Heavenfield

My Distilled Prayer project has officially moved over to my new blog on the psalms and devotional materials. Here is the new url for the project: http://psalterstudies.wordpress.com/distilled-prayer-project/

All of the posts originally put on Heavenfield are still here. The main page has moved. I hope I see some of you over on the new blog occasionally…

I’ve been thinking about devotional materials a lot lately. The history of devotional practices doesn’t seem to be very well explored for the early medieval period. There is devotional material to study but it is largely overlooked.

Verse hagiography is considered for devotional purposes, while prose hagiography is for historical or liturgical purposes. Sometimes these works are paired, as in the Alcuin’s Verse and Prose Life of Willibrord. Other times they are separate. Bede wrote his verse Life of Cuthbert and the hymn on Aethelthryth for purely devotional reasons or meditation. He later happened to write historical works on them both — but only after being specifically commissioned to do so. The verse works served his devotional purposes. The prose Life of Cuthbert was only done upon commission by Lindisfarne. He included Aethelthryth’s story within the Ecclesiastical History of the English People which seems to have been commissioned by Canterbury.

Bede’s double hagiography inspired others. I seem to recall that the Miracles of Nynia are patterned on Bede’s verse Cuthbert. Alcuin gives us the best comparison. He specifically provides the Verse Life of Willibrord for monks to meditate upon in their cells — private devotions. The prose Life of Willibrord was composed to use during corporate liturgy and for the laity (ie for political uses).

Verse hagiography in 8th-9th century Northumbria

• Verse Life of Cuthbert by Bede
• Hymn on Aethelthryth by Bede
• Verse Miracles of Nynia (Ninian)
• Verse Life of Willibrord by Alcuin (while on the continent)
• Alcuin’s York poem
• Verse Guthlac A and B (unsure about dates)

The big problem is that Alcuin’s York poem is the only one available in a good English translation. None of the others, including Bede’s Verse Life of Cuthbert are found in English. You might wonder why not! Well, apparently everyone has dismissed them as uninteresting because they don’t provide new historical information. They were never intended to be historical documents! Its just amazing to me that Bede’s verse Cuthbert is not available in translation, and neither is the verse Willibrord. So if there are any graduate students out there in need of a project, this looks perfectly open!

Today is the feast day of St Magnus of Orkney, the only Viking saint that I know of in early medieval Britain. Unusually, Magnus was an Earl of Orkney, and a well known raider. He came from a family that had ruled Orkney in at least the previous generation. He was a kinsman of the kings of Norway and served in the king’s court as a youth. It is believed that as a young man and perhaps a young earl Magnus participated in all of the usual Viking raiding activities. Magnus was generally esteemed for his piety and Christian behavior.

His most celebrated moment of Christian defiance came one year when the new King of Norway decided that he was going to raid Wales. Magnus disagreed with the king’s reasons and refused to take part in the actual raid. He was compelled to sail to Wales with the king but when it came time to wade ashore, he refused. To prove that he wasn’t afraid of battle, he stood on the prow of his boat and sang the psalms while arrows flew past him and the raid raged around him. After a short exile in Scotland, Magnus regained his earldom.

Life in Orkney was not easy. Magnus was embroiled in a feud with his cousin Haakon who wanted to unite the rule of the isles under himself. Magnus held his own until they decided to meet for a parley when he was betrayed by his cousin in 1115. They had arranged to meet on an island with a set number of supporters but Haakon arrived with double that number and took Magnus prisoner. According to legend the men who accompanied them demanded that only one earl leave the island alive — clearly they had had enough of the feud– so Haakon ordered Magnus to be executed by his cook. To be executed by someone with as low standing as a cook was a final insult to his cousin.

Initially buried where he was killed, his body was moved into a church during the tenure of Haakon upon the pleading of Magnus’ mother. A cult grew around Magnus almost immediately and he was considered by the people of Orkney to be a martyr.

