George Younge

University of York, English and Related Literature, Faculty Member

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My research explores the production and use of literary texts in England during the high medieval period (1000–1300). It focuses on cooperation between vernacular compilers and the European clerical elites that migrated to England after the Conquest. I am particularly interested in the changing contexts of literary production in the second half of the twelfth century, cross-fertilisation between English and French literature, and the role of Old English as a stimulus for vernacular writing in other regions of Europe.

In October 2012, I successfully defended my doctoral thesis: ‘The Canterbury Anthology: an Old English Manuscript in its Anglo-Norman Context’. Supervised by Dr Richard Dance at the University of Cambridge, the dissertation presents a detailed analysis of London, BL, Cotton Vespasian D.xiv, an Old English anthology produced at Christ Church cathedral, Canterbury around 1150. I argue that the compilation was assembled by a sophisticated editor, who rewrote pre-Conquest sources and combined them with newly commissioned translations. The thematic layout of the anthology and its eclectic reuse of earlier material has close parallels with contemporary Latin encyclopaedias, such as the ‘Liber Floridus’ (c.1120) and the ‘Hortus deliciarum’ (1185).

In 2012, I began a three year Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the Centre for Medieval Literature (CML), based at the University of York. The CML is a centre for excellence that brings together scholars working on a range of European vernacular languages. I am currently writing a monograph entitled ‘The Old English Renaissance of the Twelfth Century’ (OUP). Additional work in progress includes an article on ‘Saint Anselm and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’, and a study of the ‘The English Origins of Honorius Augustodunensis’ Speculum Ecclesiae’.
Supervisors: Dr Richard Dance
Address: Centre for Medieval Studies
University of York
King's Manor
York
Y017EP

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Papers by George Younge

Monks, Money and the End of Old English

New Medieval Literatures, May 2016

This study asks why Old English remained in use after the Norman Conquest and considers some of t... more This study asks why Old English remained in use after the Norman Conquest and considers some of the possible reasons for its disappearance in the final decades of the twelfth century. In addressing these vexed questions, the essay shifts the focus of investigation away from ethnicity and identity as motives for literary production, and onto economic and institutional considerations. I present hitherto overlooked evidence that suggests Benedictine monks compiled Old English books in response to emerging economic opportunities and competition from the new religious orders (among other reasons). When these incentives began to disappear towards the end of the twelfth century, and as the secular and regular clergy gained the upper hand, Benedictine monks withdrew from pastoral work and Old English finally came to an end.

Old English Sources of the Theological Windows at Canterbury, 1174 x 1200

In preparation for Gesta (Paul Mellon Publication Grant), 2015

This interdisciplinary study focuses on the monumental programme of stained glass windows erected... more This interdisciplinary study focuses on the monumental programme of stained glass windows erected at Canterbury cathedral after a fire devastated the building in c.1174. It begins by identifying Anglo-Saxon homiletic sources for some of the 'typological' windows in the cathedral’s transepts. In the second half of the study, I suggest that the extensive Old English and Latin annotations in London, BL, Cotton Claudius B.iv (the OE Hexateuch) represent preparatory research for the ‘Ancestor’ sequence in the clerestory. The discussion draws attention to the vitality of Old English after the Norman Conquest and raises new questions about the intellectual milieu of a master glazer and his team of craftsmen.

The New Heathens: Anti-Jewish Hostility in Early English Literature

Essays and Studies, Jun 2015

This article examines references to the Jews as the 'heathen' in Old and Middle English texts fro... more This article examines references to the Jews as the 'heathen' in Old and Middle English texts from the twelfth century. It argues that English writers took a keen interest in anti-Jewish ideas formulated by scholars such as Anselm and Gilbert Crispin, and played a key role in disseminating these to a popular audience. The article concludes that English homilists contributed to the deterioration of Christian-Jewish relations in the twelfth century, which culminated in a wave of massacres in 1189/90.

"Those Were Good Days": Representations of the Anglo-Saxon Past in the Old English Homily on Saint Neot

Often regarded as one of the very last works in Old English, the homily on Saint Neot has receive... more Often regarded as one of the very last works in Old English, the homily on Saint Neot has received little critical attention in the last fifty years, falling outside the bounds of Anglo-Saxon studies yet failing to attract the interest of students of early Middle English. Recent recognition of the homily’s accomplished style has culminated in its reattribution to the early eleventh century, where it stands as a virtually unparalleled example of vernacular hagiography from the period after the circulation of Ælfric’s Lives of Saints. This article revives the case for a post-Conquest dating of the Old English homily on Saint Neot, questioning scholars who interpret the text as the cry of an English underclass hostile to foreign occupation. Rather than viewing the homily’s unique features as evidence of its dependence on a lost version of the Latin Life of Saint Neot, I argue that these changes reflect the distinctive agenda of the translator, who uses the Anglo-Saxon past as a platform from which to comment on Anglo-Norman society.

