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The use of patristic homilies in the Old English Martyrology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

J. E. Cross
J. E. Cross
Affiliation:
The University of Liverpool
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Extract

The earlier editors of the Old English Martyrology (OEM), T. O. Cockayne and George Herzfeld, recognized that some notices, or phrases within notices, drew on homilies by named patristic writers. Cockayne identified two entries which closely echoed sentences from two of Gregory's Homiliae in Evangelia, for Emiliana (5 January) from Homilia xxxviii.15 and for Cassius (29 June) from Homilia xxxvii.9. Herzfeld added two more, for Processus and Martinianus (2 July) from Homilia xxxii.7 and for Felicitas (23 November) from Homilia iii.3. Also, guided by Ruinart, Herzfeld identified a passage from Augustine's Sermo cccix.4 within the entry for Cyprian of Carthage (14 September). Herzfeld, by oversight, had actually ascribed his Latin quotation (cited in the Addenda) to Fulgentius of Ruspe's Sermo vi, although Fulgentius's sermon probably did influence one other phrase in the notice.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 14 , December 1985 , pp. 107 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

1 Cockayne, T. O., The Shrine (London, 1874–1880)Google Scholar; An Old English Martyrology, ed. G. Herzfeld, EETS o.s. 116 (London, 1900).Google Scholar

2 Cockayne, , The Shrine, pp. 48 and 98Google Scholar; cf. An Old English Martyrology, ed. Herzfeld, pp. xxxvii and xxxix.

3 An Old English Martyrology, ed. Herzfeld, pp. xxxix and xlii. Gregory's Homilia iii omits a descriptive detail on Felicitas, found in OEM, namely that she was a ‘a holy widow’. This detail is taken from the Passio Felicitatis, S. (Passio 1, Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina, 2 vols. (Brussels, 1900–1901), no. 2853)Google Scholar, which was the source for the notice on the sons of Felicitas (10 July). Herzfeld, (An Old English Martyrology, p. xxxixGoogle Scholar) was misled in referring to the text in Mombritius, Boninus, Sanctuarium seu Vitae Sanctorum, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1910)Google Scholar and to Bede's Martyrologium as sources for the notice on the sons. As the editors of the second edition note (1, 671), Mombritius's text is taken from Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Historiale; and Bede's notice lacks two pieces of information which are found in Passio 1 (BML, no. 2853), Bede's own source.

4 Herzfeld, (An Old English Martyrology, p. xliGoogle Scholar) rightly identified as the main source for this notice the Acta (BHL, nos. 2037–8) ptd Mombritius (1, 351–2) and by Ruinart, T., Acta Martyrum (Ratisbon, 1713), 261–4Google Scholar. He added in his Addenda (p. 235) a quotation from Augustine's sermon which he attributed to Fulgentius. Ruinart (Acta Martyrum, p. 262) had presented this citation, accurately assigned. The correspondence to the Augustinian sermon is a little more than Herzfeld indicated. OEM (Das altenglische Martyrologium, ed. Kotzor 11, 206–7; see below, n. 9) reads: ‘ða gesomnode he miclo mænigiu broþra and sweostra and wacedon beforan þam durum ðær he inne wœs. Da bebead he þæt mon heolde his mædenu clæne. Ne gemde he na swa swyðe hu he on morgenne aræfnede ðæs unhyran cwelres hand, swa he þæs gymde hu he Godes ywde gescylde oþ þone ytemystan dæg his lifes’; cf. Augustine's Sermo cccix.4 (PL 38, col. 1411): ‘Quid illud quod cum in alium diem dilatus apud custodes esset, atque illuc se multitudo fratrum ac sororum congregans, pro foribus pernoctaret, custodiri puellas praecepit … Vicina corporis morte, non moriebatur in animo pastoris vigilantia pastoralis; et cura tuendi dominici gregis usque ad extremum vitae hujus diem mente sobria tenebatur: nec excutiebat ab animo diligentiam fidelissimi dispensatoris, manus jam proxima cruenti carnificis.’ Augustine had extended the briefer statement of the Acta: ‘Illuc universus populus fratrum convenit. Et cum hoc sanctus Cyprianus comperisset, custodiri puellas praecepit quoniam omnes in vico ante januam hospitii Principis manserant’, but the extension to Augustine's words in OEM, the command to ‘hold the virgins pure (chaste)’, depends, I think, on Fulgentius's Sermo vi. 2 (PL 65, col. 741): ‘et a principe detentus, virginum pudicitiam … custodivit’. The martyrologist adapts a source before him in this way again and again.