Magnus is certainly someone I would like to know more about. One of these days I need to get around to reading the sagas that mention him. It seems to me that there may be some vague similarities between the veneration of Magnus and Oswald of Northumbria. At the very least neither of them had typical martyrdoms. Indeed, Magnus maybe more similar to Oswine except for the vital bit that Magnus’ family continued to rule Orkney after him. Magnus’ nephew, his sister’s son, appears to have succeeded his cousin as Earl of Orkney and he was the one who built St Magnus Cathedral (and here). Typical hereditary rule does not come into play here as the kings of Norway had a significant say in who was earl, although they seem to be choosing their man from among the same kindred.

I’ve been reading some of the great posts by my fellow bloggers on the creative google searches that find their blog. Sigh…. I’m feeling left out. People who come looking for Heavenfield, well, they seem to get what they came for. Come on people… give me something to cringe at. I could use a little comic relief.

Search hits from the last two days:

Today: double monastery of whitby, king penda, columba of iona, voyage of st brendan the abbot, king clovis i genevieve, bede martyrology, the life of st aethelthryth, passover in ireland, st columba of iona day, consecration cross lindisfarne.

Yesterday: st patrick’s day, ely cathedral transcept, medieval kings, marti gras, anglo-saxon royal women, latin models, pictish symbol stones southern scotland, st ailbe, scott degregorio, brigantia map craven yorkshire.

This is really a very typical couple of search days. Some search terms like Columba, Aethelthryth/Audrey, now Genevieve, whitby, and ‘medieval kings’ tend to turn up almost daily.

While I’m happy that people continue to find posts on many medieval topics in Heavenfield’s archives, there is just nothing to make fun of here. I must be doing something wrong! The only time I’ve gotten close to humorous searches were all the variations of “green beer” that I got around St Pat’s day.

It seems as though I’m going through a whole series of transitions at the moment and this blog is no exception. Inspired by Derek the Ænglican I’ve started a second blog to include all of my late medieval to modern church history, spirituality, and liturgical posts. My new blog is called Selah and it will house, among other things, the distilled prayer project. Although I’ll now be splitting my time between two blogs, in the long run this change will make Heavenfield even more medieval centered. It will also let me do more modernish things on Selah.

If you are wondering what in the world Selah means its an untranslatable Hebrew word found mostly, if not exclusively, in the psalms. It seems to be an instruction to pause, perhaps pause the music, or just to stop, think and ponder, to punctuate the previous stanza. This is a guess of course because no one really knows how to translate it. Sounds like a good title to begin a blog on the psalms.

Over to the left you will notice another new web page. They seem to be really proliferating. So what is Lindisfarne’s Century? Well, its a place to collect posts on Lindisfarne.

Lindisfarne’s Century refers to their short period of dominance or high influence from about 635 to 750. Lindisfarne continued, of course, into at least the ninth century but after the 750s their influence significantly fell. In 750, King Aldfrith’s son Offa was forcefully removed from Lindisfarne and executed. Interestingly, abdicated king Ceolwulf was in Lindisfarne when Offa was dragged out of the monastery and killed. It is possible that Offa went to Lindisfarne hoping to get protection from Ceolwulf (who was the hand picked successor of his reputed brother Osric). The recording of King Ceolwulf’s death in the Irish annals under the name Eochaid also suggests that Ceolwulf and by extension Lindisfarne did keep contacts with the Irish. After Offa’s death and the later obit of Ceolwulf little is heard from Lindisfarne until the Norse raid it in 793. Eventually they abandoned the island and began their exodus to Durham. They wandered in their wilderness for much longer than 40 years but the community of St Cuthbert stayed together. The wandering community of St Cuthbert and the Prince Bishops of Durham are fascinating but beyond my scope. By then they have moved from innovation to preservation.

So anyway, there is now a page to collect posts on Lindisfarne and sphere of influence (Whibty, Lastingham, Melrose, etc).

Thinking of yesterday’s post on Hengest and Horsa and the Armes Prydain Fawr (The Great Prophecy of Britain), it reminded me that up through the writing of the prophecy/poem the once and future king, the savior of the Britons was not Arthur but a little known pair of hero kings, Cadwaladr and Cynan. How many of you have ever heard of Cadwaladr and Cynan?

We can be reasonably sure that Cadwaladr was King of Gwynedd and reputed to be the son of Cadwallon (d. 634) who was slain by Oswald at Denisesburna (the morning after the Heavenfield events). You can see the fullest surviving development of his legend in the last chapter of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain. Indeed, Geoffrey ends with Cadwaladr being the once and future king who must return to return Britain to the Britons!

