SOURCE: Earl R. Anderson, "Poetry and the Gifts of Men," in Cynewulf: Structure, Style, and Theme in His Poetry, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1983, pp. 28-44.

[In the excerpt that follows, Anderson suggests that Cynewulf considered his creative talents as an instance of the "gifts of men," a theological concept that emphasizes the obligation to use such gifts in the service of faith.]

Some years ago in his Doctrine and Poetry, B. F. Huppe argued that Augustine's De doctrina christiana was a formative influence on Anglo-Saxon Christian views of poetry. The argument, by now familiar through so many attempts to apply allegorical interpretations to Old English poems, was that exegetical methods for understanding Scripture, as described by Augustine, were extended to poetry, and that the Anglo-Saxons, in consequence, began to compose poetry in an allegorical mode. The question whether or not exegetical principles can be applied to poems like Beowulf or The Husband's Message or The Ruin must be debated separately in each particular case, not my purpose here; but there is no doubt that an allegorical mode of composition was available to the authors of The Phoenix and Physiologus. More recently, Rollinson pointed out that early medieval views of poetry, as found in rhetorics, were more varied than Huppe had suggested, involving distinctions between history, fiction, and fable, and between narrative and allegorical modes.¹ Rollinson's examples from Isidore, Raban Maur, and Bede illustrate the point that varying conceptions of poetry—its composition, meaning, and function—were possible in early medieval Christian thought. We should, therefore, keep an open mind about what the Anglo-Saxons thought about poetry. Certainly they were influenced by Augustine, Isidore, and other continental authorities; but they might also have developed views of their own. The possibility of a "home-grown" theory of composition emerges from a close examination of some Anglo-Saxon comments on poetry: Aldhelm's prologue to his Aenigmata; a passage at the beginning of his De virginitate; Bede's account of CQdmon in his Ecclesiastical History; Cynewulf's comments on poetic craft in Ascension [Part II of the Christ] and Elene; and minor allusions to composition elsewhere, as in Gifts of Men and in Bryhtferth's use of De virginitate in his Manual. The theory, which uses as its framework the doctrine of the "gifts of men," is found in rudimentary form in Aldhelm, but is given mature expression by Bede and Cynewulf.

In his discussion of the Muses in European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, Curtius points out that Persius first rejected the Muses in favor of philosophy as a source of inspiration.² Boethius uses the same idea at the beginning of the Consolation of Philosophy, where Lady Philosophy drives off the muses of tragedy. And Augustine, in De doctrina christiana, cleverly uses pagan learning to award the Muses their place in the history of superstition and ignorance.³

We must not listen to the superstition of the pagans who professed that the nine Muses are the daughters of Jove and Mercury. They were refuted by Varro, than whom among the pagans I know of no one more eager and learned in such matters. He says that a certain city, the name of which I have forgotten, contracted with three sculptors for triple statues of the Muses to be placed as an offering in the temple of Apollo with the stipulation that only the group of the artist who wrought most beautifully should be purchased. It so happened that the work of the sculptors was of equal beauty and that the city was pleased with all nine figures so that all were bought and dedicated in the temple. He says that later the poet Hesiod named all nine of them. Thus Jupiter did not beget the nine Muses, but three artists made triple statues.

Persius's influence on Aldhelm is clear from Aldhelm's quotation of the relevant lines in his De metris.⁴

Ne fonte, inquit, labra prolui caballino
Nec in bicipite somniasse Parnasso
Mimini me.

[Not from the fount of Hippocrene, I say, have I washed my lips, nor have I dreamed on two-peaked Parnassus, if memory serves me.]

In De virginitate (23-25), Aldhelm declines to invoke the Muses and the Castalian nymphs of Mount Helicon and Phoebus Apollo. Like the Psalmist, he trusts instead in the Creator for inspiration. In his prologue to the riddles, Aldhelm again rejects the Castalian nymphs, trusting instead in the God who inspired Moses, David, and Job.⁵ Moses and Job, like David, are thought of as poets (an idea that Aldhelm might have got from Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae 1.39.11), and, what is more, poetic inspiration is thought of as a process identical to prophetic inspiration: "Tangit si mentem, mox laudem corda rependunt" (16: if He but touch a mind, at once the swelling heart pours out His praise).

The closeness of Old Testament ideas about prophetic inspiration and classical ideas about poetic inspiration would encourage this view. For Plato the "gift of Homer is not an art" but "a power divine impelling you, like the power in the stone Euripides called the magnet" (Ion 533d); so for Hosea and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Amos divine inspiration is an intoxication that overwhelms the prophet and makes him a "meshugga" (Hos. 9:7 and Jer. 29:26: madman).⁶ Aldhelm's metaphor of the "swelling heart" recalls the physical symptoms manifest in a prophet while inspired: "Therefore are my loins filled with anguish, pangs of a woman in travail. I am so pained that I cannot see" (Isa. 21:3). We find the analogy of poetic inspiration and prophetic inspiration again implied, satirically, in an "Altercatio magistri et discipuli" from Æthelwold's school at Winchester, in which a student chastises a foreign scholar for praising his own poetry.⁷

dicit eam flamen secum cecinisse supernum
inmemor exempli diuini dogmatis almi,
quod monet ut laudes uitemus et ut populares
rumores si caelica Tempe uelimus adire.

[He says that the celestial spirit has sung it (in collaboration) with him, forgetful of the gracious exemplum of divine doctrine which admonishes us to avoid praise and popular fame if we wish to enter the vales of heaven.]

Closely related to divine inspiration is the idea of "gifts," which Aldhelm uses three times in his prologue to Aenigmata. He petitions God, "Munera nunc largire" (7: Now bestow your gifts on me). He affirms that "Sic, Deus, indignis tua gratis dona rependis" (9: Thus, Lord, to the unworthy you give your gifts); and again, "Nam mihi versificum poterit Deus addere carmen / Inspirans stolidae pia gratis munera menti" (14-15: For God can fill me with the power of song, breathing the holy gifts of poetry into my dull mind).⁸ The idea of "gifts" appears also in Bryhtferth, who in his Manual⁹ twice quotes from Arator:

Spiritus alme ueni! sine te non diceris
  umquam;
Munera da lingue, qui das [in] munere
  linguas.
Cum nu, Halig Gast! butan be bis[t] þu
  gewurðod;
Gyf þine gyfe þære  tungan, þe þu gifst gyfe
  on gereorde.

