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‘Judith’: The Homily and the Poem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Ian Pringle
Ian Pringle*
Affiliation:
Carleton University
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Extract

Recent interpretations of the Old English poem Judith have discussed it either in the light of the interpretations suggested by Ælfric, or in terms of widely known patristic treatments which antedate the poem. Thus Professor J. E. Cross refers to Ælfric's Letter to Sigeweard, and discusses the poem as an exhortation intended for ‘contemporary stiffening’ of resistance to the invading Danes. Professor B. F. Huppé, who cites both the Letter to Sigeweard and the peroration of Ælfric's homily on Judith, revives an interpretation originally proposed by T. G. Foster in 1892, and later supported by A. S. Cook in his 1904 edition of the poem: that the heroine Judith was meant to represent Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, in her victorious exploits against the Vikings of the eastern Danelaw, so that the poem is a celebration of English success in countering Danish attacks. This particular interpretation was discussed by Timmer in his introduction to the Methuen edition of Judith, and dismissed, primarily for the reason that there is no evidence that an Old English poem written about a religious figure could symbolize a secular hero. A perhaps more compelling reason for dismissing Huppé's interpretation is the West Saxon ‘conspiracy of silence’ about Æthelflæd: a southern poet of the tenth century would hardly have praised the Mercian leader when West Saxon policy was to cast ‘a blanket of official silence over all [her] achievements.’ In more general terms, however, Huppé agrees with Cross that the poem is a patriotic work, with ‘direct relevance’ to the situation in England, and he elaborates on the idea that the heroine is depicted as an example of ‘heroic virtue.’ In this, his interpretation relates to a third recent interpretation, that of Jackson J. Campbell. Like Huppé, Campbell considers the poem in the light of the exegetical commentaries on the Vulgate Book of Judith. There are not a great number of these, but they are all similar, or easy to relate to one another. The Fathers discuss Judith tropologically as an example of chaste widowhood, or simply as an example of chastity, ‘chaste purity’ (Aldhelm), the life of the dedicated contemplative, vowed to chastity (Jerome); in this case Holofernes represents the flesh, or carnal temptation, ‘the vice of the wicked flesh’ (Aldhelm). Secondly, they see her as a type of the Church, cutting off the head of the Old Serpent symbolized by Holofernes. Most Anglo-Saxons who knew the story of Judith would probably have known these stock interpretations; in particular Campbell shows how the poem suggests the interpretation that Judith is a type of Ecclesia.

Type
Articles
Information
Traditio , Volume 31 , 1975 , pp. 83 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University Press 

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References

1 Cross, J. E., ‘The Ethic of War in Old English,’ in England Before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources Presented to Dorothy Whitelock, ed. Clemoes, Peter and Hughes, Kathleen (Cambridge 1971) 274 f.Google Scholar

2 Huppé, B. F., The Web of Words (Albany, N. Y. 1970) 145–7; Foster, T. G., Judith (Quellen und Forschungen 71; Strassburg 1892) 89 f.; Cook, A. S., ed., Judith (Belles Lettres Series; Boston 1904) xi f.Google Scholar

3 Timmer, B. J., ed., Judith (2nd ed.; London 1961) 6–8.Google Scholar

4 On the ‘conspiracy of silence’ see Wainwright, F. T., ‘æthlflæd Lady of the Mercians,’ in The Anglo-Saxons: Studies in some Aspects of their Literature and Culture Presented to Bruce Dickins, ed. Clemoes, Peter (London 1959) 53–4, 56, 61, 66; on later Mercian resentment of the absorption of their kingdom into Wessex see ibid. 67–8, and Stenton, F. M., Anglo-Saxon England (2nd ed.; Oxford 1947) 325–6 and 335. If Judith, represented æthelflæd, a Mercian resentful of West Saxon domination might have taken the poem as an encouragement to rebel. Such an interpretation might be just conceivable if the poem had a Mercian origin, although such an allegory seems more like fifteenth-century than tenth-century modes of thought. But in any case there is no evidence at all for a Mercian origin for the poem (see Timmer 5). Huppé's supposition that ‘a ninth-century poet’ would have seen ‘the relevance of his Judith to æthelflæd's defence of Mercia against the heathen Vikings' (147) is all the more curious since the exploits for which she was remembered date not from the ninth century but from 910–18; by this time, moreover, the Vikings settled in eastern Mercia, though still a very immediate threat, were no longer uniformly heathen: cf. Whitelock, D., ‘The Conversion of the Eastern Danelaw,’ Saga Book of the Viking Society 12 (1941) 159–76.Google Scholar

