For the Wynn

In recent years, more and more manuscripts, artworks and museum exhibits have been digitised and made available online. But what if you could use them to make your own virtual exhibitions?

Images which have been uploaded in IIIF can be used and reworked into interesting things, and viewed alongside images from different institutions. This post on the British Library’s Digital Scholarship blog, written by Deirdre Sullivan together with Eyob Derillo, Sara Hale and myself, demonstrates how you can create your own online exhibitions of IIIF-enabled images, using a handy tool called Exhibit.

Enjoy!

I have written another blogpost for the Medieval Manuscripts blog of the British Library!  This one is on a manuscript, Harley MS 2928, which we catalogued for the Polonsky England and France 700-1200 project, which turned out to include a copy of a text which I know very well.  De laude psalmorum (‘In praise of the psalms’) is a guide to singing the psalms for the purposes of private prayer, in which the reader can pick and choose which to sing according to their own needs.  I’ve also explained why there is a connection to another manuscript catalogued for the project, Ælfwine’s Prayerbook, on which I have written frequently on this blog.

Enjoy!

As promised in earlier posts, my monograph has now been published by De Gruyter/Medieval Institute Publications!

Although it is based upon my 2011 doctoral thesis, it departs from it considerably in several places, reducing the attention given to the Carolingian period and adding two extra chapters.  Many of the subjects discussed in the book have already been featured in this blog.

The Introduction lays out my subject of enquiry, including an exposition of the different levels in which prayer collections could be structured, as monks and nuns sought to create more and more complex programmes for use in personal devotion.

Chapter One explores this theory by looking at prayers to the Holy Trinity and to the Saints.  One series of prayers in particular, which I call the Orationes ad personas Trinitatis, exemplifies this very well, as it is seen copied into many different manuscripts from the ninth century onwards, and by the eleventh was becoming increasingly more complex.

Chapter Two is concerned with prayer for different times of the monastic day.  I compare a small number of little-known prayer programmes for the early morning, before moving on to the use of the psalms, which were well known to monks and nuns due to their important role in the monastic liturgy.  The final part of this chapter is a comparative study of a series of prayers which follow Christ’s crucifixion, in which I note the similarities and differences between its Latin and Old English versions.

Chapter Three is on the subject of prayer to the Holy Cross.  This is an aspect of personal devotion which was very closely bound to the official liturgy: in this chapter, I demonstrate how the ceremony for the Veneration of the Cross on Good Friday was rewritten and reworked in a number of different manuscripts.  The prayer ‘Adoro te’ is discussed in depth, as it shows the cyclic relationship between personal and liturgical prayer with particular effectiveness.

Chapter Four, a notable departure from my original thesis, is on prayers of protection and healing.  The eleventh-century Galba Prayerbook is examined as a source of prayer programmes for protection from enemies, and – quite possibly – of prayers and psalms for use in cursing.  In the second half of the chapter, I look at the prayers used in contemporary medical compendia, arguing that these are a valuable and often overlooked source for the study of medieval prayer, as they include instructions and contexts for use, which are often missing from other sources.

Chapter Five turns to confessional prayer, which was less dependent upon the ‘programme’ format than were the genres discussed in earlier chapters.  Arguing that some forms of confession appear to have been intended for use before God alone, in this chapter I pay more attention to the literary qualities of prayers – and, in some cases, poems – for confessing one’s sins when no priest was present.

At the distance of a thousand years, it is often difficult to tell exactly what form prayer took in the lives of the professional religious, never mind the laity; but through the manuscripts which I examine, we can glimpse a little of how people prayed before the Books of Hours.

Quadricolor enim est . ex omnibus elementis in se rapit species.  De celo enim trahit igneum colorem . de aquis purpureum . de aere album de terris collegit nigrum.

For it [the rainbow] is of four colours, and takes its appearance from all of the elements into itself.  From the sky it draws the fiery colour, from the waters purple, from the air white, and from the earth it gathers black.

The Cologne Gospels: London, British Library Harley MS 2820

‘Everyone must know their Lord’s Prayer and their creed.’

So wrote Ælfric of Eynsham in the early eleventh century. It may be for this reason, and also because churchpeople may in any case have wished to pray in their own language, that several copies of the Lord’s Prayer or Paternoster survive in Old English translation, along with sermons explaining its significance. Some texts, however, offer something in between. There are three versions of the prayer in alliterative Old English verse. One, in the Exeter Book, is a fairly close rendering of the prayer. The other two, in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 201 and Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Junius 121, accompany a text known as the Old English Benedictine Office, which is a kind of explanatory text about the monastic liturgy.

