The Old English Benedictine rule: Writing for women and men

Anglo-Saxon England

Volumn 32, Issue , 2003, Pages 147-187

  Jayatilaka, Rohini ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 61149494836     PISSN: 14740532     EISSN: 14740532     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0263675103000085     Document Type: Review

References (77)

1. Henceforth RSB; quotations are cited by chapter and section number from Benedicti Regula, ed. R. Hanslik, 2nd ed., CSEL 75 (Vienna, 1977).
2. For a discussion of this manuscript evidence, see R. Jayatilaka, 'The Regula Sancti Benedicti in Late Anglo-Saxon England: the Manuscripts and their Readers' (unpubl. D.Phil. dissertation, Oxford Univ., 1996).
3. See Die angelsächsischen Prosabearbeitungen der Benediktinerregel, ed. A. Schröer, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 2 (Kassel, 1885-88), xiii-xiv;
4. D. Whitelock, 'The Authorship of the Account of King Edgar's Establishment of Monasteries', Philological Essays: Studies in Old and Middle English Language and Literature in Honour of Herbert Dean Meritt, ed. J. L. Rosier (The Hague, 1970), pp. 125-36;
5. M. Gretsch, Die Regula Sancti Benedicti in England und ihre altenglische Übersetzung, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Englischen Philologie 2 (Munich, 1973), 9-11 (includes a list of works earlier than Schröer's 1885 edition in which Æthelwold is acknowledged as translator of the RSB);
6. M. Gretsch, 'Æthelwold's Translation of the Regula Sancti Benedicti and its Latin Exemplar', ASE 3 (1974), 125-51, at 125;
7. M. Gretsch, 'The Benedictine Rule in Old English: a Document of Bishop Æthelwold's Reform Politics', Words, Texts and Manuscripts: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Culture presented to Helmut Gneuss on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. M. Korhammer, K. Reichl and H. Sauer (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 131-58, at 131;
8. and idem, The Intellectual Foundations of the English Benedictine Reform, CSASE 25 (Cambridge, 1999), esp. 226-33.
9. See Gretsch, Die Regula, pp. 257-62
10. and 'Æthelwold's Translation', pp. 144-8.
11. 1), 50r-138v.
12. 2), 74v-95v (Latin), 98v-123v (Old English).
13. 2), 6v (fragment of ch. 4).
14. David Dumville accepted Gretsch's view that the bilingual format was probably the original model for the text; see D. Dumville, English Caroline Script and Monastic History: Studies in Benedictinism, A. D. 950-1030 (Woodbridge, 1993), pp. 11-12.
15. For Gretsch's subsequent view that the Old English monolingual format was the form in which Æthelwold originally disseminated the translation, see her 'Benedictine Rule', pp. 157-8.
16. More recent studies, especially by Helmut Gneuss and Mechthild Gretsch, have revealed the inadequacies of Schröer's edition whilst also addressing issues such as the vocabulary of the Old English version, the author's style and techniques of translation, the date of translation and its early dissemination; see Gneuss's supplement to Schröer's second edition of the Old English Benedictine Rule, 'Die Benediktinerregel in England und ihre altenglische Übersetzung', Die angelsächsischen Prosabearbeitungen der Benediktinerregel, ed. A. Schrp̈er, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 2, 2nd ed. with a supplement by H. Gneuss (Darmstadt, 1964), 263-84; and for the studies by Gretsch, see above, n. 3. Since Schröer's edition remains the standard, quotations here are cited from his edition (henceforth, OE Rule, ed. Schröer); where Schröer's edition is difficult to follow or is deficient (e.g., he does not record a variant reading), a folio or page reference to the manuscript in question has been provided after the page reference to his edition.
17. OE Rule, ed. Schröer, pp. xxviii-xxx and xxxviii-xli.
18. Gneuss, 'Die Benediktinerregel', pp. 274-5.
19. Gretsch, 'Benedictine Rule', pp. 131-58, esp. 157-8.
20. For a description of this manuscript, see N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957; reissued 1990), no. 200.
21. Neither Hanslik, Schröer nor Ker suggest a place of origin for the copy of the Rule in the Titus manuscript. Ker suggests that the texts supplementing the bilingual Rule in Titus were probably copied from the corresponding texts supplementing a Latin copy of the RSB in London, British Library, Harley 5431 (107r-126v), which may have been produced at St Augustine's, Canterbury. However, in their respective editions of the texts appended to the Titus copy of the Rule (the Aachen capitulary and the Memoriale qualiter), Semmler and Morgand suggest a Winchester origin for this manuscript;
