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Prayers from the Field: Practical Protection and Demonic Defense in Anglo-Saxon England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 February 2016

Karen Louise Jolly*
Affiliation:
University of Hawai'i Mānoa

Extract

A unique set of ritual prayers from tenth-century Northumbria offered the means to protect fields and crops from birds, vermin, and other demonically inspired threats to the agricultural community. They were part of a series of additions made to the Durham Collectar or Ritual (Durham, Cathedral Library A.IV.19) around 970 by the Chester-le-Street scriptorium of St. Cuthbert's community, under the direction of Aldred, the eccentric glossator of the Lindisfarne Gospels. These five Latin prayers glossed in Old English use exorcistic and benedictional formulas, invoke the assistance of an Archangel Panchiel, and contain atypical references to the Book of Tobit, among other unusual characteristics. This seemingly heterodox material has received scant attention from scholars assessing the Durham Ritual manuscript and the work of Aldred. These prayers, however, may reflect the particular interests of the cult of St. Cuthbert, as well as Irish influences in Northumbrian religious practice. Also, a comparable example of one prayer appears in a contemporary Mainz text related to the early development of the Romano-Germanic Pontifical, suggesting that these prayers were part of a larger process, often invisible, of liturgical experimentation during a period of reform and regularization. The prayers read:

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 by Fordham University 

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References

1 Other than the critical edition and facsimiles where these prayers are noted but not analyzed, the only discussion of them I have discovered is an older and dated survey of Northumbrian practice in Wordsworth, Christopher, “Two Yorkshire Charms or Amulets: Exorcisms and Adjurations,” Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 17 (1903): 377–412 (his manuscript information is not current) and the discussion of Asmodeus in Boyd, W. J. P. “Aldrediana XXV: Ritual Hebraica,” English Philological Studies 14 (1975): 31–39.Google Scholar

My thanks to the National Endowment for the Humanities and the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa for sabbatical support in 2005; to Durham Cathedral Library and staff for access to the manuscript; to my colleague Dr. Sarah Larratt Keefer at Trent University for a long and fruitful discussion of this manuscript; to John Carey at University College Cork for translations from Old Irish; to Stephen Allen (while at The Medieval Institute, University of Notre Dame) and William Schipper of St. John's College, Newfoundland for running electronic searches in the PL database; to the Traditio editorial staff and the peer reviewer for cogent suggestions, especially on the translations.Google Scholar

2 See Appendix A for complete Latin and Old English text.Google Scholar

3 Ellipsis points indicate a lacuna.Google Scholar

4 Durham Cathedral Library A.IV.19, s. ix/x S. England, prov. Chester-le-Street; s. x2 gloss and additions; see Gneuss, Helmut, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts (Tempe, AZ, 2001), item 223; Ker, N. R. Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957), item 106. Facsimile in The Durham Ritual, ed. Brown, T. J., Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile 16 (Copenhagen, 1969); see Codex Lindisfarnensis, 2 vols, ed. Kendrick, T. D. (Olten, 1956–60), 2:25–33. Critical edition of the original Latin material, without the Old English gloss and additional material in The Durham Collectar, ed. Corrêa, Alicia, HBS 107 (London, 1992). Edition with the gloss and added texts in Rituale ecclesiae Dunelmensis: The Durham Collectar, ed. Lindelöf, U., Surtees Society 140 (London, 1927).Google Scholar

5 The liturgical contents of Durham A.IV.19 are listed by Wormald, F. in Brown, T. J., ed. Durham Ritual, 4350. For discussion of sources, use, and relationship to other collectars, see Corrêa, Durham Collectar, 1–75, 80–111, 245–83 (Collation Tables).Google Scholar

6 For clarity, this essay will refer to the texts found in the southern English portion of Durham A.IV.19 (edited by Corrêa) as the “original collectar” distinct from the “additional texts” appended by Aldred's scriptorium. The five field prayers in the additional quires that are the subject of this essay are referred to as “Aldred's field prayers,” to distinguish them from prayers for fields in the original collectar and elsewhere, or are referred to by number (e.g. field prayer 1, field prayer 2, etc. as labeled in Appendix A).Google Scholar

7 For Durham A.IV.19 and Aldred's historical context as summarized here, see Ker, N. R., “Aldred the Scribe,” Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association 28 (1942/43): 712, reprinted in Watson, A. G., ed. Books, Collectors and Libraries, Studies in the Medieval Heritage (London and Ronceverte, 1985), 3–8; Brown, T. J., ed., Durham Ritual, 23–29; Lindelöf, Rituale, vii–xx; Corrêa, Durham Collectar, 76–80; Boyd, W. J. Aldred's Marginalia: Explanatory Comments on the Lindisfarne Gospels (Exeter, 1975), 4–5, 56–57; Blair, John The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society (Oxford, 2005), 311–14, 341–54; Rollason, David Northumbria, 500–1100: Creation and Destruction of a Kingdom (Cambridge, 2003), 211–74; Brown, Michelle The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe (London, 2003), 90–102; Nees, Lawrence “Reading Aldred's Colophon for the Lindisfarne Gospels,” Speculum 78 (2003): 333–77; Cambridge, Eric “Why did the Community of St Cuthbert Settle at Chester-le-Street?” and Bonner, Gerald “St Cuthbert at Chester-le-Street,” in Gerald Bonner, Rollason, David, and Stancliffe, Clare, eds., St. Cuthbert, His Cult and Community to AD 1200 (Woodbridge, 1989), 367–86 and 387–95. The author is working on a book-length treatment of Aldred's additions to Durham A.IV.19, “Pastoral Care and Liturgical Experimentation in Tenth Century Northumbria.”Google Scholar

8 The community of St. Cuthbert's connections and obligations to the rural inhabitants of their network of Lindisfarne estates and the surrounding countryside is illustrated in the story of how “his (e.g., Cuthbert's) people” wept when the migrating Lindisfarne community attempted to take the body of Cuthbert to Ireland; of course Cuthbert heard their prayers and redirected the bishop and abbot away from the voyage and back to their Northumbrian lands, ultimately to Chester-le-Street (HSC 20): Historia de Sancto Cuthberto: A History of Saint Cuthbert and a Record of his Patrimony, ed. and trans. South, Ted Johnson, Anglo-Saxon Texts 3 (Woodbridge, 2002), 58–59, 95–96; Rollason, David, “The Wanderings of Saint Cuthbert,” in Cuthbert, Saint and Patron, ed. idem (Durham, 1987), 5456.Google Scholar

9 Aldred even gives the feast day, moon, and time, allowing scholars to pin down the date to August 10, 970, at least for that section of his writing. See Brown, T. J., ed., Durham Ritual, 2327, for the complex arguments regarding the dating of the colophon and the location (cf. 17 n. 4 and 24 n. 4).Google Scholar

10 Brown, M., Lindisfarne, 98.Google Scholar

11 Chester-le-Street had been the beneficiary earlier in the century of several donations, especially of books from King Athelstan; see Brown, M., Lindisfarne, 95; Keynes, Simon “King Athelstan's Books,” in Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Lapidge, Michael and Gneuss, Helmut (Cambridge, 1985), 170–85; Gretsch, Mechthild The Intellectual Foundations of the English Benedictine Reform (Cambridge, 1999), 352–53, 364; Bonner, “St Cuthbert at Chester-le-Street,” 390–95; and Corrêa, Durham Collectar, 120.Google Scholar

12 The additions on fol. 61r/11–84r are not ordered according to the liturgical calendar but seem to have been copied in a complex series of writing campaigns. The Chester-le-Street acquisition of the original collectar must predate the 970 colophon on fol. 84r (Brown, T. J., Durham Ritual, 17; Lindelöf, Rituale, xii; and Corrêa, Durham Collectar, 77 and 120), although others think Aldred acquired the manuscript on the 970 trip with Bishop Ælfsige (Bonner, “St Cuthbert at Chester-le-Street,” 393; Brown, M. Lindisfarne Gospels, 98; and Rollason, Northumbria, 271–72). Aldred either had the whole manuscript with him on that journey or one quire as a booklet; or perhaps the record in Durham A.IV.19 is a copy with Aldred noting in the colophon when and where he first acquired the Cuthbert prayers.Google Scholar

13 On the other scribes, see Brown, T. J., ed., Durham Ritual, 1536, 48–50; Aldred made additions on fols. 85–88 classified as “educational” as opposed to liturgical or performative (51). Aldred's hand also appears in a Latin gloss of Bede's Commentary on Proverbs, as well earlier in the Lindisfarne Gospels, albeit in a more formal hand than in Durham A.IV.19 (25). Brown, M. (Lindisfarne Gospels, 99–100) summarizes the arguments on Aldred's dialect.Google Scholar

14 Corrêa, , Durham Collectar, 7779.Google Scholar

15 The liturgical material, intended as supplements or alternative texts for the canonical office, masses, or other church services, includes collects, hymns, antiphons, versicles, and responses for lections, special commemorations, mass-prayers, suffrages, psalm references, and various random prayers and benedictions (Corrêa, , Durham Collectar [n. 4 above], 7778). The educational materials on fols. 85–88 show an interest in reference lists and explanations of biblical, Roman, and church history.Google Scholar

