2 Feb
For those of you who haven’t heard yet… Brendan and the Secret of Kells has been nominated for an Oscar in the animated feature film category. It will be up against Coraline, Up!, Disney’s The Princess and the Frog, and Fantastic Mr Fox. Here is a link to director-animator Tomm Moore’s The Blog of Kells. Most of his posts for the last year have been about the reception of the movie around the world.
28 Jan
I mentioned in a recent post that the diffusion of St Oswald’s legend on the continent owed something to the development of an Oswaldian bridal quest that featured a raven. When you look at late medieval and renaissance artwork, church murals, and some stained glass windows featuring Oswald, you often see a raven (sometimes holding a ring in its beak) somewhere around him. The ultimate origins of the raven are not hard to fathom but how the two distinct branches of raven/bird stories developed are a bit of a mystery.
Oswald was born to a pagan king named Æthelfrith and his wife Acca just as the first Roman missionaries were landing in Kent. Perhaps as a pagan reaction to the new threat of Christianity coming from within Anglo-Saxon society (it had always been there from British society), there was a revival of pagan inspired names containing the Os- prefix, meaning God. The name Oswald means “ruler of the gods” (Os = god, wald= ruler). It was a reference to the Germanic god Woden/Odin. Five of Æthelfrith’s seven sons were given names containing the Os- element, even though there is little precedent in either family for Os- related names. To people of Oswald’s era, the allusion to Woden in his name would have been obvious. I should point out there that Oswald’s sainthood may have something to do with his name surviving among Christians to this day, as few of the other Os- related names have survived (Oswood/Oswudu, Oswiu, Oswine/Oswin, Oslac, Oslaf, Osred, Osric were all once popular Anglo-Saxon names).
Ravens in English Paganism
18th century Icelandic illustration of Odin and his ravens
Part of Woden/Odin’s iconography were two ravens named thought and memory who sat on his shoulders and acted as his spies. Other attributes of Odin are a magic spear that never misses, an 8-legged horse, a magic ring, and a pair of wolves. Part of Odin’s story in the Prose Edda is that he sacrifices one of his eyes to drink from the spring of wisdom. According to some legends, Odin hung from the world tree Yggdrasil, an ash tree, for 9 days pierced by his own spear to gain wisdom. (Spears were also made out of ash wood.) Sacrifices to Odin were hung from trees, often after being stuck with spears (or perhaps impaled on spears?).
Ravens were considered messengers of the Gods. One raven does appear in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English when Paulinus is trying to preach in Yorkshire. The croaking of a raven appears to be competing with Paulinus and the people think that the Gods are arguing with Paulinus.
This is all relevant for Oswald’s iconography in particular his associations with ravens and rings, and the reputed site of his death at Oswestry (Oswald’s Tree). In the only historical account of Oswald’s death in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Oswald is slain in battle at a place called Maserfelth. After his death, King Penda of Mercia had his head and arm(s) removed and impaled on a stake. The rest of his body was buried nearby. The head and arms remained on the stake until they were recovered by Oswald’s brother Oswiu the following year and his remainder of his body was recovered by his niece Mercian Queen Osthryth at least twenty years later and enshrined at Bardney. The head was buried at Lindisfarne and eventually was collected into St Cuthbert’s coffin when Lindisfarne was abandoned due to frequent Viking raids. The arm was kept in a silver shrine in the chapel in Bamburgh castle for as long as a king ruled from Bamburgh. It was removed in twelfth century by Judith wife of Earl Tostig. This is the historical account and there are no ravens mentioned. Of course there would have been ravens around because they are attracted to battlefields and to exposed human remains. Different stories of St Oswald and the raven appear about simultaneously in England and Germany in the twelfth century.
The English Raven Legend
The English stories focus on the site of his death at Oswestry in Shropshire. The primary source is Regnald of Durham’s Life of Oswald from 1165. Unfortunately this life has never been translated because it is considered poor literature/hagiography.
