Good Friday Alone

The Virgin Mary and Christ, in a Book of Hours of c.1510-20 (BL Add MS 35214, f. 27)

Alone alone alone alone
Sore I sigh and all for one.

As I went this enders day [the other day]
Alone walking on my play
I heard a lady sing and say
'Woe is me and all alone!
Alone alone alone alone
Sore I sigh and all for one.'

To that place I drew me near
Of her song somewhat to hear.
There sat a lady with sorry cheer [a sad countenance]
That sore did sigh and groan,
'Alone alone alone alone
Sore I sigh and all for one.

Behold, my son crowned with thorn,
And all his body rent and torn,
Put to death with shame and scorn,
For mankind's sake alone.
Alone alone alone alone
Sore I sigh and all for one.'

For sooth it was a wondrous sight
To see her child, how it was dight [arranged, ordained]
For to bring mankind to light
To save us from our fone. [foes]
Alone alone alone alone
Sore I sigh and all for one.

Sith it will no better be [since it can be no better]
Pray we to that child so free
That we may him in heaven see
What we shall hence gone. [when we depart from here]
Alone alone alone alone
Sore I sigh and all for one.

For many of us this will be a solitary Good Friday, and so I've been thinking about the place of solitude - aloneness - in medieval imaginings of the story of Christ's Passion. This is a carol from the 16th century, an example of a very widespread poetic tradition giving voice to Mary's grief for her son, which takes the word alone as its refrain and keynote. The text is from a printed book of c.1550, and I've modernised the spelling from the carol as edited in Greene's Early English Carols. When I first read this poem, I was reminded of a similar carol, a few decades older, which also makes use of the moving refrain 'alone' - but this is a carol set at an earlier moment in Mary's life, when her son is still an infant. There her baby, as she ('alone') tries to soothe his crying, tells her the real reason why he is weeping so bitterly:

'Mother,' he said, 'how should I sleep?
How should I leave my moan?
I have more cause to sob and weep,
Since I shall die alone.'

She is horrified at this declaration, as anyone would be. He explains to her that it is necessary, since he - and he 'alone' - must save mankind by his death, but she already sees the grief and loneliness it will mean for her:

'Dear son,' she said, 'since thou hast take
Of me both flesh and bone,
If it may be, me not forsake
In care and woe alone...

'Dear son,' she said unto him tho [then]
'When thou from me art gone,
Then shall I live in care and woe
Without comfort alone.'

He cannot tell her she will not grieve or have to bear solitude, but his comfort is to promise her that he will, in the end, ease her loneliness:

'Mother,' he said, 'take thou no thought,
For me make thou no moan;
When I have bought that I have wrought, [when I have redeemed what I created]
Thou shalt not be alone.'

This kind of interaction, where Mary begs her son not to die and leave her alone and grieving, is also a frequent part of poetic dialogues in the 'Stabat Mater' tradition. Many medieval poets devoted attention to imagining Mary's feelings at these different moments of grief: when as a young mother she begins to understand what her child's future will hold, when she sees her son dying in front of her eyes, when she holds his body in her arms. There are countless examples of poems in this tradition, and many of them are absolutely heartbreaking. Even if you don't have much sympathy with this emotive style of devotion, it's hard not to be moved by these poems; they are powerful expressions of grief and love which will resonate - as they are designed to - with every reader's own personal experiences of loss. Mary's grief is unique, but also universal. Hers is a parent's grief, and every time I hear the strange canard that, because infant mortality was high in the Middle Ages, medieval people didn't really love their children or grieve for them when they died, I think of these heart-wrenching poems; they are born of, and absolutely depend on, a widespread cultural acceptance that the loss of a child is one of the most devastating experiences a person can imagine. But these poems aren't only meant for parents, but for everyone, and they aim to draw on wells of tears springing from many other kinds of love and grief. They expect the audience to recognise and respond to it with strong emotion, weeping as Mary weeps.

The 'Alone' carol is probably meant to evoke a Pietà image, Mary holding Christ's body in her arms, and the characteristic feature of that artistic and literary tradition (as distinct from, for instance, Deposition and Entombment scenes where Mary holds her son's body) is that it's only the two of them. She is alone with him, and yet he's not there - she only has his dead body to cradle, a particularly painful kind of solitude. In the first carol the speaker is also 'alone' when they witness Mary's lament, and so her solitude echoes their own. Such poems are often framed as an encounter with Mary, where the speaker of the poem - as here - comes across her unexpectedly, or sees her suddenly appear to them in a vision. We never learn much about the speaker (they're not much more a pair of eyes and ears through which the reader is able to see and hear) but we are told that they are, very often, 'alone' - here wandering out for a solitary ramble, and in other poems lying awake at night, 'alone in my longing'. It's at such moments that these poems might be designed to be read and meditated upon; in solitude, the reader has time to reflect and to feel, to open their heart to what they read, and perhaps even to encounter some kind of mystical or visionary experience.

Alone in quarantine: Christ enters the desert for his 'karenine', his forty-day fast (BL Yates Thompson MS. 13, f. 111)

A focus on aloneness is also appropriate when attempting to consider Christ's own suffering at the Passion, in which there are several key moments where he is, humanly speaking, completely alone. I wrote in my last post about Christ's entry into what was in the Middle Ages called 'quarantine', his solitary forty days in the desert, and the story of his death has more such moments: the Agony in the Garden, the silence of the tomb. In medieval liturgy, the ritual reenactment of those days used a variety of means to powerfully evoke those experiences of isolation and desolation - the gradually enveloping darkness of the Tenebrae service, the stark exposure of the stripped altar and the empty tabernacle, the extensive use of silence both within and around the liturgy of the day. (There's some evidence that in early medieval England the last three days of Holy Week were known as 'the silent days', swigdagas.) Even when experienced collectively, these practices cut off the individual worshipper from those around them, alone in a silent and perhaps invisible crowd.

In extra-liturgical devotional practice, the believer might also be encouraged to go with Christ into that aloneness, to - paradoxically, in a way - share his solitude. One early English example occurs in the Anglo-Saxon poem The Dream of the Rood, a vision of the Passion story narrated by the cross, in which Christ is imagined alone in the tomb, 'weary after the great battle': reste he ðær mæte weorode, 'he rested there, with little company' (that's the understated Anglo-Saxon way of saying 'completely alone'). The same words are then, significantly, repeated of the person who is having this vision, lying awake while others are sleeping; the dreamer says the vision appeared þær ic ana wæs / mæte werede, 'where I was, alone, with little company'. In that aloneness, the dreamer comes so close to Christ that the same words describe them both.

Alone and not alone: the Agony in the Garden, with Christ accompanied in the darkness by faces keeping watch (BL Yates Thompson MS. 13, f. 118v)

But though solitude may offer a way to communicate with the divine, it may also heighten and intensify human grief. In another Anglo-Saxon poem, the focus is instead on Mary Magdalene and the other women among Christ's followers who went to the tomb early on Easter morning, and found it empty. The poem speaks of their anxiety about their Lord being left alone; the word, ana, is repeated twice within a few lines. 'They thought that he would have to lie in the grave / alone on that Easter night.' There's something so poignant about that attribution to them of the very natural desire to be with the body of the person they are mourning - even in death, they don't want him to be alone. It was a key part of medieval meditative practice to enter into these Biblical experiences of grief in the most naturalistic way possible, by drawing on your own knowledge or fear of how it feels to lose someone you love, or not to be able to mourn them as you would wish. An even more powerful expression of this idea is offered by St Anselm, in his prayer to Mary Magdalene, where he imagines with extraordinary sensitivity the depth of her grief at not being able to find the body of Jesus when she went to the tomb to anoint him:

More than all this, what can I say, how can I find words to tell, about the burning love with which you sought him, weeping at the sepulchre, and wept for him in your seeking? How he came, who can say how or with what kindness, to comfort you, and made you burn with love still more; how he hid from you when you wanted to see him, and showed himself when you did not think to see him; how he was there all the time you sought him, and how he sought you when, seeking him, you wept.

But you, most holy Lord, why do you ask her why she weeps? Surely you can see; her heart, the dear life of her soul, is cruelly slain. O love to be wondered at; O evil to be shuddered at; you hung on the wood, pierced by iron nails, stretched out like a thief for the mockery of wicked men; and yet, "Woman," you say, "why are you weeping?" She had not been able to prevent them from killing you, but at least she longed to keep your body for a while with ointments lest it decay. No longer able to speak with you living, at least she could mourn for you dead. So, near to death and hating her own life, she repeats in broken tones the words of life which she had heard from the living. And now, besides all this, even the body which she was glad, in a way, to have kept, she believes to have gone. And can you ask her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" Had she not reason to weep? For she had seen with her own eyes -- if she could bear to look -- what cruel men cruelly did to you; and now all that was left of you from their hands she thinks she has lost. All hope of you has fled, for now she has not even your lifeless body to remind her of you. And someone asks, "Who are you looking for? Why are you weeping?" You, her sole joy, should be the last thus to increase her sorrow. But you know it all well, and thus you wish it to be, for only in such broken words and sighs can she convey a cause of grief as great as hers...

But now, good Lord, gentle Master, look upon your faithful servant and disciple, so lately redeemed by your blood, and see how she burns with anxiety, desiring you, searching all round, questioning, and what she longs for is nowhere found. Nothing she sees can satisfy her, since you whom alone she would behold, she sees not. What then? How long will my Lord leave his beloved to suffer thus? Have you put off compassion now you have put on incorruption? Did you let go of goodness when you laid hold of immortality?