16 These items on fols. 61–65 were added on pages left blank in the last quire of the original collectar (quire VIII), while quires IX–XI were added at Chester-le-Street. Quire IX begins with fol. 66 and the five field prayers Aldred copied and glossed, followed by Scribe C's exorcistic prayer over salt and water and the four house blessings. Scribe C copied most of the remaining texts in quires IX and X. A later modern binder transposed quires IX and X, producing confusion in the folio numbering by modern editions (Brown, T. J., Durham Ritual [n. 4 above], 13). Lindelöf's edition uses page numbers and the misplaced sequence of the current binding, while T. J. Brown's facsimile restores the proper order, numbering the folios accordingly but placing the other numbering in brackets. This essay uses the foliation numbers from Brown that reflect the original rather than the misbound sequence.Google Scholar

17 Variants of this prayer printed in Pettit, Edward, ed. and trans., Anglo-Saxon Remedies, Charms, and Prayers from British Library MS Harley 585, The Lacnunga (Lewiston, NY, 2001), 2:7779; see also Jolly, Karen Louise “Cross-Referencing Anglo-Saxon Liturgy and Remedies: The Sign of the Cross as Ritual Protection,” in Ritual and Belief: The Rites of the Anglo-Saxon Church, ed. Gittos, Helen and Bradford, M. Bedingfield (Woodbridge, 2005), 221–26.Google Scholar

18 The St. John poison prayer is the first item that appears after the end of the original collectar, although that does not necessarily mean that it was copied first. It is appended to the last half page left blank where the collectar ended (fol. 61r/10). Scribe B, whose skills were the weakest, may have been allowed to write his text into this space after the later additions to manuscript had begun. In any case, Aldred corrected several of B's mistakes, along with adding his Old English gloss to the item. See Brown, T. J., Durham Ritual, 16, 29.Google Scholar

19 Brown, T. J. (Durham Ritual, 16) speculates that the worn nature at the junctures between some quires, including 65v–66r, indicates separable gatherings loosely bound. Aldred's gloss does not pick up again until the beginning of quire XI (fol. 77r), the hymns and a variety of other items he copied himself. However, he did not gloss the four collects to St. Cuthbert on the occasion of the colophon on fol. 84r, while he did gloss the educational materials he added at the end of the quire.Google Scholar

20 Aldred began writing the Latin in a red majuscule, large and widely spaced compared to Scribe C's neat and tight hymns and blessings on the folios before and after; he then glossed the five field prayers in a small black Old English hand above. Aldred's majuscule is inexpert compared to Scribe C and gradually gives way to his more normal miniscule, which suggests that he was experimenting with the style here or possibly that he was attempting to emulate a majuscule source text.Google Scholar

21 The Latin heading is not stylistically different from the prayers that follow but is in the same red majuscule as the Latin texts. However, the first word of the first prayer is set off with a large D. The Old English gloss of the heading, although it offers no more readable words beyond the number “fourteen” as with the Latin, seems to have more written above it in the upper right corner, now illegible.Google Scholar

22 The subsequent prayers are labeled (2) item pro avibus; (3) item alia; (4) item alia; (5) Creatura ad uolatilia (set off on a new line with a capital “C”).Google Scholar

23 Brown, T. J., ed., Durham Ritual, 13; Lindelöf, Rituale (n. 4 above), xlvii; Bischoff, Bernard Latin Palaeography: Antiquity and the Middle Ages, trans. Cróinín, Dáibhí Ó and Ganz, David (Cambridge, 1990), 44; Lindsay, W. M. Palaeographia Latina (London, 1923), 2:25–26; Förster, Max Die Beowulf-Handschrift (Leipzig, 1919), 3. Gameson, Richard The Scribe Speaks? Colophons in Early English Manuscripts, Chadwick, H. M. Memorial Lectures 12 (Cambridge, 2001): 21 and item 9, notes the extensive xb' marks in the compustistical collection of Oxford Bodleian Digby 63 (867×892, Northumbria, at Winchester by the eleventh century).Google Scholar

24 The one on fol. 11v was probably added by Scribe O to the original collectar, for unknown reasons (Brown, T. J., ed., Durham Ritual, 36).Google Scholar

25 Moreover, this separable halfsheet is heavily marked up by other hands. Besides Scribe O's bird covering a patch and Aldred's Old English gloss, Scribe M3, writing after Aldred sometime in the early eleventh century, added vernacular instructions and liturgical texts to the house blessing, as well as a neumed text (ibid., 35). Because the title of the 47v prayer (benedictiones ad omnia quae volueris) is at the bottom of the previous page (fol. 47r), the xb' could simply be a secondary heading.Google Scholar

26 Fol. 47r finishes a blessing of vessels (Benedictio quorumlibet vasorum), then has three brief food blessings, of fruit trees, apples, and bread; fol. 47v begins with two generic blessings for food (Benedictiones ad omnia quae volueris), elements of which turn up in other guises in the field prayers as discussed below, then has two house blessings (for analogues, see Corrêa, , Durham Collectar [n. 4 above], 213–15, items 591–98 and notes). On fol. 63v after Scribe C's blessing of milk and honey finishes, Scribe D copied blessings of grapes; of new bread; and of fruits, nuts, and apples; continuing on from fol. 63v to 64r, Scribe D copied a blessing of a well, after which Scribe E copied two generic prayers without rubric. For analogues, see Franz, Adolph Die kirchlichen Benediktionen im Mittelalter (Berlin, 1909), 1:267–69, 361–81, 610–21 and The Leofric Missal, ed. Orchard, Nicholas, HBS 113–14 (London, 2002), 2:416–19, items 2401, 2403, 2406, 2408, and 2414.Google Scholar

27 The facsimile Glossary (Ross, A. S. C. and Stanley, E. G. in Brown, T. J., ed., Durham Ritual [n. 4 above], 69) lists halgung with the glosseme creatura without noting the oddity of this translation or the possibility that it is glossing benedictus. Lindelöf (Rituale, 145) likewise leaves hælgung with creatura.Google Scholar

28 The xb' is very close to the top of the page, so possibly something has been lost above it. Lindelöf (Rituale, lxii) notes that Aldred ocassionally left a ł (vel) without an alternate word after it and suggests that either the glossator wanted to indicate that he felt uncertain about the first gloss or was seeking an alternative. Since Aldred confidently glosses creatura throughout as gi[e]scæft without an alternative, uncertainty about the translation of creatura does not seem likely; he also uses gi[e]scæft to gloss Lat. elementum and res (Ross, A. S. C. and Stanley, E. G. in Brown, T. J., ed., Durham Ritual, 80).Google Scholar

29 Or creatura appears with a relative pronoun refering back to an item: “hanc creaturam” or “creaturam istam” in a benediction (fol. 47v, Corrêa, , Durham Collectar, 215, items 595 and 596).Google Scholar

30 Part of a series of OE titled benedictions of materials in everyday life, fol. 56v–57v; Appendix B.6–7. See Corrêa, , Durham Collectar, 229–30, items 642–46; Lindelöf, Rituale, 117–19. The echo in field prayer 3 is discussed below.Google Scholar

31 Creatura aqę (prayer 1); creaturam aq: (prayer 2); creatura aq: (prayer 4); creatura aquaé (prayer 5); all are glossed gescæft vætres (OE gen. sing.). This construction also occurs on fol. 48v/3 in the hot water judicial ordeal (Corrêa, , Durham Collectar, 216–17, item 601) and on fol. 57v in another field blessing in the original collectar (Corrêa, Durham Collectar, 230, item 644; Appendix B.7), although the latter is glossed at 57v/8 with an abbreviated OE wæt (dat.?). See also the bread and cheese ordeal for clergy in Keefer, Sarah Larratt “The Corsnæd Ordeal in Anglo-Saxon England,” in The Community, the Family and the Saint: Patterns of Power in Early Medieval Europe, ed. Hill, Joyce and Swan, Mary (Turnhout, 1998), 237–64.Google Scholar

32 Old English hrippe occurs in Aldred's gloss only three times, all in these prayers. See Brown, T. J., ed., Durham Ritual glossary, 79 (rip) which cites only 66r/1 and 67r/4 for sg. dat. hrippe and 67r/13 for pl. dat. hrippum. The spelling with an initial h is an apparent Northumbrianism found also in Aldred's gloss of the Lindisfarne Gospels; see Bosworth, Joseph and Toller, T. Northcote An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary and Supplement (Oxford, 1898, 1921).Google Scholar