5 Campbell, Jackson J., ‘Schematic Technique in Judith,’ ELH: A Journal of English Literary History 39 (1971) 155–172.Google Scholar

6 There is a full-length exposition of the Book of Judith by Rabanus Maurus in PL 109.539–92. I agree with Huppé (144) against Campbell that this appears to have ‘little or no relevance’ to the poem; nor does it seem to be reflected in ælfric's homily. Among the earlier expositions, some of them certainly known to ælfric and probably familiar to the audience of the poem as well, are Ambrose, Liber de Elia et jejunio 9 (PL 14.741–2), De officiis ministrorum 3.13 (PL 16.178–9), and Liber de viduis 7 (PL 16.259–60); Jerome, , Epistola 22, ad Eustochium 21 (PL 22.408), Epistola 54, ad Furiam 16 (PL 22.559), Epistola 79, ad Salvinam 11 (PL 22.732), Apologia adversus libros Rufini 48 (PL 23.412), and Praefatio in librum Judith (PL. 29, 39–40); Augustine, Sermones de Judith (PL 39.1839–41); Prudentius, Psychomachia lines 40–97 (PL 60.24–30); Fulgentius, Epistola 2, ad Gallam viduam (PL 65.319–20); Isidore, Allegoriae (PL 83.116) and De ortu et obitu patrum (PL 83.148); Dracontius, De laudibus Dei 3, ed. Vollmer, F. (MGH, Auctores antiquissimi 14.48). Aldhelm, De virginitate prosa 57, ed. Ehwald, R. (MGH, Auctores antiquissimi 15.316–7), and De virginitate carmen lines 2560–70 (ibid. 457).Google Scholar

7 The Letter to Sigeweard was edited by Crawford, S. J. in The Old English Version of the Heptateuch (EETS OS 160; London 1922) 15–75. The Homily on Judith was edited by Assmann, Bruno in Anglia 10 (1888) 76–104; reprinted in Assmann, B., ed., Angelsächsische Homilien und Heiligenleben (Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 3; Kassel 1889) 102–166; and reprinted with a Supplementary Introduction by Clemoes, P. A. M. (1964). References to the homily are to the Anglia edition.Google Scholar

8 Approximately its own time: the dates of works in question are discussed in more detail infra 91–92. Google Scholar

9 Crawford 48. In context this paragraph follows an even shorter comment on the Book of Esther, said to have been translated ‘on Englisc on ure wisan sceortlice.’ ælfric's comments seem to be based on Isidore's interpretation: ‘Judith et Esther typum Ecclesiae gestant, hostes fidei puniunt, ac populum Dei ab interitu eruunt’ (PL 83.116). Google Scholar

10 In this he is following Jerome, Apologia (PL 23.412) and Augustine, Sermo 2, (PL 39.1840–1). Google Scholar

11 PL 23.62. Other MSS cited in PL 23.62 note 11, and in Bareille, J. F., ed., œuvres complètes de Saint Jérǒme (Paris 1872) II 448 n. (a), give several variant readings which are probably closer to the copy consulted by ælfric, and suggest why he thought it important to repeat the story.Google Scholar

12 Studies in the History of Old English Literature (Oxford 1953) 67 and n. 2.Google Scholar

13 ‘The Pagan Coloring of Beowulf ,’ in Old English Poetry, ed. Creed, Robert P. (Providence, R. I. 1967) 193–213.Google Scholar

14 Letters 13, 20, 22, etc., ed. Dümmler, E. (MGH, Epist. Karol. Aevi 2).Google Scholar

15 ‘Inimici Christi,’ and ‘omnes Christiani nominis hostes,’ in Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents, edd. Haddan, A. W. and Stubbs, W. (Oxford 1871) III 648.Google Scholar