Mary Magdalene was famous for her tears (which is why her name became our word maudlin), and Anselm dwells on them at length in his prayer, with the intention of evoking answering tears in himself and in the reader. These tears of grief will turn to tears of joy, and yet Anselm explores how closely mingled the two must be, must have been:

For love's sake he cannot bear her grief for long or go on hiding himself. For the sweetness of love he shows himself who would not for the bitterness of tears. The Lord calls his servant by the name she has often heard and the servant knows the voice of her own Lord. I think, or rather I am sure, that she responded to the gentle tone with which he was accustomed to call, "Mary." What joy filled that voice, so gentle and full of love. He could not have put it more simply and clearly: "I know who you are and what you want; behold me; do not weep, behold me; I am he whom you seek." At once the tears are changed; I do not believe that they stopped at once, but where once they were wrung from a heart broken and self-tormenting they flow now from a heart exulting.

The Burial of Christ (BL Harley MS. 2915, f. 173v)

Such prayers as this were the beginning of the devotional tradition which sought to approach God through human emotion, and which culminated in such poems as the 'Alone' carol. That song falls into the genre known as Planctus Mariae, 'the lament of Mary', and planctus of all kinds is a very popular form in medieval literature (compleint is the usual Middle English term). One purpose of planctus as a literary genre, whether the one lamenting is Mary or Dido, is that it gives space and voice to sorrow, to the kinds of emotion we all feel, but can't often express except through poetry, through other people's words. On this particular Good Friday, when grief is all around us, it is perhaps more important than ever to make space for those emotions, to acknowledge and find words for them. In the 'Alone' carol the grief is attached to one particular story - Christ's Passion - but much of its expression is taken from the wider tradition of compleint, which encompasses many other kinds of love and sorrow. Its refrain, 'Sore I sigh and all for one', very clearly echoes the language of secular love-songs; it could conceivably have been borrowed from an existing love-song, as was a common practice. Compare the similar phrasing found in the 16th-century manuscript below: 'Alone I live, alone, and sore I sigh for one'. In medieval love poems, too, it's conventional (as you might expect!) to lament loneliness, to pine for the absent and to long for reunion. Here's an example comparable to our 'Alone' carol by the 15th-century poet Charles d'Orleans, which begins:

Alone am y and wille to be alone;
Alone, withouten plesere or gladnes,
Alone in care, to sighe and grone,
Alone, to wayle the deth of my maystres,
Alone, which sorow will me neuyr cesse.
Alone, I curse the liif I do endure.
Alone this fayntith me my gret distres,
Alone I lyve, an ofcast creature.

[Alone am I, and want to be alone;
Alone, without pleasure or gladness,
Alone in sorrow, to sigh and groan,
Alone, to bewail the death of my mistress,
Alone, the sorrow which will never cease for me.
Alone, I curse the life I endure,
Alone, my great distress makes me faint,
Alone I live, an outcast creature.]

Each stanza continues in this way; read the whole thing here.

The transference of language like this between religious verse and secular love-poetry apparently did not seem as odd in the Middle Ages as it might to us today; it could in fact be a source of inspiration for religious poets and preachers, as they sought to articulate the experience of love wherever it might be found - with the belief that ultimately, truly and most completely, it will always be found in Christ. Looking for other comparable 'alone' poems, I came across a 14th-century sermon for Good Friday, which incorporates several short lyrics or couplets in English within the predominantly Latin text. The focus of the sermon is a quotation from the Song of Songs which was immensely popular in medieval devotional writing: amore langueo, 'I languish for love'. (This is also the refrain of two of the finest Middle English lyrics: one spoken by Christ, 'In a valley of restless mind', and the other by Mary, 'In a tabernacle of a tower, as I stood musing on the moon'). Here these words of love - from a book of course full of erotic desire - are interpreted as if they are Christ's, and as if they describe his actions on Good Friday. First, the author explains the paradoxical nature of Good Friday ('a doubtful day of feast and fast', he might have said!):

Dearly beloved, I think I can rightly say that this is a blissful day and a sorrowful day. It is a blissful day because on it occurred one of the greatest joys that ever happened to the human race, for mankind was led out of servitude, and he who was a slave became free. That this day was blessed among all that ever have been is proven by blessed Gregory when he says, 'What would we have gained by Christ's birth if he had not redeemed us?' as if to say, nothing. Since such great joy came to mankind on this day, we can say with the Psalmist, 'This is the day the Lord has made,' etc. Likewise, this is a sorrowful day because one of the most pitiful and sorrowful things that have ever happened occurred on it, for today, he who was innocent and without stain of sin was unreasonably and falsely killed and ended his life in pain like a lamb; and thus is fulfilled what he himself said through the prophet in a psalm: 'My life has ended in pain,' etc.

(This translation is from Siegfried Wenzel, Macaronic Sermons: Bilingualism and Preaching in Late-Medieval England (Ann Arbor, 1994); the bolded phrases mark words which in the original appear in English, while the rest is in Latin.) The preacher then goes on to expound his text, and to explore what it might mean to say that Christ 'languishes for love'.

Dearly beloved, you should understand that not every love is a languishing love, but only intense love is said to be languishing, that is, when someone loves something so much that he thinks of nothing else beside it, nor has any taste or delight except for it alone. Such love did Christ have for us, as he clearly shows today. Hence we must in return have the same love for him. Speaking of such languishing love, it seems to me that I find seven clear signs by which we can recognize a man who languishes in love. They are:

He lesus is myth and waxit wan
He syket as a sorful man
Alone he drawes fro compenye
And euer he herkenes one ys drurie.
Louelyche he spekis to hys herte
For hym he suffrus peynis smert
Thorow tokenys of 3yftes 3yuynge
He schewet in hert loue-murnyng.

[He loses his strength and grows pale;
He sighs as a sorrowful man;
Alone he draws from company,
And he always listens for his beloved.
Lovingly he speaks to his heart,
For whom he suffers pains smart.
Through tokens of gifts given,
He shows in heart love-mourning.]

These are the seven signs by which we can tell a person who languishes from love, and all of them were on this day found in Christ.

He goes on to explain, one by one, how each of these features of the pining human lover could be seen in Christ on the day of his Passion. 'Alone he draws from company' is a characteristic of the lover (like Charles d'Orleans) but in the story of Good Friday, it's literally true of Christ:

The third sign of languishing love is that he who languishes for love withdraws from company, for there can be no companionship for him except that of his beloved. In this way Christ was alone, for no one remained with him, even 'his disciples abandoned him and fled.' At that time they did not yet fully believe in him, for they did not expect him to rise from the dead, all except the Blessed Virgin, in whom the Church's faith stood alive during those three days.

This offers a more positive reading of Christ 'alone' on Good Friday. In one sense his solitude is an abandonment, a painful isolation - but it's also an act of love, undertaken for the good of others. In this analogy 'his beloved' is all mankind; he withdraws from the company of his closest friends as an act of self-sacrifice, putting aside his particular love for his friends for the love of humanity in general. I wonder if there has ever been a Good Friday in the six centuries since this sermon was written when that interpretation of his aloneness has hit so close to home.

Stella celi extirpavit

The Virgin Mary in a fourteenth-century manuscript, BL Royal MS 6 E VII Part 2, f. 479

Back in Advent, I revisited the poems of the 15th-century friar James Ryman in order to write this post. I read a number of Ryman's poems which I hadn't really looked at before, and kept a record of those which interested me with an eye to future blogposts. One struck me as unusual, and I took note of it, though I was pretty sure I would never find a suitable occasion to post it here. But that was Advent, and here we are in Lent - the longest Lent of our lives. And this is a prayer for a time of plague.

The heavenly star so bright and clear,
That fed the Lord of indulgence, [mercy]
Hath put away both far and near
Of ghostly death the pestilence, [the plague of spiritual death]
That our parent wrought by offence:
[May] she cease the stars' war and wrath,
That dimmeth us by sharp stroke of death.

O spouse of Christ, mother of grace,
O benign queen of heaven bliss,
Cause us in bliss to have a place,
Whereof the joy shall never miss,
Where next unto God thy throne is,
And for our sin and our misdeed
Let not Satan ay us possess.

This is Ryman's translation of Stella celi extirpavit, a hymn first recorded in manuscripts from 15th-century England, in the decades after the Black Death. This article, which gives a history of the hymn, provides the following text and translation for the most common version of Stella celi (Ryman's is a little different):

Stella celi extirpavit
que lactavit Dominum
mortis pestem, quam plantavit
primus parens hominum.
Ipsa stella nunc dignetur
sydera compescere;
quorum bella plebem cedunt
dire mortis ulcere.
O gloriosa stella maris,
a peste succurre nobis.
Audi nos: nam Filius tuus
nihil negans te honorat
Salva nos, Jesu, pro quibus
virgo mater te orat.

Star of Heaven,
who nourished the Lord
and rooted up the plague of death
which our first parents planted;
may that star now deign
to hold in check the constellations
whose strife grants the people
the ulcers of a terrible death.
O glorious star of the sea,
save us from the plague.
Hear us: for your Son
who honours you denies you nothing.
Jesus, save us, for whom
the Virgin Mother prays to you.

The hymn addresses Mary, asking that since her child did away with the plague of sin which assailed the soul, her prayers will help to end the plague which attacks the body. The specific historical context is clear: the allusion to 'ulcers of a terrible death' is a direct reference to the swellings which were one of the symptoms of the Black Death.

In keeping with scientific thinking of the time, the hymn sees sickness as originating in the alignment of the stars, and so asks for Mary's help as 'star of heaven' - she is imagined as a good star of peace and life who can restrain the malign stars of war and death. Some of the language also draws on traditional imagery of Mary as healer and nourisher, in focusing for instance on her feeding her child (lactavit Dominum). In the image of her 'uprooting' the plant of death, there's perhaps a suggestion too of the well-established medieval association of Mary with life-giving plants, which figure her as a tree who bears the fruit of life, or a doctor who brings healing herbs. Altogether Mary is presented as all that is wholesome and nourishing, a powerful intercessor and a bringer of health and hope.