Lord’s Prayer III, from Junius 121, can be found online here. In this post, I offer a translation (still a work in progress) of this little poem, which may have itself been used in prayer, or to help the reader to understand the Latin text more fully. Each paragraph expands on and explains one line of the prayer, and is filled out with two-word phrases praising God and allowing the poet to complete an alliterative line.

Pater noster qui es in cęlis.

Father of mankind, I ask you for comfort

holy Lord, you who are in the heavens.

Sanctificetur nomen tuum.

That your name may now, fast in our minds,

be made holy, saving Christ,

in our spirit-chests firmly established.

Adueniat regnum tuum

May your kingdom come, ruler of powers,

to us humans, just judge,

and your faith in the days of our life.

Fiat uolontas tua sicut in cęlo et in terra.

In our mind endure mightily

and your will with us fulfilled mightily

In the dwelling of the kingdom of earth,

As bright as is in the glory of heaven,

Adorned with joys forever in the world to come.

Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie.

Give us now today, Lord of men,

High King of the heavens, our bread,

Which you send for the health of souls

Of humankind on middle-earth,

Which is the pure Christ, the Lord God.

Et dimitte nobis debita nostra.

Forgive us, Guardian of men, crimes and sins,

And set aside our faults, wounds of the body,

And evil deeds, as we often offend

Against merciful you, almighty God.

Sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris

Just as we forgive offences on earth

Of those who often sin against us,

And do not think to pay heed to their impure deeds

Because of the reward of eternal life.

Et no nos inducas in temptationem

Do not lead us to punishment, in woeful misery,

Nor into temptation, saving Christ,

So that we, disgracefully, may not become distant

From all your mercies through enmity.

Sed libera nos a malo.

And also free us from the evil now,

Of every devil. We say eagerly

In our spirit-chests, Lord of the angels,

True victory-Lord, thanks and glory,

Of which you mercifully freed us by your power

From the bondage of hell’s punishment.

Amen.

May it be.

This is my 100th blogpost on For the Wynn! In celebration of this, I am going to share a full version of a fascinating little text which I mentioned briefly in this blogpost for the British Library’s Medieval Manuscripts blog: a divinatory text by which you can discover a person’s fortune based on the position of their day of birth in the lunar calendar.

It can be found amongst the other prognostic texts in Ælfwine’s Prayerbook, on ff. 7v-8r of London, British Library Cotton MS Titus D XXVI.

Dates of birth can be looked up on this calendar: https://www.calendar-12.com/moon_phases/2019 – change 2019 to the desired birth year.

If the birthday is listed in the column on the left, the person was born on the first day of the lunar month.  If it is the day after a day listed in the left-hand column, the person was born on the 2nd day of the lunar month, and so on.  So 6th January 2019 is day 1, 7th January is day 2, 8th January is day 3.

The text is as follows, quoted from and with emendations by Beate Günzel, who has edited the entire manuscript.  Note that not all the fortunes are especially positive!

Incipit lunares sancti Danielis de natiuitate

Luna .i. Qui natus fuerit, uitalis erit.
Luna . ii. Mediocris erit.
Luna .iii. Infirmus erit.
Luna .iiii. Tractator regnum erit.
Luna .v. Iuuenis tolletur.
Luna vi. Vitalis erit.
Luna .vii. Vitalis et utilis erit.
Luna .viii. Iuuenis decidet.
Luna .ix. Omnium adquisitor erit.
Luna .x. Circuibit multas regiones.
Luna .xi. Omnium adquisitor erit.
Luna .xii. Religiosus erit.
Luna .xiii. Aduersus impeditor erit.
Luna .xiiii. Omnium tractator erit.
Luna .xv. Iuuenis morietur.
Luna .xvi. Vitalis et pauper erit.
Luna .xvii. Infelix erit.
Luna .xviii. Non diu uiuet.
Luna .xix. In honore erit.
Luna .xx. Bellator erit.
Luna .xxi. Latro ingeniosus erit.
Luna .xxii. Laboriosus erit.
Luna .xxiii. Vulgarus erit.
Luna .xxiiii. Copiosus erit.
Luna .xxv. Pericula multa patietur.
Luna .xxvi. Nec diues nec pauper erit.
Luna .xxvii. Amic[u]s erit.
Luna .xxviii. Neglegens erit.
Luna .xxviiii. Bonus et proui[sor] erit.
Luna .xxx. Negotia multa tractabat.

