Introduction

§1. Manuscript, Date, Provenance

The Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry is MS 3501 in the Library of the Dean and Chapter of Exeter Cathedral. The combined codicological and literary evidence indicates that the anthology was designed and copied out circa 965-75, making it perhaps the oldest surviving book of vernacular poetry from Anglo-Saxon England.1 Recent work on the Exeter scriptorium by Conner, Drage, Hill and the present editor suggests that it is one of a number of extant manuscripts which can be confidently associated with each other.2 It has been at Exeter at least since the time of Bishop Leofric, who was responsible for moving the episcopal See from Crediton to Exeter in 1050; he died on 10 February 1072.3 The inventory of 1327 (D&C Charter 3671, Plate 3) makes no specific mention of The Exeter Anthology – it was most likely covered by the entry, 'Many other books in French, English and Latin, worn out by age, which are not assigned a value because they are considered to be worthless.'4 The inventory of 1506 (Plate 4) also makes no mention of the manuscript.5 This is not surprising since the condition of the manuscript suggests that it has survived only because it could be put to practical use in the scriptorium: it was used as a cutting board (as the slashes on its front leaves show); a messy pot (perhaps of glue) was placed on its exposed first folio on at least one occasion (Plate 1); a fiery brand was placed upon its exposed back with apparent indifference (Plate 2); and sheets of gold leaf were often stored between its folios, leaving a sparkling residue of gold on many of its leaves.6 Sometime before his death Leofric had a donation list drawn up which itemizes the books and religious objects he 1

The relative dating of the poetic codices is notoriously difficult and controversial, since they all originate within a period of approximately fifty years (965-1015): see Ker 1957, items 334 and 394 (pages 406 and 460 respectively) for the dating of The Cædmon Manuscript and The Vercelli Codex; for a review of the controversy surrounding the dating of the Beowulf manuscript, see Kevin Kiernan, Beowulf and the Beowulf Manuscript (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers UP, 1981, passim) and Colin Chase (ed.), The Dating of Beowulf (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1981), pp. 3-32. It is possible that the Vercelli codex may be slightly older than the Exeter manuscript. Sisam 1953 (p. 102) observes (in commenting on the orthography of the Exeter MS), 'The difference [in the spelling of the pronoun hi-hy-hie] is not due to relative date, since paleographically the Exeter Book has claims to be reckoned rather earlier than the rest [of the surviving poetic codices].' 2 The first detailed study of the scriptorium was made by Elaine Drage 1978 in a doctoral dissertation which, sadly, was never published as a monograph or in article form. In Chapters II-IV she discusses the manuscripts either given to the Cathedral by Leofric or added to in its scriptorium during his episcopacy. Conner 1993 (pp. 33-47) presents a detailed analysis of the manuscripts associated with the Exeter scriptorium, adding to conclusions arrived at earlier by Ker, Sisam and Drage; his work is referred to passim. Hill 1986 (pp. 112-16) re-examines the evidence for associating Lambeth Palace MS 149 with Exeter and The Exeter Anthology. The present editor's own previous work (reviewed in detail below) argues that the scribe who copied out The Exeter Anthology was also responsible for two Latin manuscripts that have survived. 3 Sketches of Leofric's life and career are given by Barlow 1972 (pp. 1-16), Chambers 1933 (pp. 5-9), Drage 1978 (Chapters I and VI), Lloyd 1972 (pp. 32-42) and Conner 1993 (pp. 1-32). For a discussion of Leofric's episcopal dates and the date of his death, see Barlow 1972 (pp. 15-16, 'Appendix'). 4 The inventory is printed by Oliver 1861 (pp. 301-10); the passage quoted here is on p. 309 – the translation is by Erskine 1972 (p. 46). D&C MS 3720 is a fragment in poor condition which appears to be a copy of the 1327 inventory (see Poole 1907, pp. 24-5 and Erskine, p. 44 and note 1). 5 The inventory is printed by Oliver 1861 (pp. 330-4). Erskine 1972 (p. 43) notes that this inventory is now missing. Erskine describes the subsequent history of the library on pp. 43-55. Poole 1907 (pp. 25) lists three other fourteenth and fifteenth century inventories, but they are less comprehensive than those already cited and do not mention D&C MS 3501. It is mentioned, however, in Dean Lyttelton's short catalogue of 1751 as item 26 Miscellanea Leofrici etc. charactero Saxonico. The Chapter Clerk, Ralph Barnes, describes the manuscript with the same phrase in his inventory of September 1811. 6 For an analysis of where traces of gold leaf are found in the manuscript see Muir 1989 (pp. 284-8, column 10).

intended to leave to the Cathedral and its community.7 Scholars today identify The Exeter Anthology with the volume described in that list as i mycel englisc boc be gehwilcu(m) þingu(m) on leoðwisan geworht (on folio 1v of MS 3501); although it is impossible to be absolutely certain of this identification, it seems reasonable. The combined evidence – the dating of the manuscript, its affiliation with other Leofric / Exeter manuscripts, and its inclusion in the donation list – suggests that the manuscript was written at either Crediton or Exeter.8 The previous binding of the MS, which dates from circa 1700 and was removed in 1930 in order to make the photographs for the facsimile, is kept in the manuscript's (travelling) case in the vault of the Dean and Chapter Library; it is described briefly by Förster 1933 (p. 55). The original patches (dating from the nineteenth century) from the damaged folios at the back of the codex, which were replaced by new ones during the rebinding process in 1930, are also kept in this case, along with some correspondence relating to Förster's examination of the manuscript. The Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry comprises folios 8-130 of the present manuscript. Folios 1-7 contain Leofric's donation list, notice of other gifts and legal documents in various hands. These folios properly belong to Cambridge University Library MS Ii. 2. 11 (a Gospel Book), but were probably removed from that codex and bound with The Exeter Anthology when the former manuscript was given to Archbishop Parker in 1566.

§2. Transcripts, Facsimiles, Editions and Catalogue Descriptions

A number of transcripts have been made of The Exeter Anthology. In 1830 Nikolai Gruntvig made one in the Library at Exeter as part of his plan to publish a Bibliotheca Anglo-Saxonica in ten volumes. He claims to have completed the transcript (1840, p. 14), but it has since disappeared; his edition of The Phoenix is the first edition of a long Anglo-Saxon poem. The next transcript of the manuscript was made for the British Museum by Robert Chambers in 1831-2; in the latter year it was collated with the manuscript by Sir Frederic Madden.9 In 1832 Benjamin Thorpe went to Exeter and transcribed the manuscript for his edition (which has a facing-page translation), which appeared ten years later in 1842. It is regrettable that Christian Grein, whose edition of the manuscript appeared in 1857-8 (with a translation into 7

Internal evidence suggests it was drawn up in the period 1069-72; see Förster 1933 (pp. 14-15). There is a second contemporary copy of the donation list in Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Auct. D. 2.16, folios 1-2v; it was copied independently from the same exemplar as the witness for the list in D&C MS 3501, with which it shares some identical interlinear corrections, suggesting that they were inserted after both copies had been made. There is also a Middle English version dating from the fifteenth century, in Exeter, Dean and Chapter Charter no. 2570 – for an edition of this text see Förster 1933 (pp. 14, 30-2); see also Conner 1993 (pp. 239-42) for further discussion. Drage 1978 (pp. 43-6) argues that 'donation list' is the most appropriate way of describing the document recording the gift; others have referred to it as a 'will', 'memorandum', 'grant' or 'catalogue.' The best published descriptions and editions of the list are by Förster 1933 (pp. 10-32), Lapidge 1985 (pp. 64-9) and Conner 1993 (pp. 226-35); Drage 1978 discusses the list in Chapter II of her dissertation. 8 See Conner 1993 (pp. 48-94). 9 The transcript is now known as BL Additional MS 9067. Inside the front cover of the old binding of The Exeter Anthology is the following note: 'In 1831 this Book was entrusted to the British Museum for the Purpose of being copied for the Institution, and returned October 1832 – Ralph Barnes, Chapter Clerk.' In BL Add. 9067 there is the annotation, 'The whole of the present transcript has been collated by me with the original MS. belonging to the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral of Exeter. Febr. 24th, 1832. [signed] Frederic Madden, Assist. Keeper of the MSS., Brit. Musm.' This transcript was made when there were no patches on the damaged leaves at the end of the manuscript; patches of vellum were subsequently affixed to the damaged folios, obscuring many letters around the holes. Consequently, until the patches were once again removed in 1930, Chambers' transcript (1831-2) remained the best account of the readings in the latter part of the manuscript.

German: Dichtungen, 1857-9), never had the opportunity to travel to Exeter to examine the manuscript – he had to depend on Thorpe's edition for his knowledge of the manuscript and its readings – since he was a more exacting and professional scholar than any of his predecessors. Grein would certainly have dealt more perceptively with the texts, and in particular with those damaged sections which Thorpe generally passed over. Jacob Schipper went to Exeter in 1870-1 to collate Grein's edition with the manuscript; his corrections were published in 1874.10 Richard Wülker with the assistance of Bruno Assmann, was responsible for a revised edition of Grein's Bibliothek, which appeared during the period 1883-98. Both he and Assmann made collations against the manuscript; Wülker, moreover, consulted Chambers' transcript for the poems for which he was responsible. The next complete edition of the manuscript was undertaken by Sir Israel Gollancz for The Early English Text Society, but he lived to publish only Volume One (in 1893, containing Advent Lyrics-Precepts); volume two was edited by W.S. Mackie and appeared in 1934.11 Gollancz proposed a third volume, 'containing notes, introductions, indexes' [Prefatory Note], which, however, never appeared. The last major edition before Muir 1994 was by George P Krapp and Elliott van Kirk Dobbie, Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records III, which appeared in 1936 – Krapp died in 1934, but had by then edited a considerable amount of the manuscript. Krapp and Dobbie did not examine the manuscript for their edition, but worked instead from the facsimile edition published by R.W. Chambers, Max Förster and Robin Flower in 1933; they did, however, have access to an ultra-violet photograph of folio 8r of the manuscript (ASPR VI, p. vi). Several editions of individual poems or groups of poems have reproduced photographically selected folios and details from the manuscript, as have numerous articles. Work on the 1994 edition began in earnest in 1987. In 1988, the present editor spent six weeks examining the manuscript in Exeter and subsequently published two papers summarizing some of his observations.12 In 1992, he spent ten months of a sabbatical year in the Exeter Dean and Chapter Library studying the manuscript and compiling the first edition.13 Early in that same year he published the Bibliography of The Exeter Anthology with University of Exeter Press as a separate monograph.14 The first modern catalogue description of the manuscript appears in Wanley (1705, pp. 27981). He identifies it with the book of English poetry in Leofric's donation list; his comments on its condition indicate that he is led to assume (by the use of the adjective mycel in the donation list) that it had once been a much larger codex because it now lacks folios at both its beginning and end: Nam dum Codex esset perfectus & inviolatus, recte disceretur liber Grandis; nunc autem, illi jam truncato codici, tam initio quam in fine, ea quæ restant folia, una cum foliis septem aliis libro præmissis in Volumen mediocriter crassum à Bibliopego jam denuo rediguntur. (p. 279)15 10

He could actually determine fewer readings at the end of the manuscript than Chambers had been able to do because the vellum patches were now in place; he did not have the opportunity to examine Chambers' transcript (1831-2) in the British Museum. 11 Reprinted 1973. From what he says on p. vii of his Preface, it appears that he consulted the manuscript in 1932 while it was in London. 12 See Scriptorium, 43 (1989), pp. 273-88 and Manuscripta, 35 (1991), pp. 3-22. 13 A copy of the present editor's transcript and other notebooks, papers and publications relating to the edition are now kept in an archive in the Exeter, D&C Library. 14 The Bibliography in the present edition is a revised and corrected update (to 2020) of that text. 15 Wanley's division of the manuscript into sections is discussed below.