This text is widely recorded in late medieval sources, both with and without music. As well as Ryman's version, written down in Canterbury at the end of the 15th century, there are two more English poems based on the hymn, attributed to the Bury St Edmunds poet John Lydgate. Here's one of them (in modern spelling; the Middle English is here):

Thou heavenly queen, of grace our lodestar,
With thy chaste milk plenteous of plesaunce [full of grace]
Gave Jesu suck, puttest away the war
Of pestilence, to appease our grievance,
Our well of mercy, our joy, our sufficence,
Flower of virgins, mother of most price, [greatest value]
Racedist up all surfetis of mischance, [eradicated all sinful excess]
That our forefather planted in Paradise.

Thou same star, of stars none so bright,
Celestial star of beauty most sovereign,
To thee we pray, on us cast down thy sight,
Only of mercy that thou not disdain,
Of infected air the mists to restrain,
That by thy gracious most wholesome influence
We have no cause on hasty death to pleyne, [lament]
Which slayeth the people by sword of pestilence.

Our trust is fully, and our confidence,
Undespaired in our opinion, [belief]
Against all weathers of corrupt pestilence,
By thy request and mediation,
And by thy Son's glorious Passion,
And remembrance of thy joys all,
Against froward airs causing infection,
Defend us, Lady, when we to thee call.

For as Phoebus chaseth mists black,
Toward midmorrow with his beams clear,
And Lucifer biddith sluggy folk awake, [the sun bids sleepy people wake]
In the orient first, when he doth appear,
Right so mayest thou in thy celestial sphere,
O star of stars, star of most excellence,
Maid and mother, by means of thy prayer, [through the intercession of your prayers]
Save all thy servants from stroke of pestilence.

Neither this poem nor Ryman's make reference to ulcers, as the Latin hymn does; their descriptions of the illness and its cause are (perhaps deliberately) more general than the Latin, more applicable to any outbreak of disease. Lydgate speaks of 'froward airs causing infection' and the unhealthy 'mists' which he asks Mary to clear away like the sun at morning. Ryman's version is less scientific, asking instead for deliverance from the force which 'dimmeth us by sharp stroke of death'. The thought that epidemics 'dim' us, i.e. cast a dark shadow over our lives, is particularly poignant. In their astrological and medical thinking, all versions of this hymn come from a medieval world very foreign to us - and yet for once it feels very near.

'Stella celi' in BL Royal Appendix MS. 58

Several early settings of this hymn survive in 15th-century manuscripts. The oldest is the unearthly setting below by John Cooke, a member of Henry V's household chapel, who went with the king to Agincourt in 1415 and seems to have ended his life as a singer at St Paul's Cathedral. His version of Stella celi is preserved in this manuscript.



From later in the century, there's this setting by Walter Lambe, from the Eton Choirbook:



And there are numerous other attestations of the hymn from England, Portugal and elsewhere, including 15th-century evidence that the hymn was in regular use among students at Oxford - sung at the ringing of the curfew bell on Marian feasts and after Compline in Magdalen College chapel. For a full list, see Christopher Macklin, 'Plague, Performance and the Elusive History of the Stella Celi Extirpavit', Early Music History 29 (2010), 1-31, available online here. Macklin proposes a connection between the hymn and the Franciscan order, who 'were intimately involved in caring for the sick during the Black Death and in subsequent epidemics', and as a result suffered catastrophic mortality rates across Europe. These learned origins would fit with the hymn's specifically astrological and medical approach to the understanding of disease.

But it was not only a hymn for friars and students. In the collection of mystery plays from 15th-century East Anglia known as the 'N-town Plays', there's a reference to this hymn in the play about the Adoration of the Shepherds. The Shepherds sing it as they go to Bethlehem to meet the Christ-child, and though the use of Stella celi is only brief (and a bit surprising - why might a prayer against the plague be thought appropriate here?), the scene is so lovely and so loving that I can't resist quoting at length. We begin when the shepherds have just heard the angels sing 'Gloria in excelsis' and, wonderfully, they're struggling to puzzle out the - to them unfamiliar - Latin words. (Again this is in modern spelling; for the Middle English see this page)

Shepherd 1: Ey, ey, this was a wonder note
That was now sung above the sky!
I have that voice full well, I wot —
They sang “Gle, glo, glory."

Shepherd 2: Nay, so mot y the, so was it nowth! [as I may thrive, it wasn't that!]
I have that song full well inum; [I got it right]
In my wit well it is wrought:
It was “Gle, glo, glas, glum."

Shepherd 3: The song methought it was “Glory."
And afterward, he said us to
There is a child born shall be a prince mighty!
For to seek that child, I rede we go. [I advise we go]

Shepherd 1: The prophecy of Boosdras is speedily sped. [swiftly fulfilled]
Now leyke we hence as that light us lead. [let's go where the light is leading us]
Might we see once that bright on bed,
Our bale it would unbind; [it would relieve our trouble]
We should shudder for no shower.
Busk we us hence to Bethlem borough [let's hurry to Bethlehem]
To see that fair fresh flower,
The maid mild in mind.

Shepherd 2: Let us follow with all our might,
With song and mirth we shall us dight [prepare]
And worship with joy that worthy wight,
That Lord is of mankind.
Let us go forth, fast on hie
And honour that babe worthily
With mirth, song and melody.
Have done! This song begin.

Stage direction, in Latin: 'Then the shepherds will sing Stella celi extirpavit as they go to look for the Christ'

Shepherd 1: Hail, flower of flowers, fairest found!
Hail, pearl, peerless primrose of price!
Hail, bloom on bed! We shall be unbound
With thy bloody wounds and works full wise!
Hail, God greatest! I greet thee on ground!
The greedy devil shall groan grisly as a gryse [like a boar]
When thou winnest this world with thy wide wounds
And puttest man to Paradys with plenty of price! [abundance]
To love thee is my delight.
Hail, flower fair and free,
Light from the Trinity!
Hail, blessed may thou be!
Hail, maiden fairest in sight!

Shepherd 2: Hail, flower over flowers found in frith! [in the woods]
Hail, Christ kind in our kith! [sharing in our nature]
Hail, worker of weal to wonen us with! [doer of good, come to dwell with us]
Hail, winner, iwis,
Hail, former and friend, [creator and friend]
Hail, feller of the fiend,
Hail, clad in our kind!
Hail, Prince of Paradise!

Shepherd 3: Hail, lord over lords who lies full low!
Hail, king over kings, thy kindred to know!
Hail, comely knight, the devil to overthrow!
Hail, flower of all!
Hail, worker to win
Bodies bound in sin!
Hail, in a beasts' bin, [manger]
Bestad in a stall. [laid in a stall]

Joseph: Herds on hill [shepherds from the hills]
Be not still, [silent]
But say your will
To many a man:
How God is born
This merry morn —
That is forlorn
Find he can. [he can find the one who is lost - i.e. like the Good Shepherd]

Shepherd 1: We shall tell
By dale and hill
How Harrower of Hell
Was born this night,
Mirths to mell [to speak joy]
And fiends to quell,
That were so fell
Against his right.

[Having paid homage to the baby, they take their departure.]

Shepherd 2: Farewell, babe and bairn of bliss!
Farewell, Lord that lovely is!
Thee to worship, thy feet I kiss.
On knees to thee I fall,
Thee to worship, I fall on knee.
All this world may joy of thee!
Now farewell, Lord of great pousté! [power]
Yea, farewell king of all.

Shepherd 3: Though I be the last that take my leave,
Yet, fair mullynge, take it not at no grieve. [don't be upset, pretty darling]
Now, fair babe, well may thou cheve! [thrive]
Fair child, now have good day.
Farewell, mine own dear darling:
Iwis, thou art a right fair thing!
Farewell, my Lord and my sweeting!
Farewell, born in poor array.

Mary: Now ye herdsmen, well may ye be;
For your homage and your singing
My son shall quit you in heaven see, [reward you in heaven]
And give you all right good ending.

Though at first not even able to recognise the angels' song, the shepherds are very soon inspired to sing themselves in words of eloquent praise, with tender affection for the 'dear darling' and the 'fair flower' his mother. They are so very sweet towards the baby (kissing his feet!), but they also trust him to overthrow the devil and deliver the whole world from pain. Perhaps that's why they sing Stella celi, a hymn which with extraordinary confidence finds its hope for deliverance from sickness not only in the motion of the stars, but in the most everyday act of love: a mother who by feeding her baby saved the world from disaster.

'So glorious a gleam, over dale and down'

The Adoration of the Magi, British Library, Add. 18850, f. 24v

Two carols for Twelfth Night, the eve of the Epiphany. The visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus is a very popular subject in medieval carols, perhaps partly because of the appeal of the dramatic details of the Gospel narrative - the urgency of the questing kings, their tense interaction with Herod, the atmosphere of danger in which their search for the child takes place. But it might also be partly because Twelfth Night, as the culmination of the main period of Christmas festivities (though not the official end of the Christmas season, which was Candlemas), would have been a good time for singing carols. In the past I've posted a few examples of Epiphany carols out of the many which survive.

And here are two more which are roughly contemporary with each other, from manuscripts produced in the second half of the fifteenth century. They tell the same story, but in different ways; one makes effective use of dialogue and of melodious repetition, while the other is more interested in the symbolism of the tale, its fulfilment of prophecies, and the central image of the star - that gleam of unearthly brightness which guides the pilgrim-kings to their journey's end.

The beginning of this poem in Cambridge, St John's College, MS. S 54

The first poem comes from a scrappy little manuscript of carols, perhaps originally from East Anglia, which is now in St John's College, Cambridge. You can browse through it here, though it's not much to look at, and pretty difficult to decipher! It shows considerable signs of wear and was clearly more for use than for ornament, perhaps as an aide memoire to communal carol-singing. All the carols it contains were published in this edition, which I've relied on for the text which follows, though I've modernised the spelling and expanded abbreviations. There's no music in the manuscript, but the repeated lines give an unusually strong sense of how beautiful this text might be when sung (anyone fancy setting it to music?). The first verse is especially lovely, I think.

