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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Old english eorlscipe, commonly considered to mean “nobility, rank; heroic deed(s),” appears to have a specialized meaning in Beowulf, particularly in combination with œfnan. It is usually translated “heroic deeds,” but this essay argues that eorlscipe never has this meaning in Beowulf. It has a highly technical and official (governmental) meaning.
page 1133 note 1 Bosworth-Toller, Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, eorlscipe, œfnan, q.v.
page 1133 note 2 Fr. Klaeber, ed. Beowulf, 3rd ed. (New York, 1950), p. 324. All quotations of the epic are from this.
page 1133 note 3 Cf. C. B. Tinker, Beowulf (New York, 1931), e.g., p. 135 “won himself a hero's fame”; also Edwin Morgan, Beowulf (Aldington, Kent, 1952). R. W. Chambers' views will be given below in the examination of Widsith.
page 1133 note 4 Cf. Alboin, in Lombard tradition winning position by a gift of arms from a foreign king: R. W. Chambers, Widsith (Cambridge, 1912), p. 124.
page 1133 note 5 “The words gylpword and beotword … seem to mean the same thing; but it is probable that gielp- stresses the glory of adventure, something to boast of, whereas beoi- stresses the fact that it is a promise, a vow.” Stefán Einarsson, “Old English Beot and Old Icelandic Heitstrenging,” PMLA, xlix (1943), 976.
page 1133 note 6 Sir Francis Oppenheimer, The Legend of the Sainte Ampoule (London, 1953), p. 142, thinks the anointing of English kings, thereby vividly expressing ideas of the sanctity of the king, goes back only to the late 9th or early 10th century. However, the Pontifical of Egbert, pupil of Bede, already provided in the 8th century for the anointing of the king and for the singing of the anthem “Zadok the Priest.” See “The Origin of the Sainte Ampoule,” TLS, 1 May 1953, p. 286. See also F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1943), p. 217. In 787 Edgfrith, son of Offa, was anointed king of the Mercians.
page 1133 note 7 MS. Scildingas is retained here, following Malone. See Beowulf and Judith, ed. E. V. K. Dobbie (New York, 1953), p. 269.
page 1133 note 8 The formality of this praise of the dead king has been emphasized by Klaeber, p. 230.
page 1133 note 9 Such a view of Beowulf's “recapitulation” is the best apologia for this apparent break in the narrative. The recapitulation slows down the story (never a matter very disturbing to the poet) but it seems to be necessary as a legal matter: it perhaps was the custom of a warrior returning to his own kingdom with gifts of armor, first, to argue in the regal court the right to the possession of the gifts he makes to the king, and second, to intimate that the winning and presenting of these gifts—added to the fact of his chieftainly descent—merits his inclusion among the important men of the realm. Thus, this recapitulation is the beginning of the second part of the poem, that part in which Beowulf first claims the right to eorlscipe, then exercises it in full measure as king, and then passes it on to Wiglaf.
page 1133 note 10 Bosworth-Toller list 13 occurrences of eorlscipe. Several are duplicate references. The use of Bosworth-Toller, plus a reading of Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records and a search of Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa disclose the passages discussed in this essay.
page 1133 note 11 See R. J. Menner, ed. The Poetical Dialogues of Solomon and Saturn (New York, 1941), pp. 13 ff.: he would date it in the 9th or, at latest, early 10th century, and considers the earliest text perhaps Anglian.
page 1133 note 12 LI. 7–12; the text is from Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, vi.
page 1133 note 13 Ed. Anglo-Saxon Dialogues of Salomon and Saturn (London, 1845), p. 134.
page 1133 note 14 See introductions to The Exeter Book, ed. G. P. Krapp and E. V. K. Dobbie (New York, 1936); and Widsith (see n. 4 supra). Quotations in this essay are from the former.
page 1133 note 15 Middle English Dictionary, E 2 (Ann Arbor, 1952), s.v. eorl, eorlic, and erlen.
page 1133 note 16 Fr. Klaeber and others emend MS. Ād to Ād: “Textual Notes on Beowulf” JEGP, viii (1909), 256. See Dobbie, Beowulf, p. 175. Cf. Kemp Malone, “Hildeburh and Hengest,” ELU, x (1943), 257–284. If Malone's reading is accepted the verb would still refer to a formal action.