16 Blake, N. F., ‘The Battle of Maldon,’ Neophilologus 49 (1965) 33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 ‘Filius diaboli inimicus … quibuscunque modis potuit Deo,’ arid ‘diabolicum … cor,’ in Symeonis Monachii opera omnia ed. Arnold, T. (Rolls Series 75; London 1882) I 209. See further references to the ‘exercitus paganorum nefandissimus’ or ‘Danorum nefandus exercitus’ in Roger of Wendover's Flores historiarum ed. Luard, H. R. (Rolls Series 95; London 1890) I, 406, 430; to the ‘nefandi Dani’ and their doings in the anonymous Life of St. Oswald in Historians of the Church of York, ed. Raine, J. (Rolls Series 71; London 1879) I 455 ff. The topos is quite widespread, and by no means restricted only to the Vikings nor used only by the English; indeed, it reappears in the summonses to the Crusades.Google Scholar

18 Dümmler nos. 28, 65, 80. Cf. nos. 16, 17, 19, 20, 24, 79, 101, 108, 129. Google Scholar

19 ‘Hoc impium … pro quo talis sustinetis adversa.’ Ed. Caspar, E. (MGH, Epist. Karol. Aevi 5.293).Google Scholar

20 3, Secundum Lucam , ed. Bethurum, Dorothy, The Homilies of Wulfstan (Oxford 1957) 123 f. Cf. ibid. 20 (Sermo ad Anglos), passim, and see further note 33 infra. Google Scholar

21 Lives of Saints, ed. Skeat, W. W. (EETS OS 76, 82, 94 and 114; London 1881–1900) I 294. Cf. Catholic Homilies, ed. Thorpe, Benjamin (London 1844–6) I 578.Google Scholar

22 Kemble, J. M., Codex diplomaticus aevi Saxonici (London 1839–48) nos. 692, 728 (Sawyer nos. 886, 951), etc.; The Blickling Homilies, ed. Morris, R. (EETS OS 58; London 1874) 116. Miss Bethurum discusses the conventional apocalyptism of the later charters, op. cit. 280 f.Google Scholar

23 Catholic Homilies I 299, 477; II 371; Lives of Saints I 304, 352, etc.Google Scholar

24 Clemoes, P. A. M., ‘The Chronology of ælfric 's Works,’ in The Anglo Saxons, ed. Clemoes, , 240, 243–5, and cf. Clemoes in his ‘Supplementary Introduction’ to the second ed. of Assmann's Ags. Homilien u. Heiligenleben ( 1964) xxix, xxvii.Google Scholar

25 A date ‘in the middle or late rather than the early part’ of the tenth century is favored by Dobbie in the introduction to Beowulf and Judith (Anglo Saxon Poetic Records 4; New York 1953) lxiv.Google Scholar

26 Sisam, , Studies 96 and 67 n. 2.Google Scholar

27 References to Judith are to the text in Anglo Saxon Poetic Records IV 99–109. Google Scholar

28 This term also suggests the Vikings, not only in the literal sense that they would not keep a truce unless it was clearly advantageous to them to do so, but also in the frequent application to them of such terms as ‘faithless’ or ‘perfidious.’ For example, William of Malmesbury refers to the perfidia of the Danes in De gestis regum Anglorum, ed. Stubbs, W. (Rolls Series 90; London 1887) I 147; and the Chronicle of Thietmar von Meiseberg refers to a Danish force as perfida manus Nortmannorum (Die Chronik des Bischofs Thietmar von Merseberg 7.42, ed. Holzmann, R. [MGH, Script. rer. Germ. n.s. 9.499]).Google Scholar

29 ‘Your enemies have been sentenced to death, and you shall have victory and glory in the battle, as God has prefigured to you in my action.’ ‘Prefigure’ is the common technical sense of getacnian; ælfric frequently uses the word in this sense, most obviously perhaps in the preface to Genesis. Cf. the Bosworth-Toller Supplement s.v. getacnian III 4. For the metonymic sense of ϸ urh mine hand, cf. Beowulf 558, 2405. Google Scholar