When Christ was born in Bethlehem,
There rose a star as bright as leme [fire, radiance]
That gave so glorious a gleam
Over dale and down,
Over dale and down it sprang and spread.
It made three kings to be adread [afraid]
Into an unchond land it them led [it led them to an unknown country]
Into a town;
They were three kings of great renown.

They came to seek Herod the king
And asked him of all that thing,
And spered after the child so ying [inquired after the child so young]
That should be king,
That should be king of all Jewry.
'We saw a star secyrly [certainly]
Therefore we worship him forthy [for that reason]
That child so ying
Here gold and homage we him bring.'

'Wend ye forth all three in fere, [all three of you go forth together]
And of that child if ye may hear,
That ye will come again in fere
I you beseech,
I you beseech that ye me say
As ye come homeward again in your way
That I myself him worship may,
That child so meek,
On my bare feet I would him seek.'

The kings no longer there abode
But forth to Bethlem then they rode,
And the star before them glode [glided]
Until they were,
Until they were where Jesu lay,
Wounden in a crib of hay;
Them thought it was a poor array.
[line missing]
Of prince of peace that hast no peer.

'Now kneel we down, all three in fere,
And offer to this darling dear
Gold for [aye?] and rekels clear [rekels is an old word for incense]
And myrrh also,
And myrrh also in tokening
That he is very man and king,
Suffering prince over all thing,
One and no mo [other/more]
For holy writ bears witnesses also.'

An angel warned them in their sleep
That they should them for Herod keep [beware of Herod]
They thanked God with devotion deep
And home they went,
And home they went on their journey.
When thereof Herod heard say,
He said 'Alas, and welaway,
For I am shent! [ruined]
This child, he will my kingdom hent!' [seize my royal power]

This Herod was both wode and wroth [mad and furious]
With mickle ire he made his oath
That all the land it should be loath [sorry]
That he was born,
That he was born that should be king.
He did to do a spiteful thing [he caused a spiteful thing to be done]
To slay children both old and ying
In Bethlem born
Within two winters there before.

The children sprongyld on the spears, [struggled]
The mothers wept full bitter tears,
That Herod did them guiltless derys [caused them, innocent, terrible harm]
That fiend so fell,
That fiend so fell, foul must him befall,
That thus these children martyred all.
Unto Mary we gye and call [turn and appeal]
To shield us from the pit of hell
There in bliss well.

My favourite thing about this carol is the first verse, with those lovely alliterative phrases describing the star. After that, I also like the easy shifts between narrative and speech, especially between Herod and the Magi. Herod gets a verse to himself, and a bit of angry expostulation, true to his usual presentation in medieval literature: he's often shown as a blusterer, full of angry words, and that's how he comes across on the stage of medieval mystery plays, where his storming and ranting became proverbial. (That's what Hamlet is referring to when he advises his actors not to overdo their storms of passion, like those who seek to 'out-Herod Herod' on the stage with furious gestures and shouting). He exclaims angrily here, and his words to the three kings briefly sketch a dishonest, insinuating character: his promise 'On my bare feet I would him seek' has the exaggerated touch of a confident liar. The carol seems about to end in a dark place, with his anger and cruelty - until that last turn, 'unto Mary'. Again, it recalls the effect sought in medieval mystery plays, which intercut scenes of Herod's pride, rage and tyranny with the exact opposite, the next stage in the story, at Candlemas: there the earthly power embodied by Herod is shown to be vain, while poverty, patience, innocent love and frail old age encounter a light hidden from the eyes of the powerful.

The Magi doused in starlight, BL Add. 18850, f. 75

Next, another carol from the 1492 collection of James Ryman, Franciscan friar of Canterbury. This too tells the story of the Magi's visit, but through its refrain, and the couplet which is repeated at the end of each stanza, it keeps drawing our attention back to the star, and the day of its appearance - this day.

A star shone bright on Twelfth Day
Over that place where Jesus lay.

On Twelfth Day this star so clear
Brought kings three out of the east
Unto that king, that hath no peer,
In Bethlehem Judah, where he did rest.
This star that day then went away
From that sweet place where Jesus lay.

Both gold, incense and sweet myrrh tho [then]
All three they gave unto that child,
The which is god and man also,
Born of a virgin undefiled.
This star that day then went away
From that sweet place where Jesus lay.

For he was king of majesty,
They gave him gold with great reverence.
For he was god in persons three,
Meekly to him they gave incense.
This star that day then went away
From that sweet place where Jesus lay.

For he was man, they gave him than [then]
Myrrh in token that he should die
And be buried for sinful man
And arise again and to bliss stye. [ascend]
This star that day then went away
From that sweet place where Jesus lay.

When their offering all three had made
To Christ, that king and lord of all,
Right soon the star away did fade,
That brightly shone over that hall.
This star that day then went away
From that sweet place where Jesus lay.

As they were going in their way,
They met Herod, that mody king. [proud king]
He bade them wit where that child lay, [told them to find out where the child lay]
And come by him and word him bring.
This star that day then went away
From that sweet place where Jesus lay.

King Herod fain would them have slain,
But they were warned on a night
They should not go by him again,
By an angel both fair and bright.
This star that day then went away
From that sweet place where Jesus lay.

They were full glad, and as he bad
They be gone home another way,
And King Herod was wroth and sad,
That he of them had lost his prey.
This star that day then went away
From that sweet place where Jesus lay.

Into Egypt Joseph then fled
With the mother and with the child,
Where they abode til he was dead, [they lived until Herod was dead]
And of his will he was beguiled. [and was thwarted of his will]
This star that day then went away
From that sweet place where Jesus lay.

King Herod then in his great wrath
Seeing of them his purpose lorn [seeing his plans for them lost]
Infants full young he put to death
Through all Bethlehem, that there were born.
This star that day then went away
From that sweet place where Jesus lay.

Then, as the prophet Ysay [Isaiah]
Had prophesied long time before,
A voice was heard in bliss on high
Of great weeping and wailing sore.
This star that day then went away
From that sweet place where Jesus lay.

Honour to Christ, that now was born,
As prophecy had said before,
To save mankind, that was forlorn,
And to his bliss for to restore.
This star that day then went away
From that sweet place where Jesus lay.

The events of the carol are explicitly set on 'Twelfth Day', and if you imagine this carol being sung at Twelfth Night festivities, there's a particular immediacy to the time reference - it was on this day that the star 'did fade' and 'went away / from that sweet place where Jesus lay'. (In a neat touch, the carol itself has twelve verses.) I like that emphasis on departure, as if to suggest that it's not only the star which takes its leave on Twelfth Day, having done its work; it's also the Christmas season itself, and there's a sense of an ending here, a culmination. Just as the star departs from the 'sweet place' of the birth, and the three kings take their departure, and Joseph and Mary flee into Egypt, so we as the readers of this carol are taking our leave of Christmas - with all its sweet joys - on Twelfth Day.

The Magi see the star, BL Add. 18850, f. 75

An Advent Carol: O Orient Light

Annunciation (BL Add. 29433, f. 20)

Here's an Advent poem from a collection of carols which was compiled by James Ryman, Franciscan friar of Canterbury, at the very end of the fifteenth century. I've often posted carols from Ryman's extensive collection (his manuscript contains more than 150 carols, all accessible here), and they're suitable for all seasons for the year. Far from being for Christmas alone, medieval carols could be very diverse in their themes, even if you stick, as Ryman does, to sacred rather than secular topics; he does have a good number of Christmas carols, but also includes songs about the Passion, the Virgin Mary, the Trinity, his order's founder St Francis, and general moral themes of death and transience - much more varied than what we would think of as carol fare today. He has carol versions of a number of Latin hymns, such as the Advent hymns Conditor alme siderum and Vox clara, which act as a good example of how these Latin liturgical texts could serve as inspiration for vernacular poetry. And even within his Christmas material, there's considerable variation in tone: some of his carols are light-hearted - the cheeky 'Farewell Advent, Christmas is come!' is a particular highlight - while others are theologically sophisticated ('Behold and see') or poignant and sombre ('Mary hath borne alone').

This one drew my eye for its spirited rhyme scheme - one rhyme per stanza, repeated six times. It's a lively little bit of virtuosity, just for the joy of it. Since the language is pretty straightforward this is in modern spelling; here's a link to the Middle English.

O Christe, rex gentium,
O vita viventium.

O orient light shining most bright,
O son of right, adown thou light [i.e. alight from above]
And by thy might now give us light,
O Christe rex gentium.

O Saviour, most of honour,
Come from thy tower, cease our dolour
Both day and hour waiting succour,
O vita viventium.

O we in pain would, in certain, [i.e. we in pain truly desire]
Thou wouldst refrain, Lord, and restrain
Thine hand again of might and main,
O Christe, rex gentium.

O Jesse root, most sweet and sote, [lovely]
In rind and root most full of bote, [healing]
To us be bote, bound hand and foot,
O vita viventium.

O Assuere, prince without peer,
Come from thy sphere, to us draw near;
Our prayer hear, O Lord most dear,
O Christe, rex gentium.

O corner stone, that makest both one,
Hear our great moan and grant our bone [prayer]
Come down anon, save us each one,
O vita viventium.

O prince of peace, our bond release,
Our woe thou cease, and grant us peace
In bliss endless, that shall not cease,
O Christe, rex gentium.

O king of might and son of right,
O endless light so clear and bright,
Of thee a sight thou us behight, [promised]
O vita viventium.