33 Prayer 1, fol. 66r/9 segitibus/acrum; prayer 3, fol. 66v/1 segites/acras; prayer 4, fol. 67r/8 segitibus/acrv'; and prayer 5, fol. 67r/21 segitibus/acrvm and 67v/1 segitem/æccer. The only other instance of æcer in Aldred's gloss of Durham A.IV.19 is on fol. 57v/4, a liturgical prayer for sterile fields discussed below. The Vienna 1888 version of field prayer 3, discussed below, is titled “benedictio aquae super segetes” and refers to “ipsa creatura messis.” OE æc[c]er, Modern English acre, is a Latin loanword regularly used to describe plowed land; see Fowler, P., Farming in the First Millennium AD: British Agriculture between Julius Caesar and William the Conqueror (Cambridge, 2002), 127 and Hooke, Delia The Landscape of Anglo-Saxon England (London, 1998), 126.Google Scholar

34 Fol. 66v/8–9 Semen seminalem/sed sedlic'; fol. 66v/11 semina/sedo.Google Scholar

35 Prayer 1, fol. 66r/7 uolucres/flegendo; prayer 3, fol. 66v/2 volatilibus/flegendum; prayer 4, fol. 67r/7–8 uolucres/flegendo; prayer 5, fol. 67r/12, 18, 20–21 volatilia/flegendum. This usage of flege∂ with uolucris and volatile is based on a collectar prayer (fol. 57v) for a sterile field. Both volucris and volatilis are substantives based on a root word for flying, with metaphors extended to fleeting or transitory. In late Latin, , volatile indicates fowl; Lewis, Charlton T. and Short, Charles A Latin Dictionary (Oxford, 1879). The Old English fleogende and fleogenda are similarly rooted in the verb to fly (fleogan) and have the semantic range of volucer and volatilis; however OE fleoge is the insect “fly.” Fugel, the root for “fowl,” is the common OE word for bird, often in compounds (e.g., carl-fugel, male bird or cock; fugel-bana, bird-killer or fowler); fugel also glosses volucer in other OE texts, suggesting that the latter was understood by Anglo-Saxons to refer primarily to birds rather than insects or other winged creatures (see Bosworth, and Toller, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary).Google Scholar

36 See Isidore of Seville's, Etymologies, 12:5 De vermibus and 12:7 De avibus, in Isidori Hispalensis episcopi Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. Lindsay, W. M., 2 vols. (Oxford, 1911).Google Scholar

37 BL Harley 585 s. x/xi and s. xi1, fol. 160r–163v, Lacnunga LXXVI in Pettit, , Anglo-Saxon Remedies (n. 17 above), 1:60–69 and notes 2:98–164.Google Scholar

38 Prayer 1, fol. 66r/7 demones/diublas; prayer 3, fol. 66v/2–4 demonibus/dioblum, fulminibusj lege∂um, temptatione diabuli/costunge diobles; prayer 4, fol. 67r/2–3 malum/yfel, ualitudo/cvild vel cvalm, temptatio/costung, fol. 67r/10 demonem/divl; prayer 5, fol. 67r/17–18 insidias diaboli/onsettnvngo diaboles. Lightning without the mention of thunder (punor) places the emphasis on the fiery bolt associated with Satan's fall and a spiritual threat.Google Scholar

39 Fowler, , Farming in the First Millennium, 207–8.Google Scholar

40 I have not found a likely reference to 14 kalends or the fourteenth day in a lunar cycle in any of the religious calendars; however, Bede, , De temporibus, ch. 60, discusses how the fourteenth moon is used to calculate the date of Easter; trans. Wallis, Faith Bede: The Reckoning of Time (Liverpool, 1999), 144. For an overview of liturgical prayers associated with agriculture and saints' days, see Franz, Die kirchlichen Benediktionen (n. 26 above), 1:361–88 and 2:1–12. Of particular interest are harvest prayers associated with St. Oswald, possibly as a substitute for Woden (1:380–81), blessings of oats on St. Stephen's martyrdom day in early August (1:381–85), and the September 8 blessings of seeds on the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (2:10–12, citing the Vienna 1888 field prayers discussed below).Google Scholar

41 BL Cotton Caligula A.VII, s. x–xii, fols. 176r–178r; van Kirk Dobbie, Elliott, ed., The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems, Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 6 (New York, 1942): 116–18; see also Storms, Godfrid Anglo-Saxon Magic (Halle, 1948), 172–87. The Æcerbot ritual itself is hard to locate in relation to the agricultural cycle: its focus on the plough suggests winter ploughing, its use of seeds suggests spring sowing, while its use of fresh baked bread suggests August Lammas. The seed and bread could be symbolic, though, in a fall (postharvest) first furrow ploughing. See Hill, David “The Æcerbot Charm and Its Christian User,” Anglo-Saxon England 6 (1977): 213–21; Niles, John D. “The Æcerbot Ritual in Context” in Old English Literature in Context: Ten Essays, ed. idem (Totowa, NJ, 1980): 44–56, 163–64; and Millington, Peter “The Origins of Plough Monday,” at http://freespace.virgin.net/peter.millington1/PloughMonday/Origins.htm (Copyright 1979–2004 Peter Millington [peter.millington1@virgin.net]).Google Scholar

42 Rogation Days are the three days of petition between the fifth Sunday after Easter and the celebration of Ascension Day on the following Thursday. For relevant discussion of its Roman and late antique origins, see Scullard, H. H., Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic (London, 1981), 124–25; Dumézil, Georges Archaic Roman Religion, trans. Krapp, Philip (Chicago, 1970), 1:228–33; Bardsley, Tony “Ambarvalia and the Minor Rogation Days,” First Post-Graduate Conference in Ancient Classics, University College Cork, 13 March 1999 http://www.ucc.ie/acad/classics/pg_conferences/1999/bardsley_pahtml; Van Dam, Raymond Leadership and Community in Late Antique Gaul (Berkeley, 1985), 292–94; Wood, Ian N. “Liturgy in the Rhone Valley and the Bobbio Missal,” in Hen, Yitzhak and Meens, Rob, eds., The Bobbio Missal: Liturgy and Religious Culture in Merovingian Gaul (Cambridge, 2004), 206–18; Fowler, Farming in the First Millennium, 88–91, 124–25; and de Bruyne, D. “L'Origine des Processions de la Chandelur et des Rogations à propos d'un sermon inédit,” Revue Bénédictine 34 (1932): 14–26. On Anglo-Saxon practice, see Hill, Joyce “The Litaniae Maiores and Minores in Rome, Francia and Anglo-Saxon England: Terminology, Texts and Traditions,” Early Medieval Europe 9 (2000): 211–46; Bradford Bedingfield, M. The Dramatic Liturgy of Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge, 2002), 191–209; Cross, James E. and Bazire, Joyce, eds., Eleven Old English Rogationtide Homilies (Toronto, 1982); Lapidge, Michael, ed., The Anglo-Saxon Litanies of the Saints, HBS 106 (London, 1991), 8–12; Lees, Clare Tradition and Belief: Religious Writing in Late Anglo-Saxon England (Minneapolis, 1999), 128–29; and Blair, Church in Anglo-Saxon Society (n. 7 above), 176, 225–26, 454–56, 486–89.Google Scholar

43 Hlafmæsse occurs in Anglo-Saxon texts as a date reference in Ælfric's, Catholic Homilies, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and the Computus, but is not noted in Anglo-Saxon church rituals or calendars, where August 1 is the celebration of St. Peter in chains (Petrus ad vincula) and/or the Maccabees, as well as the deposition of Æthelwold in some cases. For references to hlafmæsse and hlafmæsse-dæg, see Bosworth, and Toller, Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (n. 32 above), and for processions around fields and protective boundary markers, see Jolly, Karen Louise “Tapping the Power of the Cross: Who and for Whom?” in The Place of the Cross in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Keefer, Catherine Karkov Sarah Larratt, and Jolly, Karen (Woodbridge, 2006), 58–79; cf. 69 n. 36. In Ælfrids Catholic Homilies: The First Series, ed. Clemoes, Peter, EETS s.s. 17 (Oxford, 1997), 533–34, an addition to Homily XVI, Dominica 1 post Pacha; Ælfric's Catholic Homilies the Second Series, ed. Godden, Malcolm, EETS s.s. 5 (Oxford, 1979), 50–52 and 222, a homily for 1 August (XXII Petrus ad vincula) that mentions briefly at the end that this day is also called hlafmæsse. The earliest reference in the tenth/eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is in the entry for 921. For liturgical calendars, see Wormald, F., ed., English Kalendars before A.D. 1100, HBS 72 (Woodbridge, 1934, 1988).Google Scholar

44 Cotton Vitellius E.xviii, fol. 16a, in Jolly, , “Tapping the Power of the Cross,” 79; Cockayne, Oswald Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England (London, 1865) 3:234–35. Pliny (Naturalis Historia 18.45) mentions several remedies for repelling vermin from fields, including one for keeping birds away from grain by planting in the four corners an herb whose name he does not know. (Latin edition: Karl, F. T. Mayhoff, C. Plini Secundi naturalis historiae libri XXXVII, 3 [Stuttgart, 1967], 185–87; English translation: Bostock, John and Riley, H. T., trans., The Natural History of Pliny [London, 1855–57], 4:57–59). In the Æcerhot, produce is placed in the four corners of the field along with holy water, while the four sods cut from the corners are blessed with a mass; seeds are commanded to grow similar to the appeal to Panchiel in the Durham field prayers. The ritual for protecting a barn from rats and mice in Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College MS 385 (301) places four chalk stones in the corners and calls on St. Karicius. See Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic, 181–82. For Middle English rodent charms calling on St. Kasi (Nicasius of Rheims, fest. Dec. 14), see Dickens, Bruce and Wilson, R. M. “Sent Kasi,” Leeds Studies in English 6 (1937): 67–73.Google Scholar

