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The Athelstan Gift Story: Its Influence on English Chronicles and Carolingian Romances
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
To saints and their relics in the Middle Ages great men did great reverence. The mighty Charlemagne zealously collected and distributed relics of Christ and the saints; so, too, did the noble King Athelstan of England, who was, to his own contemporaries, something of “an English Charlemagne.” Certain tales relating to these two famous rulers and the holy relics acquired by them, are full of interest in themselves and in the relationship, at special stages, of the stories to each other. The Continental Carolingian narratives—the Pèlerinage de Charlemagne, the Descriptio qualiter Karolus Magnus clavum et coronam Domini a Constantino poli Aquis Grani detulerit, the Fierabras tell how Charlemagne, either on a fabulous journey to the East, or by warfare in Spain, got a hoard of precious relics which included some from the Crucifixion but never, in the oldest versions of these stories, any part of the Passion Lance. An ancient story, of English origin, tells how Athelstan received, as a gift from France, a hoard which likewise included some Passion relics. Among the gifts was the Passion Lance which was said to have belonged to Charlemagne; there was also the vexillum of St. Mauricius. For the Carolingian stories named above there is no extant text that antedates the latter half of the twelfth century, no conjectured source that antedates the latter half of the eleventh century. The Athelstan Gift Story, as we shall call it, was first set forth in an Anglo-Latin poem eulogizing the English king (d. 939). This panegyric was quoted and summarized by William of Malmesbury (1125) and is now accepted, though it was long ignored, as an authentic tenth century source. It may have been this almost unknown poem which inspired in the Chanson de Roland, in that earliest Anglo-Norman copy known as the Oxford Roland, four concepts connected with Charlemagne's reported possession of a bit of the Passion Lance. Our concern here, however, is not with the ancient Latin poem, but with the version of its Gift Story by William of Malmesbury. To it he gave new life, new currency; its influence can be traced in various chronicles and in certain English Carolingian romances. It throws new light on their development and relationships. Strangely enough, it was in these English Carolingian stories and not in their Continental sources and analogues that the idea that Charlemagne had once possessed the Passion Lance took root and flourished.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1952
References
1 For bibliography and comment on these narratives see A Critical Bibliography of French Literature, i: The Medieval Period, ed. Urban Holmes (Syracuse Univ. Press. 1947) ; also his History of Old French Literature (Chapel Hill, N. C., 1937), and his article in Sym., i (Nov. 1947), 75-81 : “The Pèlerinage de Charlemagne and William of Malmesbury.”
2 Comments of various historians on this Latin poem are given in my article, “The Holy Relics of Charlemagne and King Athelstan,” Speculum, xxv (Oct. 1950), 437-456, which also gives further historical and literary reasons for the date. For William of Malmesbury's summary and quotations from the poem see his De Gestis Regum Anglorum, ed. William Stubbs, Rolls Ser., 2 vols. (London, 1887-89), i, 144-145, 150-152. In his Introduction, ii, lxi-lxx, Stubbs fully accepted the antiquity of the poem, but his remarks on it, like those of William himself, have been generally ignored. Its 10th-century origin is, however, recognized without question by so recent and authoritative an historian as F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1947), pp. 315, n.1; 335, n.1; 686, 688.
3 L. H. Loomis, “The Passion Lance Relic and the War Cry Monjoie in the Chanson de Roland and Related Texts,” RR, xu (1950), 247 ff.
4 William's De Gestis Regum appeared as Item 6 in MS. 17656 (Paris, B.N. Fonds lat., ff. 57-109). This St.-Denis MS., of great importance for French historiography, was written soon after 1179, according to C. Meredith-Jones, Pseudo-Turpin (Paris, 1936), pp. 5-6, or soon after 1184, according to H. M. Smyser, The Pseudo-Turpin (Cambridge, Mass., 1937), pp. 52-53. The Gift Story was, therefore, known in France before the end of the 12 th century.
5 In transcribing the text I have modernized the capitalization of names, the usage of u and v, and corrected in a few instances the scribe's mistaken separation of words. I am indebted to Professor Ruth Dean for several helpful suggestions and for the information that the story reappears in Trevet's Chronicles (after 1334). In the version in MS. Magdalen 45, f. 70, the French suitor who sends the gifts is not Hugh of France but “Lowis prince daquitayne,” who did in fact marry one of Athelstan's sisters.