This translation is my own: some of the Latin is a little obscure to me, so I am happy to receive suggestions for alternative translations: this is absolutely not definitive.

Moon 1: he who is born [on this day of the moon’s age] will thrive.
Moon 2: he will be average.
Moon 3: he will be sick.
Moon 4: he will be a washer of kings.
Moon 5: he will be taken young.
Moon 6: he will thrive.
Moon 7: he will thrive and be useful.
Moon 8: he will come to ruin young.
Moon 9: he will be a winner of all things.
Moon 10: he will travel around many lands.
Moon 11: he will be a winner of all things.
Moon 12: he will be devout.
Moon 13: he will be a hostile obstructor.
Moon 14: he will be a washer of all.
Moon 15: he will die young.
Moon 16: he will thrive and be poor.
Moon 17: he will be unlucky.
Moon 18: he will not live long.
Moon 19: he will be in honour.
Moon 20: he will be a soldier.
Moon 21: he will be a clever thief.
Moon 22: he will be painstaking.
Moon 23: he will be commonplace.
Moon 24: he will be wealthy.
Moon 25: he will suffer many dangers.
Moon 26: he will be neither a rich man nor a poor man.
Moon 27: he will be a friend.
Moon 28: he will be careless.
Moon 29: he will be good and prudent.
Moon 30: he dealt with many troubles.

Notes:

Moon 1: I am taking “vitalis” to mean that one who is born on this day will survive, compared to all those who have unhappier fates, e.g. Moon 18.
Moon 4: “tractator” was a difficult one to interpret, but it seems to mean someone who cleaned others in Roman baths.  When I was testing this out on some colleagues, one preferred the translation “shampooer”.
Moon 24: another translation would be “eloquent”, but the text seems more preoccupied with wealth and poverty.
Moon 29: someone who provides or oversees.
Moon 30: or business affairs.

Works used:

Beate Günzel, ed., Ælfwine’s Prayerbook (London, British Library, Cotton Titus D. xxvi + xxvii), Henry Bradshaw Society 108 (London: Boydell Press, 1993).

Which day of the month is bad for starting a new project? How do you find possessions which have been stolen from you? What will your fortune be?

Medieval people knew the answers to these questions! Find out in my new blogpost for the British Library’s Medieval Manuscripts blog.

“Jesus wept.”  Famously the shortest verse in the Authorised English version of the Bible (John 11:35), when Jesus weeps at the death of his friend Lazarus, this is actually slightly longer in Latin, usually a more succinct language than English: Et lacrimatus est Iesus.

A major focus of my work is on the circumstances surrounding Anglo-Saxon prayer, including how the human body was put to use in it: the posture used in prayer, and the sign of the cross, for example.  Weeping is something I have only referred to in passing.  So this blogpost is an attempt to redress this – part of an (entirely inadvertent) series on bodily fluids, given than I have already covered both vomit and snot.

I’ve written elsewhere that confessional prayer was supposed to be an emotional process.  The texts of popular early medieval confessions suggest that their readers were expected not simply to list their sins, but to respond to them, to feel deep remorse, and to involve their body in their acts of contrition.

The English word ‘tears’ already existed in eleventh-century: we can see tearas used here as a gloss for the Latin lacrimas, the latter here written in the beautiful hand of the master scribe Eadwig Basan (third line down, fifth word).

Pour forth my tears, just as you established the waters above the earth, because my heart is as hard as stone.

The speaker’s tears are compared to the waters which God set upon the earth when it was created; in a quick shift of metaphors, his heart becomes something hard like stone, but which can nevertheless be softened.

A similar sentiment is expressed in English, in one of my favourite series of prayers, in Cotton MS Tiberius A III.

My Lord, soften the hardness of my stony heart, and give me abundant tears, so that I may weep over and repent my misdeeds, which I, a wretch, daily commit against your will.

Seeing the two side by side makes me think of a stream which gradually wears away the mountain down which it runs.

Harley MS 863, an eleventh-century psalter, includes a litany and a series of prayers for all kinds of occasions.  In an earlier blogpost, I wrote about one for people who are making a journey; in the same series as this is a prayer Pro compunctione lacrimarum, ‘for the provoking of tears’.

Almighty and most merciful God, who produced a fountain of living water from stone for the thirsting people, lead from the hardness of my heart the tears of compunction, so that I may merit to bemoan my sins, and that I may deserve to receive remission, with you having mercy.