45 The Benedictio novi panis would presumably be used in the fall to bless bread made from grain of the new harvest; some bread prayers are used in the mass, while others seem to be tailored to a table blessing of bread before eating (Franz, , Die kirchlichen Benediktionen, 1: 267–78; Corrêa, Durham Collectar [n. 4 above], 214 n. 594). The Benedictio panis in the original Durham collectar (fol. 47r/17–22, in Appendix B.1) is for new bread and occurs with other blessings of harvest such as trees and fruit (Corrêa, Durham Collectar, 214, item 594; Lindelöf, [n. 4 above], Rituale, 99; see also Franz, Die kirchlichen Benediktionen 1:268, no. 1, the version in Vienna 1888).Google Scholar

46 Bald's Leechbook 1:lxxii (London, British Library, Royal 12 D. XVII, s. x med., possibly Winchester, fols. 54b-56a). Fascimile: Bald's Leechbook, ed. Wright, C. E., Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile 5 (Copenhagen, 1955); edition and translation in Cockayne, Leechdoms, 1:146–49; critical edition in Deegan, Marilyn “A Critical Edition of MS. Royal, B.L. 12.D.XVII: Bald's ‘Leechbook’ Vols. 1 and 2” (PhD diss., University of Manchester, 1988), 1:105–6 and 2:278–79. The prescription acknowledges that the advice comes from southern climes in the Mediterranean where this kind of heat is more of a problem than in England.Google Scholar

47 The author would appreciate references to comparable prayers or sources, since it is entirely possible that other versions exist in liturgical texts not printed in the PL or indexed in catalogs and collation tables.Google Scholar

48 See, for example, blessings of house, bread, and produce in The Leofric Missal, ed. Orchard, (n. 26 above), 2: 416–20, items 2401–2418; The Missal of Robert of Jumièges, ed. Wilson, H. A., HBS 6 (London, 1896), 280–82; The Claudius Pontificals (from Cotton MS. Claudius A.iii in the British Museum), ed. Turner, D. H., HBS 97 (London, 1971), 1:63–65, 72; Two Anglo-Saxon Pontificals: the Egbert and Sidney Sussex Pontificals, ed. Banting, H. M. J., HBS 104 (London, 1989), 123–25; and Latin blessings of herbs at the end of the Lacnunga, CLXXXIV–CLXXXVII, fols. 192r–193r (Pettit, Anglo-Saxon Remedies, 1:126–69, 2:365–67). Note also that Durham A.IV.19's prayer on fol. 57v titled wi∂ netena ungetionu &∂iofum (Corrêa, Durham Collectar, 231, item 646), is very corrupt.Google Scholar

49 The hot iron ordeal in Durham A.IV.19 (Corrêa, , Durham Collectar, 225–27, items 632–34, Lindelöf, Rituale, 112–14) has three parts: an opening prayer citing other examples of God's fiery judgment (fol. 54r/1–19); an adjuration of the iron (fol. 54r/19–55r/6); and an Old English oath titled Halsuncge (fol. 55r/6–20); for the first two, see Appendix B.4. Aldred only started glossing the ordeal at the top of fol. 54v after stopping his gloss at the bottom of fol. 53r (fol. 53v has a hymn added over erasure by Scribe E, interrupting a marriage blessing mid-word). It is unclear why Aldred did not gloss the first page of the iron ordeal, picking up mid-sentence in the second part, other than that his glossing activity tends to end and begin with folios rather than items (in this case on the recto side of the first page in a new folio). Aldred glossed both Lat. adiurare and Lat. exorcizare with OE [ge]halsa∂: adiurare in the hot iron ordeal (fol. 54v/6, 10, 12) and the field prayers (fols. 66r/4–5, 67r/1) and exorcizare in the exorcisms of water for the hot water ordeal (fol. 48r/5, 7) and the field/house barn prayers (fol. 57r/11, v/16), as well as an exorcism of salt (fol. 58v/5). Halsung is also used in the title and opening line of the OE oath in the hot iron ordeal (fol. 55r/6–7). See Ross, and Stanley, “Glossary,” in Brown, T. J., ed., Durham Ritual (n. 4 above), 69; Corrêa, Durham Collectar, 225–27, items 632–634 and 216–19, items 599–604; Liebermann, F. Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen (Tübingen, 1960), 1:411–12 (no. V.1–2 and VI.1–2); Franz, Die kirchlichen Benediktionen, 2:367–68 (no. II. 7–8).Google Scholar

50 The Old English Halsuncge includes a similar, but shorter, list of otherworldly witnesses (it also includes plural pronouns superscripted, which accounts for the plural creaturae, balls of iron). Confusingly, field prayers 1 and 5 both refer to the twelve names God gave his Son, while field prayer 4 has a more coherent reference to the twelve apostles as named by the Son.Google Scholar

51 Corrêa, , Durham Collectar, 215, items 595–96; Lindelöf, Rituale, 99; see Appendix B.2. The opening phrase, Creator et conseruator is utilized to bless the ring at a wedding (fol. 53r), discussed below, and was also adapted for a house blessing (Benedictio domus in Franz, Die kirchlichen Benediktionen [n. 26 above], 1:608, 2:3) and a blessings of oats on St. Stephen's day, August 2 (Franz, Die kirchlichen Benediktionen, 1:385). Parts also occur in pontifical rituals, in the corsnæd ordeal for clergy (“Conseruator et creator” in Keefer, “Corsnsed Ordeal” [n. 31 above], 255) and in the Egbert Pontifical church dedication (Banting, Two Anglo-Saxon Pontificals, 41), where it also includes the “armatum uirtute caelestis defensionis” line applied to the mixture of wine and water asperging (see also the Benedictio ad omnia que volueris on fol. 151, Banting, 123, which is comparable to the Durham A.IV.19, fol. 47v second generic prayer).Google Scholar

52 Field prayer 2 asks: “permitte spiritum tuum sanctum super hanc creaturam aque“ glossed “Ðerhsend gast Ðin haligne of' Ðas gescæft vætres.” The prayer on fol. 47v reads “tu domine mitte spiritum tuum sanctum super hanc creatururam [sic] .illam.” glossed “Ðv driht' send gast Ðinne halig' of Ðas giscæft,” but the rest suggests a mealtime grace.Google Scholar

53 Also noteworthy is Aldred's error in prayer 2, where he initially glossed aeternae correctly with æces but then emended with an “r” added above and between the “c” and “e” to make æcres, field, even though he has glossed eterne with æces before. He made similar errors in his gloss to the original collectar, perhaps due to eye skip: on the Rogation lections from Jeremiah, fol. 17v, he glossed de semitis antiquis as of sedvm aldvm on an inserted line, mistaking Lat. semitas, path, for Lat. semen, seed. Simlarly, he misglossed on fol. 27v/2 semitarum with ece, a line below sempiterne glossed as ece.Google Scholar

54 This is the folio with the xb' mark discussed earlier, suggesting a connection between fol. 47v and 66r that Aldred recognized.Google Scholar

55 For other prayers and votive masses asking for agricultural blessings or protection, see for example the “Benedictio Seminis” in Claudius Pontifical 1, ed. Turner, (1971), 72; “Missa pro peste animalium” and “Missa in sterilitate terrae” in Leofric Missal A, ed. Orchard, 2:344–45, items 2061–68.Google Scholar

56 Although this is the only instance in the Durham Collectar, this incipit occurs twenty times in the Leofric Missal (ed. Orchard, ), mostly in prayers for church offices such as lector and subdeacon, consecrating church vessels (items 2384–85), but also in a baptismal exorcism (items 2478 and 2479, exorcism of body parts), and blessings for new fruit (item 2407), wells (item 2415), and health (items 2137, 2541).Google Scholar

57 Corrêa, , Durham Collectar (n. 4 above), 228–29, item 638 and note; text in Appendix B.6. The Egbert Pontifical, fol. 167r–v (Banting, Two Anglo-Saxon Pontificals [n. 47 above], 135) has the same prayer, labeled “pro emendatione cervise et aliorum elementorum, si mus aut mustella mergitur intus,” along with another one for the same purpose on the previous folio (66r–v; Banting, Two Anglo-Saxon Pontificals, 134).Google Scholar

