The Anglo-Saxon O Antiphons: O Clavis David, Secrets and Songs

Christ in Majesty, the Virgin and St Peter (BL Stowe 944, f. 6, c.1030)

We are now in the last days of Advent, the season of the O Antiphons. These ancient antiphons, sung at Vespers in the week before Christmas, still attract a remarkable amount of attention today - and twelve hundred years ago they attracted one Anglo-Saxon poet, who turned them into a series of short poems in English. For the next few days I want to post the Old English poetic versions of the O Antiphons, which are much more than translations of the Latin texts: they are exquisite poetic meditations on the rich imagery of the antiphons, responding to them in subtle and creative ways. In translating them to post here I've been astonished anew by their beauty and interest, and I hope you'll enjoy them as much as I do.

They survive in a manuscript known as the Exeter Book, an anthology of English poetry on all kinds of themes and in all kinds of forms: elegies, saints' lives, riddles, wisdom poetry, philosophical reflections, laments, and many poems which resist classification. The O Antiphons are the first poems in the collection, and they were probably composed some time earlier than the date of the tenth-century manuscript, perhaps around the year 800. They are anonymous, though once attributed by scholars to Cynewulf, and they long suffered from being lumped together with the poems which follow them in the manuscript (which also concern Christ, so you will sometimes find them being called 'Christ I' or 'Christ A'). However, they deserve to be treated, and appreciated, separately and on their own terms, as a collection of individual poems linked by their common source in the O Antiphons.

Last year I posted one of them (O Oriens/O Earendel) but this year I'll post my translations of the antiphons for the next five days. In the manuscript there are twelve in total, some of which correspond to the Greater Antiphons, but the form of the collection as a whole is unique. The first three antiphons (O Sapientia, O Adonai, O Radix Jesse) do not appear, but this may be because the first few leaves of the manuscript are lost. The last four, however, are there: O Clavis David, O Oriens, O Rex Gentium, and O Emmanuel, as well as an additional eighth antiphon used on December 23 in medieval English (and still in traditional Anglican) usage, O Virgo virginum. English practice therefore had the antiphons one day ahead. (The order in which they will appear here isn't that of the manuscript, as the antiphons are not in the order in which they are used liturgically; today's antiphon comprises lines 18-49 of the poem, which can be found complete here.)

So this is 'O Clavis David'.  Here's the antiphon, for comparison:

O Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel;
qui aperis, et nemo claudit;
claudis, et nemo aperit:
veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris,
sedentem in tenebris, et umbra mortis.

(O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel;
who opens, and no one can shut,
shuts, and no one can open:
come, and lead the captives from the prison house,
those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.)


Eala, þu reccend ond þu riht cyning,
se þe locan healdeð, lif ontyneð,
eadga... upwegas, oþrum forwyrneð
wlitigan wilsiþes, gif his weorc ne deag.
Huru we for þearfe þas word sprecað,
ond m... ...giað þone þe mon gescop
þæt he ne ...ete... ...ceose weorðan
cearfulra þing, þe we in carcerne
sittað sorgende, sunnan wenað,
hwonne us liffrea leoht ontyne,
weorðe ussum mode to mundboran,
ond þæt tydre gewitt tire bewinde,
gedo usic þæs wyrðe, þe he to wuldre forlet,
þa we heanlice hweorfan sceoldan
to þis enge lond, eðle bescyrede.

Forþon secgan mæg, se ðe soð spriceð,
þæt he ahredde, þa forhwyrfed wæs,
frumcyn fira. Wæs seo fæmne geong,
mægð manes leas, þe he him to meder geceas;
þæt wæs geworden butan weres frigum,
þæt þurh bearnes gebyrd bryd eacen wearð.
Nænig efenlic þam, ær ne siþþan,
in worlde gewearð wifes gearnung;
þæt degol wæs, dryhtnes geryne.

Eal giofu gæstlic grundsceat geondspreot;
þær wisna fela wearð inlihted
lare longsume þurh lifes fruman
þe ær under hoðman biholen lægon,
witgena woðsong, þa se waldend cwom,
se þe reorda gehwæs ryne gemiclað
ðara þe geneahhe noman scyppendes
þurh horscne had hergan willað.


O thou Ruler and righteous King,
who guards the locks, who opens life
and the blessed way on high, and to others denies
the bright longed-for path, if their deeds have not earned it;
truly, we speak these words in need,
and entreat that he who made mankind…
[this next line is damaged]
…of sorrowful things, for we in prison
sit sorrowing, hoping for the sun,
for when the Lord of life will open light to us,
become for us a source of strength in spirit,
and enfold our feeble knowledge in splendour,
and make us worthy, that he may admit us to glory,
who have had to come, wretchedly,
into this constraining world, cut off from our homeland.

Therefore may he who speaks the truth say
that he saved us, who had been led astray,
the race of men. It was a young girl,
a maiden free from sin, whom he chose as his mother;
that was accomplished without the love of a man,
that the girl gave birth to a baby, became pregnant.
Nothing equal to this, before or since,
has ever in the world been a woman’s reward;
that was a secret, the Lord’s mystery.

Spiritual grace spread across the ground of all the earth;
there many things were given light,
long-standing lore, through the Lord of life,
which before had lain hidden in shadow,
the resounding song of the prophets, when the Ruler came,
he who magnifies the secret of every speech
of those who earnestly desire to praise the name
of the Creator in eager manner.


This poem takes its main inspiration from the final line of the antiphon: 'those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death'. Its interest is in light and darkness, and in the language of secrecy and hidden things - especially geryne, 'mystery'. (Not to make the Advent Lyrics all about Tolkien - since tomorrow is 'O Earendel' - but I particularly noted the line þæt degol wæs, dryhtnes geryne, 'that was a secret, the Lord's mystery', because degol is the origin of the name Déagol, who was secretly murdered by Sméagol.) The Key of David is to unlock not only the road to heaven, but the secrets concealed on earth. He will give us strength in mode, 'mind, spirit', and tydre gewitt tire bewinde, 'enfold our frail wits in splendour', as if limited human understanding is to be entirely wrapped and wound within limitless divine wisdom. Another Old English poem (Exodus), counselling on the interpretation of the scriptures, uses comparable language in its metaphor of the keys of the spirit:

Gif onlucan wile lifes wealhstod,
beorht in breostum, banhuses weard,
ginfæsten god gæstes cægon,
run bið gerecenod, ræd forð gæð.

If the interpreter of life, the guardian of the body, bright in heart, wishes to unlock ample benefits with the keys of the spirit, the mystery is explained and wisdom comes forth.

Our poet seems to imagine the Key of David working in a similar way.

What is unlocked by the Key is 'light', and in describing mankind as sunnan wenað, 'hoping for the sun', this lyric makes use of the Son/sun wordplay I mentioned recently - probably the earliest surviving example of the device in English poetry. This poem is about the opening of hidden knowledge, and appropriately for a poem, this opening is connected specifically to poetry itself, the bringing to light the truth of the witgena woðsong, 'the prophets' resounding song'. As King David is both prophet and psalm-singer, this takes us back to the opening of the antiphon. The final lines promise that reorda gehwæs ryne, 'the secret of every utterance' will be magnified, and this utterance, the poem itself, is surely included. Thus we, in reading the poem, are encouraged to finish in union with poets and prophets, as 'those who earnestly desire to praise the name of the Creator'.

Rejoicing in the heavenly city (Stowe 944, f. 7)

The images in this post are from the New Minster Liber Vitae, perhaps my favourite Anglo-Saxon manuscript, which was made in Winchester in c.1030.  The massive key in the pictures belongs to St Peter, but it seemed appropriate nevertheless.

Wyrms and Werebears: Tale-Telling in the Eleventh Century and Today

A man fighting a dragon (BL Royal 6 C VI, f. 79v, C12th)

Along with half the rest of the world, last weekend I went to see The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. My reaction was probably in line with half the rest of the world's, too: awesome dragon, shame about the love-sick elves. But with my academic hat on I was also playing 'spot the medieval motif' which, as always with Tolkien, is not difficult ('medieval motif Tolkien bingo' would not be a very long-lasting game) but is both rewarding and fun. With The Hobbit it's even easier than with The Lord of the Rings because - well, mostly because there's a dragon. Whatever flaws the films might have, it's still an exciting experience to see scenes from much-loved medieval stories brought to life on screen: dragons and goldhoards, competitive riddling, Gandalf the Odinic wanderer, fierce dwarves with lovely Norse names... the list goes on. You might say that the end of The Desolation of Smaug is the most enjoyable film version of Beowulf ever made. It only left me wishing that one day someone will make an adaptation of the legend of Sigurðr the Völsung, which would make an amazing film in this vein.

