This diplomatic edition of the first four pages of the Southwick Codex presents the text as written in the manuscript, but also explains and reinterprets it. The first three of these pages have traditionally been used to preface the Old English Soliloquies, even though they have nothing to say about that text. They express no relationship to it or interest in it. They do nothing to introduce its contents. They take no notice of the author of the Soliloquies or its translator. The entire fourth page, on the other hand, provides an explicitly stated and formal introduction to the Old English Soliloquies. This edition claims that the first three pages are the concluding fragment to a text that once preceded the Old English Soliloquies, and that the Old English Soliloquies is fully introduced on the fourth page. The introduction argues for this interpretation with codicological, paleographic, and literary evidence.

Before anything, I must briefly speak to foliation. In the following discussion and treatment of the Southwick Codex, I give precedence to the original foliation over the later foliation, even though the later foliation has become predominant in current scholarly usage. My reason for doing so is accuracy and simplicity. It is important to have clearly in mind that the first fragment in the Southwick Codex begins on the first folio. The later foliation makes the Southwick Codex begin on the fourth folio, because it adds to its count the three flyleaves that were placed at the front of the codex in the early modern period. The original foliation was written onto the recto side of each leaf of the Southwick Codex, most likely soon after it was bound together with the Nowell Codex (see p. 2 below). In the mid-nineteenth century a paperboard backing was placed around the vellum leaves to frame and protect them. At that time the same folio number as on the vellum was written onto the top right corner of the paperboard’s recto side. But later in the late nineteenth century that number was crossed out and a different folio number written in. In my discussion of the text, I will refer only to the original foliation. However, when displaying images of the manuscript (courtesy of the British Library), I will refer to both foliations out of consideration for the British Library’s current practice. I use the siglum S for the foliation written onto the vellum of the Southwick Codex and the siglum V for the later foliation written onto the protective paperboard backing. Thus, for instance, the third page of the first fragment will be fol. S 2r or fol. V 5r. When the original foliation alone is referenced, the later foliation is easily identified, if need be, by adding three to the original folio number.

Codicology

The Southwick Codex is the first of two codices in the composite volume BL Cotton Vitellius A XV. Several decades ago, Kemp Malone named it as such because of the notice of ownership in the lower margin of its third page, which declares that it belongs to the Southwick Priory (1963, 11). At the same time, Malone named the second codex the Nowell Codex after Laurence Nowell, who signed his name to its first page in 1563 (1963, 11). It had previously been known as the Beowulf Manuscript. These two codices were bound into a single volume in the early modern period. They are generally assumed to have been bound together in Sir Robert Cotton’s library, but it is possible that he acquired them already as a single volume. They must have been bound together sometime after Nowell signed his name to the front page of his codex, because in the composite volume that page falls roughly in the middle, on the ninety-first folio. They were certainly bound together before Nov. 3 1629, when the Cotton Library was closed for several years. While the library was closed, a catalogue of its entire holdings was created (BL Add. MS 36789). It lists Cotton Vitellius A XV with texts from both codices.

The Nowell Codex is the older of the two, generally dated to the late tenth or early eleventh century (Förster 1919, 39; Ker 1957, 281), though Kiernan places it squarely in the early eleventh century ([1981] 1996, 121). The Southwick Codex is generally dated to the middle of the twelfth century (Förster 1919, 38; Ker 1957, item 215; Kiernan [1981] 1996, 112). Elaine Treharne, however, argues for the second half of the twelfth century (2016, 237).

The Southwick Codex is itself a composite volume of two booklets, bound together in the mid to later Middle Ages (Förster 1919, 24; Ker 1957, 280; Kiernan [1981] 1996, 113). There were many composite volumes in the Middle Ages, as Graham Pollard explains: “Medieval books are more often like an old house in which parts have been demolished, parts altered, and parts added” (2016, 186). Composite volumes containing Old English text that were bound together during the medieval period include Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 178 (Ker 1957, 60-64); Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Auct. F. 4. 32, also known as St. Dunstan’s Classbook (Ker 1957, 355-57); and Exeter Cathedral Library, MS 3501, also known as The Exeter Book (Horne 2024, 252-3). For further consideration of this phenomenon, one need simply read Peter Robinson’s “Self-Contained Units in Composite Manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Period” (2015). Robinson also explains in a chapter on “The Booklet” that extracted booklets were of “no standard length, could be several gatherings, outer leaves may be soiled or rubbed” (2016, 160-1).

