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JOURNAL
OF THE AUSTRALIAN EARLY MEDIEVAL ASSOCIATION
VOLUME 2 - ABSTRACTS, WITH FULL TEXT WHERE INDICATED
Volume
1 Abstracts | Volume 3 Abstracts
| Volume 4 Abstracts | Volume 5 Abstracts | Volume 6 Abstracts | Volume 7 Abstracts
Ambiguous eroticism in the Exeter Book
Chris BishopThe anthology of Anglo-Saxon verse now known as the Exeter Book comprises a selection of poems that are variable in their quality and eclectic in their choice of subjects. Prayers, hymns, elegies, maxims, bestiaries, riddles and heroic lays intersperse a text in which the sacred coexists with the profane. It is this unique range of subject matter and its often candid treatment which has ensured that the Exeter Book has continued to be mined for evidence as to the sexual proclivities of the culture which created it. It is my intention in this paper to continue that enquiry, but with particular reference to some of the poems within the Exeter Book that might appear to present an erotically ambiguous message.
The political function of 'early Christian' inscriptions in Wales
Hilbert ChiuOver 50 inscribed stones, dating from the early fifth to the late sixth century, survive in north-west Wales. In contrast to other British inscriptions of the period, these inscriptions exhibit a surprising degree of Romanitas on the part of the people they commemorate. This paper aims to examine this phenomenon in greater detail. It furthers the argument that the inscriptions played a political role in legitimising the power of the elite in early Gwynedd. It also considers the inscriptions in the context of surviving textual and archaeological evidence.
Imagined architectures and visual exegesis: temple imagery in the illuminated manuscripts of the Iberian Jews
Vanessa CrosbyThe tabernacle and the temple are recurring visual motifs in the illuminated manuscripts of the Iberian Ashkenazim and Sephardim. These illustrations evoked collectively imagined architectures which, when read in parallel with the biblical texts of the Passover Haggadoth, allowed the Jewish communities of Spain to place themselves in an eschatological narrative that was capable of making sense of the destruction of the Herodian temple and the dispersal of the Jews to live in foreign lands under rulers of other faiths. These images, therefore, served more than a merely decorative purpose as passive reflections of accompanying texts. Rather, they were important exegetical tools, directing the reader toward particular interpretations of the scriptural narrative which had immediate, contemporary relevance. It is essential, therefore, that a historian studying these manuscripts view both textual and illustrative elements as part of a larger, integrated text. The purpose of this paper is to explore the complex interactions between visual and written elements of the text within a broader socio-cultural context in order to come to an understanding of the particular meanings transmitted to a medieval audience and, further, to reflect upon the implications of the methodologies used in this study for the area of manuscript studies as a whole.
World of wonders: the shaping of reality in Maxims I
Robert Di NapoliThe Old English verse-collections of maxims have challenged modern understandings of poetry and text. They have often been dismissed as poetry for being naïve, mechanical, and needlessly obscure. Read as information, they can seem risible: did Anglo-Saxon audiences really need reminding that God lives in heaven, frost freezes, and fire burns wood? Their abrupt flits from subject to subject have led many to suggest they constitute ill-sorted grab-bags compiled by redactors who felt little concern for their shape and coherence. Considering selections from Maxims I, I hope to suggest how we might read it as a coherent text which explores the relationship between God and the world of experience. It follows a programme more philosophical than theological, in that it consistently probes the specific question of how the unitary fullness of God's creative omnipotence manifests itself across the disparate phenomena perceived by human consciousness. I wish further to suggest that, alongside the equally undervalued riddles of the Exeter Book, the maxims may embody a focus of imaginative energy more central to the Anglo-Saxon poetic project than modern scholarship has recognised.