However, the adjective mycel may have been meant to indicate that the manuscript was of folio rather than a quarto or octavo size, and not to describe its thickness. The most detailed and comprehensive descriptions of the manuscript to date are in the introductions to the 1933 facsimile and to ASPR III, and in studies by the present editor (1989 and 1991) and Conner (1993). A standard reference description is found in Ker (1957, item 116, p. 153). A number of competent descriptions have appeared in editions of individual poems during the past thirty years, though many of these are derived from the works already mentioned and are not based on an in situ codicological examination. Conner discusses a number of letter forms and ligatures in his account of the composition of the manuscript.16 In two recent articles (see note 12 above) the present editor has reviewed and updated much codicological and paleographical information relating to the manuscript, and discussed its relationship with Lambeth Palace MS 149 and Oxford, Bodleian Library MS 319, which he believe were copied out by the same scribe. Some of that material is repeated here.17 The present observations on the composition and condition of the manuscript are primarily descriptive, though at times they raise theoretical issues. In recent years Conner developed the proposition that the manuscript is a composite volume made up of three booklets written by the same scribe over a considerable period of time in an order other than as they are presently bound (viz., 2-3-1), arguing that The Advent Lyrics-Guthlac (B) were copied (and perhaps composed) last. His discussions are both thoughtful and stimulating and are reviewed here. The present editor has expressed reservations about accepting his theory, since codicological data suggest to me that the texts in the manuscript were copied out from start to finish in the order in which they are found today (allowing for the loss of folios and gatherings discussed below).18 During the course of preparing this edition, supplementary data – codicological, literary and linguistic – have come to our attention which confirm his reservations about Conner's booklet theory; this information will be found throughout the Introduction and Commentary. Recent work by Megginson on the spelling systems of the Anglo-Saxon poetic codices both supports and argues against Conner's theory, although favouring it overall;19 it must be added, however, that at this stage the field of evidence in Megginson's study is of necessity restricted to an examination of fifty words, and his conclusions are reviewed below. It is the present editor's contention that the anthologist of the present collection drew his material from other collections available to him and arranged it in a meaningful manner.20 There is evidence (codicological and literary) to suggest that the anthologist at times adapted his material to give the collection cohesion.21 If this manipulation of the material was not 16

Scriptorium, 40, pp. 233-42; he elaborates upon this material in his recent study (pp. 60-80, 112-19). Although Conner had read our codicological study of the relationship between Oxford, Bodleian MS 319, Lambeth Palace MS 149 and Exeter D&C MS 3501, he was unable to consider it in his 1993 study, since it was apparently already in an advanced stage of preparation for printing 18 This is also the view of Richard and Fiona Gameson (1995) as expressed in their review of Conner's volume (pp. 42, 228-230): 'Conner's further suggestion that his three 'booklets' were written in the order 2, 3, 1… is contradicted by the arrangement of the membrane. The parchment is mainly disposed in the older 'insular' way (HF, FH) in 7-17, suggesting that the book was actually prepared in the order in which it is currently bound.' In a concise chapter-by-chapter analysis they discuss a number of problems with Conner's other theses as well. 19 His arguments are outlined in his doctoral dissertation. 20 Whether the anthologist might also have been the scribe is considered below. 21 See the discussion below which considers recent work by Williamson 1977, Berkhout 1975, and Liuzza 1988. 17

carried out during the preparation of the present manuscript (D&C MS 3501), then it is to be attributed to the anthologist of its exemplar(s). Conner defines the boundaries of his proposed booklets thus: booklet 1 consists of Gatherings I-VI, booklet 2 of VII-XII, and booklet 3 of XIII-XVII; he proposes that they were written in the order 2-3-1.22 The beginnings of each of the proposed divisions (folios 83, 53 and 98) correspond to a place in the manuscript where it is agreed that at least one folio has been lost. In support of this theory he notes that the first folio of the second booklet is soiled (and damaged by having a 70 mm wide strip cut away across its top), which suggests that the booklet existed as a separate unit without a cover for some time before being bound with the first and third booklets to form the manuscript as it exists today. The first folio of the third booklet (98r), however, does not exhibit similar signs of wear or exposure; its mutilation – some text has clearly been lost at its beginning – may account for the absence of a soiled folio. Folio 53r, however, appears to be no more soiled or worn than its conjugate, f. 60v; the shading on the top of f. 54r (which corresponds to the strip excised on f. 53) is to be expected where there is such an irregularity on a facing folio, and need not have been caused by exposure as the booklet lay for a period without a cover.23 [Note: line-counts in the following discussion allow for lines left blank to set off the beginning of sections.]

§3. Gatherings

I (comprising the present folios 8-14): The conjugate of the present f. 14 has been lost at the beginning of the manuscript. Burlin 1968 (pp. 52-4) and Pope 1980 (pp. 30-2) argue that this lost folio probably contained three short poems (comprising 60-70 lines of verse) which would have recast the antiphons O Sapientia, O Adonai and O Radix Jesse. There are no singletons in this gathering. Each folio has 23 lines of text. The distance between the top and bottom rulings is 240 mm (on an 'average' or representative folio). II (comprising the present folios 5-21): The structure of this gathering has been described by a number of critics.24 A folio has been lost from the gathering between the present folios 15 and 16, after frætwum in l. 117b of The Ascension (see the textual note to this line). The lost folio was a singleton; thus Gathering II had the same structure as XVI, comprising three bifolia and two singletons, in second and sixth positions, the latter of which is the present folio 19 (its folded tab is visible between folios 16 and 17). Each folio has 22 lines of text. The distance between the top and bottom rulings is 242 mm. III (comprising folios 22-29): This gathering is a regular quaternion. Each folio has 22 lines of text. The distance between the top and bottom rulings is 236 mm. IV (comprising folios 30-37): This gathering is a regular quaternion. Each folio has 22 lines of text. The distance between the top and bottom rulings is 245 mm. V (comprising the present folios 38-44): Förster 1933 (p. 57) notes that the conjugate of f. 44 has been cut out of the MS by a clumsy hand (the remnant of the fold is uneven), but that 22

Scriptorium 40 (1982), pp. 233-4, with further discussion in 1993, pp. 95-147. Other evidence presented by Conner (1993) in support of his theory is discussed in the appropriate sections below. 24 In particular, see Pope 1980 (pp. 210-19), Muir 1994 (p. 284) and Conner 1993 (pp. 98-9). 23

otherwise 'gathering v was originally a complete and regular quaternion.' Gathering XV is also missing one half of its outer bifolium. Each folio has 22 lines of text. The distance between the top and bottom rulings is 241 mm. VI (comprising folios 45-52): This gathering has the same structure as that proposed for Gathering XV – three bifolia and two singletons, folios 47 and 51, in third and seventh positions. Each folio has 23 lines of text. The distance between the top and bottom rulings is 244 mm. VII (comprising folios 53-60): This gathering is a regular quaternion. Each folio has 22 lines of text. The distance between the top and bottom rulings is 243 mm. VIII (comprising folios 61-68): This gathering is a regular quaternion. Each folio has 22 lines of text. The distance between the top and bottom rulings is 243 mm. IX (comprising the present folios 69-74): This gathering was originally a regular quaternion, but the second bifolium has been lost, accounting for gaps in Juliana at lines 288 and 558 (after folios 69 and 73 respectively). Each folio has 22 lines of text. The distance between the top and bottom rulings is 245 mm. X (comprising folios 75-82): This gathering is a regular quaternion. Each folio has 22 lines of text. The distance between the top and bottom rulings is 238 mm. XI (comprising folios 83-90): This gathering is a regular quaternion. Each folio has 21 lines of text. The distance between the top and bottom rulings is 237 mm. XII (comprising the present folios 91-97): Folios 91r-93r have 21 lines of text and 93v-97v have 22. Each of the folios is ruled for 22 lines of text, but 91r-93r do not use the bottom set of prickings. The distance between the top and bottom rulings of folios 91r-93r is 235 mm, and on 93v-97v it is 240 mm. The scribe begins Gathering XII with 21 lines of text per folio so that it will match the layout of the text in Gathering XI and then surreptitiously reverts to 22 lines (his norm) on the verso of f. 93 where it will not be noticed so easily, the facing folios both having the same number of lines. The conjugate of folio 91, the second half of the outer bifolium, has been cut out, accounting for the loss of the ending of Partridge and the beginning of Homiletic Fragment III. XIII (comprising folios 98-105): This gathering is a regular quaternion. Each folio has 22 lines of text. The distance between the top and bottom rulings is 241 mm. XIV (comprising the present folios 106-111): The outer bifolium of this gathering has been lost, accounting for gaps in the Riddles at lines 20.36 and 40.108 (after folios 105 and 111 respectively). Originally the gathering was a regular quaternion. Each folio has 22 lines of text. The distance between the top and bottom rulings is 243 mm. XV (comprising the present folios 112-118): This gathering lacks the second half of its outer bifolium (thus resembling Gathering V which, however, lacks its first folio). Förster 1933 (p. 59) did not realize that there was a gap in the text of Contrition (formerly Prayer / Resignation) since it is possible to make sense of the text reading from folios 118 to 119; he concludes that f. 112 was a singleton ('which at present has no fold left') or, alternatively, that there were originally 'two independent leaves' prefixed to this gathering. His analysis of this 12

and the following gatherings has been shown to be incorrect. It is now recognized that there is a hiatus in the text of Contrition (A) after f. 118, though there is disagreement about whether or not the text on f. 119 is a continuation of that on the preceding folio or the ending of a different poem.25 The structure of this gathering is identical to that of VI, comprising three bifolia with singletons, folios 114 and 118, in third and seventh positions. Each folio has 22 lines of text. The distance between the top and bottom rulings is 235 mm. XVI (comprising the present folios 119-125): Förster 1933 (p. 59) believes that the first two folios of this gathering (119 and 120) are singletons with their folds turned to the right. He correctly notes that folio 124 is a singleton whose tab is visible between folios 121 and 122. Pope 1974 was the first critic to detect a hiatus caused by a missing folio (the conjugate of 119) in Riddle 69.4 after gesceapo;26 previously all editors had treated Riddles 69 and 70 as one poem (variously numbered). Pope notes that in addition to the textual non sequitur here the scale of the fire damage jumps inordinately at this point, thus confirming the loss of a folio, as can be seen readily in the facsimile. The structure of this gathering is identical to that of II, comprising three bifolia and two singletons, folios 120 and 124, in second and sixth positions. Each folio has 22 lines of text. The distance between the top and bottom rulings is 238 mm. XVII (comprising the present folios 126-130): There are no gaps in the texts of this gathering; because the last folio of the preceding gathering is missing it is impossible to tell (from textual evidence) whether a folio may also have been lost from the beginning of this gathering. Förster (1933, pp. 59-60) says that the gathering now consists of five single folios glued together, but that 127+130 and 128+129 originally made up one bifolium each. The codicological evidence supports this observation. Since the text to Riddle 94 finishes in the last line of folio 130v, it is impossible to know how many (if any) folios have been lost after it. In summary, one folio (in addition to that lost at the end of Gathering XVI) may have been lost at the beginning of this gathering; but from one to three folios may have been lost at the end of the gathering (if it was originally a quaternion); however, it may have consisted of three bifolia only. Each folio has 22 lines of text (allowing for lines left blank to mark the beginning of sections). The distance between the top and bottom rulings is 236 mm. A review of discoveries made about the structure of the codex in the sixty years since the facsimile appeared suggests that there are only two points in the MS at which complete gatherings have been lost – between Gatherings VI and VII (Guthlac (B) to Canticles) and between Gatherings XVI and XVII (at Riddle 69.4). Ker (MÆ 2, 227-8) and Pope (1978, pp. 35-7) rightly note that the bottoms of two letters can be seen above the capital H on folio 53. This indicates that there was no blank line before the first extant line on the folio, and suggests the beginning of a section rather than of a new poem. A gathering lost here would have provided ample space for the conclusion of Guthlac (B) and the opening of Canticles. Pope is certainly right in discounting Farrell's theory that nothing is missing except the six or seven lines that would have been on the 70 mm strip cut from the top of folio 53.27 In the second case, it is conceivable that one or more gatherings may have been lost after Gathering XVI. There is no way of determining this one way or the other, but the number of extant riddles suggests that the anthologist/scribe may have added the second group of riddles in order to approximate a century of poems. As noted earlier, it seems likely that only one folio 25

Bliss and Frantzen 1976 (pp. 385-402) were the first critics to propose that there is a hiatus in the text after f. 118; see the headnote to Contrition (A) and (B) for further discussion of the implications of such a loss. 26 Speculum, 49, p. 617. 27 See Farrell 1974 (pp. 5-6), Pope 1978 (p. 37) and the headnote to Canticles of the Three Youths.

has been lost from the beginning of The Advent Lyrics.28 Riddle 94 ends at the bottom of folio 130v, and whether other texts followed it on folios now lost cannot be determined. Each gathering of the manuscript was prepared in the same way: the four bifolia were folded and pricked along a vertical ruling, then laid out flat and ruled horizontally. At the same time, the ruling frame for the writing area was set out. The rulings are often quite deeply impressed, and on a few occasions actually pierce the parchment. In other places the ink has run along the ruling grooves in little rivulets (e.g. f. 94r, ll. 1-3, especially noticeable at the line ends in swegle, tofrof-, hyre). (The measurements in the following description naturally vary slightly from page to page due to the irregular shape of the parchment.) A set of double vertical rulings approximately 10 mm apart mark off both the left and right boundaries of the writing space; where they are still visible, they run from the top of the folio to the bottom. At present the top horizontal ruling, which extends to the top pricking mark and sometimes beyond it, lies about 30 mm from the top of each folio; the distance of the last ruling from the bottom of the folio varies in the range of 35-55 mm. The scribe makes a conscious effort to observe the inner right margin, and often squeezes letters together at a line end so that they will not protrude in too unsightly a manner beyond the writing frame (see, however, the predicament he got himself into on f. 57r, l. 8, where he miscalculated how much space he would need to fit in some text after a wrap mark). Occasionally, he writes one or more words at the right hand side of the lower margin below the last line of the frame.29 On a few occasions the descender of a large capital intrudes into the lower margin (e.g. ƿ on f. 49r ends 23 mm below the ruling). In some gatherings, where the parchment was quite thick and coarse (e.g. VII and XIII), there is evidence of supplementary ruling (on an ad hoc basis, as Conveney 1958 notes (p. 54). Förster 1933 (p. 61) accepts the earlier description by the New Palæographical Society of the prickings as 'near the edges', but even after trimming they are nearly 20 mm from the outer edge of the parchment (e.g. on f. 44. Though a line was not drawn or incised for the scribe to follow in making the prickings, their vertical alignment indicates that a straight edge was used as a guide. Coveney 1958 notes that Lambeth Palace MS 149 displays the same pricking procedure.30