5 See Cross, J. E., ‘Blickling Homily XIV and the Old English Martyrology on John the Baptist’, Anglia 93 (1975) 145–60, at 155–6.Google Scholar For the modern identifications of the pseudo-Augustinian sermons, see Grégoire, R., Les Homéliaires du moyen âge, Rerum Ecclesiasticarum Documenta, Series Maior, Fontes 6 (Rome, 1966), 56Google Scholar, nos. 39 and 40. These sermons are within the homiliary of Alanus of Farfa.

6 See Cross, J. E., ‘Two Saints in the Old English Martyrology’, NM 78 (1977), 101–3.Google Scholar

7 See Cross, J. E., ‘Legimus in ecclesiasticis historiis: a Sermon for All Saints and its Use in Old English Prose’, Traditio 33 (1977), 101–35, at 131–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar This sermon was within augmented versions of Paul the Deacon's homiliary.

8 See Cross, J. E., ‘The Apostles in the Old English Martyrology’, Mediaevalia 5 (1979), 15–59, at 38–9Google Scholar, on Peter and Paul (although I now think that the passage was seen in an antiphonary or responsory; see Cross, , ‘On the Library of the Old English Martyrologist’, Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England. Studies presented to Peter Clemoes, ed. Lapidge, Michael and Gneuss, Helmut (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 227–49, at 247)Google Scholar, and ‘Mary Magdalen … the Earliest Extant ‘Narrat Josephus’ Variant of her Legend’, Speculum 53 (1978), 16–25, at 16.Google Scholar

9 My text is that in Das altenglische Martyrologium, ed. G. Kotzor, 2 vols., Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Abhandlungen, phil.–hist. Klasse n.s. 88 (Munich, 1981) 11, 7–8Google Scholar; cf. An Old English Martyrology, ed. Herzfeld, p. 10. ‘(i) On the fourth day [of Yule, Christmas] is the festival of the holy children whom Herod killed for Christ in the town of Bethlehem, all the male children who were born, from two years old up to a child of one night old, because he wanted to kill Christ in the crowd of children. (ii) Herod ordered the children to be taken from their mother's breasts and bosoms; (iii) and when the children were killed, then they spewed the milk before the blood, (iv) Then the children were baptized with their blood, and the mothers baptized with their tears because of the suffering which they saw in the children, (v) There were 244,000 of the children. (vi) And Herod died after the killing of the children, and he stabbed himself with his own hand.’

10 PL 52, cols. 604–7.

11 Grégoire, , Homéliaires, pp. 81–2Google Scholar, no. 34.

12 PL 52, col. 606c.

13 PL 52, col. 605a.

14 The Sermones Catholici or Homilies of Ælfric, ed. B. Thorpe, 2 vols. (London, 1844–1846) 1, 76.Google Scholar

15 Förster, M., ‘Über die Quellen von Ælfrics exegetischen Homiliae Catholicae’, Anglia 16 (1894), 40Google Scholar, § 110, referring to Smaragdus and Bede. Haymo of Auxerre, Homilia xii (PL 118, col. 78c), also has this reading.

16 Alanus of Farfa's homiliary includes readings from the Revelation of John for the Innocents: Revelation vi.9–11, vii.2–8, 9–17, viii.1–4, xiv.1–5 (Grégoire, Homéliaires, p. 34, no. 26). The epistolary reading in the Comes, in Smaragdus, Haymo and Ælfric, is Revelation xiv.1–5; see Cross, J. E., ‘Ælfric – Mainly on Memory and Creative Method in Two Catholic Homilies’, SN 41 (1969), 135–55, at 140Google Scholar and n. 1.

17 In his Homilia (1.10) on the Innocents, Bede cites Revelation vii. 9: ‘Unde dicit Iohannes, stabant ante thronum, in conspectu agni amicti stolis albis et palmae in manibus eorum’, and elaborates on the citation in the succeeding lines; see Bedae Venerabilis Opera Homiletica, ed. D. Hurst, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina (hereafter CCSL) 122 (Turnhout, 1955), 71.Google Scholar

18 The sermon, from the Florilegium Casinense, now in PL Supplementum 11, 1321, also speaks of these martyrs: ‘cum coronis palmas vobis tribuit’ and ‘stola Candida estis induti’ (1322).

19 Herzfeld, (An Old English Martyrology, p. 225)Google Scholar cites a manuscript of ‘Usuard's work’ with a comment on the 144,000 as an ‘absurdly high number’. Kotzor, (Das altenglische Martyrologium 11, 278)Google Scholar refers to two of the calendars in Wormald, F., English Kalendars before A.D. 1100, Henry Bradshaw Soc. 72 (London, 1934), no. 2 (p. 27)Google Scholar, Sanctorum cxliiii milia innocentum, and no. 15, which is not ptd by Wormald, . A curious scholion to The Martyrology of Oengus, ed. Stokes, W., Henry Bradshaw Soc. 29 (London, 1905), 262Google Scholar, on the ‘infantes [qui] occisi sunt in Bethelem’ runs: ‘Quot fuerunt isti? alii dicunt duo milia cc.xx. occisi sunt; alii item duo milia.cc.xl. Profeta dixit’; in Irish: ‘a hundred and forty … and two thousands of children were slain in Bethlehem …’. The lower figures, which are moving towards a realistic number, compare with the total in James, M. R., Latin Infancy Gospels (Cambridge, 1927), p. 100Google Scholar: ‘ii milia et cxl’.