This poem has no direct source as far as I know. but it seems to be loosely influenced by the O Antiphons, since some of the titles used here for Christ form part of that grouping of texts: Rex Gentium, Oriens, Root of Jesse. The sixth stanza also uses a phrase from the Rex Gentium antiphon, 'cornerstone that makes both one'. The form of the poem, with each verse beginning with an acclamation, 'O...', also echoes the antiphons, though it's an approach Ryman uses quite often elsewhere. In any case, the use of these texts is fairly free; there are several antiphons not alluded to here, they aren't in any particular order, and it took me a while even to spot the connection. There are lots of other things thrown in among them, including other Biblical allusions and a reference to 'Assuere', i.e. the king in the Book of Esther, which medieval Biblical interpreters took to be a story which prefigured the relationship between Mary, God and mankind. An erudite allusion for a carol, you might think, but it crops up pretty often in Ryman's collection!

My favourite verse, I think, is about the Root of Jesse:

O Jesse root, most sweet and sote,
In rind and root most full of bote,
To us be bote, bound hand and foot,
O vita viventium.

Modern interpretations of the O Antiphons seem to struggle a bit with the Root of Jesse image, partly because of hesitation about how it should best be rendered in English (you will sometimes hear instead 'Rod of Jesse' or 'Branch of Jesse' or similar variations, which don't all necessarily evoke 'plant'). I wonder if modern writers find it difficult to imagine a plant which is also a symbol of power, which can 'stand as a sign before the nations' and silence kings, as the antiphon imagines it (him) doing. But medieval poets were much more attuned than we are to religious imagery drawn from nature, including a rich and complex iconography of trees, flowers, and plants, and they were utterly familiar with the idea that plants could be healing, that the natural world was medicine to mankind and thus an analogy for Christ's redemptive work.

And so it is in this verse. 'Sweet and sote' is one of those alliterative doublets medieval English poets were very fond of, both in the Anglo-Saxon period and long after (another example which occurs in the third verse here, 'might and main', is still in use today). As is often the case, the meaning of the two words is almost synonymous; both words here basically mean 'sweet', though the first refers more to flavour and the second to fragrance. The Root of Jesse is imagined as a plant which both tastes and smells delectable, giving forth its sweetness like a breath of air. But it's also a plant which can heal, bringing 'bote'. 'Bote' is a very common word in Middle English religious writing, and it has a broad range of meaning, which Ryman is playing with in these lines, to do with remedy, redemption, and repair. In the first case, 'in rind and root most full of bote', it's the healing power of a plant, as if the Root of Jesse is a health-giving herb from which you can chop up the bark and root and make medicine. In the second case, 'to us be bote', it shifts towards the meaning 'redemption, amends', for those who are 'bound hand and foot' in the captivity of sin. The verse is fully alive to the botanical reality of the word but also to the other metaphorical possibilities it offers, all the different kinds of 'salvation' it can encompass.

BL Add. 27697, f. 105v

The singing of the O Antiphons begins (according to medieval English practice) on 16 December, running up to Christmas Eve. I've written quite a lot here about medieval poems inspired by, translating, or meditating on these rich texts, and Ryman's poem is one more to add to the collection. If you'd like to read some others, here's a Middle English poem based on the antiphons which is roughly contemporary with Ryman, from the late fifteenth century, and two carols of a similar date, based on two of the antiphons. And then there's the much longer, more intricate, more sophisticated meditation on these texts by an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet; for an introduction to that glorious poem start here, and work your way back through the series. I promise, there's nothing better you could be reading in the run-up to Christmas...

Hallowtide

The ossuary at St Leonard's, Hythe

All Souls, and a rainy November day in the season of remembrance. The three-day season of Hallowtide - Hallowe'en, All Saints, All Souls - is medieval in origin, as a time for remembering the dead both known and unknown. Medieval literature is rich in serious, profound meditations on mortality, on death, on transience, and in the later Middle Ages, particularly, the iconography and art of death abound; if you need a memento mori, go to medieval art. Sometimes this art pops up into view around Hallowe'en, when you might see, for instance, images of grinning skulls and 'The Three Living and the Three Dead' offered as seasonal fare on social media. It's useful to remember, however, that in the Middle Ages this interest in death was not really confined to any one season of the year - not even Hallowtide, though certainly it was important then. A few years ago I posted some medieval prayers, in poetry and prose, 'for all Christian souls'; but though appropriate for All Souls they weren't specifically intended for today's commemoration, and could be prayed at any time of the year. In the Middle Ages almost every day was a saint's feast, a day to remember the glorious dead; prayer for the dead was a Christian duty all year round, especially but certainly not only on All Souls' Day; and the whole point of a memento mori is that it reminds you that at any moment you are close to death - not just at Hallowtide.

In a strange way, which no one could have predicted at the beginning of the last century, the cusp of October and November has now become a more intensive season of remembrance, in England at least, than it has been at any time since the Middle Ages. Over the past few decades Hallowe'en has become more popular here than ever before, and has become much more universally linked with death and ghosts than it seems once to have been (i.e. rather than with love-divination and a bit of licensed lawlessness, as it is in much pre-20th century English folklore). It's only in the past century that All Souls' Day, hunted almost to extinction after the Reformation, has experienced a resurgence in the Anglican church, while Catholics are again able to mark it publicly. And most of all, the still relatively new institution of Remembrance Day on November 11, only a century old this year, means that requiems and services of commemoration are to be found all over the country in the first two weeks of November - and everywhere the splash of the red poppy, ancient symbol of death, new descendant of old beliefs about flowers born of blood shed in battle. In many churches All Saints/All Souls and Remembrance Day are kept on two subsequent weekends, more because of practicalities of when services can be held than because anyone has intended to create a fortnight-long season of remembrance - but the effect is that we think more about death at this time of year, and for longer, than our medieval forebears did.

But let me offer one short extract from a Middle English poem, from exactly this time of year, which chimes with the mood of this sombre season. It's from the fourteenth-century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which I'm often thinking about at the end of October and beginning of November. That's partly because this is a time when I'm sometimes teaching it, and partly because it offers several memorable passages about the changing of the seasons and the relationship between the natural world and the human experience of time. So at New Year, in spring, and in autumn, its poetry comes to mind.

If you don't know the poem, a plot summary can be found here. It opens at Christmas and New Year, when the Green Knight erupts into King Arthur's court and issues a challenge to the knights: to strike him with his axe, and then accept another blow in return after a year and a day. Young Gawain, Arthur's nephew, best and brightest of the knights of Camelot, takes up the challenge out of loyalty to his uncle and king; but he doesn't quite know what he's undertaken, and a year and a day is a long time to think about it. As the intervening period passes between the challenge and its return, the poet gives us a brief description of the swiftly-turning year, closing with autumn:

Wroþe wynde of þe welkyn wrastelez with þe sunne,
Þe leuez lancen fro þe lynde and lyȝten on þe grounde,
And al grayes þe gres þat grene watz ere;
Þenne al rypez and rotez þat ros vpon fyrst,
And þus ȝirnez þe ȝere in ȝisterdayez mony,
And wynter wyndez aȝayn, as þe worlde askez,
no fage,
Til Meȝelmas mone
Watz cumen wyth wynter wage;
Þen þenkkez Gawan ful sone
Of his anious uyage.

[Wrathful winds from the sky wrestle with the sun
The leaves are loosed from the linden and light on the ground,
And all the grass greys that green was before;
Then all ripens and rots that formerly arose;
And thus runs the year in yesterdays many,
And winter wakes again, as the world asks,
in truth,
Until Michaelmas moon was come
With the first pledge of winter,
Then thinks Gawain all too soon
Of his troubling journey.]

'Michaelmas moon' (a phrase only recorded here) might mean either the full moon closest to Michaelmas, 29 September, or conceivably the month which follows Michaelmas, i.e. October. This is the time of year which brings 'winter wage', the pledge of winter. You might think of that as the first chill in the air in an October dusk, or the first time it seems to be getting dark too early, or the first breath of mist in the morning - anything which says that summer is gone, and the cold is coming. The financial connotations of 'wage' also suggest the idea of accounts to be settled, as they often were at Michaelmas - it was a quarter-day, when rents and bills and salaries would be paid. And so it is for Gawain, who was laughingly told by the Green Knight, last Christmas, that he must come and take his 'wages', the return blow, when Christmas comes again. So he too has an account to settle, to which his anxious thoughts are now beginning to turn. The next stanza takes us from 'Michaelmas moon' to All Saints' Day:

Ȝet quyl Al-hal-day with Arþer he lenges;
And he made a fare on þat fest for þe frekez sake,
With much reuel and ryche of þe Rounde Table.
Knyȝtez ful cortays and comlych ladies
Al for luf of þat lede in longynge þay were,
Bot neuer þe lece ne þe later þay neuened bot merþe:
Mony ioylez for þat ientyle iapez þer maden.
For aftter mete with mournyng he melez to his eme,
And spekez of his passage...

[Yet until All Hallows' Day with Arthur he lingers,
And Arthur made a feast on that day for the knight's sake,
With much revelling and royal splendour of the Round Table.
Courteous knights and comely ladies
Were heart-sore for love of that man,
But nevertheless, not the less did they speak with mirth:
Many, joyless for the noble one's sake, told jokes all the same.
For after the meal, mourning Gawain goes to his uncle,
And speaks of his journey...]

It's time for him to leave the court, to find the Green Knight's castle and meet what awaits him there. The poet seems to be thinking of Hallowtide here partly as the beginning of the Christmas season, as it seems to have been considered, in a general sense, in some other late medieval texts too (There's one for those of you who regret that 'Christmas starts earlier every year!' A Christmas season which runs from 1 November to February 2...) It's exactly six months after May Day, which is conventionally the beginning of summer in medieval literature, and so it makes sense that this should mark the beginning of winter, the dark half of the year.