§4. State of the Parchment

Conner notes the use of different grades of parchment in the manuscript. It consists largely of insular parchment; he quotes Julian Brown's description of this as 'rather thick, with a rough, suede-like finish, with hair side and flesh side very alike in surface as well as colour.' There is a small admixture of a thinner and smoother continental-style membrane used throughout the manuscript, 'with hair sides more yellow in color… [and] flesh sides more white than insular membrane' [again quoting Brown]. Conner argues that there are three different types of this limp membrane, each used exclusively in one of his three booklets.31 The following folios were defective at the time they were selected for use in making the manuscript (the text is written around the damaged areas). This description does not include 28

It could of course be speculated that any number of gatherings may have been lost at the beginning and end of the manuscript, but there is little to be gained from this. 29 See the following folios: 15r [2 letters], 27r [1 wd], 29v [1 wd.], 31r [1 syll.], 36r [2 syll.], 38v [1 syll.], 43r [2 syll.], 55r [2 letters], 99v [1 syll.], 114v [1 syll.]. 30 Scriptorium, 12 (1958), p. 55. 31 Scriptorium, 40 (1986), pp. 234-5.

lost corners, since it is impossible to tell whether they were damaged originally or subsequently: 13, 23 and 28 (triangular pieces missing from bottom, slanting down from left to right); 31 (medium sized hole in upper outer margin opposite l. 5, now patched); 40 (medium size hole in mid-outer margin opposite ll. 13-14); 43 (two small holes – one in the lower outer margin opposite l. 19 and another in the lower margin on the right-hand side); 44 (medium sized hole in mid-outer margin opposite ll. 12-13); 56 (there is an almond-shaped hole in the bottom margin, crossed by the outside double vertical rulings, and a piece cut away from the bottom of the folio to the inside of this); 62 (a long arced strip of parchment missing from the centre of the bottom of the folio); 66 (several holes in the last line of writing and the central area of the lower margin); 69 (a small, almond-shaped hole in the bottom margin towards the inside); 74 (a small hole directly below the s of stod, the second word in the last line of writing); 78 (a large, thumb-shaped hole extending from the bottom of the folio up towards the last line of writing); 80 (a series of holes in ll. 8-10 of the text area near the inner margin; a hole directly below these in l. 19 of the text); 106 (a large egg-shaped hole at the end of the last line of writing and extending into the outer margin); 110 (a large, irregularly shaped oval hole in the middle of ll. 18-19 of the text); 112 (a medium sized, egg-shaped hole in the outer margin opposite l. 13); 113 (a medium size, egg-shaped hole, now patched, in the lower margin, crossed over by the outer vertical rulings, indicating that the patch was applied during preparation of the parchment); 114 (several small holes in the centre lower margin, some of which are patched); 116 (two small holes, now patched, in the lower outer margin; one small hole in the lower margin towards the inside); 127 (a few worm holes at the top of this folio which seem to have been there before the gathering was made up, since there are no corresponding holes on the preceding and following folios). Elsewhere, the present editor has noted that defective parchment has been used throughout the manuscript; inferior/defective parchment was also used in the preparation of Lambeth Palace MS 149 and Oxford, Bodleian MS 319.32 The following folios were damaged after the manuscript was made up – only folios where the text has been affected are mentioned: 8r (stitched on the left side across ll. 20-21; with a gluepot [?] ring-shaped stain in the top centre of the writing area; there is also a large dark stain down the left side of the text area ), 8r-12v (stained, decreasingly – most of the text is legible), 53 (a strip of parchment approximately 70 mm wide containing the first four MS lines of text has been cut away at the top), 117 (a small hole, now patched, in the outer margin opposite ll. 7-8 – this is the innermost extent of the fire damage to the closing folios of the manuscript). The extent of the damage escalates from here to the end of the manuscript. A number of drypoint drawings, decorative patterns and letter forms are incised on various folios of the manuscript. Förster (p. 60) lists the drypoints on folios 64v, 78r, 80r, 87v, 95v and 123r; he does not mention the series of diagonal slashes on f. 59v since they are not 'decorative'. He says that the ornamental drypoints were 'incised at a later date' and 'have no connection with the original scribe.' Conner 1986 rightly points out, however, that in four instances (folios 59v, 64v, 95v, 123r) the writing passes over part of the drypoint, indicating that they were incised before the text was copied out.33 He argues that there are no drypoints in the first of his booklets, and that their distribution and the quality of their execution in the 32 33

Manuscripta, 35 (1991), pp. 11-12. Scriptorium, 40 (1986), p. 237, and 1993, pp. 123-4.

rest of the codex support 'the tripartite division of the manuscript' (p. 237). But in fact there are also drypoint etchings on folios 24v, 47v (in his first booklet) and 96r 34 and yet another in the bottom margin of folio 62v beneath the words in eorþan fæðm (just to the right of the cracks in the parchment visible in the facsimile) which is perhaps best described as an ovalshaped rosette.35 The marginalia and interlinear glosses in the manuscript are mostly sixteenth century and later. Flower 1933 identified the hand which added the fragmentary interlinear glosses on folios 9r (6 lines) and 10r (4 lines) as that of Laurence Nowell, Dean of Lichfield from 1560 until his death in 1576.36 Nowell also supplied descriptive titles for three of the poems.37 Single words (usually drawing attention to names, and added at a later date) appear occasionally; these are of little interest, but where they occur have been noted in the apparatus. George Hickes marked annotations in pencil beside some of the runic passages in the manuscript which he had selected for use as illustrations in his Grammaticæ Icelandicæ Rudimenta; these can be seen clearly in the facsimile.38 A few runes, some written in ink and some incised with a stylus, appear in the space between texts and in the margins beside them (mostly in Riddles); their significance (if any) is discussed in the commentary to the texts beside which they appear.39 Little need be said concerning the foliation of the manuscript. There is one reliable set of folio numbers, probably dating from the late-seventeenth or earlyeighteenth century, which all editions cite. An earlier series, probably dating from the sixteenth century, is incomplete, having been cropped off at times by binders.40 Another fragmentary series appears at the bottom of some folios. As is customary, the foliation adopted here (numbering the folios from 8-130) does not take into consideration the first folio, which precedes the seven folios of preliminary matter.

§5. Sectional Divisions in the Texts

A discussion of the anthologist leads necessarily to a consideration of the textual boundaries and sectional divisions in the manuscript (as the following discussion demonstrates). Not all critics, however, are convinced that the anthologist invested much thought in his organizing of the manuscript. Sisam, for example, observes that the placing of Christ in Judgement after The Ascension 'can be explained as a modest power of arrangement in a compiler.'41 And 34

Scriptorium, 43, pp. 277-8. In his recent study (p. 122, fn. 60 and 61), Conner 1993 states that he finds the drypoint etchings on folios 24v and 96r 'too indistinct for identification'; however, it is not clear whether he had opportunity to examine the manuscript between the appearance of the present editor's article and the publication of his book, which may account for his state of uncertainty. 35 Incised letters and punctuation are discussed below. 36 1933, p. 91; see also PBA, 21: 'I was so fortunate as to identify his hand in the sixteenth-century versions of certain passages in the Exeter Book of poetry' (p. 70). 37 For Christ in Judgement (f. 20v, in Latin) and the two Guthlac poems (f. 32v and 44v, both in English). 38 See Chambers 1933 (p. 34 and note 9) and the headnote to Riddle 75 in the apparatus. 39 Knowledge about the names of runes and their significance would most likely have been commonplace in Anglo-Saxon scriptoria; Förster 1933 (p. 63) notes that 'lists of runes were probably found in many monasteries.' Indeed, Exeter D&C MS 3507 (which is contemporary with The Exeter Anthology) lists various alphabets on folios 65r-66r; there are Greek and Hebrew alphabets with annotations and three runic alphabets in the order of the Latin alphabet, with the corresponding Latin letter written above each rune. After the last of these runic alphabets the scribe has written out 'Pax vobiscum et salus pax' in runes (with the Latin above). This page is reproduced in Exeter Cathedral: A Celebration, ed. Michael Swanton (Exeter: Dean and Chapter, 1991) on pp. 197, 276. 40 The dating assigned the foliation is suggested by Förster 1933 (p. 62). Conner 1993 tabulates and discusses the two foliations in considerable detail (pp. 244-9). 41 1953, p. 11. Such opinions are challenged in the discussion which follows here.

Blake 1990 comments: 'The Exeter Book differs from the other three poetic codices in that it is a poetic miscellany in which there does not appear to have been a recognisable principle of selection.'42 A number of questions can be raised concerning the identity and rôle of the anthologist who compiled the present collection of poems. Is he the same person as the scribe? If so, did he mechanically copy out the texts exactly as he found them in a single exemplar, or did he occasionally edit and alter them, thus creating a new anthology with a structure reflecting a plan of his own? Did he select the poems from a number of pre-existing poetic collections? And again, if so, did he edit and alter them to suit his purpose? Did he copy out three separate booklets at different times which were subsequently bound together (not in chronological order) to produce the codex we have today? Was the anthologist a patron who selected the texts but was otherwise not involved in the production of the manuscript? Was there more than one anthologist? The answers to all of these questions cannot be known and more could be framed along similar lines. Some observations about the codex as an anthology have been made by others and to these the present editor shall add his own views and conclusions. Discussions of the anthologist inevitably merge at times with discussions of the scribe, since it is impossible to know to what extent each of them – if indeed they are different people – may have been responsible for determining the layout of the manuscript, the use of sectional divisions, and such related matters as spacing and decorative and capital initials. The sectional divisions in the manuscript are usually clearly marked by a combination of initials and/or large capitals, blank lines and other areas of blank space, and the placement of text. They have been reproduced here because they may be authentic, early evidence for the way the texts were intended to be read; it is well known, however, that on a few occasions the scribe (or the scribe of the exemplar) has inadvertently run texts together which are now treated as discrete entities. On other occasions paleographical evidence suggests that he has separated into two texts lines which originally comprised a single poem. Most of these irregularities are confined to the Riddles, where the enigmatic nature of the texts and the dramatic differences in their lengths might easily give rise to confusion. The paleographical evidence suggests, for example, that the scribe may have considered the last group of riddles to have begun with Riddle 30 (B). The spacing, punctuation and capitals in the text of The Husband's Message indicate that the scribe considered it to be three short poems, and the presence of runes in the third of these sections would probably reinforce his conviction that this text was a riddle; similarly, The Ruin is short, enigmatic, and has a rune in one of its verses (l. 23b). In spite of considerable discussion by critics and editors of the nature and function of the sectional divisions in the four major poetic codices – especially with respect to the two with numbered sections (i.e. the Cædmon MS and the Beowulf MS) – few significant conclusions have been reached. Questions discussed include: Are they authorial or the work of scribes? What is their purpose? Are they fitts? Is there an average size or norm for sectional divisions which is common to the major codices? Are they a reflection of aesthetic considerations? ASPR III (pp. xvii-xviii) notes that 'sectional divisions of the manuscript correspond closely to natural divisions of thought.'43 In his Introduction to the facsimile edition of The Cædmon 42

The Phoenix. p. 2. The sectional divisions are tabulated on pp. lxxiv-lxxv. In The Cædmon Manuscript and the Beowulf MS there are a few occasions where the sectional breaks fall in unnatural places; see below. 43

Manuscript, Gollancz concludes that the 'sectional divisions … were originally structural divisions due to the poet, influenced by general considerations as to the approximate length of a reading.'44 He argues that when they are placed incorrectly it is the fault of the scribe; the fact that some fall in the middle of long speeches he takes to indicate 'methods of thought differing from our own.' Timmer 1952 argues that the divisions go back to the exemplars from which the surviving codices were copied, and that it is 'fairly certain that some sort of the division in the MSS. is due to the original poet.'45 He thinks that because the sections correspond to creative spurts they are naturally of varying length (p. 322). He suggests that they might be called 'psychological units because they agree with the momentary inspiration of the poet.' In spite of what he claims, nothing is 'fairly certain' in any of this, and the idea that all the longest poems are the product of sudden fits of inspiration and impromptu composition is both naïve on his part and demeaning to the poets. Eliason suggests, in discussing Beowulf, that the fitts 'may be due to scribe rather than poet, that they represent scribal stints.'46 This thesis argues against the assumption that the sections correspond to natural divisions of thought. And arguments proposing that there is a lengthnorm in the divisions of the manuscripts undermine the psychological and scribal theories. Wells 1976 links the sectional boundaries in The Cædmon Manuscript to aesthetic considerations, arguing that at times they were deliberately shifted 'to places which afforded the decorator greater opportunity to exercise his talent.'47 J.R.R. Tolkien, in his lecture notes to Exodus,48 argues that 'these section divisions derive from the scribe, not the poets'; this is contradicted by Cavill 1985, who tabulates the various length of sections in the major codices and concludes from their irregularity that they are authorial, thus aligning himself with Timmer and Gollancz (and presumably ASPR III).49 This brief recapitulation demonstrates that there is clearly no agreement among editors and critics about how to interpret the manuscript evidence. Most of the arguments have centred on the codices with numbered sections. The comments that the present editor offers are relevant only for the sectional divisions in The Exeter Anthology. Some evidence suggests that the sections in our manuscript are authorial in provenance (or at least go back to the exemplar): first, a new section is clearly marked in Canticles, on f. 54v where the song / prayer begins (l. 73 of the printed text), and there is a corresponding sectional division in The Cædmon Manuscript on p. 191 (l. 362 of the text); secondly, there is a sectional division (inevitably) on f. 100r at the end of Soul and Body II, and another one after the line corresponding to this in Soul and Body I in The Vercelli Codex on f. 103r (before l. 127 of the text).50 Furthermore, the present editor agrees with Krapp and Dobbie that the sections do for the most part 'correspond to natural divisions of thought'. It should be noted, however, that the beginnings of only four of the eleven Advent Lyrics are specially marked by the use of spacing and large initials;51 the openings of Riddles 3, 43 and 48 are also not indicated clearly. Thus far the manuscript evidence suggests that the scribe was reproducing sectional divisions as he found them in his exemplar(s), though this does not necessarily mean that 44