20 PL 39, col. 2150; as no. 29 in Alanus of Farfa's homiliary (Grégoire, , Homéliaires, p. 34).Google Scholar

21 PL 39, col. 2152; as no. 27 in Alanus's homiliary (Grégoire, , Homéliaires, p. 34).Google Scholar

22 For discussion of this detail in Ælfric's homily on the Innocents, see J. E. Cross, Ælfric … on Memory’, pp. 144–5.

23 Cited from the Chronicle and discussed by Bately, Janet, ‘World History in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’, ASE 8 (1979), 177–94, at 179.Google Scholar Professor Bately refers to my discussion and adds other material.

24 Cited Cross, ‘Ælfric … on Memory’, p. 144, and Homilies of Ælfric, ed. Thorpe 1, 88.

25 Bately, ‘World History’, p. 179.

26 Das altenglische Martyrologium, ed. Kotzor 11, 11–12; cf. An Old English Martyrology, ed. Herzfeld, p. 14. ‘On the sixth day of the month is the great and the famous day which the Greeks call Epiphania and the Romans call it Aparitia [sic] Domini that is day of the Lord's manifestation in our language. On the day he revealed that he was true God by the four greatest miracles. The first miracle was that three astrologers came from nations of the east to Christ when he was a child, and one brought gold to him as a gift, in which it was signified that he was true King. The second brought him frankincense, in which it was signified that he was true God. The third brought him the plant, myrrh, in which it was signified that he was mortal man and that by his death alone he freed all believers from eternal death. And on the same day Christ received baptism in Jordan from John the Baptist. And he was thirty years old when he received baptism. And on the day Christ turned six vessels full of water into the best wine at a wedding; in each of the vessels there could be two or three metretae [John 11.6; metretra, approximately nine gallons]. And on the same day Christ fed five thousand men from five loaves and two fishes, besides women and children, of whom there were a great number, and there remained twelve baskets full of the fragments.’

27 The other gospel accounts (Matthew 111. 13–17; Mark 1.9–11) omit the age of Christ.

28 The only difference is that the wine is called the best wine, as often and expectedly among the commentators.

29 The other gospel account (John vi. 4–13) does not mention the women and children.

30 The first three of the manifestations are noted in Isidore, , De Ecclesiasticis Officiis (PL 83, cols. 762–3)Google Scholar; Amalarius, , Liber officialis iv. xxxiiiGoogle Scholar (Amalarii Episcopi Opera Liturgica Omnia, ed. J. M. Hanssens, Studi e Testi 139 (Vatican City, 1948), 509Google Scholar); pseudo-Augustine Sermo cxxiv.1 (PL 39, col. 2010), and Sermo cxxxix.1 (PL 39, col. 2018); Eusebius, ‘Gallicanus’, Homilia I de Epiphania Domini, ed. Glorie, F., CCSL 101 (Turnhout, 1970), 45–53Google Scholar; Eucherius, , Instructiones 1. viiiGoogle Scholar (PL 50, col. 819); pontifical benedictions now ptd Corpus Benedictionum Pontificalium, ed. E. Moeller, CCSL 162–162c (Turnhout, 1971–9), as nos. 307, 732, 1087 and 1166. These are some of the examples.

31 The four manifestations of pseudo-Augustine cxxxvi (PL 39, col. 2013) are also found in Chrysologus, Petrus, Sermo clx (PL 52, cols. 620–2Google Scholar); in the hymn ‘Inluminans altissimum’ of the Breviarium Gothicum (PL 86, col. 176); in the pontifical benediction ‘Omnipotens artifex’ of the Missale Cothicum (now ptd Corpus Benedictionum, ed. Moeller, no. 1516); in a preface of the Mozarabic liturgy (now ptd Corpus Praefationum, ed. E. Moeller, CCSL 161a (Turnhout, 1980), no. 660). This preface is also found in the Missale Mixtum (PL 85, cols. 235–7). Two texts, reputedly with Irish connections, also record four manifestations; one, Cracow, Cathedral Chapter Library, 43, is noted David, P., ‘Un Recueil de conférences monastiques irlandaises du VIIIc siècle’, RB 49 (1937), 73Google Scholar, and the other, Rome, Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Reg. lat. 49, is noted Wilmart, A., ‘Reg. lat. 49, Catéchèses Celtiques’, Analecta Reginensia, Studi e Testi 59 (Vatican City, 1933), 73.Google Scholar

