Aldhelm

Prologue : Des mots pour dire l'énigme Par énigme, entendez une trouvaille singulière de l'esprit, porteuse d'un fruit de sagesse, mais enveloppée et occulte : en sorte que si elle est supérieure et parfaite, c'est à grand peine ou plutôt en vain qu'essaiera de l'entendre un autre que son inventeur, quand bien même il tendrait à cela toute l'acuité de son intelligence. Pire : par cela même qu'un autre la pénétrerait, aussitôt elle cesserait d'être une énigme, dont l'essence même est le secret et l'obscur. Aussi, quiconque la percerait à jour, mettant dans la cible de sa signification, on estime qu'il aurait vaincu son auteur et ravi les dépouilles de son invention. C'est pourquoi les poètes jadis ont imaginé que l'énigme de la Sphinge une fois expliquée par OEdipe, celle-ci se serait sur le champ jetée dans le vide, achevant d'un coup sa vie, qui n'était que son obscurité et s'évanouissant et périssant sous la lumière éclatante de la solution. (Miguel Vasquez, « Sermon sur le Mystère de la Trinité » ap. Maximilien van der Sandt, Theologia symbolica, 1626, p. 151) 1 Le mot « énigme », commun à plusieurs de nos langues indo-européennes, vient du grec « ainigma », attesté dès le V e siècle avant notre ère dans les oeuvres de Pindare, Eschyle (Prométhée enchaîné, 610) et Sophocle (OEdipe-Roi, passim). De genre neutre, il est à rapprocher du verbe ainissomai, « dire à mots couverts », « faire allusion », et du substantif ainos, le « récit » ou la « fable », en particulier celui ou celle qui contient une leçon cachée pour son destinataire (cf. Hésiode, Les Travaux et les Jours, 202). La proximité phonétique de ce nom et de l'adjectif ainos, « terrible, affreux », a peut-être contribué à renforcer le caractère obscur ou ambigu de l'énigme. Le substantif grec est passé en latin sous la forme aenigma,-atis, également de genre neutre, qui explique la graphie française du XIV e siècle : enigmat, puis celle des XV e et XVI e siècles : ainigme, avant de se fixer, en 1529, sous la forme que nous connaissons aujourd'hui. Jusqu'au XVII e siècle, le mot est de genre masculin en français et certains auteurs d'énigmes ou de recueils d'énigmes hésiteront parfois à cette époque entre le masculin et le féminin. Dans la littérature latine de l'Antiquité, aenigma n'a presque jamais le sens que lui confèrent Eschyle et Sophocle. Il n'y a guère que Virgile qui fasse exception à la règle dans sa troisième Églogue (vv. 104-107), d'inspiration toute grecque. Chez les auteurs chrétiens des époques 1 « Nemo, quem ego quidem consuluerim, accuratius et elegantius, quaesito huic satisfacit, quam Michael Vasquez in oratione de augustissimo SS. Trinitatis mysterio: ubi, Sacramentum, seu Mysterium, idem sonat (inquit) quod Aenigma, hoc est singulare quoddam mentis inuentum, hinc quidem sapientia foetum, inde vero perplexum adeo, atque occultum; ut si praestans fuerit, ac perfectum, vix, aut ne vix quidem alius, quam eius auctor, atque inuentor (quantumcumque in eius explicationem, interpretationemque, mentis aciem intendat) assequi eam possit. Quin & hoc ipso, quod alium quispiam eo penetrauerit Aenigma ilico esse desinet: cuius tota ratio in arcano, atque obscuro sita est. Atque adeo, si quis eius sensum peruiderit, significationisque; veluti scopum fixerit, illius auctorem vicisse, ac suo inuento exuisse existimabitur. Atque hoc certe causae fuit, cur Poetae olim finexerint, Sphyngis Aenigmate ab Oedipo explicato, eam confestim se praecipitem dedisse, ac vitam (quae sua nimirum obscuritas illi fuerat) finiuisse, atque oborta manifestae solutionis claritate, disparuisse, periisseque. » (Traduit en français par Florence VUILLEUMIER-LAURENS dans Charles COTIN, Les Énigmes de ce temps, Paris, 2003, p. IX.)

There are multiple early medieval English accounts of the Jewish heroine Judith. This essay seeks to bring them together, to identify some major differences in emphasis and interest. This discussion seeks to reveal that most writers working with the text felt uncomfortable with it and sought to control it in different ways; this in turn leads to the question of what made the story so appealing – why so many Englishmen felt the need to rewrite a story they might have preferred to ignore. The final third of the essay, then, reflects on what a "good story" is, and the aspects of Judith that seem to make it irresistibly attractive as a project to retell in new ways.