Bryhtferth, of course, is not writing poetry. His first use of Arator comes after an apologetic reference to his "unadorned" prose style (p. 132). Since Bryhtferth's style is, actually, rhetorically elaborate, if unsuccessfully so, I conclude that his stylistic disclaimer and the "munere" metaphor were no more than fixed details in a topos. His second use of Arator comes after a loose translation of Aldhelm's passage on inspiration in De virginitate (p. 148). Now Bryhtferth could not have got the idea of a poetic "gift" from De virginitate, though he could have got it from Aenigmata if he knew that work. It seems likely that Bryhtferth is using De virginitate in an attempt to apply to prose Aldhelm's views on poetry; but he supplements De virginitate by adding the idea of poetic "gift" drawn from Arator. Bryhtferth may have had good reason to include the notion of divine gift, if by this time the Anglo-Saxons were still thinking of poetic composition within the framework of the "gifts of men."

The "gifts of men" idea as found in Old English poetry appears to be a fusion of Germanic and Christian convention. At times it seems difficult to sort out which details in the topos are Germanic and which are Christian. G. Russom¹⁰ calls attention to the Old Norse tradition of "iþróttir"—gentlemanly accomplishments—in Eddic poetry and in some of the sagas. These "iþróttir" include an array of skills: swordsmanship, horsemanship, seamanship, acrobatics, swimming, running, juggling, versifying, playing the harp, hunting, weapons craftmanship, and so on. The same diversity of skills is catalogued in the Exeter Book Gifts of Men, and the apparently unsystematic, even trivial, list of skills in that poem—few of which can be associated with Anglo-Saxon vocations—suddenly makes sense when seen as diverse talents that authenticate one's aristocratic standing. To emphasize the Germanic background I quote two Eddic stanzas adduced by Russom (pp. 2-3), the first from Hyndlolioð (stanza 3):

Gefr hann sig sumom,  enn sumom aura,
mæsco m rgom  oc manvit firom;
byri gefr hann brognom,  enn brag scáldom,
gefr hann mansemi  m rgom recci

[He (Odin) gives victory to some, and to others gold, eloquence to many and wisdom to men; he gives sailing winds to heroes and poetry to skalds, he gives bravery to many champions.]

The second is from Hávamál (stanza 69):

Erat maðr allz vesall,  pótt hann sé illa heill;
  sumr er af sonom sæll,
sumr af frœndom,  sumr af fé œrno,
  sumr af vercom vel.

[No man is entirely wretched, though he be feeble; one is blessed with sons, one with friends, one with riches well supplied, one happy in his accomplishments.]

Compare Gifts of Men, lines 8-16a:

Ne bið ænig Pæs  earfoðsælig
mon on moldan,  ne pæs medspedig,
lytelhydig,  ne pæs læthydig,
þæt hine se argifa  ealles biscyrge
modes cræfta  oþþe mægendæda,
wis on gewitte  oþe on wordcwidum,
þy læs ormod sy  ealraþinga,
þaraþe he geworhte  in woruldlife,
geofona gehwylcre.

[Nor is any man in the world so wretched, nor so needy, weak in thought, nor so dull-minded, that the merciful Giver strips him of all skill of mind or of physical abilities (mwgendada), lest he should despair of all the things he did in life, of every benefit. God never decrees that anyone shall become so wretched.]

Old Norse analogues notwithstanding, it would be a mistake to deny the Anglo-Saxon "gifts of men" topos its Christian heritage, though I freely acknowledge the likelihood of a Germanic influence on this fundamentally Christian idea. As J. E. Cross has noted," the topos has scriptural authority from the parable of talents in Matthew 25:14-30, where two servants are rewarded for making profitable use of their talents, while a third servant is condemned for hiding his one talent in the earth. Again in 1 Corinthians 12-14 and in Ephesians 4:4-16, Christ is said to have distributed gifts to men at the time of His ascension—gifts given "unto edification," that is, for the building up of the Church (1 Cor. 14:2; Eph. 4:12). It should be observed, in connection with the Gifts of Men passage quoted above, that the apostle Paul twice emphasizes that each member of the Church has some gift that enables him to share in its communal ministry (1 Cor. 12:4-7; Eph. 4:7 and 4:13). No one is without some gift.

The central ideas of the "gifts of men" doctrine would be that a talent is a divine gift; that possession of a talent implies an obligation to use it in such a way that it contributes to the unity and growth of the Church; that the talents are diverse; and that they are variously distributed to promote Christian unity and to prevent pride. This latter idea appears at the end of Cynewulf's catalog of the gifts of men in Ascension:

Nyle he ængum anum   ealle gesyllan
gæstes snyttru,   þy læs him gielp sceþþe
þurh his anes cræft   ofer oþre forð

[Christ II, 683-85: He will not give to any one person all wisdom of spirit, lest boasting injure him because of any one (man) being placed above others (with respect to) talent.]

This idea has its origin in the emphasis on humility in Ephesians 4:2-3. The idea appears in more explicit form in Gregory's Homily 10 on Ezekiel: "non enim uni dantur omnia, ne in superbiam elatus cadat" (but indeed [He] will not give all [gifts] to one, lest he perish [being] puffed up with pride).¹² Similar to Cynewulf's statement is the sentence that closes the catalog in Gifts of Men:

Nis nu ofer eorþan   ænig monna
modeþæs cræftig,   neþæs mægeneacen,
þæt hi æfre anum   ealle weorþen
gegearwade,   by læs him gilp sceððe.

[Gifts of Men, 97-100: There is not over the earth any man so crafty in mind, nor so powerful, that he is ever alone endowed with all (the gifts), lest boasting injure him.]

