Ælfric’s Use of Epithets as Hagiographic Diction in the Life of St Laurence

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ISSN: Online 2754-4583
DOI: 10.57686/256204/31

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© 2023 Kiriko Sato
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Introduction

One of the stylistic features characterising Ælfric’s hagiographic writing is the effective use of epithets, which M. R. Godden recognises as ‘a specialized hagiographic diction’.¹ Ælfric typically describes the saint as eadig ‘blessed’ and halig ‘holy’, while the tyrant is reðe ‘cruel’ and wælhreow ‘cruel’, thereby setting them in clear antithesis. Godden considers that this technique is prevalent in Ælfric’s later lives, although these types of expression are not uncommon in some of his earlier texts that foreshadow his later style. In her 1978 article, Ruth Waterhouse closely examines Ælfric’s epithets, ‘affective qualifiers’ in her term, in one of his later hagiographic texts, the Life of St Alban (LS 19).² Relying on Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica, Ælfric composes the Alban life in the alliterative style, which he adopts for most of his later prose. Waterhouse demonstrates that Ælfric’s affective qualifiers in that life typically fulfil formal as well as emotive functions: emotively, they enhance the contrast between good and bad characters; formally, they carry a stressed syllable, uniting two half-lines by alliteration. She tabulates all epithets extracted from the text, one of which is cited below,³ along with their counterparts in the source and the Old English Bede:

and he rixode twentig geara reðe cwellere (LS 19, l. 5)
‘and he [Diocletian] reigned for twenty years, a cruel killer’

Diocletianus […] annis XX fuit (Bede)⁴
‘Diocletian […] stayed for twenty years’

Dioclitianus casere […] se hæfde twentig wintra rice (Old English Bede)⁵
‘the Emperor Diocletian […] who had the kingdom for twenty years’

Ælfric rephrases the pronoun he, which refers to Diocletian, as reðe cwellere, a formula that he commonly uses to refer to Christian persecutors.⁶ This derogatory designation is Ælfric’s original, as the emperor is merely referred to by his name in the source. The corresponding sentence of the Old English Bede does not have any qualifiers, following the source more faithfully. Thus, Ælfric illustrates the cruelty of the persecutor more explicitly by using the epithet reðe. Concurrently, it completes an alliterative line with the verb rixode. Waterhouse argues that Ælfric prefers to have affective qualifiers in the second half-line (rather than the first), as in this example, probably because he finds it easier to complete the alliteration by adding a filler later in the long line.⁷

The alliterative requirement, however, is not always the governing factor for Ælfric to use epithets; he seems to have the narrative context on his mind when choosing words. Hiroshi Ogawa, for example, refers to a passage from the Life of St Cuthbert (CH II.10), indicating that Cuthbert is se witega ‘the prophet’ at a crucial point where he prophesies his destiny, though he is se halga (wer) ‘the holy (man)’ elsewhere in that text.⁸ In one of my previous articles, I have noted that Emperor Julian is referred to as wiðersaca ‘apostate’ six times in a brief episode derived from the Vita Basilii, which is inserted into his homiletic account of the Virgin’s assumption (CH I.30).⁹ The comparatively high frequency of the religious epithet is ascribable to the homiletic nature of the text: Ælfric’s aim in the Marian homily is to edify his audience, where he preaches that if they reject Christianity, they may suffer the divine punishment, just like Julian or ‘wiðersaca’. Interestingly, the same emperor is never addressed in this manner in Ælfric’s later version based on the same vita, the Life of St Basil (LS 3), probably because he focuses on describing the saint’s life and the emperor’s conversion is of minor significance. All the epithets cited so far are Ælfric’s own and absent from his source texts.¹⁰

As mentioned above, Waterhouse demonstrates Ælfric’s skills in using epithets (affective qualifiers) in his later alliterative prose, but it nevertheless remains to be studied how he uses them in his early texts, written in ordinary prose without alliterative requirements. Ælfric’s Life of St Laurence, the twenty-ninth item of the First Series of Catholic Homilies (CH I.29), contains quite a few epithets, providing a worthy specimen for this purpose. Gabriella Corona, who focuses on the way Ælfric refers to Christian persecutors, cites some instances from this life.¹¹ She notes, for example, that Ælfric refers to Emperor Decius as se godes feond (‘the enemy of God’, l. 78), whereas his source merely uses a neutral expression, Decius Caesar (‘Emperor Decius’, c. 19, l. 9), ascribing this ‘striking’ locution (as she calls it) to his ‘preoccupation with inadequate secular leadership’. Corona argues that he might have related Decius’s demand for church treasures to the unsettled society in his own time, when the aristocracy sought to take church land.¹² Her socio-historical approach to Ælfric’s language in hagiography seems intriguing, but assessing his language in relation to contemporary society would require an interdisciplinary study embracing many texts by Ælfric. Moreover, her analysis is exclusively confined to epithets used for secular persecutors, though the Laurence life contains more epithets, including references to martyrs, which seem to deserve close investigation. In this article, I analyse Ælfric’s use of epithets in the Life of St Laurence, considering his stylistic techniques in composing one of his early lives.

