Two Languages at Prayer: Anglo-Saxon Bilingual Service Books

FAIN: FA-51581-05

Karen Louise Jolly
University of Hawaii (Honolulu, HI 96822-2216)

This request is for a fellowship to support the final year of writing a co-authored book that examines the complex relationship between language, culture, and religion. In the 7th century, Christianity brought its own ritual language, Latin, along with literacy to the Anglo-Saxons in Britain. By the 9th century, the Anglo-Saxons were producing Latin service books interlaced with Old English, thereby maintaining the received Christian tradition while creating a distinctive vernacular practice. This project uses paleographic analysis of 9th-11th century manuscripts with mixed Old English and Latin prayers, rituals, and remedies to reveal how bilingual voices act as transcultural agents in response to a globalizing religion.

Associated Products

Prayers from the Field: Practical Protection and Demonic Defense in Anglo-Saxon England (Article)
Title: Prayers from the Field: Practical Protection and Demonic Defense in Anglo-Saxon England
Author: Karen Louise Jolly
Abstract: A unique set of ritual prayers from tenth-century Northumbria offered the means to protect fields and crops from birds, vermin, and other demonically inspired threats to the agricultural community. They were part of a series of additions made to the Durham Collectar or Ritual (Durham, Cathedral Library A.IV.19) around 970 by the Chester-le-Street scriptorium of St. Cuthbert’s community, under the direction of Aldred, the eccentric glossator of the Lindisfarne Gospels. These five Latin prayers glossed in Old English use exorcistic and benedictional formulas, invoke the assistance of an Archangel Panchiel, and contain atypical references to the Book of Tobit, among other unusual characteristics. This seemingly heterodox material has received scant attention from scholars assessing the Durham Ritual manuscript and the work of Aldred. These prayers, however, may reflect the particular interests of the cult of St. Cuthbert, as well as Irish influences in Northumbrian religious practice. Also, a comparable example of one prayer appears in a contemporary Mainz text related to the early development of the Romano-Germanic Pontifical, suggesting that these prayers were part of a larger process, often invisible, of liturgical experimentation during a period of reform and regularization.
Year: 2006
Primary URL: http://www.jstor.org/pss/27832056
Primary URL Description: JSTOR
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Traditio 61: 95-147

Durham Cathedral Library MS A.IV.19, fols. 61r11-88v (Web Resource)
Title: Durham Cathedral Library MS A.IV.19, fols. 61r11-88v
Author: Karen Louise Jolly, ed.
Abstract: ScholarSpace at University of Hawaii at Manoa offers open access to the edition of the manuscript transcription found in the Appendix of The Community of St. Cuthbert in the Late Tenth Century.
Year: 2013
Primary URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26967
Primary URL Description: Edition of Durham Cathedral Library MS A.IV.19, fols. 61r11-88v.
Secondary URL: http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/
Secondary URL Description: ScholarSpace at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Revealing Words: Northumbria in the Tenth Century (Web Resource)
Title: Revealing Words: Northumbria in the Tenth Century
Author: Karen Louise Jolly
Abstract: Blog based on analysis of Aldred's additions and glosses in Durham Cathedral Library MS A.IV.19 and the LIndisfarne Gospels. The author is working on a historical fiction novel that will bring the insights into late tenth century Northumbrian culture gained from this research to a general audience.
Year: 2012
Primary URL: https://litteramepandat.wordpress.com/
Primary URL Description: Revealing Words blog of Karen Jolly.

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