Anyway, the reason I decided to post about this is that I've spent part of the past few years researching a particular medieval legend which incorporates several of these motifs. It comes from the English East Midlands, and seems to have developed in stages there between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. This legend has a couple of points of contact with The Hobbit, more because they're both drawing on common Scandinavian motifs than because Tolkien was using this particular legend (though surely he knew it). The story is lively and dramatic and might easily while away a winter evening; I find it wonderful to think of cinema audiences going in their millions to enjoy just the same stories as people in the East Midlands were telling each other nearly a thousand years ago.

So let me tell you the story of Siward. 

Dragon (BL Harley 628, f. 87)

But first just one or two facts, because Siward, hero of our tale, was a real historical figure. He was born in Denmark, probably a little before the year 1000, and probably came to England during the reign of Cnut, when England was the best place for a young Dane to make a career for himself. By 1042 he was earl of Northumbria, a huge, complicated earldom stretching from the River Humber up north to the borders of Scotland. During Edward the Confessor's reign Siward also held a southern earldom in the area around Huntingdon/Cambridge/Northampton. He died in 1055 and was buried at York, in a church he had founded and dedicated to the brand-new Norwegian saint Olaf. This suggests he retained a sense of loyalty to his Scandinavian roots, and in English sources he was known as Siward digri, an Old Norse nickname which means 'big, large'.

And this would be all we knew about Siward, were it not for the fact that his son Waltheof was executed in 1076 for rebellion against William the Conqueror, and was considered to be a martyr and saint by the monks of Crowland Abbey in Lincolnshire, where he was buried. This meant that at the beginning of the thirteenth century the monks of Crowland produced a series of texts (in Latin) about Waltheof and his family, including one about Siward's ancestry and youthful deeds. That story is the one we're concerned with - it's pure legend, and it's awesome. It starts like this:

The stories of the ancients say that a certain nobleman, Ursus – whom the Lord permitted, contrary to the normal manner of human procreation, to be created from a white bear as father and a noblewoman as mother – begot Spratlingus; Spratlingus begot Ulsius; Ulsius begot Beorn, nicknamed Beresune, that is, 'Bear's Son'. This Beorn was a Dane by race, an excellent earl and famous soldier. However, as a sign of the difference of species between his parents, nature had given him the ears of his father, that is, of a bear. In everything else he was like his mother's species. And after many deeds of courage and military experiences, he had a son, very brave and a noble imitator of his father's military skill. His name was Siward.

Both Ursus and Björn (the Old Norse form of Beorn) mean 'bear', and this is a version of a Scandinavian story-type where a man is said to be descended from a bear - either an actual bear or a human who has been turned into a were-bear. The most famous is Böðvar Bjarki, but it's also often noted that one interpretation of the name Beowulf is 'bee-wolf', a kenning for 'bear' - and there are berserkers, of course. Siward was not the only person in eleventh-century England who numbered a bear among his ancestors; the family of Harold Godwineson might have done too, on their Danish mother's side. All these people are distant cousins of The Hobbit's shape-shifter Beorn. As Gandalf describes him:

He is a skin-changer. He changes his skin; sometimes he is a huge black bear, sometimes he is a great strong black-haired man with huge arms and a great beard. I cannot tell you much more, though that ought to be enough. Some say that he is a bear descended from the great and ancient bears of the mountains that lived there before the giants came. Others say that he is a man descended from the first men who lived before Smaug or the other dragons came into this part of the world, and before the goblins came into the hills out of the North. I cannot say, though I fancy the last is the true tale. He is not the sort of person to ask questions of.

At any rate he is under no enchantment but his own. He lives in an oak-wood and has a great wooden house; and as a man he keeps cattle and horses which are nearly as marvellous as himself. They work for him and talk to him. He does not eat them; neither does he hunt or eat wild animals. He keeps hives and hives of great fierce bees, and lives most on cream and honey. As a bear he ranges far and wide. I once saw him sitting all alone on the top of the Carrock at night watching the moon sinking towards the Misty Mountains, and I heard him growl in the tongue of bears; ‘The day will come when they will perish and I shall go back!’ That is why I believe he once came from the mountains himself.

The idea that bear characteristics are hereditary is embedded in the medieval versions (as with Siward's father's 'ears of a bear'; it makes concrete the idea that the hero's ancestry tells you something about his character), and so in The Hobbit:

Beorn indeed became a great chief afterwards in those regions and ruled a wide land between the mountains and the wood; and it is said that for many generations the men of his line had the power of taking bear’s shape, and some were grim men and bad, but most were in heart like Beorn, if less in size and strength.

'Beorn' is the perfect name for this character because the ambiguity - is he man or bear? - is right there in the word itself: the Old Norse name means 'bear' but in Old English beorn means 'man, warrior'. All the references to this legend in English sources link it to Scandinavian characters - either Danes or Norwegians - so I thought it was a nice touch that in The Hobbit films Beorn is played by a Swedish actor. To an eleventh-century English audience a were-bear would have had a distinctly Norse 'accent'!

Knight and dragon (BL Burney 216, f. 32v)

To return to Siward, the bear's grandson: filled with youthful ambition, he leaves his father’s house in search of adventure, with fifty companions and a well-stocked ship. He sails from Denmark to the Orkneys, where he lands on an island and is told that its inhabitants are being terrorised by a dragon. When Siward learns this he decides to fight the dragon, and put it to flight from the island. (In doing this he is following in the footsteps of his famous namesake, the most glorious dragon-fighter of Germanic legend, Sigurðr the Völsung). Triumphant, he sets sail again, south to Northumbria, where he has heard there's another dragon to fight. But when he lands in Northumbria, instead of meeting a dragon, he meets an old man sitting on a mound. Siward asks the old man if he knows where to find the dragon. But the man greets him by name, and says, "Siward, I know well for what reason you have undertaken this journey, to test your strength against a dragon; but you labour in vain, for you will not find it. Go back to your companions, and I will tell you what your fate will be. When you set out on your journey you will have favourable winds, and they will bring you to a river which is called the Thames. There you will find a city called London, and the king there will take you into his favour, and grant you great lands."

(It's not quite 'turn again Whittington, Lord Mayor of London', but that's the general idea!) 

Siward says he doesn't believe him, and that if he goes back to his companions and tells them this they will say it's nonsense. But as a token of his trustworthiness the old man presents him with a banner, and says its name is 'Ravenlandeye' - a name which is interpreted as 'Raven, terror of the land'. Siward takes the banner and goes back to his ship, and all the old man's words come true: he is guided to London, and goes to find King Edward. The king has heard of his coming, and accepts Siward into his service. Siward stays with the king and distinguishes himself so much that King Edward promises that the first high honour which becomes available in the land will be given to him.

Dragon (BL Burney 216 f. 69v)

Then one day it happens that Siward is travelling from Westminster to London when he encounters an enemy of the king, a Danish man named Tostig, earl of Huntingdon. The king hates Tostig because he's married to the queen's sister, a daughter of Earl Godwine. (This figure gets his name from the half-Danish Tostig Godwineson, who was in fact King Edward's brother-in-law, but this really has no basis in history). Siward and Tostig meet at a bridge over the river, which is so narrow that as haughty Tostig passes he splashes Siward's cloak with mud. (In those days, adds the monk of Crowland, men wore long animal-fur cloaks.) Siward takes Tostig's behaviour as an insult, and decides to get revenge. He lies in wait for Tostig, and as the earl returns across the bridge, Siward draws his sword and cuts off his head. Concealing the head beneath his cloak, he goes to the court and asks the king to make him earl of Huntingdon, because that earldom is vacant. The king says he must be joking - the earldom isn't vacant, the earl's only just left him! But Siward produces Tostig's head from beneath his cloak and throws it at the king's feet. King Edward, remembering his promise, has no choice but to grant the vacant earldom to Siward.