Most Arthurian knights go on their adventures in May; Gawain is unusual in having to set out in November. But the November setting resonates with the mood of the poem at this point, where All Hallows marks not only the coming of winter, but a shift in tone, a growing darkness. The year has run round swiftly, in less than forty lines of verse - all too fast for Gawain, who would like the time to pass more slowly. Now we're going to follow Gawain out on his journey, through the bleak cold of November and December in 'the wilderness of the Wirral', and by Christmas Eve he'll be at the Green Knight's castle, facing the test he promised to take a year before. All Hallows brings a change of mood for the whole court, even as they celebrate the season - feasting partly in honour of the day, partly in honour of the knight they all love. They feast in defiance of the fear lurking at their hearts, because they are afraid that Gawain, best of them all, is going away to meet what seems like certain death. It's not surprising that the words 'uyage' ('voyage') and 'passage', used to describe Gawain's journey to meet the Green Knight, are terms often used in Middle English as metaphors for death (as you can see from the Middle English Dictionary entries: viage and passage). Gawain's departure is no light-hearted adventure, no pony-ride in May sunshine, but the first realisation of his mortality; and all through the rest of the poem he's haunted by a growing fear of death, so that it even infests his dreams. The shadow of death has come upon them all.

This seems to chime with the feeling of moving into winter at the beginning of November, with spring a very long away ahead. But for all its wintriness, Gawain is a poem of youth, not age. Most of the action is set during Yule and the 'young year', and the court, even King Arthur himself, are all in the first flower of their youth. Gawain is just a boy, talented knight though he is - deeply principled and, as bright young people often are, intolerant of failure in himself and others. And though he faces death, he doesn't die. Unlike those boys, young soldiers too, for the sake of whose memory Hallowtide converged with Remembrance Day, Gawain gets another chance. He learns from his experience, and begins to mature; he comes through winter to another spring, another renewal of life, another opportunity to do better.

God worshipped by the blessed in heaven 

(BL Royal MS 19 B XV, f. 40)

The same poet who wrote so powerfully in Gawain of the fear of death also wrote perhaps the most moving poem of grief in the English language, Pearl. If Gawain has only just begun to think about death, the central figure in Pearl is intimately acquainted with it: he is mourning the loss of his little daughter, his precious pearl, not two years old when she died. Though his faith tells him that a child so young, so innocent, must be safely treasured now in heaven, he can't reconcile himself to her loss. Grieving beside her grave, he falls asleep and dreams of her: not a child now, but a woman dwelling in the New Jerusalem, one of the brides of the Lamb. Gently, patiently, she tries to explain to him where she is, and how she's come there, and why it might be for the best; but her father struggles with it every step of the way, wrestling with his longing for her, and only gradually and partially being brought to understand. However well she explains, child to father, the Christian teachings about death which his reason has already accepted, the two of them barely speak the same language; he is earth-bound, emotional, his mind fogged by grief, and so very far away from her.

Unlike Gawain, this poem is set in August, in harvest, when the richness of summer is just beginning to ripen to decay - perhaps around the time of the Assumption, the ultimate model of a good and holy death. But its consolatory vision is drawn partly from texts used on All Saints' Day, particularly the Book of Revelation. The significant number twelve, the building block of the heavenly Jerusalem, also provides the structural artistry of this intricately constructed poem. The dreamer's final vision of his daughter is amid 'the multitude which no man could number, of all nations, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues':

Ryght as the maynful mone con rys
Er thenne the day-glem dryve al doun,
So sodanly on a wonder wyse
I was war of a prosessyoun.
This noble cité of ryche enpryse
Was sodanly ful, wythouten sommoun,
Of such vergynes in the same gyse
That was my blysful anunder croun.
And coronde wern alle of the same fasoun,
Depaynt in perles and wedes qwyte.
In uchones breste was bounden boun
The blysfyl perle with gret delyt.

With gret delyt thay glod in fere
On golden gates that glent as glasse.
Hundreth thowsandes, I wot ther were,
And alle in sute her livrés wasse;
Tor to knaw the gladdest chere.
The Lombe byfore con proudly passe
Wyth hornes seven of red golde cler.
As praysed perles His wedes wasse.
Towarde the throne thay trone a tras.
Thagh thay wern fele, no pres in plyt,
Bot mylde as maydenes seme at mas
So drov thay forth with gret delyt...

The Lombe delyt, non lyste to wene;
Thagh He were hurt and wounde hade,
In His sembelaunt was never sene,
So wern His glentes gloryous glade.
I loked among His meyny schene,
How thay wyth lyf wern laste and lade.
Then saw I ther my lyttel quene
That I wende had standen by me in sclade.
Lorde, much of mirthe was that ho made
Among her feres that was so quyt!
That syght me gart to thenk to wade
For luf longyng in gret delyt.

That is:

As suddenly as the powerful moon rises
Before the gleam of day has all sunk down,
In a marvellous manner
I became aware of a procession.
This noble city of rich renown
Was suddenly full, unsummoned,
Of virgins dressed in the same guise
As my blissful girl in her crown.
Crowned were they all in the same way,
Adorned with pearls and white garments.
On the breast of each was firmly fastened
The blissful pearl, with great delight.

With great delight they glided together
Down golden streets that gleamed like glass.
Hundreds of thousands, I say there were,
And all alike was their livery.
Hard to know which was the happiest face!
The Lamb before them proudly passed
With seven horns of pure red gold.
Like precious pearls were his garments.
Towards the throne they made their way;
Though they were many, there was no crowding,
But gently as girls go as mass,
So they moved on with great delight...

The delight of the Lamb, none could doubt,
Though he was wounded and bore a scar,
It was not visible in his manner,
So gloriously glad were his looks.
I looked among his bright company,
How they were full and laden with life.
Then I saw there my little queen,
Who I thought had been with me in the valley.
Lord, how much mirth she made
Among her friends, all in white!
That sight made me want to wade [across the stream]
For love-longing in great delight.

All this is from the Book of Revelation, and it faithfully evokes all the strange beauty of that heavenly vision, yet it's the homely touches which are most moving here: the simile of the unexpected vision manifesting like the sudden appearance of the full moon in a sunset sky (when it doesn't seem to rise but is just suddenly there); or the sight of his daughter, 'my little queen', among her white-clad companions like a flock of girls at their First Communion, 'mild as maidens seem at mass'. That sight is his consolation, though it doesn't lessen his grief. His reaction to seeing it is to start towards her, longing for her so much that he's not thinking straight; he tries to cross the river that parts them, and that breaks the dream. He's still alive, still mourning, still working to accept that her death is for the best, and still he can't reach her.

That's the strange doubleness of the Hallowtide season - when the dead seem so near to us, and yet so unimaginably far.

The dreamer and his Pearl reach out to each other, the stream between

(BL Cotton MS Nero A X/2, f. 42v)

An Alternative History of England

Cnut fights Edmund Ironside in a 13th-century manuscript CCCC MS. 26, f.80v

October is the season of conquest anniversaries. Four days after the anniversary of the Battle of Hastings falls a less well-known date: on 18 October 1016, a Danish army led by Cnut defeated the English king Edmund Ironside in battle at a place called Assandun in Essex, the last battle in Cnut's conquest of England. I wrote about that battle in detail, and the sources for our information about it, in this post from 2016, and about a visit to the area here. Like Hastings, Assandun was a battle which won a kingdom; but unlike at Hastings, the leader of the losing army was not killed, and so the aftermath was more complicated. It resulted in a treaty which divided England into two parts: Wessex for Edmund, and what the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle calls the norðdæle, 'the northern part', for Cnut.

This division of the kingdom between north and south reflected a regional split in England which by that time already went back more than a hundred years. Parts of northern England had been settled by Scandinavians and under Scandinavian rule at various times since the ninth century, and their culture, language and perhaps political affiliations were still significantly influenced by this settlement. When Cnut's father Svein Forkbead launched a serious invasion in 1013, he seems to have felt able to count on political support from at least some among the leaders of the north for Danish rule, and he and Cnut treated the north differently from Wessex during their invasions. The division of the kingdom proposed in 1016 thus reflected a pre-existing cultural divide, of which the legacy can still be seen with extraordinary clarity today in the place-names and dialect of northern and eastern England.

The exact regions which are meant to be encompassed by the term norðdæle in the 1016 division are not entirely clear, but it probably means Northumbria, Mercia, and East Anglia - a huge area, stretching from the south Midlands to north Northumberland, and geographically speaking, much more than half of England. (norðdæle is the term used in ASC D; other versions of the Chronicle just mention Wessex for Edmund and Mercia for Cnut, leaving unsaid what happened to the rest of the country, but perhaps implying Cnut's control of those areas further north was already established.) Although over the course of the tenth century the kings of Wessex, Edmund Ironside's ancestors, had extended their power over the rest of the formerly independent kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England, some of these areas had also been ruled by Cnut's predecessors among the kings of the Danes. By 1016 both Cnut and Edmund could claim that not only had both their fathers, Svein and Æthelred, ruled the whole kingdom of England (though in Svein's case only very briefly) but that both had ancestors who had ruled regions of the country. It would be wrong to imply that everyone in this vast norðdæle thought of themselves as culturally Scandinavian or 'Danish', or that even if they did it would necessarily have translated into political support for a Danish king; but they may not all have thought of themselves as 'English', either. Regional identities, such as 'Northumbrian', may have mattered as much or more. The point is that we are dealing with a large area and a mixed population, whose perspectives and identities would have varied considerably, and whom it is difficult to label. The chronicler's use of norðdæle seems to imply a division between Wessex vs. 'everything else', but that 'everything' included a great variety.