Innocent I and the attacks on the Bethlehem monasteries
Geoffrey D DunnInnocent I, bishop of Rome from 402 to 417, wrote to John, bishop of Jerusalem, a letter traditionally dated to 417 (Ep 35 - JK 325 = Jerome, Ep 137). Eustochium and the younger Paula, aristocratic female ascetical virgins in Bethlehem, had written to the Roman bishop after their monastery had been burnt. Jerome had written to Innocent and Augustine of Hippo blaming the Pelagians only implicitly. Not only did Innocent write back to Jerome (Ep 34 - JK 326 = Jerome, Ep 136) and to Aurelius of Carthage (Ep 33 - JK 324 = Jerome, Ep 135), but also he wrote this letter to John, accusing him of not doing enough to protect the innocent in his diocese and threatening him with action to seek redress. This event in Bethlehem secured Innocent's support for the anti-Pelagian movement. While Augustine, Jerome and the Pelagian controversy are widely known, Innocent remains a lesser known figure. Yet, his episcopacy marks a significant point in the transition of the Roman episcopacy into the medieval papacy. While most of Innocent's letters are preserved in canonical decretal collections of the early middle ages, Epistula 35 is preserved only in the Collectio Avellana, an important collection of more than 200 papal and imperial letters. This paper examines the importance of the Collectio Avellana to our understanding of Innocent's concept of his pastoral ministry in relationship to other bishops (particularly the growing notion of papal primacy) and the transmission of papal letters in the fifth century in general. I argue for a re-dating of the three letters from Innocent to 416.
Paschal dating in Pictland: Abbot Ceolfrid's letter to King Nechtan
Julianna GriggThe letter from Abbot Ceolfrid of Wearmouth-Jarrow to Nechtan mac Der-Ilei, King of the Picts (Naiton rex Pictorum), is included in one of the longest chapters of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum. Bede completed the Historia around 731 and Abbot Ceolfrid's retirement and subsequent death in 716 therefore provides a terminus ante quem for Ceolfrid's letter to Nechtan. Bede's inclusion of this letter provides one of the few direct contemporary references to a Pictish king from which we can gain an understanding of the cultural interactions between the northern kingdoms of Britain. The letter deals with the fundamental issues of paschal dating and tonsure in an immediate and particular discourse that highlights the growing desire for communal celebration in the churches of northern Britain. My aim in this paper is to analyse the content of Ceolfrid's letter and the context in which it was written and received.
Bede and the Augustine's Oak conferences: implications for Anglo-British ecclesiastical interaction in early Anglo-Saxon England
Martin GrimmerIn Bede's representation of relations between the British church and the Roman church of the Anglo-Saxons, one of the defining events concerns Augustine of Canterbury's two meetings, c 602-604, with a group of British bishops at 'Augustine's Oak' on the border of the West Saxons and the Hwicce. The Augustine's Oak conferences are the first of Bede's ecclesiastical 'set pieces' which marshal Roman against British and Irish Columban practice. Bede is the only source for these meetings, and because of his distance both in time and in location from the events, his description has been labelled as an 'ecclesiastical saga' of uncertain authenticity. However, there are indications that Bede's account was not simply an imaginative reconstruction. Bede appears to have relied on both Anglo-Saxon and British sources in his rendering of the meetings. Although some of the details may be dubious, he reveals a plausible picture of ecclesiastical interaction between Anglo-Saxons and Britons, which saw the Britons branded as schismatic by the Roman church, and which memorialised a pattern of distrust and isolation. The aim of this paper is to analyse Bede's presentation of the events surrounding the Augustine's Oak conferences and the implications for Anglo-British ecclesiastical interaction during the early Anglo-Saxon period.
Separate or together? Questioning the relationship between the encyclopedia and bestiary traditions
Elizabeth KeenAs receivers of texts transmitted by medieval readers and re-writers over time, we have necessarily categorised them in terms of genre: romances, chronicles, sermons, bestiaries, encyclopedias and so on. With hindsight we can see how conventions accrued over the centuries to these different types of text and how specialised fields of study grew around them. Thus it can reasonably be said, for example, that the encyclopedia manuscript tradition is separate from the bestiary manuscript tradition. The distinction may be useful for the historian at the receiving end of a textual tradition, but suggests a false dichotomy from the medieval perspective. The terms as they have emerged in the scholarly tradition represent modern scholarly concepts. This paper reviews evidence that although the so-called encyclopedia and the bestiary appeared early on in different forms and acquired different conventions, they shared features of great importance to medieval people.
Feeding the micel here in England c865-878
Shane McLeodWith the question of the probable size of ninth-century Viking armies remaining unresolved, this paper examines one of the primary impediments to fielding a large army: the availability of food. Perhaps the best documented Viking army of the century, the great army during its campaign in England, is the focus of this investigation. It is argued that historians have often ignored probable sources of food for the army, particularly the likelihood that food was regularly provided as part of peace treaties, and have consequently overstated the difficulty of maintaining a large army in hostile territory. Furthermore, the role that the kingdoms conquered by the great army and subsequently held on its behalf by puppet administrations may have played has also not been considered.