Siward leaves the court and seeks out his companions, and finds them fighting against Tostig's men. They kill them all and bury them near London, at a place which becomes known as the 'Danes' Church' - 'and so it is to this day', says the Crowland monk in the thirteenth century (and so it is to this day).

Dragon (BL Harley 624, f. 101v)

Some time later, Edward decides to make Siward earl of Northumbria, Cumberland and Westmoreland. And thus, says that Crowland monk, the ancient prophecy is fulfilled:

As the accounts of ancient historians of the English agree, the spirit of the prophet was fulfilled, which says that divine providence allowed to be born from the mixture of rational and irrational beings, that is of a bear and a woman, a man who gloriously and famously defended the king of England against his enemies: this was entirely brought to fulfilment in Earl Siward’s defence of the holy king Edward against invasion and danger.

So that's the story of Siward. Except for two more short episodes, for which we can turn from the Crowland monks to the historian Henry of Huntingdon, writing in the early twelfth century. He tells how Siward's elder son, Osbeorn (a name which means 'godlike-bear'), was killed in battle against the Scots in 1054:

Around this time Siward, the mighty earl of Northumbria, almost a giant in stature, very strong mentally and physically, sent his son to conquer Scotland. When they came back and reported to his father that he had been killed in battle, he asked, ‘Did he receive his fatal wound in the front or the back of his body?’ The messengers said, ‘In the front’. Then he said, ‘I am completely happy, for I consider no other death worthy for me or my son.’ So Siward set out for Scotland, and defeated the king in battle, destroyed the whole realm, and having destroyed it, subjected it to himself.

Historia Anglorum, ed. and trans. by Diana Greenway (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), pp.377-9.

The point of this questioning is that if you received your wounds in the front it means you got them in battle, fighting bravely; if you got them in the back, it was because you were running away. This Scottish campaign and this same dialogue feature towards the end of Shakespeare's Macbeth, after Siward's son has been killed by Macbeth:

ROSS
Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier’s debt.
He only lived but till he was a man,
The which no sooner had his prowess confirmed
In the unshrinking station where he fought,
But like a man he died.

SIWARD
Then he is dead?

ROSS
Ay, and brought off the field: your cause of sorrow
Must not be measured by his worth, for then
It hath no end.

SIWARD
Had he his hurts before?

ROSS
Ay, on the front.

SIWARD
Why then, God's soldier be he!
Had I as many sons as I have hairs,
I would not wish them to a fairer death:
And so, his knell is knoll'd.

The Death of Earl Siward (via wikipedia)

Some years later Siward himself, having lived awesomely, died awesomely too:

Siward, the stalwart earl, being seized by dysentery, felt that death was near. And he said, ‘How shameful it is that I, who could not die in so many battles, should have been saved for the ignominious death of a cow! At least clothe me in my impenetrable breastplate, gird me with my sword, place my helmet on my head, my shield in my left hand, my gilded battle-axe in my right, that I, the bravest of soldiers, may die like a soldier.’ He spoke, and armed as he had requested, he gave up his spirit with honour.

Historia Anglorum, trans. Greenway, p. 381.

And that was the end of stalwart Siward.

Isn't this a brilliant assortment of tales?  It's a jumble of stories recognisable from other more famous Old Norse and Old English sources: bear ancestry, dragon-fighting, the grim trickery with Tostig's head and the king's promise, and two kinds of valiant death. The mysterious old man who tells Siward his fate is clearly related to Odin, who in Norse tradition wanders the world in this disguise and intervenes in the lives of his favourite heroes. These motifs are widespread in folklore, but it's never quite enough to say 'this is a widespread motif'; we ought to ask ourselves who was telling this story in this particular situation, and why. The fact that this lengthy legend became attached to an eleventh-century earl suggests that a lively story-telling tradition existed in Anglo-Danish (and then Anglo-Norman) England, well into the twelfth century - a tradition capable of taking familiar story-elements and blending them together into new narratives, stories told about real contemporary people and not just great heroes of the past.

And then there is the question of why the monks of Crowland thought it was worth writing any of this down, as part of a collection of saints' legends which had deep significance for their abbey. The way Siward's legend is told is not 'here's a fun tale' but 'this is a story which demonstrates why our St Waltheof was a great man from a great family, and why Crowland can bask in his reflected glory'. Even if the monk didn't quite understand the story he was recording, he knew why he was recording it. You might think a Christian monk would have a problem with such faintly pagan motifs as human-bear miscegenation and spooky prophetic old men; but clearly not. He was prepared to take greatness for Siward wherever he could find it!

Beautiful Crowland Abbey

In all this, however, I think we should not underrate the importance of sheer narrative pleasure. It drives me crazy when scholars talk about legends like Siward's as if medieval writers only repeated them because they didn't know any better (I haven't got over one eminent historian haughtily describing one writer as being 'at the mercy of such legends', as if oral tradition were a contagious illness!). People tell stories because they want to, not because they have no choice; and stories about bear-men and dragon-fights and clever trickery are more than anything hugely enjoyable. Tolkien, who understood this better than anyone, has done more than anyone to remind us of the pleasures of such narratives - which is why cinema audiences of the twenty-first century are now enjoying just the same kinds of stories as people were in England and Scandinavia, many centuries ago.

ETA: My article on this topic in Neophilologus, 'Siward the Dragon-Slayer: Mythmaking in Anglo-Scandinavian England' can be found here (subscription required).

Veni, redemptor gentium: 'This World Wondreth'

Veni, redemptor gencium,
Veni, redemptor gencium.

This worle wondreth of all thynge
Howe a maide conceyved a kynge;
To yeue us al therof shewynge,
Veni, redemptor gencium.

Whan Gabriel come with his gretynge
To Mary moder, that swete thynge,
He graunted and saide with grete lykynge,
Veni, redemptor gencium.

Ambrose saide in his writynge
Cryst sholde be in a maide dwellynge;
To make sothe alle that syngynge,
Veni, redemptor gencium.

And Davyd saide in his spellynge
That truthe sholde be in erthe growynge
To us, byer of alle thynge,
Veni, redemptor gencium.

Cryst, ycrowned at oure begynnynge,
Be with us at oure endynge
Us to thy ioye for to brynge,
Veni, redemptor gencium.

Richard Greene, The Early English Carols (Oxford, 1977), p.36.

King David, Nackington, Kent

This carol is not, as you may already be able to tell, a translation of the Advent hymn 'Veni Redemptor Gentium', but it's nonetheless a very interesting text. It survives in one manuscript of carols, the 'Selden carol-book' (Oxford, Bodleian Library Arch. Selden. B. 26). You can punctuate the carol in a variety of ways, which changes the way you interpret it, but I understand it this way:

Veni, redemptor gentium,
Veni, redemptor gentium.

This world wonders above all things
How a maid conceived a king;
To give us all thereof showing, [to show us all how this could be]
Veni, redemptor gentium.

When Gabriel came with his greeting
To Mary mother, that sweet thing,
He confessed and said with great lykynge, [delight]
Veni, redemptor gentium.

Ambrose said in his writing
Christ would be in a maid dwelling;
To make true all that singing,
Veni, redemptor gentium.

And David said in his spellynge [prophecy]
That Truth would be in earth growing;
To us, redeemer of all things,
Veni, redemptor gentium.

Christ, crowned at our beginning,
Be with us at our ending;
Us to thy joy for to bring,
Veni, redemptor gentium.

This is a rather clever little carol. Like 'As I lay upon a night', which I posted the other day, it keeps to one rhyme throughout for the English lines, and it's properly macaronic; as I read it, the Latin refrain completes the meaning of each verse, so that for instance verse 1 presents a puzzle - 'how could a maiden conceive a king?' - and then asks for the solution: 'To show all us how this could be, come, Redeemer of the nations'. Such a strategy implies a certain comfort with the Latin and with this particular hymn, the ability to use the hymn as a starting point for a more general meditation. It begins by picking up on a line from the first verse of the hymn, miretur omne saeculum, which becomes (with a grammatical shift) this carol's first line: 'this world wonders above all things...' This carol is full of 'wonder', in both senses of the word: the wonder at which the world wonders is specifically the Virgin Birth, 'how a maid conceived a king', and where the hymn goes on to consider various other aspects and images of the Incarnation, this carol dwells, still wondering, on that one idea.

