The Old English Gloss to the Lindisfarne Gospels

Language, Author and Context

Julia Fernández Cuesta, Sara M. Pons-Sanz

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9783110635294
• eBook ISBN: 9783110447163
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Letteratura
• Subtopic: Lingue

Aldred's interlinear gloss to the Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero D.IV) is one of the most substantial representatives of the Old English variety known as late Old Northumbrian. Although it has received a great deal of attention in the past two centuries, there are still numerous issues which remain unresolved. The papers in this collection approach the gloss from a variety of perspectives – language, cultural milieu, palaeography, glossography – in order to shed light on many of these issues, such as the authorship of the gloss, the morphosyntax and vocabulary of the dialect(s) it represents, its sources and relationship to the Rushworth Gospels, and Aldred's cultural and religious affiliations. Because of its breadth of coverage, the collection will be of interest and great value to scholars in the fields of Anglo-Saxon studies and English historical linguistics.

Part I: The Gloss in Context

Michelle P. Brown

‘A Good Woman’s Son’: Aspects of Aldred’s Agenda in Glossing the Lindisfarne Gospels

Abstract: This paper examines Aldred’s gloss and colophon from the perspective of how his work is to be situated in relation to the Lindisfarne Gospels’ original manufacture and its subsequent role as a focal point of the cult of St. Cuthbert. Aldred’s motivation in ‘completing’ the work and the cultural and political circumstances in which he was operating are discussed, as is his role in establishing the credentials and credibility of the English vernacular as a suitable medium for transmitting Scripture and consolidating cultural cohesion. Aldred, the community of St. Cuthbert, the cult and cult book emerge as key components in attempts to forge a united nation, whilst acknowledging the crucial role of northern England within it.

1The making of the Lindisfarne Gospels, community tradition and Aldred’s place within it

I have previously suggested that, at the time that the Lindisfarne Gospels was made, it was thought in ecclesiastical circles that the scribe could become a channel between God and humanity, like the evangelists themselves (Brown 2003 and 2011a). Writing and painting sacred texts were absorbing acts of meditation, during which the scribe might glimpse the divine. Our artist-scribe undertook his physically and intellectually demanding labours on behalf of all Creation as a hermit, the book becoming his ‘desert’, like Christ in the wilderness and Cuthbert on Inner Farne. Cassiodorus said that each word written was a wound on Satan’s body. This was the spiritual front-line. Such was the tradition within which Aldred was placing himself when he glossed the Lindisfarne Gospels and commemorated his contribution, along with that of others who had laboured on the book previously, in a colophon.

Remarkably, the initial manufacture of this complex book was, essentially, the work of one outstandingly gifted, committed individual. For those dedicated to God’s service, to be entrusted with the transmission of his Word, as preachers and scribes, was amongst the highest of callings. A few Insular Gospel books, notably the Lindisfarne and MacRegol Gospels, are remarkable amongst western tomes in being by single artist-scribes – a primarily eastern phenomenon (Brown 2003, 2006, 2011a and forthcoming a; Rapp 2007). Undertaking such an heroic feat of patience alongside the monastic duties of the Divine Office (celebrated eight times each day and night), prayer, study, and manual labour, suggests that making the Lindisfarne Gospels may have taken closer to five years, depending on how much exemption was granted from other duties, such as that accorded to anchorites. For if, as I have proposed, Bishop Eadfrith of Lindisfarne (698–722) both conceived the vision for its great Gospel book and physically made it himself around 715–720, overseeing one of the largest dioceses in Britain, embracing much of northern England and southern Scotland, would have made such work additionally challenging. Some of the back aching, eye straining work was probably undertaken on ‘Cuddy’s Isle’, a windswept tidal islet near the monastery on Holy Island, where during Lent and Advent the bishop retired on retreat – a wild northern wilderness (Burns 1969; Cramp 1981; Brown 2003). Combining fasting, study and copying during Lent was a practice also favoured by Byzantine churchmen, as recounted in the vitae of Euthymius, patriarch o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Editorial conventions
• Illustrations
• Introduction
• Part I: The Gloss in Context
• Part II: The Language of the Gloss
• Part III: Glossing Practice
• References
• Index
• Footnotes