Anonymous Interpolations in Ælfric's Lives of Saints

Introduction

Introduction Approximately one hundred saints’ lives in Old English prose have survived฀to฀the฀present฀day.฀Although฀almost฀40฀percent฀of฀this฀corpus฀is฀ anonymous, as the named author who wrote more than half of the extant lives1 Ælfric of Eynsham has come to dominate the study of Old English hagiography. Yet reading anonymous texts exclusively through an Ælfrician lens has distorted both the intentions of the named author and the integrity of his contemporaries’ work. Although Ælfric wished his Lives of Saints anthology to remain free from outside influence, not all his readers observed a rigid distinction between his writing and that of other authors. To prevent contamination by either poor scribes or meddling interpolators, Ælfric concluded the Old English preface to the collection with a twofold demand for faithful copying : “Ic bidde nu on godes naman gif hwa þas boc awritan wille . þæt he hi wel gerihte be þære bysne . and þær namare betwux ne sette þonne we awendon”฀(74–76:฀I฀ask฀now฀in฀God’s฀name฀if฀anyone฀wishes฀to฀copy฀this฀ book that he guide it well by the exemplar and set down there in between no฀more฀than฀what฀we฀translated).2 Yet not all who wished to copy this book heeded his request, and within Ælfric’s own lifetime—as early as the beginning of the eleventh century—scribes had begun to incorporate additional texts within the same manuscript.3 The principal surviving manuscript of Ælfric’s Lives of Saints collection is London, British Library, MS Cotton Julius E.vii. This manuscript contains four texts that have been deemed interpolations on the grounds of intention, style, and linguistic evidence: the lives of Saints Euphrosyne, Eustace, Mary of Egypt, and the Seven Sleepers.4 None of these four items is today thought to be the work of Ælfric, and because of differences from one another, Hugh Magennis has additionally concluded that they are the work of four separate writers.5 The first clue scholars seized upon to establish the authorship of the anonymous saints’ lives seems to have been their putatively—and inherently —inferior quality. Such texts are not merely anonymous, they are “non-Ælfrician,” as if this distinction constitutes a coherent category. Thus, for example, when Ælfric adheres to the contents of a source text, he is being “scrupulous,” yet when an anonymous author does so, the product is “slavish.” Furthermore, while the style of these interpolations is considered 1 inferior, their content is simply outlandish: here we have a transvestite and a prostitute, both accompanied by hysterical men; a romance about a suicidal saint; and time travelers who cry themselves to sleep. Although these themes appear enticingly transgressive in our postmodern age, rather than arguing that the four interpolated texts violate Ælfrician standards of decorum it is perhaps more productive to consider that Ælfric’s attitude may have been formed in response to the work of his contemporaries. Joyce Hill explains that Ælfric “defines his position by association with patristic orthodoxy , and against the contemporary vernacular tradition.”6 Thus, it may be Ælfric who defies his contemporary readers’ expectations, rather than the anonymous authors who intentionally set out to violate such reformoriented sensibilities. In fact, D. G. Scragg notes that “when Ælfric was preparing for his Lives of Saints set, there probably existed, in English, homilies or uitae” for Euphrosyne, Eustace, Mary of Egypt, and the Seven Sleepers, among others.7 Moreover, Magennis has declared that “[t]he Life of Saint Mary of Egypt may be seen . . . as representing a tradition of non-Ælfrician hagiography in later Anglo-Saxon England. Other such non-Ælfrician traditions existed also, and are represented (by the Legend of the Seven Sleepers, for example)฀even฀in฀Cotton฀Julius฀itself.”8 Implicit in these words is a salutary reminder that the extant anonymous saints’ lives do not represent one unified , monolithic tradition, nor does our inability to decipher an author’s intentions imply that he was writing in a context free of tradition or agenda. Yet by allowing these four interpolated texts to resonate with one another, we may open a window onto the anonymous hagiographic milieu in which Ælfric’s Lives of Saints began to circulate. We also have some indication of how Ælfric chose the Anglo-Latin texts he selected for translation. Patrick Zettel has demonstrated that Ælfric used a version of the Cotton-Corpus Legendary as his main source of saints’ lives; this “heterogeneous collection” contains both passiones and uitas, and Ælfric followed his model...