Genre and style of Ælfric’s Life of St Laurence

The two series of Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies are a preaching collection consisting of forty homilies each. However, more than twenty pieces are hagiographic, rather than strictly homiletic.¹³ The genre classification is not always simple because both homiletic and hagiographic features may be shared in a single text, but the Life of St Laurence is clearly hagiographic. Ælfric recounts the passion and martyrdom of Syxtus, Laurence, and Yppolitus under the reign of Emperor Decius, who repeatedly demands that the church treasures should be offered to the heathen gods that he admires. Beginning with the Decian reign, Ælfric consistently concentrates on narrating the story derived from the Latin legend of St Laurence, entitled in the manuscripts as the Passio Polochronii, Parmenii, Abdon et Sennen, Xyrsti, Felicissimi et Agapiti et Laurentii et aliorum sanctorum.¹⁴ At the end of the text he leaves his source and provides a brief comment preaching about devotion to the saint: ‘Uton nu biddan mid eadmodre stemne þone halgan godes cyðere laurentium’ (‘Let us now pray with humble voice to the holy martyr of God, Laurence’, ll. 292–93). This final exhortation is the sole passage in this text in which Ælfric makes exegetical comments, addressing the audience in his own words. Since Laurence is not a biblical figure, Ælfric naturally never quotes Gospel passages. Furthermore, he does not avail himself of patristic homilies, which are often cited in his hagiographic homilies in Catholic Homilies.¹⁵ Therefore, homiletic features are scarce in Ælfric’s Life of St Laurence, though it is included in a homiletic collection.¹⁶

In terms of translation style, Hugh Magennis illustrates that Ælfric follows the Passio fairly closely. For example, he fully describes the passion and martyrdom of Laurence and his two companions, as in the Passio; he retains the proper names of unimportant characters, such as the widow Quiriaca and the blind man Lucillus; furthermore, he translates passages of dialogue, all in direct speech, almost exactly, which constitute a large proportion of the Passio.¹⁷ For his faithfulness to the source, Magennis assesses Ælfric’s stylistic achievement in this life as follows: ‘By preserving passages of dialogue, in particular, he is able to present his story dramatically, but the treatment lacks the spare economy of many of his best lives’.¹⁸ The details found in Ælfric’s version might have been omitted or at least condensed in his ordinary practice.¹⁹ However, this translation style enables us to compare his locutions with their Latin counterparts, considering the influence of Latin on his language. Therefore, the Life of St Laurence could serve as an appropriate specimen to perceive how Ælfric uses epithets in one of his early texts, which is almost genuinely hagiographic in genre.

General tendency

Before the examination, it would be appropriate to define the range of epithets analysed in this study. As the term epithet is derived from Greek έπίθετος ‘adjective’, the words considered epithets are usually adjectives. The definition given by the OED is as follows: ‘an adjective indicating some quality or attribute which the speaker or writer regards as characteristic of the person or thing described’.²⁰ However, the OED also notes in its etymology section that Greek έπίθετος ‘was used by grammarians for “adjective”, but they did not distinguish between adjectives and nouns in apposition to a name’. In fact, þam cwellere (‘the killer’, l. 232), a nominal expression, is derogative of Emperor Decius. Additionally, Laurence derogates Decius, referring to him using the noun earming (‘wretch’, l. 129), which corresponds to the adjective miser (‘wretched’, c. 23, l. 5) in Latin. As these examples suggest, there is little sense in distinguishing nouns from adjectives. Another part of speech that can serve a similar function as adjectival epithets is adverbs. Waterhouse’s affective qualifiers also cover adverbs, such as deofollice occurring in ‘Þa wearð se dema deofollice gram’ (‘Then the judge became devilishly angry’, LS 19, l. 41), which clarifies the devilish nature of the judge. Accordingly, I shall deal with adjectives, adverbs, and nouns as epithets, if they carry affective meaning, but exclude those that are morally neutral.

In terms of the correspondence to the Passio, Ælfric’s epithets used in the Life of St Laurence can be divided into the following three categories:

1. þu earming eart geangsumod on þinre gewitleaste (‘you, wretch, are afflicted in your foolishness’, ll. 128–29).
   ‘Tu, miser, torqueris in insania tua et in furore tuo’ (‘You, wretched, you are tormented in your madness and fury’, c. 23, ll. 5–6).
2. Se wælhreowa cwellere mid gebolgenum mode. cwæð (The cruel killer said with furious mind, l. 58)
   Decius, furore plenus, dixit (Decius, furious, said, c. 17, l. 9)
3. decius cwæð þa to þam godes cyþere; geoffra nu urum godum (Decius said to the god’s martyr, ‘sacrifice to our gods’, ll. 209–10)
   dixit Decius Caesar: ‘Sacrifica diis.’ (Decius Caesar said, ‘Sacrifice to the gods’, c. 28, l. 8)

Example (1) is a literal translation of a Latin epithet, while (2) is a substitution of Decius’s name, which is unbiased, with an affective epithet; Ælfric’s epithets may substitute a Latin pronoun, which is also classified into this type. In (3), Ælfric’s epithet has no comparable words in the source. In the remainder of this article, I shall focus on examples belonging to the last two categories to prove his originality in using epithets. It is worth noting that Ælfric’s epithets occurring in dialogues (all of which are put in direct speech) are usually derived from the Vita, as in (1) above. I shall address this issue later in this article, discussing Ælfric’s technique of handling epithets in the words of his characters and slanting their statements.

I tabulated all the examples retrieved, classifying them into three types according to their references. Table 1 lists epithets used for good characters, and they are further divided into two: Table 1A for the three martyrs, that is, Laurence, Syxtus, or Yppolitus (twenty-three instances) and Table 1B for other good characters (five instances). Epithets are also used for bad characters, either the Emperor Decius or his persecutors,²¹ which are listed in Table 2 (fourteen instances). Furthermore, the idea of epithets is not confined to words related to persons, as Ælfric’s choice of words may represent his outright disapproval of paganism. They are listed in Table 3 (five instances). It should be noted here that the epithets corresponding to beatus Laurentius are included. It is the formula invariably used to refer to the saint in the Passio, which means that the adjective beatus, when used for Laurentius, is virtually scarcely affective (for this, see also the next section). Thus, the number of epithets that Ælfric originally employs totals forty-seven. Nine instances have no comparable words in Latin, and eight expand Latin pronouns. The rest come from nouns of neutral meaning. Thus, despite his general fidelity to the source, which Magennis recognises,²² Ælfric introduces quite a few epithets of his own.