58 Corrêa, , Durham Collectar, 229–30, items 642–45 (see Appendix B.7 for full text). For item 642, see also Franz, Die kirchlichen Benediktionen 1:128–29 no. 4; for item 643, see ibid., 2:11, no. 2, and for item 644, see ibid., 2:11, no. 1. The phrase on fol. 57v/5–6, “uermibus a uolatilibus a demonibus“ glossed “from wyrmvm from flegendvm from dioblvm,” is glossed somewhat differently in field prayer 3 (fol. 66v/1–3), where the list of evils is longer. Also, Aldred's gloss on Lat demonibus in line 2 with “from demonum vel from dioblvm” is curious; perhaps he inadvertently used the Latin root demon first then added his usual OE gloss of diobol.Google Scholar

59 Although Jerome classed the Book of Tobit as a worthy non-canonical book to include in the Vulgate, the western medieval church treated it as a canonical book of the Old Testament; see Connolly, Sean, trans., Bede on Tobit and on the Canticle of Habakkuk (Dublin, 1997), 18. However, as explored on Trail 2 below, the Book of Tobit's ancestry and angelic associations lie with a larger body of apocryphal literature. On the vexed question of defining apocrypha, see Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture: A Trial Version, ed. Biggs, F. et al. (Binghamton, NY, 1990), 22–23 and Hill, Joyce “The Apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon England: The Challenge of Changing Distinctions,” in Powell, Kathryn and Scragg, Donald, eds., Apocryphal Texts and Traditions in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, 2003), 165–68.Google Scholar

60 Also, Scribe F added Tobit lections on fol. 64v of Durham A.IV.19.Google Scholar

61 In Corrêa, , Durham Collectar, 224, items 626–30; see Appendix B.3 for the two marriage blessings on fol. 53r/15–21 discussed here. The title “in thalamo” occurs after item 626 but probably should include it. There may have been more marriage or other benedictions after this, but 53v was erased and a new text, a Passiontide hymn, was added by Scribe E. See also the Egbert Pontifical, fol. 166r (Banting, Two Anglo-Saxon Pontificals, 134) for a similar Benedictio anuli beginning with the Creator et conseruator line.Google Scholar

62 See Appendix B.5 for the text of this prayer on fol. 55v/15–56r/4 (wiÐ egna sare sinc Ðis) and for comparable texts in the Lacnunga (Harley 585 f. 181r–v, item CL in Pettit, , Anglo-Saxon Remedies [n. 17 above], 1: 104–5 and 2:285–86 for comparisons with variants, as well as Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic [n. 41 above], 314, items A3–4) and Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 41, 326, discussed below.Google Scholar

63 Prayer 4 reads “sicut asmadeus demon qui fugitiuus est a felle piscis per raphahelem archangelum sic fugantur uolucres a nostris segitibus“ while Prayer 5 has slightly different syntax and vocabulary: “sicut fugit asmadeus demon qui fugitiuus est a felle piscis per raphahelem archangelum sic fugantur uolatilia a segitibus nostris.” The addition of fugit in prayer 5 is grammatically clearer, while the substitution of uolatilia for uolucres and the reversal of segitibus nostris suggests experimentation with variations in the sources. Also, in both prayers Aldred glossed the name Asmodeus (asmadeus) with wiÐirwordagod (hostile rebel, adversary, or heretic god), associating asma- with the concept of contrary, opposite, or adversarial gods who are demons. See Sanz, Sara Maria Pons, “Aldredian Glosses to Proper Names in the Lindisfarne Gospels,” Anglia 119 (2001): 190 and Boyd, “Aldrediana XXV: Ritual Hebraica” (n. 1 above), 31–39 for an analysis of this derivation (unfortunately they do not offer a similar analysis of Panchiel).Google Scholar

64 Zachary, Pope, Epistola IX to Boniface, PL 89: 938–39; The Letters of Saint Boniface, trans Emerton, Ephraim (New York, 1973), 98–107, XLVII [59], concerning the case of heresy against a charismatic preacher named Aldebert. The archangels Aldebert named as his sources were Uriel, Raguel, Tubuel, Michael, Adinus, Tubuas, Sabaoc, and Simiel (Emerton, , Letters, 105). The condemnation may have had more to do with the content of Aldebert's revelations than the angelic sources he named and thus this proscription might not have received widespread application in practice. See Russell, Jeffrey B. “Saint Boniface and the Eccentrics,” Church History 33 (1964): 235–47 on the mixture of gnostic, liturgical, and Jewish traditions evident in Aldebert's list. On demons and angels in the early Middle Ages, see Keck, David Angels and Angelology in the Middle Ages (New York, 1998), 51, 63, and 167 on Tobit, and Flint, Valerie The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe (Princeton, 1991), 146–72, esp. 167–72 on the Aldebert incident. Noteworthy also in these angelic lists is the frequency of names related to Tobit or from the story, such as Raguel, Tobias' father-in-law.Google Scholar

65 The pseudepigraphal Testament of Solomon, for example, relates how the wise king summoned up various demons by name, forced them to reveal their specialties and the names of the angels who thwart them, then coerced them into building parts of the temple for him; the text lists thirty-six who have charge of various illnesses and afflictions; see Charlesworth, James, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (Garden City, NY, 1983), 1: 935–87.Google Scholar

66 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 41 (s. xi1–xi med., southern England), 326; Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile (ASMMF), vol. 11, ed. Graham, Timothy, Grant, Raymond J. S. Lucas, Peter J., and Treharne, Elaine M. (Tempe, AZ, 2003), item 25. Texts in Appendix B.5c. See Jolly, Karen Louise “On the Margins of Orthodoxy: Devotional Formulas and Protective Prayers in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 41,” in Signs on the Edge: Space, Text and Margins in Medieval Manuscripts, ed. Keefer, Sarah Larratt and Bremmer, Rolf H. Jr., (Gronigen, forthcoming).Google Scholar

67 Besides Panchiel in the field prayers, an angel Raguel, a name on Aldebert's proscribed list, shows up in an alphabet list at the end of Aldred's additions in Durham A.IV.19, fol. 99v: “R. Raguel, id est fortis, id est satahel.” See Boyd, , “Aldrediana XXV: Ritual Hebraica,” 5556.Google Scholar

68 Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, codex latinus 1888 (fomerly Vindob. 685); microfilm facsimile available at the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, Collegeville, MN. The 6r–v benedictions can be found in Andrieu, Michel, Vogel, Cyrille, and Elze, Reinhard Le Pontifical Romano-Germanique du dixième siècle (Vatican City, 1963), 363, CCXIV; PL 138:1091A; Gerbert, Martin Monumenta veteris liturgiae alemannicae (St. Blase, 1777–79; repr. Hildesheim, 1967), 2:92–93; Franz, Die kirchlichen Benediktionen (n. 26 above), 2:11; manuscript contents in Andrieu, Michel Les Ordines romani du haut moyen-âge, 1: Les manuscrits (Louvain, 1931), 404–19. Vienna 1888 was subsequently given to another monastery, St. Marguerite de Waldkirch, for use in pastoral care and worship; Andrieu, (Les Ordines, 404–6) dates the manuscript from which Vienna 1888 was copied to 936–62 because of two invocations of King Otto I (king from 936, crowned emperor 962); see also Vogel, Cyrille Medieval Liturgy: An Introduction to the Sources, rev. and trans. Storey, William G. and Krogh, Niels Rasmussen (Washington, DC, 1986), 233.Google Scholar

69 Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, codex latinus 701 (St. Albans, Mainz, 11th c.), fols. 132r-133r, along with the eleventh-century Bamberg Lit. 53, fol. 134v and the twelfth-century Wolfenbüttel 530 fol. 287v in Andrieu, , Vogel, , and Elze, Le Pontifical Romano-Germanique, 2:363–67. See also Vogel, Medieval Liturgy, 230–31.Google Scholar

70 Text transcribed from Gerbert, , Monumenta, 2:92 and checked against the manuscript microfilm facsimile.Google Scholar

71 Andrieu, et al., Le Pontifical Romano-Germanique, 363. Andrieu CCXIV B (363–67) is very similar to A but continues with ritual actions, antiphons, and prayers for a full mass based on Vienna 701, fol. 132r–133r.Google Scholar

72 The phrase “a nostris segitibus” occurs in Durham field prayer 1 in a similar context, preceded by the list of similar pests and followed by an invocation of the deity (Vienna 1888 calls on the name of Christ while Durham field prayer 1 invokes the Trinity).Google Scholar

73 This is the first of the two Durham field, barn, and house blessings on fol. 57v, preceding the alia in row one of the chart.Google Scholar

74 See Appendix, A for the full text of Prayer 4.Google Scholar

75 See Keynes, , “King Athelstan's Books” in Learning and Literature (n. 11 above), 143–201; Gretsch, Intellectual Foundations, 248–49, 352–53, and 364; and Corrêa, Durham Collector (n. 4 above), 121–22.Google Scholar

76 Another factor suggesting Prayer 4 is a composite base for variation is the mangled Latin syntax combined with the use of vel in two places giving alternate text for certain phrases (the first spelled out uel, the second using the abbreviation): “qui hac creatura aliquid sumat uel super effussa terra inlessa permaneat. ut magnificetur nomen tuum in uniuersa terra ł in omni loco”; “that this creature may take root or, cast upon the earth, may remain unharmed. May your name be magnified in all the earth, or in all places….” Both the alternates have to do with the sense of place or space covered by the prayer.Google Scholar