The first booklet contains the Old English Soliloquies. The second contains the Old English Gospel of Nicodemus and the Old English Prose Solomon and Saturn. The first has seven gatherings, all of them with eight folios, hence fifty-six folios altogether. The second has four gatherings, three with eight folios, and one (the second) with ten, hence thirty-four folios altogether. The entire codex has ninety folios. Each booklet begins and ends with a fragment, indicating that they were extracted from other codices, leaving textual material behind. In his description of the Southwick Codex, Neil Ker lists the translation of the Gospel of Nicodemus as “beginning imperfect,” explaining that “an amount of text equal to rather more than two pages of the printed text is missing at the beginning” (1957, 280). To be precise, the missing portion equates to the first full page of Hulme’s critical edition (1898, 471), which amounts to 341 words. Since there are roughly 120 words on a page in the second booklet of the Southwick Codex, nearly three pages of the text are missing from where it begins in the second booklet. Therefore, the Gospel of Nicodemus began on the third last page (i.e., the verso side of the second last folio) of a gathering that once preceded. The second booklet also ends with a fragment. After the Prose Solomon and Saturn concludes part way down the last page, the remaining eleven lines are the opening to a homily on St. Quentin. It abruptly breaks off mid-sentence at the bottom of the page. The remainder of this homily would have continued on another gathering that was not brought along when this booklet was removed from its original codex. The first booklet also ends with a fragmented portion of text. When the Old English Soliloquies concludes its additional third section, the explicit is cut off mid-sentence. As Neil Ker says, the Old English Soliloquies “ends imperfect” (1957, 279). Most likely, not much is missing from this explicit, which would have continued on the now missing next gathering. What might have come after that explicit no one has speculated other than Wilhelm Endter, who in the introduction to his edition of the text suggested that the dialogue may have continued with another additional section: “vielleicht noch ein ganzes Buch folgte” (1922, viii).

It stands to reason that this first booklet also “begins imperfect.” It certainly reads as a fragment: “Gaderode me þonne kiᵹclas ⁊ stuþansceaftas ⁊ lohsceaftas” (Gathered for myself then poles and posts and beams). The verb lacks a subject. The sentences that follow make it obvious that the subject of Gaderode must be the first person singular ic, but the identity of this ic is never made known. This text is not constructed as one that begins in medias res. The adverb þonne in its first sentence assumes a preceding context. The impetus to gather lumber follows from something. We can only wish that we knew what. Nevertheless, the illuminated insular Ᵹ at the beginning of the first page has led some scholars to think that this is the proper beginning to the codex (Image 1).

Image 1: Cotton Vitellius A XV, fol. S 1r (fol. V 4r). © British Library Board

The past century and a half of scholarship has understood the manuscript’s first sentence in various ways. The earliest comment can be found in E. Thompson’s Whole Works of King Alfred the Great. When he turns to King Alfred’s Blossom-Gatherings from Saint Augustine he adds a note under King Alfred’s Preface that “the manuscript begins so abruptly that there is ground for believing the beginning to have been lost” (1857, 83). Early representations of the text agree that a preceding portion of the text is missing and place an ellipsis in front of Ᵹaꝺeroꝺe (Cockayne 1864, 163; Hulme 1893, 332; Endter 1922, 1). However, not all agree that the text here is defective. Two of its earlier editors express a belief that the loss to the manuscript is so minimal that the preface is essentially complete. (Hargrove 1902, 71; Endter 1922, 71). A couple of commentators likewise declare that the preface is quite simply intact. Max Förster allows that a word or two may be missing, but declares that Cockayne and Hulme have erred in suggesting that the beginning of the preface is mutilated (verstümmelt) (Förster 1919, 74). Simeon Potter takes this position to an extreme: no ellipsis belongs in front of Gaderode; he objects to “Cockayne’s asterisks” and “Endter’s dots”; he claims that there is “no manuscript authority” to suggest “that our text is defective at the beginning”; as far as he is concerned, the opening of the manuscript is not abrupt at all for those familiar with its “ninth-century setting” (1949, 28). Dorothy Whitelock, however, took notice of Potter’s putative setting: “the beginning of its preface is lost (since Gaderode me þonne… cannot be the original beginning)” (1966, 71). Carnicelli says the same as Whitelock in his edition of the Old English Soliloquies, though less decisively. He notes how the text begins abruptly: “the absence of a subject for Ᵹaderode, and the presence of þonne, which could refer to a previous sentence, suggest that the beginning of the preface may be missing” (1969, 47). In his introduction, he openly disagrees with Förster’s, Potter’s, and Endter’s claim that the preface should be understood as essentially complete (1969, 2 n. 4).

Roland Torkar offers a different interpretation of the abrupt opening to the codex. He argues that the illuminated Ᵹ is where the codex properly begins and where the scribe took his start. He repudiates claims “of any textual loss at the beginning of the MS, since the text starts with a large initial and the first gathering was a regular quire of eight leaves” (1986, 297). Nevertheless, he also holds that the text is not complete. He offers two possible reasons for it to open so abruptly: either the scribe deliberately skipped what came before, because “he was not interested in its subject matter” or “his exemplar was defective at the beginning” (1986, 297). Malcolm Godden allows only the latter solution. He imagines that the scribe came to his defective exemplar none the wiser that something was missing, and so he began “in mid-sentence” with Ᵹaderode me þonne: “finding this at the beginning of his copy, he cheerfully treated it as if it were the opening words of the whole work and produced a large illuminated initial G for the first word” (2003, 184). In her recent edition, Leslie Lockett appeals to both Torkar and Godden in her comment on the first word in the codex. She offers the explanation that the illuminated Ᵹ “at the top of the first page of a gathering of eight leaves” indicates that “the scribe of manuscript V believed this to be the authentic beginning of the text” (2022, 369). In her recent study of Alfredian Prologues and Epilogues, Susan Irvine briefly distills the essence of Torkar’s, Godden’s, and Lockett’s interpretation of the abrupt and incomplete opening, that it “may be the result of damage to the text in the course of transmission” (2023, 124). However, the other illuminated letters in the Southwick Codex indicate this illuminated Ᵹ does not express the beginning of a new text, but a transition within an ongoing text.