The neat interlinking of hymn and carol is particularly obvious in verse 3, a nice self-referential moment where the carol does a little dance with itself. The book where I found this carol suggests the third verse is a reference to St Ambrose's De institutione virginis, but it seems more likely to me that the reference is to the hymn Veni Redemptor Gentium itself, long attributed to St Ambrose, which begins 'Veni, redemptor gentium, / ostende partum Virginis'. The last two lines thus would mean 'To make the hymn [Come, Redeemer of the Nations] true, come, Redeemer of the nations'. Carols which reference Latin hymns often end up being partly about the fact of hymn-singing itself, and I think that's what we have here; it's smartly done.

This continues in the fourth verse, which makes reference to Psalm 85:11: veritas de terra orta est, 'truth springs forth from the earth'. Although spellynge means 'prophecy' (or more generally 'speech, utterance' - as in gospel), the psalms, too, are songs, and David, usually seen with his harp, makes a good accompaniment to the general singing. The three middle verses of the carol thus offer three different but parallel kinds of utterance which tell of a wondrous birth: Gabriel's greeting, Ambrose's writing, David's spellynge (all given the same place in the first line of their respective verses). The answer to these utterances, the explanation of these wonders, is found in the last line and in the advent for which it appeals: Veni, redemptor gentium. This citation of learned authorities is not an unusual device in carols; I'm reminded of the lovely 'Ecce quod natura mutat sua iura', which 'quotes' St Anselm alongside Isaiah and St Matthew. It does suggest a learned audience, or at least one which knew that St Ambrose wrote Veni Redemptor Gentium - a clerical audience, let's say. Monks and clerics did love their carols!

Here's the hymn Veni Redemptor Gentium, sung in J. M. Neale's translation:



(For another recording listen to this Advent carol service from Trinity College, Cambridge - and then listen to the whole service, because it's glorious.)

Come, Thou Redeemer of the earth,
And manifest Thy virgin birth:
Let every age adoring fall;
Such birth befits the God of all.

Begotten of no human will,
But of the Spirit, Thou art still
The Word of God in flesh arrayed,
The promised Fruit to man displayed.

The virgin womb that burden gained
With virgin honour all unstained;
The banners there of virtue glow;
God in His temple dwells below.

Forth from His chamber goeth He,
That royal home of purity,
A giant in twofold substance one,
Rejoicing now His course to run.

From God the Father He proceeds,
To God the Father back He speeds;
His course He runs to death and hell,
Returning on God’s throne to dwell.

O equal to the Father, Thou!
Gird on Thy fleshly mantle now;
The weakness of our mortal state
With deathless might invigorate.

Thy cradle here shall glitter bright,
And darkness breathe a newer light,
Where endless faith shall shine serene,
And twilight never intervene.

All laud to God the Father be,
All praise, eternal Son, to Thee;
All glory, as is ever meet,
To God the Holy Paraclete.

St Ambrose (BL Royal 6 B VI f. 2, 12th century, Rochester)

Here's a fifteenth-century verse translation of Veni Redemptor Gentium itself, from British Library, MS. Additional 34193, in modern English spelling.

Come now, good Lord, now come, our Saviour,

Come, show thy birth of Mary, mother and maid;

Descend, good Lord, right from thy heavenly tower.

Now let all worlds marvel and be dismayed,

How in our kind he list [wills] to be arrayed;

And as the sunbeams appeareth in the glass,

Thy mother a maid permaining [remaining], as she was,

Partless of man's knowledge or mixture;

This holy birth, this blest nativity,

When God to man is joinèd in nature -

The Holy Ghost by grace did it so to be.

This is the feast of our felicity,

In which the womb of the virgin

The fruit of life to us did sanctify.

The sacred womb and cloister virginal,

Ever unwemmed [unstained] and inviolate,

Though it before full slender was and small

[line missing]

The banners of bliss be splayed and preparate; [displayed and prepared]

There can no thing this rehearse, [explain]

Lo, God and man in temple is converse! [are joined]

From the chosen chamber of chaste cleanness

Proceeding, and pure palace of pleasance, [joy]

Through his grace our mischief [sorrows] to redress,

A mighty giant of double substance,

For to repress the fiend's foul puissance,

From heaven to earth his course did sweetly take

To cause our joy, and our finaunce [redemption] make.

Of the Father eternal, generate

By generation inerrable,

In our nature become incarnate,

So passing forth by means merciful,

Into this world and soon again returnable [returning]

When he hath put the fiends to silence,

Unto the Father by marvellous ascent.

O God's Son, equal and peregalle [fully equal]

Unto the Father in his deity,

In mankind's weeds, by victory triumphal,

We thee beseech, array thy majesty,

Support us well in our infirmity,

And cause us not to fall in ruin;

Conserve us, Lord, by thy virtue divine.

The beasts' crib, the humble asses' stall,

As pure gold burned most fair and bright;

No clouds black, no darkness noctial,

May defare [impede] the beams of this light,

Most orient and most piercing of might.

Our faith, our hope, and all our whole creance [belief]

Is in this day, and all our esperance. [hope]

To our Lord God, Father omnipotent,

Be given laud with joy and all honour,

And to the Son that in this feast is sent,

To help us and to be our Saviour,

And to the Holy Ghost, our comforter,

As well in earth as in the heavens high,

Now and ever, Amen incessantly.

Myth and Mystery and The Cherry Tree Carol

What excuse can there be for blogging about such a well-known piece as the Cherry Tree Carol?  Well, Saturdays used to be folk music days on this blog, so there's one sort of reason; and I'll justify it to myself by including the oldest English version of the story, which is from the late medieval period. That definitely falls into my purview.

The story of the cherry tree appears in a mystery play about the Nativity, in the cycle known as the the N-town plays, which probably derive from the wealthy cultural hub that was fifteenth-century Norfolk (...that sounds like sarcasm, but it's not!). The section relevant to the Cherry Tree Carol comes at the opening of the Nativity play, as Mary and Joseph are travelling to Bethlehem. This is my modernised version of the Middle English text, which can be found here.

JOSEPH  Lord, what trouble for man is wrought!
Rest in this world there comes to him none.
Octavian, our emperor, firmly hath besought
Our tribute him to bear: folk must forth, each one,
It is cried in every town and city by name.
I that am a poor timber-wright,
Born of the blood of David,
The emperor's commandment I must hold with,
Or else I were to blame.
Now, my wife, Mary, what say ye to this?
For surely, needs I must forth wend
Unto the city of Bethlehem far hence, iwis,
Thus to labour I must my body bend.

MARIA  My husband and my spouse, with you will I wend,
A sight of that city fain would I see.
If I might any of my family there find,
It would be great joy unto me!

JOSEPH  My spouse, ye be with child; I fear you to carry,
For it seems to me it were a work wild, [a crazy thing to do]
But you to please right fain would I -
Yet women are easy to grieve when they are with child!
Now let us forth wend as fast as we may,
And Almighty God speed us in our journey.

[they set off...]

MARIA  Ah, my sweet husband, would ye tell to me
What tree is yon, standing upon yon hill?

JOSEPH  Forsooth, Mary, it is called a cherry tree.
In time of year, ye might feed thereon your fill.

MARIA  Turn again, husband, and behold yon tree,
How that it bloometh now so sweetly!

JOSEPH  Come on, Mary, that we may sleep at yon city,
Or else we may be blamed, I tell you hastily.

MARIA  Now, my spouse, I pray you to behold
How the cherries grow upon yon tree;
To have thereof right glad I would be,
If it pleased you to labour so much for me.

JOSEPH  Your desire to fulfill I shall assay, certainly.
Ow! To pluck you of these cherries, it is a work wild,
For the tree is so high, it will not be easy!
Let him pluck you cherries who got you with child.

MARIA  Now, good Lord, I pray thee, grant me this boon,
To have of these cherries, if it be your will.
Now I thank God - this tree boweth to me down!
I may now gather enough and eat my fill.

JOSEPH  Ow! I know well I have offended my God in Trinity,
Speaking to my spouse these unkind words,
For now I believe well it may none other be
But that my spouse beareth the King's Son of bliss.
May he help us now at our need.
Of the kindred of Jesse, worthily were ye born:
Kings and patriarchs go before.
All these worthy of your kindred were,
As clerks in story read.

MARIA  Now, gramercy, husband, for your report. [words]
On our way wisely let us forth wend.
The Father Almighty, may he be our comfort;
The Holy Ghost glorious, may he be our friend.