77 Davidson, Gustav, A Dictionary of Angels, Including the Fallen Angels (London, 1967), 220, 224; Michl, J. “Katalog der Engelnamen” in RAC, 5:200–239. Franz, Die kirchlichen Benediktionen, 2:11 n. 8, believes Paniel (Penon-El or Pné-El) is the obvious reference in the field prayers.Google Scholar

78 Schwab, M., Vocabulaire de l'angélologie d'après les manuscrits hébreux de la bibliothèque nationale (Paris, 1897), 222, has Penou El, Pné El, face of God; Charlesworth, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2:709; Bonner, Campbell Studies in Magical Amulets, Chiefly Graeco-Egyptian (Ann Arbor, MI, 1950), 171.Google Scholar

79 1 Enoch 40, ed. and trans. Charlesworth, , Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 1:32. 1 Enoch 20:1–7 (ibid., 1:23–24) also gives a longer list of six or seven archangels with their attributes: Suru'el (Uriel), Raphael, Raguel, Michael, Saraqa'el (Sarakiel), Gabriel, and in some versions, Remiel (the fragmentary Greek versions of 1 Enoch have six, whereas the Ethiopic has seven); see ibid., 1:242, on how angelic names were constructed in Merkabah mysticism and 1:266–67 for a longer list of angelic names with attributes. James, M. R. “Names of Angels in Anglo-Saxon and other Documents,” Journal of Theological Studies 11 (1909/10): 569–71, notes that a fragment of Enoch survives in BL Royal 5.E.xiii (eighth century).Google Scholar

80 The Neoplatonic tradition carried the concept of ordered hierarchies of spiritual beings through into early medieval angelology, evident in the prominent influence of Pseudo-Dionysius's Celestial Hierarchy. For a discussion of the active role of the angels in pastoral care and the performance of the liturgy, see both Keck, , Angels and Angelology (n. 64 above), 18, 173–79 and Peterson, Erik The Angels and the Liturgy: The Status and Significance of the Holy Angels in Worship, trans. Ronald Walls (London, 1964).Google Scholar

81 Bonner, , Studies in Magical Amulets, 3031.Google Scholar

82 Ibid., 170–71.Google Scholar

83 Meyer, Marvin W. and Smith, Richard, eds., Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power (Princeton, 1994), 135. The name Paniel is also found on at least one Hebrew amulet, demonstrating its prophylatic use, and associated with the North Wind (Davidson, Dictionary of Angels, 220; Michl, “Katalog der Engelnamen,” 226; Franz, Die kirchlichen Benediktionen [n. 26 above], 2:11 n. 8). 3 Baruch has Phanael as an archangel, an angel of hosts, and an interpreter of revelations (Charlesworth, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 1:657). According to the Testament of Adam (4:2), archangels have charge of created things such as animals, birds, fish, reptiles (ibid., 1:995); in the Life of Adam and Eve, it is Michael who introduces agriculture to them (ibid., 2:253). On the other hand, the fallen angels named in 1 Enoch 6–7 who mate with women also teach humans the magical medicine of plants and incantations and are guilty of abusing birds, animals, reptiles, and fish (ibid., 1:15–16).Google Scholar

84 For a discussion of Irish loricae and their roots in Hebrew, Greek, and Egyptian practices, see Kenney, J. F., The Sources for the Early History of Ireland (New York, 1929), 1: 254–72, 723 and Herren, M. The Hisperica Famina: II. Related Poems (Toronto, 1987), 30. On the Irish tradition of angels, see Nagy, Joseph Falaky Conversing with Angels and Ancients: Literary Myths of Medieval Ireland (Ithaca, NY, 1997). Also noteworthy is that the Irish, with their strong tradition of listing and naming, adapted Jerome's Liber de nominibus Hebraicis (Brown, M. Lindisfarne [n. 7 above], 163).Google Scholar

85 Cary, John, “Angelology in Saltair na Rann,” Celtica 19 (1987): 6, developed this list, which complements the list of seven references to archangels traced by James, M. R. in “Names of Angels in Anglo-Saxon”; see also the listing suggested in Kitzinger, Ernest “The Coffin-Reliquary,” in The Relics of St. Cuthbert, ed. Battiscombe, C. F. (Oxford, 1956), 274–77 and McNally, R. E. Der irische Liber de numeris: Eine Quellenanalyse des pseudoisidorischen Liber de numeris (Munich, 1957), 126–27 for numerical significance, especially of seven archangels. The unusual use of ch- also occurs in another example of an Old English text suspected of Irish influence. The cattle theft remedy in the bottom margin of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 41, 206 includes a peculiar litany: “petur pol patric pilip marie brigit felic in nomine. d[e]i. 7 chiric qui queri inuenit.” The predominance of Irish saints suggests its origins, while “chiric” could refer to either St. Cyriacus or the church (OE cirice).Google Scholar

86 Leiden, Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit MS Voss. Q.2, fol 60 (s. ixex), a cover from another manuscript; identified as Welsh script of the end of the ninth century (Herren, , Hisperica Famina 2, 14; Kenney, Sources, 272); ed. and trans. in Herren, Hisperica Famina 2, 90, lines 26–28: “euacuat Gabriel cor. N. pro amore; aeuacuat Mihaael cor. N. pro amore; aeuacuat Raphiael, , aeuacuat Uriael, aeuacuat Sariael, aeuacuat Panahiael.” “Let Gabriel purify the heart of N for the sake of my love. Let Michael purify the heart of N on account of my love; Let Raphiel, Uriel, Sariel and Panahiel do likewise.” Herren, Hisperica Famina 2, 144, speculates on line 28: “The spelling Panahiael might reflect the etymologizing of the name into the elements παν and El. … The spelling -ael for -el is purely graphemic.” He also suggests (ibid., 47) possible transmission of Enoch materials through southwest Britain into Ireland (cf. also Kenney, Sources, 257).Google Scholar

87 Saltair na Rann, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson B. 502, fols. 19–40, ca. AD 1130 (The Book of Glendalough); Stokes, W., Saltair na Rann (Oxford, 1883), 12, lines 793–804 in poem 3; translation in Carey, John King of Mysteries: Early Irish Religious Writings (Dublin, 1998), 123; for discussion, see Carey, “Angelology,” 1–8.Google Scholar

88 See O'Nolan, Thomas P., “Imchlód Aingel” in Miscellany Presented to Kuno Meyer, ed. Bergin, O. and Marstrander, C. (Halle, 1912), 253–57, an edition of Royal Irish Academy MS 23 P 16, An Leabhar Breac (Speckled Book), 262 b 9 (with later manuscripts and copies listed). O'Nolan, (Imchlod Aingel, 254) lists the archangels in lines 5–8 as Michel, Raphial, Urial, Sarial, Raphael, Painiel, Gabriel; in line 7 Painiel is described as dian or “swift.” The second list (ibid., 254–55, lines 9–15, with variants in brackets) has Michel, Rauphel [Rumial], Urial, Sarial, Rumial, Panuhel [Panael, Painiall], Gabriel; line 14 describes “Panuhél puirt Dé / dom dín ar cech druing, For theidm Sathairn seing, / for rind cathairm cuirr.” “Phanuel of the harbour of God to protect me against every company, against the pestilence of lean Saturday, against the point of a sharp battle-weapon.” Translation by John Carey, personal correspondence.Google Scholar

89 See O'Nowlan, T. P. (Nualláin, Tomás P. Ua), “A Prayer to the Archangels for Each Day of the Week,” in idem, Ériu 2 (1905): 9294, an edition and translation of Royal Irish Academy MS 23 P3, fol. 19; see Kenney, , Sources, 731, item 599 for later manuscript witnesses. O'Nowlan's list of archangels in sequence: Sunday is Gabriel, powerful against evil and injury; Monday is Michael, compared to Jesus; Tuesday is Raphael, for help “as long as I am on the field of the world,” which O'Nowlan says refers to “a nightfield for cattle, field, land, pasture, sheep-walk”; Wednesday is Uriel, powerful against wound, danger, and rough wind; Thursday is Sariel, useful for swift waves of sea, every evil that comes to a man, and every disease; Friday is Rumiel, a blessing, “good the friend I have taken”; Saturday is Panchel, to be with me “as long as I am on the yellow world” with the second half supplied from Add. 30512 in Flower, Robin Eriu 5 (1911): 112: “Panachel i sSatharnaib lim cein bheo arin mbith mbuidhe: dom shmerad ar echtrannaib le cheile is cumraidhe Muire,” translated John Carey (personal correspondence), “Panachel with me on Saturdays, as long as I am alive in the yellow world, to free me from foreigners, together with fragrant Mary.”Google Scholar

90 BL Egerton 1782, fol. 45a 1, ed. Meyer, Kuno, “Mitteilungen aus irischen Texten V,” Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 4 (1903): 234–37. Carey, John, personal correspondence, offered the following translation, with the glossed answer in brackets: “The five which you ask of us, / Who are keeping the five elements, / Keeping fire [Uriél], earth [Sariél], / Air [Panahél], water [Rapael], the lofty soul [Míchael].”Google Scholar

