Ælfric's Kings
Ælfric of Eynsham’s A Sermon Excerpted from the Book of Kings (Kings) is one of a number of non-hagiographical pieces in his Lives of Saints collection. It is one of two much abbreviated translations of the Old Testament in this group of texts; the other is Maccabees. (To read about Ælfric’s Maccabees click here).
The Lives of Saints is a wide-ranging collection, found in its complete form in the manuscript British Library Cotton Julius E vii. (To read about Ælfric’s Lives click here). Yet Kings does not seem to fit within the scope of the volume as outlined in its Old English Preface. Here Ælfric notes that he has composed this book ‘about the passions and lives of those saints whom those who live in monasteries honor among themselves in their offices’ (be þæra halgena ðrowungum and life gedihton þe mynster-menn mid heora þenungum betwux him wurðiað) (Clayton and Mullins, p. 8–9). Despite this apparent discrepancy, it is clear from the Cotton Julius manuscript that Kings was intended to be part of this group of works—it is included in the manuscript’s table of contents and there is continuity between its key themes and those present in other texts in the Lives of Saints. For example, Kings emphasises the importance of good kingship, which is also evident in the saints’ lives that depict kings such as On Saint Edmund. The Lives of Saints is not the only context in which Kings is found though. It survives in one other manuscript, Bodleian Library, MS. Hatton 115. This manuscript seems to have more of a focus on Old Testament texts, as it includes Maccabees and Ælfric’s Homily on Judges, but none of the hagiographical texts found in the Lives of Saints.
The Latin Vulgate Bible, as well as the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible), is organised so that it has four books of Kings (Kings I–IV). In the Hebrew Bible (and most modern English translations) the Vulgate’s I and II Kings correspond to I and II Samuel, while the Vulgate’s III and IV Kings are the modern I and II Kings. Thus when Ælfric refers to the de Libro regum (the Book of Kings) in the title to this work he is meaning what we in modern parlance would think of as the books of Samuel and Kings. This biblical source material has a historical focus and covers the lives of key Old Testament figures, including the kings Saul, David and Solomon and the prophets Samuel, Elijah and Elisha. It relates events in the historical development of Israel, including the building of the Temple in Jerusalem, the division of the united monarchy into Israel and Judah and eventually the defeat of the Israelites and the beginning of captivity in Babylon.
Yet depicting these historical events in a close translation of the books of Kings is not Ælfric’s focus. Unlike some of Ælfric’s other translations from the Old Testament, such as the early chapters of the Book of Genesis found in the Old English ‘Heptateuch’ (to read about this work, click here), Kings is not a literal rendering of the Latin Vulgate Bible into Old English. Rather, Ælfric radically shortens the source material, shaping his version so that it offers a particular focus and message. In addition, unlike his Genesis translation, which is translated into more traditional Old English prose, Kings is written in alliterative prose, characteristic of the later stages of Ælfric’s career.
Ælfric’s transformation of his source is evident from the opening lines. The book of I Samuel describes the introduction of King Saul—anointed by Samuel as God’s chosen king—to the Israelite people. Much of the content of I Samuel features Saul failing to act as a good king, and his behaviour being contrasted with that of David, who will ultimately become king after Saul’s death. Rather than representing historical details, Ælfric provides only a brief description of Saul and David, and in doing so emphasises the contrast between them as respectively a bad and a good king. He begins Kings:
Saul hatte se forma cyning þe ofer Godes folc rixode. Se wæs to cynincge ahafen swyðor for folces gecorennysse þonne ðurh Godes ræd.
[The first king who reigned over God’s people was called Saul. He was raised up as king by the choice of the people rather than through the counsel of God.] (Clayton and Mullins, pp. 140–41).
Here, by removing Saul’s anointing by Samuel, and any suggestion that God was involved in the process of his becoming king, Ælfric emphasises that the people have chosen him, not God. The consequences of this choice are immediately obvious, as Ælfric condenses the extended description of Saul’s seesawing obedience and disobedience in I Samuel into an entirely negative summation of his reign:
Se beah hrædlice fram þæs ælmihtigan Godes willan and nolde be his wissunge and be his witegan lare faran and se yfela gast hine drehte mid deofollicum sticelsum and on ungewitte his mod awende.
[He soon turned away from the will of the almighty God and refused to act according to his direction and his prophet’s teaching, and the evil spirit disturbed him with diabolical goading and altered his mind to insanity.] (Clayton and Mullins, pp. 140–41).
In contrast, David, who is both God’s chosen king and a sinful man in I and II Samuel, is presented as a wholly positive exemplar of kingship by Ælfric. The narrative of his adultery with Bathsheeba, and the murder of her husband, is entirely removed. David wæs witega and wuldorful cyning (‘was a prophet and a glorious king’) who Gode gelicode oð his lifes ende and mid ealre heortan him gehyrsumode a (‘pleased God until the end of his life and always obeyed him with all his heart’) (Clayton and Mullins, pp. 142–43). The opening of Kings, therefore, establishes a clear contrast between Saul and David. Through this Ælfric highlights his key focus—exemplars of good and bad kingship to model to his audience the appropriate behaviours for a king to undertake.
Ælfric continues to radically condense his source material following this opening. The story of David’s son Solomon, for example, is removed entirely. This is possibly because Solomon is an ambiguous figure. He was faithful to God, praying to him for wisdom and building the Temple in Jerusalem, but also disobeyed his commands by marrying numerous foreign wives and worshipping their gods. Solomon therefore fits somewhat awkwardly into Ælfric’s structure of contrasting good and bad kings. On the other hand, King Ahab and his wife Jezebel feature prominently in Kings; the reigns of Ahab and his sons take up more than half of Ælfric’s text. These are figures who sit more easily with Ælfric’s desire to distinguish between good and bad kings because they are obviously bad—Ahab is an arleasa cyning (‘impious king’) and his queen Jezebel is described using a superlative as forcuþost wifa (‘the most depraved of women’) (Clayton and Mullins, pp. 142–43).
Ælfric’s Kings ends with the story of the good king Josiah; he does not include the ending of the biblical source in which the Israelites are defeated in battle and taken into exile in Babylon. This enables him to keep the focus on exemplars of kingship, rather than the wider historical narrative. His final words position the text as a lesson for his contemporary audience. This was not an uncommon approach to the Old Testament in early English literature, in which the biblical source was often used as a means of providing an indirect commentary on the present day. He writes:
we cweðað to soðum: se þe synnum gehyrsumað and Godes beboda forsyhð, nu on þæs god-spelles timan, þæt he bið þam cynincgum gelic ðe gecuron deofol-gild and heora scyppend forsawon, se ðe soþlice is ana God ælmihtig, æfre rixigende. Þam sy a wuldor on ealra worulda woruld. Amen.
[we say in truth: he who is obedient to sins and holds God’s commandments in contempt, now in the time of the gospel, he will be like those kings who chose idolatry and held their creator in contempt, he who truly is the one God almighty, ruling everlastingly. To him be glory eternally, world without end. Amen.] (Clayton and Mullins, pp. 170-71).
This is a call for his readers to heed the warning from the fates of those kings who have failed to obey God and instead were ‘obedient to sins’. While Ælfric recognises the different time in which he is writing—the ‘time of the gospel’—he presents Kings as having a relevant and compelling message for his contemporary audience. It is not only a lesson on how kings and leaders should act, important in Ælfric’s own political moment which was a time of increasing Viking activity and threats. Kings is also a series of exemplars emphasising the importance of personal obedience to God for its readers.
Bibliography
Editions
Clayton, Mary, and Juliet Mullins, ed. and trans. Old English Lives of Saints, Vol. I–III: Ælfric, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 60 (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2019).
Skeat, Walter W., ed. and trans. Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, EETS O. S. 76, 82, 94, 114 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966).
Criticism
Anderson, Rachel. ‘The Old Testament Homily: Ælfric as Biblical Translator’, in The Old English Homily: Precedent, Practice, and Appropriation, ed. Aaron J. Kleist (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 121–43.
Clemoes, Peter. ‘The Chronology of Ælfric’s Works’, repr. in Old English Prose: Basic Readings, ed. Paul E. Szarmach with the assistance of Deborah A. Oosterhouse (New York: Garland Publishing, 2000), pp. 29–72.
Godden, Malcolm. ‘Biblical Literature: The Old Testament’, in The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature ed. Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 214–33.
Hill, Joyce. ‘The Dissemination of Ælfric’s Lives of Saints: A Preliminary Survey’, in Holy Men and Holy Women: Old English Prose Saints’ Lives and Their Contexts, ed. Paul E. Szarmach (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996), pp. 235–59.
Kleist, Aaron J. The Chronology and Canon of Ælfric of Eynsham (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2019).
Magennis, Hugh, and Mary Swan, ed. A Companion to Ælfric (Leiden: Brill, 2009).
Magennis, Hugh. ‘Ælfric’s Lives of Saints and Cotton Julius E.vii: Adaptation, Appropriation and the Disappearing Book', in Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe: Imagining the Book, ed. Stephen Kelly and John J. Thompson (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), pp. 99–109.
Wilcox, Jonathan. ‘The Audience of Ælfric’s Lives of Saints and the Face of Cotton Caligula A. xiv, fols. 93–130’, in Beatus Vir: Studies in Early English and Norse Manuscripts. In Memory of Philip Pulsiano, ed. A. N. Doane and Kirsten Wolf, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 319 (Tempe, AZ: ACMRS, 2006), pp. 228–63.
Emma Knowles is Lecturer in the Faculty of Education and Arts at the Australian Catholic University where she teaches mainly medieval and Renaissance literature. Her research focuses on Old English biblical poetry and she has recently published on the Old English Exodus in English Studies and Notes and Queries.