6 Le Livere de Reis de Briltanie e le Livere de Reis de Englelerre, ed. John Glover, Rolls Ser. (London, 1845), pp. 64-66, from a late-13th-century MS., Trinity Coll., Cambridge, R. 14. 7. Stengel (op. cit.) mentioned five other MSS., unknown to Koch or Glover, which likewise contained Li reis de Engleterre. See below, n. 8. A new edition is greatly to be desired.
7 For the use of the Gift Story in the Karlamagnus Saga see RR, xli (1950), 257-259; also my article in Philologica, The Malone Anniversary Studies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1949), pp. 140, 43, on “The Saint Mercurius Legend in Medieval England and in Norse Saga.”
8 Ewald Zettl ed., EETS, No. 196 (London, 1935), pp. 22-25; for comment on the Gift Story, pp. Ixxvii ff. Zettl, pp. lxxiii, lxxxii-lxxxv, cxxxii, noted “the marked agreement(s) between our (chronicle) version and the equally short survey Le livere de Reis ... for the period between the political division of England and the time of Canute.” Though Zettl spoke of eleven MSS. of the Reis, his comparison was based solely on the Cambridge MS. (ed. Glover). The Cotton MS. quoted above agrees much more closely with the Chronicle. All quotations from the latter are here given, for textual reasons, from the edition by M. C. Carroll and R. Tuve of the Auchinleck MS. version (A) in PMLA, xlvi (1931), 115-154.
9 W. A. Wright ed., Rolls Ser., 2 vols. (London, 1887). The Gift Story, ii, 830-832, App. EE, is found only in 15th-century MSS. containing the second recension of Robert's work. Cf. Wright, i, vii, xi, xliii. His dating of this Chronicle “about 1300” (p. xi) is carefully stated to be merely “probable.” He thought (p. viii) the original version was independently completed by different continuators.
10 Speculum, xxv (1950), 439, 452, n. 13.
11 Robert's changes from the Gift Story as preserved by William and the Short Chronicle were admitted by Zettl, p. lxxvii. He apparently thought that the Chronicle took its phraseology from Robert, its factual details from William.
12 For comments on this passage see Zettl, p. lxxvii; Carroll and Tuve, PMLA, xlvi, 150. Zettl realized that the conjoined couplets on the Passion Lance and St. Maurice's banner (A, vss. 1636-45, see below, p. 532) belonged to the original Short Chronicle though now missing from all MSS. save A and F. He thought it merely “coincidence” that this sequence agreed with William's.
13 Yet Robert, in mentioning the ambassador from France as “the kinges neueu alfre. “at was wys,” seems alone to have preserved here a detail from the Reis (see above, p. 523, l. 9) which in turn derived it from William (i, 133).
14 Zettl, pp. lxxvii, cxxxi f.; Carroll and Tuve, PMLA, xxvi, 150; R. Sternberg, “Ueber eine versificirte mittelengl. chronik,” Englische Studien, xvii (1893), 392-394. J. E. Wells, Manual of Writings in Middle English (New Haven, 1916), p. 198, likewise spoke of the Robert Chronicle as a principal source of the Short Chronicle. A reconsideration of this opinion is desirable.
15 Zettl, p. xvi, thought the Auchinleck version was composed in 1327 or 1328, and noted, p. cxxxii, that it added about 1,500 lines to the original version.
16 The Early History of Abingdon Abbey (Oxford, 1913), p. 44; pp. 7-8, 38. In his Anglo-Saxon England, p. 341, Stenton spoke of Abingdon where Athelstan met the French embassy, as “the site of an ancient monastery then in the king's hands.”
17 Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon, ed. Joseph Stevenson, Rolls Ser., 2 vols. (London, 1858); for the History of the Abbots, see ii, App. 2, pp. 276-277; for the MSS., see i, xiv-xv; also Stenton, History of Abingdon, pp. 1 ff. H. W. Davis, Eng. Hist. Rev., xxix (1914), 344, accepted Stenton's belief that the oldest MS. of the Chronicon, Claud. C ix, represents a transcript of an original completed before 1170, but felt that even in this copy the hand of the forger can be detected.
18 Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, p. 438: “Godescalc the priest, whom Athelstan placed in charge of the secularized monastery of Abingdon, bore a German name, which was never current in pre-Conquest England.” The abbot's name was probably authentic but the king's gift was not. Abingdon knew of the presents only through William of Malmesbury.