Joseph and Mary travelling to Bethlehem (BL Yates Thompson 13, f. 88v)

The story of the tree which miraculously bends down its branches for Mary has its ultimate roots in a miracle performed by the baby Jesus on the flight into Egypt, described in the apocryphal Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew:

And it came to pass on the third day of their journey, while they were walking, that the blessed Mary was fatigued by the excessive heat of the sun in the desert; and seeing a palm tree, she said to Joseph: Let me rest a little under the shade of this tree. Joseph therefore made haste, and led her to the palm, and made her come down from her beast. And as the blessed Mary was sitting there, she looked up to the foliage of the palm, and saw it full of fruit, and said to Joseph: I wish it were possible to get some of the fruit of this palm. And Joseph said to her: I wonder that thou sayest this, when thou seest how high the palm tree is; and that thou thinkest of eating of its fruit. I am thinking more of the want of water, because the skins are now empty, and we have none wherewith to refresh ourselves and our cattle. Then the child Jesus, with a joyful countenance, reposing in the bosom of His mother, said to the palm: O tree, bend thy branches, and refresh my mother with thy fruit. And immediately at these words the palm bent its top down to the very feet of the blessed Mary; and they gathered from it fruit, with which they were all refreshed. And after they had gathered all its fruit, it remained bent down, waiting the order to rise from Him who had commanded it to stoop. Then Jesus said to it: Raise thyself, O palm tree, and be strong, and be the companion of my trees, which are in the paradise of my Father; and open from thy roots a vein of water which has been hid in the earth, and let the waters flow, so that we may be satisfied from thee. And it rose up immediately, and at its root there began to come forth a spring of water exceedingly clear and cool and sparkling. And when they saw the spring of water, they rejoiced with great joy, and were satisfied, themselves and all their cattle and their beasts. Wherefore they gave thanks to God.

Parts of Pseudo-Matthew were translated into English as early as the Anglo-Saxon period, and its apocryphal stories about Mary and the childhood of Christ have long been part of Christian tradition. The development of the legend to place this event before the birth of Christ rather than afterwards makes it possible to incorporate the aspect of Joseph's distress over Mary's pregnancy, a popular subject in folk carols; compare 'Marvel not, Joseph', 'When righteous Joseph wedded was', and 'Joseph being an aged man' (or as I like to think of it, the 'dearest dear' carol).  The Cherry Tree Carol was and is still the foremost example of this theme. The carol has many different variant forms - attesting to its widespread popularity - but here's one version:

Joseph was an old man
And an old man was he,
When he wedded Mary
In the land of Galilee.

Joseph and Mary walked
Through an orchard good,
Where was cherries and berries
So red as any blood.

Joseph and Mary walked
Through an orchard green
Where was berries and cherries
As thick as might be seen.

O then bespoke Mary,
With words so meek and mild,
'Pluck me one cherry, Joseph,
For I am with child.'

O then bespoke Joseph,
With answer most unkind,
'Let him pluck thee a cherry
That brought thee now with child.'

O then bespoke the baby
Within his mother's womb,
'Bow down then the tallest tree
For my mother to have some.'

Then bowed down the highest tree,
Unto his mother's hand.
Then she cried, 'See, Joseph,
I have cherries at command.'

O then bespake Joseph,
'I have done Mary wrong;
But now cheer up, my dearest,
And do not be cast down.

'O eat your cherries, Mary,
O eat your cherries now,
O eat your cherries, Mary,
That grow upon the bough.'

Then Mary plucked a cherry,
As red as any blood;
Then Mary she went homewards
All with her heavy load.

Perhaps the most famous choral setting is this chirpy, dancey arrangement by Stephen Cleobury:



I like this a lot, but it's the folk versions which really have my heart.  Here are two from youtube, first Jean Ritchie:



And the British band Kerfuffle:



There are lots more on youtube, but if I attempted to be comprehensive we'd be here all day!

It is so wonderful to me that the key line "Let him pluck you cherries who got you with child" is the same in the carols as in the play. Stories passed down in oral tradition often centre on one single line like this - and it's usually a line of dialogue, a memorable utterance or a joke or a pun - and while the details of the story change, the central line remains stable.  These varying details are nonetheless worth savouring. The versions which locate the incident in an orchard, instead of by the roadside, highlight an elegant contrast to the couple and the tree of the Garden of Eden: Mary is the opposite of Eve (her 'Ave' reversed Eve's very name) and so here the woman asks her husband for fruit, rather than offering it. I also like how some of the folk versions call Mary 'Queen of Galilee'; the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew has a story about Mary's childhood where, as she is weaving cloth with other young girls, the girls laughingly tell her 'because you are the youngest, and you weave the fine white cloth, you can be our queen'. An angel appears and tells them that they are right: Mary will be queen of all the world. (This story was translated into Old English, where Mary was to be, of course, 'queen of middle earth'.)  The characterisation of a jealous Joseph in this story is perhaps not surprising, but it is remarkable to find Mary exulting in her triumph: 'See, Joseph, I have cherries at command!'  Queen or not, a wheedling, cherry-craving, exulting Mary is a more human figure than Christian literature usually permits the Virgin to be.

The carol continues:

As Joseph was a-walking,
He heard an angel sing:
'This night there shall be born
On earth our heavenly King;

'He neither shall be born
In housen nor in hall,
Nor in the place of Paradise,
But in an ox's stall.

'He neither shall be clothed
In purple nor in pall,
But all in fair linen
As wear the babies all.

'He neither shall be rocked
In silver nor in gold,
But in the wooden cradle
That rocks upon the mould.

'He neither shall be christened
In white wine nor red,
But with fair spring water
As we were christened.'

Then Mary took her young son,
And set him on her knee:
Saying, 'My dear son, tell me,
Tell how this world shall be.'

'O I shall be as dead, mother,
As stones are in the wall;
O the stones in the streets, mother,
Shall sorrow for me all.

'On Easter-day, dear mother,
My rising up shall be;
O the sun and the moon, mother,
Shall both arise with me.'

My favourite version of the carol is sung by Waterson:Carthy (not, alas, on youtube); this site gives the source of their lyrics:

Joseph was an old man, an old man was he,
When he married sweet Mary, she's Queen of Galilee.

Now Joseph had wedded Mary and home had her brought.
Mary proved with child, but Joseph knew her not.

Oh, Joseph and Mary went walking in the grove,
They saw cherries and berries as red as any rose.

And up spoke young Mary, so meek and so mild,
“Oh, pick me cherries, Joseph, for I am with child.”

Then Joseph flew in anger, in anger flew he,
“Let the father of your baby pick cherries for thee.”

Then up spoke the baby Jesus, all in his mother's womb,
“Bow down low, you cherry tree, let my mother have some.”

And the very tall branches bowed low to her knee,
And Mary picked cherries by one, two and three.

Now Mary had a young son which she dandled on her knee,
“Come tell me, sweet baby, what will this world be?”

“Oh, this world,” he said, “is no other than stones in the street
But the sun, moon, and stars will sail under thy feet.

“And I must not be rocked in silver or gold
But in some wooden cradle like the babes are rocked all.

“And on the sixth day of January my birthday will be,
When the skies and the elements will tremble for me.”


Those last four verses are just wonderful - "the sun, moon, and stars will sail under thy feet!" The baby Christ predicting his future is a device used in a number of medieval carols, of which my favourite is 'As I lay upon a night' (at nearly forty verses long, surely the most extensive example); also relevant is the carol 'Under a tree', where the pregnant Virgin imagines her future with her holy child. Like the Cherry Tree Carol, these poems are interested in the interplay between human and divine knowledge - what Mary knows but Joseph doesn't, what the baby Christ knows but Mary doesn't, and what nature knows and the human characters don't - and in narrative time, positioning themselves at a moment in history when the events of the Gospel were the future in human time and not the distant past. It's all a kind of thought experiment with ignorance and knowledge, as if to better approach an understanding of the moment when Wisdom entered into the human world. It is important that the natural world understands this better than the humans do - not only the cherry tree, but also the stones in the street and the 'skies and elements', which will wordlessly acknowledge Christ even while Mary still hardly knows what he is.