91 Dublin, Trinity College 1336 (formerly H.3.17), col. 672c. “Gabriel be to me a shield of my head. Michael be to me my helmet of hope. Palathel be to me health. Irafin be to me glory. Seraphim be to me a protective escort. In the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit, world without end, amen.” See Best, R. I., “Some Irish Charms,” Eriu 16 (1919): 3132. As discussed below, this prayer is found in ninth-century Irish-influenced Anglo-Saxon prayer books with Paniel instead of Palathel for health.Google Scholar

92 Two other continental examples from the early Middle Ages show that the tendency to name angels is widespread, if more pronounced in Irish Christianity's early formation. One is a Carolingian litany that lists near the top, after Christ and Mary, Ss. Michael, Gabrihel, Rafahel, Orihel, Raguhel, Tobihel, Cherubim, and Seraphim, before proceeding to the Apostles (Mabillon, Jean, Vetera Analecta, sive Collectio veterum, etc. [Paris, 1723; repr. Paris, 1967], 170). Another example is the eighth-century Bobbio Missal from an Irish foundation in Northern Italy, which has a set of untitled formulae (“incantations” labeled by Lowe as “Deuotiones siue Imprecationes”), copied in an alternate hand of the manuscript. Bobbio Missal: A Gallican Mass Book, ed. Lowe, E. A., HBS 58 (London, 1920), 153, item 497, fol. 253v–254r. It includes a protective litany of archangels: “+ angelus micael + angelus gabriel angelus oriel angelus racoel angelus paracoel angelus oriel angelus rafael.” The scribe, whose spelling and Latinity are suspect, got the authorized three archangels correct (Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael), while the rest of the names appear garbled compared to other sources listing seven archangels (he included Uriel twice, and then the odd Racoel and Paracoel). This example from the Bobbio Missal illustrates how angelic names could be constructed and reconstructed, perhaps partly through oral transmission.Google Scholar

93 An Old High German angelic lorica, without Paniel, appears in a twelfth- or thirteenth-century hand in a German service book. The “Benediktbeuerer Ratschläge und Gebete” lists Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Raguel, Barachiel, Pantassaron, Uriel; in Wilhelm, Friedrich, Denkmäler deutscher Prosa des 11. und 12. Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1916; 1960), XXXIII, 104–7 from Munich Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm. 4616 (Ben 116), fol. 52va–54ra; for manuscript information, see Mullenhoff, Karl Victor and Scherer, Wilhelm Denkmäler deutscher Poesie und Prosa aus dem VIII–XII Jahrhundert, 3rd ed. (Berlin, 1892), 2:271 (item XLVI, a messegesang from the same manuscript). Also, BerhtgyÐ, a member of Boniface's German mission, wrote octosyllabic verses that end with angelic and divine names some take to be a magic invocation: elonqueel. et michael. accadai. adonai. alleuatia alleluia. Christine Fell notes that this is an alleluia trope, if spelled oddly, and follows from the preceding hymn; eadem, “Some Implications of the Boniface Correspondence,” in New Readings on Women in Old English Literature, ed. Damico, Helen and Hennessey, Alexandra Olsen (Bloomington, 1990), 43 n. 21.Google Scholar

94 “Who is over all fruits of the earth and over seeds, along with forty-four thousand angels.”Google Scholar

95 Marsden, Richard, The Text of the Old Testament in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, 1995), 171–81, 215–17, 232–35 on the Ceolfrithian Tobit from Wearmouth-Jarrow, Bede, and Alcuin.Google Scholar

96 Connolly, , Bede on Tobit and on the Canticle of Habakkuk (n. 59 above), 42; CCL 119B:1–19.Google Scholar

97 Hohler, Christopher, “The Durham Services in Honour of St. Cuthbert,” in The Relics of St. Cuthbert, ed. Battiscombe, (n. 85 above), 155–91, for liturgies on both his death date of March 20 and his translation of September 4, as well as private meditations. Although ironically Aldred needed to update the liturgy for his own community's founder, the cult of Cuthbert was becoming quite popular elsewhere, particularly in Germany, an interesting connection given the Mainz origins of the Vienna 1888 field prayer with Panchiel discussed above.Google Scholar

98 Bedae Vita Sancti Cuthberti, chapter II and chapters XIX–XX in Colgrave, Bertram, ed. and trans., Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert: A Life by an Anonymous Monk of Lindisfarne and Bede's Prose Life (Cambridge, 1940), 158–61, 220–25; Bede, Carmina Vita S. Cuthberti, ch. III, PL 94:577–78.Google Scholar

99 Cavill, Paul, “Some Dynamics of Story-telling: Animals in the Early Lives of St. Cuthbert,” Nottingham Medieval Studies 43 (1999): 120, discusses the differences between Bede's handling of the animal stories and the more Irish-influenced Anonymous Vita, arguing that Bede rejects the Celtic apprehension of human relations with animals as naturalistic and harmonious. Cavill (ibid., 5) notes that the driving away of the birds is the one animal story Bede added to his account, notably a negative one compared to the helper animals in the other stories; he also points out (ibid., 11) the connection made by Anonymous and not by Bede between angels and animals in the otter story.Google Scholar

100 Bedae Vita Sancti Cuthberti, ch. XIX in Colgrave, , ed., Two Lives, 220–23 and ch. XX, 223–24. Bede, Carmina Vita S. Cuthberti, ch. XVIII, PL 94:584.Google Scholar

101 Abram had a very similar power to scatter birds from the field in the pseudepigraphal Book of Jubilees, closely associated with 1 Enoch (Charlesworth, , Old Testament Pseudepigrapha [n. 65 above], 2:49, cf. 40). Jubilees 11 (ibid., 2:79) details how Abram as a young lad of fourteen astonishes his neighbors in Ur by effectively warding off marauding ravens sent by the demon Mastema to ravage the fields. Abram succeeds by running at the flocks and ordering them to depart (seventy times!); subsequently the birds stayed away from him and any lands where he went. Then Abram teaches the farmers how to put a device on the plough that will deposit the seed directly into the ground, a much more practical solution (comparable to the Æcerbot description of placing blessed items in the seed hole of the plough). Nonetheless, Abram's bird-scaring technique is treated as a miraculous sign of divine favor. See also Nickelsburg, George W. E. “The Experience of Demons (and Angels) in 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and the Book of Tobit” at http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/psco/year25/8803a.shtml#1988.Google Scholar

102 Nagy, , Conversing with Angels and Ancients (n. 84 above), 150, cites the story of Adomnan where the community, fearing drought and famine, carried relics of Columba around the fields and then read from his books on the “Hill of the Angels,” a spot where angels were once seen talking to Columba. Cavill (“Some Dynamics,” 4) notes the connection between animal stories, Irish saints' lives, the Vita Pauli, and Northumbrian artwork.Google Scholar

103 In addition to works already cited on the apocrypha and archangels, see Dumville, David N., “Biblical Apocrypha and the Early Irish: A Preliminary Investigation,” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 73 (1973): 299–338; Herbert, Máire and McNamara, Martin Irish Biblical Apocrypha: Selected Texts in Translation (Edinburgh, 1989); McNamara, Martin The Apocrypha in the Irish Church (Dublin, 1975); Wright, Charles The Irish Tradition in Old English Literature (Cambridge, 1993); Cross, James E., ed., Two Old English Apocrypha and Their Manuscript Source: The Gospel of Nichodemus and the Avenging of the Saviour, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 19 (Cambridge, 1997); Cross, James E. “An Unpublished Story of Michael the Archangel and Its Connections,” Magister Regis: Studies in Honor of Robert Early Kaske (New York, 1986), 23–35; Johnson, Richard F. “Archangel in the Margins: St. Michael in the Homilies of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 41,” Traditio 53 (1998): 63–91; idem, Saint Michael the Archangel in Medieval English Legend (Woodbridge, 2005); Sims-Williams, Patrick Religion and Literature in Western England 600–800 (Cambridge, 1990), 286 n. 57; and Brown, M. Cerne, 138–39.Google Scholar

104 The Collectanea Pseudo-Bedae, ed. Bayless, and Lapidge, 197, item 387, translation: “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Gabriel be my breast-plate, Michael be my sword-belt, Raphael be my shield, Uriel be my guardian, Rumiel be my protector, Paniel be my health.” The now lost manuscript on which the Collectanea is based cannot be dated, but this item and the surrounding texts are thought to date from the eighth century based on their similarity to the Book of Cerne and Book of Nunnaminster (Bayless, and Lapidge, Collectanea, 10–11).Google Scholar

105 Cambridge, University Library, Ll. i. 10 (ca. 820–840), The Prayer Book of Aedeluald the Bishop Commonly Called the Book of Cerne, ed. Kuypers, A. B. (Cambridge, 1902), 153; Brown, Cerne, 141–42 and Carey, “Angelology” (n. 85 above), 6. The name Phannihel was modified to Panihel through erasure (Kuypers, Prayer Book, 153 n. c).Google Scholar

