, 1923.

Prescott, Andrew. “Manuscripts.” The Making of England: Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600-900. Eds. Leslie Webster and Janet Backhouse. London: British Museum Press,1991. 40.

Prickett, Stephen. “Introduction.” The Bible: Authorized King James Version with Apocrypha. Eds. Robert Carroll and Stephen Prickett. Bibliography, Notes, Glossary by RobertCarroll. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Rankin, H. D. Celts and the Classical World. Beckenham, Kent: Croom Helm, 1987.

Rawson Jessica. Chinese Bronzes: Art and Ritual. London: British Museum Publications, 1987.

Rogers, Penelope Walton. “The Anglo-Saxons and Vikings in Britain.” The Cambridge History of Western Textiles. Ed. David Jenkins. Vol. I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2003. 124-132.

Rollason, David. "St. Cuthbert and Wessex: The Evidence of Cambridge, Corpus Christi CollegeMS 183." St. Cuthbert, His Cult and His Community to AD 1200. Eds. Gerald Bonner,David Rollason, and Clare Stancliffe. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1989. 413-424.

—. Northumbria, 500-1100: Creation and Destruction of a Kingdom. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Ross, Anne. Pagan Celtic Britain: Studies in Iconography and Tradition. London: Routledge, 1967.

Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon, 1978.

— . “Orientalism Reconsidered.” Cultural Critique 1.3 (1985); 89-107.

Scragg, Donald G. “The Nature of Old English Verse.” The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature. Eds. Michael Godden and Michael Lapidge. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1991. 55-70.

188

Snyder, Jane McIntosh. “The Web of Song: Weaving Imagery in Homer and the Lyric Poets.” The Classical Journal 3.76 (1981): 193-196.

Stacey, Robin Chapman. “Texts and Society.” After Rome. Ed. Thomas Charles-Edwards. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. 220-257.

Stead, I. M. The Battersea Shield. London: The British Museum Press, 1985.

Stevens, William O. The Cross in the Life and Literature of the Anglo-Saxons. Yale Studies in English. Ed. Albert S. Cook. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1904.

Stock, Brian. The Implications of Literacy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983.

Sturluson, Snorri. Edda: A New and Complete Translation by Anthony Faulkes. London: J. M.Dent and Sons Ltd, 1987.

Swanton, Michael. “Ambiguity and Anticipation in “The Dream of the Rood.” NeuphilologischeMitteilungen/ Bulletin of the Modern Language Society. 70 (1969): 407-425.

Sykes, Bryan. Blood of the Isles: Exploring the Genetic Roots of Our Tribal History. London: Bantam Press, 2006.

Thomas, Charles. Christianity in Roman Britain to AD 500. London: Batsford, 1981.

Tolkien, J.R.R. “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.” Interpretations of Beowulf: A Critical Anthology. Ed. R. D. Fulk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991. 14-44.

Tonsfeldt, H. Ward. “Ring Structure in Beowulf.” Neophilologus 61 (1977): 443-452.

Treharne, Elaine. "Rebirth in "The Dream of the Rood." The Place of the Cross in Anglo-Saxon England. Eds. Catherine; E. Karkov; Sara Larratt Keefer, and Karen Louise Jolly. NewYork: Boydell and Brewer, Inc., 2006. 145-157.

Tresset, Anne. “French Connections II: of Cows and Men.” Neolithic Settlement in Ireland and Western Britain. Eds. Ian Armit, Eileen Murphy, Eimear Nelis and Derek Simpson. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2003. 18-30.

Vinaver, Eugene. The Rise of Romance. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.

Webster, L. “The New Learning: The Franks Casket.” The Making of England: Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600-900. Eds. Leslie Webster and Janet Backhouse. London: BritishMuseum Press, 1991. 101-103.

—. “The Mercian Supremacy: Metalwork” The Making of England: Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600-900. Eds. Leslie Webster and Janet Backhouse. London: BritishMuseum Press, 1991. 220-221.

White, Caroline, ed. “Introduction.” The Rule of St. Benedict. New York: Penguin, 2008.

Whitelock, Dorothy, ed. Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Reader In Prose and Verse. Rev. Dorothy Whitelock. 15th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967.

Wieland, Gernot. “Geminus Stilus: Studies in Anglo-Latin Hagiography.” Insular Latin Studies:

189

Papers on Latin Texts and Manuscripts of the British Isles: 550-1066. Ed. Michael W.Herren. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1981. 113-133.

Wild, John Peter. “Industries of the Near East and Europe in Prehistory: Anatolia and the Levant ca. 8000-3500/3300 BC.” The Cambridge History of Western Textiles. Ed. DavidJenkins. Vol. I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 39-52.

___. “The Later Roman and Early Byzantine East, AD 300-1,000.” The Cambridge History of Western Textiles. Ed. David Jenkins. Vol. 1. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2003. 140-153.

Woolf, Rosemary. "Doctrinal Influences on "The Dream of the Rood." Art and Doctrine: Essayson Medieval Literature. Ed. Heather O'Donoghue. London: The Hambledon Press, 1986;29-48.

Wormald, Patrick. “Anglo-Saxon Society and its Literature.” The Cambridge Companion to OldEnglish Literature. Eds. Michael Godden and Michael Lapidge. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1991. 1-22.

Yang, Liu, and Edmund Capon. Masks of Mystery: Ancient Chinese Bronzes from Sanxingoui. Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2000.