22. see Legislatio Aquisgranensis, ed. J. Semmler (pp. 423-582, at 506)
23. Memoriale qualiter, ed. C. Morgand (pp. 177-282, at 183)
24. in Initia Consuetudinis Benedictinae: Consuetudines Saeculi Octavi et Noni, ed. K. Hallinger, Corpus Consuetudinum Monasticarum 1 (Siegburg, 1963).
25. Gretsch, 'Æthelwold's Translation', pp. 126 and 134;
26. C. P. Wormald, 'Æthelwold and his Continental Counterparts: Contact, Comparison, Contrast', Bishop Æthelwold: His Career and Influence, ed. B. Yorke (Woodbridge, 1998), pp. 13-42, at 31;
27. and A. Piper, 'The Durham Cantor's Book (Durham, Dean and Chapter Library, MS B.IV.24)'
28. Anglo-Norman Durham 1093-1193, ed. D. Rollason, M. Harvey and M. Prestwich (Woodbridge, 1994), pp. 79-92, at 82. More recently both Winchester and St Augustine's, Canterbury have been listed as probable places of origin;
29. see Gretsch, Intellectual Foundations, p. 227
30. and H. Gneuss, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: a List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Med. and Renaissance Texts and Stud. 241 (Tempe, AZ, 2001), no. 379.
31. See Ker, Catalogue, no. 200.
32. Ker, Catalogue, no. 353.
33. for the charter referred to by Ker, see P. H. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters: an Annotated List and Bibliography (London, 1968), no. 1347.
34. David Dumville has taken the view that Bury was a reformed Benedictine monastery before the end of the 980s; see Dumville, English Caroline Script, pp. 7-85. But it is noteworthy that when Ælfric of Eynsham was writing his vernacular life of St Edmund between 992 and 1002, he thought that the community at Bury was not served by monks.
35. For a discussion of the problems with Dumville's arguments, see the review of his book by T. A. Heslop in JTS (1994), 378-81,
36. and Jayatilaka, 'The Regula in Late Anglo-Saxon England', pp. 191-6.
37. OE Rule, ed. Schröer, p. 15.2-3; 'concerning the summoning of the whole community to a high council'.
38. Ker, Catalogue, no. 41.
39. Ker, Catalogue, no. 154.
40. OE Rule, ed. Schröer, p. 105.12-13.
41. Ker, Catalogue, no. 395.
42. OE Rule, ed. Schröer, p. 104.12-13.
43. Ker, Catalogue, p. xix.
44. For an analysis of the vocabulary, see M. Gretsch, 'Die Winteney-Version der Regula Sancti Benedicti: Eine frühmittelenglische Bearbeitung der altenglischen Prosaübersetzung der Benediktinerregel', Anglia 96 (1978), 310-48.
45. Gretsch, 'Winteney-Version', pp. 314-21.
46. Winteney-Version, ed. Schröer, p. 112.1-3; 'those who are sent on a journey shall receive garments from the wardrobe, and these should be somewhat better than those which they ordinarily wear; these they shall receive when they are about to depart and give them back when they return'.
47. The meaning of offestre is obscure; this is the only occurrence recorded in the Middle English Dictionary and the only instance in Old English is in a will where there is a reference to an Ælflæd offestran (see The Crawford Collection of Early Charters and Documents, ed. A. S. Napier and W. H. Stevenson (Oxford, 1895), no. 10, at line 22 and note on p. 131;
48. Councils and Synods, with other Documents Relating to the English Church I, A. D. 871-1204, ed. D. Whitelock, M. Brett and C. N. L. Brooke (Oxford, 1981), no. 51, pp. 382-6, at 385;
49. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters, no. 1492). The editions suggest that this is some kind of female occupation whereas the Middle English Dictionary offers the following as a possible meaning: 'a woman living in a nunnery under the rule but not under the vow of that nunnery'. But in view of the Claudius text, which explicitly says that the offestre is not living in a monastery, it may refer to some kind of nunne or a vowess (that is, someone who has taken a vow but is not necessarily living under a rule).
50. Councils and Synods, ed. Whitelock et al., no. 33, pp. 142-54, at 150: here Æthelwold associates the canons with ealra manna fulnessum ('all men's foulnesses').
51. Despite the use of the term sanctimonialium in the title, the brief prologue to the rule makes it clear that it was intended for sanctimonialium canonice. The rule for canonesses is edited by A. Werminghoff in Concilia Aevi Karolini I, MGH, Leges (Berlin, 1906), no. 39B, pp. 421-56.
52. H. Mordek, Bibliotheca Capitularium Regum Francorum Manuscripta: Überlieferung und Traditionszusammenhang der fränkischen Herrschererlasse (Munich, 1995), pp. 1057-8.