“Reginald describes in some detail the location of Oswestry, which he always refers to as ‘Maserfeld’, and mentions the ‘white church’, dedicated to Oswald, which stood there. Nearby were to be found Oswald’s well or spring and a huge ash tree, also named after the saint. There were located close to where the king’s head and arms remained fixed to stakes for a year after his death, and wood from these stakes was still preserved locally. Reginald goes on to describe the vision in which Oswald’s brother, Oswiu, was commanded to retrieve the relics. The right arm, however, had been carried off by a great bird to an ancient ash tree. The arm, which enjoyed the gift of incorruption thanks to Aidan’s prophecy, conferred on the tree a renewed freshness adn vigour, which it never subsequently lost. The bird lets its booty fall, however, and where it struck the ground, the spring burst forth. Oswiu carried the relics away with him, but the tree and spring still demonstrated the saint’s miraculous powers even in Reginald’s time. No one damaged the tree with impunity, while the sick received healing from its shade or by touching or even tasting its leaves. Water from the spring similarly had healing properties, releasing the possessed from their affliction and curing all manner of ailments.” (Tudor, p. 190-1).
The similarity between this story and Odin’s story in the Prose Edda is striking. Oswald’s right arm is taken to an ash tree by a raven, Odin’s bird, who drops it and starts a holy well; Odin hung from the tree to drink from the sacred well at its base to gain wisdom. This similarity must be credited to English belief, as the Norse never controlled the area of Oswestry. While the Welsh name for the place clearly refers to a holy cross that was erected near the church that grew up there, it is still questionable if Oswestry refers to this cross, a tree, or the tree from the raven legend. It is likely that there was a holy well located there in Saxon times. We should recall that some of the earliest miracles credited to the site of Oswald’s death were by Mercians and even a passing Briton, and that the Mercians were not converted to Christianity until at least 655-6, over a dozen years after Oswald’s death. So there was probably a full generation of those who were in the area when and where Oswald died, and the early miracles occurred for whom Germanic paganism was at least an equal contender with Christianity, if not the default belief system. Its not hard to see how the legend would have blended belief systems.
Tudor mentions that 400 years after Reginald, Leland described much the same story including an ‘eagle’ that carried away the arm. Near contemporary support for Reginald’s reference to Oswald’s shrine at Oswestry comes from Gerald of Wales also refers to the church present at Oswald’s Cross (CroesOswalt) in his books on Wales in 1191-1194. How we get from Reginald to the ‘raven and the ring’ German bridal quest legends is another matter entirely and the way is obscure.
References:
Virginia Tudor (1995) Reginald’s Life of Oswald. pp. 178-194, Oswald: Northumbrian King to European Saint. Paul Watkins.
27 Jan
This post is a run down of existing hagiography and literature on St Oswald. I’m really concerned here more with literature than history. The works listed on the indented bullet under each work lists the known sources or influences in that work. I may also list a few key translations or secondary works on these pieces. If diagrams worked better in blogs I would have done one with all the lines connecting the works, but this will have to do. This list is necessarily a work in progress.
As you will see the literature really forks in four directions:
Original Sources: Oswald died August 5, 642.
Hagiography and Literature
Wiener Oswald, 15th century, Bridal Quest
25 Jan
Eadgyth and Otto I. . Statue from Magdeburg Cathedral. Photo from Medieval News.
Earlier this week an Anglo-Saxon princess, Eadgyth, made a splash in the news. Her grave and body had been found in a German Cathedral. As the granddaughter of Alfred the Great, and half-sister of Æthelstan, first recognized king of the English, she has got the interest of historians and archaeologists in England. Being of interest only for her links to them – rather than for herself – is a feeling Eadgyth would have been all too familiar. Its pretty well known that Æthelstan sent 19 year old Eadgyth and another sister Algiva/Adiva to 17 year old Otto (912-973), son of King Henry of Germany, and told him to take his pick, the other being married off to some Alpine prince whose name has never been recorded. King Henry probably got to arrange that marriage as another perk. Nice guys all around, huh?
Eadgyth married Otto in 929 when she was about 19. He (or perhaps really his father King Henry) gave her the city of Magdeburg as a wedding gift. I’ve read elsewhere that it was dowry, but husbands don’t give dowry. She gave birth to their son Liudolf in 930 and then a daughter Liutgarde. Otto became King of Germany and Duke of Saxony upon the death of his father in 936. She was Queen of Germany for ten years before her death at age 36 on 26 January 946. She was buried in convent in Madeburg, where she was probably a patron. She was recently discovered in a stone sarcophagus in Magdeburg Cathedral. After her death, Otto continued his conquests until he became Holy Roman Emperor in 962. Otto lived nearly another 30 years and remarried, but he still returned to Magdeburg where he was also buried. Eadgyth was moved and reburied in stone sarcophagus in Magdeburg Cathedral in 151o.