Paleography

Two similarly illuminated letters appear early in the Soliloquies, before the dialogue gets fully under way. Augustine, at Reason’s behest, offers a long prayer, seeking divine assistance for the intellectual work ahead. In the Southwick Codex, this prayer is framed by illuminated red capitals.

When it begins, a large red insular D (Ꝺ) signals the transition into something distinct (Image 2).

Image 2: Cotton Vitellius A XV, fol. S 4r (fol. V 7r). © British Library Board

The prayer continues across sixteen pages. After it concludes, the scribe drew another illuminated capital, this time a large red and ornate Þ (Image 3), to signal the transition back into the dialogue.

Image 3: Cotton Vitellius A XV, fol. S 11v (fol. V 14v). © British Library Board

These three red illuminated letters are similar. The scribe left each of them the same amount of space, two lines indented about the length of five letters. Like the illuminated Ᵹ at the front of the codex, these other two also spill into the left margin.

Although predominantly red, all three illuminated letters are touched in a green ink made with corrosive verdigris, which damaged the vellum and left traces (“off-prints”) on the facing page or on the obverse side of their folio (Torkar 1986, 293). The thickly drawn red bow in Ᵹ had green ink through its centre, leaving an area that has “dropped out” of the vellum, as seen in the top right corner on the other side of the folio (fol. S 1v). The thick slanted stroke atop Ꝺ, the “spatular ascender” as Torkar calls it (1986, 292), was filled with green ink, which corroded through the vellum of fol. S 4. Its stain remains visible in the right margin at the sixth line of fol. S 3v. The wavy lines inside the letter’s body are a golden-brown colour. The illuminated Þ is on a larger scale than the other two, extending not only up one line but also down seven. Its stem and its bow are traced with wavy lines in the same golden-brown colour as in the letter Ꝺ, and its stem also has intermittent slanting sections filled with the same. The golden-brown colouring in both letters framing the prayer appears actually to be thinly applied green ink (verdigris) that has since faded. This pigment is subject to colour change, browning, lightening, or darkening depending on how it was mixed and applied (Santorro, et al. 2014, 637). When heavily applied, it has stained through to the other side of the vellum, very prominently in the right margin of fol. S 11r. There it has eaten through the vellum near the middle of the stem to stain the facing page’s right margin (fol. S 12r). This letter marking the conclusion to the prayer has some ornate design. At the foot of its stem, it has two clawed feet and a spiked tail. Illuminated Ᵹ does not stand out from these other two illuminated letters, which suggests that it has a similar significance—a transition within a text, not the beginning of a new one (Image 4).

Image 4: Cotton Vitellius A XV, fols. S 1r, 4r, 11v (fols. V 4r, 7r, 14v). © British Library Board

More telling still is a fourth illuminated letter that once enhanced the fourth page of the Southwick Codex. Although it has been lost to damage, its traces remain, and its distinctiveness is still discernible. But its paleographical significance has received no attention. Torkar describes it (1986, 292), but gives little thought to the features that set it apart from the other illuminated letters. In planning for it, the scribe gave it extra space. He began copying the text on this page one line lower than usual. Throughout the ninety folios of the Southwick Codex, each of its one hundred and eighty pages has eighteen lines of text, all except for this fourth page (fol. S 2v) which

has only seventeen lines. This illumination has more in its upper margin to stand out in (Image 5).

Image 5: Cotton Vitellius A XV, fol. S 2v (fol. V 5v). © British Library Board

When he filled it in, the scribe made it predominantly green, as is evident from the stain imprinted in the top right corner of the facing page (Image 6). The large green S once rose into the spacious upper margin on its page (Image 5). On its facing page, the upper margin is less roomy; the imprint of reversed S intrudes into the phrase sum ðing on the first line. One can likewise see that the first line of script from the obverse side of fol. S 2v has seeped into the vellum and shows through like a shadow down the middle of this broader margin (Image 5).

Image 6: Cotton Vitellius A XV, fol. S 3r (fol. V 6r). © British Library Board

The scribe’s preparation for illuminated S differs from his preparation for illuminated Ᵹ. Both are the first letter on their pages. But Ᵹ crowds into a much narrower upper margin (Image 7).

