The Old English Soliloquies survived the Middle Ages in only one manuscript, now called the Southwick Codex. It is a composite manuscript, forming an assemblage of three principal texts. The Old English version of Augustine’s Soliloquies comes first and takes up nearly two-thirds of the codex. It is followed by two other Old English prose texts: a translation of the Gospel of Nicodemus and the Prose Dialogue of Solomon and Saturn. The Old English Soliloquies formally begins on the fourth page of the codex. A longstanding tradition has maintained that the first three pages of the codex serve to preface the Old English Soliloquies. But do they actually do so? They make no mention of the Soliloquies. They actually take no interest in what comes after them. They say nothing about a book, an author, or a translator. They say nothing prefatory at all. If these three pages are not a preface, what are they? They do not make it clear. They begin very abruptly, with a first-person account of someone gathering lumber to build a home. Who is speaking and what brought him into the woods? He does not say. He is already in the middle of his efforts, and we do not know what prompted him. The actual preliminaries to the Old English Soliloquies, however, begin on the fourth page. There a formal and explicit introduction to Augustine’s dialogue takes up that whole page. The three pages that come before are about something else.

The traditional view of these three pages is that they constitute an Alfredian preface to an Alfredian text, a preface consisting of an extended metaphor whose tenor—its underlying referent—is veiled. This way of seeing them has lent them a mysterious allure, rich with interpretive possibility. I was long devoted to this traditional view (Treschow 2007, 257-84). But my perception changed through prolonged study of the text in its manuscript context. It became clear to me from codicological, paleographic, and literary evidence that the first three pages of the Southwick Codex are the fragmentary ending to a now-lost text that once preceded the Old English Soliloquies at an earlier stage in the manuscript’s transmission.

This edition treats the first four pages of the Southwick Codex and interprets them anew. The first three pages it understands to be a manuscript fragment that does not preface the Old English Soliloquies but concludes an unknown text. Because of their rural charm and cheerful tone, I call these first three pages The Southwick Idyll. In most other editions, the top half of the fourth page has been used to conclude the traditional preface and the lower half to begin the Old English Soliloquies. Leslie Lockett’s recent edition, however, has the text of the Old English Soliloquies begin at the top of the fourth page. In this edition the fourth page as a whole is understood to be introductory to the Old English Soliloquies.

The primary focus of this edition is to disclose what amounts, in effect, to a new text in this Southwick Idyll. But at the same time, it also edits and treats the introduction to the Old English Soliloquies. It does so for two reasons: first, to show the sequence of the one text to the other—from the idyll to the introduction—and make it plain that they are separate and distinct; second, to offer a new reading of the fourth page in the codex, that it is in its entirety introductory to the Old English Soliloquies.

Before proceeding, I must briefly address the codex's foliation. In the following discussion and treatment of the Southwick Codex, I give precedence to the first foliation over the later foliation, even though the latter has become prevalent in current scholarly usage. I do so for the sake of accuracy and simplicity. It is crucial to keep clearly in mind that the first fragment begins on the first folio of the Southwick Codex.

The first foliation was written in the upper margin on the recto side of each parchment leaf, perhaps soon after the codex came into the Cotton Library in the early seventeenth century, but more likely sometime before its arrival. These folio numbers were used in discussions and treatments of the codex until the early twentieth century. In the mid-nineteenth century, paperboard frames were placed around the parchment leaves for protection, and the folio number on each parchment leaf was copied onto the frame. However, in the late nineteenth century, the numbers on the frames were crossed out and replaced with a different number. The three flyleaves, which had been placed at the front of the codex while in the Cotton Library, were now included in the count. The curious result is that the first folio of the codex has come to be designated as the fourth (cf. Kiernan [1981] 1996, 84–88).

In my discussion of the text, I refer only to the first foliation. When displaying manuscript images courtesy of the British Library, however, I give both foliations in accordance with the British Library’s current practice, placing the later folio number in parentheses immediately after the number found on the parchment: e.g., 2r (5r). When only the first foliation is given, the corresponding number in the later foliation can be determined, if need be, simply by adding three.

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, which was added to the lower margin of its third page and 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, 252–53). For further consideration of this phenomenon, one need only 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, 160–61).

The first booklet of the Southwick Codex 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-to-last page (i.e., the verso side of the second-to-last folio) of a gathering that once preceded. The second booklet also ends with a fragment. After the Prose Solomon and Saturn concludes partway 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 retained when this booklet was removed from its original codex. The first booklet also ends with a fragmented portion of text. After the Old English Soliloquies brings its additional third section to a conclusion, its explicit is cut off mid-sentence at the bottom of its page. 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. No one except Wilhelm Endter has speculated about what might have followed that explicit. In the introduction to his edition of the text, he 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. 1r (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). Two commentators also 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 takes essentially the same position 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 unaware 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 that this illuminated Ᵹ does not express the beginning of a new text, but a transition within an ongoing text.