ELECTRONIC SOURCES

An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Based on the Manuscript Collections of the Late Joseph Bosworth. Ed. T. Northcote Toller. An Electronic Application on CD-Rom Ver. 0.2b. Digitised by Sean Crist et al. 2001-2007. Application by Ondrej Tichy, 2006-7. <http://lexicon.ff.cuni.cz/app>

Battersea Shield, The. The British Museum, London. 05 Dec. 2009.<http://www.britishmuseum.org/search_results.aspx?searchText=battersea+shield>

Bede, The Venerable. “The Binding of the Devil.” The Explanation of the Apocalypse by Venerable Beda. Trans. Edward Marshall. Book III.20:1. James Parker and Co:Oxford; 1878 (OOP). Explanatio Apocalypsis: By the Venerable Bede. 710-716 AD. 07Dec. 2009. <http://www.apocalyptic-theories.com/theories/bede/bede.html><http://www.apocalyptic-theories.com/theories/bede/bedeiii20.html>

Casanowicz, I. M. “Parallelism in Hebrew Poetry.” 2002. Jewish Encyclopedia.com. 24 March2010. <http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=67&letter=P>

“Chad Gospels, The.” Lichfield Cathedral: Lichfield Cathedral Inspires, Cathedral Treasures. 2005-2009. Arka Design. 05 Dec. 2009.<http://lichfield-cathedral.org/inspires/cathedral-treasures/the-chad-gospels>

Early Celtic Art. The British Museum, London. 05 Dec. 2009. <http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/article_index/e/early_celtic_or_la_t%c3 %a8ne_art.aspx>

“Gosforth: Gosforth Cross.” English Lakes:An Illustrated Guide to the Lake District: West Coast. 2005-6. 05 Dec. 2009. <http://www.english-lakes.com/gosforth.htm>.

“Interlace.” The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989. Oxford English Dictionary

190

Online. Oxford University Press. Strozier Lib. Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL.19 Feb. 2008.<http://dictionary.oed.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/cgi/entry/50119164?query_type=word&queryword=interlace&first=1&max_to_show=10&sort_type=alpha&search_id=buJJ-E0GChs-7 671&result_place=1>

“Las” The Middle English Dictionary. Eds. Hans Kurath and M. Kuhn. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1952-2001.Medieval English Dictionary Online. Ed.Frances McSparran. University of Michigan. 2006. Strozier Lib. F.S.U. Tallahassee, FL.26 Jan. 2010.<http://quod.lib.umich.edu.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/cgi/m/mec/med-idx?type=id&id=MED24706>

“Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis.” The Archaeological Museum, Zagreb, Croatia. The Etruscan Collection. 2009. 30 Nov. 2009.<http://www.amz.hr/home/departments/collections/collections-.aspx>.

Lindisfarne Gospels, The. BL Cotton MS Nero D. iv. The British Library, London. 05 Dec. 2009. <http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/lindisfarne.html ad link>.

Mortimer, Paul, rev. “TEMPL Historic Arms Sutton Hoo Sword.” 2003-2009. myArmoury.com: A Resource for Historic Arms and Armour Collectors. 14 Jan. 2010. <http://www.myarmoury.com/review_templ_suthoo.html>

Neolithic Monument Complex Of Thornborough, North Yorkshire, The. University of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. 2003. Historical Studies. In Association with English Heritage. 05 Dec. 2009. <http://thornborough.ncl.ac.uk.>

Page, R. I. An Introduction to English Runes. 2nd ed.. Rochester, N.Y: Boydell and Brewer,1999. 40. Electronic Edition. April 15, 2010.<http://www.netlibrary.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/Details.aspx>

“Pictish Stones Search Facility.” University of Strathclyde: Statistics and Modelling Science. Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland. 06 Dec. 2009.<http://www.stams.strath.ac.uk/research/pictish/database.php.>

“Sandbach.” Institute for Name Studies. Dir. Dr. David Parsons. University of Nottingham, Nottingham, England. 2002. A Key to English Place-Names. 02 Feb. 2010.<http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~aezins//kepn/results_county.php?>search=Cheshire,CHE; and <http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~aezins//kepn/detailpop.php>?placeno=11875

Turfa, Jean M. Rev. Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis. The Linen Book of Zagreb. A Comment on the Longest Etruscan Text. By L. B. van der Meer. 2008.05.37; 23. Bryn MawrClassical Review. 08 Nov. 2009. <http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu.2008/2008-05-37.html>.

Vergil, Publius Maro. Bucolics, Aeneid, and Georgics Of Vergil. Ed. J. B. Greenough. Boston. Ginn & Co. 1900. Aeneid. Trans. Theodore C. Williams. Boston. HoughtonMifflin Co. Perseus Digital Library. Ed. Gregory R. Crane. Tufts University. 1985-2009.The National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. 06 Dec. 2009. <http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0054>

Vindolanda Tablets Online. Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents. Dir. A. K. Bowman; and the Academic Computing Development Team. 2009. Oxford University,

191

England. 30 Nov. 2009. <http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk>.

192

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Joanna Beall was born in Yorkshire, England. She obtained her first professional qualification in

1964 in Manchester, England, from the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, for which she holds

a B.Sc. In 1996 she graduated from Florida State University with a B.A. in English Literature.

Having achieved an M. Phil. in Medieval English Language and Literature from Glasgow

University, she earned her M.A. in English Literature from F. S. U. in 2002. This dissertation

completes her Ph D. in English Literature, in which she has concentrated on Medieval Studies

and Old English Language and Literature–where her interests lie.

Publication: “Spiritual Gold: Verbal and Spiritual Alchemy in The Pardoner’s Tale and

Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale, ” in Medieval Perspectives, Richmond: EKU. Vol. XV, 2000, 35-41.

193