As it turned out, the division between Wessex and the rest of England lasted only a few weeks. Edmund died on 30 November that same year, and left Cnut as king of the whole country, which he then ruled (with Denmark, and eventually Norway too) until his death in 1035. But let's pause a little in that brief period when England was split between the two kings. It's an opportunity to think about how the movements of history which can, with hindsight, appear irresistible are actually far from being so. If Edmund had lived, and the division of the country had lasted, perhaps there would never again have been a single kingdom of England. It's a reminder that political unions which may seem to us inevitable and eternal can, in fact, fracture very rapidly.

The distribution of Scandinavian-influenced place-names in England, from this site

Since I've already written quite a bit here about Assandun, I want today to share another edited extract from my book which offers an unusual perspective on the roots of Cnut's conquest and its place in English history. What I wanted to explore in the book was how medieval writers and audiences in England, between the end of the Viking Age and the fifteenth century, understood and interpreted the history of Viking activity in this country - activity which includes not just raiding, but also this history of substantial Scandinavian settlement and periods of rule by Scandinavian kings. To understand this question, it's important to realise that our modern academic knowledge of the Viking Age, as well as the idea of 'the Vikings' which is so prevalent in popular culture, both first emerged centuries after the end of the medieval period. Almost everything you think of when you think 'Viking' comes from the 19th- and 20th-century rediscovery of medieval sources of information which were not available in medieval England, whether that's the huge amount of written sources from Scandinavia and Iceland - not accessible to English-speakers in any real quantity before the 19th century - or other sources of information unavailable to medieval historians, such as archaeology, the scientific study of place-names, linguistics, and much more. The very word 'Viking', while frequently found in Old Norse sources, was not a word used in medieval England; it was introduced into English in the 19th century, as a result of English-speakers beginning to have access to - and fall in love with! - Old Norse sagas. (There was an Old English cognate, wicing, but it doesn't have exactly the same meaning, did not survive into Middle English, and is not the origin of the Modern English word.) Instead of 'Vikings', medieval English writers tend to talk of 'the Danes' instead, which is of course a massive oversimplification given what we know about the complex and fluid make-up of the Vikings, and yet reveals something about how English writers saw them. It makes a difference that 'Danes' relates to a specific country, and one geographically close to England.

So how did England's early medieval history look if you didn't have the vast majority of the sources of information which have fed our modern understanding of 'the Vikings' - if you had never read a saga, or seen a reconstructed Viking ship or a map of the Danelaw? There are quite a lot of answers to that question, depending on the perspective, time and (especially) place from which medieval writers look back on the Viking past.

A map of Scandinavian-influenced place-names in Lincoln Museum.

One reason local history museums are so important...

In the British Library's superb 'Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms' exhibition last year, which gathered together such a glorious wealth of material from early medieval England, the one thing I came away reflecting on with some regret was the absence of discussion of what happened to the north and east of England under Viking rule. The course of Anglo-Saxon history wended its way from Kent up to Bede's Northumbria down to Mercia and Wessex, but once we reached Alfred the Great and his successors, the centre of attention was firmly in the south, and stayed there. The Vikings were seen doing their 'Viking' thing, burning monasteries and looting the Codex Aureus, but they were certainly marginal to the main story; as soon as they appeared, the focus moved south. There was, as far as I spotted, only one brief reference to the Viking kingdom of York, and only in the context of Athelstan claiming control of it; none of its kings were named, and there was nothing to suggest the importance of this kingdom which extended across the Irish Sea to Dublin. It inherently reflects a particular perspective on 'English' history to treat Athelstan as a major figure and not even give Sitric a name. There was also no mention of the many forms of evidence for the lasting impact of Scandinavian settlement in the north, and no reference to Old Norse as a spoken language in England or its significant influence on the present-day English language. Of course I wanted to see those things in part because they're my special interest, but I'm also conscious that treating that aspect of Anglo-Saxon history as marginal means overlooking an important part of the story of northern England and its particular relationships with neighbouring peoples in Ireland, Scotland, and Scandinavia (and again, we're talking about what is geographically at least half of England - not just Northumbria, but the East Midlands and East Anglia too.) This is more an observation than a criticism of the exhibition; it was so very good, and no exhibition can include everything. You might well object that the Viking rulers of Northumbria or East Anglia weren't technically 'Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms', which I suppose is true. But perhaps it's also part of the problem. Both 'Anglo-Saxon' and 'English' are terms which in this period have political force, and reflect a certain perspective on what 'England' is and what it should be. 'Anglo-Saxon England' is more an idea than a place, an idea formulated in the first instance by elites in particular times and places who wanted to bring it into being, and as historians have long been aware, it's an idea which (like 'the Vikings') doesn't always map onto how these peoples saw their own identity. So does it include the Scandinavian settlers and their descendants and those who lived alongside them? Well, that's the question. It does and it doesn't; depends who you ask. The 'Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms' way of telling the story of early medieval English history is certainly a well-established and familiar one; it already was by the end of the Anglo-Saxon period, because it's the story as seen from the perspective of the people who by that time were doing most of the history-writing. But it was not inevitable that it should be so; it was not inevitable that 'the history of the kings of Wessex' should merge seamlessly into 'the history of England'. If we look closely at the sources we can find alternative histories, different ways of telling the story, where other people and other places are not marginal but central to the imagined narrative of English history.

A coin from Viking York

Here's one alternative history of early medieval England which comes from 12th-century Lincolnshire. It's predicated on the idea that the Danes, far from being late-comers to England - invaders and raiders and enemies of the English - were actually there first, and had a presence in at least parts of the country long before the coming of the Anglo-Saxons. (Though modern historians now question the traditional idea of the adventus Anglorum, 'the coming of the English/Angles', most medieval historians accepted it as established fact, so just go with it...)

This story is recorded by a writer named Geffrei Gaimar in his Estoire des Engleis, written in c.1136-7. The Estoire tells the story of the 'history of the English', in sprightly Anglo-Norman verse, all the way from the coming of the Saxons to the death of William Rufus in 1100. Gaimar wrote for a female patron, a woman named Constance Fitz Gilbert, a member of a well-connected aristocratic family in Lincolnshire. The Estoire is, therefore, intended primarily for a secular, aristocratic, French-speaking audience, which makes its version of Anglo-Danish history all the more interesting. Gaimar presents a narrative of English and British history freely drawn not only from his two main sources, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, but also from romance and oral tradition which he probably encountered in Lincolnshire. It's a potent blend of history and legend, with just enough of each to keep things lively.

Gaimar tells stories about a number of semi-legendary Danish kings who supposedly ruled in England as long ago as the days of King Arthur, which here means some time in the fifth century - kings whose historical basis is not clear, though some of them do appear in other sources. The powerbase of these Danish kings is in Lincolnshire and East Anglia, but they also rule lands in Denmark itself. They're at war with Arthur and his descendants, and then when the Saxons come they're at war with them too. First there's King Adelbriht, who starts off as king of Norfolk, but then extends his rule down as far as Colchester in Essex. (Adelbriht would generally be an English name, but he's explicitly said to be Danish). His royal capital seems to be Thetford, since that's where he is when he dies, and he's buried in Colchester. His daughter Argentille marries Haveloc, the son of another Danish king named Gunter; Haveloc has been orphaned as a child and brought up in Grimsby, but there's a long story about how he rediscovers his true identity and becomes a successful king. (It's an alternative version of the Havelok legend which I've written about elsewhere and discuss at length in the book; and see also this post by Caitlin Green on Gaimar's Haveloc and Lincolnshire history) The story of Haveloc and Argentille ends with them ruling a Danish kingdom which stretches from Colchester up to the Humber, and apparently includes at least part of Denmark too.

And by this point in the story it's still only 495! It's only now that the Saxons begin to turn up in (what was to become) England. Later we meet Wasing - whose name might have something to do with Walsingham - a Danish king of Norfolk who goes to war with the Saxons of Wessex. And so when some Danish ships arrive on the coast of Dorset in 789, an incident recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which later historians often took to be the 'beginning of the Viking Age', it's not really the beginning at all:

E en cel tens vindrent Daneis
pur guereier sur les Engleis:
un senesçal al rei oscistrent,
la terre saisirent e pristrent,
mult firent mal par les contrees,
si nen u[re]nt ke treis navees.
Puis realerent en lur païs
si asemblerent lur amis;
en Bretaigne voldrent venir,
as Engleis la voldrent tolir
car entr’els eurent esgardé
e dit ke ço est lur herité,
e mulz homes de lur linage,
urent le regne en heritage
ainceis kë Engleis i entrast
ne home de Sessoigne i habitast:
li reis Danes tint le regnez,
ki de Denemarch[e] fu nez:
si fist Ailbrith e Haveloc,
e plus en nomerent ovoc,
purquai il distrent pur verité,
Bretaigne ert lur dreit herité.
(2065–86)

It was during this time that the Danes arrived to wage war on the English. They killed a certain royal steward, seized and secured the land and, despite their only having three ships, caused a great deal of damage throughout the region. They then returned home and enlisted their allies with the intention of coming to Britain to seize the island from the English, for they had reached the decision between them, and claimed that this country was part of their heritage, and that many of their ancestors had established an inheritance claim before any English had even arrived or before anyone from Saxony came to live there. King Dan, who was born in Denmark, had ruled over the kingdom, as had Adelbriht and Haveloc, and they named others in addition who had done so. It was on this basis that they claimed it to be true that Britain was their rightful inheritance.

Geffrei Gaimar, Estoire des Engleis: History of the English, ed. Ian Short (Oxford, 2009), pp. 114-15.