Image 7: Cotton Vitellius A XV, fol. S 1r (fol. V 4r). © British Library Board

The illuminated S stands out among all three of the other illuminations, not only by the space left for it, but also in its form. Its predominantly green colouring sets it apart from the other illuminated letters. It may also have had other colours that did not stain the facing page. For although the stain shows a thick green stroke, the extent of the lower bow (whose outline remains visible despite the damage to fol. S 2v) indicates a broader letter than what the stain shows. This illuminated S, moreover, does not stand out simply by itself, for it is not the only decorative feature on this fourth page. The letters CS and the macron above them are also illuminated. Although they are smaller in scale, they are majuscule forms with thick coloured lines. The vellum inside those letters and inside the macron above has corroded away, which indicates that they too were coloured with caustic green ink. The corrosion went right through the vellum and can be seen on the obverse along with staining around the corrosion. Image 8 shows the sequence in the codex of recto followed by verso. The corroded letters on the verso side (the image to the right) resulted in damage on the recto side.

Image 8: Cotton Vitellius A XV, fols. 2r & 2v (fols. V 5r & 5v). © British Library Board

This fourth page includes other decorative elements, not just those on its first word. The majuscule A on the next word (Agustinus) is slightly enlarged, carefully drawn, and touched not only in red at the centre but evidently also in green, given the corrosion and staining on the obverse side. Image 9, again in the sequence of the codex of recto followed by verso, shows the damage to fol. S 2r from the illuminated letter on the obverse side (fol. S 2v), which itself has a corroded centre.

Image 9: Cotton Vitellius A XV, fols. S 2r & 2v (fols. V 5r & 5v). © British Library Board

The scribe added similar decoration to the word Soliloquiorum at the end of the third line. Its majuscule S is slightly enlarged on its line, touched heavily in red, and corroded down the centre, indicating that it too was touched in the caustic green ink with a decorative line down the middle. The stained and corroded area is starkly visible on the recto side in Image 10, again in the sequence of recto then verso.

Image 10: Cotton Vitellius A XV, fols. S 2r & 2v (fols. V 5r & 5v). © British Library Board

Overall, the scribe gave a much greater degree of emphasis to the illuminated capital on the page introducing the Soliloquies than he did to the other three illuminated capitals on fols. S 1r, 4r, and 11v. He is capable of much more flourish than he provides around the word Ᵹaderode at the beginning of the codex. Given what the scribe does on the fourth page of the codex, the first page does not at all suggest that he understood Ᵹaderode to be his starting point for something of such import as the preface to Augustine’s Soliloquies. The evidence indicates that Ᵹaderode continues from some preceding text in an earlier arrangement of the manuscript.

Literary Form and Meaning

The fourth page, however, suggests the beginning of something new. The whole of the fourth page is introductory to the Soliloquies. Here is my lineated transcription of the text on that page, followed by my translation, though it would be better viewed in the accompanying digital edition:

(Saint Augustine, a bishop of Carthage, made two books about his own Inner Thought. The books are called Soliloquiorum, that is about his mind’s probing and doubt, how his reason answered his mind when that mind was in doubt about something or it wanted to know of something which it could not as yet altogether clearly understand. Then he described his mind. It often went pondering and probing unlike and little-known things, and above all especially about himself, what he himself might be, whether his mind and soul might be mortal and transitory, or whether it might be ever living and eternal, and next about his God, what he might be and what nature he might be, and what nature of good was best for him to practice and what sort of evil best to forsake.)

The text on this fourth page divides into two sections. At its centre, on its ninth line, the sentence “ða reahte he hys mod” (Then he described his mind) sets up a transition. Everything before that sentence is straightforwardly paratextual. It names the author, names the text, and briefly describes that text. Lockett explains that this introductory sequence is derived in part from Augustine’s own later reflection on the Soliloquies, his Retractatio (a retractation or reconsideration), which sometimes circulated with the Latin text (2022, 373). The long sentence that follows “ða reahte he hys mod” is introductory in a more complicated way. It is an adapted and expanded translation of Augustine’s two participial clauses, in which he describes his state of mind that leads into his dialogue with Ratio: “Volventi mihi multa ac varia mecum diu, ac per multos dies sedulo quaerenti memetipsum ac bonum meum, quidve mali evitandum esset” (Having been occupying myself with many and various concerns and constantly inquiring through many days about myself and my good and what evil to avoid [my translation]) (Lockett 2022, 2). The Anglo-Saxon translator takes these two participial clauses and turns them into a long independent sentence. He also shifts them from the first person into the third person. By doing so he makes them follow from what precedes and continue the introductory description of Augustine. At the top of the next page, the text suddenly shifts into the first person, only now taking up Augustine’s voice at the moment of entry into the dialogue. Here the Old English text changes its tone and more closely translates the main sentence, which in the Latin resolves the two participial clauses: “ait mihi subito, sive ego ipse, sive alius quis extrinsecus, sive intrinsecus, nescio” (Suddenly someone spoke to me, I know not whom, whether I myself or someone else, whether outside of me or inside [my translation]). As one can see in Image 6 above, the Old English text makes clear the transition from what is introductory to the Soliloquies to its actual dialogue by identifying Augustine now as the speaker: “Augustinus þa answarode me sum ðing ic nat hwæt hweðer þe ic sylf þe oðer þing ne ꝥ nat hwæðer hit ƿæs. Innan me ðe utan” (Augustine: Then something answered me, I know not what, whether I myself or some other thing; nor did I know which of the two it was, inside me or outside [my translation]).