In Cotton MS Tiberius C VI (otherwise known for its fabulous dragon-ception miniature, there is a programme of prayers for use in the morning, which I discuss briefly in my forthcoming book, Late Anglo-Saxon Prayer in Practice: Before the Books of Hours.  This includes a relatively short prayer of contrition in which the penitent does not confess to specific sins, but instead asks for the gift of tears in the kind of language already seen.  Particularly striking is the prayer’s use of rhetorical questions and exclamations:

So what am I to say, wretched man, when I come to be judged before the power of your divine majesty?  If the just man will barely be saved before you, how will I appear?  My God, give me tears, that I may merit to lament the sins which I have committed; help me, my God, help me, angels of God, before the eternal fire swallows me up.  Stir up tears and let them be stirred up; stir up rivers of tears in the weeping of my eyes, flood my jaws, flood my cheeks.  What else may I do, O Lord, how will I reply?

To me, these are reminiscent of the later work of Anselm, the twelfth-century abbot of Bec and Canterbury, who is one of the best-known writers of prayers and meditations in the western medieval church.  As I hope to show in my book, this style associated with Anselm, and the programmatic prayer of the Books of Hours, were already in existence, in development, before the twelfth century.

Due to the ongoing work, I’m not sure if I am going to keep up my monthly posts on this blog, or whether I will pause it for now and come back to it in a few months.  In any case, when my book is out, you will hear it here first!

It’s the 29th of June, and today is the feast day of St Peter (and also of St Paul).  Peter is my favourite Bible person, because he’s a bit of an idiot quite a lot of the time, but he really wants to be good.

Take, for example, the narrative of the Transfiguration of Christ.  In 2010, I was involved in the staging of a play of this with the Lords of Misrule theatre company in York.  Every four years, a selection of the 14th-century York Mystery Plays is performed at four locations in central York, aboard farm wagons similar to those which would have been used in the Middle Ages.

The story goes that Jesus’s disciples are asking who he really is, so he takes three of them – Simon Peter, James and John – up onto a mountain where Moses and Elijah appearto them, and a voice from heaven telling them that Jesus is the Son of God.  Peter’s reaction to seeing two of the greatest figures of his religion coming back to earth is to immediately start babbling about putting up three shelters – one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.  Matthew’s gospel offers no explanation of this; Mark says that he was afraid and didn’t know what to say; while Luke says that he didn’t even know what on earth he was talking about.  I think he means to say that Peter was totally starstruck and started fanboying embarrassingly around the prophets.

Simon Peter jumps off the page for me because his character is so well-drawn by the gospellists.  He never does anything by halves.  He is sometimes weak and unreliable, but underneath it all he loves Jesus.  He is the one who tries to follow him in walking on water (and sinks).  When Jesus offers to wash his disciples’ feet, only Peter refuses to let his master behave like a servant towards him – until he’s told it’s really important, when he changes his tune and insists on being washed all over.  Within twenty-four hours he is pretending not to even know Jesus at all.

And this is the man whom Jesus asks to look after his followers…

… he said to him again, ‘Simon [son of] John, do you love me?  He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.  Then he said to him, ‘Keep my sheep’ …

In this passage (John 21), Peter is so excited to see Jesus on the shore that he jumps into the sea and runs to him.  The other disciples take the more sensible route of taking the boat which they are already in.  But despite his earlier denial, Peter really does love Jesus, and that’s why he is asked to look after the flock.

As one of the most important early Christian saints, Peter was venerated and remembered in medieval homilies and prayers.  The Book of Cerne, which I have discussed in recent blogposts, includes a series of prayers to the saint.  One of these is in the voice of Peter himself; the others are said to him.

I give you thanks, Good Shepherd, because the sheep which you have given to me suffer with me; I ask that they might participate with me in your grace …

Holy Apostle Peter, I ask you humbly that you might help me, an unworthy man, with your prayers; to you I bend my knee …

One of the stranger appearances of Peter in Anglo-Saxon literature is in the Lacnunga and Leechbook medical collections.  Unlike some of the other healing rituals which I have written about, this remedy does not use a litany, poem or mass, but a kind of story in which Jesus says a prayer for his disciple to heal him of his toothache.

For pain of the teeth:
Christ sat upon a marble [stone]; Peter stood sad before him, holding his hand to his jaw, and the Lord questioned him, saying:
‘Why are you sad, Peter?’
Peter replied and said:
‘Lord, my teeth hurt’.
And the Lord said:
‘I adjure you migraine or malignant drop by the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit…’

Trans. Pettit, Lacnunga, p. 109

By reading Christ’s words of healing for one of his closest disciples, the patient receives the same healing.

