Aelfric was the most important prose writer of the
OLD ENGLISH language. He was a Benedictine monk
and the greatest scholar of the period known as the
“Benedictine Renaissance” in England, a late 10thcentury revival of learning begun by St. Dunstan
(d. 988) and advanced by the Benedictine monasteries. Aelfric was devoted to education, of both the
clergy and the laity, which explains his writing in the
vernacular. He wrote scores of sermons, translated
the first seven books of the Old Testament into English, produced the first Latin grammar written in a
vernacular language, and composed a “Colloquy”—
a Latin conversation between a teacher and his students with interlinear Old English translation,
intended for teaching.
Born sometime in the mid-10th century, Aelfric
was educated at Winchester by St. Athelwold (d.
984), whose Latin biography he later composed.
Soon after Athelwold’s death, Aelfric joined the
new monastery at Cerne Abbas in Dorset, where in
15 years he was to write almost all of his major
works. In 1005, Aelfric left Cerne Abbas to become
the first abbott of another new monastery, at Eynsham in Oxfordshire, where he seems to have
stayed for the rest of his life. As abbot, however,
his administrative duties must have given him little time for serious writing, and he produced very
little in his last years.
Aelfric wrote more than 100 sermons, most of
which were published as “Catholic Homilies” in
two volumes. In these sermons, Aelfric deals with a
wide variety of theological issues. Often he applies
the allegorical interpretation of Scripture advocated by St. AUGUSTINE, whom, along with a variety
of other church fathers, Aelfric cites freely. Another
collection of homilies dedicated to Aethelweard,
patron of Cerne Abbas, is a series of saints’ lives
(see SAINT’S LIFE). It has been speculated that these
were intended for private reading, particularly as
exempla, or illustrative examples of strength and
courage in the face of adversity: Aelfric, writing
during a period of increasingly dangerous Viking
invasions, may have intended these sermons as encouragement to the noble Aethelweard—certainly
the sermon on St. Edmund, the Anglo-Saxon king
who did battle against an earlier pagan Viking invasion, serves such a purpose.
Though Aelfric probably thought of his sermons
as his most important productions, his most popu
lar creation has been his Latin colloquy, a teaching
text that shows evidence of humor and glimpses of
real life, and that demonstrates Aelfric’s dedication
to teaching and his understanding of real-life pupils.
The most prolific of Old English writers, Aelfric
is famous for the learning and versatility of his
writing, as well as his style, which has been admired for its clarity and elegant economy. Writing
during an age of turmoil, during which the Danes
were devastating England, Aelfric (like many of his
contemporaries) seems to have believed he was living in the last days, and made it his mission to educate people, especially concerning basic,
orthodox Christian truths—a knowledge absolutely necessary in the coming Apocalypse. His
influence continued long after his death, with
manuscripts of his works being produced well into
the 12th century. His popularity was even revived
during the Reformation, when, in 1566, his sermons were republished and he was considered a
proto-Protestant because of comments he made
in one sermon that apparently denied the doctrine
of transubstantiation (the belief in the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist). Aelfric, always scrupulously careful about
his orthodoxy, would have been puzzled, perhaps
appalled, by such reaction to his work.
Bibliography
Aelfric. Aelfric’s Catholic Homilies. Edited by Malcolm
Godden. Oxford and New York: Oxford University
Press for the Early English Text Society, 2000.
———. Anglo-Saxon Conversations: The Colloquies of
Aelfric Bata. Translated by Scott Gwara. Woodbridge, U.K.: Boydell, 1997.
Grundy, Lynne. Books and Grace: Aelfric’s Theology.
London: King’s College Centre for Late Antique
and Medieval Studies, 1991.
Hurt, James. Aelfric. New York: Twayne, 1972.
Needham, G. I. Lives of Three English Saints. London:
Methuen, 1966.