If the fourth page of the manuscript is introducing the Old English Soliloquies, what are the three preceding pages doing? Whatever they may be doing, they are not serving as a paratext to the Soliloquies. In her recent anthology, Alfredian Prologues and Epilogues, Susan Irvine has very helpfully gathered together all the paratexts in the works traditionally associated with King Alfred and his educational enterprise, including incipits and explicits. Among the prefaces and epilogues, she presents not only those that are original to the Old English texts, but also those translated out of the Latin text to be included in the Old English. All these paratexts, whether originally in the Latin text or new to the Old English text, are directly and openly attentive to the text that they support, all except for the one she calls “The Preface to the Soliloquies” (2023, 130). Those new to the Old English texts are more relevant to this discussion. Alfred’s most well-known preface, that to the Pastoral Care, begins with the woeful state of learning among the English, then turns to the need for the translation of “certain books that are most necessary for all people all to know” and ends with Alfred’s own collaborative effort to translate Gregory’s Pastoralis into a Hierdeboc (Irvine 2023, 72-3). Similarly, the Old English verse preface to the Pastoral Care speaks in the voice of the personified book itself; it mentions Gregory, his wisdom and his teaching, and Alfred’s work of translating and distributing the book (Irvine 2023, 72-5). Incidentally, the Old English metrical epilogue to that same work, although slightly oblique with its metaphorical description of Christian learning, directly refers to books and wisdom and also to Gregory’s text itself as a source of the Holy Spirit’s edifying waters (Irvine 2023, 84). Like the Pastoral Care, the Old English Boethius also has both a prose and verse preface. The prose preface calls Alfred “the translator of this book,” who, amidst all his troubles and cares, even put it into poetry (Irvine 2023, 103). The verse preface speaks of Alfred as a storyteller, entertainer, and instructor whom we must listen to, as though the book itself is speaking or being read aloud (Irvine 2023, 95 & 105). Alfred’s law code is an interesting and special case. It is preceded by an Old English translation of Exodus 20-23 followed by a brief account of the development of Christian law in Christ’s teachings, the Apostles’ teachings, and the Church’s teachings. All this Liebermann calls Die Einleitung (26-47) and Irvine “The Preface” (2023, 152-63). Although this biblical and ecclesiastical material is certainly situated as a propaedeutic, it is not precisely introductory or prefatory. What is obviously prefatory comes in Alfred’s succeeding remarks, where he names himself and describes his own efforts to prepare updated legislation for his own nation (Liebermann 1903, 47; Irvine, 2023, 63).

Every paratext that Irvine includes in her anthology in some way or other looks to the text that it serves, all except the so-called preface to the Old English Soliloquies. In the course of its three pages in the manuscript, it makes mention of Augustine once, but not in relation to the Soliloquies. Here Augustine is listed as one among many Church Fathers through whom the Lord promises an eternal home:

Ac se þe me lærde, þam se wudu licode, se mæg gedon þæt ic softor eardian ægðer ge on þisum lænan stoclife be þis wæge ða while þe ic on þisse weorulde beo, ge eac on þam hecan hame ðe he us gehaten hefð þurh sanctus Augustinus and sanctus Gregorius and sanctus Ieronimus, and þurh manege oððre halie fædras.

(But the one who taught me, to whom the forest was pleasing, he can bring it to pass for me to live more comfortably both in this transient dwelling along this path while I am in this world, and also in the eternal home which he has promised us through the saints Augustine, Gregory and Jerome, and through many other holy fathers.) (Irvine 2023, 130-131)

The interest of the text here is on the Lord’s promise of eternal rest in an eternal home. The fragment nowhere concerns itself with Augustine’s Soliloquies, or any other book for that matter. Its concern is with a labourer’s hope for a home and a place of rest, both here and in the beyond.

But if this text is fragmented and cut off from something preceding, could its three pages be a final flourish to a preface that had explained itself at an earlier stage? There is nothing in the fragment to invite such speculation. If it is a final flourish, it is not about the Soliloquies. This is not a short fragment. It is carefully written, even beautifully written. It has not lost sight of its object. But its object is not Augustine’s Soliloquies, not translation, not King Alfred. And what is that object? That is the final consideration of this introduction.