I am not aware that Peter was considered to have any specific affinities with teeth; I suppose it would make for some interesting manuscript art.  More usual iconography is based on his role as carrying the keys to the kingdom of heaven.  Ælfwine of the New Minster in Winchester had an image of himself before the throne of St Peter copied into his prayerbook.

The Liber Vitae of Ælfwine’s own monastery, in which the names of dead monks and other people for whose souls they prayed, includes these images of St Peter before the gates of heaven, and using his key against the devil in hell.

A more heavily decorated image of the saint can be seen in the illuminated Benedictional of St Aethelwold.

Here, Peter is depicted being crucified upside-down, which, according to Christian tradition, he insisted upon so as not to imply that he was anything like as good as Jesus.  This is not an event recorded in the canonical scriptures; but, to be honest, it is pretty much in keeping with the personality of the Peter who is depicted by the gospellists: committed, determined, obstinate, and just a little bit different.

Works used:

Pettit, Edward , ed. and trans. Anglo-Saxon Remedies, Charms, and Prayers from British Library MS Harley 585, The Lacnunga. 2 vols. Mellen Critical Editions and Translations 6. Lewiston, Queenston and Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 2001.

Þas þing synt earfoðe on Englisc to secganne, se we wyllað þurh Cristes fultum hig onwreon, swa wel swa we betst magon, and þas meregrota þam beforan lecgan þe þisra gyman wyllað.  Þæs anes dæges wanung, hu he byð geworden binnan nigontyne wintrum we wyllað gecyðan.

These things are difficult to say in English, but with Christ’s help we shall reveal them as well as we can, and lay the pearls before those who wish to pay heed to these things.  We will explain how the diminution of one day is accomplished over nineteen years.

Text and translation from Baker and Lapidge, Byrhtferth’s Enchiridion, pp. 66-67.

As the late Anglo-Saxon monk Byrhtferth writes, pearls have long been precious to people, and therefore valuable to those seeking a metaphor for intangible riches – in this case, the knowledge which he lays before the reader in his scientific compendium, the Enchiridion.

But why pearls, of all the precious stones?  Medieval Britain appears to have been known for the oysters to be found off its coast.  The historian Bede, writing three centuries before Byrhtferth opened his treasure-chest of pearls, began his famous Ecclesiastical History of the English People with a description of the island of Britain, its location, natural resources, and people:

Her beoþ oft fangene seolas 7 hronas and mereswyn; 7 her beoþ oft numene missenlicra cynna weolcscylle 7 muscule, 7 on þam beoð oft gemette þa betstan meregrotan ælces hiwes.

Here, seals, whales and porpoises are often caught, and here various kinds of whelks and mussels are gathered, and amongst them are often found the best pearls of every colour.

Text from Miller, Ecclesiastical History, p. 26; translation mine.

A description of pearls, along with the assumption that the reader is familiar with them, is made in the Old English translation of the Herbarium.  This text, originally written in Latin, is a description of different European plants along with their medical uses.  The description of litospermon attests to the Mediterranean origins of both the plant and the Herbarium, and uses white pearls as a comparison with the plant’s seeds.

Ðeos wyrt ðe man litospermon 7 oðrum naman [sunnancorn] nemneð byð cenned in Italia, 7 seo fyrmeste in Creta, 7 heo hafað maran leaf ðonne rude, 7 ða rihte, 7 on ðære hehnysse heo hafað stanas hwite 7 sinewealte swylce meregrotu on pysna mycelnysse, 7 ða beoð on stanes heardnysse …

This plant, which one calls litospermon [stoneseed], and by another name sunseed, grows in Italy, and best in Crete, and it has bigger leaves than rue, and straighter ones, and on its highest point it has round, white stones, like pearls, the size of peas, and they are the hardness of a stone …

Text from de Vriend, Old English Herbarium, p. 226; translation mine.

But, as Byrhtferth knew, pearls were a powerful image of all that humanity values most.  Christ himself used them as a symbol, in proverb and in parable, to represent all that is most holy, and the kingdom of heaven itself.  The gospels were translated into English during the early Middle Ages: these examples are from a late twelfth-century version.

Do not give the holy to dogs, nor throw your pearls before your pigs, lest they trample them to bits with their feet, and that they may not then turn against you and strive against you.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like the merchant who sought the good pearl: when he found that one precious pearl, he went and gave all that he owned and bought the pearl.