Sir Israel Gollancz, The Caedmon Manuscript (Oxford: OUP, 1927), p. xxxii. MLR, 47, p. 321. 46 In his review of R.D. Stevick's Suprasegmentals, Meter, and the Manuscript of 'Beowulf' (Speculum 45, pp. 175-8). 47 YES, 6, p. 4. 48 These were published posthumously as The Old English Exodus, ed. J. Turville-Petre (Oxford: OUP, 1981), pp. 33-4. 49 Neophil., 69, pp. 156-9. 50 This point has been made by Cavill 1985 (Neophil., 69, p. 158). 51 Eleven rather than twelve, of course, because the first lyric lacks its beginning. 45

they are authorial.52 There is no 'norm' for their length, and it cannot be argued that they derive from aesthetic considerations, since we should then expect to find some regularity or system in their use, perhaps one on each opening (of a verso facing a recto), or one on every other opening, or that in each instance initials and capitals would be used in a uniform manner. The early cataloguers and editors of the manuscript interpreted the divisions very differently from modern editors. Wanley describes the poem as having 'ten books'. His Liber I is The Advent Lyrics. Wherever the beginning of a lyric is clearly marked he assumes that a new poem has begun; thus he indicates that the first book consists of five poems. Liber II is The Ascension; each section of the poem is identified as a separate poem. He treats Libri III-V (corresponding to Christ in Judgement and the Guthlac poems) in the same manner, except that he takes Canticles to be the ending of Guthlac (B). Liber VI is The Phoenix, and its sections are treated as earlier. Liber VII is Juliana, which he takes to include The Wanderer. Liber VIII includes Gifts to Vainglory; he does not describe the poems in this grouping individually, though their clearly marked beginnings resemble sectional openings in the longer poems. Liber IX includes Widsith to Homiletic Fragment III; this section is treated in the same manner as the preceding one. He includes in his Liber X all the texts from Soul and Body II to the end of the manuscript, referring to them collectively as riddles, and noting that Hickes deals with their runic passages in his volume of the catalogue.53 Thorpe 1842 is influenced by Wanley's perception of the structure of the manuscript. He edits The Advent Lyrics as six poems;54 he divides The Ascension into four poems, truncating it after l. 339 so that the passage containing Cynewulf's runic signature comes at the beginning of Christ in Judgement;55 and he partitions Christ in Judgement into nine poems on the themes of Judgement and the Crucifixion, the last of these being ll. 1-29 of Guthlac (A) as edited here.56 Thorpe's definition of the boundaries of Christ in Judgement is accepted by Dietrich 1857-8.57 Grein divides the three 'Christ' poems into twenty-two untitled sections, ignoring the manuscript evidence for the major divisions between poems; he is also the last editor to treat ll. 1-29 of Guthlac (A) as the ending of Christ in Judgement.58 Gollancz, in both his first edition of 1892 and his EETS volume of 1893, divides the three 'Christ' poems and affiliates lines 1-29 of Guthlac (A) as in the present edition.59

See the present editor's earlier suggestion that the scribe treats The Husband's Message as three separate poems. He suggest below that many of the peculiar spellings and 'non-words' found in the manuscript may have been copied from the exemplar(s) also. 53 1705, pp. 280-1. 54 Pages 1-27; he assigns each poem its own title ('To Jesus Christ', 'To the Virgin Mary', etc.). 55 Pages 28-48. It is not unreasonable for him to think that a major section of the poem ends here, since the paleographical signs are reinforced by the text – the next section begins with a large initial (though only half the preceding line is blank) and ll. 338b-9 are clearly a closing formula with a strong liturgical echo: Si him lof symle, // þurh woruld worulda, / wuldor on heofnum. 56 Pages 49-103. The first section contains the runic signature. 57 ZfdA, 9, pp. 193-214. ASPR (pp. xxvii-xxviii) discusses the divisions as found in Dietrich without realizing that they are derived from Thorpe, since Krapp and Dobbie did not consult Thorpe's edition at first hand. 58 I, pp. 7-191. 59 1892, pp. 2-141; 1893, pp. 2-103.

§6. The Manuscript as an Anthology

Although the division of the first four poems in the manuscript as printed by Gollancz is now accepted as canonical,60 critics continue to discuss the best way to interpret ll. 1-29 of Guthlac (A).61 This issue is essentially textual and interpretative rather than codicological or paleographical, since the scribe clearly indicates on f. 32r by every device available to him that he is at the end of a major poem: he leaves three lines blank at the bottom of the folio; he begins Guthlac (A) at the top of the verso with a dramatic row of squared capitals; he has a 'heavy' combination of punctuation at the end of Christ in Judgement; and, realising that he has more than enough room to finish up while he is still copying f. 31v, he spaces out the words even more generously than usual on f. 32r.62 Liuzza thinks that the scribe (or the anthologist) ordered the poems as they are in the manuscript because they fit together sensibly. He notes further that The Ascension links together thematically The Advent Lyrics and Christ in Judgement too well to be accidental, and concludes that 'the middle poem [was] designed to join the two ends.'63 Lines 1-29 arguably have an apo koinou function, referring as much to the end of the preceding poem as to the one following.64 Roberts 1979, however, believes that the similarities between the end of Christ in Judgement and ll. 1-29 of Guthlac (A) are fortuitous – probably the poems were already as they appear here when the scribe received them, and he needed merely the perspicacity to put them in this order.65 Liuzza 1990 argues that the use of nu as the opening word of The Ascension, indicates 'an awareness of the serial reading of poems in a manuscript, and a deliberate effort to create such a series, not only by juxtaposition, but perhaps by textual alteration,' even if it is no more than a single word added by the scribe to an existing poem.66 It has been noted on a number of occasions that the wording of l. 30 of Guthlac (A) is identical to the opening line of The Panther, which suggests that ll. 1-29 were at some time attached to a poem which already had a traditional opening. This is evidence that either the anthologist or the scribe participated actively in the manipulation and transmission of the texts as we have them. It should perhaps be of greatest interest to readers today, since it tells us more than other divisions and transitions do about how the poems were intended to be read at the moment they were anthologised. It follows that at some stage in the transmission of these texts someone wrote this linking passage to develop thematic unity in the opening sequence of poems. Liuzza notes, in concluding, that 'manuscript divisions and stylistic differences are less important than thematic concatenations that bind the poems together.'67 In another manuscript context, these same poems might have received different treatment at the hands of a different anthologist or scribe. 60

Liuzza 1990 (RES, ns 41, p. 3) rightly notes that ASPR is disingenuous in its 'assertion of the primacy of the scribe's judgement' in indicating sectional divisions, 'since they override it on several occasions (Riddles 3, 43, 48) and do not note the secondary division of Ascension at f. 15a (l. 517).' 61 See Calder 1975 (pp. 65-80), Lipp 1971 (MS 33, pp. 57-9), Roberts 1973 (MÆ, 42, pp. 43-6 and edition, pp. 29-31), Shippey 1976 (pp. 130-1), Shook (MS, 23, pp. 294-304), Stevick (Viator, 13, pp. 15-48) and R. Woolf 1966 (p. 56). 62 See also Philip (PMLA, 55, pp. 903-9). 63 RES, ns 41, p. 6; this had previously been argued by Chase (ASE, 3, pp. 87-101). 64 Liuzza (RES, ns 41, pp. 6-7), Roberts 1979 (pp. 29-31) and Shook (MS, 23, pp. 294-304 and MP, 58, pp. 110) argue to this effect. 65 Edition, p. 49. 66 RES, ns 41, p. 8. 67 RES, ns 41, p. 10.

There is other evidence in the manuscript for the organizing hand of the anthologist. It has been observed that the most apparent organisational feature of the codex is that the long poems all come at the beginning, though not much more can be said about its structure.68 The present editor would argue, however, that there is more to it than this. He believes that the first eight poems were placed together because they are related thematically in their concern with different modes of Christian living (usually designated by the word had).69 Christ's life comes first, in a trinity of poems defining his rôles as Almighty God, Son, Saviour, King, and Judge; his life is the model for all Christians, whose lives are ordered by the Liturgical Year (itself an annual re-enactment of the events of Christ's life). The Guthlac poems and Juliana respectively offer exemplary models for contemporary male and female Christian witnesses to emulate. Canticles of the Three Youths shows how the Christian faith was practised and adhered to by a representative group of the Old Testament Just in time of trial. And The Phoenix describes the afterlife promised to all the Faithful, which they will receive for honouring the Covenant established when God's people were first chosen. There is further evidence that the anthology was arranged thoughtfully. Critics have often wondered why there should be two groups of riddles in the manuscript, separated by a considerable number of other texts; this seems to support the notion that the ordering of the poems is haphazard, the second set being added merely because they happened to turn up after the intervening texts had already been copied out. But the fact that the second set was indeed added, so that the number of surviving riddles suggests that the traditional century was intended, is in itself evidence of the anthologist at work. James Anderson's edition of 1986 argues that two groups of poems – Soul and Body II to Wulf and Eadwacer and The Wife's Lament to The Ruin – have been arranged systematically to develop specific themes. Although the present editor does not accept his readings unreservedly, he believes he has shown that a good case can be made for the systematic organisation of some of the shorter poems in the manuscript. The present editor detects a strong thematic link in the series of poems from Judgement Day I to Homiletic Fragment II, all of which are concerned with aspects of the Easter liturgical season.70 It is a time for reflection, penance and renewal. Judgement Day I reminds Christians of their ultimate accountability for past deeds when they are called to judgement on the Last Day. Contrition (A) and (B) offer immediate instruction on how Christians ought to prepare themselves here and now, and the opening verses of Contrition (A) provide a vernacular formula for penance based on the liturgical Confiteor. It is characterized by direct petitions to the Deity, asking for help, guidance and fostering in these fleeting times. Through its direct evocation of the Easter liturgy, The Descent into Hell associates the Resurrection with the rebirth which every Christian receives through Baptism. They are reminded that every person can share in the life-giving experience of Christ's Baptism in the Jordan and of his Resurrection through the sacrament of Baptism. Almsgiving extends the themes introduced 68

Sisam 1934 goes further, suggesting that the organization of the anthology is unplanned: 'the collection was put together by tacking on new groups or items as codices or single pieces came to hand'; he argues, moreover, that its 'stately, even style indicates that it was transcribed continuously from a collection already made' (RES 10, p. 340). 69 The Old English word had occurs in a number of poems, being used primarily to describe these different states. The argument outlined here implicitly opposes the booklet theory proposed by Conner. 70 In this context it is also interesting to note that the story recounted in Canticles is one of the passages read during the Easter Vigil service, as is Baruch 3, which the present editor identifies as a major source for The Wanderer. He has elsewhere observed that both The Cædmon Manuscript (Muir 2023) and The Vercelli Codex (Muir 2024) were compiled as books of pious reading for Eastertide, probably for a secular patron, so the association here of poems focusing on Eastertide seems to reflect an anthologising strategy.

thus far by pointing out that Christians have the opportunity to help save others less fortunate than themselves, who are already dead, through the generous and salutary giving of alms. Pharaoh speaks of Pharaoh's great army and of how it was destroyed by the very waters which gave life to the Israelites. The story of the Exodus is central to the Easter liturgy and its typological structure. The positioning of Pharaoh at this point in the manuscript must be considered the work of an anthologist with a purpose – it recalls that throughout Salvation History for Christians life has been renewed repeatedly through water (crossing the Red Sea [Ex. 15:21-31]; springing from the rock struck by Moses in the desert [Ex. 17:1-7]; through Christ's Baptism [John 1:29-34]; and from the pierced side of Christ [John 19:34-37]). The Lord's Prayer I deals with similar themes and emphasizes God's continual watching over his people when they humble themselves and request his help (he is called Helpend wera, an epithet without equivalent in the Pater noster). It also mentions the continuing threat of evil in the world, which Christians must gird themselves against. The reference to 'our daily bread' (Syle us to dæge / domfæstne blæd, // hlaf userne, ll. 6-7a), which recalls the manna received in the desert (Ex. 16:13-36), is particularly apposite in this context. The final poem in this unified series, Homiletic Fragment II, is a prayer calling upon Christians to rejoice in their faith during their stay in this transitory world. Its central verses are clearly a rendering of the essential elements of the Creed: 'There is one belief, one living God, one Baptism, one eternal Father, one Prince of (all) peoples, who created this world, its blessings and joys.' The sequence moves from a call to penitence to a statement or reaffirmation of beliefs. The final example of anthologising which is apparently the result of careful deliberation is the juxtaposition of Riddle 60 and The Husband's Message, a case well known to AngloSaxonists. The thematic appropriateness of this juxtaposing is evidenced by the fact that the two texts have on occasion been edited as one poem.71 The foregoing discussion of the structure and divisions of the manuscript suggests that the manuscript is clearly an anthology with a purpose and that there is much to be gained from reading it as such, as is also the case with The Cædmon Manuscript and The Vercelli Codex.