Thus Gifts of Men begins and ends with the two scriptural themes that no one is without some gift and that no person possesses all the gifts. This Christianized reference to the minimum and maximum limits of human talent circumscribes the Germanic catalog of "iþróttir," which occupies the body of the poem. Hence Gifts of Men displays a blend of Christian and secular traditions.

Christian and secular traditions are blended in a more complex way in the "gifts of men" passage in Ascension where, after citing the gift of poetry (to be considered later in this chapter), Cynewulf lists various other talents:

            Sum mæg fingrum wel
hlude fore hælekum   hearpan stirgan,
gleobeam gretan.   Sum mæg godcunde
reccan ryhte æ.   Sum mæg ryne tungla
secgan, side gesceaft.   Sum mæg searolice
wordcwide writan.   Sumum wiges sped
giefeð æt guþe,   þonne gargetrum
ofer scildhreadan   sceotend sendað
flacor flangeweorc.   Sum mæg fromlice
ofer sealtne sæ   sundwudu drifan,
hreran holmþræce.   Sum mæg heanne beam
stælgne gestian.   Sum mæg styled sweord
wæpen gewyrcan.   Sum con wonga bigong,
wegan widgielle.

[Christ II, 668b-81a: One may skillfully with his fingers play the harp before heroes, pluck the gleewood. One may expound the righteous law of God. One may tell the mystery of the stars, the vast creation. One may skillfully write a discourse. To one is given victory in battle, when archers sent forth a shower of darts over the shield, flying arrows. One may boldly drive the ship over the salt sea, stir the troubled water. One may climb the high, steep tree. One may make a tempered sword, a brand. One knows the expanse of the plains, far-reaching paths.]

Some critics have sensed an aesthetic difficulty with this seemingly miscellaneous list. The most frequent response to it has been an attempt to explain away the reference to tree climbing (678b-79a), variously referred to athletics (Cook, Klaeber), carpentry (Gerould, taking "beam" as "timber"), falcon gathering or acting as a lookout (Howard), gathering leaves to feed cattle (Whiting), or interpreted symbolically as a reference to Christ ascending the Cross (Kennedy, translating "beam" as "Cross"), or to martyrs who imitate Christ by giving up material things (Grosz), or as a ritual climbing of the cosmic tree, suggestive of initiation into the mysteries of shamanistic knowledge (Isaacs). Grosz has attempted to explain all the physical gifts as allegorical: thus the victorious warrior (673-76) wards off arrows of temptation; the weapons maker (679b-80a) provides spiritual defenses against the devil; the sailor (676b-78a) pilots his boat through the journey of life.¹³ None of these explanations has much foundation in the text.

Clemoes has contributed some rhetorical observations that suggest a systematic organization for the list: the first five gifts are mental talents; the second five are physical; and within each group of five there is a decreasing order of elaboration, with several verses devoted to the first two gifts, but only two verses devoted to each of the last three gifts. Moreover, in each group of five the first item is introduced by "Sumum," whereas the other gifts are introduced by anaphora with "Sum."¹⁴ Such careful rhetorical patterning suggests that the talents were purposefully chosen, but for what purpose? I would suggest that Cynewulf, like the Gifts of Men poet, uses the Germanic íþróttir," and includes tree climbing so that the "íþróttir" would not be mistaken for vocationes. He chooses "íþróttir" because an "í'þrótt" is an authentication of aristocratic standing, or more generally, of ennoblement. The central theme of Ascension is that Christ, through his triumphant ascent to heaven, has elevated mankind in the present as well as in the future. One aspect of human elevation was the distribution of "gifts," talents, at the time of His ascension. Cynewulf, indeed, tells us that this is his purpose for the catalog of gifts, in the envelope framework at the beginning and end of the catalog. He begins "ða us geweorðade … ond us giefe sealde" (659a and 660b: Then he ennobled us … and gave us gifts), and ends "ðus god meahtig … crwftum warðaþ" (686a and 687b: Thus mighty God … ennobles [us] through crafts). For a similar association of talent and honor compare the Anglo Saxon apothegm, "Gif ðu hwilcne craft cunne, bega ðone georne; swa swa sorge and ymbhogan ge-yceð monnes mod, swa ge-ycð se crwft his are" (If you know any craft, pursue it zealously; even as sorrow and reflection increase a man's intellect, so craft increases his honor).¹⁵

The catalog of "ifróttir" is only one of several forms in which the "gifts of men" idea may appear in Old English literature. Another is the doctrine of vocationes. Walter Ullmann, in The Individual and Society in the Middle Ages, remarks that "It is assuredly not without coincidence that we know so very little of the personal traits of most of the men who directed the path of medieval society.… There are few biographical data.… What mattered was not the individual, not the man, but … the office which that individual occupied,"¹⁶ that is to say, his function within the society. In a sense, the individual did not possess an "identity" apart from society. His function within it gave meaning to his life. This is perhaps the reason why medieval European culture developed the practice of giving personal names reflective of crafts, like Smith or Miller. The underlying social ideology was the doctrine of the three estates so often expressed in Old English prose, wherein the bellator was thought to preserve order and protect the Church, while the orator and laborator provide for the spiritual and material needs of the society.¹⁷ In its practical application this meant that every individual had a vocatio, a calling, and was obliged to "remain in the state to which he was called" (1 Cor. 7:20, whence the doctrine of vocationes). Ælfric, in his Colloquy, seems to make use of this Pauline admonition, as well as the doctrine of the three estates, when he exhorts his students, "Siue sis sacerdos, siue monachus, seu laicus, seu miles, exerce temet ipsum in hoc, et esto quod es; quia magnum dampnun et uerecundia est homini nolle esse quod est et quod esse debet" (Whether you are priest or monk, layman or knight, apply yourself to that, and be what you are; for it is a great injury and shame for a man to not wish to be what he is and what he must be). Compare the apothegm "Leorna hwætwæge cræftas; ðeah ðe ðine sælða forlæton, ne forlæt ðu ðinne cræft" (Learn any sort of craft; though your wealth desert you, desert not your craft).¹⁸ The idea of vocationes (without specific reference to a biblical verse or sociological ideology) also underlies the "Elegy of the Last Survivor" in Beowulf (2231-70a). Beginning on an abstract level, the Last Survivor refers to the people he has lost as "hæleð, "eorlas," "fyra gehwylcne/leoda minra" (2247b-15a); but then he enumerates them in terms of their vocationes: the one who bears a sword (2252b), the one who burnishes the ornamented cup (2253a), the duguth (2254b), the ones who had the duty of polishing the war helmet (2257), the warriors (2261a), the scop, falconer, farrier (2262b-65a). Like the dragon's treasures—swords, cups, coats of mail, standards—the men are thought of in terms of their various functions, a point emphasized by the fact that within his speech, the Last Survivor alternates back and forth between the treasures and the men. The society is thought of as being composed of men who have specific functions; and consequently the dissolution of society is expressed in terms of their inability to perform those functions.