Perhaps it was the use by Jesus himself that led later writers to choose pearls as the utmost symbol of the most precious things the world has to give.  The writer of the apocryphal Passio Andreae, the martyrdom of the apostle Andrew, compares Christ himself to a pearl, when the apostle greets the cross on which he will die; this text was used as a source for the prayer of St Andrew in the Book of Cerne:

Hail, holy cross, who were dedicated in the body of Christ, and from his limbs as with pearls were adorned.  Before the Lord ascended you, you had the fear of the earth …

It is also the source for Ælfric of Eynsham’s homily on St Andrew:

Hal si þu rod þe on cristes lichaman gehalgod wære. 7 mid his lymum gefreatewod swa swa mid meregrotum; ðu hæfdest eorðlicne ege ær þan ðe ure drihten þe astige…

Hail to you, cross, who were sanctified in Christ’s body, and decorated by his limbs as if with pearls, you had earthly fear before our Lord climbed upon you …

Text from Clemoes, Catholic Homilies, p. 517; translation mine.

For more information on the relationship between the two texts and their source, see Brown, p. 138, and Godden, p. 327.

Aelfric was not the only homilist who picked up the pearl image.  One of the Blickling Homilies tells the story of the Virgin Mary’s assumption into heaven.  Told that she will be taken from her body in three days’ time, she calls together the apostles, and then the heavens open and Christ comes to take his mother’s spotless soul.  After her soul has left her body, her body says to him, ‘wes þu min gemyndig, forþon ic healde þinra beboda goldhord’ (‘remember me, for I kept the treasure of your commandments’), and Jesus responds, ‘Ne forlæte ic þe næfre min meregrot, ne ic þe næfre ne forlæte, min eorclanstan, forþon þe þu eart soþlice Godes templ’ (I will never forsake you, my pearl, I will never forsake you, my jewel, for you are truly God’s temple.  Text from Morris, pp. 147-9, translation mine; see this blogpost by Eleanor Parker for more on the word eorclanstan.)

Meregrot, from the Latin margarita, is the usual Old English word, but ‘pearl’ entered Middle English via the French perle, from the Latin perula; the earliest known use of the word in its literal sense can be found in Chaucer’s Monk’s Tale:

Of rubies, sapphires, and of pearls white / Were all his clothes embroidered up and down, / for he in gems greatly had delight …

But the best-known and most poignant Middle English pearl is the poem generally known by that name.  Anonymous, and found in just one manuscript, it tells the story of a man who is apparently mourning the loss of a pearl. Falling asleep, he finds himself in a strange but beautiful garden by the side of a river, on the other side of which a beautiful maiden appears:

That gracios gay wythouten galle,          lovely one; blemish
So smothe, so smal, so seme slyght,          beautifully dainty
Ryses up in hir araye ryalle,          royal
A precios pyece in perles pyght.          thing; set

Text and glosses/translations from Anderson, ed. Pearl, ll. 189-92.

However, this is no ordinary medieval maiden, not his lover, or a woman he wishes to win; this is the soul of his baby daughter, who offers her bereaved father comfort and teaching, and a glimpse into heaven itself.

Delyt me drof in yye and ere;          eye
My manes mynde to maddyng malte.          man’s mind gave way to madness
Quen I sey my frely, I wolde be there,          saw; lovely (one)
Byyonde the water thagh ho were walte.          set

Pearl, ll. 1153-6.

As the kingdom of heaven is like a pearl, the maiden is a pearl also.  But in the poem’s conclusion, the pearl metaphor is turned, not to something precious but intangible, but to the narrator himself, and to all people.

He gef uus to be his homly hyne          May He grant us to be His lowly servants
Ande precious perles unto his pay.          and precious pearls to his liking

Pearl, ll. 1211-12.

Works used:

J. J. Anderson, ed., Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness, Patience (London: Dent, 1996).

Peter S. Baker and Michael Lapidge, eds., Byrhtferth’s Enchiridion, Early English Text Society, s.s. 15 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).

Michelle Brown, The Book of Cerne: prayer, patronage, and power in ninth-century England (London: The British Library, 1996).

Peter Clemoes, ed., Ælfric’s Catholic homilies: the first series: text, Early English Text Society s.s. 17 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).

Hubert Jan de Vriend, The Old English Herbarium and Medicina de Quadrupedibus, Early English Text Society, o.s. 286 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984).

Malcolm Godden, ed., Aelfric’s Catholic Homilies: Introduction, Commentary and Glossary, s.s. 18 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

T. Miller, ed., The Old English Version of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Early English Text Society o.s. 95 (London, 1890).

The Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus

The Oxford English Dictionary