I like the Cherry Tree Carol, and I'm glad that people still sing it, but there's a disconnect between the way this carol is usually presented today and my own response to this story. It's this: modern audiences seem to find the story funny, and I don't. The usual tone in modern references to the carol is a cutesy knowing kind of attitude towards Joseph's frustration - exemplified by the introduction to this otherwise perfectly nice rendering of the song - with implicit agreement that we clever moderns, starting with that honorary modern Chaucer (who may be partly parodying this story in The Merchant's Tale), can rather patronisingly enjoy the naivety of this simple tale. I can see the appeal of the light-hearted approach, and humanising the story in this way does have its advantages, but for me it takes away the whole power of the thing. I know I'm an outlier; most people seem to like the funny bits of medieval culture far more than the serious stuff, and just as I may be the only person in the world who prefers manuscript images of saints and angels to the quirky marginalia which surrounds them, I may also be the only person who prefers a serious take on the Cherry Tree Carol! Certainly the N-town play is supposed to be humorous, but the story itself is strange and angry and raw, and to take away any of that by winky jokes about cuckoldry and old men with young wives (as the play rather does, though the carols don't) is to lose a great deal.

There is big, dark, difficult stuff here. The Cherry Tree Carol finds what's unpredictable in the story of the Incarnation, what's dangerous about it: an angry man caught up in events he cannot understand or control, a child speaking from the womb, a tall tree which suddenly bows low, a baby who says he will make the skies tremble. Gods should be unpredictable; they should be outside human knowledge. One of the things which appeals to me most about medieval Christianity, by contrast with the modern variety, is that it has space for these kind of strange, uncomfortable stories. If you want a religion which appears reasonable and amenable and sophisticated and modern (and certainly not that dreaded word, medieval), you have to take away these myths and miracles, leaving only what can be argued about; this is how we get a church which can only talk about ethics and law and morality, without ever mentioning mystery and wonder and the supernatural. It bears the same relationship to medieval Christianity as the Thor superhero movies do to the dark, violent, world-shaking gods of Norse myth (even they do a better job of balancing comedy with the mythic than most Christian preachers manage today...). Earlier this year I spent a period of time utterly absorbed in Norse mythology, more deeply than I have ever been before, and although I've always found it interesting I for the first time found it moving, powerful, and real. I almost wept for the killing of Baldr, the bright innocent thing whose death is the beginning of the end of the world; I was almost afraid at the apocalyptic chaos of Ragnarok, when all fettered evil things go free. I came closer than ever before to understanding what C. S. Lewis meant when he talked in Surprised by Joy about Norse myth seeming to him, as a teenager,

a bigger thing than my religion... because my attitude toward it contained elements which my religion ought to have contained and did not. It was not itself a new religion, for it contained no trace of belief and imposed no duties. Yet unless I am greatly mistaken there was in it something very like adoration... Sometimes I can almost think that I was sent back to the false gods there to acquire some capacity for worship against the day when the true God should recall me to Himself. 

So I come to Christmas this year wondering why Norse myth does seem to me 'bigger' than Christianity, and why Christmas, in particular, feels so small. Part of it is simple familiarity, but it's also cultural. When I was a child I had an anthology of Christmas poems which included the Cherry Tree Carol, illustrated with Mary and Joseph depicted as little children, as if in an infant school's nativity play. The book was lovely, but that's utterly wrong (and a tiny bit creepy). I don't mind a cosy Christmas, but I do object to a nursery-school one - as if there is nothing in the story of the Incarnation which can occupy the mind and the imagination of anyone above the age of five. Leave 'Away in a Manger' for the children, and let adults keep the Cherry Tree Carol! We all know that 'Christmas is for the children' (and their parents), but it has to mean something for the rest of the world too; just because it involves babies and stars and donkeys doesn't mean it has to be safe and comfy. It should be strange and unfamiliar, every year. The Cherry Tree Carol seems to me like the exact opposite of the comparisons well-meaning preachers like to bring out at Christmas - 'Mary was a single mother! Mary and Joseph were refugees!' That kind of thing exploits the Gospel story to make it prove whatever point the preacher wants to highlight (worthy issues, of course); it makes the story smaller and safer, reframes it in our terms, so that the people in it become projections of our society's opinions and experiences. The Cherry Tree Carol, despite the very English setting of a cherry-orchard, does the opposite: it digs deep into the mythic heart of the story and strips away the cosiness and the familiarity to get to the core of strangeness. It becomes a story in a true sense, not a pretty picture but a narrative, with its characters real people who can feel big emotions like anger and shock and fear. While the terrifying baby of the Cherry Tree Carol is not as capricious as the entirely wise but utterly irrational Odin (or as cruel as Christ is shown to be in some folk carols, like On Christmas Day), he is much closer to myth than to our idea of rational religion. We should find this story scary; what's the point of an incarnation that doesn't shake the world?

The year's midnight, and the day's

It's been a while since I posted this, but today is the day for it.



'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's,
Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;
The sun is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;
The world's whole sap is sunk;
The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the bed's feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interr'd; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compar'd with me, who am their epitaph.

Study me then, you who shall lovers be
At the next world, that is, at the next spring;
For I am every dead thing,
In whom Love wrought new alchemy.
For his art did express
A quintessence even from nothingness,
From dull privations, and lean emptiness;
He ruin'd me, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darkness, death: things which are not.

All others, from all things, draw all that's good,
Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have;
I, by Love's limbec, am the grave
Of all that's nothing. Oft a flood
Have we two wept, and so
Drown'd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow
To be two chaoses, when we did show
Care to aught else; and often absences
Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.

But I am by her death (which word wrongs her)
Of the first nothing the elixir grown;
Were I a man, that I were one
I needs must know; I should prefer,
If I were any beast,
Some ends, some means; yea plants, yea stones detest,
And love; all, all some properties invest;
If I an ordinary nothing were,
As shadow, a light and body must be here.

But I am none; nor will my sun renew.
You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun
At this time to the Goat is run
To fetch new lust, and give it you,
Enjoy your summer all;
Since she enjoys her long night's festival,
Let me prepare towards her, and let me call
This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this
Both the year's, and the day's deep midnight is.


This beautiful video and this extraordinary poem make me think two quite ridiculous, yet heartfelt thoughts:

1) I'm sorry that St Lucy's Day is no longer the shortest day of the year.  I think the world was somehow a slightly better place, slightly more in tune, when it was.

2) I'm glad that someone as breathtakingly talented and undeniably awesome as John Donne could feel this kind of grief; it means that feeling like nothing, year after year without spring's renewal, does not actually mean one is nothing.

The Danish Conquest, 1000 Years: Part 3

I think it’s time to catch up with the Danish Conquest of 1013-14, and see what was happening this time exactly one thousand years ago. Previous posts, here and here, brought us to the autumn of the year which would end with the overthrow of the English monarchy by the army led by Svein Forkbeard. The winter of 1013-1014 was the crisis of the conquest, the culmination of disaster (if you were on the English side) or triumph (if you were on the Danish side) and probably very unsettling wherever your sympathies fell on the spectrum in between.

Back in August we left the Danes at the gates of Winchester, with Svein having accepted submission from Northumbria and the Midlands, married his son into a powerful English family, and begun to raid his way through the south of England.  Once Oxford and Winchester had submitted, the Danish army turned back to London, where King Æthelred was holed up.  The conquest of Winchester was a significant triumph for Svein; Winchester was the traditional capital of Wessex, and the loss must have been a psychological blow for Æthelred and his dwindling band of supporters.  From the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (D):

Wendon þa þanon eastweard to Lundene, 7 mycel his folces adrangc on Temese, for þæm þe hi nanre brice ne cæpton. Þa þe he to þære byrig com þa nolde se buruhwaru bugan, ac heoldon mid fullon wige ongean, for þan þær wæs inne se cyning æþelred 7 þurcyl mid him. Þa wende Swegen cyng þanon to Weallingaforda 7 swa ofer Temese westweard to Baþan, 7 sæt þær mid his fyrde, 7 com æþelmær ealdorman þyder 7 þa wæstrena ðegenas mid him, 7 bugon ealle to Swegene, 7 gislodon. 7 þa he æl þus gefaren hæfde, wende þa norþweard to his scypum. 7 eall þeodscipe hine hæfde þa for fulne cyning. 7 seo buruhwaru æfter þæm on Lundenne beah 7 gislude, for þon hi ondredon þæt hi fordon wolde. Bead þa Swegen ful gyld 7 metsunge to his hære þone winter, 7 þurcyl bead þæt ylce to þæm here þe læg æt Grenawic, 7 butan þæm hi gehergodon swa oft swa hi woldon, þa ne dohte naþær þisse leode ne suðan ne norðan.