When read as an Alfredian preface, the gathering of timber for a homestead has typically been interpreted as “a long, sustained metaphor which compares the collecting of excerpts from the Fathers with the selecting from the forest of suitable timbers for building a dwelling” (Whitelock 1966, 86). The metaphorical reading of this text, however, becomes untenable when read carefully alongside its supposed sources and analogues. Martin Irvine, for instance, claims that Boniface in his preface to his Ars Grammatica uses “the same tropes as Alfred to describe his compilation of an authoritative ars from classical sources” and that Alfred expands on Boniface’s metaphor for “compiling material from a ‘forest’ of prior texts” (1996, 436-37). Boniface, however, makes it entirely obvious that he is using “tropes.” He is not describing a forest but a forest of grammarians, not a woodland but a woodland of grammarians, and flowers not as food for the body but for scholarly endeavour:

ut antiquam perplexae siluam densitatis grammaticorum ingrederer ad colligendum tibi diversorum optima quaeque genera pomorum et uariorum odoramenta florum diffusa, quae passim dispersa per saltum grammaticorum inueniuntur, ad cotidianum scilicet tui diligentis studi pastum. (Bauer & Löfstedt 1980, 2)

(As I enter into the ancient forest of the grammarians with its intricate density, to collect for you the best of the diverse fruits and the diffused fragrances of the varied flowers, found dispersed everywhere through the woodland of the grammarians, for the daily nourishment of your diligent study. [my translation])

Aldhelm’s metaphorical description of literary composition in the De Virginitate has also been proposed as an analogue (Wülker 1877, 128; Irvine 1996, 437; Heuchan 2007, 8-9). Like Boniface, Aldhelm makes his metaphors overt, again with genitive metaphors. At one point, he uses the image of gathering flowers to describe the use of sacred writings, and at another point, he uses building imagery to describe poetic composition:

purpureos pudicitiae flores ex sacrorum voluminum prato decerpens pulcherrimam virginitatis coronam Christo favente contexere nitar (Ehwald 1919, ch. 19, 249)

(I shall try to weave a beautiful garland plucking crimson flowers of purity from the meadow of holy books, with Christ’s favour. [my translation])

Christo cooperante conabor et, velut iactis iam rhetoricis fundamentis et constructis prosae parietibus, cum tegulis trochaicis et dactilicis metrorum imbricibus firmissimum culmen caelesti confisus suffragio imponam (Ehwald 1919, ch. 60, p. 321)

(with Christ’s help I shall attempt, now that the rhetorical foundations have been laid and the walls of prose built, to place over them a sturdy roof of trochaic slates and dactylic gutters of metre. [my translation])

Asser’s description of Alfred tirelessly searching like a busy bee for flowers of sacred writing is another use of imagery thought to be relevant and analogous to the woodsman’s account of gathering lumber (Wülker 1877, 128-31; Stanton 2002, 88; cf. Whitelock 1966, 71-2; Heuchan 2007, 8). But again, the metaphors are overt:

velut apis fertilissima longe lateque gronnios interrogando discurrens, multimodos divinae scripturae flosculos inhianter et incessabiliter congregavit, quis praecordii sui cellulas densatim replevit. (Stevenson, 1904, 74: ch. 88)

(like the industrious bee, that rushes and searches far and wide across the marshlands, eagerly and ceaselessly he gathered all kinds of flowers of Sacred Scripture, with which he filled full the chambers of his breast. [my translation])

Boniface, Aldhelm, and Asser use genitive and adjective metaphors in conveying their imagery: a forest of grammarians, flowers of Sacred Scripture, rhetorical foundations, walls of prose, dactylic gutters of sturdy metre, trochaic slates. The woodsman’s descriptions of gathering lumber, hauling it in wagons, building a croft, hunting, fowling, fishing, and tending his leasehold by sea and by land are entirely lacking in such rhetorical devices. They are not presented as vehicles for a metaphorical tenor.

The same approach to metaphor is at work in Alfredian texts. When the Old English Boethius speaks of building a house, the imagery comes with explicit metaphorical and spiritual application:

Se þe wille fæst hus timbrian ne sceal he hit no settan up on ðone hehstan cnoll, and se ðe wille godcundne wisdom secan ne mæg he hine wið ofermetta. And eft se þe wille fæst hus timbrian ne sette he hit on sondbeorhas. Swa eac gif þu wisdom timbrian wille ne sete þu hine on uppan þa gitsunga. (Godden and Irvine 2009, 263-4: B12, ll. 2-5)

(Whoever wants to build a secure house must not set it on the highest ridge, and whoever wants to seek divine wisdom cannot do so through pride. Likewise, whoever would build a secure house ought not to found it on sand dunes. So too, if you want to build wisdom, do not found it upon greed. [my translation])

Ac se þe wille habban þa ecan gesælða he sceal fleon þone frecnan wlite þises middaneardes and timbrian þæt hus his modes on þam fæstan stane eaðmetta, forþamðe Crist eardað on þære dene eadmodnesse and on þam gemynde wisdomes. (Godden and Irvine 2009, 264: B12, ll. 14-18)

(And whoever wants to have eternal happiness, he must flee the perilous beauty of this middle-earth and build the house of his mind on the solid rock of humility, for Christ dwells in the valley of humility and in meditation upon wisdom. [my translation])

Likewise, in the Old English Soliloquies, metaphors such as those of the ship and the anchor openly explain themselves:

heo ne mæg god geseon swa swa heo wilnað, for þæs licuman hefenesse and gedrefednesse, buton mið miclum geswince þurh geleafan and tohopan and þurh lufe, ðæt sint þa þreo anceras þe þæt scyp ðæs modes healdað ongemang ðam brogan þara yða. (Lockett 2022, 228)