The "gifts of men" topos appears elsewhere in Old English literature: in Ælfric's Catholic Homily In natale unius confessoris (based on Gregory's Homily 9 on the parable of talents), in the Blickling Homilies, in biblical commentary¹⁹—enough to show that the idea was well known and important. Especially important is Gregory's use of the doctrine in part one of his Regulae pastoralis (section five in King Alfred's Old English translation), where we are told that God bestows gifts to some men so as to make them fit as spiritual teachers. Such gifts are not for the sake of the gifted alone, but for the sake of many men. If one man so gifted refuses to teach, preferring for example the contemplative life, he deprives many men of the gifts God had intended for them.²⁰ Bede, in his letter to Ecgberht, written ca. 735, about the time Ecgberht became bishop of York, recommends to him the reading of Scripture and also the works of Gregory, especially Regulae pastoralis and his homilies on the Gospels. Among the several parts of the letter clearly drawn from Regulae pastoralis is a warning to Ecgberht "ut gradum sacrosanctum quem tibi Auctor gradum et spiritualium largitor charismatum committere dignatus est, sacrosancta et operatione et doctrina confirmare memineris. Neutra enim haec virtus sine altera rite potest impleri: si aut is qui bene vivit docendi officium neglegit, aut recte docens antistes rectam exercere operationem contemnit" (that you be mindful with holiness of practice and teaching to maintain the holy dignity with which the Author of all dignity and the Giver of spiritual gifts hath vouchsafed to put in your keeping. For neither of these virtues may duly be fulfilled apart from the other: if either the man of good life neglect the office of teacher, or the bishop that teacheth rightly despise the practice of good works).²¹ Also reminiscent of Gregory is Bryhtferth's comment, in his Manual, that "Gerysenlic þ[i]s þing byð þam lareowe, þœt he na forhele his hlosnere þœt riht þe he on þam cræfte can" (This is a fitting thing for the teacher—not to conceal from his auditor such accurate knowledge of the art as he possesses), and again, "Simul erunt rei in conspectu iusti arbitris qui nolunt scire et qui nolunt docere" (Those who refuse to know and those who refuse to teach, will be alike guilty in the sight of the just Judge, pp. 56-59). The Glossa ordinaria, similarly, emphasizes the obligations incurred by the gifted: "that which is given to each one in secular or spiritual things is charged to his account, as the talent for which he will have to give a reckoning when the Lord returns" (PL 114, 166). A specific connection between composition and the parable of talents is made by the unknown author of "De transitu Mariae Aegyptica," collected in Ælfric's Lives of Saints.²²

ic nænige þinga ne for-suwige þa halgan geræcednyssa. se me gecydde þœt ic on gefealle on þone genyðredan cwyde þæs slawan þeawas. se þone onfangenan talent fram his hlaforde butan geweaxnysse ahydde on eroðan.

[I will in no wise be silent concerning the holy records. He hath made known to me that I may fall into the disgraceful sentence of the slothful servant, who hid the talent received from his Lord, without increase, in the earth.]

The "gifts of men" topos is prominent in Bede's account of Cædmon,²³ who did not learn the art of poetry from a man or from men, but acquired it from a God as a canendi donum (p. 414: gift of song)—an idea Bede repeats several times in his story. The idea that poetry is a "gift" is not, of course, peculiar to the Anglo-Saxons. Six centuries after Bede, the ideas of gift, poetry, and moral responsibility come together in a letter supposedly written by a monk Ilario to Uguccione della Feggiuola, after Dante had visited Ilario with a copy of his Inferno: "Nor is it only the desire of glory which moves the good that is within us to bring forth fruit, but the very commandment of God, which forbids us to leave idle the gifts that are given to us."²⁴ The letter was once attributed to Boccaccio, who, in Genealogia deorum Gentilium, does refer to poetry as a gift from God, but with an emphasis on the "fervor" of inspiration rather than on divine beneficence and its consequent responsibilities.²⁵ The Anglo-Saxon emphasis is closer to Ilario than to Boccaccio.

To judge from Bede's description of Cadmon, the gift of song has three components (and this will be confirmed by comparison with Cynewulf): first, memory; second, wisdom or understanding as a result of meditation; third, inspiration. As for memory, Cwdmon's task was to learn the stories of Scripture as they were read or explained to him by the monks of Whitby. As a component in the composition of Old English religious verse, memory has a double foundation, Germanic and Christian: in the background of oral formulaic poetry, and in the monastic tradition of exegesis. The role of memory in Germanic oral formulaic poetry may, of course, be difficult to define with precision. Ruth Finnegan has warned us that "memorization" is in some ways too vague, in other ways too limiting a term for a compositional process that operates differently in different cultures and often depends more on improvisation than on recall; hence variant readings in the records of an oral poem are not always due to faulty memory.²⁶ The different readings of Cadmon's Hymn, however—to take the only Old English poem unquestionably oral in its composition—are close enough to suggest a process other than improvisation, but different enough to suggest, in some cases, a process other than error in scribal transmission. At line 6, for example, two Northumbrian versions read "he wrist scop Elda barnum," "he wrist scoop eorðu bearnum," and two West Saxon versions read "he wrest sceop eoroan bearnum" and "he wrest gesceop ylda bearnum."²⁷ The variant readings "wlda," "eorou" suggest a scop supplying a formula to fill in a gap where memory had failed him. The importance of memory is illustrated further in a story told by Asser, in his biography of King Alfred, about how Alfred, unable to read, obtained a book of Old English poems as a gift from his mother Osburh, as a reward for memorizing the poems in it with the help of his tutor. Afterwards Alfred learned the "Daily Course" (the services for each hour), and some psalms and prayers, which he had collected in a book evidently compiled as an aid to the process of memorization. Donald Fry points out that we have, in this story, evidence that books were compiled in some cases not to replace memory but to assist it.²⁸ So, too, in Alfred's translation of Saint Augustine's Soliloquies, Mod instructs Augustinus to write down her teachings as a supplement to faulty memory.²⁹ The monks of Whitby wrote down CEdmon's poems too, and it is likely that they did so in order that the poems might be memorized later.