Table 1A: Ælfric’s epithets for the three martyrs Laurence, Syxtus, and Yppolitus (23x)

Reference	Epithets	Context	Original
ll. 3–4	halig ‘holy’	wæs se halga biscop sixtus on romana byri drohtniende	—
ll. 5–6 / c. 11, ll. 3–5	unforhtmod ‘unafraid’	Syxtus þa unforhtmod to his preostum clypode	Xystus […] dixit ad clerum suum
ll. 33–34	eadig ‘blessed’	se eadiga laurentius […] bemænde þæt […]	—
ll. 59–60 / c. 17, ll. 9–10	bealdwyrd ‘impertinent’	gif þes bealdwyrda biscop acweald ne bið	Si iste extinctus non fuerit
ll. 78–79 / c. 19, l. 9	halig ‘holy’	betæhte se godes feond þone halgan diacon his heahgereuan ualeriane	Decius Caesar tradidit eum Valeriano praefecto
ll. 89–90 / c. 20, ll. 9–10	gesælig ‘blessed’	Se gesæliga laurentius tæhte þam blindan soðne geleafan þære halgan þrynnysse	beatus Laurentius catecizavit eum
ll. 94–95 / c. 20, ll. 25–26	eadig ‘blessed’	fela oðre blinde mid wope comon to þam eadigan diacone	multi caeci veniebant ad beatum Laurentium cum lacrimis
l. 103 / c. 21, l. 11	eadig ‘blessed’	he mid tearum. to þam eadigan diacone cwæð	dixit ad beatum Laurentium cum lacrimis
ll. 110–11 / c. 21, ll. 19–20	unforht ‘unafraid’	Hi […] unforhte him ætforan stodon	Et cum venissent ambo simul ante conspectum Valeriani
ll. 111–12 / c. 21, l. 20	halig ‘holy’, cyþere ‘martyr’	Ða cwæð ualerianus to þam halgan cyþere	Valerianus dixit ad beatum Laurentium
ll. 121–22 / c. 22, ll. 18–19	cyþere ‘martyr’	Godes cyþere cwæð	Beatus Laurentius dixit
l. 134 / c. 23, ll. 10–11	eadig ‘blessed’	Se eadiga diacon cwæð	Beatus Laurentius dixit
l. 138 / c. 24, l. 7	halig ‘holy’, martir ‘martyr’	ða cwæð se halga martyr	Beatus Laurentius dixit
ll. 145–46 / c. 24, ll. 16–17	eadig ‘blessed’, martir ‘martyr’	Se eadiga martir þa wæs biddende his drihten ⁊ cwæð	Beatus Laurentius dixit in illa hora
ll. 152–53 / c. 24, l. 23	bealdlice ‘boldly’	laurentius þa bealdlice clypode	Beatus Laurentius dixit
ll. 155–57 / c. 24, ll. 25–26	halig ‘holy’	se casere […] het þone halgan diacon mid leadenum swipum langlice swingan	Decius […] iussit ut cum plumbatis diutissime caederetur
ll. 169–70 / c. 26, ll. 2–3	cyþere ‘martyr’	an þæra cempena […] cwæð to þam godes cyþere laurentium	coepit dicere ad beatum Laurentium
l. 202 / c. 27, ll. 24–25	halig ‘holy’	mid stanum þæs halgan muð cnucian	ut os eius cum lapidibus tunderetur
l. 209 / c. 28, l. 8	cyþere ‘martyr’	decius cwæð þa to þam godes cyþere	et dixit Decius Caesar
l. 225 / c. 29, ll. 15–16	halig ‘holy’	Ypolitus ða bebyrigde þone halgan lichaman	sepelierunt eum in crypta
ll. 252–53	eadig ‘blessed’	þe wæron æt þæs eadigan laurenties handum	—
ll. 258–59 / c. 31, l. 20	eadig ‘blessed’	se eadiga ypolitus gehyrte his hired	Yppolitus coepit omnes confortare
ll. 292–93	halig ‘holy’, cyþere ‘martyr’	Uton nu biddan […] þone halgan godes cyðere laurentium	—

Table 1B: Ælfric’s epithets for other good characters (5x)

Reference	Epithets	Context	Original
ll. 40–41 / c. 13, l. 28	cristen ‘Christian’	dæl cristenum mannum. be þan ðe þe gewyrð	divide quibus tibi videtur
ll. 170–71 / c. 26, ll. 3–4	engel ‘angel’	Ic geseo godes engel standende ætforan þe	Video in te hominem pulcherrimum stantem
ll. 176–77 / c. 26, l. 11	gelyfed ‘believing’	brohte se gelyfeda cempa romanus ceac fulne wæteres	Veniens autem Romanus et afferens aquam
ll. 178–79 / c. 26, l. 13	geleafful ‘believing’	laurentius […] þone geleaffulan þegen gefullode	baptizavit eum
l. 265 / c. 32, ll. 1–2	halig ‘holy’	gegaderode se halga iustinus heora ealra lic. ⁊ bebyrigde	Iustinus presbyter collegit corpora et sepelivit

Table 2. Ælfric’s epithets for Emperor Decius or his persecutors (14x)

