Abstract
Historical evidence suggests that Jews did not arrive in England until circa 1071, so most pedagogical discussions about Jews in early English society focus on texts produced by Anglo-Saxon Christians. The Jew was utilized by these authors both as a valorized, pious exemplar and as a demonized, elemental devil. To reconcile this contradiction in the college classroom, instructors must develop their students’ knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon period in conjunction with the ideation of Jewish alterity within it. Anglo-Saxon texts in translation—namely, Judith, Daniel, Exodus, Genesis A and B, and Elene—can be used to shape students’ foundational understanding of the Anglo-Saxon world and the Jews who inhabit its literary imagination.
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Notes
- 1.
Robin Mundill, in The King’s Jews: Money, Massacre, and Exodus in Medieval England (London: Continuum, 2010), argues that the evidence for Jews’ presence in Anglo-Saxon England is paltry and “difficult to interpret” but that “[t]he proximity of centres of Jewish settlement on the continent must have meant that some Jews had crossed the Channel and visited this country for themselves” (4). While I appreciate Mundill’s speculations, and while it is certainly advisable for instructors to acknowledge the possibility of Jewish presence in Anglo-Saxon England, it is not my habit to dwell on this question with students. Given the scope and level of this introductory course and given the literary evidence that survives, I prefer to emphasize the textual reality of Jews for Anglo-Saxon audiences.
- 2.
Andrew Schiel’s The Footsteps of Israel: Understanding Jews in Anglo-Saxon England (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2004) remains an exceptional resource for instructors seeking to engage in this kind of exploration. While Schiel does not provide primary source texts in full, he assesses a wide variety of Latin and vernacular texts from the period (in the original language accompanied by translations) and offers a helpful review of scholarship in the footnotes and in the final bibliography for those who might want to read further in the area. The text may not be accessible to students new to the Anglo-Saxon era, but instructors will find it an invaluable tool.
- 3.
For this segment of the course, I use Schiel’s chapter “Bede, the Jews, and the Exegetical Imagination” (The Footsteps of Israel, 23–66). Here, Schiel employs several texts from Bede in translation—including De Tabernaculo, De Templo, and Historia Ecclesiastica—to show that the Jews were described at once as blind, sick deicides, and as a chosen people with redeeming qualities who will be brought back into the Christian fold at the Day of Judgment.
- 4.
Student-accessible resources for talking about the Mosaic Preface of King Alfred’s laws include Todd Preston’s chapter, “Reading the Laws: The Domboc in Its Earliest Context,” King Alfred’s Book of Laws: A Study of the Domboc and Its Influence on English Identity, with a Complete Translation (Jefferson, NC: McFarland: 2012), 35–58. Alfred’s law codes are currently being reedited and translated by scholars associated with the Early English Law Project, but these publications have not yet been given a release date. Instructors who want to monitor the project and its resources for studying and teaching Anglo-Saxon law should consult the website: www.earlyenglishlaws.ac.uk.
- 5.
For this segment of the discussion, I use Mary Clayton’s “Letter to Brother Edward: A Student Edition,” Old English Newsletter 40.3 (2007): 31–46, at 34 and 35, as that is where the discussion of the scriptural prohibition against the ingestion of blood is most developed. Clayton’s essay provides the full text of the “Letter” and an excellent introduction to it.
- 6.
Many superb translations of these texts are available online and in print. My class uses S.A.J. Bradley’s seminal Anglo-Saxon Poetry (London: Dent, 1995) both because the students find his translations accessible and because this inexpensive edition contains the most significant verse texts from the period. However, Bradley’s introductions are not as comprehensive as I would wish, so I often supplement them with content from my initial lectures, and any instructor of a similar course will want to do the same. All of the central poems addressed in this essay appear in the Bradley edition, except in that single instance wherein the Bradley text is incomplete and another primary source for translation has been employed (see note 7 below); material from this latter text has been cited below using the translator’s last name and the line numbers from the text under discussion.
- 7.
Bradley’s edition of Genesis, a conflation of the Genesis A and Genesis B texts found in the Junius manuscript , leaves off shortly after line 1532 and, as a result, does not offer the story of Abraham and Isaac. To supplement my students’ reading of this particular biblical moment and to focus on the Germanic elements mentioned above, I use the translation of this selection from Genesis A by Burton Raffel, found in Poems and Prose from the Old English, ed. Alexandra Olsen and Burton Raffel (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 73–76, at 74.