Good memory was a talent also valued in a medieval monk because of the role of reminiscence in the exegetical process. Augustine, in De doctrina christiana, recommends reading and memorizing Scripture as the first step toward understanding it (11.14; Robertson, trans., p. 42). Cuthbert seems to have memorized large portions of Scripture, and Wilfrid memorized two versions of the Psalms as well as other parts of the Bible.³⁰ Dom Jean Leclercq, in his account of monastic spiritual life, emphasizes the importance of memory and reminiscence of Scripture, which results not in exact recall but in a recombination of biblical ideas and images in a poetic expression permeated with biblical vocabulary.³¹ In Cedmon's case the importance of memory is clear immediately after his dream of the angel: "Exsurgens autem a somno, cuncta quae dormiens cantauerat memoriter retenuit, et eis mox plura in eundem modum verba Deo digni carminis adiunxit" (Hist. eccl. IV, 24, p. 416: When he awoke, he remembered all that he had sung while asleep and soon added more verses in the same manner, praising God in fitting style).

Next after memory comes wisdom as a result of meditation, described metaphorically as rumination: "At ipse cuncta, quae audiendo discere poterat, rememorando secum et quasi mundum animal ruminando, in carmen dulcissimum conuertebat, suauisque resonando doctores suos uicissim auditores sui faciebat" (p. 418: He learned all he could by listening to them [the brothers] and then, memorizing it and ruminating over it, like some clean animal chewing the cud, he turned it into the most melodious verse: and it sounded so sweet as he recited it that his teachers became in turn his audience). The metaphor of meditation as "chewing the cud" originates from the distinction between clean and unclean beasts in Leviticus 11.3-8, a passage for which klfric gives a standard exegesis in his Passio Sanctorum Machabeorum:

þa nytenu synd clæne þe to-cleofað heora clawa and heora cudu ceowað. hi getacniað þa geleaffullan on godes gelaðounge. þe mid geleafan underfoðþa ealdan gecyðnysse and cristes gesetnysse. þæt is seo ealde. æ. and seo niwe gecyðnyss. and ceowað godes beboda symle mid smeagunge.

[Lives of Saints, ed. Skeat, 2:70: Those beasts are clean that cleave their claws, and chew their cud; they betoken the believers in God's congregation, who with belief receive the Old Testament and Christ's ordinance, that is, the Old Law and the New Testament, and chew God's commands ever with meditation.]

Thomas Hill points out that thematic development in the Advent Lyrics, characterized by a kind of association of words and ideas, illustrates the process of rumination.³² Rumination is important in Cynewulf's idea of poetic composition too, as we shall see below.

The third component of Cwdmon's gift, inspiration, is what sets this poet apart from his monastic mentors, and also from his imitators, who attempt to compose religious poems in his manner but with little success (p. 414). Even Bede refrains from making a poetic translation of Cwdmon's Hymn, offering instead a prose paraphrase,³³ thereby wisely excluding himself from the ranks of mediocre Cadmonians. For Aldhelm, inspiration, the breathing in of divine Spirit, results in elegance and metrical correctness in a poet whose voice is otherwise "rural" and metrically inept. For Cwdmon, inspiration results in "delightful and moving poetry" not achieved by his imitators. From the practical point of view of a literary critic, inspiration seems to refer to the poet's mastery of technical skill in rhetorical expression and correct verse-making, whether such mastery comes after years of study as was the case with Cynewulf, or overnight as was the case with Cadmon.

As the recipient of a divine gift, Cadmon acquired two obligations: first, to take up monastic life, as he was instructed to do by Abbess Hild (p. 418); second, to compose poems "unto edification": by no means could he "compose any foolish or trivial poem" (such as those recited at the banquet whence he had departed), "but only those which were concerned with devotion," and which inspired men "to despise the world and to long for the heavenly life" (p. 415). His topics embraced the whole of sacred history from Creation to Doomsday, the topics central to a good Benedictine education: the creation, the whole history of Genesis, the exodus of Israel from Egypt, the incarnation, passion, ressurection, and ascension of Christ, the coming of the Holy Spirit and the teaching of the apostles, the terrors of future judgment, the horrors of hell, and the joys of heaven. What is important here is the sense of a religious mission supported by an overall program, a plan carefully conceived in accordance with the catechetical narratio tradition, which has its roots, at least for the West, in Augustine's De catechizandis rudibus.³⁴ It is this aspect of Cadmon's career that was supervised by persons schooled in Benedictine intellectual tradition—Abbess Hild and the monks of Whitby.

It will be evident by now that I concur with Stanley B. Greenfield's recent remarks on Barbara C. Raw's thesis, in her Art and Background of Old English Poetry, that the Anglo-Saxons regarded poetry not as a special gift but as a craft, differing from prose only in degree, not in kind. To this Greenfield responds that

the example of Caedmon and the author's [Raw's] observation that Cynewulf "appropriates [a] general claim of divine inspiration to himself… at the end of Elene" would suggest that the Anglo-Saxon poet could and did recognize the concept of inspiration in, as well as the craft of, his art. Dr. Raw might have considered more carefully the fact that while all Old English poetry is verse … the converse is not necessarily so.³⁵

The view of poetic composition that we have seen implicit in Bede's account of Caedmon becomes explicit in Cynewulf's account of himself at the end of Elene and again in his catalogue of the "gifts of men" in Ascension. The catalog in Ascension presents in compressed form the attributes of poetic composition seen also in Bede:

Sumum wordlaþe   wise sendeð
on his modes gemynd   þurh his muþes gæst,
æðele ondgiet.   Se mæg eal fela
singan ond secgan  þam bið snyttru cræft
bifolen on ferðe.