Reference	Epithets	Context	Original
l. 3	wælhreow ‘cruel’	ON DECIES DÆGE þæs wælhreowan caseres	—
ll. 11–12 / c. 12, l. 1	reþe ‘cruel’, ehtere ‘persecutor’	On þære nihte wearð se biscop […] to þam reþum ehtere gebroht	Et praesentatus est noctu Decio et Vareriano
ll. 58–59 / c. 17, l. 9	wælhreow ‘cruel’, cwellere ‘killer’	Se wælhreowa cwellere mid gebolgenum mode. cwæð to his heahgereuan ualeriane	Decius, furore plenus, dixit ad Valerianum
ll. 75–76 / c. 19, l. 6	reþe ‘cruel’, cwellere ‘killer’	Se reþa cwellere hine ða befran	Decius Caesar dicens
ll. 78–79 / c. 19, l. 9	feond ‘enemy’	betæhte se godes feond þone halgan diacon his heahgereuan valeriane	Decius Caesar tradidit eum Valeriano praefecto
ll. 129–30 / c. 23, l. 6	cwellere ‘executioner’	decius cwæð to þam cwellerum	Decius Caesar dixit
ll. 141–42 / c. 24, ll. 11–12	cwellere ‘executioner’	het ða […] þæt ða cwelleras mid stearcum saglum hine beoton	Decius […] iussit eum nudum fustibus caedi
l. 182 / c. 26, ll. 16–17	reþe ‘cruel’, cwellere ‘killer’	het se reþa cwellere hine underhnigan swurdes ecge	iussit eum Decius Caesar […] capitis subire sententiam
l. 198 / c. 27, l. 21	wælhreow ‘cruel’	se wælhreowa casere þa cwæð	Decius Caesar dixit
l. 202 / c. 27, ll. 24–25	wælhreow ‘cruel’	ða het se wælhreowa mid stanum þæs halgan muð cnucian	Tunc iussit ut os eius cum lapidibus tunderetur
l. 205 / c. 28, l. 1	cwellere ‘executioner’	decius cwæð to þam cwellerum	Decius Caesar dixit
ll. 223–24 / c. 29, l. 1	wælhreow ‘cruel’	sewælhreowa casere […] tengde mid his heahgerefan to þam botle tyberianum	Decius una cum Valeriano ambulavit exinde in palatium Tyberianum
l. 232 / c. 30, l. 5	cwellere ‘killer’	hine gelæhton ⁊ to þam cwellere gelæddon	tenuerunt eum et perduxerunt ad Decium Caesarem
ll. 247–48	reþe ‘cruel’	se reða casere þa ða he ne mihte mid nanum pinungum hine geweman fram cristes geleafan	—

Table 3. Ælfric’s epithets for heathenism, heathen gods, or the heathen temple (5x)

Reference	Epithets	Context	Original
l. 22 / c. 12, l. 21	deofolgyld ‘pagan temple’	ða cempan hine læddon to þam deofolgylde	Et duxerunt eum ad templum Martis
ll. 24–25	deofolgyld ‘pagan temple’	he […] þam deofolgilde offrian nolde	—
ll. 63–64	deofolgyld ‘pagan temple’	ðæs caseres cempan hine læddon to þam deofolgylde	—
ll. 80–81	undeadlic ‘immortal’	se godes feond […] hine gebig to þam undeadlicum godum	—
ll. 239–40 / c. 30, l. 17	gedwyld ‘error’	Ðurh nyttennysse ic gelyfde on ðam gedwylde þe ðu gelyfst	quia ignorans feci quod tu credis

Ælfric’s improvement of the Vita

In the previous section, I have surveyed Ælfric’s use of epithets in general, demonstrating that he introduces many epithets either by substituting neutral words of the Vita or by making original additions. In this section, I shall present a closer comparison between Ælfric’s epithets and their Latin counterparts and consider how his use of epithets improved his source, producing a more striking contrast between good and bad characters.

Ælfric begins his Life of St Laurence by illustrating the antithesis between Emperor Decius and Bishop Sixtus clearly — ‘ON DECIES DÆGE þæs wælhreowan caseres. wæs se halga biscop sixtus on romana byri drohtniende’ (‘In the time of Decius, the cruel emperor, the holy bishop Sixtus was living in the city of Rome’, ll. 3–4). This sentence is Ælfric’s composition, which has no comparable sentence in the Passio.²³ By employing the epithets wælhreow and halig, he opposes the cruel emperor (þæs wælhreowan caseres) to the holy bishop (se halga biscop). Similarly, Decius (se godes feond) is contrasted with Sixtus (þone halgan diacon) in ‘betæhte se godes feond þone halgan diacon his heahgereuan ualeriane’ (the god’s enemy entrusted the holy deacon to his prefect Valerianus, ll. 78–79), though in the source they are simply Decius Caesar ‘Emperor Decius’ and eum ‘him’, respectively. Ælfric also produces a striking opposition between Decius and Laurence in ‘ða het se wælhreowa mid stanum þæs halgan muð cnucian’ (‘Then that cruel [man] ordered the mouth of the saint to be beaten with stones’, l. 202). In the corresponding Latin, the third person verb (iussit ‘ordered’) is used, whose pronominal subject referring to Decius is omitted;²⁴ þæs halgan (Laurence) is also an expansion of the pronoun eius ‘his’. Additionally, Ælfric introduces many more epithets for both martyrs and persecutors by modifying his source. I shall examine them according to the individual characters below.

Ælfric’s Laurence has various epithets, while he is invariably referred to as beatus Laurentius in the Passio. The adjective beatus is omitted only once in MS P (c. 22, l. 3), which Hippolytus Delehaye uses as the base text for his edition.²⁵ This omission is probably a simple scribal mistake because the adjective is retained in the other two manuscripts (MSS B and C). Therefore, beatus Laurentius must be nothing more than a recurrent formula. Ælfric may render it merely literally as se eadiga laurentius ‘the blessed Laurence’ (e.g. l. 46); he may even omit the adjective, referring to him simply by name (e.g. l. 68) or by name and the occupation ercediacon ‘archdeacon’ (e.g. l. 27). Otherwise, however, he employs various epithets for the saint. He renders beatus Laurentius as þam halgan cyþere (‘the holy martyr’, ll. 111–12), (se) godes cyþere (‘the martyr of God’, ll. 112–13, 121, 170), se eadiga diacon (‘the blessed deacon’, l. 134), se halga martyr (‘the holy martyr’, l. 138), se eadiga martir (‘the blessed martyr’, l. 145), and þæs halgan laurenties (‘the holy Laurence’, l. 177; similarly, ll. 184–85). Furthermore, Ælfric adds the prepositional phrase to þam godes cyþere which is absent in the Passio: ‘decius cwæð þa to þam godes cyþere; geoffra nu urum godum’ (‘Decius said then to the martyr of God, “Offer now to our gods”’, ll. 209–10). He also makes a syntactic modification when introducing his own epithet: in ‘Decius […] iussit ut cum plumbatis diutissime caederetur’ (‘Decius […] ordered that he [Laurence] should be struck with lead balls for a very long time’, c. 24, ll. 25–26), caederetur (the passive form of caedo ‘to strike’) lacks its subject; Ælfric changes the passive voice into active construction, introducing the verbal object þone halgan diacon, which refers to Laurence: ‘se casere […] het þone halgan diacon mid leadenum swipum langlice swingan’ (‘the emperor […] ordered to beat the holy deacon with leaden whips for a long time’, ll. 155–57). At the end of the text, Ælfric addresses his audience in his own words, exhorting them to pray to the martyr: ‘Uton nu biddan mid eadmodre stemne þone halgan godes cyðere laurentium’ (‘Let us now pray to Laurence, the holy martyr of God, with humble voice’, ll. 292–93). Here Laurence is referred to by the most honourable epithet in this life — þone halgan godes cyðere.