[Then [Svein's army] turned eastward to London, and many of his people were drowned in the Thames, because they did not look out for a bridge.  Then when he came to the town, the citizens would not submit to him, but held out against him with full battle, because King Æthelred was inside the town and Thorkell with him.  Then King Svein turned from there to Wallingford and so across the Thames west to Bath, and camped there with his army, and Ealdorman Æthelmær came there with the western thegns, and all submitted to Svein and gave hostages.  And when he had travelled this far he turned northward to his ships, and all the nation then had him as full king.  And after that the citizens of London submitted and gave hostages, because they were afraid he would destroy them.  Then Svein ordered full payment and provisions for his army for the winter, and Thorkell ordered the same for the army which lay at Greenwich, and despite that they raided as often as they wanted to, and nothing did this people any good, in south or north.]

It's not quite clear what we should make of the bit where many Danes drowned in the Thames because they didn't cæpton a bridge - notice? look out for? wait around to find? Most likely they tried to ford the river, and found it stronger than they expected. However, this tactical error aside, we see here the last rally of English resistance. The Chronicle does not give the impression that the Danes had met much resistance anywhere up to this point - they seem to have swept through the country without even being challenged to battle - but the inhabitants of London were not giving in so easily.  It's quite telling that it's only in the place where King Æthelred actually was that there was any attempt to fight back - can we assume he had absolutely lost influence over the rest of the country?  And even then, his military strength at this point came mostly from the Danish earl Thorkell the Tall and his fleet.  Up until the previous year, Thorkell's had been the most formidable of the Danish fleets raiding in England, but in 1012 he had gone over to Æthelred's side, supposedly motivated by remorse because Ælfheah, Archbishop of Canterbury, had been killed by his men while their hostage.  With him he brought forty-five ships full of warriors (I won't say 'full of scary Jomsvikings', but that's what later saga legends said!).  Thorkell's defection may have been the impetus for Svein's invasion of England, because Thorkell was a powerful and independent-minded rival to the Danish kings - you might imagine Svein, in 1013, being afraid that Thorkell with English allies was becoming a dangerous threat to his own throne.  So during the attack on London it was probably Thorkell, not Æthelred, of whom Svein was really afraid - it's an extraordinary situation, two Danish armies fighting for control of an English city, with the English king rather helplessly dependent on his Danish ally.

There are unanswered questions about this period about which the Chronicle does not enlighten us.  For instance, where were Æthelred's adult sons? Two years later, when Cnut was attempting to repeat his father's conquest, Edmund Ironside fought him all over the country - where on earth was Edmund while all this was going on? It's difficult to imagine him doing nothing; maybe the chronicler just didn't know what he was doing. Perhaps he was in the army fighting to defend London, in which case it's fun to speculate how he got along with Thorkell...

Anyway, the Danes were repulsed from London, and turned back west again to Bath.  There the submission was led by Ealdorman Æthelmær, a relative of the king, and best known to students of Old English for being the pious patron of the homilist Ælfric.  Æthelmær had been living in retirement in a monastery since 1005, so his leading of the west's submission has a kind of symbolic character.  Once the west had submitted to Svein he was in control of the whole country except London, and winter was coming on, so he turned back north to Lincolnshire, where Cnut had been left in charge of the ships.  And he demanded (for he now had the power to demand) supplies for his army, and Thorkell, never lacking in nerve, did the same for his, and "nothing did this people any good, in south or north".

Then London gave in, and Æthelred had lost the last of his kingdom. The Chronicle continues:

Þa wæs se cyning sume hwile mid þam flotan þe on Temese læg, 7 seo hlæfdige wende þa ofer sæ to hire broþor Ricarde, 7 ælfsige abbod of Burh mid hire, 7 se cyning sende ælfun bisceop mid þam æþelingum Eadwearde 7 Ælfrede ofer sæ, þæt he hi bewitan sceolde. 7 se cyning wende þa fram þam flotan to þam middanwintre to Wihtlande, 7 wæs þær ða tid, 7 æfter þære tide wende ofer þa sæ to Ricarde, 7 wæs þær mid him oð ðone byre þe Swegen dead wearð. 

[Then the king was for a while with the fleet which lay in the Thames, and the queen went across the sea to her brother Richard, and with her Ælfsige, abbot of Peterborough; and the king sent Bishop Ælfhun with the æthelings Edward and Alfred across the sea, so that he should look after them.  And then the king went at midwinter from the fleet to the Isle of Wight, and was there for a while, and after that period he went across the sea to Richard, and stayed with him until the fortunate event of Svein's death.]

The royal family fled to Normandy, Queen Emma's homeland, while Æthelred stayed for a time near the coast of England - but with 'the fleet which lay in the Thames', that is, Thorkell's.  As the nineteenth-century historian E. A. Freeman famously described this moment in Æthelred's reign, 'the monarchy of Cerdic was now confined to the decks of forty-five Scandinavian war-ships'.  (Cerdic being the ancestors of the kings of Wessex).  Cerdic's line may have been in trouble, but the dynasty of Scyld was doing pretty well: until 'the fortunate event of Svein's death' took place at Gainsborough in Lincolnshire at Candlemas, 1014, Svein was the first Danish king to rule the whole of England (though not the first to reign in England).  His reign lasted not much more than three months, but nonetheless, this was a significant achievement, and I don't think he gets quite enough credit for it. But we'll come to that in a month or two.

One witness for the state of England during this troubled winter is the famous ‘Sermo Lupi ad Anglos’ (‘Sermon of ‘Wulf’ to the English’) delivered by Wulfstan, Archbishop of York, probably early in 1014. Wulfstan describes a country in collapse:

Leofan men, gecnawað þæt soð is: ðeos worolde is on ofste, and hit nealæcð þam ende, and þy hit is on worolde aa swa leng swa wyrse, and swa hit sceal nyde for folces synnan ær antecristes tocyme yfelian swyþe, and huru hit wyrð þænne egeslic and grimlic wide on worolde. Understandað eac georne þæt deofol þas þeode nu fela geara dwelode to swyþe, and þæt lytle getreowþa wæran mid mannum, þeah hy wel spræcan, and unrihta to fela ricsode on lande, and næs a fela manna þe smeade ymbe þa bote swa georne
swa man scolde, ac dæghwamlice man ihte yfel æfter oðrum, and unriht rærde and unlaga manege ealles to wide gynd ealle þas þeode. And we eac forþam habbað fela byrsta and bysmara gebiden, and gif we ænige bote gebidan scylan, þonne mote we þæs to Gode ernian bet þonne we ær þysan dydan. Forþam mid miclan earnungan we geearnedan þa yrmða þe us on sittað & mid swyþe micelan earnungan we þa bote motan æt Gode geræcan, gif hit sceal heonanforð godiende weorðan...

Forþam hit is on us eallum swutol and gesene þæt we ær þysan oftor bræcan þonne we bettan, and þy is þysse þeode fela onsæge. Ne dohte hit nu lange inne ne ute: ac wæs here and hungor, nu bryne and blodgyte on gewelhwylcan ende oft and gelome, and us stalu and cwalu, stric and steorfa, orfcwealm and uncoþu, hol and hete, and rypera reaflac derede swyþe þearle, and us ungylda swyðe gedrohtan, and us unwedera foroft weoldan unwæstma. Forþam on þysan earde wæs, swa hit þincan mæg, nu fela geara unrihta fela and tealte getrywða æghwær mid mannum. Ne bearh nu foroft gesib gesibban þe ma þe fremdan, ne fæder his bearne, ne hwilum bearn his agenum fæder, ne broþor oþrum. Ne ure ænig his lif ne fadode swa swa he scolde, ne gehadode regellice, ne læwede lahlice. Ac worhtan lust us to lage ealles to gelome, & naþor ne heoldan ne lare ne lage Godes ne manna, swa swa we scoldan. Ne ænig wið oþerne getrywlice þohte swa rihte swa he scolde, ac mæst ælc swicode and oþrum derede wordes and dæde, and huru unrihtlice mæst ælc oþerne æftan heaweþ mid sceandlican onscytan and mid wrohtlacan, do mare gif he mæge.