106 BL Harley 7653 (c. 900, Mercia, poss. Worcester), ASMMF (n. 66 above) 1.8, Gneuss, Handlist (n. 4 above), item 443, Ker, Catalogue (n. 4 above), item 244; ed. in the appendix to The Antiphonary of Bangor, ed. Warren, F. E., HBS 10, Part 2 (London, 1895), 83–93 at 85, cf. notes at 92: “Michaelem sanctum gloriosum deprecor. Rafael et uriel gabriel et raguel heremiel et azael ut suscipiant animam meam in nouissimo die cum choro angelorum et perducent eam ad amoenitatem paradisi.” Earlier in the deprecations (fol. 2v) a demon named Egiptius is thwarted by angelic assistance, probably a reference to Tobit 8:3 where Raphael binds Asmodeus in the desert of upper Egypt to which the demon had fled. Harley 7653 is closely associated with other Irish-influenced private prayer books like Cerne, BL Harley 2965 (Book of Nunnaminster) and BL Royal 2.A.xx.Google Scholar

107 Thacker, Alan, “Lindisfarne and the Origins of the Cult of St. Cuthbert,” 107, Cronyn, J. M. and Horie, C. V. “The Anglo-Saxon Coffin: Further Investigations,” 247–56, and Page, R. I. “Roman and Runic on St Cuthbert's Coffin,” 257–65, in St. Cuthbert, His Cult and His Community, ed. Bonner, et al.; Kitzinger, “The Coffin-Reliquary” in The Relics of St. Cuthbert, ed. Battiscombe, (n. 85 above), 202–307, esp. 273–77 on the angels. Other references to seven archangels noted by Kitzinger, Thacker, and James include a Merovingian tomb in Poitiers with Raguel; and the Textus Roffensis (Rochester, s. early xii), which has “Hec sunt nomina septem archangelorum, Michael, Gabrihel, Raphael, Urihel, Barachiel, Raguhel, Pantasaron,” the same list found in a ninth- or tenth-century Cologne manuscript with a prayer found down to end of Middle Ages: “Cum mane surrexeris Michaelem in mente habeto” (James, “Names of Angels,” 571).Google Scholar

108 The coffin inscriptions of names vary between runes and Roman script, making it even more difficult to imagine a reconstruction of the orthography or how Pan[ch]iel would appear in a runic inscription. If Aldred or someone else in Northumbria transliterated the name from runes, it might explain the two different spellings in the Durham field prayers, Panchiel and Panachihel.Google Scholar

109 Cronyn, J. M. and Horie, C. V. St. Cuthbert's Coffin: The History, Technology and Conservation (Durham, 1985), 66, speculate on how the coffin was carried, either by handles or on a bier.Google Scholar

110 On the church localizing and integrating lay culture, see Blair, , Church in Anglo-Saxon Society (n. 7 above), 345–46; on vernacularizing, see Haug, Walter Vernacular Literary Theory in the Middle Ages: The German Tradition, 800–1300, in Its European Context (Cambridge, 1997), 1–2; on hermeneutic tools, see Kinane, Karolyn “The Cross as Interpretive Guide for Ælinc's Homilies and Saints' Lives,” in The Place of the Cross, ed. Karkov, et al. 96–110; on the inculturation of Roman liturgical practices in Northumbria, see Carragáin, Éamonn Ó Ritual and the Rood: Liturgical Images and the Old English Poems of the Dream of the Rood Tradition (Toronto, 2005), 46–47, 223, 284.Google Scholar

111 In this light, the significance of Aldred's Old English gloss deserves further study to show how he thought about the Latin rituals in terms of their use in his local community. Even his “errors,” as in prayer 2 where he changes ece to æces, tell us about the thought processes of a moment in time and place.Google Scholar

112 Buc, Philippe, “Ritual and Interpretation: The Early Medieval Case,” Early Medieval Europe 9 (2000): 186.Google Scholar

113 On angels in liturgy and worship, see Peterson, , Angels and the Liturgy (n. 80 above); Olsen, Glenn W. Beginning at Jerusalem: Five Reflections on the History of the Church (San Francisco, 1994), 39–65; in the Irish tradition, Nagy, Conversing with Angels and Ancients (n. 86 above); and on Christianizing magic, Flint, Rise of Magic (n. 64 above), 171–72.Google Scholar

114 Transcriptions from Durham A.IV.19 based on a comparison of editions by Corrêa and Lindelöf with manuscript and facsimile edition. Latin abbreviations expanded in italics. Old English abbreviation marks (generally macrons) over consonants or syllables indicated by an apostrophe. Ellipses indicate damaged areas of the manuscript.Google Scholar

115 Corrêa, , Durham Collectar (n. 4 above), 214, item 594; Lindelöf, Rituale (n. 4 above), 99.Google Scholar

116 Superscript “n” added as correction by scribe O.Google Scholar

117 Corrêa, , Durham Collectar, 215, items 595–96; Lindelöf, Rituale, 99. Title is on fol. 47r/22.Google Scholar

118 Creatururam should be creaturam. Neither Corrêa nor Lindelöf note this orthographic error of a reduplicating syllable.Google Scholar

119 Corrected to gustaverint by Corrêa and Lindelöf.Google Scholar

120 Corrêa and Lindelöf have generi but MS has generis (Corrêa does not note the change).Google Scholar

121 Corrêa adds missing ut here.Google Scholar

122 Keefer, , “Corsnsed Ordeal” (n. 31 above), 255–56: “Preserver and creator of mankind, giver of spiritual grace, bestower of eternal salvation, send out your spirit on this creature of bread or cheese, with fear and terror of your might of your arm against him / those who come(s) with pride and obstinacy and also wicked zeal, and wish(es) to subvert justice and abuse judgement.”Google Scholar

123 BN Lat. 10575 (s. x med. or x2 or x/xi); Gneuss, Handlist (n. 4 above), item 896; Ker, Catalogue (n. 4 above), item 370; Banting, Two Anglo-Saxon Pontificals (n. 47 above), 41 and 123.Google Scholar

124 Corrêa, , Durham Collector, 224, items 628–29; Lindelöf, Rituale, 111.Google Scholar

125 Corrêa, , Durham Collector, 225–26, items 632–33; Lindelöf, Rituale, 112–14. The OE oath Halsuncge follows.Google Scholar

126 Erasure of two or more letters after ardere (a reduplicating re?).Google Scholar

127 Corrêa substitutes inmunes.Google Scholar

128 mo/de with “o” added above final “e.”Google Scholar

129 Corrêa corrects to illo.Google Scholar

130 -ti reduplicated on next page.Google Scholar

131 commissum suum supplied by Corrêa, .Google Scholar

132 uoluit supplied by Corrêa, .Google Scholar

133 Corrêa, , Durham Collector, 228, item 636; Lindelöf, Rituale, 115.Google Scholar

134 Pettit, , Anglo-Saxon Remedies, 1: 104–5; 2:285–86 for other comparable texts.Google Scholar

135 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 41, s. xi1–xi med., southern England (?); Gneuss, , Handlist (n. 4 above), item 39; Ker, Catalogue (n. 4 above), item 32; ASMMF (n. 66 above), 11.25; Grant, Raymond S. J. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 41: The Loricas and the Missal (Amsterdam, 1978).Google Scholar

136 “For sore eyes: Holy lord, omnipotent Father, eternal God, heal the eyes of this man, your servant N., just as you healed the eyes of Tobit's son [sic] and of many other blind persons, [you are] the hands of the poor, the feet of the lame, the health of the sick, the resurrection of the dead, the joy of the martyrs and all saints. I pray lord that you will raise and illumine the eyes of your servant N. in whatever the condition of his health, you would deign to heal him with heavenly cures, to grant that your servant N., fortified with the arms of justice, may resist the devil and may reach the eternal kingdom. Through….”Google Scholar

137 “For sore ears: Christ king of glory (?) the angel Raphael shut out [the demon] Fondorahel from the ears of this servant of God. Recede soon the torturing [pain] from his ears, but through the angel Raphael you will restore wholeness to his hearing. Through….”Google Scholar

138 “For great sickness: Help us God of our health, remove the evil angel Lanielem who makes stomachs sick, but through your holy angel Dormiel grant health to your servant in your holy healing name.”Google Scholar

139 Corrêa, , Durham Collectar, 228–29, item 638; Lindelöf, Rituale, 116.Google Scholar

140 GENI added above -ti in Aldred's hand.Google Scholar

141 Corrêa, , Durham Collectar, 229–30, items 642–45; Lindelöf, Rituale, 117–19; see also Franz, Die kirchlichen Benediktionen (n. 26 above), 1:128–29 no. 4; 2:11 no. 2, and no. 1. University of Hawai'i MānoaGoogle Scholar

142 Missing in Lindelöf's transcription.Google Scholar

143 Ut/ntur on the line break is missing a -u to make utuntur.Google Scholar