The late-seventh/eighth-century Anglo-Saxon authors Aldhelm, Bede, Boniface and Alcuin all composed letters to contemporary kings. These authors used three main rhetorical strategies to direct their royal correspondents towards a more virtuous life. The first of these was advice, the (seemingly) straightforward offering of (ostensibly) judgement-free moral guidance. Secondly, there was admonition, where the author overtly and vigorously confronted specific sins. Finally, there were examples, exempla, drawn from both biblical and contemporary history, which the authors employed, with or without editorial comment, either to inspire or to deter. It is argued that these letters were principally motivated by moral or pastoral concern, rather than any desire to establish an abstract kingship ideology.

The meaning of a group of Old English glosses pertaining to the word occa has puzzled scholars for a long time. In the beginning, interest was focused principally on the Old English rendering of occa, that is fealh, but now that this problem has been solved, there is still some light to be shed on the Latin word occa itself, and on the source from which all the Old English glosses derive, namely the works of Aldhelm. All the lemmata such as occa and occas which occur in the Anglo-Saxon glossaries go back to his works and originate in interlinear glosses which were subsequently sorted and gathered to form glossaries. There is still uncertainty about the meaning of the word occa in the works of Aldhelm, and the question still remains to be answered of why he chose to use this word in three different works and whence he drew it. What I want to suggest for the word occa is a single meaning which fits all the Aldhelmian contexts (and matches the Old English gloss, fealh and the corresponding verb fealgian).
Aldhelm uses occa in three different works: in one of the Carmina ecclesiastica, in the Carmen de virginitate and in the prose treatise De virginitate. If my interpretation of the meaning of occa is correct, it may also shed light on the relationship between the three works. The most important of the three occurrences is, in my opinion, that in the Carmina ecclesiastica IV.ii (on an altar dedicated to St Paul) where the results of Paul’s apostolate are described in these terms: ‘De quo sacra seges mundi succrevit in occa’ (line 4).  Ehwald pointed to what, in his opinion, was an unusual meaning of the Latin word occa, noting that (here and in the prose and verse De virginitate) ‘occa ab Aldhelmo usurpatur simili sensu ac "terra arata, arvum"’.  In fact the word used by Aldhelm is not Lat. occa ‘harrow’,  but a variant form of Med. Lat. olca, which is a loan-word from Celtic and means something like ‘fallow-field, ploughed field’.  The choice of the word is particularly appropriate to describe the world as ready to receive the word of God, in that the preaching of the apostle has metaphorically succeeded in breaking the hardness of men’s hearts, and the fallowing has prepared the fields in readiness for sowing.

A central prosodic feature of nearly all Latin verse, classical and medieval alike, is the avoidance of hiatus, where a word with a final vowel, or in classical verse, a final m, is followed by a word with an initial vowel, (or, in classical verse, an initial h). In classical Latin, hiatus is eliminated by a process known as elision, or synaloephe, where the final vowel of the preceding word is fused with the following one or left unpronounced. The avoidance of hiatus is a feature of most medieval verse, as well, but early insular verse forms a notable exception: hiatus is abundant in many rhythmical Irish and Anglo-Latin hymns, and even in much of Anglo-Latin hexameter poetry elision is not systematically observed. This is a noticeable feature, above all, in the verse of Aldhelm and his followers, although Aldhelm himself gives a detailed description of elision in his treatise on metrics (De metris). Bede took an opposite line in his strenuous avoidance of hiatus in his own verse. In his metrical treatise De arte metrica he went so far as to condemn hiatus as a ‘pagan’ feature, a view which he attempted to corroborate with examples of Vergil’s artful deviations from the rules of elision. Bede’s reluctance to recognise hiatus for a contemporary rather than a pre-Christian feature reflects his attempts to show Christian verse in as favourable light as possible, although, in a roundabout way, he probably also tried to regularise the prosodic practices of Anglo-Latin verse. The present paper studies this discrepancy between Anglo-Saxon prosodists’ views on hiatus and the prevailing verse technique of the same period and suggests that some seeming idiosyncrasies in Aldhelm’s use of elision are, in fact, probably based on certain less-known practices of Late Latin hexameter verse.