32 Some of the sermons noted above include the common interpretation: pseudo-Augustine cxxxvi, as cited (PL 39, col. 2014); pseudo-Augustine cxxxix. 2 (PL 39, col. 2018); Eusebius, ‘Gallicanus’, Homilia I de Epiphania, ed. Glorie, p. 46Google Scholar (and n. for other examples); Cracow 43, which cites Gregory, Homilia x as quoted in the text of this paper; Chrysologus, Sermo CLX (PL 52, col. 621). It is also found in Caesarius of Aries's Sermo cxciv.2, in Caesarii Arelatensis Sermones, ed. G. Morin, CCSL 104 (Turnhout, 1953), 787Google Scholar; in sermons ptd PL Supphmentum 11, 1056, 1234; in Fulgentius of Ruspe, Sermo iv. 9 (PL 65, col. 733); in pseudo-Fulgentius's Sermo iv (PL 65, col. 863), and elsewhere.

33 PL 76, col. 1112; in Paul the Deacon's homiliary as noted Grégoire, , Homéliaires, as no. 48 (p. 84)Google Scholar. Paul's homiliary also includes Fulgentius's Sermo iv, as no. 47.

34 The translation ‘apparitio vel ostensio’ is favoured by Isidore, , De Ecclesiasticis Officiis (PL 83, cols. 762–3)Google Scholar, who also refers to three events; pseudo-Augustine, Sermo cxxxvii (PL 39, col. 2016); the sermons in PL Supplementum 11, noted above; Eucherius, Instructiones (PL 50, col. 819). Pseudo-Augustine's Sermo cxxxix translates ‘apparitio sive manifestatio’ (PL 39, col. 2018).

35 In comparison with the earliest extant text of this notice (Kotzor's E, London, BL Add. 40165a), Kotzor's base manuscript (B, BL Cotton Julius A. x) varies in meaning only by adding the adverb a, ‘ever’, before clœsnungdrenceas and by reading woroldlicre for worldrices before bysgunge.

36 Das altenglische Martyrologium, ed. Kotzor 11, 80–2; cf. An Old English Martyrology, ed. Herzfeld, pp. 72–4. ‘(i) About these days, sometimes before, sometimes afterwards, are the three days in the churches of God, and the people of Christ celebrate Litaniae that is then prayers and relic-processions before the Ascension of Christ. On those three days, both men and women, both old and young, both manservants and maid-servants [peowena in Kotzor's C, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 196] must come to the church of God in order to intercede with God, because Christ's blood was shed alike for all men. On these three days Christian men must leave their secular work at the third hour of the day, that is at undern, and process with the holy relics until the ninth hour, that is then none. (ii) These days are rightly for fasting, and for the use of those foods which are used during the fast of forty days before Easter. (iii) It is not permitted on these days that blood be let, or cleansing drinks be drunk ever, or for a man to go because of secular business at all far from the place where he has to serve God. (iv) These three days are medicine and spiritual potion for (of) a man's soul, (v) because they are to be held with compunction of the heart, that is, with weeping prayers and with liberal alms, and with full joy towards all human enemies, because God will forgive us his wrath if we forgive our people.’

37 See Eleven Old English Homilies for Rogationtide, ed. Joyce Bazire and J. E. Cross, Toronto OE Ser. 7 (Toronto, 1982), xvii–xx.Google Scholar

38 See Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie (hereafter DACL), ed. F. Cabrol and H. Leclercq, xiv (Paris, 1948), cols. 2459–61.Google Scholar

39 Mansi, J. D., Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima Collectio xiv (Venice, 1769), 72Google Scholar, canon 33.

40 Smaragdus (PL 102, col. 303); Hrabanus Maurus (PL 110, col. 223).

41 For the citations, see Haddan, A. W. and Stubbs, W., Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1869–1871) 111, 368Google Scholar (canon 16).

42 See Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, ed. Charles Plummer (Oxford, 1892–1899) 1, 195 and 242Google Scholar respectively (text); The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: a Revised Translation, ed. Dorothy Whitelock et al. (London, 1961; rev. 1965), 140 and 181Google Scholar respectively (translation). The identifications were first made by Tupper, F., ‘Anglo-Saxon Dœg-Mæl’, PMLA 10 (1895), 111–241, at 233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 English Kalendars before A.D. 1100, ed. F. Wormald, Henry Bradshaw Soc. 72 (London, 1934)Google Scholarpassim.