Regarding Syxtus, Ælfric calls him se halga biscop, as cited above, in his original sentence at the outset of this life. Subsequently, he begins to translate the Passio closely. Decius first summons Syxtus to demand the church treasures, though the bishop is never scared: ‘Syxtus þa unforhtmod to his preostum clypode; Mine gebroþra ne beo ge afyrhte’ (‘Syxtus, unafraid, said to his priests, “My brothers, do not be afraid”’, ll. 5–7). The adjective unforhtmod, which acts in apposition to the subject, is Ælfric’s addition and underscores how courageous the bishop was when summoned before the emperor. The bishop Syxtus, who is Laurence’s lareow (‘teacher’, l. 52), never yields to Decius’s pressure to offer to the heathen gods, and after leaving the church treasures to Laurence, he is martyred with his two deacons. Therefore, it is quite natural that Ælfric should emphasise his integrity by exploiting epithets of his own. Compared to the case of Laurence, however, Ælfric is more indebted to the source for the epithets used for Syxtus: he is Se eadiga syxtus (‘The blessed Syxtus’, ll. 13–14) and Se eadiga biscop (‘The blessed bishop’, l. 56), both of which correspond to beatus Xystus (c. 12, l. 9; c. 17, l. 7).

For Yppolitus, another martyr, Ælfric, as well as the Passio, uses epithets sparingly. In the Passio Yppolitus is usually referred to by name, though he is called beatus Ypolitus three times in a climactic scene where he is persecuted and martyred (c. 30, l. 29; c. 31, ll. 6, 24). Ælfric uses eadig ‘blessed’ for him only once, just before he is martyred: ‘se eadiga ypolitus gehyrte his hired’ (‘the blessed Yppolitus encouraged his family’, ll. 258–59). He is otherwise consistently referred to merely by name in Ælfric’s version. Yppolitus had been heathen and even shut the saint in a prison, before Laurence baptised him: ‘he hine beclysde on cwearterne mid manegum oþrum’ (‘he [Yppolitus] enclosed him [Laurence] in a prison with many others’, l. 82). This could explain Ælfric’s parsimonious use of epithets for him.

To turn to good characters other than the three martyrs (Table 1B), Ælfric’s epithets indicate his keen interest in edification — Christianisation of his audience. He introduces words related to Christianity twice, which are absent from the Passio. In the Passio, the bishop Sixtus, Laurence’s teacher, orders him to have the treasures of the church and distribute them to ‘anyone he likes’: ‘Accipe facultates ecclesiae vel thesaurus, et divide quibus tibi videtur’ (‘Take the wealth and treasure of the church and distribute them to anyone you like’, c. 13, ll. 27–28). Ælfric changes the relative pronoun quibus into cristenum mannum so that only Christians would receive the treasures: ‘Nim nu ure cyrcan maðmas. ⁊ dæl cristenum mannum be þan ðe gewyrð’ (‘Take now the treasures of our church and distribute to Christians as you like’, ll. 40–41). The other example occurs in the scene of Decius’s tortures of Laurence. Romanus, one of Decius’s warriors, sees ‘a very beautiful person’ wiping Laurence’s body, ‘Video in te hominem pulherrimum stantem cum linteo et extergentem membra tua’ (‘I see in you a very beautiful person standing with a towel and wiping your body’, c. 26, ll. 3–4). However, Ælfric’s Romanus sees God’s angel doing the same: ‘Ic geseo godes engel standende ætforan þe mid handclaðe; ⁊ wipað ðine swatigan leomu’ (‘I see God’s angel standing before you with a towel and wiping your sweating limbs’, ll. 170–71).

Ælfric’s version also differs from the Passio rather considerably in its way of referring to Emperor Decius. Apart from in direct speech,²⁶ Decius is consistently referred to by name or occupation, Caesar ‘emperor’, in the Passio. Ælfric sometimes follows the source, referring to him simply by name (e.g. l. 16) or by name and occupation (e.g. l. 12). Otherwise, however, he replaces neutral expressions in Latin with various derogatory epithets. To quote all the instances: þam reþum ehtere (‘the cruel persecutor’, l. 12), Se wælhreowa cwellere (‘the cruel killer’, l. 58), se reþa cwellere (‘the cruel killer’, ll. 75–76, 182), se godes feond (‘the enemy of God’, l. 78), se wælhreowa casere (‘the cruel emperor’, ll. 198, 223), þam cwellere (‘the killer’, l. 232), and se reða casere (‘the cruel emperor’, l. 247). Ælfric tends to use the noun cwellere ‘killer’ — a derivative of the verb cwellan ‘to kill’ — in the context related to Decius’s murderousness. For instance, Se wælhreowa cwellere expresses anger when Syxtus denounces him for his massacre (l. 58); similarly, se reþa cwellere orders to kill a soldier Romanus, whom Laurence baptised (l. 182). These examples indicate that Ælfric uses cwellere in context-specific ways. It is also interesting to note that in two later lives Ælfric uses wælhreow and cwellere for Decius once each: he is ðam wælhreowan casere (‘the cruel emperor’) in the Life of SS Abdon and Sennes (LS 22, l. 4), and ðam hæðenan cwellere ‘the heathen killer’ in a brief summary of the legend of the seven sleepers (CH II.27, l. 190). Conversely, in a non-Ælfrician (or anonymous) legend of the seven sleepers, which is much longer than Ælfric’s one, Decius is never cwellere, nor is he wælhreow. Similarly, another common epithet Ælfric uses for Decius, reþe, is never used in the same non-Ælfrician text.²⁷ Therefore, these epithets appear to be characteristic of Ælfric’s writing.

The noun cwellere ‘killer, executioner’, a common epithet used for Decius, also occurs in its plural form four times, referring to his servants persecuting Laurence on all occasions. One is a literal translation of the Latin carnifices ‘executioners’ (l. 212). However, the rest do not have any counterparts in the Passio. For example, Ælfric writes ‘decius cwæð to þam cwellerum; Arærað hine up’ (‘Decius said to the executioners, “Raise him up”’, ll. 129–30), though the author of the Passio does not clarify verbally whom Decius ordered to raise Laurence (albeit that this agent is contextually inferable): ‘Decius Caesar dixit: “Levate eum a terra”’ (‘Emperor Decius said, “raise him from the earth”’, c. 23, l. 6). Similarly, the other two instances are Ælfric’s additions (ll. 141, 205). His frequent use of cwelleras for Decius’s servants would have reminded his audience of their cruel nature.

The idea of epithets is not confined to words related to persons. Ælfric’s choice of words may actually represent his disapproval of paganism outright. When Yppolitus converts to Christianity, Decius asks him why he does not worship pagan gods. Then, Yppolitus in the Passio replies, ‘Ego sapiens et christianus factus sum, quia ignorans feci quod tu credis’ (‘I became wise and Christian though in my ignorance I followed what you believe in’, c. 30, ll. 21–22). Ælfric replaces the relative pronoun quod ‘what’ by gedwylde ‘error’: ‘Ðurh nyttennysse ic gelyfde on ðam gedwylde þe ðu gelyfst’ (‘Through ignorance, I believed in the error which you believed in’, ll. 239–40). The heathen temple is consistently referred to merely neutrally as templum Martis ‘the temple of Mars’ in the Passio (passim in c. 12 and c. 17). Ælfric literally renders it as þam temple martis once (l. 20) or merely calls it ðæs temples/þam temple twice (ll. 65, 73), but he renders it as deofolgyld ‘a pagan temple’ three times (ll. 22, 24, 64).²⁸ These modifications indicate Ælfric’s intention of emphasising religious morality to his audience.

We have compared Ælfric’s epithets with their Latin counterparts so far and identified only two epithets in the Passio. One is beatus ‘blessed’, which is used regularly for Laurence and only occasionally for Syxtus and Yppolitus; the other is carnifices ‘executioners’, used for Decius’s men. Compared to this monotonous use of epithets in the Passio, the rich variety in Ælfric’s version seems to be a remarkable stylistic improvement. He employs quite a few epithets of his own, especially for Decius and Laurence, thereby making the antithetical relationship between them more conspicuous than in his source.

Ælfric’s epithets in direct/indirect speech

In the examples discussed in the previous section, Ælfric consistently uses praising epithets for martyrs and censorious ones for persecutors. This unequivocal distinction accords well with his purpose in writing this life — inculcating reverence for the saint in his audience and forbidding heathenism. However, there are some exceptional cases. For example, Decius refers to Syxtus as þes bealdwyrda biscop ‘this impertinent bishop’ in the direct speech: ‘gif þes bealdwyrda biscop acwelad ne bið. syððan ne bið ure ege ondrædendlic’ (‘if this impertinent bishop is not killed, we will no longer be feared’, ll. 59–60).²⁹ In the corresponding sentence of the Passio, the bishop is referred to by the demonstrative pronoun iste ‘that’: ‘Si iste extinctus non fuerit, non erit clarus timor’ (‘If that person is not killed, there will be no fear’, c. 17, ll. 9–10). As noted by Greenough and others, the pronoun iste ‘especially refers to one’s opponent (in court, etc.), and frequently implies antagonism or contempt.’³⁰ Thus, Ælfric replaces the pronoun of contemptuous meaning with the insulting epithet (bealdwyrda). This alteration seems to indicate that he is so well versed in the Latin language that he can recognise even the subtle nuance of the pronoun, making its connotation explicit in Old English. Nonetheless, it is also notable that Ælfric employs a derogative epithet to refer to the martyr, who deserves worthy recognition.

Here we should call to mind Ælfric’s capability to ‘slant’ or bias the statements of his characters in favour of his moral sense, which Waterhouse first proposed by examining some lives included in his Lives of Saints.³¹ As she argues, Ælfric may deliberately convert direct speech in Latin into indirect speech in Old English, introducing epithets of his own into that speech. In this way, he was capable of distorting his characters’ words. Waterhouse cites an obvious example from the passage in the Life of St Alban,³² which Ælfric writes relying on Bede’s Ecclesiastical History. In the source, an impious judge threatens Alban, and says to him, ‘quaecumque illi debebantur supplicia tu soluere habes, si a cultu nostrae religionis discedere temtas’ (‘so you will have to take the punishment he [a cleric] has incurred if you attempt to forsake our worship and religion’).³³ Ælfric turns it into indirect speech: ‘[…] cwæþ þæt he [Alban] sylf sceolde ða swaran wita onfon […] butan he hraðe gebuge to his bysmorfullum godum’ (‘[…] said that he himself would have to undergo the severe tortures […] unless he immediately submitted to his shameful gods’, LS 19, ll. 45–48). Here Ælfric slants the judge’s statement by replacing nostrae religionis (‘our religion’) with his bysmorfullum godum ‘his shameful gods’, which derogates the heathen gods and which, naturally, the judge would not have said. In this way, Ælfric modifies the judge’s words, emphasising that his gods are certainly vile. In the Life of St Laurence, however, he never displays the skills in slanting the characters’ words. In this life, he never uses indirect speech, though he uses direct speech abundantly due to the close rendition of the Passio.³⁴ Ælfric is so faithful to the source in rendering characters’ dialogues that he may even use a positive adjective for heathen gods: Decius threatens Syxtus, saying, ‘geoffra þine lac þam undeadlicum godum’ (‘offer your gift to the immortal gods’, ll. 12–13), where undeadlicum modifies the heathen gods that he deeply admires. It is a literal translation of immortalibus ‘immortal’ in Latin.³⁵ Contrariwise, the emperor may use an adjective of a negative sense, insulting Laurence. He orders his servants to torture Laurence, who is modig ‘proud’ in his words: ‘ahebbað þæt isene bed to þam fyre. þæt se modiga laurentius hine þæron gereste’ (‘Raise the iron bed to the fire so that the proud Laurence would rest thereon’, ll. 205–06). The word modig is derived from the Latin contumax ‘proud’.³⁶

