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Leeds Medieval Studies, 3 (2023)

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ISSN 2754-4575 (Print)
ISSN 2754-4583 (Online)

Articles

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

    Ælfric exploits various epithets in his hagiographic works, thereby producing a striking antithesis between the saint and persecutor. The use of epithets prevails especially in his later prose, and they often fulfil an alliterative function. However, he also displays this technique in his early hagiography, which was written in ordinary prose without alliterative requirements. This article examines Ælfric’s use of epithets in the Life of St Laurence from his first collection, the First Series of Catholic Homilies, focusing on how this life differs from its source in the use of epithets. The epithets in Ælfric’s text often correspond to nouns of neutral meaning or pronouns in his Latin source; they may even have no comparable words or phrases in the source. Closer investigation reveals that he improves the source, enhancing the antithesis between the opposing characters. In conclusion, Ælfric had already adopted effective epithets as a stylistic technique to compose hagiography during his early stages as a hagiographer.

  • An Analogue in II Samuel of the Conclusion to Beowulf
    John Shafer

    The last third of Beowulf is recognisably distinct from the first two-thirds, the first part long acknowledged to derive from one or more traditional, pre-Christian narratives such as the ‘Bear’s Son’ or ‘Hand and the Child’ story-pattern. The concluding episode of Beowulf fighting and being killed by a dragon vividly expresses the Geat people’s fear that it cannot maintain its autonomy among larger and more militarily powerful neighbours following the heirless death of its leader. This article identifies an earlier analogue for this last portion of Beowulf from the biblical book of II Samuel, a narrative of King David fighting a giant that shares both this concern and a number of key plot points. Beowulf’s theme of heroic heathenism defiantly, victoriously — but also inevitably — ending to make way for Christianity is not only seen intrinsically to relate to the clear similarities between Beowulf’s dragon-fight and its earlier parallel, but is also shown to motivate clear differences between Beowulf and the earlier narrative.

  • A Note On A Christian Mannes Bileeve, Robert Holcot’s Convertimini, and ‘Lere You Vnkynde Man’ (NIMEV 1846 / DIMEV 3042)
    Nicole D. Smith
    The devotional text known as A Christian Mannes Bileeve relies on a variety of biblical, patristic, and homiletic resources to explain the Articles of the Faith in the Apostles’ Creed. This note shows that Robert Holcot’s Latin exemplum of birds dying in the woods stands as the source not only for the Middle English exemplum in CMB but also for the introduction, original lyric verse, and peroration surrounding the exemplum. In this way, we see that Latinate sermon materials designed to reach a listening public also inform the creative moves apparent in works of private devotion.
  • The Greater Annals of St. Gall: Introduction, Translation, and Notes
    Chris Halsted
    As the house annals for one of the most important monasteries in Europe and a critical source for the foundation and expansion of the tenth-century Saxon empire, the Annales Sangallenses maiores or Greater Annals of St. Gall are a crucial historical document. This paper provides the first published translation of the Greater Annals into English alongside a study of the text’s context and themes. The Greater Annals are a composite work, first created from the basis of the Annales Alamannici just after 955, continued intermittently until 1024, then concluded with a long portion from 1025 to 1044 relying on a shared source with Wipo of Burgundy’s Gesta Chuonradi imperatoris and Hermann of Reichenau’s Chronicle. The autograph copy of the text, which fortunately survives, is the work of at least thirty-three different scribes, many of whom seem to have updated the text as the desire took them with little thought to narrative coherence or factual consistency. Nevertheless, several consistent themes can be detected in the analysis of the text; in particular the presentation of alternative viewpoints regarding the great events of German history, the development of regional political power in Alemannia, and the history of St. Gall itself. The Greater Annals represent an early medieval historical source which has been significantly understudied by modern scholars; both the text itself and the fascinating autograph manuscript deserve more attention.
  • An Eddic Fairy-tale of a Cursed Princess: An Edition of Vambarljóð
    Haukur Þorgeirsson
    The Eddic fairy-tales are a group of poems of medieval origin which were collected from oral tradition in Iceland in the seventeenth century and later. These poems employ an Icelandic version of the Germanic alliterative metre and make use of Eddic formulas and style. They have fairy-tale subjects with evil stepmothers, elves, ogresses, curses and other supernatural elements. A striking trait of these poems is their emphasis on female characters and perspectives. The poem here edited is Vambarljóð, which tells of Signý, a resourceful princess cursed by her stepmother to appear as a cow’s stomach. The poem was collected three times from oral tradition. One version (V) survives as part of a late seventeenth-century collection of ballads and other popular poems. Two other versions are fragmentary: one of them (Þ) was written down for Árni Magnússon (1663–1730) and the other (J) by one of Árni’s successors. The most complete version, V, is also the one that has the most archaic appearance and probably best reflects the poem’s medieval origins. The three versions are edited separately here. Later poems and prose narratives of the same tale type are also briefly described.

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