[Christ II, 664-68a: To one He sends, to his memory, wise eloquence through the spirit of his mouth, noble understanding. He may sing and tell all the many things, the wisdom that is committed to his mind.]

The inclusion of poetry among the "gifts of men" as an "ίþrótt" is also seen in Gifts of Men, 35b-36: "Sum bið woðbora, / giedda giffæst."

"Modes gemynd" in Cynewulf's catalog means "memory," which seems to mean the ability to orchestrate diverse materials drawn from various sources, such as Cynewulf does in Ascension and Elene, where a basic Latin source is amplified with biblical allusions and with themes drawn from Christian and secular traditions. In Elene the poet asserts that his materials were collected from various sources (1254b-56a):

         swa ic on bocum fand
wyrda gangum, on gewritum cyðan
be ðam sigebeacne.

In Ascension, Cynewulf frequently introduces a new meditative section with "swa gewritu secgað" (547b), "Bi þon se witga cwæð" (691b), and so on, to give the impression of a narrator consulting his memory for relevant authorities on a given topic.

"Æðele ondgiet," noble understanding, the second component in the poetic gift, implies spiritual wisdom, sapientia, the ability of the mind to transcend earthly limitations and attain spiritual heights. In Ascension this idea is illustrated in the meditation on the "fugles fliht" which immediately precedes the "gifts of men" catalog (627-58). The bird's flight is hidden from those who deny the ascension (654-58), from those who possess only a darkened understanding and a heart of stone (639-41). In Elene Cynewulf speaks more explicitly about the role of wisdom as a liberating force that frees him from earthly bonds:

           nysse ic gearwe
be ðære [rode] riht  ær me rumran geþeaht,
þurh ða mæran miht,  on modesþeaht,
wisdom onwreah;  ic wæs …
bitrum gebunden, bisgum beprungen,
ær me lare  onlagþurh leohtne had,
gamelum to geoce,  gife unscynde
mægencyning ámæt.

[Elene, 1239b-47a: I knew not fully the truth about the Cross until, through illustrious power, God disclosed wisdom to the counsels of my heart, a deeper understanding. I was … bound in bitterness, oppressed by cares, until in glorious wise the radiant King of Might gave me wisdom, a perfect gift, as a comfort to my old age.]

Cynewulf s source for this, the epilogue to the Vita sanctae Mariae meretricis, alludes to the parable of talents and emphasizes the obligation that his talent as a writer imposes on him. Cynewulf modifies this to emphasize the blessedness of the gift, but otherwise he keeps the image of nocturnal meditation as well as the details fixed in the "aged author" topos discussed in chapter 1:

Praeoccupante autem nocte, somno adgrauesco propter meam mollitatem, quia acceptum habeo a Deo talentum, et die noctuque certor negotium facientem, ut merear ab eo laudari et mittat mihi super decem ciuitates ego autem propter meam pigritiam abscondo illud subtus terram, et Dominus meus appropinquat ut a me talentum dupplum requirat. Et ecce dum ueniet, quid facturus sum? quid illi respondeam?

[Wilmart, ed., p. 239: When night falls, however, I am weighed down with sleep because of weakness. I received a talent from God and I should try to do business with it day and night, so that I may earn his praise and He may place me over ten cities. But because I am lazy, I hide it under the ground. When my Lord comes to ask me for the talent, doubled in value, what shall I do? What shall I say in answer to Him?]

The Latin author laments. Cynewulf instead gives thanks for the spiritual consolation and liberation that his gift brings. In spirit his autobiographical epilogue is, perhaps, closer to the collocation of wisdom, the gift of poetry, and spiritual comfort that appears in the Exeter Book Maxims (ASPR, 3:156-63):

Wæra gehwylcum wislicu   word gerisað,
gleomen gied   ond guman synttro.
Swa monige beok men ofer eorþan,   swa
  beol modgeþoncas;
ælc him hafað sundorsefan.
Longaðþnneþy læs   þe him con leoþa
  worn,
oþþe mid hondum con  hearpan gretan;
hafaþ him his gliwes giefe,  be him god
  sealde.

[Maxims I, 165-71: Wise words befit all men, a song (befits) a poet and wisdom (befits) a man. There are as many thoughts as there are men over the earth: each has his own separate heart's longing; yet he has the less longing who knows many songs, or who with his hands can pluck the harp; he has his gift of poetry, which God gave him.]

"Muþes gæst," the third component in the gift of poetry, implies inspiration in some sense. Possibly Cynewulf has in mind the Pauline distinction between spirit and mind as developed in I Corinthians 14:14-15: "Nam si orem lingua, spiritus meus orat, mens autem mea sine fructu est. Quid ergo est? Orabo spiritu, orabo et mente: psallam spiritu, psallam et mente." This passage, a meditation on speaking in tongues, one of the spiritual gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12, might easily have been recalled by Cynewulf as he contemplated the implications of the "gifts of men." Ælfric, commenting on Paul, explains the distinction this way: "Se singð mid gaste. se ðe clypað þa word mid muðe. and ne under-stænt þæs andigites getacnunge. and se singð mid mod se ðe þæs andgites getacnung understænt" (Lives of Saints, 1:22: He sings with the spirit who utters the words with his mouth and understands not the signification of their meaning; and he sings with the mind who understands the signification of their meaning). The passage in I Corinthians 14 inspires Ælfric to use the same vocabulary items as Cynewulf: sing, gœst, muþ, ondgiet. Perhaps Cynewulf thinks of poetic inspiration as analogous to speaking in tongues, in much the same way as Aldhelm thought of poetic inspiration as analogous to prophetic inspiration. Bryhtferth certainly supplies such an analogy when he quotes from Arator, "Munera da lingue, qui das in munere linguas." Whether or not this is the case with Cynwulf, his concept of inspiration does seem to emphasize the physical aspect of poetic composition and delivery, as opposed to the intellective aspect; hence his allusion to "mu'p" in Ascension, and to liberation of "bancofan" and "breostlocan" in Elene (1249). We recall Aldhelm's "swelling heart," which reflects the physical symptoms of prophetic inspiration in the Old Testament.