[Beloved men, know what is the truth: this world is in haste, and it nears the end, and thus things in the world grow ever worse and worse. And so it shall necessarily grow much worse before the coming of Antichrist, because of the sins of the people, and indeed it will then be terrible and dreadful throughout the world! And understand seriously that the devil has now for many years led this people astray, and there is little truth among men, although they speak well, and too many injustices have reigned in the land; and there were not many men who considered the remedy as earnestly as one ought to, but day by day one evil was added to another, and injustice was increased and many breakings of the law, all too widely throughout all this nation. And we also for that reason have endured many attacks and insults, and if we are to find any remedy, then we must merit it from God better than we have done before this. Therefore we have greatly deserved the miseries which oppress us, and we must greatly deserve that we may obtain the remedy from God, if things are to become better from now on...

Therefore among us it is clear and obvious that before this we have more often sinned than we have atoned for it, and therefore much is attacking this nation. Nothing has prospered now for a long time, at home or abroad; there was harrying and hunger, now burning and bloodshed in every place often and frequently, and theft and death, plague and pestilence, death of cattle and disease, malice and hatred, and the robbery of pillagers have sorely afflicted us, and excessive tax has greatly oppressed us, and bad weather has very often caused the failure of harvests. Therefore in this country, as it appears, there have now been many years of many injustices, and unstable loyalties everywhere among men. Now very often a kinsman will not defend a kinsman any more than he would a stranger, nor a father his son, nor sometimes a son his own father, nor one brother another. None of us has ordered his life as he ought to, neither the religious according to his rule nor the layman according to law. But lust has been a law to us all too often, and we have not kept the teachings or the laws of God or man as we ought to do. No one has acted loyally towards others as justly as he should, but almost everyone has betrayed and harmed others in words and deeds, and indeed almost everyone has attacked others with shameful assaults and with slander, and will do more, if he can.]


That's probably enough to give you a taste; it doesn't get much more cheerful from this point on. You can read the whole sermon in translation here. In the winter of 1013-14 Wulfstan was effectively the leading churchman in England, so this sermon is not a voice crying in the wilderness but something like an address from the Prime Minister (like Winston Churchill’s wartime speeches, but a bit less encouraging). It may have been delivered to the witan, the king's counsel, so think of it as a parliamentary address aimed at the most powerful people in the land. Wulfstan is clear in his belief that the English have brought this disaster on themselves through their many sins, and that the only remedy is to repent and seek God's favour again. One version of this sermon makes reference to Æthelred being driven out of his land as an example of betrayal, which suggests he blamed the English (nobility) for this rather than the Danes. It's interesting to wonder, therefore, where Wulfstan was waiting out this difficult winter, bearing in mind that York had submitted to the Danes as long ago as the previous August. He would have been foolish to think his own life was not at risk if he fell into Danish hands, since Thorkell's fleet had killed his senior colleague, the elderly Archbishop of Canterbury, less than two years previously. (That must have focused the mind of many a churchman who might otherwise have felt himself safe!) Wulfstan is always inclined to the apocalyptic, but since the church is especially attuned to such matters in Advent, I tend to imagine Wulfstan pondering his sermon during that awful Advent of 1013, when it must have seemed as if the end - if not of the world, then of the kingdom of England - really was nigh at hand.

Wulfstan is so eloquent that his voice tends to prevail in our view of this important moment in Anglo-Saxon history. But it's worth remembering, as always, that not everyone in England would have agreed with him. Imagine the Danes in Gainsborough celebrating the Christmas season (or rather jól): Svein, now king of Denmark and England, and his son Cnut, with his new English wife, Ælfgifu of Northampton. Maybe Ælfgifu's family, led by the powerful Midlands noblemen Sigeferth and Morcar, came to pay a visit to their new king and inlaws. Wulfstan must have been thinking of men like Sigeferth and Morcar when he denounced traitors to the king, and Æthelred would later have them killed, probably for aiding the Danes; but they surely did not think of themselves as traitors, and they might have been rather pleased with themselves at Christmas 1013. They had no idea that Svein's reign would end with the Christmas season; it must have seemed like a new order coming into birth.

Alma redemptoris mater: As I lay upon a night

Virgin and child, All Souls chapel, Oxford

In Advent, the Marian antiphon sung at Compline is 'Alma redemptoris mater'. The following carol is not a translation of the antiphon, nor closely based on it at all, but it makes use of the phrase as its refrain - which seems a good enough reason to post it in Advent.

Alma redemptoris mater.

As I lay vpon a nyth
My thowth was on a berde so brith
That men clepyn Marye ful of myth,
Redemptoris mater.

To here cam Gabryel wyth lyth
And seyd, ‘Heyl be thou, blysful wyth!
To ben clepyd now art thu dyth
Redemptoris mater.'

At that wurd that lady bryth
Anon conseyuyd God ful of myth
Than men wyst weel that sche hyth
Redemptoris mater.

Qwan Jhesu on the rode was pyth
Mary was doolful of that syth
Til sche sey hym ryse vprith
Redemptoris mater.

Jhesu, that syttyst in heuene lyth,
Graunt vs to comyn beforn thi sith
Wyth that berde that is so brith,
Redemptoris mater.

This carol survives in four manuscripts - in fact four of the chief manuscripts of medieval English carols: the 'Trinity Carol Roll' (Cambridge, Trinity College O.3.58), the 'Selden carol-book' (Oxford, Bodleian Library Arch. Selden. B. 26), Richard Hill's commonplace book (Balliol College 354), and BL Sloane 2593. So it was popular!  The version above is that of the Trinity Carol Roll, for no better reason than that I like it the best of the four. (They are all printed in Richard Greene, The Early English Carols (Oxford, 1977), pp. 147-8, should you want to compare them for yourself.) The Trinity Carol Roll is a strip of parchment containing thirteen carols with music, including 'There is no rose of such virtue'.

There are two nice things about this carol: first, that it uses one rhyme throughout, which you can imagine would be effective when heard sung; and second, that the refrain is incorporated into the sense of the verse, as does not always happen with Latin refrains in carols. This carol is truly macaronic, and it thus becomes a meditation on the title itself, 'redemptoris mater' (mother of the redeemer), and the process by which Mary acquired it. In the first verse the speaker already knows that 'men call' her by this title, and the rest of the carol demonstrates why: in the second verse Gabriel's message is phrased so as to give her the title for the first time, in the third verse she becomes the mother of God, and the fourth and fifth verses are concerned with the act of redemption - the death of Christ which makes him the redemptor and therefore Mary redemptoris mater. It's quite a skilful device; these carols are never as simple as they look at first glance. And there's one other pleasing touch: although the opening 'As I lay upon a night' is conventional for this kind of poem, it evokes a night-time setting for the speaker's musings which does seem particularly appropriate in this case, when the phrase around which the poem is built comes from a Compline antiphon. Into this solitary silence and darkness bursts Gabriel, speaking and 'with light', and the night is illuminated by its rhyming opposites, light (twice) and bright (three times), putting that one-rhyme structure to work very beautifully.

Here's a modernised version of the poem, preserving the rhymes. Berde, which appears twice, is too distinctive a word to replace with a modern equivalent; it's a rather romantic word, meaning 'lady, young woman' ('damsel' might have the right overtones in Modern English).

Alma redemptoris mater.

As I lay upon a night
My thought was on a berde so bright
Whom men call Mary, full of might,
Redemptoris mater.

To her came Gabriel with light
And said, ‘Hail be thou, blissful wight! [blessed creature]
To be called now art thou dight [prepared]
Redemptoris mater.'

At that word that lady bright
Anon conceived God full of might;
Then men knew well that she hight [was called]
Redemptoris mater.

When Jesu on the rood was pight [fastened]
Mary was doleful for that sight
Til she saw him rise up aright,
Redemptoris mater.

Jesu, who sittest in heaven's light,
Grant us to come before thy sight
With that berde that is so bright,
Redemptoris mater.

Now for a few recordings. First, the medieval carol being beautifully, meditatively sung by Oxford Camerata:

A later setting of the antiphon 'Alma redemptoris mater', by the English composer Peter Philips (d.1628):

And a modern setting of the medieval carol by Jamie W. Hall: