Emily Hickey - Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre Conquest Days
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Emily Hickey >> Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre Conquest Days
OUR CATHOLIC HERITAGE IN ENGLISH LITERATURE OF PRE-CONQUEST DAYS
Transcriber's Note: The author's inconsistent chapter descriptions
and spelling of proper names have been preserved.
[Illustration: DEATH OF ST BEDE. (From the Original Picture at St
Cuthbert's College, Ushaw.) [_Frontispiece_]
OUR
CATHOLIC HERITAGE
IN
ENGLISH LITERATURE
BY
EMILY HICKEY
WITH FRONTISPIECE IN COLOUR
AND FOUR FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.
London
SANDS & CO.
15 KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN
AND EDINBURGH AND GLASGOW
1910
To
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER
THIS LITTLE BOOK IS INSCRIBED
BY HIS GRACE'S KIND AND
VALUED PERMISSION.
_June, 1910._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
The beginnings of Literature in England. Two poets of the best period of
our old poetry, Caedmon and Cynewulf. The language they wrote in.
The monastery at Whitby. The story of Caedmon's gift of song.
page 15
CHAPTER II
Caedmon and his influence. Poem, "Genesis." "The Fall of the Angels."
"Exodus." English a war-loving race. Destruction of the Egyptians.
Fate and the Lord of Fate. 24
CHAPTER III
Allegory. Principle of comparison important in life, language,
literature. Early use of symbolism; suggested reasons for this. Poem
of the Phoenix. Allegorical interpretation of the story. Celtic
influence on English poetry. Gifts of colour, fervour, glow. Various
gifts of various nations enriching one another. 31
CHAPTER IV
Prose-writing. St Bede the Venerable. His love of truth. His industry
and carefulness. Cuthbert's account of his last days. "Bede whom God
loved". 42
CHAPTER V
King Alfred, first layman to be a great power in literature; man of
action; of thought; of endurance. Freedom first great possession;
afterwards learning and culture. Alfred a loyal Son of the Church.
Founder of English prose. Earliest literature of a nation in verse;
why. Influence of Rome on Alfred. 48
CHAPTER VI
Decay of learning in England. Revival under Alfred. His translations.
Edits English Chronicle. His helpers. Some of his sayings.
Missionary spirit. "Alfred commanded to make me". 55
CHAPTER VII
Some of greatest pre-Conquest poetry associated with name of Cynewulf.
Guesses about him. Little known. Probably North-countryman, eighth
century, an educated man. Finding of the Cross. Elene, story of St
Helena's mission. Constantine goes to fight invaders. Vision of the
Cross. Victory. Journey of St Helena, and search for the Cross. The
Finding. 64
CHAPTER VIII
The Poet's love of the Cross: how he saw it in a double aspect. The
dream of the Holy Rood. The Ruthwell Cross. 73
CHAPTER IX
"Judith," a great poem founded on Scripture story. Authorship uncertain.
Part of it lost. Quotations from it. Description of Holofernes'
banquet as a Saxon feast. Story of Judith dwelt on to encourage
resistance to Danes and Northmen. 83
CHAPTER X
Byrthnoth, the leader of the East Angles against Anlaf the Dane. Refusal
to pay unjust tribute. Heroic fight. 90
CHAPTER XI
The literature of one people owes a debt to that of others.
Help-bringers. Great work of Benedictine monks. Our debt to Ireland.
The English Chronicle's account of the Martyrdom of St AElfeah. 97
CHAPTER XII
Abbot AElfric, writer of Homilies, Lives of Saints, and other works.
Wulfstan, Archbishop of Canterbury. 104
CHAPTER XIII
Love of books is love of part of God's world. In books we commune with
the spirit of their writers. The Church the mother of all Christian
art and literature. Catholic literature saturated with Holy
Scripture. 110
CHAPTER XIV
Scattering of our old MSS. in Sixteenth Century. Some now in Public
Libraries. Collections, Exeter book and Vercelli Book. 114
CHAPTER XV
Runes. An early love poem. 118
ILLUSTRATIONS
DEATH OF SAINT BEDE _Frontispiece_
WHITBY ABBEY _Page_ 19
KING ALFRED THE GREAT 48
THE RUTHWELL CROSS 80
THE ALFRED JEWEL 114
A SAXON SHIP 114
FOREWORDS
This little book makes no claim to be a history of pre-Conquest
Literature. It is an attempt to increase the interest which Catholics
may well feel in this part of the great 'inheritance of their fathers.'
It is not meant to be a formal course of reading, but a sort of talk, as
it were, about beautiful things said and sung in old days: things which
to have learned to love is to have incurred a great and living debt. I
have tried to clothe some of these in the nearest approach I could find
to the native garb in which their makers had sent them forth, with the
humblest acknowledgement that nothing comes up to that native garb
itself. In writing the book I have naturally incurred debt in various
directions; debt of which the source would be difficult always to trace.
I may mention my obligations to the work of Professor Morley, Professor
Earle, Professor Ten Brink, and Professor Albert S. Cook: also to the
writers of Chapters I-VII of "The Cambridge History of English
Literature," vol. i.
If this little book in any way fulfils the wishes of those Catholic
teachers who have asked me to print some thoughts of mine about English
Literature, I shall be glad indeed.
EMILY HICKEY.
CHAPTER I
The beginnings of Literature in England. Two poets of the best period of
our old poetry, Caedmon and Cynewulf. The language they wrote in.
The monastery at Whitby. The story of Caedmon's gift of song.
How many of us I wonder, realise in anything like its full extent the
beauty and the glory of our Catholic heritage. Do we think how the Great
Mother, the keeper of truth, the guardian of beauty, the muse of
learning, the fosterer of progress, has given us gifts in munificent
generosity, gifts that sprang from her holy bosom, to enlighten, to
cheer, to guide and to help; gifts that she, large, liberal, glorious,
could not but give, for she, like her Lord, is giver and bestower; and
to be of her children is to be of the givers and bestowers. The Catholic
Church is the source of fine literature, of true art, as of noble speech
and noble deed.
We are going to look at a small portion of that part of our Catholic
heritage which consists of our early literature; we are going to think
about the beginning of Christian work of this kind in the form of poetry
and prose in England. When I say Christian poetry and prose, I am using
the word Christian as opposed to pagan, and inclusive of secular as well
as religious verse, though the amount of secular verse is, in the
earliest time, comparatively very small. Some of the pagan work was
retouched by Christians who cared for the truth and strength and beauty
of it. The ideal of the English heathen poet was, in many respects, a
fine one. He loved valour and generosity and loyalty, and all these
things are found, for instance, in the poem "Beowulf," a poem full of
interest of various kinds; full, too, as Professor Harrison says, "of
evidences of having been fumigated here and there by a Christian
incense-bearer." But "the poem is a heathen poem, just 'fumigated' here
and there by its editor." There is a vast difference between
"fumigating" a heathen work and adapting it to blessedly changed belief,
seeing in old story the potential vessel of Christian thought and
Christian teaching. To fumigate with incense is one thing--to use that
incense in the work of dedication and consecration is another. For
instance, the old story of the "Quest of the Graal," best known to
modern readers through Tennyson's "Idylls of the King," has been
Christianised and consecrated. And so it was with some fine old English
(or Anglo-Saxon) poetry. But, just now, we are going to listen to
Catholic poets and teachers only.
We begin with the work of poets. Out of all those who wrote in what was
the best period of our old poetry, a period that lasted some hundred and
fifty or seventy-five years, we know the names of two only, Caedmon and
Cynewulf.
And here may I say that scholars agree that the names are to be
pronounced _Kadmon_ and _Kun-e-wolf_; in the second name we sound the
_y_ like a French _u_, make a syllable of the _e_, not sounding it as
_ee_, but short, and make the last syllable just what we now pronounce
as _wolf_.
Both of these poets deserve our love and our praise, as singers and
inspirers of other singers, but we know much more about Caedmon's life
than we know about his share in the poetry that has been attributed to
him; that is the poetry which has gone under his name. That he did
write much fine verse we know. On the other hand, we know a good deal as
to the authenticity of Cynewulf's poetry, and nothing about his life.
Both of these poets wrote in the language spoken in England before the
period of French influence. That influence upon English at first seemed
to be disastrous; the language became broken up and spoilt: but this was
only for a time; and by and by, out of roughness and chaotic grammar
there grew up a beautiful and stately speech meet for great poets to
sing in, and great men and women to use. So it is that what for a time
seems to be disastrous may one day be realised as benign and beautiful.
This pre-Conquest language has to be learned as we learn a foreign
tongue. It is much easier to learn than Latin or German, but still it
has to be learned; so we shall have to listen to the thought of these
poets in the language of our own day, allowing ourselves now and then
the use of words or expressions which it is fair to employ in rendering
old poetry or prose, though we do not use them in ordinary speech or
writing.
We shall sometimes use translations, and sometimes I will tell you
about the poetry, giving the gist of it as best I can.
[Illustration: WHITBY ABBEY]
At Whitby you may see the ruins of what must have been a very beautiful
monastery, built high on a hill, swept by brisk and health-giving winds
with the strength and freshness of moorland and sea. This monastery,
part of which was for monks, and part for nuns, was ruled by Abbess
Hild.[A] This seems strange to us, but it was because the Celtic usage
prevailed in the government of the Abbey.
[Footnote A: Hilda is the Latinised form, which it is a pity to use
instead of the English one.]
We must never forget the work of the Celtic missionaries who brought
Christianity from the Western Islands to the North of England: and, of
course, their "ways" as well as their message were impressed on the
converts. Later on, as we know, the Roman usage was established all over
the country.
Among the monks of Streoneshalh, as Whitby was then called, the Danes
having given it its present name, there was, as St Bede the Venerable
tells us, "a brother specially renowned and honoured by Divine grace,
because it was his wont to make fitting songs appertaining to piety and
virtue; so that whatever he learned from scholars about the Divine
Writings, that did he, in a short time, with the greatest sweetness and
fervour, adorn with the language of poetry, and bring forth in the
English speech. And because of his poems the hearts of many men were
brought to despise the world, and were inspired with desire for the
fellowship of the heavenly life.... He was a layman until he was far
advanced in years, and he had never learnt any songs. It was then the
custom that, when there was a feast on some occasion of rejoicing, all
present should sing to the harp in turn. And when Caedmon saw the harp
coming near him, he would get up, feeling ashamed, and go home to his
house. Now once upon a time he had done this and had left the house
where they were feasting, and gone to the stall where the cattle were,
which it was his duty that night to attend to. There, when his work was
done, he lay down and slept, and in a dream he saw a man standing by
him, who hailed him and greeted him and called him by his name, saying:
'Caedmon, sing me something.' And Caedmon answered and said, 'I can sing
nothing, and therefore did I go from this feast, and depart hither,
because I could not.' And again he that was speaking with him, said:
'Nevertheless, thou must sing for me.'"
Then Caedmon understood, and he said in the same spirit that prompted
Our Lady's "Be it done unto me according to thy word," "What shall I
sing?" And the guest of his dream said, "Sing the Creation for me."
As soon as Caedmon had received this answer, he at once began to sing to
the praise of God the Creator verses and words which he had never heard.
St Bede quotes a few lines in the Northern dialect, which may be
rendered thus:
"Now shall we praise the Guardian of the Kingdom of Heaven, the might of
the Creator and the thought of His mind, the works of the Father of
glory; how He made the beginning of all wonders, the everlasting Lord.
First did He shape for the children of men Heaven for a roof, the holy
Shaper. Then the mid-world the Guardian of Mankind, the Eternal Lord,
the King Almighty, created thereafter, the earth for men."
When Caedmon awoke the gift remained with him, and he went on composing
more poetry. He told the town-reeve about the gift he had received, and
the town-reeve took him to the Abbess and showed her all the matter.
Abbess Hild called together all the most learned men and the students,
and by her desire the dream was told to them, and the songs sung to them
that they might all judge what this might be and whence the gift had
come. And they were all sure that a divine gift had been bestowed on
Caedmon by God Himself. They gave him a holy story and words of divine
lore, and bad him sing them if he could, putting them into the measure
of verse. In the morning he came back, having set them in most beautiful
poetry. And after that the Abbess had him instructed, and he left the
life in the world for the religious life. We are told by St Bede that he
made much beautiful verse, being taught much holy lore and making songs
so winsome to hear that his teachers themselves learned at his mouth.
"He sang of the creation of earth and the making of man, and the history
of Genesis, and the going out of the Israelites from the land of the
Egyptians, and their entering into the Land of Promise, and many other
stories told in the Books of the Canon. He also sang concerning the
Humanity of Christ and about His Passion and His Ascension, and about
the coming of the Holy Ghost, and the teaching of the Apostles. And he
sang also of the Judgement to come and of the sweetness of the Kingdom
of Heaven. About these things he made many songs, as well as about the
Divine goodness and judgment. And this poet always had before him the
desire to draw men away from the love of sin and of evil doing, and to
make them earnestly desire to do good deeds."
At last a fair end was set upon his life when, glad of heart, full of
love to those around him, he received Holy Viaticum, and prayed and
signed himself with the Holy Sign, and entered sweetly into his rest.
This is the story told for the most part, as it is best to tell it in
the way in which St Bede recorded it; and Alfred rendered it into the
English of his day, from which English I have now taken it.
CHAPTER II
Caedmon and his influence. Poem, "Genesis." "The Fall of The Angels."
"Exodus," English a war-loving race. Destruction of the Egyptians,
Fate and the Lord of Fate.
We possess poems on the subjects which St Bede tells us that Caedmon
wrote upon, but we cannot be sure that any of these are actually that
poet's work. St Bede tells us that many others after him wrote noble
songs, but he sets Caedmon's work above that of all those others as
having been the product of a gift direct from God. In any case he must
have influenced those who wrote later than he. All our work whether we
are poets, thinkers, fighters, craftsmen, servants, tradesfolk,
teachers, must be only partly in what we do directly. This can to some
extent be measured. We can tell how many hours' work we have done in a
day; how many books we have written in a life's working-time; how much
faithful service we have consciously offered. But by far the larger part
of our work we cannot know. We cannot know how much we may have
influenced others for good, we cannot calculate the effect that we have
had upon them, and, through them, upon others. And to apply this thought
specially to a poet, we may say that what he has done for others by
suggesting, by stimulating, by inspiring, is not only a most valuable
part of his work, but also an immeasurable part. A poet may inspire
another poet simply to sing; or he may inspire him to sing on subjects
akin to those dearest to himself; and the second poet, or the third or
fourth, as it may be, may sing better than the first. But all the same,
he owes it to the first poet, and, in a sense, the work of the latter
poet is a part of the work of the earlier.
The poem "Genesis" is known to be the work of at least two people: part
of it is a version of an old Saxon paraphrase of the Old Testament, and
must have been written later than Caedmon's time. It is always
interesting to know who it was that wrote work we care for, but it is a
more important matter to possess the work itself. People in old times
did not seem to care much whether their names were known or not. The
author, for example, of the book which for so long has been read and
studied and cherished as one of the Church's most treasured
possessions, the "Imitation of Christ," remained for a long time
unknown; and this is by no means a solitary instance. The interest in
literary fame is mostly a modern thing. Besides in these old times
people worked in a different sort of way from now. We must remember that
the art of song went hand in hand with the art of verse-making. All
sorts of people sang the words they had heard, changing, adding, as it
might be; adding to, or taking from the beauty and force of what they
were dealing with, in proportion to the strength of their memory, or the
quality of their imagination.
The story of the "Fall of the Angels" forms part of the "Genesis," and
it is well worth while to consider whether a very great poet of much
later days, John Milton, may not have owed something when writing
"Paradise Lost" to his early forerunner.
"Ten angel-tribes had the Guardian of all, the Holy Lord, created by the
might of His hand, whom He well trusted to work His will in full
allegiance to Him, for He had given them understanding and made them
with His hands, the Lord Most Holy.
"He had set them in such blessedness. One thereof had He made so strong,
so mighty in his intellect; to him did He grant great sway, next to
Himself in the Kingdom of Heaven. So bright had He made him, so
beautiful was his form in Heaven that was given him by the Lord of
Hosts. He was like unto the stars of light. His duty was to praise the
Lord, to laud Him because of his share of the gift of light. Dear was he
to our Lord."
But it could not be hidden from God how pride had taken hold of His
angel. And Satan resolves in that pride not to serve God. Bright and
beautiful in his form, he will not obey the Almighty. He thinks within
himself that he has more might and strength than the Holy God could find
among his fellows. "Why should I toil, seeing there is no need that I
should have a lord? With my hands I can work marvels as many as He.
Great power have I to make ready a goodlier throne, a higher one in
Heaven. Why must I serve Him in liegedom, bow to Him in service? I am
able to be God even as He. Strong comrades stand by me, who will not
fail me in the strife; stout-hearted heroes."
And so does Satan resolve to be the foe of God.
Surely we must be reminded of Milton's great poem when we read how
Satan, ruined and cast into hell, speaks to his comrades, lost with him.
He compares the "narrow place" with the seat he had once known in
Heaven, and denies the right doing of the Almighty in casting him down.
He says too that the chief of his sorrows is that Adam, made out of
earth, shall possess the strong throne that once was his; Adam, made
after God's likeness, from whom Heaven will be peopled with pure souls.
And he plans revenge on God by striving to destroy Adam and his
offspring.
All this, and the appeal to one of his followers to go upward where Adam
and Eve are, and bring about that they should forsake God's teaching and
break His Commandments, so that weal might depart from them and
punishment await them, may be compared with "Paradise Lost," Books I,
II.
It is needless to say that the English were a war-like race. They loved
the clash of swords, the whizzing of the arrow in its flight, the fierce
combat, the struggle to keep the battle-stead, as they phrased the
gaining of a victory. We shall see more of this by and by. And this
spirit comes out in their poetry written after they had received
Christianity. They delight in the story of struggle, of brave combat,
of victory. They saw in the hosts of Pharaoh the old Teuton warriors,
with the bright-shining bucklers, and the voice of the trumpets and the
waving of banners. Over the doomed host the poet of "Exodus" saw the
vultures soaring in circles, hungry for the fight, when the doomed
warriors should be their prey, and heard the wolves howling their
direful evensong, deeming their food nigh them. Here is the description
of the Destruction of the Egyptians. The translation is by Henry S.
Canby:--
Then with blood-clots was the blue sky blotted;
Then the resounding ocean, that road of seamen,
Threatened bloody horror, till by Moses' hand
The great Lord of Fate freed the mad waters.
Wide the sea drove, swept with its death-grip,
Foamed all the deluge, the doomed ones yielded,
Seas fell on that track, all the sky was troubled,
Fell those steadfast ramparts, down crashed the floods.
Melted were these sea-towers, when the mighty One,
Lord of Heaven's realm, smote with holy hand
These heroes strong as pines, that people proud....
The yawning sea was mad,
Up it drew, down swirled; dread stood about them,
Forth welled the sea-wounds. On those war-troops fell,
As from the heaven high, that handiwork of God.
Thus swept He down the sea-wall, foamy-billowed,
The sea that never shelters, struck by His ancient sword,
Till, by its dint[B] of death, slept the doughty ones;
An army of sinners, fast surrounded there,
The sea-pale, sodden warriors their souls up-yielded
Then the dark upsweltering, of haughty waves the greatest,
Over them spread; all the host sank deep.
And thus were drowned the doughtiest of Egypt,
Pharaoh with his folk. That foe to God,
Full soon he saw, yea, e'en as he sank,
That mightier than he was the Master of the waters,
With His death-grip, determined to end the battle,
Angered and awful.
[Footnote B: blow.]
How fine a conception it is. Let us notice how far had been travelled
from the old pagan "Fate goeth even as it will" to "the Lord of Fate."
How great is the thought of the vision of God's might, the power of the
Master of the waves, brought before the eyes of Pharaoh before he sinks
in the death-grip that will not let him go!
CHAPTER III
Allegory. Principle of comparison important in life, language,
literature. Early use of symbolism; suggested reasons for this. Poem
of the Phoenix. Allegorical interpretation of the story. Celtic
influence on English poetry. Gifts of colour, fervour, glow. Various
gifts of various nations enriching one another.
In these papers we are not going through anything like a course of older
English literature. We are looking at some of the work which our early
writers have left, from the point of view of its being our Catholic
Heritage, and we want to pay special attention to special works, not to
go through a long list of names. It is hoped that the bringing forward
of what is so good and strong in interest may be found really helpful by
those who have little or no time to go to the originals. That it may be
so is alike the desire of writer and publisher.
To-day we are going to consider a poem of a different kind from what we
have had before, an old poem called "The Phoenix."
Literature is full of allusions to the fable of the phoenix; it is
one of those stories which have caught hold of people and fired their
imagination; and the reason is, we may well suppose, because it has
suggested so many comparisons, some of them great and beautiful and
holy. There are some stories which lend themselves easily to an
allegorical interpretation; stories quite true, and yet suggesting
things beyond their own actual scope. I dwell on this before passing on
to the poem, because I want to bring before you the remembrance of what
a tremendous factor in literature, as in thought and in the whole of
life is the principle of comparison, or, as we might put it, the
principle of similitude or likeness. We learn about a thing we do not
know through its likeness, as a whole or in some parts, to a thing we do
know. Our little children can understand most easily something of the
love of Our Father who is in Heaven through the love of their father on
earth: they learn of their Redeemer's Mother, their own dear Mother of
Grace, through their earthly mother, who is ever ready to supply their
wants and give them joy and comfort.