30 So, commenting on Judith 10.2–3, Ambrose says, ‘Et bene conjugales pugnatura resumpsit ornatus; quia monimenta conjugii arma sunt castitatis: neque vidua alia aut placere posset, aut vincere’ (PL 16.259), and on Judith 15–16, ‘Nec his tamen elata successibus, cui utique gaudere et exsultare licebat jure victoriae, viduitatis reliquit officium: sed contemptis omnibus qui ejus nuptias ambiebant, vestem jucunditatis deposuit, viduitatis resumpsit; nec triumphorum suorum amavit ornatis [16.26 ff.], illos existimans esse meliores quibus vitia corporis, quam quibus hostium arma vincuntur.’ (PL 16.260). Similarly Jerome in the Epistle to Furia: ‘Legimus in Judith … viduam confectam jejuniis et habitu lugubri sordidatam, quae non lugebat mortuum virum, sed squalore corporis, sponsi quaerebat adventum. Video armatam gladio manum, cruentam dexteram. Recognosco caput Holophernis de mediis hostibus reportatum. Vincit viros femina, et castitas truncat libidinem: habituque repente mutate, ad victrices sordes redit, omnibus saeculi cultibus mundiores.’ (PL 22.559). Google Scholar

31 Cassian, , De coenobiorum institutis (PL 49.53 ff.); Collatio quinta (‘De octo principalibus vitiis' PL 49.610 ff.); Gregory, Moralia 31.45.88–90 (PL 76.620 ff.). On the use of these traditions in later Anglo-Saxon England, see Bloomfield, M. W., The Seven Deadly Sins (East Lansing, Mich. 1952) 108–116. In each of the Anglo-Saxon works discussed by Bloomfield, luxuria (galscipe, dyrne geligre, forlygr, galniss) is said either to follow or to result from gula (druncennesse, gifernesse, oferfyll). A sequence of virtues which corresponds exactly is enjoined by Ambrose in his commentary on the Book of Judith in Liber de viduis: ‘Esto igitur, vidua, temperans, casta primum a vino, ut possis casta esse ab adulterio’ (PL 16.260).Google Scholar

32 The relation of virgins, Mary, Ecclesia and Judith is most explicit in a comment of Jerome's in Epistle 22: ‘Postquam vero Virgo concepit in utero et peperit nobis puerum “cuius principatus in humeros eius,” Deum, fortem, patrem futuri saeculi, soluta maledictio est. Mors per Evam: vita per Mariam. Ideoque et diutius virginitatis donum fluxit in feminas, quia coepit a femina. Statim ut filius Dei ingressus est super terram, novam sibi familiam instituit, ut qui ab Angelis adorabatur in caelo, haberet Angelos et in terris. Tunc Holofernis caput, Judith continens amputavit.” (PL 22.408). Google Scholar

33 Lives of Saints II 122. In the Life of St. Swithun, , Lives of Saints I 468, it is implied that England was free from Viking onslaughts during the reign of King Edgar because of the number of new monastic foundations at that time. In Wulfstan's homily De anticristo (Bethurum I-b) there seems to be an identification of Antichrist, Godes wiÐersaca, deofels beam, with the Vikings (lines 7–10 and 18–20), while the description of the fate of Antichrist in V (Secundum Marcum), lines 108–113, is suggestive of the slaying of Holofernes and his descent to hell. Of course, there is not likely to be any question of influence or borrowing here; the point is that all these different events — past, present, and future, real and literary — were viewed in the same way and placed in the same moral context.Google Scholar

34 See the relevant references in the Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary and Supplement, especially Supp. s.v. hæpen A II 1 a and B II 1 a; and s.v. hund II. The same ideas are expressed in Latin works: William of Malmesbury, for example, described Sihtric of Northumbria as ‘gente et animo barbarus’ (De gestis regum Anglorum p. 146); similarly Thietmar described the Viking invaders of 1012–16 as ‘immundi canes’ (Chronik p. 442; however this is no doubt an allusion to Horace, Ep. 1.2.26). Google Scholar