St Oswald Hagiography & Literature

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:

1. Historical directly from Bede through William of Malmesbury, Simeon of Durham, and others. Only the earliest historical works are listed here.
2. Hagiographical from Bede and Adomnan through the various hagiographical versions that often derive directly from Bede.
3. Matter of Britain: Geoffrey of Monmouth really does some interesting things with his last chapter that are usually completely overlooked because they contradict history (as with everything else he writes) and do not include Arthur. Yet this last chapter is key to understanding Geoffrey’s overall purpose.
4. German Literature: Mostly falls into the bridal quest category. The Munich Oswalt holds an important place in the development of German courtly literature.

Original Sources: Oswald died August 5, 642.

1. Iona Chronicle (lost) – no longer exists but the Annals of Ulster is usually considered to be the closest. The Iona Chronicle could have been contemporary with Oswald.
2. Adomnan of Iona, Life of St Columba, Latin, c. 700. (earliest surviving source)
   1. Sources: Adomnan heard his account from his predecessor Failbe who as a child overheard it directly from King Oswald to Abbot Segene.
3. Willibrord of Frisia, Calendar of Willibrord, Latin,  c. 702-5.
   1. Willibrord was educated at Ripon and had connections to Lindisfarne and Ireland.
4. Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Latin,  c. 731.
   1. Sources: Acca of Hexham collected stories, oral tradition, local calendars and regnal lists.

Hagiography and Literature

• Old English Martyrology, Mercian, Old English, 8th century, narrative martryology
  • Bede, History
• Historia Brittonum, Gwynedd, Latin, 825
  • Michelle Ziegler (2006) Through His Enemies Eyes: St Oswald in the Historia Brittonum, The Heroic Age, Issue 9
• Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Old English. c. 900.
  • Bede, History
  • Historia Brittonum ?
• Ælfric of Eysham, Life of St Oswald, Latin, c. 1000.
  • Bede, History

• Drogo of Saint-Winnoc, Life of St Oswald, Latin, c. 1050.
• Drogo of Saint-Winnoc, Sermons on St Oswald, Latin,
  • David Defries. (2006) St Oswald’s Martyrdom: Drogo of Saint-Winnoc’s Sermo secundus de s. Oswaldo. The Heroic Age, Issue 9

• Bonedd y Sant (Pedigrees of the Saints), Welsh, 12th century (a blog post)
• Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain, historical fiction, Latin, 1130s?
  • Bede, History
• Wace, Roman de Brut, Old French, Historical fiction
  • Geoffrey of Monmouth, History
• Layamon, Brut , Middle English, c. 1190, historical fiction
  • Wace, Roman de Brut
  • oral history and local legend
• Breton version of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain has a particularly touching version of Oswald’s death.
• Reginald of Durham, Life of St. Oswald, Latin, 1165
  • Bede, History
  • Adomnan, Life of Columba
  • oral history in Northumbria and Mercia
  • perhaps Symeon of Durham
    

• Anonymous, Brut y Brenhydd (History of the Kings), Middle Welsh, 13th century. Welsh translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth with modifications including of Oswald material.
• Munich Oswalt, Old High German, Bridal Quest., 15th century
  
  • Reginald of Durham, Life of St Oswald
  • Bede, History
  • Translation: JW Thomas. (1989) The ‘Strassburg Alexander’ and the ‘Munich Oswald’: Pre-courtly Adventure of the German Middle Ages.

  Wiener Oswald, 15th century, Bridal Quest

• Dat Passionael “Oswald” – Van Sunte Oswaldo, Deme Konninghe (About St. Oswald, King),  Low German, 1478
  • Translation and disucssion: Marianne Kalinke, St Oswald of Northumbria: Continental Metamorphosis, Arizona Center for Medieval and Renassiance Studies, 2005.
• Osvald’s Saga, Middle Icelandic, Bridal Quest/Conversion/Martyr legends/miracles, c 1530
  • Translation and disucssion: Marianne Kalinke, St Oswald of Northumbria: Continental Metamorphosis, Arizona Center for Medieval and Renassiance Studies, 2005.
• John Dryden,  ‘King Arthur, or The British Worthy’, English opera, 1691. (“Oswald of Kent” is Arthur’s English opponent!)