(it [the soul] cannot see God as it wishes to because of the body’s heaviness and disturbed state, except by great effort through faith and hope and through love. These are the three anchors that hold the ship of the mind amidst the terrors of the waves. [my translation])

is ðearf þæt þu rihte hawie mid modes æagum to gode, swa rihte swa swa scipes ancerstreng byð þenæd on gerihte fram þam scype to þam ancræ. And gefastna þa eagan þines modes on Gode, swa se ancer byd gefastnoð on ðære eorðan. (Lockett 2022, 228)

(it is necessary that you look straight to God with your mind’s eyes, as straight as a ship’s hawser stretches from the ship to the anchor. And make fast your mind’s eyes on God, just as the anchor is made fast in the earth. [my translation])

Despite its lack of metaphorical rhetoric, the woodsman’s depictions of rural work have been grouped with the explicit metaphors and similes in the Alfredian texts (Harbus 2007; Heuchan 2007). E. V. K. Dobbie compares the woodsman’s account to the intricate and obvious metaphor in the metrical epilogue to the Pastoral Care: “The highly difficult and metaphorical style which we find in the metrical epilogue shows many resemblances to the style of the prose preface to Alfred's translation of the Soliloquies” (1942, cxii). Eric Stanley concurs, claiming that because there is such a likeness between the wateriness in the one and the woodsiness in the other, King Alfred surely authored both (1988, 357). But really, these two texts are very different in genre, style, rhetoric, and tone. The metrical epilogue explains its metaphorical and scriptural meaning: the stream of water that God promises is the ever-living waters flowing from the inside of believers: “of ðæm innoðum a libbendu wætru fleowen ðe wel on hine gelifden.” And there can be little doubt that this well spring of water is in the Kingdom of Heaven, because it is actually the Holy Ghost (“Is hit lytel tweo / ðæt ðæs wæterscipes wel-springe is / on hefon-rice, ðæt is Halig Gast”) (Fulk 2021, 534). There is no such unfolding of images in the woodsman’s labours of gathering and building. Nor is there such a didactic tone.

The woodsman uses one isolated genitive metaphor. This single instance of an explicated metaphor reinforces that the rest of the imagery is not metaphorical. There is no such explication in his description of his labours, not in his account of gathering timber, not in his account of building a homestead, and not in his account of working his homestead with hunting, fowling, and fishing. This single instance occurs when he speaks of his modes eagan (the eyes of the mind), as he looks to God to show the way to the eternal home. It is a common figure of speech. Variations can be found in many works associated with Alfred (the Old English Soliloquies, Boethius, Pastoral Care, Dialogues, and the Prose Psalms), but frequently also in Ælfric and even in the Old English version of Chrodegang’s Rule. Its Latin source, oculi mentis, can be traced back to Cicero. It features in Augustine and is, in fact, “a commonplace throughout the Fathers” (Law 1989, 168). Alfredian texts use many and various genitive metaphors (cf. Wilcox 2006), but in the three-page fragment, this common metaphor is the lone exception.

Taken at face value, the three-page fragment expresses a simple, non-metaphorical ideal: secular labour mingled with spiritual hope. It offers a rural idyll, narrated in the voice of an exemplary woodsman, enthusiastically gathering lumber to build a home. There he hopes to dwell year-round, finding rest and ease while hunting, fowling, and fishing. He hopes also to work his leasehold in service to his lord so well that he might gain permanent bookland. In all this activity he hopes to find some ease amidst his labours, sustained by the divine promise of eternal rest in an everlasting home:

Ac se þe me lærde þam se wudu licode se mæg gedon ꝥ ic softor eardian ægðer ge on þisum lænan stoclife be þis wæge ða while þe ic on þisse weorulde beo ge eac on þam ecan hame ðe he us gehaten hefð þurh scanctus Augustinus, ⁊ sanctus Gregorius, ⁊ scanctus Ieronimus, ⁊ þurh manege oððre halie fædras. (Cotton Vitellius A XV, S 1v; my transcription)

(But he who taught me, whom the wood pleased, he can make it that I dwell more quietly, both in this fleeting homestead along this path during the time that I am in this world, and also in the eternal home that he has promised us through Saint Augustine and Saint Gregory and Saint Jerome and through many other holy fathers. [my translation])

The woodsman goes on to express his belief that the one who can make him dwell more easily (softor eardian) both here and in the hereafter will also make the present journey (þisne weig) to the eternal home more bearable (gelimpfulran) than it has been and will enlighten his eyes to discern the right way to the promised eternal home, eternal estate, and eternal rest (“mines modes eagan to þam ongelihte ꝥ ic mage rıhtne weig aredian to þam ecan hame, ⁊ to þam ecan are, ⁊ to þare ecan reste, þe us gehaten is”). The same connection between the temporal and the eternal holds in the woodsman’s concluding hope that his earthly lord will transfer his leasehold to bookland and a permanent possession (bocland ⁊ ece yrfe). He looks, however, to the ultimate provider (se wilega gidfola), the ruler of both the transitory dwellings (þissa lænena stoclife) and the eternal homes (ge þara ecena hama), as the one who will grant him these benefits; he is the creator (se ðe ægþer gescop) who can make him fitting and useful for both regions.