44 Haddan, and Stubbs, , Councils 111, 368Google Scholar (canon 16).

45 See Epistola de Obitu Bedae in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford, 1969), p. 584.Google Scholar

46 For the sermons, see Caesarii Arelatensis Opera, ed. G. Morin, pp. 828–34; for their inclusion within Carolingian homiliaries, see Bouhot, Jean-Paul, ‘Un Sermonnaire carolingien’, Revue d'histoire des textes 4 (1974), 181–223CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who notes (p. 201) that Sermo ccviii is within the homiliary described and in the homiliary of Alanus of Farfa, and that Sermo ccvii. 1–2 are included within a pseudo-Augustinian sermon as yet unedited, which is in Bouhot's homiliary. For Sermo ccviii, see also Grégoire, Homéliaires, p. 52 (Alanus), and, for Sermo ccvii, see Ibid. 170 (the so-named Homiliary of Toledo); for the use of Sermo ccvii in Vercelli xix, see Szarmach, P. E., ‘Caesarius of Arles and the Vercelli Homilies’, Traditio 26 (1970), 315–23, at 319–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47 Das altenglische Martyrologium, ed. Kotzor 11, 45–7; cf. An Old English Martyrology, ed. Herzfeld, p. 50. ‘(i) On the twenty-sixth day of the month, on the day Christ rested dead in the tomb for us, his soul and his divinity together harrowed throughout the depth of hell, and there struck the host of devils with his divine sword and drove them into the depth of hell and bound them there, (ii) There all the men and women who had ever believed him before, saw him and they rushed forth from the torments and bowed to hip feet, weeping, and said this: “O help us, Saviour, now you have come here, although it is late. We always hoped for your coming; but extinguish [adwæsc] now these threats and destroy these lamentations, and make known your power in hell as you did on earth, where you redeemed living man with your cross; save us dead now with your death.” (iii) There Adam and Eve also saw him, where they were smothered in deep darkness. (iv) When they saw his shining light after the long age [saeculum?] (v) Eve implored him to pity her for the sake of her kinship with St Mary. She said to him: “Remember, my Lord, that she was bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. Therefore help me.” (vi) Then Christ released them both from there and sent a countless number of joyful people before them, when he would journey victorious again to his body.’

48 The variant manuscript reads: ‘flæsc of mynum flæsce and ban of mynum banum’. The reversal is interesting, since the base manuscript echoes the order of Genesis 11.23, ‘os ex ossibus meis, et caro de carne mea’, but the variant echoes the order of the quotation in the two Old English homilies considered below.

49 An Old English Martyrology, ed. Herzfeld, p. xxxviii.

50 The phrase based on Genesis 11.23; see above, n. 48.

51 The Book of Cerne, ed. A. B. Kuypers (Cambridge, 1902)Google Scholar. The connection between phrases in Cerne, in pseudo-Augustine clx, and in Blickling homily vii was first noted Förster, M., ‘Altenglische Predigtquellen I’, ASNSL 116 (1906), 301–14.Google Scholar

52 The sermon was first ed. Raynes, Enid M. (Edwards), ‘Unpublished Old English Homilies …’ (unpubl. D. Phil, dissertation, Oxford Univ., 1955), pp. 72–86Google Scholar. This was a very thorough edition, with identification of sources, and its publication twenty-odd years ago would have been invaluable. The sermon, however, is now ptd Fadda, A. M. Luiselli, ‘“De Descensu Christi ad inferos”: una inedita omelia anglosassone’, SM 13 (1972), 998–1010Google Scholar. It has been re-ed. also Schaeffer, K. G., ‘An Edition of Five Old English Homilies for Palm Sunday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday’ (unpubl. Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia Univ., 1972)Google Scholar, and Downs, Yvonne, ‘An Edition of an Old English Easter Day Homily on the Harrowing of Hell …‘ (unpubl. M.A. dissertation, Manchester Univ., 1980)Google Scholar. Mrs Downs's detailed thesis includes all the discussion necessary for the understanding of the sermon and has notes on the previous editions (pp. 166–72).

53 For the passage in the Book of Cerne, see The Book of Cerne, ed. Kuypers, pp. 196–8, and Dumville, D. N., ‘Liturgical Drama and Panegyric Responsory? A Re-Examination of … The Book of Cerne’, JTS n.s. 23 (1972), 374–406, at 379–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For the succeeding passage in the two vernacular homilies, see notes to the homily in Raynes, ‘OE Homilies’, pp. 140–1, and footnotes to the text in Downs, ‘An OE Easter Day Homily’, p. 187, and in Fadda, ‘“De Descensu Christi”’, p. 1004. Both Raynes (p. cxcviii) and Downs (p. 108) note the evidence of quotations from the psalms from the Roman version of the psalter in the passage found only in the two vernacular homilies.