Tests are being done to confirm that these remains are Eadgyth’s because they were found in a lead coffin inside the stone sarcophagus with the inscription “The rescued remains of Queen Eadgyth are in this sarcophagus, after the second renovation of this monument in 1510.” The bones wrapped in white silk appear to be of a woman in her thirties. Isotope analysis will be able to identify where the woman spent her childhood. Presumably they will also do radiocarbon dating and it would be nice if they did a facial reconstruction. Assuming the skull is intact and they have access to it, they should be able to make an accurate model of it and do a facial reconstruction with that without damaging the remains.
Eadgyth gains special attention from English historians (and Anglophiles) because she is believed to have promoted the veneration of St Oswald, King of Northumbria in Saxony and Germany. Why did she have a special attraction to St Oswald? The women of the house of Wessex had a special attraction to King Oswald because his wife was the daughter of King Cynegisl of Wessex, later recorded as Cyneburg. Eadgyth’s half-brother Æthelstan may have been a fosterling in the court of their aunt Æthelflaed, Lady of the Mercians, when she rescued St Oswald’s relics from Viking-occupied Bardney in the year before Eadgyth’s birth. Æthelflaed moved the relics to their new minister at Gloucester, later renamed St Oswald’s Priory. This priory was to be the primary church for the Mercian royal family and their burial place. Lady Æthelflaed also established veneration of St Oswald at Chester alongside St Wereburg (Thacker,1995), a daughter of King Wulfhere of Mercia and great niece of St Æthelthryth of Ely. It is interesting that Lady Æthelflaed translated Wereburg’s relics to Chester but not the relics of St Æthelthryth of Ely, especially given that Wereburg was Abbess of Ely. Yet, Wereburg was a daughter of Mercia where the other abbesses of Ely did not have a connection to Mercia or Wessex. Chester and Gloucester were the two primary cities of Mercia under Lady Æthelflaed with eastern Mercia either ruled by Vikings or in the frontier zone.
Through this marriage, Oswald becomes kinsman and uncle of the Wessex royal family. When Æthelstan sent his sisters to Germany to marry Otto, Eadgyth was described as being of of the “blessed line of King Oswald” (nata de stirpe beata Oswaldi regis) (Thacker, 1995). A bit of an exaggeration that she was a descendant at least by our understanding of kinship and descent. How a culture views kinship is dynamic, not a static thing. In the Gesta Ottonis, written under the orders of Otto’s niece Abbess Gerberga by Hrotsvitha of Gandrersheim in c. 965, Eadgyth’s lineage is held to be greater than her half-brother Æthelstan in part because of her kinship with St Oswald. Otto’s marriage to this Anglo-Saxon princess helped solidify his rule over Saxony (O’Riain-Radel, 1995). It is possible that Eadgyth came to Otto bearing relics, possibly of St Maurice, the leader of the Theban legion, to whom the Cathedral of Madeburg is dedicated. As we know that Æthelstan had received relics of St Maurice, O’Riain-Radel hypothesizes that she brought some of these relics with her to Saxony and were established in the Cathedral where they were both eventually buried. St Maurice, like Oswald, was another soldier saint and perhaps attractive to warrior kings like Æthelstan and Otto. We also know that manuscripts were gifted in both directions between Æthelstan and Otto, including gospel books but perhaps also hagiography. It seems likely that written legends would have accompanied Eadgyth on any saints Wessex wanted to promote in Germany. These would have been valuable to Otto and his father King Henry as information on a holy (Anglo-)Saxon king could have been used to help them get established in Saxony. Yet, the fact that Oswald was a foreign king meant he would not have had local kinsmen to challenge their rights in Saxony.