Cynewulf was not the last writer in a Germanic dialect to see a connection between the "mouth" and "spirit" of I Corinthians 12—between eloquence and understanding—and poetic composition. In the thirteenth century Norse Konungs Skuggsja ("King's Mirror"), chapter 48, we are reminded that

The apostle Paul tells that God has given his Holy Spirit with a definite office and activity: some receive a spirit of prophecy, some a spirit of knowledge and wisdom, some a spirit of eloquence, some a spirit of understanding, and some a spirit of skill; some enjoy one of these gifts, others two, still others three, while some have all, each one as God wills to endow him.³⁶

And the writer goes on to discuss King David, as psalmist, as an example of a person who received "both the spirit of understanding and of eloquence." This passage is one of several in Konungs Skuggsjá that demonstrate knowledge of the "gifts of men" topos in northern lands; but more important, it displays explicitly the cluster of ideas implicit in Ascension. The analogue gives some credence to my interpretation of the Ascension passage.

Cynewulf makes no explicit statement about the obligations a poet incurs as a result of his gift, though he must certainly have been reminded of this theme while working with the allusion to the parable of talents in the Vita sanctae Mariae meretricis. There are in the Cynewulf corpus, however, clear signs of an educational program analogous to the catechetical narratio tradition seen in the poetic career of Cædmon. As we have seen in chapter 1, the central concern of Cynewulf's poetry is God's repeated revelation of Himself to mankind in the continuing apostolic mission, beginning with the Great Commission and culminating in the establishment of Christendom during the reign of Constantine. By pursuing the historical vision that unifies his corpus, Cynewulf uses his poetic talent "unto edification," and in this sense continues the mission of the apostles. The idea of poetic talent as one of the "gifts of men" was something more than a convenient topos under which to subsume memory, wisdom through meditation, and inspiration, though it was that. The requirement that the gifts be used "unto edification," for the building up of the Church, provided the poet with a theological context in which to view his social functions as evangelist.

Notes

¹ Bernard F. Huppé, Doctrine and Poetry (New York: State University of New York, 1959); Philip Rollinson, "Some Kinds of Meaning in Old English Poetry," Annuale Medievale 11 (1970):5-21.

² Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. Willard R. Trask (New York: Harper & Row, 1953), pp. 228-46 and 457-58.

³ Augustine, De doctrina christiana 2.27, in D. W. Robertson, trans., Saint Augustine: On Christian Doctrine (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1958), p. 53.

⁴ Aldhelm, De metris, in Aldhelmi Opera, ed. Rudolf Ehwald, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi 15 (1913-19): 78; cf. Persius, prologue, lines 1-3.

⁵ Aldhelm, De virginitate, in Aldhelmi Opera, ed. Ehwald, pp. 353-54; The Riddles of Aldhelm, ed. James Hall Pitman (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1925), pp. 2-5.

⁶ See Abraham Avni, "Inspiration in Plato and the Hebrew Prophets," Comparative Literature 20 (1968): 55-63.

⁷ Michael Lapidge, "Three Latin Poems from Æthelwold's School at Winchester," Anglo-Saxon England 1 (1972): 108-21; for the "Altercatio," pp. 108-21, lines 41-44. Lapidge's translation.

⁸Riddles of Aldhelm, ed. Pitman, pp. 2-3.

⁹Bryhtferth's Manual, ed. Samuel Crawford, EETS, o.s. 177 (Oxford, 1929): 134 and 150; cf. Aratoris de Actibus Apostolorum 1. 226-27, PL 118:115-16.

¹⁰ Geoffrey R. Russom, "A Germanic Concept of Nobility in The Gifts of Men and Beowulf," Speculum 53 (1978): 1-15.

¹¹ Cross, "The Old English Poetic Theme of 'The Gifts of Men,'" Neophilologus 46 (1962): 66-70.

¹²Hom. in Hiezechihelem 10.32, in Sancti Gregorii Magni Homiliae in Hiezechihelem Prophetam, ed. Marcus Adriaen, CCSL 142 (Turnhout, 1971): 160; also in PL 76: 899. Sir Israel Gollancz, ed., Cynewulf's Christ, An Eighth Century English Epic (London: D. Nutt, 1892), p. 163, cites this passage as Cynewulf's source, and Cook, ed., Christ of Cynewulf, [(Boston, 1900)] p. 141, agrees. Gollancz points out that the same thought is developed by Gregory in his Commentary on Job, 38.4-5, which he regards as the source of the OE Gifts of Men.

For my quotations from Christ II and Gifts of Men, and for all other Old English poetry except as noted otherwise, the edition used is that of Elliott van Kirk Dobbie and George P. Krapp, Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, 6 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931-1953).

¹³ Cook, ed., Christ of Cynewulf, p. 137; Fr. Klaeber, "Jottings on Old English Poems," Anglia 53 (1929): 231-34; Gordon H. Gerould, "Carpenter or Athlete? Christ vv. 678-9," [Journal of English and Germanic Philology] 28 (1929): 161-65; Edwin J. Howard, "Old English Tree Climbing: Christ vv. 678-79," JEGP 30 (1931): 152-54; B. J. Whiting, "A Further Note on Old English Tree-Climbing: Christ, vv. 678-79," JEGP 31 (1932): 256-57; Charles W. Kennedy, The Poems of Cynewulf (London: G. Routledge, 1910), p. 173; Oliver J. H. Grosz, "Man's Imitation of the Ascension: The Unity of Christ II," Neophilologus 54 (1970): 406; Neil D. Isaacs, "Up a Tree: To See The Fates of Men," in Anglo-Saxon Poetry: Essays in Appreciation for John C. McGalliard, ed. Lewis E. Nicholson and Dolores Warwick Frese (South Bend, Ind.: Notre Dame University Press, 1975), pp. 363-75.