54 Downs, ‘An OE Easter Day Homily’, p. 108.

55 Raynes, ‘OE Homilies’, pp. cxci–ii and cxcviii; Downs, ‘An OE Easter Day Homily’, p. 108. Dumville, ‘Liturgical Drama’, p. 380, notes that ‘the Latin text [of Cerne] breaks off at this point (at the end of a quire) with at least another leaf missing from the manuscript, or perhaps a whole gathering containing other material also’. Kuypers, (The Book of Cerne, p. 198Google Scholar) had quoted the opinion of Bradshaw that ‘possibly a quire or more of the original volume is wanting here’.

56 Downs, ‘An OE Easter Day Homily’, p. 86, discusses the views of Förster and Dumville, and proposes a stemma (p. 87) on the basis of the views. It is, however, difficult to be more than tentative for every stage of transmission in view of the comparative lack of material.

57 There is no separate plea from Eve in the prime text of the Descensus, the Gospel of Nicodemus.

58 Raynes, ‘OE Homilies’, p. 81; Downs, ‘An OE Easter Day Homily’, p. 187; Fadda, ’“De Descensu Christi”‘, p. 1006.

59 The Blickling Homilies, ed. R. Morris, EETS o.s. 58, 63, 73 (London, 1874–1880), 89Google Scholar. The freer translation can be noted against the underlying scriptural quotations.

60 The Gospel, of Nicodemus, , Evangelia Apocrypha, ed. Tischendorff, C., 2nd ed. (Leipzig, 1876), p. 403Google Scholar: ‘… omnes sancti dei genibus advoluti ad pedes Domini una voce dixerunt’; pseudo-Augustine, Sermo clx (PL 39, col. 2061): ‘Salvatoris sui genibus obvoluti’; The Book of Cerne, ed. Kuypers, p. 197: ‘saluatoris genibus obvoluti’; Junius 121 (Fadda, ‘“De descensu Christi”’, p. 1004; Raynes, ‘OE Homilies’, p. 79; Downs, ‘An OE Easter Day Homily’, pp. 184–5). Blickling vii (The Blickling Homilies, ed. Morris, p. 87) merely says: ‘to þæm Hælende onluton’. We should note that the Latin of OEM's source was nearer to the phraseology of the Gospel of Nicodemus, in its reference to the feet of Christ.

61 See MacCulloch, J. A., The Harrowing of Hell (Edinburgh, 1930), pp. 133, 248–50 and 331Google Scholar. The light is presented more than once in pseudo-Augustine clx, Blickling vii and Junius 121.

62 See Cross, J. E., ‘The Influence of Irish Texts and Traditions on the Old English Martyrology’, Proc. of the R. Irish Acad. 81c (1981), 173–92, at 180–5.Google Scholar

63 See Cross, J. E., ‘De Ordine Creaturarum Liber in Old English Prose’, Anglia 90 (1972), 132–40, at 132–8.Google Scholar The brief note for the seventh day of creation echoes Genesis 11. 2 and 3, as Kotzor, (Das altenglische Martyrologium 11, 298Google Scholar) indicated.

64 On the contacts with the pseudo-Isidorean tract, see Cross, ‘Irish Texts’, pp. 186–91.

65 See J. E. Cross, ‘The Apostles in the Old English Martyrology’, and ‘Irish Texts’, pp. 188–90, on Mark and Luke.

66 See J. E. Cross, ‘Blickling Homily XIV’, pp. 149–51.

67 For close analysis of this notice, see Cross, ‘Irish Texts’, p. 184. Apart from the note of the ten manifestations, the section is based on scripture and on Adamnán i.ii.

68 See Cross, ‘Irish Texts’, p. 184.

69 The manuscript contains mainly saints’ lives but includes also some homiletic pieces. Twelve manifestations are counted in the Old English Honorius in Early English Homilies from the Twelfth Century MS. Vesp. D. XIV, ed. R. D. N. Warner, EETS o.s. 152 (London, 1917), 144–5.Google Scholar

70 Das altenglische Martyrologium, ed. Kotzor 11, 10; An Old English Martyrology, ed. Herzfeld, p. 12. ‘And Christ received the purification because he signified for us with this that we must cut off impure thoughts from our heart, and unlawful deeds from our body, if we wish to have life with God.’

71 Cross, ‘Irish Texts’, pp. 190–1.

72 See Ibid. pp. 182–4.

73 Das altenglische Martyrologium, ed. Kotzor 11, 43–4; An Old English Martyrology, ed. Herzfeld, p. 48. ‘St Mary became pregnant … through the angel's word and through the hearing of her ears, like the trees when they blossom through the blowing of the wind.’

74 See Cross, J. E., ‘The Conception of the Old English Phoenix’, Old English Poetry: Fifteen Essays, ed. Creed, R. P. (Providence, RI, 1967), pp. 129–52, at 138Google Scholar and n. 38.