As the romance of Oswald developed around the marriage of Oswald to Cyneburgh, he would have become all the more attractive to other Wessex girls. From the German point of view, a Wessex princess like Eadgyth could have easily been portrayed as being like Cyneburgh, the Wessex princess that became St Oswald’s wife. There is little evidence of Oswald’s romance within England (and few English medievalists today are aware of it) but it flourished in Germany where these Wessex girls sponsored his veneration. The only trace of the romance in England is the raven and ring iconography found in some Oswald artwork, but most of this artwork is quite late and often lacks the ring (so it could represent the raven in Reginald’s Life of Oswald that had nothing to do with romance). Editions of the German romances are listed in the reference section below; Kalinke being the most complete analysis.
References:
Alan Thacker, (1995) “Membra Disjecta: the division of the body and the diffusion of the cult”. Oswald: Northumbrian King to European Saint. Paul Watkins.
Dagmar O’Riain-Radel (1995) “Edith, Judith, and Matilda: the Role of Royal Ladies in the Propagation of the Continental Cult” Oswald: Northumbrian King to European Saint. Paul Watkins.
Medieval News. (20 Jan 2010) Remains of Eadgyth, Anglo-Saxon Queen, discovered in German Cathedral. (actually Anglo-Saxon Queen of Germany)
Additional references for St Oswald on the continent:
Marianne Kalinke (2005) St. Oswald of Northumbria: Continental Metamorphoses, with an Edition and Translation of the ‘Osvalds saga’ and ‘Van sunte Oswaldo deme konninghe’. Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
Annemiek Jansen. (1995) The Development of the St Oswald Legends on the Continent. Oswald: Northumbrian King to European Saint. Paul Watkins.
JW Thomas. (1989) The ‘Strassburg Alexander’ and the ‘Munich Oswald’: Pre-courtly Adventure of the German Middle Ages.
Peter Clemoes. (1983) The Cult of St Oswald on the Continent. Jarrow Lecture 1983.
EP Baker. (1949) St Oswald and his church at Zug. Archaeologia 93: 103-123.
EP Baker (1951) The Cult of St Oswald in Northern Italy. Archaeologia 94: 167-194.
18 Jan
Bathild ring, found Norfolk, East Anglia.
Over at Got Medieval Carl provides a link the to the famous Baldhild ring on the feast of St Balthild this month. This is the first time I’ve had a good look at the famous ‘erotic’ ring found in Norfolk, East Anglia. If you click on the picture it will take you to the museum website where you can zoom and see the reverse. Supposedly this ring shows Bathild and the king “having sex”. Hmmm… takes some imagination even with the zoom. This ring is less than a centimeter in diameter, so the impression it would have left would have been quite small. For all we know they are holding hands (or were intended to be holding hands). This would make much more sense. This scene could represent a wedding especially with the cross over them.
For the obverse, it only says Baldhildis. I’m not sure why it is assumed that this is a queen’s ring. Click on the photo to the left and you can zoom in on the photo. The museum comments on the long straight nose but really it looks to me like they struck the long arm of the cross down over the face.
At only 1 cm in diameter, the detail can’t be great because its just too small, about half the diameter of a dime. ( A dime is 1.79 cm.) They were carving this without the use of a magnifying glass. Its a amazing they got this much detail on a tiny disk with half the diameter of a dime and only 4mm deep. High magnification photography makes it look deceptively primitive and deeply carved until you realize how small the entire object is. It looks like the bodies and heads were made with a square ended metal spike and all three heads with a rounded ended spike. These heads are only 2-3 mm in size for the couple and only a little bigger for the obverse. It would have taken a great deal of skill to get them to look this good and ingraving two sides doubly hard.
I don’t see why this couldn’t be the ring of a noble woman from that time or later. Given how few names we have for English queens and even fewer noblewomen, it could be for a woman other than Frankish Queen Balthild. Given that Queen Balthild was an East Anglian slave, presumably former royalty sold after her family was defeated, it is possible that Baldhild/Balthild was a common name among local royal women. The scene of the couple may not have been as rare as we assume given that there are no names or other identifiers, and no crown or royal sign. If it was a rarity it would have been because of the skill required to produce it.
As for how it was used, this is a pretty tiny seal ring. First if they are holding hands under a cross (possibly representing a wedding) it could have been used on messages sent to anyone. Second, given the small size of the seal, both sides could have been used on the same seal, side-by-side. Using both sides would still produce a fairly small wax seal to hold a heavy parchment roll.
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