Letters from Spain to Pope Gregory the Great
John R C MartynThis article provides the first English translation of the very interesting letter written by Bishop Licinianus of Cartagena to Pope Gregory the Great, linking it firstly with the copy of the Pope's Moralia, seen by the bishop when Leander was carrying it on his way back from Constantinople, and secondly with the conversion of King Reccared and his people, described in the letters of Leander and the king that were sent to a very receptive pope. Reference is also made to the pope's plainsong that was adopted, it seems, by his close friend, Leander, when bishop of Seville. His young brother, the historian Isidore, who was born in Cartagena, comments on letters from Licinianus, while using the incomplete version of the Moralia brought by Leander to Seville.
The art of early medieval number symbolism
Tessa MorrisonChristian number symbolism built upon the strong tradition of Platonic philosophy, Pythagorean lore and Babylonian astronomy. Numbers such as 1, 7, 8, 12, and 40 had magical and talismanic properties and were strongly represented in the Hebrew Scriptures and apocrypha. God was praised: 'you have ordered all things in measure, number and weight' (Wisdom 11:21). In the Christian Scriptures, when John the Divine was perplexed with the events happening around him, he was given a golden reed to measure the temple of God, the altar and those who worshipped within the temple (Revelation 11:1). Understanding would come from the process of measuring. Saint Augustine claimed that 'to ascend the path towards wisdom, we discover that numbers transcend our mind and remain unchangeable in their own'. Numbers had an ethereal existence. Augustine, Ambrose, Macrobius, Marcianus Capella, Isidore, Boethius, Thierry of Chartres, Abelard and many others praised the divine quality of particular numbers at length. Numbers were a model for theology and an analogy of creation. This paper examines the manifestation of this number symbolism in early medieval art, literature and architecture.
The miracles of Saints Cyrus and John: the Greek text and its transmission
Bronwen NeilThe text entitled The Miracles of Saints Cyrus and John was composed in Greek by Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem (634-638). The text concerns the miracles of two healing saints: Cyrus, supposedly a physician of Alexandria, and John, a soldier in Egypt. Their cult was established by the 'discovery' of their relics by Cyril of Alexandria in the fifth century, and it replaced the local Egyptian cult of Isis at Menouthis. After the Arab conquest of Egypt it spread to Rome and Constantinople, and an Arabic legend of the saints' healings developed. It is argued that Sophronius used his version of the miracles to strengthen his claims for the orthodoxy of those who opposed the imperially-sponsored doctrines of monoenergism and its later development, monothelitism. Sophronius's text was translated into Latin by Anastasius Bibliothecarius in the late ninth century and survives in a single manuscript. By examining Anastasius's political motives for this choice of text, we find it being used to argue for Roman orthodoxy and primacy in the latter half of the ninth century. A translation of Anastasius's preface to a related text is given in the appendix.
Reading cross-marked stones in Scottish Dalriada
Pamela O'NeillThe part of Scotland inhabited by the Dalriada during the early medieval period is particularly rich in material remains, including a vast corpus of ecclesiastical stone sculpture. In this paper, I examine the cross-marked stones which appear singly in isolated locations throughout Dalriada, and investigate their placement in the landscape. In doing so, I seek to understand the relationship between the ecclesiastical presence in Dalriada and the largely inhospitable landscape of the region. In particular, I consider the purpose of these isolated cross-marked stones, and the reasons for their placement in relation to the landscape and, more importantly, the seascape.
Liminality in early Irish literature: the madness of Suibhne Geilt
Bridgette K. SlavinScholarship on Suibhne Geilt places him as a descendant of the wild man tradition. He is, more importantly, directly related to the Celtic variation of this theme, which includes along with Suibhne, Myrddin of Middle Welsh poetry, the Scottish Lailoken who appears in The Life of St Kentigern, and Merlin in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Vita Merlini. The liminal characteristics of Suibhne Geilt, in particular his madness and bird-like qualities, provide an occasion to identify two strains of influence regarding the transmission of the idea of kingship in early Irish literature: a native Irish concept of kingship which is supported by a biblical analogy that provides a moral commentary.