75 See Cross, J. E., ‘A Lost Life of Hilda of Whitby: the Evidence of the Old English Martyrology’, The Early Middle Ages, ed. Snyder, W. H. and Szarmach, P. E. (Binghamton, NY, 1982), pp. 21–43, at 30–40Google Scholar

76 See, most recently, Bischoff, Bernhard, ‘Turning-Points in the History of Latin Exegesis in the Early Irish Church: a.d. 650–800’, Biblical Studies: the Medieval Irish Contribution, ed. McNamara, M. (Dublin, 1976), pp. 74–164, at 115–17.Google Scholar

77 For a detailed discussion, see Cross, J. E., ‘On the Blickling Homily for Ascension Day (no. xi)’, NM 70 (1969), 228–40.Google Scholar

78 Das altenglische Martyrologium, ed. Kotzor 11, 84; An Old English Martyrology, ed. Herzfeld, p. 74. ‘On this day earth went into heaven, that is the man above the glory of angels.’

79 Pseudo-Augustine, Sermo cccxcv (PL 39, col. 1717) and Sermo clxxvi (PL 39, col. 2081), respectively.

80 The scriptural verses used are: Acts 1.15, 11.2–4 and 43.

81 An Old English Martyrology, ed. Herzfeld, p. xxxviii.

82 Isidore (PL 83, col. 768); pseudo-Alcuin (PL 101, col. 1226); Hrabanus Maurus (PL 107, col. 354).

83 E.g., PL Supplementum 11, 525 and 998.

84 Das altenglische Martyrologium, ed. Kotzor 11, 105; An Old English Martyrology, ed. Herzfeld, p. 84. ‘… and the spirit dwells in all those who do good, and it rejoices in the heart of the pure man like a dove when it bathes in calm water in a clear spring’. Herzfeld mistranslates gefyhð in his text (An Old English Martyrology, p. 85) but corrects in his Addenda (p. 230); see Das altenglische Martyrologium, ed. Kotzor 11, 313.

85 See above, n. 75.

86 See above, p. 115.

87 Das altenglische Martyrologium, ed. Kotzor 11, 63; An Old English Martyrology, ed. Herzfeld, p. 62. ‘On the day all people of God must pray to God with humble relic-procession that, in the year, He grant them a time of peace and fair weather and abundant crops and strength of their body.’

88 PL 101, col. 1225; pseudo-Alcuin is very close in word to passages from Amalarius, De Ecclesiasticis Officiis Libri IV 1.xxxvii (PL 105, col. 1067), but Amalarius includes them in a chapter mainly on what are clearly the three Rogation Days before Ascension. The first sentence of pseudo-Alcuin is attached similarly to the custom of 25 April in Amalarius, but the sentence about produce of the earth is linked to the three-day observances in Amalarius.

89 Das altenglische Martyrologium, ed. Kotzor 11, 63–4; An Old English Martyrology, ed. Herzfeld, p. 62. ‘The Greeks name the day exomologesis, that is the “day of repentance and penitence”.’

90 For examples in Tertullian, see Lewis, C. T. and Short, C., A Latin Dictionary (Oxford, 1879)Google Scholar, s.v. exomologesis; for Cyprian, see Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. exomologesis; and for Isidore, see Etymologiae vi. lxxv, lxxvi, lxxix and lxxx (PL 82, cols. 259 and 260).

91 Sacrorum Conciliorum, ed. Mansi xiv, 72.

92 For Soter, see Cross, ‘Irish Texts’, p. 191, and for Didimus, see Cross, ‘Apostles’, p. 23.

93 Maurus, Hrabanus, De Clericorum Institutione 11.xiv (PL 107, cols. 331–2)Google Scholar, discusses exomologesis as ‘confession’.

94 This group includes Christ and Mary although there are apocryphal stories about aspects of their lives, the evangelist Luke, the Maccabees, John the Baptist and Stephen protomartyr. Some of the apostles have biographies, others are included within lengthy stories.

95 For a full discussion of the sections on Stephen (26 December and 3 August), see Cross, J. E., ‘Saints’ Lives in Old English: Latin Manuscripts and Vernacular Accounts’, Peritia 1 (1982), 38–62, at 40–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The unidentified phrase describes Stephen's stoning by the Jews in a balanced form reminiscent of sermons: ‘And hi him micle þe reðran on wær[o]n, and þe raþor hine oftorfod hæfdon’ (Das altenglische Martyrologium, ed. Kotzor 11, 5–6; An Old English Martyrology, ed. Herzfeld, p. 8. ‘And they were much the more cruel against him, and had stoned him the more quickly’). The idea, of course, is from scripture.