The riddle tradition in early medieval England features numerous Anglo-Latin enigmata and Old English riddles that center on drinking and drunkenness. In these riddles, the transformative effects of alcohol are characterized as both wondrous and monstrous. This chapter will place these respective early medieval English drinking riddles in conversation, especially Boniface’s vice-riddle on ebrietas “inebriation” (Enigma 16), Aldhelm’s Enigmata 78 (solved cupa uinaria “wine flask”) and 80 (solved calice vitreo “glass cup”), Lorsch Riddle 5 (plausible solved calix “drinking glass”), and Exeter Book Riddles 11 (plausibly solved wine “wine”), 27 (plausibly solved medu “mead”), 28 (plausibly solved winbelg “wine-bag”) and 63 (“plausibly solved fæt “drinking cup”). This chapter contend that the extant riddles from early medieval England that are concerned with drinking and inebriation display a range of attitudes when it comes to imbibing alcohol (from joy to horror). The chapter demonstrates a variety of riddling techniques within these Old English and Anglo-Latin texts, which are designed to obfuscate their enigmatic solutions. Finally, this chapter considers the rhetorical presentations and ethical implications of drunkenness in Old English Anglo-Latin riddles. This chapter argues that drinking-riddles from early medieval England destabilize conventional binaries (between the Latin, learned and spiritual on one hand and the vernacular, popular, and secular on the other) by showing respective examples of theological condemnation and festive celebration of alcohol consumption in both Latin enigmata and Old English riddles.

This dissertation explores the transmission and reception of Roman epigraphic poetry in early-medieval England, using intensive source-study analysis to demonstrate its profound influence on native Anglo-Saxon literary culture.  The texts considered here include the full corpus of Anglo-Latin poetry up to the beginning of the ninth century, as well as the vernacular Old English poem Beowulf.  Beginning with the history of epigraphic writing in the West and the Anglo-Saxons' first-hand experience in Rome of this rich poetic inheritance, it demonstrates the ubiquitous presence of the epigraphic genre throughout the entirety of the early Anglo-Latin literary milieu.  The dissertation also shows how Roman verse inscriptions not only influenced works composed by Anglo-Saxon authors in Latin, but also infiltrated their vernacular poetry in significant ways.  Understanding the full story of how the Anglo-Saxons appropriated and adapted for their own ends this portion of Rome's literary patrimony is critical on at least two fronts.  It fundamentally enlarges our conception of the Anglo-Saxons' literary horizons, and allows us to appreciate this material as holding every bit as important a place in the early-medieval curriculum as the Latin classroom poets.  It also provides a window into the fledgling English church's engagement with the culture of a specifically Roman form of Christianity. As a distinct genre in which the concepts of romanitas, the Church, the cult of the saints, and episcopal identity potently intersect, Roman inscriptions offered Anglo-Saxon authors a variety of ways, and the language to express and negotiate, their own relationship to these ideas.  That the Anglo-Saxons should utilize this material to help articulate their own historical identity is fitting, for this is exactly what both pagan and Christian Romans before them sought to do.  How the Anglo-Saxons did so constitutes a vital aspect of their literary culture, and one well deserving of its own fully-fledged investigation.

(Attachment is handout from the talk.)
When I began researching blood in Anglo-Saxon hagiography, I expected blood to appear mainly in graphic descriptions of saints’ martyrdoms. I was surprised to discover that this was not the case. Blood is not necessarily graphic in Anglo-Saxon hagiography. Graphic violence is not always accompanied by blood, and sometimes blood appears in scenarios completely unrelated to acts of violence. Today I will discuss various uses of blood imagery in two important collections of Anglo-Saxon prose hagiography: Aldhelm’s Latin prose De uirginitate (c. 675) and Ælfric’s Old English Lives of Saints (c. 998). This paper has two main goals: first, to demonstrate how blood in Anglo-Saxon saints’ lives does not always appear in the violent contexts one might expect; second, to examine other contexts for blood in hagiography, connecting these to blood’s power of transference.

In this paper I argue that birds - natural and masterful creatures of transformation  - are central to the Old English Riddles' complex epistemological and hermeneutic preoccupations. Birds are both a fascinating example of transformation in themselves, but their elusiveness and resistances to categorisation also embroil them in the processes and limitations of accessing knowledge that are important self-reflexive themes in the collection. We wonder at birds, but we can also wonder with birds, who demonstrate to us how marvelling is a paradoxical act that perpetuates mystery, even as we come to know. I focus on a handful of riddles located outside the usual 'bird group' to explore a bird that actively and wittily defers identification, birds that mock naming through retaining their identities altogether, and another that reminds us of its kind's central involvement in the physical, scribal production of wondering itself.