Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the new edition, AD 2000
- Introduction to the 1975 edition of The Search for Anglo-Saxon Paganism
- PART I THE SEARCH FOR ANGLO-SAXON PAGANISM
- 1 The Romantic background
- 2 The English branch of the German tree
- 3 Christianity puts an end to folk-poetry
- 4 ‘Half-veiled remains of pagan poetry’
- 5 English and German views on the conversion of the English
- 6 J.M. Kemble
- 7 The views of the founders seen through the writings of their lesser contemporaries
- 8 English views of the late nineteenth century and after
- 9 Stock views disintegrating Old English poems and finding Germanic antiquities in them
- 10 The gods Themselves
- 11 Wyrd
- 12 Conclusion
- PART II ANGLO-SAXON TRIAL BY JURY
- I. Index of sources
- II. Index of scholars, critics, and authors
- III. General Index
4 - ‘Half-veiled remains of pagan poetry’
from PART I - THE SEARCH FOR ANGLO-SAXON PAGANISM
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the new edition, AD 2000
- Introduction to the 1975 edition of The Search for Anglo-Saxon Paganism
- PART I THE SEARCH FOR ANGLO-SAXON PAGANISM
- 1 The Romantic background
- 2 The English branch of the German tree
- 3 Christianity puts an end to folk-poetry
- 4 ‘Half-veiled remains of pagan poetry’
- 5 English and German views on the conversion of the English
- 6 J.M. Kemble
- 7 The views of the founders seen through the writings of their lesser contemporaries
- 8 English views of the late nineteenth century and after
- 9 Stock views disintegrating Old English poems and finding Germanic antiquities in them
- 10 The gods Themselves
- 11 Wyrd
- 12 Conclusion
- PART II ANGLO-SAXON TRIAL BY JURY
- I. Index of sources
- II. Index of scholars, critics, and authors
- III. General Index
Summary
In the early nineteenth century the critical attitude of Anglo-Saxon scholars determined the selection of texts which they thought worthy of attention; rude rocks, blind deserts, and dark caverns were what they loved most, and when a textbook provided them with extracts that seemed to them too far removed from their favourite haunts, they protested and attacked the compiler of the book. In 1838 Leo published his book of selections, including religious as well as secular texts. He was savagely attacked for it by Ettmüller, especially for including Æfric's preface to Genesis, ‘Surely such things could today only find acceptance and praise from brain-sick conventiclers.’ Leo (after quoting Ettmüller's vituperation) defended himself:
As if it were right to select from the literature of a nation which we wish to get to know those things only which accord with the interests of the present day. What better means than by this extract could I have found for characterizing the manner of Old Testament exegesis which Sts Ambrose and Augustine made supreme, and which St Boniface and Alcuin caused to be the only one in Germany for a long time?
Perhaps Ettmuüller's attack was a reaction against Leo's extreme championship of church history. G.P. Gooch quotes, as typical no doubt, Leo's utterance, ‘Since Constantine the history of the Christian Church forms the kernel, the soul, the life of universal history.’
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Imagining the Anglo-Saxon PastThe Search for Anglo-Saxon Paganism and Anglo-Saxon Trial by Jury, pp. 14 - 23Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2000