96 See Cross, ‘Saints' Lives’, p. 45 and n. 4.

97 An Old English Martyrology, ed. Herzfeld, p. xli, and with illustration of some parallel Latin phrases in his Addenda (p. 235). Mary Clayton confirms Herzfeld's identification in her thesis (see below). As she points out, the martyrologist takes names, numbers and ideas from chs. 1–3, but then translates phrases from the beginning of ch. 4 and from ch. 6 with verbal echo. I merely note the description of the Virgin's beauty as an example: ‘hio wæs swa beorht on ansyne ond wliti þæt mon hyre meahte uneaþe onlycan’ (Das altenglische Martyrologium, ed. Kotzor 11, 202–3; An Old English Martyrology, ed. Herzfeld, p. 164); cf. ‘et resplendebat facies eius … ita ut vix possent in eius vultum intendere’ (ch. 6). Kotzor, (Das altenglische Martyrologium 11, 348–9Google Scholar) illustrates fully, from his manuscript, which varies at certain phrases from the printed text of the Gospel.

98 Das altenglische Martyrologium, ed. Kotzor 11, 348–9.

99 For the contents of BL Add. 11880, see the Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the years MDCCCXLI–MDCCCXLV (London, 1850), pp. 14–15Google Scholar; for its date, see Bischoff, B., Die südostdeutschen Schreibschulen und Bibliotheken in der Karolingerzeit, Teil I: Die bayrischen Diözesen (Wiesbaden, 1960), p. 207Google Scholar. The account ends incompletely at ch. 23. For the content of the Montpellier manuscript, see AB 34–5 (1915–1916), 251–55Google Scholar, where the date of the manuscript is given (p. 251) as ‘s. viii ex.’, but Bernhard Bischoff has noted for me ‘s. ix in., perhaps s. viii/ix’.

100 Das altenglische Martyrologium, ed. Kotzor 11, 181; cf. An Old English Martyrology, ed. Herzfeld, p. 146. ‘(i) On the day she went from the world to Christ and she now shines on the heavenly force [virtus] among the bands of holy virgins, as the sun shines on this world. Angels rejoice there and archangels exult and all the saints rejoice there in St Mary, (ii) St Mary was sixty-four years old when she went to Christ. (iii) St Mary is daughter-in-law of God the Father, and mother of God's Son, and mother-in-law of holy souls, and the noble queen of the citizens on high, (iv) who stands on the right side of the High-Father and the High-King.’

101 Aldhelmi Opera, ed. R. Ehwald, MGH, Auct. antiq. 15 (Berlin, 1919), 292.Google Scholar

102 Ibid. p. 244.

103 PL 78, col. 798.

104 PL 78, col. 726, notes that the Liber Responsalis is printed from a manuscript of the ninth century. This may be the antiphonary of Compiègne, dated 860–80, in Hesbert, R. J. and Prévost, R., Corpus Antiphonalium Officii 1 (Rome, 1963), xviiGoogle Scholar. I owe this information to Dr Mary Clayton.

105 See ‘The Prose Solomon and Saturn’ and ‘Adrian and Ritheus’, ed. J. E. Cross and T. D. Hill, McMaster OE Stud. and Texts 1 (Toronto, 1982), 28Google Scholar (text), and 80–1 (commentary); for discussion of Napier's transcriptions (Anglia 11), see Ibid.

106 James, M. R., The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford, 1924), p. 44Google Scholar (Protevangelium), and p. 78 (pseudo-Matthew).

107 See A Dictionary of the Bible …, ed. W. Smith 11 (London, 1863), 269Google Scholar, col. 1.

108 An Old English Martyrology, ed. Herzfeld, p. xl.

109 Das altenglische Martyrologium, ed. Kotzor 11, 165; An Old English Martyrology, ed. Herzfeld, p. 134. ‘I do not know how you appeared in my womb. I did not give you spirit or life, but the creator of the world who will give you spirit and life with mercy again on Doomsday.’

110 London, BL Add. 11880 (see above, n. 99), 17r-20v, is a free narration based on 11 Maccabees vi.18–vii.41; Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, lat. 371 (s. ix in.), 129r–32r, is abstracted from Josephus's De Maccabeis; Rome, Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, lat. 5771 (s. ix and x) 95r–6v, reads from 11 Maccabees vi.12–vii.42; Paris, BN lat. 2179 (s. xi, but a manuscript of the Spanish Passionary composed, reputedly, before 806), 255r–7r, has the same section of scripture as BL Add. 11880 but is quite different in wording; and Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 14418 (s.ixmed, for these folios), 35r–7r, has a brief introduction and is then abstracted from 11 Maccabees vii. 1–32 with omissions. It is difficult to assign these accounts to BHL numbers, since only one such subdivision is in print by Mombritius (BHL, no. 5106) and there is no ready means of comparison.