The medieval Welsh may have known exactly who Cynan was but he is a bit of a mystery to us because Cynan is just such a popular Welsh name. There are probably a dozen kings named Cynan before the time of Aethelstan. It is generally believed that he is Cynan Garwen of Powys. He is the father of Selyf Battle Serpent who was the person of the week a while back.

It would also fit that these two great kings would each represent a major Welsh kingdom; some of the rare medieval unity that the Armes Prydain Fawr is trying to generate against the English.

So what does the Prophecy actually say about them?

The armies of Cadwaladr, gloriously they will come, the Welsh will arise, they will do battle. They have sought out inevitable death. At the end of their taxes they will know death. Others, who were wise enough to bide their time, have struck. For ever and ever, they will not raise their taxes. (lines 81-86)

In the forest, in the field, in the vale, on the hill, a candle in the darkness walks with us. Cynan is at the head of the troop in every attack, the English sing a song of woe before the Britons. Cadwaladr is a spear at the side of his men, having picked them with wisdom. … (lines 87-92)

As for Cynan and Cadwaladr, glorious in their armies, the fate of which is destined for their part to be celebrated forever. Two steadfast rulers, whose counsel is wise. Two tramplers on the English in God’s name. Two generous men, two gift-giving cattle-raiders. Two brave, ready men, of one fate, of one faith. Two guardians of Britain, splendid armies. Two bears, daily battle does not put them to shame. (lines 163-170)

The men of Wessex in every fleet, there will be conflict, and an alliance of Cynan with his comrades. The heathens will not be called warriors, but rather slaves of Cadwaladr and his traders. (lines 181-184)

And you thought you hated the taxman! It occurs to me that we know so little of seventh century Wales history, it is possible that Cynan was a contemporary ruler of Powys. He seems subordinate to Cadwaladr, doing Cadwaladr’s bidding in alliance. According to the Historia Brittonum (admittedly a product of Gwynedd), Cadwaladr was an overking of Wales, as his father had been. There may have been a remembrance that under Cynan Garwen and his son Selyf, and then in the next generation under Cadwallon and his son Cadwaladr, the kingdoms of Powys and Gwynedd were in alliance against the English and did great things. No matter what you think of Cadwallon, killing three Northumbrian kings and driving as far north as Hadrian’s wall was quite an accomplishment. It is also possible that Powys under Cynan and Selyf had been major power brokers in the sixth century until that power was broken by Aethelfrith at Chester. It may also explain why Aethelfrith struck at out-of-the-way Chester.

I am focusing more on Cadwaladr because in time Cynan drops away as one who will return. This narrowing to one great king occurs elsewhere also, most notably in Arthur himself. It is interesting to note that as with other hero stories, indeed with Hengest and Horsa, that the once and future kings were also a duo — Cynan and Cadwaladr. In this case, brother kings, bound in alliance and not blood.

As late as Geoffrey of Monmouth, Cadwaladr’s legend was quite strong. It makes up the last half of the last book of the History of the Kings of Britain. One of the innovations that survives best in Geoffrey’s work (though I’m not convinced that he originated it) is the conflation of Cadwaladr’s exile with the pilgrimage of Caedwalla of Wessex to Rome. They both were exact contemporaries and their obits sometimes get mixed up. Geoffrey has an angel tell Cadwaladr that he is destined to die in Rome and be numbered among the blessed (hence his name Cadwaladr the Blessed) and that the Britons will not rule in Britain again until his relics and those of the other saints (of Brittany?) are discovered and brought back to their homeland.

The influence of the poem the Armes Prydain Fawr was greater than you might imagine. Even at the end of Geoffrey’s History of the Kings of Britain, reference again is made to Aethelstan. It may have also supported the notion of St David as the patron saint of Wales, but that is a topic for another day.

References:

G.R. Issac. “Armes Prydain Fawr and St David” p. 161-181 (including translation) in St David of Wales: Cult, Church, and Nation. Edited by JW Evans and JM Wooding. Boydell, 2007.

Goeffrey of Monmouth. History of the Kings of Britain.