§7. Script, Accents, Abbreviations, Word Division

Flower believes that 'despite the general identity of letter forms, [there is] such variety in the quality of the script that we must suppose several scribes to have been employed on the writings.'72 Ker and Sisam disagree with Flower's conclusion, and no one today argues that more than one scribe copied out the manuscript.73 Flower and Hill agree that the script is very similar to that of Lambeth Palace MS 149.74 Sisam, Ker, Conner, and the present editor believe that they are identical,75 and we have argued that the same hand copied out Oxford, 71

See the headnote to The Husband's Message for further discussion of the editorial treatment of these texts. 1933, p. 85. 73 1957 (p. 153) and 1953 (p. 97) respectively. 74 1933, p. 85 and ANQ, 24, p. 113 respectively. 75 Ker 1957 (p. 153) says that they are 'probably [in] the same hand.' For Sisam's views, see MÆ, 2, pp. 230-1. Conner 1986, however, argues further: 'One scribe probably did write the manuscript, but at different times' (Scriptorium, 40, p. 235, and p. 238 for the quotation). The manuscript is listed in the Exeter inventories of 1327 and 1506 (as no. 53 in the latter) – see Oliver 1861 (pp. 303, 367). There is doubt among scholars as to whether the Lambeth manuscript is to be identified with the Expositio Bede super apocalipsin in Leofric's donation list; Förster (1933, p. 29, fn. 109), Robertson (Anglo-Saxon Charters, Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 2nd ed., 1956, p. 479), Ker (p. 340) and Conner (p. 6) support the identification; Drage (p. 376) says it is probably the same manuscript, and Lapidge 1985 (p. 68) says the identification is possible. See Conner 1993 (pp. 33-94 passim) for a comprehensive review of the various arguments concerning which surviving manuscripts are to be 72

Bodleian MS 319 (again following Ker and Sisam).76 Coveney argues that the Lambeth manuscript and The Exeter Anthology were written in the same scriptorium.77 There is an excellent description of details of the scribal hand of the manuscript by Flower in the 1933 facsimile (pp. 83-90), to which can be added both Ker's and Sisam's observations in their respective reviews of it.78 The most detailed and comprehensive analysis of the script appears in Conner's recent monograph (1993);79 to this should be added his analysis of the certain letter forms and ligatures in his earlier codicological analysis,80 and the present editor's own study.81 Flower's description of the general appearance of the script deserves to be reproduced here: The script achieves a liturgical, almost monumental, effect by the stern character of its design and the exact regularity of its execution. The letter forms have a tendency to angularity and the strokes preserve a uniform thickness. The line of writing, by the marked flattening of certain letters, has the effect of being level along the top, but the danger of monotony is avoided by the strong ascenders and descenders which necessarily abound in Anglo-Saxon script. These combine with narrow treatment of such letters as u, m, n to give the whole page of script a marked up-and-down character which contributes greatly to the set, archaic aspect of the writing. But this impression is to some extent alleviated by certain calligraphic delicacies such as the use of fine hair-lines as decorative adjuncts or finishing strokes to certain letters … And the variety of forms employed for a number of the letters makes it clear that the manuscript was produced in a scriptorium in which the art of writing was carefully studied and where many older manuscripts in insular hands were available for study and imitation.82 identified with those listed in Leofric's donation, and for a discussion of the memorandum mentioning Æthelweard and Leofric on the last folio of Lambeth MS 149; see also Förster 1933 (pp. 85-90). 76 Manuscripta 35, pp. 1, 3-22. For Ker's view, see his Catalogue (1957, p. 153). In his review of the facsimile, Sisam describes MS Bodleian 319 as 'also written in this script' (MÆ, 2, pp. 230-1). The manuscript is identifiable in the Exeter Inventory of 1506 (Oliver 1861, p. 367) and was given to the Bodleian Library in 1602. Blake (Neophil., 46, pp. 316-9) argues that the language of the gloss on folios 74-5 is different from that of The Exeter Anthology, which suggests that the 'scribe could produce two different texts written in different standardized versions of English with some different orthographical features … If either language is the scribe's own, it is that of the gloss. If neither is his, it shows that he could copy out different standardized versions of English without substantially altering them.' It is not clear from Ker's description in the Catalogue (1957, p. 360), however, that he thinks that the gloss is by the scribe of The Exeter Anthology; it depends on what the antecedent of which is, 'copy' or De miraculis Christi. We know for certain from his review of 1933 (p. 230) that he considers the main text of Bodleian MS 319 at least to be by the same scribe. Once again, there is some doubt among scholars as to whether this manuscript is to be identified with the Liber Isidori de miraculis Christi mentioned in the donation list; Ker 1957 (p. 360) thinks that the identification is probable; Drage (pp. 402-3) and Lapidge 1985 (p. 68) think that Bodleian MS 394 is to be identified with the manuscript in the donation list. Drage dates Bodleian MS 394 to the second half of the tenth century; Lapidge and Gneuss 1985 (p. 37, no. 575) date it to the eleventh century. 77 Scriptorium, 12, p. 55. 78 For Sisam's review see RES, 10, pp. 338-42. 79 Pages 60-80. 80 Scriptorium, 40, pp. 237-40. 81 Scriptorium, 43, pp. 282-3 and Table 1, pp. 284-8, cols. 23-8; col. 26 records the occurrences of the oc form of a – to these we would add three more instances: 87v, l. 20b brondas; 122r, l. 13b halgad (2nd a); and 126v, l. 16a weard. 82 1933, p. 83

The use of small capitals in the MS has been tabulated in ASPR III (pp. lxxvi-lxxxi). The scribe uses accents throughout the MS (there are nearly 600 of them), usually placing them on etymologically long vowels; their appearance is recorded here in the text rather than in tabular form (as in ASPR III, pp. lxxxii-lxxxviii), making it is easier to see how and when they are used. Only a small range of abbreviations is used by the scribe, but with considerable regularity. These include: the crossed thorn for þæt, 7 for ond; the macron over a vowel or consonant (less frequently) to indicate the omission of one or more following letters; and a few standard abbreviations for Latin words (e.g. scs for sanctus). Abbreviations are expanded silently in this edition. In support of his argument that the 'booklets' were written in the chronological order 2-3-1, Conner argues that the ornate initial eth on f. 51v of the first booklet is made with skill and confidence not seen in, for example, the first eth in the second booklet (on f. 57r).83 He refers to the ornamentation of the eth on f. 58v as 'the heavy-handed attempt at ornamentation.' This seems to me to be using the evidence selectively and forcing it to support the theory. As has been argued previously,84 a comparison of any number of large initials in the first (and third) booklet shows the scribe using exactly the same decorative motifs as in the eth on f. 58v – compare, for example, þ on f. 23v and h on f. 38v. Moreover, the eth on f. 58v is executed much better than that on f. 18r. In response to his suggestion that the scribe may have been unused to drawing eth's if his 'copying tasks were dominated by Latin texts' (p. 236), the present editor has pointed out that in fact the scribe does his best work when copying vernacular texts.85 The form of þ, another letter which the scribe might be expected to be inexpert at making if he was not used to copying vernacular texts, might also be compared in this discussion: the decoration of the þ on f. 70v is almost identical to that of the one on f. 23v (except that it is on a slightly larger scale, being approximately 10 mm taller). This size of each initial (in mm) and its position on the page is noted in the apparatus.86

§8. Punctuation

Förster 1933 discusses the punctuation of the texts in the manuscript in some detail, offering statistics for the frequency with which lines are single or double pointed (i.e. both medially and at the end of the verse line).87 He notes that 'as Anglo-Saxon poetry was written continuously like prose, such metrical points were a great help for the reader.' Förster also observes that in approximately fifty cases the point occurs in the middle of a verse, but that this happens mostly at the end of a folio; the other instances he takes to be aberrations. Lines which are abnormally long (especially in Widsith and The Wanderer) sometimes have a third point reflecting pauses in recitation. Elsewhere, the present editor has tabulated further statistics regarding the distribution and use of punctuation in the manuscript.88 Points are usually placed before and after runes and Roman numerals when they occur, and on occasion before and after a proper name. When the abbreviation sign for ond (7) appears before pointed proper names, it is appended to the name and the point is placed before the grouping (e.g. ·7azarias· in Canticles l. 153b). The other punctuation in the manuscript occurs at the end of sections of poems and at the ends of the poems themselves. Final punctuation consists of a 83

See Scriptorium, 40 (1986), pp. 236-7. See Scriptorium, 43 (1989), p. 280. 85 This was argued further in Manuscripta 35.1, pp.3-22. 86 The distribution and size of the initials in the manuscript are tabulated in Scriptorium, 43, pp. 284-8, cols. 12 and 13. 87 1933, pp. 61-2. 88 Scriptorium, 43, p. 282 and Table 1, pp. 284-8, cols. 9, 20-2. 84

combination of colons, points, slashes, and a hook or dash (resembling the abbreviation sign for ond ); the most common configurations of these are: (i) :7 (ii) :– (iii) ./ (iv) :~89 These are used singly or in combinations: (i) :7 :– (ii) :– :7 (iii) :~ :7 (iv) :7 :7 (v) :7 ·– Triple and quadruple combinations are also used on occasion (e.g. on f. 20v, l. 6). 'Wrap marks' are sometimes used at line ends, marking off words that belong with either the preceding or following line of text (wrap marks are recorded in the apparatus).90 McGovern 1983 draws attention to previously unnoticed scratched or incised punctuation marks in the manuscript; he suggests that some may also have been made with a lead or silver point and argues that there are three different kinds of marks.91 This implies that they were made by different readers or, if by the same reader, then at different times; in either case, the placement of the marks, predominantly at the end of poetic verses, suggests that they were made by readers who understood the poetry (p. 95). Curiously, he notes that these marks sometimes occur in spaces occupied by points. These marks consist of vertical and oblique strokes, sometimes occurring in pairs. They are found principally on folios 14r-44v, with a few additional occurrences on folios 56v and 66r-v. McGovern 1983 speculates (pp. 94-5) that these punctuation marks (which should perhaps more properly be understood as 'guides to reading') may well be early and reflect a particular interest on the part of the manuscript's readers in The Ascension and Guthlac (A), both of which describe an ascension into heaven by the central figure. It seems less likely to him that the marks were made by a post-1540 reader, and virtually impossible that they were made between 1200 and 1540 (p. 95).

§9. Language and Orthography

The Exeter Anthology contains a large number of spellings which have been normalized in varying degrees by editors in the past, seldom with any consistency. It has been the practice in this edition to retain all manuscript spellings which do not appear to be overt errors. There is no agreement among linguists about when the inflexional system of Old English began to break down, and little work has been done on the spelling of Old English as witnessed by the major surviving poetic codices.92 Thus there is great risk that normalization of the manuscript forms will serve only to obliterate or obfuscate what little evidence survives for the state of (poetic) Old English in the tenth century and perhaps impede further constructive analysis. The large number of deliberate alterations and corrections made to the texts in The Exeter Anthology and brought to light for the first time in Muir 1994 indicates that the scribe is a much more conscientious and systematic worker than has previously been thought.93 He (and 89

Ker (MÆ, 2, p. 228) notes that the slight upward turn at the end of the horizontal stroke of the configuration :– is scarcely sufficient to justify printing it in some cases as :~, which is quite true. 90 Elsewhere, we have noted that the scribe uses the same wrap mark in Lambeth Palace MS 149 and Bodleian MS 319 (Manuscripta, 35.1 (1991), p. 11. 91 MÆ, 52, pp. 90-1. 92 Megginson 1992 is the first major study of this sort (all references to David Megginson's work are to a copy of the thesis in its pre-defence form, which he kindly let me consult). On the break-down of the Old English inflexional system see Mustanoja (pp. 67ff.) and Yerkes (NM, 83, pp. 260-5). 93 In his influential volume of 1953, Sisam, for example, observes: 'In fact there is hardly a trace of intelligent scrutiny [in the poetical manuscripts by Anglo-Saxon readers]. It is a curious feature of the great poetical codices that no early reader seems to have noticed the most glaring errors left by the scribe' (p. 38). These views will be reconsidered below in the discussion of the corrections in the manuscript.