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

Image 2: Cotton Vitellius A XV, fol. 4r (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. 11v (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 with 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 the same 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. 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. 4. Its stain remains visible in the right margin at the sixth line of fol. 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 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 (Santoro 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. 11r. There it has eaten through the vellum near the middle of the stem to stain the facing page’s right margin (fol. 12r). The letter marking the conclusion to the prayer has additional ornamentation. 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. 1r, 4r, 11v (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 except this fourth page (fol. 2v) which has only seventeen lines. The larger upper margin gives this illumination more room to stand out (Image 5).

Image 5: Cotton Vitellius A XV, fol. 2v (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 reversed imprint of 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. 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. 3r (6r). © British Library Board

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

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

The illuminated S stands out among the three 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. 2v) indicates a broader letter than the stain alone suggests. Nor does the illuminated S stand out by itself. 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 filled 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 presents the recto followed by the verso, in their sequence in the codex. 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, 2r and 2v (5r and 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 presents recto followed by verso, showing the damage to fol. 2r from the illuminated letter on the obverse side, which itself has a corroded centre.

Image 9: Cotton Vitellius A XV, fols. 2r and 2v (5r and 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 with 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. 2r and 2v (5r and 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. 1r, 4r, and 11v. He is capable of much greater 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.

The fourth page, however, points the way to something new. It is introductory in tone, as it leads toward Augustine’s internal dialogue with his Reason. To show how it does so, I copy here my transcription of that fourth page from the manuscript (with square brackets around the missing illuminated S and two inserted periods). My translation follows after.

SANCTUS . Agustinus cartaina bisceop worhte twa bec be his agnum. Ingeþance[.] þa bec sint gehatene. Soliloquiorum þat is be hys modis smeaunge ⁊ tweounga hu hys gesceadwisnes answarode hys mode þonne ꝥ mod ymbe hwæt tweonode oðþe hit hwæs wilnode to witanne þæs þe hit ær forsweotole ongytanne meahte. ða reahte he hys mod[.] fór oft gastende ⁊ smeagende mislicu ⁊ selcuð þing ⁊ ealles swiðust ymbe hyne sylfne hwæt he sylf wære hwæþer hys mod ⁊ hys sawel deadlic were ⁊ gewitendlice þe heo were a libbendu ⁊ ecu, ⁊ eft ymbe hys gód hwæt he were ⁊ hwilce he were ⁊ hwilc good him were betst to donne ⁊ hwilc yfel betst to forletende.

(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” (While 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 not only takes these two participial clauses and turns them into one long independent sentence, but also shifts them from the first-person to the third. As a result, this sentence continues the introductory description of Augustine and blends with what precedes. At the top of the next page comes the sudden shift into the first person. The text adjusts its tone to assume Augustine’s own voice at this moment of entry into the dialogue. Here the Old English text changes its tone and more closely translates the main sentence in the Latin text: “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]). One can see in Image 6 above how the Old English text identifies Augustine now as the speaker, making clear the transition from introductory material into the actual dialogue: “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]).

In Leslie Lockett’s recent edition of the Old English Soliloquies, what is usually called a “Preface” comes to be called a “Prologue” (2022, 182). Among editors of the Old English Soliloquies, Lockett gives this prologue a unique arrangement. She is aware of the illuminated S that begins the fourth page of the manuscript, and rightly understands it to signal a division from the first three pages (2022, 372). Therefore, in her edition, the “Prologue” consists only of the material from the first three pages. Accordingly, she has Book I of the Old English Soliloquies begin at the top of page four, with the words “Sanctus Agustinus” (2022, 186), even though what follows on this page draws from Augustine’s Retractatio to provide material for an introductory paragraph.

In this edition, I call the text occupying the fourth page of the manuscript the Old English Introduction to the Soliloquies, primarily to distinguish it from what has variously been called a preface, prologue, Vorwort, or Vorrede in other treatments of the Old English Soliloquies. The distinctions among these terms are not hard and fast. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a foreword as “an introduction, a preface” (OED n.d.). It defines a preface as “the introduction to a literary work, usually stating its subject, purpose, scope, method, etc.” (OED n.d.). It defines a prologue as “the preface or introduction to a text” (OED n.d.). It defines an introduction as a “preliminary explanation prefixed to or included in a book or other writing; the part of a book which leads up to the subject treated, or explains the author's design or purpose” (OED n.d.). These terms can refer to much the same thing: a text that speaks to the work to which it is attached. I use introduction in this simple sense, taking the text on the fourth page to be the Anglo-Saxon translator's explanation of Augustine's design and purpose in the Soliloquies. My own prefatory essay could also be called an introduction, but I call it a foreword to distinguish it from the Old English Introduction.