¹⁴ Peter Clemoes, Rhythm and Cosmic Order in Old English Christian Literature, inaugural lecture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp. 12-13.

¹⁵ "Anglo-Saxon Apothegms" 59, in John Kemble, ed., The Dialogue of Salomon and Saturnus (London: Ælfric Society, 1848), pp. 266-67.

¹⁶ Walter Ullmann, The Individual and Society in the Middle Ages (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins, 1966), pp. 43-44.

¹⁷ E.g., King Alfred's Old English Version of Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae, ed. Walter John Sedgefield (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1899), pp. 40-41 (chap. 17); The Old English Version of the Heptateuch, Ælfric's Treatise on the Old and New Testament and his Preface to Genesis, ed. Samuel J. Crawford, EETS, o.s. 160 (London, 1922): 71-72, lines 1204-20; AEfric's Lives of Saints, ed. Walter W. Skeat, EETS, o.s. 76, 82, 94 and 114 (Oxford, 1881-1900): 120-24, lines 812-62; Die "Institutes of Polity, Civil and Ecclesiastical," Ein Werk Erzbischof Wulfstans von York, ed. Karl Jost (Bern: A. Francke, 1959), pp. 55-57. See also Ruth Mohl, The Three Estates in Medieval and Renaissance Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1933), which, however, is weak on the Anglo-Saxon period.

¹⁸AElfric's Colloquy, ed. G. N. Garmonsway (London: Methuen, 1938), pp. 41-42, lines 240-43; discussed in Earl R. Anderson, "Social Idealism in IElfric's Colloquy," Anglo-Saxon England 3 (1974): 153-62. "Anglo-Saxon Apothegms" 57, in Kemble, ed., Dialogue, pp. 264-65.

¹⁹Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church, ed. Thorpe, 2: 548-63, cf. Gregory, PL 76: 1109; Blickling Homilies, ed. Richard Morris, EETS, o.s. 58, 63, and 73 (Oxford, 1874-80): 51, on the parable of talents; I. Fransen, "Fragments épars du commentaire perdu d'Alcuin sur l'epitre aux Ephesiens," Revue Benedictine 81 (1971): 45, on Eph. 4:9-12; Pseudo-Bede, In Matthei Evangelium expositio, PL 92:109, on the parable of talents, which is apparently related to Rabanus Maurus, Commentariorum in Matthaeum, PL 107: 1095. The continuing importance of the parable of talents is discussed by V. A. Kolve, "Everyman and the Parable of the Talents," in Medieval English Drama: Essays Critical and Contextual, ed. Jerome Taylor and Alan H. Nelson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), pp. 316-40. See also The Panther (ASPR 3: 169-71), lines 69-74.

²⁰King Alfred's West-Saxon Version of Gregory's Pastoral Care, ed. Henry Sweet, EETS, o.s. 45 (Oxford, 1871): 40-46.

²¹ Bede, Epistola ad Ecgberctum antistitem 2, in J. E. King, ed., Baedae Opera Historica (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963), 2: 466-49.

²²Elfric's Lives of Saints, ed. Skeat, 2: 2, lines 12-15.

²³ Bede, Hist. eccles. 4. 24; in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969), pp. 414-21.

²⁴ Paget Toynbee, Dante Alighieri, His Life and Works, ed. Charles S. Singleton (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), p. 264, and see p. 92, n. 3.

²⁵Boccaccio on Poetry, trans. Charles Grosvenor Osgood (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1930), pp. 39, 41 and 46.

²⁶ Ruth Finnegan, Oral Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), pp. 52-58.

²⁷ E. v. K. Dobbie, ed., The Manuscripts of Cædmon's Hymn and Bede's Death Song (New York: Columbia University Press, 1937), prints the various versions on pp. 44-45.

²⁸ Donald K. Fry, "Memory and Oral Aesthetics in Anglo-Saxon England," retitled "The Memory of Cedmon," paper read at the Thirteenth Conference on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 4, 1978.

²⁹King Alfred's Version of St. Augustine's Soliloquies, ed. Thomas A. Carnicelli (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969), p. 49, lines 13-21.

³⁰ Clinton Albertson, trans., Anglo-Saxon Saints and Heroes (New York: Fordham University Press, 1967), pp. 64 and 92-93.

³¹ Jean Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, trans. Catharine Misrahi (New York: Fordham University Press, 1961), p. 81; see also Donald W. Fritz, "Cadmon: A Monastic Exegete," American Benedictine Review 25 (1974): 354-57.

³² Thomas D. Hill, "Notes on the Imagery and Structure of the Old English 'Christ I,"' Notes and Queries, n.s. 19 (1972): 87-89. For ruminatio see also Leclercq, Love of Learning, pp. 296-97; Elizabeth Suddaby, "Three Notes on Old English Texts," MLN 69 (1954): 467-68; Andre Crepin, "Du Langagier au linguistique: la 'rumination' de CEdmon," in Cahier Jean Robert Simon (Paris: Publications de l'Association des medievistes anglicistes de l'enseignement supdrieur, 2 [1975], pp. 23-39.

³³ For a study of Bede's paraphrase of Caedmon see Bruno Luiselli, "Beda e l'inno di Cadmon," Studi Medievali 14 (1973): 1013-36.

³⁴ Virginia Day, "The Influence of the Catechetical Narratio on Old English and some other Medieval Literature," Anglo-Saxon England 3 (1974): 51-61 (pp. 54-55 for Cadrnon).

³⁵ Stanley B. Greenfield, Review of Barbara C. Raw, The Art and Background of Old English Poetry [London, 1978], Speculum 54 (1979): 417.

³⁶The King's Mirror, trans. Laurence Marcellus Larson (New York: American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1917), p. 275.