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An Old English Compiler and his Audience: London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian D. xiv

This paper concerns the function and use of a manuscript produced in the mid-twelfth century, alm... more This paper concerns the function and use of a manuscript produced in the mid-twelfth century, almost certainly at Christ Church cathedral priory, Canterbury. Approximately half of the fifty-two items in the collection are extracts from the work of the tenth-century homilist Ælfric of Eynsham, many of which have been rewritten by the compiler. This paper seeks to understand why and for whom these extracts were selected and redacted, situating the manuscript in the context of its compilation at Canterbury. I conclude that the anthology was assembled in response to a large influx of English-speaking adult converts at Christ Church after the Norman Conquest. The collection's concern with simony, clerical celibacy and the importance of freewill reflect the outlook of Saint Anselm of Canterbury and his pupil, Honorius Augustodunensis, whose pastoral theology was highly influential in the period.

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Book Reviews by George Younge

Saints and Scholars: New Perspectives on Anglo-Saxon Literature and Culture in Honour of Hugh Magennis, ed. Stuart McWilliams (Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2012)

Review of English Studies (forthcoming)

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Talks by George Younge

Lateran IV: an Originary Moment for English Literature?

Anglo-Saxon Sources of the Canterbury Windows (1174 x 1200)

Insular Concerns: The Great War and the Continuity of English Prose

Reframing Reform: the Tenth-century Past in the Twelfth-century Imagination

The twelfth century was a period of intense, rapid, and self-conscious monastic renewal. The proh... more The twelfth century was a period of intense, rapid, and self-conscious monastic renewal. The prohibition of clerical marriage, the condemnation of simony, and the restriction of sinful pleasures were of central importance to Benedictine communities throughout Europe. In England, however, many of these issues had already been confronted by scholars and monastic leaders during the tenth century. This paper explores how post-Conquest compilers of Old English prose reframed the literary output of their tenth-century Benedictine predecessors, exploiting the content of venerable texts for contemporary purposes.

The Place of English in the Twelfth-Century Renaissance

This paper will discuss the compilation of London, British Library, Cotton Vesapsian D.xiv: a col... more This paper will discuss the compilation of London, British Library, Cotton Vesapsian D.xiv: a collection of Old English homiletic excerpts assembled in the mid-twelfth century at Canterbury or Rochester. In contrast to other post-Conquest collections of religious prose, the majority of which are liturgically-ordered homiliaries or disorganised miscellanies, Vespasian D.xiv is a highly systematic assemblage of material. I will begin by discussing the manuscript’s codicology, showing its sub-division into a sequence of self-contained quire blocks. The compiler has achieved this effect through a series of innovative codicological strategies, including the use of space-fillers, abbreviation, and by varying the size of gatherings. In terms of its structure, Vespasian D.xiv’s nearest relative is not to be found among other homiletic miscellanies, but in the form of the Textus Roffensis, an early twelfth-century collection of law-codes which, according to Patrick Wormald, ‘imposes the intellectual patterning of the schools onto a field of knowledge not hitherto subject to it.’ In the second half of the paper, I will consider the principles governing the selection of extracts and their arrangement within each codicological sub-section. Excerpts have been chosen by the compiler on account of their thematic content rather than their relationship to the liturgy and reflect a taste for the factual, an interest in accumulative lists, and a preference for exempla. In conclusion, I will suggest that Vespasian D.xiv, and other comparable (but now fragmentary) anthologies from the mid-twelfth century, such as BL Cotton Julius A.ii and Vitellius A.xv, part 1, convey an impression of system that is conspicuously absent from earlier manuscripts. In this regard, these books reflect a proto-scholastic interest in clarifying and ordering inherited material.

The Old English Sources of the Typological Windows at Canterbury (c.1180)

English, Normans and Jews in Twelfth-century Canterbury: the British Library, Cotton Vespasian D. xiv Version of the Gospel of Nichodemus

The Old English translation of the Gospel of Nicodemus—an apocryphal account of the crucifixion—c... more The Old English translation of the Gospel of Nicodemus—an apocryphal account of the crucifixion—contained in Vespasian D. xiv (Christ Church, Canterbury, s. xiimed) has generally been dismissed by its readers as a corrupt version of the text, ‘characterised by a number of omissions and alterations’ (Cross 1996: 53). This paper will explore the changes made to the Vespasian D. xiv version of Nichodemus, arguing that the compiler of the manuscript has systematically altered the portrayal of the Jewish Elders responsible for Christ’s persecution, sharpening the anti-Jewish focus of the piece. These changes reflect the increasingly hostile stance taken towards the Jews in twelfth-century England and show the updating of pre-Conquest texts to reflect the concerns of a post-Conquest readership. Some scholars have interpreted the continued production of Old English literature after 1066 to be a form of resistance on the part of an oppressed English remnant. In contrast, this paper will suggest that the negative portrayal of the Jewish Elders in Vespasian D. xiv represents an assimilative strategy, through which the ethnically mixed monastic corporation, the community of the ‘faithful’, are defined by their opposition to the ‘unbelief’ of the Jews.