The fact that Ælfric never distorts the words of his characters in the Life of St Laurence probably indicates that he had yet to reach the stylistic maturity characteristic of his later hagiography, in which he narrates hagiographical stories more effectively. In his later stage, he might have considered substituting immortalibus and modig, which are unreconciled with his moralisation; likewise, he might have translated the pronoun iste differently.

Conclusion

This article has demonstrated that Ælfric exploits many epithets in the Life of St Laurence, where the Passio merely uses nouns of neutral meaning or pronouns; he also inserts epithets of his own with no comparable words in the source. In the case of his later prose, alliteration is one of the factors motivating him to resort to more epithets, but even in ordinary prose he provides epithets genuinely for emphasising the contrast between the good and bad characters and sometimes for edifying his audience effectively. The modifications regarding epithets scarcely affect the context of the story, but when accumulated, they help produce a striking antithesis between the martyrs and persecutors, especially Laurence and Decius, and make his language sound more vigorous than his source. In his later prose such as the Life of St Alban, Ælfric displays a more sophisticated technique to introduce epithets of his own: he may deliberately convert direct speech in the source into indirect speech in his adaptation and have effective epithets in the words of his characters, thereby slanting their statements to convey his morality. He might have been deficient in this technique when writing the Laurence life. Nevertheless, using epithets had already become a stylistic technique in Ælfric’s early career as a hagiographer, being symptomatic of his later style.

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1 M. R. Godden, ‘Experiments in Genre: The Saints’ Lives in Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies’, in Holy Men and Holy Women: Old English Prose Saints’ Lives and Their Contexts, ed. by Paul E. Szarmach (New York: State University of New York Press, 1996), pp. 261–87 (p. 279). I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers for Leeds Medieval Studies for providing invaluable comments and suggestions on the earlier manuscript. I also thank the editor, Alaric Hall, for helping me finalise this article.

2 Ruth Waterhouse, ‘Affective Language, Especially Alliterating Qualifiers, in Ælfric’s Life of St Alban’, Anglo-Saxon England, 7 (1978), 131–48. Ælfric’s Lives of Saints is abbreviated as LS.

3 Ælfric’s texts are cited from the following editions: Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: The First Series, ed. by Peter Clemoes, Early English Text Society, s. s. 17 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997); Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: The Second Series, ed. by Malcolm Godden, Early English Text Society, s. s. 5 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979); Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, ed. by Walter W. Skeat, Early English Text Society, o. s. 76, 82, 94, 114 (1881–1900; repr. in 2 vols., London: Oxford University Press, 1966). For Ælfric’s Life of St Laurence, references are line numbering of Clemoes’s edition; otherwise, texts in Catholic Homilies are referred to by the abbreviated titles (CH I, CH II) and homily number and line number; texts in Lives of Saints are referred to by number and line number, with its abbreviated title (LS). All translations of Old English are my own.

4 Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. by Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969), p. 26, l. 15.

5 The Old English Version of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. by Thomas Miller, Early English Text Society, s. s. 95 (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 32, ll. 22–23.

6 Apart from the example Waterhouse cites from the Alban life, ‘reðe (or reþe) + cwellere’ occurs eight times in Ælfric’s writing, all in reference to Christian persecutors. It refers to Emperor Decius twice in the Life of St Laurence (CH I.29, ll. 75–76, 182). The remaining six refer to Herod, the king of Judea (CH I.5, l. 57), Egeas, a proconsul of Achaia (CH I.38, l. 276), Almachius, a Roman prefect (LS 34, l. 196), executioners persecuting Christians after the ascension of Christ (CH II.37, l. 78), and servants of Datianus, a Roman general (LS 37, ll. 130, 263). To retrieve these examples, I searched the Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, comp. by Antonette diPaolo Healey with John Price Wilkin and Xin Xiang (Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project 2009), <https://tapor.library.utoronto.ca/doecorpus/> [accessed 23 July 2023].

7 Anne Middleton gives a similar view regarding the Life of St Martin; ‘Aelfric’s Answerable Style: The Rhetoric of the Alliterative Prose’, Studies in Medieval Culture, 4 (1973), 83–91 (pp. 85–86).

8 Hiroshi Ogawa, ‘Ælfric’s Shifting Mode of Speech: Postscript on Wite Ge in the Peter and Paul Homily’, Studies in English Literature, 54 (2013), 1–10 (pp. 5–7).

9 Kiriko Sato, ‘Ælfric’s Language for Edification in the First Homily on the Assumption of the Virgin Mary’, Studies in English Literature, 63 (2022), 39–55 (pp. 48–50).

10 Ælfric’s use of epithets is also discussed in Luke Mins Reinsma, ‘Ælfric: The Teacher as Rhetorician’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Michigan, 1978), p. 289; Hiroshi Ogawa, ‘Sententia in Narrative Form: Ælfric’s Narrative Method in the Hagiographical Homily on St Martin’, Leeds Studies in English, n. s., 42 (2011), 75–92 (p. 81).