others) made numerous alterations to the text, sometimes systematically, indicating that what appears in the manuscript is for the most part what he (or they) wanted to be there.94 A number of prominent linguists and editors have expressed concern in the past about normalizing the manuscript forms. Kemp Malone concludes from his study of the transition of Old English to Middle English that the process can already be seen to be underway in the tenth century.95 Quirk and Wrenn have this to say about the reduced endings found in AngloSaxon manuscripts: In late OE therefore the unstressed short vowels a, e, o and u of final syllables began from about the tenth century to be weakened to a common sound called schwa … [I]n addition final m tended to be pronounced as [n] in late OE….96 They observe that consequently the final endings -um, -an, -on would have had identical pronunciation. Brook 1959 (pp. 280-91) expresses concern that many forms which are now recognized as characteristic of late Old English have been normalized out of existence. Interestingly, the early editors (e.g. Thorpe, Grein and Gollancz) are more inclined to retain the MS forms as long as they make sense and are identifiable.97 Blake 1990 (pp. 4-5) points out that emendations such as the restoration of h on MS remig, 'are not the result of an unintelligible text, but represent an attempt to standardize the language.' He further points out that, 'it has never been clear in the past what standard is to be applied and previous editors have not agreed as to how much ought to be emended in this way.' Megginson's recent investigation of the spelling systems in the major poetic codices has confirmed that there is considerable evidence for a tendency towards conformity, as Blake had suggested earlier. Campbell 1959 (§572) expresses reservations about the significance of these 'early' examples of levelled spellings, but Mitchell 1980 (I, §15), while respecting the depth of Campbell's learning and his authority, notes that his objections can be addressed quite satisfactorily. Blake's conclusions on this important matter are worth quoting in full: Furthermore these forms, as Professor Brook pointed out, are extremely valuable in determining the development of language and orthography in the tenth century. As spelling variants are generally preserved in modern editions of the Old English prose texts, it would seem sensible and helpful to the student to bring the poetic texts into line with them. The language of the poems could then more easily be compared with the prose texts of the transition period from Old to Middle English, which are full of many similar variant spellings. (p. 5) 94

In his review of the facsimile Sisam 1934 says as much in commenting on the quality of the collotype facsimiles: 'If they lack detail in the erasures, they give clearly what the scribe intended to be read …' (RES, 10, p. 338). Yerkes 1982 (NM, 83, pp. 260-5) describes comparable systematic revision of one witness to the translation of Gregory's Dialogues. 95 1930, (p. 117). 96 An Old English Grammar (London: Methuen, 1977), p. 11. They conclude that traditional orthography 'came to lag a great deal behind pronunciation.' 97 In his Preface, Gollancz says that he has made 'no attempt to normalize the spelling of the text.' Among more recent editors, Blake 1990, Roberts 1979, Rugg 1979 and Woolf 1977 give due consideration to the original readings of the manuscript; as detailed in the textual annotations here, ASPR is inconsistent in its treatment of the linguistic data, including the adoption of corrections.

Notes in the apparatus of the present edition will assist less experienced readers in identifying forms with non-standardised spellings; discussions of critical treatments of many of these forms are also found in the footnotes accompanying the texts. As for the question of whether the scribe himself made an attempt to normalize the texts, Sisam 1934 observes, 'How far and when the scribe of the Exeter Book normalized as he copied, it is hard to say.'98 Blake 1990 notes, 'The standardised language in the codex is not by any means uniform, and we cannot always tell now what variant spellings were tolerated then.'99 The discussion of the corrections which follows here shows in some detail to what extent the scribe (or subsequent correctors) were actively attempting to standardise the spellings of the texts. The following linguistic features have been retained in the present edition because they are considered to be representative of the state of Old English at the time the manuscript was copied out: - the levelling of inflexions, including the free interchange of n and m in final position: e.g. motum appears for motun on several occasions in Guthlac (A) and The Phoenix; Juliana, ll. 521a and 723b has miclam for miclan, and l. 630b has flean for fleam; for examples of the restoration of reduced/levelled endings, see below; - the loss of final nasals (perhaps indicative of Northern influence, though loss of final nasals is also found in early West-Saxon texts): e.g. The Advent Lyrics, l. 206a (tirfruma), Juliana, l. 555b (gewinna); - the loss of a medial consonant in a group of three: e.g. The Phoenix, l. 243b (wæsmas) and l. 625b (strenðu), Juliana, l. 400a (MS ge fæsnad, with n altered, suggesting that the scribe/corrector paid special attention to this form); - the (illogical) doubling of consonants: e.g. Christ in Judgement, l. 712a (onnettan), Riddles, 14.17b (wraþþum), 15.6a (grenne), 15.15b (biddan), 32.8b (fella); - the loss of a dental consonant after a spirant or a liquid: e.g. The Phoenix, l. 199a (swetes); - c appears in final positions for cg : e.g. God's Gifts to Humankind, l. 70a (MS wic cræfta), The Riming Poem, l. 7a (wic for wicg), and Riddles, 85.5a (hryc); note also The Order of the World, l. 70b where the MS has gar seces, with a small g crowded in after c; - the confusion of eo and ea (which may be either a Northumbrian feature or a general feature of late Old English): e.g. The Wanderer, l. 64a (wearþan), The Phoenix, l. 248a (gefeon); - the reduction of vowels in unstressed positions observable principally in levelled inflexions throughout the codex; - the loss of medial unstressed vowels: e.g. The Phoenix, l. 330a (fægran); 98 99

RES, 10, p. 340. This matter will be discussed further below. The Phoenix, p. 5.

- the doubling of vowels to indicate length: e.g. Canticles, l. 88b (góod), Fates of Mortals, l. 70a (tíir), Hom. Frag. III, l. 3a (tíid), Riddles 34.6a (áa), 36.5 (wiif), 56.7a (biid-), 79.10b (góod), 80.3b (fóot) – curious since the doubling of the vowel indicates that it is long; - unstable h (often restored by a corrector when omitted by the scribe – see below): h is both added and omitted in unexpected situations, and is occasionally substituted for g (The Phoenix, ll. 124b and 421b have toheanes for togeanes).100 Examples of the loss or absence of h initially or before a stressed vowel include: Juliana, l. 171a (yldo), l. 577a (bilænan), l. 586b (æleð), The Seafarer, l. 63a (wælweg), Maxims I (B), l. 47b (adl), The Order of the World, l. 91a (eorðwerud), Soul and Body II, l. 20a (won), Judgement Day I, l. 95b (gewylc), Riddles, 5.8b (ondweorc), 8.8a (nigende), 33.3b (leahtor). Examples of the (non-standard) addition or presence of h before an initial or stressed vowel: Christ in Judgement, l. 19b (healle), Guthlac (A), l. 271b (hus), Juliana, l. 545b (his). At Riddles 6.7 and 35.11 there are examples of hw alliterating with w.101 At Riddle 58.13a, the scribe began to write lafordes, but caught himself 'in progress' and altered l to h as he copied the text; this suggests either that his exemplar had the h-less form (which he almost copied out mechanically), or that he read hlaford but almost wrote the h-less form because it was natural for him to do so. At Riddle 54.4b the scribe wrote rand for hrand. At Canticles, l. 22a, the manuscript has to worfne with h squeezed in interlinearly above; in l. 61a the original reading hofne has initial h underpointed for deletion. Another telling form is hneccan in Riddle 80.4b, where the scribe has altered initial h from n, indicating that he probably did not pronounce the h in this environment. - Northern lexical features are also retained: e.g. eðþa for oððe in Riddle 43.16a. It is important to note that all the changes made to the manuscript are not corrections of perceived errors by the scribe or a subsequent reader/corrector; some are alterations intended to standardise the spelling of the codex. Ker 1933 notes in his review of the facsimile the need for a full account of the alterations to the text, particularly since in the facsimile it is normally impossible to distinguish between various kinds of blank spaces (i.e. whether they are spaces originally left blank, or are the result of defects in the vellum, or are erasures).102 100

Many of these features occur also in The Cædmon Manuscript and The Vercelli Codex. A succinct discussion of most of these features is found in Blake's edition of The Phoenix (pp. 5-8); see also Brook 1959 (pp. 280-91). For further discussion of 'unstable' h, see Blake 1961 and 1962 (N&Q, ns 8, pp. 165-6; N&Q, 207, pp. 45-7) and Scragg 1970 (Anglia, 88, pp. 165-96). 101 For further discussion of hw in Old English, see Blake 1961 (N&Q, ns 8, pp. 165-6). 102 MÆ, 2, p. 226. The present editor has discussed elsewhere the techniques used by the scribe and corrector(s) to alter the readings of the manuscript: see Muir 1989 (Scriptorium, 43, pp. 280-1). In view of the present editor's revelation in 1989 that there are hundreds of previously unnoticed alterations to the texts of the manuscript and that a new edition of the complete anthology was in progress, it seems peculiar to me that Conner (1993, p. 254) should conclude his codicological study of the manuscript with these words: The publication of the facsimile represents the latest important development in the history of the manuscript. The project was so successful … that no one has since attempted to make a full-scale study of the manuscript. There are two reasons for this: one is the fact that the scholars who undertook the work were at the time the very best qualified for the job; the second is that they made so through [sic] a study of the manuscript that few problems have surfaced which have demanded that their pioneering work be reconsidered. … Consequently, the 1933 facsimile has remained the most important modern development in the history of the 'Exeter Book.' It has served as an adequate basis for several critical editions, it has promulgated generally accurate textual information, and it has, above all, taken a great deal of strain off the manuscript itself. … Today, there is usually no need to disturb the manuscript to make a decision on a reading, with the exceptions of the mutilated first folio of 'Christ' and perhaps the burnt sections in the Riddles.

Förster 1933 is not very attentive in his examination of the alterations in the manuscript, devoting little more than five lines to the subject. He notes that there are few corrections in the scribe's own hand: 'Also a corrector who, at a later date went through the whole manuscript, did not find much to do. So there are remarkably few corrections in the codex.103 The discussion which follows here will demonstrate the extent to which he misinterpreted the situation. Sisam 1934 argues that 'little was done by later readers to remove even crude errors from the text', concluding that this is most likely because, 'not many in the eleventh century understood the harder poetry well enough to read it critically.'104 Every identifiable alteration to the original text of the manuscript has been noted in the apparatus here; what follows is a summary review and analysis of the alterations. It is not always possible to declare with confidence whether a particular alteration was made by the scribe or a subsequent corrector, though on the basis of paleographical evidence it is observable that some corrections were made 'in progress' (as the text was being copied out for the first time), and these have been noted in the footnotes here. It is also impossible to determine precisely how many readers may have contributed to the alterations to the text; as stated earlier, there is evidence that at least one corrector, whether it was the original scribe making revisions or a corrector working some time later, attempted to standardise the spellings of the manuscript (discussion of this follows below).105

§10. Scribal Inaccuracy and Acceptable Errors (?)

Perhaps the most perplexing question arising from a consideration of the evidence for extensive activity by various correctors and readers of the present manuscript (and of the other poetic codices) is why so many unintelligible forms (or non-words) still remain in the codex.106 Are we to believe that there was such veneration of authority or an exemplar among Anglo-Saxon scribes and readers that they were reluctant to tamper with the received text? The presence of many hundreds of corrections elsewhere in the codex suggests not; they also indicate that both the scribe and subsequent readers of the texts were reading closely and (often) attentively. And if the scribe was also the anthologist of the codex in its present form, then (as demonstrated above) he was working in a deliberate and thoughtful manner. So we are left with the question with which we began. One possibility is that the readers/correctors attempted to restore the accuracy of the text (and to modernise or standardise it) to the extent that they were confident in their activity, but that they left off when confronted by a locum desperandum. Another possibility, which has not been entertained previously, is that one scribe, involved somewhere (and perhaps latterly) in the chain of transmission of the texts, may have been a non-native (which is not to say non-Germanic). This is not inconceivable, given that the poems were copied out (perhaps repeatedly) during the period of the Monastic Reform when many foreigners were summoned from overseas to assist in the programme of restoring regular life in the monasteries and a higher level of intellectual life in general. Such a scribe, less confident than a native-speaker with the text before him, might have been 103

P. 65 and note 36. He says that there are only thirty-one in all of Christ (1664 lines of text). RES, 10, p. 341. 105 An examination of the orthography of the major poetic codices is the subject of Megginson's thesis (1992). Inevitably, the present editor's observations here are often identical to his since we are analysing the same material. However, his detailed and thorough study was limited in that he had to work with the facsimile (1933) and ASPR III, and so did not have details of the hundreds of alterations to the texts of the manuscript noted for the first time in the apparatus to this edition. 106 This is an issue which also troubles Sisam (see note 93 above). 104

inclined to misread the original, especially given the irregularity of spacing between words and the non-standardised spelling system. The participation of such a scribe in the process of textual transmission might also account for the number of forms that have been altered, yet which remain incorrect or unintelligible. An equally puzzling and related question is why common and everyday forms such as warena and fæst repeatedly give the scribe so much trouble (see, for example, Juliana, ll. 322a, 437a and 544b and examples below). To begin with, the scribe regularly confuses a number of letters having similar forms, especially þ-wynn, p-wynn, s-wynn, n-h, s-f and d-ð.107 Of particular interest is his trouble with f-s: for example, in Advent, l. 12a he writes cræstga for cræftga, and in Riddles, swistne for swiftne (19.3a), efne for esne (27.8a) and swistre for swiftre (84.3b). A significant factor in most of these and other similar instances is that the scribe wrote out an unacceptable word and left it to stand. On the other hand, at Riddle 15.2b he has swift, with f corrected from s, and at The Descent into Hell (l. 20a), onfeng, with f altered from s. In God's Gifts to Humankind (l. 109a), the MS has þeaw fæft ne, written over an erased area, so that though altered the 'corrected' reading is still an unacceptable Old English word; a similar situation is found at Phoenix, l. 15a, where the MS has fnæft, with n over an erasure. (The scribe writes fæft- for fæst- on a number of occasions elsewhere in the codex; e.g. Riddle 56.7a [biid fæft]). He also writes m for ni on a number of occasions, though the recorded forms are clearly nonsensical (see Advent, l. 361a, Christ in Judgement, l. 463a, Guthlac (A), l. 696b, Juliana, ll. 128a, The Wanderer, l. 29a, Soul and Body II, l. 40b, apparatus). Certain other corrections and errors indicate at least two stages of transmission for the texts in which they occur; for example, at The Advent Lyrics, l. 419b the MS has niht for wiht, suggesting an earlier (Northumbrian) form uiht which has been misconstrued as niht. In Christ in Judgement, ll. 9a and 33b have onsyne beorg in the MS, suggesting that the scribe may have mistaken 'on Sion' for the more common word 'face' (onsyne < onsiene < onsione). In Juliana, l. 482a the scribe writes hyra dreorge, which Grein suggests is for heorudreorge, apparently substituting hyra for heoru, which he thought was for heora from he (ASPR III and some other editors retain the MS forms here); and gesingan in Juliana l. 54b suggests the development gesinhigan > gesinigan > gesingan. In Riddle 26.12b the MS has hyþe for hyde, suggesting an earlier form hyðe (mistakenly for hyde) which was subconsciously changed to hyþe during transmission. Megginson rightly notes (1992, pp. 195-201) that the scribe (or a corrector) is concerned to achieve a certain uniformity of spelling across the whole codex, at least with respect to some lexical items. For example: the scribe uses halg- forms of halig before e-inflexions almost exclusively (thirty-three out of thirty-five times), including Juliana, l. 533a, where the MS has halige with i underpointed for deletion. Dryhtn- is the scribe's usual form of inflected dryhten; at The Whale, l. 83a, the form dryhtene appears, but the scribe/corrector has subsequently underpointed the first e for deletion, thus achieving uniformity throughout. Likewise, ealdor is preferred exclusively to aldor, whereas waldend is used to the total exclusion of wealdend, suggesting that in the Exeter manuscript, 'this consistency, especially in the more common nouns, suggests that spellings were standardised for each word rather 107

Blake 1990 retains the evidence of interchange of d-ð/þ as indicative of the fluid orthography in the tenth century (The Phoenix, pp. 5-7); Megginson 1992 (pp. 196-7) comments with respect to the d-ð confusion in the MS: 'This confusion is so frequent that it might be better to classify it as a (possibly inadvertent) part of the scribal spelling system, possibly reflecting the development of the sound [ð] in a scribe's dialect.'

than for a general phonological environment.'108 In another instance the scribe/corrector has altered a unique spelling to achieve utter consistency across the codex: there are twenty-seven occurrences of sægd-, but one of sæde (The Panther, l. 34b); the scribe/corrector has subsequently squeezed in a g after the æ in the exceptional form. Similarly, þam is found throughout the codex (two hundred and eighty-nine times), though at The Whale, l. 6b the scribe began to write þæm, but pulled himself up when he began to make the bow of the e component of the æ, leaving a small hook projecting from the a. The important point here is that he almost wrote þæm, suggesting that the form was recognised as acceptable, though it is not his preferred form. The scribe uses the spelling swylc throughout (fifty-five times), with the exception of swilc at Guthlac (A), l. 756a; however, the scribe/corrector has subsequently added a small y beneath the i of this form, once again, to achieve uniformity.109 In two poems, Soul and Body II and Descent, the scribe/corrector has erased final c on forms of the personal pronoun (viz., mec, þec, usic); there are a few other sporadic instances of this alteration throughout the manuscript. Megginson (pp. 200-1) notes that the scribe's general practice in the codex is to use -c forms for the accusative to distinguish them from the dative, making it unlikely that these erasures were made by him. Many other similar alterations to less frequently used words are noted throughout in the apparatus. The scribe/corrector often underpoints a letter which is to be ignored in order to achieve the required form: this is interesting in that underpointing does not obliterate the original form, and so announces even more overtly the attempt to standardize the spellings than if the original had been erased and re-written.110 Widsith, l. 49b has heaðo bearna, with d added interlinearly above after the r, to restore a consonant lost in a group of three. And Juliana, l. 72a has modsifan, with i being formed by scraping away part of the loop of earlier e. Examples of y altered from original i include: The Panther, l. 43a (wynsumast), Judgement Day, I, l. 51a (byman), Soul and Body II, l. 116b (gerymeð), Riddle 26.3a (dyfde). The Ruin, l. 9b has wag, altered from earlier wæg by erasing the bow of the e component of the æ. Many levelled inflexions have been restored to 'standard' forms – these changes are numerous and largely 'invisible' in photographic reproductions; they include: Juliana l. 508a, MS gewordun with -un altered from -um; The Seafarer, l. 10b has seofedun altered from -um; Riddle 27.3b has wægun (< -um) and 40.100b has brucan (< -am).111 A dramatic example of the tendency to level the inflexions occurs at Riddle 83.8b, where the scribe began to write a final m on mæge-n, but stopped mid-way through (this is visible even in the facsimile). In Christ in Judgement, l. 113b the scribe wrote foldun, but then joined the tops of the minims and added a tail to the u to transform it into an a. Similarly, many forms have been corrected/altered, but remain unacceptable; these include: Maxims I (B), l. 30b, where the MS has behlið (for belihð); Riddle 6.10b has betan for bete; Lord's Prayer I, l. 10a has freo don (for freodom), with -don over an erasure. 108

Megginson 1992 (p. 179). Similarly, Guthlac (A), l. 751a has selfe, with a small y added below; e-spellings of this word subsequently occur only twice elsewhere in the manuscript, against 123 occurrences of sylf- spellings (obviously the norm or preferred spelling of the scribe) – see the apparatus to that line. 110 Examples include Christ in Judgement, l. 529a (sceaþan > scaþan), Canticles of the Three Youths l. 143b (heofon fugulas > heofon fuglas) and The Phoenix, l. 333b (mearmstane > marmstane). 111 At The Seafarer, l. 75a the scribe made a mental error, writing fremman for fremum, which suggests that the two forms may have sounded identical to him. 109

There is considerable evidence for corrections made 'in progress'; these include: Juliana, l. 270b, staþelian with e altered from i; l. 432a, wigþrist with þ altered from wynn (numerous letters altered in this fashion are detectable because of residual 'tell-tale' serifs – all occurrences are noted in the apparatus); The Descent into Hell, l. 54b has bi locen with l altered from b, part of which is used to form the following o; another example of b altered to l is found in Lord's Prayer I, l. 7b (helpend). Uncorrected nonsense-forms remain in abundance; they include: Juliana, l. 338b, MS neod cyrreð for ne oðcyreð; Precepts, l. 53b MS geogum for geongum; Fates, l. 21b has beane for beame, and in l. 43b brondas þencan for brand aswencan; and in Riddles, 40.77a has onflonde for on flode; 66.1b has mindan geard for middangeard; 73.24a has hrægnlocan for brægn-. Other forms are corrected, but the pre-correction form was nonsensical; for example: God's Gifts to Humankind, l. 112a, where MS leoht is corrected from earlier leont. A final kind of error is where the scribe has made a mental slip (audible memory lapse) and substituted one form of a word for another; for example, in Riddle 84.5b he has written yrnan, though rinnan is required by the alliteration. From this synopsis of the activity of the scribe and/or corrector(s) of the manuscript, it can be concluded that the scribe was not copying what he found in his exemplar(s) mechanically or literatim. However, the evidence of the alterations to the original texts and of the text left to stand after alteration – presumably after it had been read quite carefully – leaves many questions unanswered and raises others not previously entertained. It may not be possible to arrive at a more satisfactory understanding of the surviving manuscript evidence for scribal activity until a complete review of the phonology and spelling of the recorded forms of the other principal codices is concluded in conjunction with a thorough analysis of all changes (whatever the source) to their original texts.

§11. The Poets (?)

Little can be said about who first composed the poems transmitted in The Exeter Anthology, except that The Ascension and Juliana contain Cyn(e)wulfian runic signatures, and that Deor may recount the experiences of a real poet-philosopher. Otherwise, the texts are anonymous and lack titles in the manuscript. It has been pointed out in the footnotes to the texts that a number of poems have a considerable concentration of Northern features, suggesting either a Northumbrian or Mercian origin for them. The present editor agrees with Blake 1977 (pp. 1427) in concluding that there is little reason to believe that any of the poems in the anthology dates from much before the Alfredian period, perhaps with the exception of the three lists embedded in Widsith. Blake 1964 (rev. 1990) observes, Scholars have been too prone to present Old English poetry in a finely descending curve of excellence, though there is little concrete evidence to support such a view (p. 15). He points out that if there had been a decline in Old English poetry in the tenth century, it would have been peculiar for Ælfric to adopt the alliterative style in writing his homilies; he concludes,

The most reasonable explanation is that in Ælfric's time the alliterative style was a recognized medium of religious instruction, which in its turn implies that the use of vernacular poetry for religious ends was a common feature in the tenth century. (p.18) The burden of establishing an earlier dating for the poems lies with critics who wish to develop that thesis.112 112

In his Chapter VI ('Poetry and Cultural History' [pp. 148-64]), Conner 1993 presents a brief outline of his case for associating particular datable poetic styles and influences with each of his proposed booklets, arguing that there is no reason to date any of the poetry to the pre-Alfredian period, including the Cynewulfian poems. His analysis foreshadows a more detailed monograph-length literary study of the poems of the manuscript. Thus it seems prudent to wait for the appearance of that study before attempting to address his arguments in detail. Constraints of space make it impossible to give credit for every source identification; in any event, the greater proportion of Biblical sources are readily identifiable by anyone with some training in Biblical and liturgical studies. Major pioneering work and recent discoveries of significance, however, have been attributed. Biblical references are to the Latin Vulgate. If the source Biblical text is short – a verse or less – it has often been cited when the editors believed it would help elucidate the text under discussion. Latin phrases from the liturgy (Creed, Gloria, Confiteor, etc.) have also been included when they are a direct source for the Old English text. Each of the Advent Lyrics is preceded by its 'source' antiphon in Latin with an English translation.

§12. Miscellaneous Comments on Earlier Editions

– ASPR III did not consult the manuscript while preparing their edition, but did have access to an ultra-violet photograph of folio 8r. Furthermore, their knowledge of Thorpe's edition is acquired from notes in other editions (principally from Grein). Consequently, wherever Grein has misrepresented Thorpe the error has been passed on unwittingly as a genuine Thorpe reading by ASPR III. – Grein used Thorpe's edition as his 'manuscript'; Köhler's revised edition of Grein incorporates most of the readings established by Jacob Schipper from his examination of the manuscript in Exeter; curiously, he rejects some of Schipper's observations. – Schlotterose's 1908 edition of The Phoenix includes copious notes concerning suggestions made to him verbally by Trautmann in the course of preparing his edition. The way in which such suggestions are cited in ASPR III can sometimes be confusing unless this is known. The situation is the same for references to John Kemble in Thorpe's notes – the suggestions made by Kemble were verbal and never appeared in print. Kemble assisted Thorpe in this way in preparing his edition up to the end of The Passion of Saint Juliana. – References to Rieger in the commentary to ASPR III are not to ZfdPh, 7, 1-64 as Krapp and Dobbie indicate on p. 246, but to his Lesebuch (1861). – Notice of readings from Whitman's edition of the Riddles (1982) has been included in the textual footnotes, despite the fact that that edition lacks any discussion of the textual history of the poems; several errors and omissions in Whitman's text are noted where apposite.

§13. Editorial Principles and Practices

All the information necessary to facilitate the proper understanding of the text is readily available in the apparatus at the foot of each page so that it is not necessary for the user to refer to other sections of the book while reading the poems. These annotations include information relating to the text and how it has been restored where deficient or corrupt, with acknowledgement of the contributions of earlier editors (in square brackets). The notes also contain observations concerning codicology, paleography, decoration, Biblical references and allusions, identification of doctrines alluded to, and liturgical echoes and influences. Particular attention has been paid to the scribes' work practices in order to demonstrate how they corrected the texts, either while initially copying them or subsequently when errors were detected either by the scribe or a later reader; this information could be of great use to those interested in the reception and transmission of texts during the AngloSaxon period and later. In describing the script in the apparatus the word 'bold' is used for the bulkier initials that usually follow the large decorated initials immediately. In the text itself, all accent marks have been indicated, since their use is still not fully understood, and this information may be useful to those interested in prosody. Where they occur, Roman numerals have been replaced with equivalent words in Old English in order to show readily how they fit into alliterative patterns. The few common abbreviations have been expanded silently (see Section 5 above). Given that this collection is an anthology with a purpose in the mind of the present editor, the annotations are interrelated and accumulative, and readers will gain a fuller understanding of the poems if the anthology is read continuously from beginning to end.