- 8.
These passages are taken from Genesis in The Junius Manuscript, ed. George Philip Krapp, The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records I (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931), lines 1749a and 1752b–53a. The sections of Anglo-Saxon included in this essay mirror those that I share with my students, and instructors of a course like this may use more or less of the original texts in light of their students’ level of interest or familiarity with the materials.
- 9.
Raffel, Poems and Prose, lines 2861b–70a, at 74; emphasis mine.
- 10.
The italicized segment above reads: “Drihten sylfa on Þam međelstede manegum demeđ, Þonne he sođfæstra sawla lædeđ, eadige gastas, on uprodor” (Krapp, lines 542b–45b).
- 11.
As these elegies are in Bradley’s text, the transition to these supplementary materials is an easy one. See Bradley, The Ruin, 401–2; The Wanderer, 320–24; and The Seafarer, 329–34.
- 12.
The italicized section above reads: “ođÞæt hie wlenco anwod æt, winÞege deofoldædum, druncne geđohtas. Ða hie æcræftas ane forleton, metodes mægenscipe, swa no man scyle his gastes lufan wiđ gode dælan” (Krapp 111–32, lines 10a–21b).
- 13.
The miracle of the three boys and the angel in the fire appears in Bradley, Daniel, 73ff.
- 14.
I look closely at Bradley, Daniel , 83 and 84 with the students, as that section deals primarily with Nebuchadnezzar’s redemption and his acknowledgement of the Lord’s power.
- 15.
For these passages in Old English, see the edition of Judith in Beowulf and Judith, ed. Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie, The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records IV (New York: Columbia, 1953), 99–109, here at lines 13b–14a.
- 16.
Judith ’s prayer for strength is thus: “Forgif me, swegles ealdor, sigor on sođne geleafan, Þæt ic mid Þys sweorde mote geheawan Þysne morđres bryttan” (Dobbie, lines 88b–90a).
- 17.
The stirring speech that Judith gives to the warriors appears in the Old English this way: “Her ge magon sweotole, sigerofe hæleð, leoda ræswan, on ðæs laðestan hæðenes heaðorinces heafod starian, Holofernus unlyfigendes … ic him ealdor oðþrong þurh godes fultum. Nu ic gumena gehwæne þyssa burgleoda biddan wylle. … þæt ge recene eow fysan to gefeohte” (Dobbie, lines 177a–80b, 185b–87b, and 188b–89a).
- 18.
As a genre, Elene is also an inventio—a text that attests to the discovery of relics—which in this instance focuses on the true cross and the nails used at Jesus ’s crucifixion. Scholarship suggests that Elene was written as a meditative text for monks to read in celebration of the finding of the true cross, which has its feast on May 3rd in the Anglo-Saxon Liturgical Calendar. For a discussion of the sources for Elene and the veneration of the cross in Anglo-Saxon England, consult Richard Marsden, “Biblical Literature: The New Testament,” The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature, ed. Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 234–50, at 242.
- 19.
For the Old English passages of Elene , I use the edition of the poem in The Vercelli Book, ed. George Philip Krapp, The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records II (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), 66–102, here at lines 387 and 389.
- 20.
While a number of recent studies address the challenges of teaching Old English in the college classroom, scholarship on using Old English in a college classroom where translations are the norm is a bit harder to find. Recent explorations in this domain range from its use for the cross-cultural teaching of English (e.g., Madeleine Marshall, “Love and Death in Eden: Teaching English Literature to ESL students,” TESOL Quarterly 13.1 [1979]: 331–38); to the use of Old English in valorizing different forms of Modern English (John H. White, “De-Centering English: Highlighting the Dynamic Nature of the English Language to Promote the Teaching of Code-Switching,” English Journal 100.4 [2011]: 44–49); and the praxis of addressing sexist language in the classroom (Lynne Webb, “Eliminating Sexist Language in the Classroom,” Women’s Studies in Communication 9.1 [1986]: 21–29). These explorations are certainly helpful, yet what is clearly needed is some detailed assessment of the value of deploying Old English in the undergraduate literature classroom. This essay is a step in that direction, and I hope that this piece will encourage other, more sustained evaluations from instructors working with this important material at the college level.
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Ambrose, S.O. (2017). Addressing Jewish Alterity in the Literature of Anglo-Saxon England. In: Krummel, M., Pugh, T. (eds) Jews in Medieval England. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63748-8_2
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