This is a special moment in Old English literature. Is there anyone comparable to this humble labourer, this cotsetla? He works the forest on a leasehold with an articulate understanding of his earthly and spiritual hopes. No doubt, he is a fictional character, an idealized and exemplary peasant who finds spiritual hope in the performance of his earthly tasks. The Rectitudines Singularum Personarum and Gerefa have much to say about the work of secular craftsmen and overseers, but show little or no concern for their spiritual interests. Even imaginative works like Ælfric’s Colloquy or the Exeter Book’s The Gifts of Men have nothing to say about a secular labourer’s inward hopes and consolations. It is even more extraordinary that the woodsman understands the temporal (læne) to be in continuity with the eternal (ece). They are not in opposition. Here the earthly home is not a metaphorical vehicle for the tenor of a heavenly home. The one leads to the other, both gifts of the bountiful giver (se wilega gidfola).

The words cotlif and stoclif suggest that this text may have been composed later than the Alfredian period. They occur elsewhere only in texts composed long after the Alfredian period, the late tenth, eleventh, or twelfth centuries. This fragmentary text indeed expresses interest in land tenure and the performance of secular labour, a topic also better attested in texts from later Anglo-Saxon England. Represented here is a tenant of fairly low status, hoping for a dramatic change in his circumstances. He has obligations of service to his lord from the land that he occupies. He must “þære lænan tilian” (tend that leasehold) well enough that he might earn permanent possession through his lord’s favour (“æce yrfe þurh hıs hlafordes miltse gearnige”). What is more remarkable is the hope for an eternal home that he seeks in and through the performance of his secular labour. The works in the Alfredian Corpus, at least, do not show such interest in spiritual hopes of the lower classes. And their prefaces do not use such narrow specificity and detail for an imagined person of any kind. Such a dynamic between a lord and his follower, however, can be seen in later charters that describe the conveyance of land from leasehold to bookland. Archbishop Oswald of York, for instance, left such charters rewarding his thanes who had served him in the performance of their secular duties (cf. Charters 1346 & 1367; Sawyer 1968).

The author of this idyll was a skilled writer, who effectively used rhetorical figures, such as anaphora, alliteration, antithesis, and parallelism. He marshalled technical terms for the forester to display his craft while at the same time enabling him to disclose his inner yearning. The circumlocutions pointing to the divine presence in his life are a remarkable rhetorical feature of this text. God is never named but only described in relative clauses as one who does this or does that. I find no parallel in Old English for the sentence that reads, “Ac se þe me lærde þam se wudu licode se mæg gedon ꝥ ic softor eardian ægðer ge on þisum lænan stoclife be þis wæge ða whıle þe ic on þisse weorulde beo ge eac on þam ecan hame ðe he us gehaten hefð.” The unnamed subject is left unresolved across several clauses. It does not become clear whom the forester has in mind until he mentions the promise of eternal life, and even there the subject remains oblique. Especially remarkable are the paired relative clauses, “se þe me lærde þam se wudu licode.” The subject of these clauses is delayed, resolving implicitly into the divine nature, whom the forester sees not only as teaching him, but also as delighting with him in the forest. The writing is simply and unhesitatingly affirmative of the created temporal world and of secular labour, which are not at odds with the eternal but anticipate it. This perspective is unlike much Old English literature. Although this prose has poetic qualities, it is not elegiac. It is cheerful, eager, and hopeful, not only in the woodsman’s hope for an eternal home, but likewise in his hopes for an earthly one.

Who could have written this idyll? Its tenor has affinities with the homiletic, but its stylistic correspondences to Ælfric, Wulfstan, or anonymous homilists are slight. And of course, it is not a homily as such. It does, however, have a curious affinity to moments in Ælfric Bata’s Colloquia Difficiliora. For he speaks effusively about the beauty of springtime (Gwara 1997, 188-190) and at times refers to God with a descriptor instead of a name, such as creans (All Creator: Gwara 1997, 190), or cunctitonans (All Thunderer; Gwara 1997, 192), or dominator poli et telluris et oceani (Lord of the poles and earth and ocean; Gwara 1997, 194). But Ælfric Bata has left no Old English prose. The possibility of such a connection is only speculative.

What kind of text might this Idyll have brought to a conclusion? What scenario led up to the forester gathering varieties of lumber? He seems to be an experienced worker. He hopes for a share of rest and ease that he has not yet enjoyed. Apparently, he has received a new lease of land to clear and build a homestead on, while also gathering provisions for his lord. His attitude is clearly exemplary. He enjoys his work, he hopes for rest, he looks for divine guidance, and he awaits an eternal home. Was he the last in a series of exemplary labourers? Or was he the focus of an entire text? Either way, he makes a fitting illustration of St. Paul’s exhortation: “Whatsoever you do, do it from the heart, as to the Lord, and not to men: Knowing that you shall receive of the Lord the reward of inheritance” (Col. 3: 23-24).