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 includes not only those that are original to the Old English texts, but also those translated from the Latin text to be included in the Old English. All these paratexts, whether originally in the Latin text or added de novo 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 that were added 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, 72–73). 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, 72–75). 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 preface and a 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 (1903, 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, 163).

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. 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, 130–31)

The text's interest here is 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 studii pastum. (Gebauer and 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, 71–72; 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, 263–64: 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: believers receive ever-living waters flowing from within (“of ðæm innoðum a libbendu wætru fleowen ðe wel on hine gelifden”). And there can be little doubt that this wellspring 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. It 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 occur in many works associated with Alfred (the Old English Soliloquies, Boethius, Pastoral Care, Dialogues, and the Prose Psalms), frequently also in the writings of 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, there is only this one instance. The idyll’s writer knew this form of rhetorical figure, but used it only this once in the course of this fragment. Amidst all the imagery around his labours, the woodsman signals nothing metaphorical: not in gathering timber, not in building a homestead, and not in working his leasehold by hunting, fowling, and fishing.

The three-page fragment offers a simple ideal: spiritual hope in secular labour. The idyll is narrated in the voice of an exemplary woodsman, enthusiastically gathering lumber to build a home. Although he speaks sometimes of himself and sometimes of others, his voice and persona remain unified throughout. After his description of his efforts in gathering lumber to build a home, he turns to advise others to follow his example and make for themselves a place where they can dwell with greater ease (softor eardian). Soon he returns to himself, expressing his own patience, as he waits to attain greater ease in this world and the next, with faith in the divine promise to guide him 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])

He expresses his belief that the one who can make him dwell more easily 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 rihtne weig aredian to þam ecan hame, ⁊ to þam ecan are, ⁊ to þare ecan reste, þe us gehaten is.” From there he shifts into a generalized description of what a man in his position will do on his leasehold to live well and attain the favour of his lord and possession of his land. He hopes to dwell there year-round, enjoying ease while hunting, fowling, and fishing. But he intends also to work his leasehold in service to his lord so well that he might gain permanent bookland and a permanent possession (bocland ⁊ ece yrfe). In the end he moves back into the first person to express his hopes for himself. He looks 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; it is the creator (se ðe ægþer gescop) who can make him fitting and useful for both regions.

This is a singular 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. The one leads to the other; both are gifts from 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 better attested in texts from later Anglo-Saxon England. Represented here is a tenant of fairly low status (Smith 2013, 133). He is hopeful for a dramatic change in his circumstances. With obligations of service to his lord on the land that he occupies, he means to tend that leasehold (“þære lænan tilian”) so well that he might earn permanent possession through his lord’s favour (“æce yrfe þurh hıs hlafordes miltse gearnige”). 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. The dynamic in this idyll, between a lord and his follower, finds expression in later charters that enact the conveyancing of land from leasehold to bookland. Archbishop Oswald of York, for instance, drew up charters rewarding his thanes who had served him in the performance of their secular duties (cf. Charters 1346 and 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 that allow the woodsman both to display his craft and 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 woodsman 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 woodsman sees not only as teaching him, but also as delighting with him in the forest. The thought here is simply and unhesitatingly affirmative of the created temporal world and of secular labour. While anticipating the eternal, they are not at odds with the eternal. This outlook is unlike much of Old English literature. 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 tone may have affinities with homiletic writing, but it has little stylistic correspondences to Ælfric, Wulfstan, or the anonymous homilists. 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 to the woodsman 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, with his willing and eager tone, he makes a fitting illustration of St. Paul’s encouragement to servants (Col. 3:23-24):

Quodcumque facitis, ex animo operamini sicut Domino et non hominibus, scientes quod a Domino accipietis retributionem hereditatis (Weber and Gryson 2007, 1825)

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 [Douay Rheims].

The woodsman, in his readiness to perform his earthly labours and to serve his temporal lord, grounds his hope for a home and for well-being on the everlasting Lord's promise that he will do good to him now and forever.

Above is the website's preview image, an AI-generated illustration of the Southwick Idyll.

___________________________________________

© 2026 Michael Treschow. All rights reserved.