§14. 1994 Foreword

In order to prepare this edition I have gathered together every major edition of the texts in the Exeter manuscript (D&C 3501) and virtually everything that has been written about them since the anthology first attracted the attention of critics at the beginning of the nineteenth century. I say 'virtually' because inevitably I shall have missed some things. The Bibliography records everything that I have consulted in completing this project. The extensive and impressive array of works it contains reflects the extent to which critical attention has been focused on this one manuscript. And rightly so, since it is the earliest and largest anthology of English poetry, containing poems commonly regarded by students of our language as literary classics. The rough treatment it has been subject to at times during its thousand year history is testament to the fact that it was not always regarded with the esteem with which it is held today; there were, of course, historical and linguistic reasons for this, as is well known. During the past thirty or forty years many of the poems have appeared singly or grouped generically in excellent editions and studies – the editions of Blake (The Phoenix), Campbell (The Advent Lyrics), Dunning and Bliss (The Wanderer), Klinck (The Elegies), Leslie (Three Old English Elegies), Roberts (The Guthlac Poems), Williamson (Riddles) and Woolf (Juliana) spring to mind readily. Some excellent editions prepared as doctoral dissertations unfortunately remain unpublished and consequently are undeservedly less well-known – Berkhout's work on The Maxims falls into this category. There has not been a comprehensive edition of the poems as an anthology, however, for nearly sixty years, since the appearance of Krapp and Dobbie's Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records III. I was prompted to undertake this new edition by a feeling that it was time to focus attention on the collection as an anthology. The present editor has found in his own study of the texts that there is much to be gained by reading the manuscript from beginning to end, and recent scholarship suggests that the anthologist's design and intention can sometimes be perceived in the texts as they are preserved today. He also felt that more recent critical opinion ought to be added to the body of critical views found in the annotations and textual commentaries of earlier editions, and that these critical views should stand shoulder to shoulder with their literary-critical ancestors. Commentaries in earlier editions still have much to offer, but they are now sadly out of date and in need of reassessment. Many impressive volumes of a more technical nature which have also appeared during these decades will be standard reference works in our discipline for many years to come. Chief among these are Campbell's Old English Grammar, Mitchell's Old English Syntax, The Dictionary of Old English (in progress) and other publications relating to it, Ker's Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon and Greenfield and Robinson's Bibliography. This brief review and the Commentary here accompanying the poems indicate that the past two generations of Anglo-Saxonists have carried on ably and creatively from their predecessors, sometimes investigating previously unexplored areas, and at other times reviewing and revising earlier assumptions. Often, however, we find that the insights and conclusions of early editors and critics still stand firm and are the base upon which the discipline continues to build. At times I felt that it would be impossible to do justice in a single and comprehensive edition of all the poems to the depth of learning shown by these people in their more narrowly focused work. For example, is it possible, necessary or desirable to include here all the work on The Wanderer by Leslie, Dunning and Bliss, 35

Mitchell, and numerous others? The answer to this question, is perhaps found in the Commentary here. The present editor has expanded and updated the Commentary on readings adopted in the texts, and drawn material from all the early editions. He has corrected a small number of errors found in reports of the views of their authors. Thorpe, in particular, has never received his due, partly, it is believed, because Krapp and Dobbie (for whatever reason) did not consult his edition directly, depending, rather, on other editions for their knowledge of his work. When the critical discussion relating to a reading or a passage is too extensive to be included comprehensively, it has been summarized and references are cited so that readers can pursue the arguments, should they wish to do so. This edition includes a complete and updated Bibliography. At the end of the textual commentary on each poem there is a 'Sources and analogues' section, a feature absent from any other comprehensive edition. The discussion of liturgical, Biblical and patristic material found there should be particularly useful to younger scholars and students who, because of shifting ideological and cultural priorities, may be unfamiliar with these things. The apparatus to the text itemizes hundreds of alterations to the text never before noted or discussed. Failure to consider these alterations has led to false conclusions about such matters as the way in which the scribe worked, the condition of the manuscript, its readers and reception, and the spellings of the manuscript and what they can tell us about the tendency towards standardized spelling in the tenth century.0 An explanation of the formats used in referring to works cited from the Bibliography is found in the introductory note to the Commentary. The title of this edition, The Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry, reflects the present editor's understanding of the codex and its contents, and the way he believes it can be approached most profitably; others, of course, will continue from habit to refer to the anthology as The Exeter Book. He has, in addition, revived older titles for some poems and assigned new ones to texts which did not seem well served by their former titles. He has renumbered poems accepted by the majority of critics as separate identities (e.g. the 'Christ' and Guthlac poems); this on occasion reflects the discovery of 'ill-matched couples', brought together by the loss of a leaf in the manuscript (i.e. Contrition A and B and Riddles 69 and 70). When the numbering of a poem has been restarted, however, the continuous numbering is also given in order to facilitate reference to earlier critical writings. In closing, the present editor should like to acknowledge his debt to all those whose work has been drawn upon in the preparation of this edition and to express his hope that this volume will serve other scholars and readers of these poems as well as earlier editions have served him. B.J.M. 7 March 1994.

§15. 2000 Foreword

It pleases me to have the opportunity to revise the 1994 edition of this work: it allows me to update and reorganize the Bibliography and to incorporate new readings into the apparatus that are based upon an examination of the digital images made for the electronic facsimile of Exeter, D&C MS 3501. I have inserted new notes in the Commentary based on critical writings that appeared during the period 1994-98. Typographical and other errors and oversights in the first edition that have come to my attention have, of course, been corrected. (The first edition is referred to as EA 1994 in the revised Commentary.) I have taken into account some of the helpful comments made by reviewers of the first edition. One criticism I should like to respond to is that the edition focuses on textual matters at the expense of discussion of literary issues. It was my intention from the outset to focus on paleographical and textual issues since that is exactly what I undertook to do as an editor preparing a new text for critics to use for their literary studies. Indeed, one day I should like to write a literary study of the poetry edited here, but that would be an undertaking vastly different from preparing a critical edition. This edition is linked to digital images of the manuscript in the new electronic facsimile so that readers will be able to assess for themselves the alterations to the manuscript reported in the apparatus. B.J.M. 14 February 2000.

Advent Lyrics [Christ I] Lyric 1 1 O Rex gentium et desideratus earum, lapisque angularis qui facis utraque unum: veni et salva hominem quem de limo formasti. "O King of the people and their hearts' desire; O Cornerstone, who make both things one: come and save humanity whom you have fashioned from clay." ... cyninge2 Ðu eart se Weallstan þe ða wyrhtan iú wiðwurpon to weorce. Wel þe geriseð þæt þu heafod3 sie healle mærre 5

ond gesomnige side weallas fæste gefoge, flint unbræcne, þæt geond eorðb[old]4 eall eagna5 gesihþe wundrien to worlde wuldres Ealdor. Gesweotula nu þurh searocræft þin sylfes weorc,

soðfæst, sigorbeorht, ond sona forlęt weall wið wealle. Nu is þam weorce þearf þæt se cræftga6 cume, ond se Cyning sylfa, ond þonne gebete, nu gebrosnad is, hús under hrofe.7 He þæt hra gescop,8

15 1

leomo læmena. Nu sceal Liffrea

See Hesbert 1968 (no. 4078, p. 376). The tradition of Christ as the 'Cornerstone' derives from a conflation of several Biblical sources: Ps. 117:22, Matt. 21:42, Mark 12:11, Luke 20:17-18, Acts 4:11-12, Eph. 2:14-22, 1 Pet. 2:7-8. Gregory I, commenting on Job 38:6, in the Moralia (PL 76.458), says that the two walls signify the Jews and the Gentiles, and the Church on earth and the angels in heaven. With the reference to Christ as heafod (followed by the reference to the body and limbs in ll. 14b-15a) the poet is merging the imagery of Christ as the Cornerstone of the Church with Christ as Head of the Mystical Body; see Rom. 12:3-5, 1 Cor. 6:15, 12:12-31 – the theme of the Mystical Body coincides contextually with the theme of gifts' in the Pauline writings. 13b-14a Cf. Amos 9:11; Acts 15:16. 14b-15a. Cf. Gen. 2:7. 15b. Cf. Acts 3:15, auctorem vero vitae. The notes to this text are indebted to the invaluable work of Cook 1900, Campbell 1959, Burlin 1968, and Garde 1991. 2 f. 8r [PLATE 1] 3 MS heafoð. 4 Emend. ed. 5 n is erased after the final a. 6 MS cræstga. 7 Cf. Amos 9:11, Acts 15:16. 8 Cf. Gen. 2:7.

The Advent Lyrics þone wergan heap wraþum ahreddan, earme from egsan, swa he oft dyde. Lyric 2 9 O clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel, qui aperis et nemo claudit; claudis et nemo aperit: veni et educ vinctum de domo carceris, sedentem in tenebris et umbra mortis. "O Key of David and Sceptre of the House of Israel; you who open and no one closes; who close and no one opens: come and lead the captive sitting in darkness and the shadow of death from his prison-house." Eala þu10 reccend ond11 þu riht Cyning se þe locan healdeð, lif ontyneð, 20

eadgu[m]12 upwegas,13 oþrum forwyrneð wlitigan wilsiþes, gif his weorc ne deag. Huru, we for þearfe þas word sprecað, ond m[y]ndgiað14 þone þe mon gescop þæt he ne læte to lose15 weorðan

cearfulra þing, þe we in carcerne sittað sorgende, sunnan wenað,16 hwonne us Liffrea leoht ontyne, weorðe ussum mode to mundboran ond þæt tydre gewitt tire bewinde,

gedo usic þæs wyrðe, þe he to wuldre forlet,

See Hesbert (1968, no. 4010, p. 367). The complex (or polyphonic) thematic references to keys, open and shut doors / gates, and people dwelling in houses of darkness which is developed throughout The Advent Lyrics as one aspect of their architectural imagery derives from several Biblical passages: cf. Is. 22:22, 42 7; Ezech. 44:12; Matt. 16:18-19; Apoc. 1:18, 3:7. Campbell 1959 (pp. 82-3) quotes a commentary on this antiphon by Amalarius which he suggests 'perhaps explains the peculiar direction this Old English poem takes.' The theology of the Descent into or Harrowing of hell (which is alluded to in these verses) has its origin in several Biblical books: Hos. 6:1-2, Matt. 12:40, John 12:32, 1 Pet. 3:18-21. 10 MS þa. 11 The abbreviation sign for ond (7) is visible with ultra-violet light. The section begins in the middle of the first line of the folio and is not specially marked. 12 MS damaged. 13 Cf. Andreas, l. 830a. [Ker 1933 (pp. 224-31)] Cf. also Guthlac (B), l. 548a. 14 MS damaged. Chambers 1933 (p. 70) reads …gia(ð) þone… ne hete … (ce)ose … can. 15 MS damaged. 16 For these verses cf. Ps. 106:10 and Is. 9:2.

þa we17 heanlice hweorfan sceoldan on þis enge lond,18 eðle bescyrede. Forþon secgan mæg se ðe19 soð spriceð þæt he ahredde, þa forhwyrfed wæs, 35

frumcyn fira. Wæs seo fæmne geong, mægð manes leas, þe he him20 to meder geceas; þæt wæs geworden butan weres frigum, þæt þurh bearnes gebyrd bryd eacen wearð. Nænig efenlic þam ær ne siþþan

in worlde gewearð wifes gearnung21 – þæt degol wæs, Dryhtnes geryne. Eal giofu gæstlic grundsceat geondspreot;22 þær wisna fela wearð inlihted lare longsume þurh lifes Fruman

þe ær under hoðman biholen lægon, witgena woðsong, þa se Waldend cwom, se þe reorda gehwæs ryne gemiclað23 ðara þe geneahhe noman Scyppendes þurh horscne24 had hergan willað.

Lyric 3 25 O Hierusalem, civitas Dei summi: leva in circuitu oculos tuos, et vide Dominum tuum, quia jam veniet solvere te a vinculis. "O Jerusalem, city of God most High: raise up your eyes to heaven and behold your Lord, who comes now to release you from your shackles." 17

MS þe. [Grein 1857-8 (I, p.150)] These words have been noted in the margin in a modern hand, perhaps because they were interpreted as a reference to 'England'; see the note to l. 50 below. Cf. Ps. 11:9, In circuiti impii ambulant…' 19 This is followed by a small abraded area where 1-2 letters are erased (a part of an ascender is visible). 20 f. 8v 21 For earnung. 22 This imagery is derived from Is. 11:1, 55:10-11. 23 ð is altered from d. 24 MS hoscne. 25 See Hesbert (1968, no. 4034, p. 370). The sources for the antiphon include: Ps. 48:2-4; Is. 49:18 and 60:4, Leva in circuitu oculos tuos et vide, omnes isti congregati sunt, venerunt tibi; and 52:2, Salve vincula colli tui, captiva filia Sion. For the vision of the New Jerusalem, see Apoc. 21:9-10, 22. Cook (repr. 1909, p. 81) notes, 'This interpretation is found as early as Origen (Hom. 9.2).' 18