11 Gabriella Corona, ‘Ælfric’s Schemes and Tropes: Amplificatio and the Portrayal of Persecutors’, in A Companion to Ælfric, ed. by Hugh Magennis and Mary Swan, Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition, 18 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), pp. 297–320 (p. 307).

12 Corona, p. 316.

13 Godden, ‘Experiments’, p. 262.

14 For this passio, I consult the edition that Hippolytus Delehaye provides in ‘Recherches sur le légendier romain’, Analecta Bollandiana, 51 (1933), 34–98 (the text is printed in pp. 72–98), which is cited by the chapter number given in this edition and line number. Previous scholars consider that Delehaye’s edition is closest to Ælfric’s version; see Patrick H. Zettel, ‘Ælfric’s Hagiographic Sources and the Latin Legendary Preserved in B.L. MS Cotton Nero E i + CCCC MS 9 and Other Manuscripts’ (unpublished D.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 1979), pp. 178–79, 300; Malcolm Godden, Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: Introduction, Commentary and Glossary, Early English Text Society, s. s. 18 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 238–39. Godden also sources the text in Fontes Anglo-Saxonici <https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~cr30/Mercian/Fontes> [accessed 15 May 2023]. All translations of Latin are my own.

15 In his preface to the First Series of Catholic Homilies, Ælfric himself names the authorities he relies upon, i.e. Augustine, Jerome, Bede, Gregory, Smaragdus, and Haymo (CH I, preface, ll. 15–16).

16 For homiletic features of Ælfric’s hagiographic texts, see Godden, ‘Experiments’, p. 281.

17 Hugh Magennis, ‘Contrasting Features in the Non-Ælfrician Lives in the Old English Lives of Saints’, Anglia, 104 (1986), 316–48 (pp. 320–22). In this article, Magennis analyses the language of Ælfric’s five lives, including Laurence’s, to establish linguistic and stylistic features of his genuine items, thereby excluding questionable ones from his canon with confidence.

18 Magennis, p. 322.

19 For Ælfric’s manner of handling Latin sources for his hagiographical texts, see Dorothy Bethurum, ‘The Form of Ælfric’s Lives of Saints’, Studies in Philology, 29 (1932), 515–33 (esp. p. 519).

20 OED, s.v. epithet, 1a.

21 Ælfric never uses epithets for Decius’s prefect Valerianus though he inflicts brutal tortures on the martyrs.

22 See the previous section for this.

23 Corona recognises Ælfric’s stylistic improvements by comparing his opening sentence with the first sentence in Chapter 11 of the Passio, where Decius and Syxtus are introduced merely by their occupations (306): ‘Eodem tempore Decius Caesar et Valerianus praefectus iusserunt sibi Xystum episcopum cum clero suo praesentari’ (‘At that time the Emperor Decius and the Prefect Valerianus ordered Bishop Syxtus brought to them with his clergy’, c. 11, ll. 1–2). Precisely, however, this Latin sentence corresponds to ‘þa færlice het he his gesihðum þone biscop mid his preostum samod geandwerdian’ (‘then suddenly he [Decius] ordered his servants to present the bishop with his priests’, ll. 4–5).

24 In Latin, the subject of a personal pronoun is usually omitted unless it is particularly emphatic; see Allen and Greenough’s New Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges: Founded on Comparative Grammar, ed. by J. B. Greenough and others (Eastford, CT: Martino Fine Books, 2017), §318.

25 See n. 14 above.

26 Characters’ words in the Vita contain epithets referring to Decius. For instance, while his servants are beating Laurence severely, the saint admonishes the emperor, saying, ‘Tu, miser, torqueris in insania tua et in furore tuo’ (‘You, wretched, you are tormented in your madness and fury’, c. 23, ll. 5–6).

27 The author of the anonymous legend of seven sleepers uses epithets for Decius twice: se þweora (‘the perverse’, LS 23, l. 12) and se yfela casere (‘the evil emperor’, LS 23, l. 348), neither of which Ælfric uses for the emperor.

28 The word deofolgyld, which is originally an abstract noun meaning ‘idolatry’, may refer to a heathen temple metonymically; Dictionary of Old English: A to I Online, ed. by Angus Cameron, Ashley Crandell Amos, Antonette diPaolo Healey, and others (Dictionary of Old English Project, 2018), s.v. deofol-gyld, 3, <http://tapor.library.utoronto.ca/doe/> [Accessed 16 May 2023]. (Hereafter abbreviated as DOE.)

29 The word bealdwyrde, a compound consisting of beald ‘bold’ and wyrde ‘speech’, is recorded only here in Old English; DOE, s.v. bealdwyrde.

30 Allen and Greenough’s New Latin Grammar, §297c. Also see Harm Pinkster, The Oxford Latin Syntax, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015–21), i, 1101.

31 Ruth Waterhouse, ‘Ælfric’s Use of Discourse in Some Saints’ Lives’, Anglo-Saxon England, 5 (1976), 83–103. Hiroshi Ogawa shows that the technique of slanting the statement is characteristic of Ælfric: ‘Stylistic Features of the Old English Apollonius of Tyre’, in Studies in the History of Old English Prose (Tokyo: Nan’un-do, 2000), pp. 181–204 (pp. 195–99) (first publ. in Poetica, 34 (1991), 57–74).

32 Waterhouse, ‘Ælfric’s Use of Discourse’, pp. 83–84.

33 Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, p. 30, ll. 8–9.

34 Magennis, p. 321.

35 The corresponding Latin is: ‘Ergo sacrifica diis immortalibus’ (‘Therefore sacrifice to the immortal gods’, c. 12, l. 8).

36 The corresponding Latin is: ‘Date lectum ferreum, ut requiescat Laurentius contumax’ (‘Offer the iron bed so that the proud Laurence would rest’, c. 28, ll. 1–2).