53. Karl Jost notes that Wulfstan was drawing on a passage from the Institutio sanctimonialium (ch. VIII) in his Institutes of Polity; see Die "Institutes of Polity, Civil and Ecclesiastical". Ein Werk Erzbishof Wulfstans von York, ed. K. Jost, Schweizer Anglistische Arbeiten 47 (Bern, 1959), 128: II Polity XIII, 185. Dagmar Schneider noted the high probability that the Institutio sanctimonialium was used more extensively in late-tenth-century England than the manuscript evidence would suggest, and its use in the Claudius version of the Benedictine Rule clearly supports this point;
54. see D. B. Schneider, 'Anglo-Saxon Women in the Religious Life: a Study of the Status and Position of Women in an Early Mediaeval Society' (unpubl. PhD dissertation, Cambridge Univ., 1985), pp. 85-6.
55. Concilia, ed. Werminghoff, p. 455.
56. Ker, Catalogue, no. 109.
57. M. Gullick, 'The Scribes of the Durham Cantor's Book (Durham, Dean and Chapter Library, MS B.IV.24)', Anglo-Norman Durham 1093-1193, ed. D. Rollason, M. Harvey and M. Prestwich (Woodbridge, 1994), pp. 93-109, at 95.
58. The list is in Durham, Cathedral Library, A. II. 4; see C. H. Turner, 'The Earliest List of Durham MSS.', JTS 19 (1917-18), 121-32
59. and A. C. Browne, 'Bishop William of St Carilef's Book Donations to Durham Cathedral Priory', Scriptorium 42 (1988) 140-55, with a facsimile of the book-list at pl. 15.
60. Piper, 'Durham Cantor's Book', p. 79.
61. For a description of the contents, see R. A. B. Mynors, Durham Cathedral Manuscripts to the End of the Twelfth Century (Oxford, 1939), no. 51;
62. for a useful list of the contents and scribes of this manuscript, see Gullick, 'Scribes', p. 94.
63. Sancti Isidori Episcopi Hispalensis, De Ecclesiasticis Officiis, ed. C. W. Lawson, CCSL 113 (Turnhout, 1989), 79 (section 17).
64. Henceforth RC. The text and translation are cited by section numbers from Regularis Concordia, ed. T. Symons (London, 1953)
65. and the references which follow in square brackets are from Regularis Concordia, ed. T. Symons and S. Spath, in Consuetudinum Saeculi X/XI/XII Monumenta non-Cluniacensia, ed. K. Hallinger, Corpus Consuetudinum Monasticarum 7.3 (Siegburg, 1984), 61-147.
66. See esp. Schneider, 'Anglo-Saxon Women';
67. P. Halpin, 'Women Religious in Late Anglo-Saxon England', Haskins Soc. Jnl 6 (1994), 97-110;
68. and S. Foot, Veiled Women, 2 vols. (Aldershot, 2000).
69. David Knowles tells us that in addition to fully organized nunneries, 'there are traces in Domesday of a few other families of religious women, and, in particular, several of the monasteries had among the number of their dependents a small group of moniales who in some cases attended to the sick among the travellers, pilgrims and recipients of alms'; see D. Knowles, The Monastic Order in England: a History of its Development from the Time of St Dunstan to the Fourth Lateran Council, 940-1216, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1963), pp. 136-7, esp. 136, n. 2.
70. See Halpin, 'Women Religious', p. 109.
71. The Libellus is preserved in two twelfth-century manuscripts written at Ely: Cambridge, Trinity College O. 2. 41 and London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian A. xix. For a recent account of the Libellus and its relationship to the Liber Eliensis, see A. Kennedy, 'Law and Litigation in the Libellus Æthelwoldi episcopi', ASE 24 (1995), 131-83, esp. 131-4;
72. see also Dorothy Whitelock's 'Foreword' in Liber Eliensis, ed. E. O. Blake, Camden 3rd ser. 92 (London, 1962), ix-xviii and Blake's introduction at xxxiv; an edition of the Libellus Æthelwoldi episcopi by Simon Keynes and Alan Kennedy is forthcoming.
73. See especially, RC Prol. 6 [6] and 12 [14].
74. and P. Stafford, 'Queens, Nunneries and Reforming Churchmen: Gender, Religious Status and Reform in Tenth- and Eleventh-Century England', Past and Present 163 (1999), 3-35
75. and Foot, Veiled Women (includes a very useful account of 'the historiography of later Anglo-Saxon religious houses for women' at pp. 5-10). Nevertheless, there is clearly a need for further investigation into female religious communities in the later Anglo-Saxon period.
76. See M. Clayton, 'Ælfric's Judith: Manipulative or Manipulated?', ASE 23 (1994), 215-27, at 225-7;
77. S. Foot, 'Language and Method: the Dictionary of Old English and the Historian', Dictionary of Old English: Retrospects and Prospects, ed. M. J. Toswell, OEN, Subsidia 26 (1998), 73-87.