According to this story, Viking attacks on England aren't opportunistic raids of plunder but a coordinated attempt at national expansion. The Danes are would-be conquerors who target England - and actually the whole of Britain - specifically because their ancestors had once ruled there, not only Adelbriht and Havelok, as described above, but also this mysterious 'King Dan'. King Dan does not appear in any other sources from England, but there are several references in Scandinavian historical writing to a king named Dan, progenitor of the Danes. The Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus begins the first book of the Gesta Danorum by naming the brothers Dan and Angul as the originators of the Danish and English nations, respectively. According to Saxo, this Dan was the grandfather of Sciold/Scyld, from whom the Scyldings were descended (the Scyldings are the Danes in Beowulf, Hrothgar et al, and Cnut seems to have considered himself a Scylding too). Dan is also found in some other Scandinavian sources: a King Dan is mentioned in the twelfth-century Chronicon Lethrense as a king who ruled Denmark in the time of the Emperor Augustus and gave his name to the Danes, and Snorri Sturluson, in the prologue to Heimskringla and in Ynglinga saga, says that Dan was the first person to be called king by the Danes.

King Dan is probably a purely legendary figure, a back-formation from the name of the Danes, as Angul is from the English. It's possible that Gaimar and these Scandinavian sources arrived at the same name independently (it would be a natural etymological deduction!) but it's also possible that the ultimate source of Gaimar’s information was connected to these beliefs about Danish history - an Anglo-Danish tradition in Lincolnshire, perhaps. This East Midlands perspective, with its specific focus on ties to Denmark (rather than, for instance, Norway) is itself likely to be very different from ideas which might have been current elsewhere in northern England.

Cnut and Edmund in CUL MS. Ee 3 59, f. 5

And that brings us to Cnut. When Gaimar tells the story of Cnut and Edmund Ironside meeting to divide England between them in 1016, he has Cnut inform Edmund that they are both the sons of kings who have ruled the country, but that his ancestors held England many years before the coming of the Saxons:

e bien sachez, loi[n]gtenement
l’urent Daneis nostre parent:
prés de mil anz l’out Dane aince[i]s
ke unc i entrast Certiz li reis.
Certiz, ço fu vostre ancïen;
e li reis Danes fu le mien.
Daneis le tint en chef de Deu,
Modret donat Certiz son feu:
il ne tint unkes chevalment,
de lui vindrent vostre parent.
Pur ço vus di, si nel savez,
si vus od mai [vus] combataz,
l[i] un de nus ad greignur tort,
ne savom liequels en ert mort.
Pur ço vus vol un offre fere
e ne m’en voil de rien retrere:
partum la terre dreit en dous,
l’une partie en aiez vus,
l’altre partie me remaigne!
(4315–33)

Our Danish ancestors, I’ll have you know, have been ruling here for a very long time. Almost a thousand years before king Cerdic came to the throne, Dan was king. Cerdic was your ancestor, and king Dan was mine. A Dane held the land in chief from God. It was Mordred who granted Cerdic his fief; he never held it in chief, and your family is descended from him. In case you don’t already know, I’ll tell you that if you fight me, one of us is going to be in the wrong more than the other, though we don’t know which one of us will die as a result. This is why I’m willing to make you an offer – one that I will not seek to back down from: let us divide the kingdom exactly in two, with one part going to you and the other remaining with me.

Gaimar, Estoire des Engleis: History of the English, ed. Ian Short, pp. 234-7.

Cnut is claiming that the Danes have a prior claim to England dating back to centuries before the foundation of the kingdom of Wessex, long before Cerdic and Edmund Ironside's other ancestors had ever come to the country. Numerous other medieval chroniclers have versions of a story about this meeting between Cnut and Edmund (I wrote about some of them in a previous version of this post), but no one else includes this bold claim to ancient Danish sovereignty. From a historical point of view this clearly can't be accurate, but what's interesting is that Gaimar treats it as basically a sound and legitimate argument: it's only repeating what has already been shown several times in the Estoire, and Edmund Ironside is said to admire ‘how humbly and how justly the good king spoke to him’. Edmund agrees to the division of the country along the lines proposed by the Danish king, and his response to Cnut’s argument implicitly accepts it as a valid interpretation of the history. Cnut’s offer to divide the kingdom, in this light, is a magnanimous one: he has a prior claim to rule the country, and is generously conceding part of it to Edmund to put an end to the fighting. (Most medieval and indeed many modern retellings of this story would put it the other way around - that Edmund is the one conceding something rightfully 'his'). Morally and historically, Cnut is on the strongest side.

So what's going on here? Gaimar's narrative is a fascinating mash-up, combining Anglo-Saxon historical sources with the newly popular world of Arthurian romance beloved by the Norman aristocracy; but the firm belief in Danish right to rule and the general sympathy with Danes over Saxons suggests that at least some of this material has its roots in the Anglo-Scandinavian society of 12th-century Lincolnshire, where Gaimar was writing. It's worth pointing out that in the 1130s Danish claims to rule England were not only the stuff of distant history, but also of the fairly recent past: there were serious threats (or promises, I suppose, depending on your view) that the Danes would invade England on and off well in the 1080s. Yet, as the title of the Estoire suggests, the Danes and Saxons all form part of the 'History of the English' - and so, implicitly, do the French-speaking audience of the Estoire. Gaimar retells the story of pre-Conquest England for a Norman aristocratic audience who may have seen themselves as the latest in a long line of conquerors, relatively new to England but nonetheless heirs to its land and its history. Danes, Saxons, Normans - 'English' is a capacious term which expands to include these new arrivals.

A coin from Viking East Anglia

Of course, the Estoire is not actually wrong to suggest that the Danes had a long-established history in England, or that they had ruled in the East Midlands: Adelbriht and Haveloc and King Dan are (probably) fictional, though there may be a grain of truth in their stories, but certainly there had been Danish kings of East Anglia of whose existence we can be confident. The Estoire just locates this history about five centuries too early, perhaps as a way of claiming primacy over an alternative version of pre-Conquest history: that centred on Wessex. It's the Wessex version we get almost everywhere else in late Anglo-Saxon sources, and in most of the Anglo-Norman chroniclers who follow them - the version which sees the creation of a kingdom of England, ruled from the south, as the teleological end-point of Anglo-Saxon history. So in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle's account of Assandun, for instance, the chronicler can insist by fervent repetition that Edmund is fighting on behalf of 'all the English people', while Cnut is an outsider whom only traitors support:

Se here gewende eft up on Eastseaxan, 7 ferde into Myrcan, 7 fordyde eall þæt he oferferde. Ða se cyning geahsade þæt se here upp wæs, þa gesamnade he fiftan siðe ealle Engla þeode 7 ferde him æthindan, 7 offerde hi innon Eastseaxan æt þære dune þe man hæt Assandun, 7 þær togædere heardlice fengon. Þa dyde Eadric ealdorman swa swa he ær ofter dyde, astealde þæne fleam ærast mid Magesætan, 7 swa aswac his kynehlaforde 7 ealle þeodæ Angelcynnes. Ðær ahte Cnut sige, 7 gefeaht him wið ealle Engla þeode. Þa wearð þær ofslægen Eadnoð biscop, 7 Wulfsie abbod, 7 ælfric ealdorman, 7 Godwine ealdorman, 7 Ulfkytel of Eastenglan, 7 Æþelward Ælfwines sunu ealdormannes, 7 eall seo duguð of Angelcynnes þeode.

[The [Danish] raiding-army turned back up into Essex, and went towards Mercia, and destroyed all that they overtook. Then when the king [Edmund] heard that the army was inland, he gathered all the English people for the fifth time and travelled behind them, and overtook them in Essex at the hill which is called Assandun, and there they fought a hard battle together. Then Eadric the ealdorman did as he had so often done before, and first began the flight with the Magonsæte, and so betrayed his king and lord and all the English people. There Cnut had the victory, and won for himself the whole people of the English. There Bishop Eadnoth was killed, and Abbot Wulfsige, and Ealdorman Ælfric, and Ealdorman Godwine, and Ulfcytel of East Anglia, and Æthelweard, the son of Ealdorman Æ[thel]wine, and all the best of the English people.]

The chronicler here uses 'Engla þeode' and 'Angelcynnes þeode' interchangeably, and both should probably be translated as 'English people' (þeod might equally be translated, with caveats, as 'nation'). But it's important to be alert to the extent to which this use of 'English' is propagandistic, deliberately exclusionary, defining 'the English people' to mean 'Edmund Ironside and his supporters'. It is a much more restricted definition than that put forward by the French-speaking Gaimar 120 years later, for whom Engleis potentially includes anyone living in England. Here, 'English' is made to exclude not only people of Danish birth, like Cnut, but even those among the English who were supporting him; by going over to the Danes, they have somehow forfeited their 'Englishness'.

But would people have recognised this restricted definition in Lincolnshire, or other parts of the former Danish-ruled areas of England? Might some of them have thought there was another version of history in which a concept and term like 'all the English nation' could readily encompass Danes and Danish kings, since it had done so in the past? That was certainly the approach Cnut himself took as king: ready to rule like the kings of Wessex from Winchester, but happy to be compared to long-ago Viking kings who had ruled from York. One of his poets lauded him by reminding the king and his followers that:

Ok Ellu bak,
at, lét, hinns sat,
Ívarr ara,
Jórvík, skorit.
Ok senn sonu
sló, hvern ok þó,
Aðalráðs eða
út flæmði Knútr.

Ívarr, who ruled at York, had Ælla’s back cut with an eagle. And Cnut soon defeated or drove out the sons of Æthelred, every one.

Ivar is the famous Ivar the Boneless, Ælla a Northumbrian king who was one of his victims, and it was 150 years or so from their time to Cnut's. Whether Cnut or his supporters really did trace the precedent of a Danish England all the way back to King Dan, this poem too finds a precedent for Danish rule in an alternative reading of English history which places its Danish kings front and centre. Here it's the West Saxons who are a footnote, the sons of Æthelred (like Edmund Ironside) who are the ones driven away, marginalised, swept out of the mainstream by history's apparently inevitable onward tide. It could easily have been that way. It very nearly was.

A pendant of Thor's hammer found in Lincolnshire,

one of many found across the areas of Scandinavian settlement in England