page 1133 note 17 Also munere capere: Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines d'après les textes et les monuments, ed. C. V. Daremberg (Paris, n. d.), iii, ii.
page 1133 note 18 Latin-English Lexicon, ed. E. A. Andrews (New York, 1855), s.v. munus and fungor. Fungor takes the ablative.
page 1133 note 19 M. I. Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1926), p. 335.
page 1133 note 20 Real=encyclopddie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, ed. A. F. von Pauly (Stuttgart, 1935), xiii, s.v. Liturgien.
page 1133 note 21 Greek-English Lexicon, comp. H. G. Liddell and R. Scott (Oxford, n. d.), s.v. ‘to perform a public service,’ ‘to serve the public welfare’; and ‘public service.‘
page 1133 note 22 Rostovtzeff, pp. 432 ff. and 335, and the Oxford Classical Dictionary, ed. M. Cary et al. (Oxford, 1950), p. 583.
page 1133 note 23 The Theodosian Code, trans. Clyde Pharr (Princeton, 1952).
page 1133 note 24 Dictionnaire, in, ii, 1095, 2038.
page 1133 note 25 Luke i.23, Acts xiii.2, and Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy (London, 1945), pp. 33 ff. See also p. 500 and n.: munus was used in the Western Church to translate λϵιτoυρλία, as in the Canon missae of the Missale Romanum: “uti accepta habeas, et bene-dicas, haec dona, haec munera.” Dix cites the study of O. Casel, Oriens Christianus (Ser. iii), vii (1932), 289 ff.
page 1133 note 26 Gregory Dix, “The Ministry in the Early Church,” The Apostolic Ministry, ed. K. E. Kirk (New York, 1946), p. 194, n.
page 1133 note 27 In the first half of the 5th century the Britons defended themselves and enjoyed a measure of prosperity: J. N. L. Myres, “The Adventus Saxonum,” in Aspects of Archaeology, ed. W. F. Grimes (London, 1951), pp. 221–241. Collingwood sees the last phase of Roman government as beginning ca. 417 with the comes and ending before 429 when St. Germanus led the Britons to their “alleluia” victory against the Saxons. He thinks hope was abandoned of the legions returning after a vain appeal in 416 to Aetius. Evidence from coins would indicate that the 5th-century legionary activity in England covered only a part of the country: “If a diagonal line is drawn across the map from the middle of Dorset to Cambridge and the Wash, the segment of England lying southeast of it … comprises all the sites in which coin series of this characteristic type [5th-century] have been found.” R. J. Collingwood and J. N. L. Myres, Roman Britain and the English Settlements (Oxford, 1937), pp. 300–301.
page 1133 note 28 T. D. Reed, The Rise of Wessex (London, 1947), pp. 67–80. G. J. Copley, The Conquest of Wessexin the Sixth Century (London, 1954), pp. 48–49,140–141.
page 1133 note 29 The evidence is against W. W. Lawrence, who thought the poet an unlearned Christian, one on the catechetical level: Beowulf and the Epic Tradition (Cambridge, Mass., 1928), pp. 286 ff. J. L. N. O'Loughlin has advanced one reasonable apologia for the poet's not including a systematic statement of the whole teaching of the Church, saying the poet wrote to a partially or nominally Christian group, urging a better conduct in one particular matter. In fine, the poem is moralistic, not theological. See “Beowulf—Its Unity and Purpose,” Medium Ævum, xxi (1952), 1–13.
page 1133 note 30 T. B. Haber, A Comparative Study of the Beowulf and the Aeneid (Princeton, 1931), esp. pp. 20 ff. Many of Haber's arguments are unconvincing: e.g., p. 29, where he says mention of great quantities of gold shows classical influence. Sutton Hoo disproves this argument. However, the force of his thesis as a whole is rather strong.
page 1133 note 31 See “Master-Works Revealed: the Ormside Bowl and the Sutton Hoo Standard,” Illustrated London News, 26 Jan. 1952, p. 148.
page 1133 note 32 C. Plummer, ed. Baedae opera historien (Oxford, 1946), i, 86. Plummer points out the careful manner in which Bede distinguishes between the regnum of any king and the imperium of the Bretwalda.
page 1133 note 33 Baedae opera historica, with trans, by J. E. King (London, 1930), i, Lib. ii, Cap. xvi.