19 Athelstan seems to have given most of the relics he received from France to Exeter Cathedral. Cf. Speculum, xxv, 448, for an early 11th-century record of the relics given by him to Exeter. Two relics, as noted by William, went to Malmesbury.
20 Gui de Warewic (Paris, 1933) (Les classiques françaises du Moyen Age), p. vi. E, the oldest MS., now Add. 38662, must have been copied soon after the composition of the romance itself. On the volume to which this MS. once belonged, see below, n. 36.
21 Charles Gross, The Sources and Literature of English History, 2nd ed. (London, 1915), p. 247, No. 1371.
22 Revue de l'art chrétien, xlvii (1897), 299 ff.; also his Exuviae Sacrae Constantino politanae (Paris, 1904), pp. 91 ff. Cf. Speculum, xxv, 441, n. 29.
23 Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden, 9 vols., Rolls Ser. (London, 1865-86). This edition included the English translation of Higden by John Trevisa (1387) and another by an unknown writer of the 15th century. Cf. Gross, op. cit., p. 371, No. 1793.
24 Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, p. 342.
25 Speculum, xxv, 442; A. Hofmeister, Die heilige Lanze, ein Abzeichen des alten Reich (Breslau, 1908), Ch. iv. Hofmeister did not know of Higden's reference to the Gift Story but mentioned the Liber de Hyda for its reference to Otto the Great.
26 E. Edwards ed., Rolls Ser. (London, 1866), pp. 117-118.
27 Gross, op. cit., p. 397, No. 1866. For Florence of Worcester's reference to Otto's marriage see his Chronicon, ed. Benjamin Thorpe, 2 vols., Eng. Hist. Soc. (London, 1848-49), under the year 937.
28 J. R. Lumby ed., 2 vols, Rolls Ser. (London, 1889-95). For the Gift Story, see i, 20 ff.
29 For Gerard's Latín translation and its incorporation into Higden's Polychronicon, see L. A. Hibbard, Medieval Romance in England (New York, 1924), pp. 130 ff., and for the vogue of the romance, pp. 128 ff.
30 L. H. Loomis, “The Auchinleck MS. and a Possible English Bookshop of 1330-40,” PMLA, lvii (1942), 609 ff.
31 Ibid., pp. 612, 624; see also the important study by H. M. Smyser, “Charlemagne and Roland and the Auchinleck MS.,” Speculum, xxi (1946), 284-288.
32 MLN, lx (1945), 94-97.
33 S. J. H. Herrtage ed., EETSES, xxxix (London, 1882).
34 Carroll and Tuve, PMLA, xlvi, 136 ff.
35 “Charlemagne and Roland, A Study of the Sources of Two Middle English Metrical Romances, Roland and Vernagu and Otuel and Roland,” Univ. of Calif. Publ. in Modern Philol., xxi (1944), 396-409, traced the history of the Turpin-Descriptio through the Latin, the French and English versions. In discussing, pp. 416-417, the occasional addition of the Lance to the other Passion relics acquired by Charlemagne in the Descriptio and Fierabras legends, Walpole did not differentiate the Continental from the insular versions. In addition to what follows on this point, see also Speculum, xxv, 450 f., where the present study is briefly anticipated. For a valuable critical edition of a French translation of the Descriptio by Pierre de Beauvais (c. 1212), see Walpole, Semitic and Oriental Studies, Univ. of Calif. Publ. in Semitic Philol., xi (1951), 433 ff.
36 “The Source MS. of Charlemagne and Roland and the Auchinleck Bookshop,” MLN, lx (1945), 22-26. Cf. also Smyser, Speculum, xxi, 286.
37 “Le MS de Hanovre,” Romania, xxviii (1899), 490.
38 Studien zur Hds. IV, 578 der Provinzialbibliothek zu Hannover, Fierabras d'Alixandre (Göttingen, 1935), p. 3.
39 “Alte und neue Fierabras Fragen,” Zts. f. rom. Phil., lx (1940), 52.
40 “La Destruction de Rome et Fierabras, B.M., Egerton, 3028,” ed. L. Brandin, Romania, lxiv (1938), 18-100. Cf. also H. M. Smyser, “A New MS. of the Destruction de Rome and Fierabras,” Harvard Stud. in Phil. and Lit., xiv (1932), 339-349.
41 “La Composition de Fierabras,” Romania, xvii (1888), 37: “Dans Fierabras, le vrai protagoniste, ce sont les reliques,” i.e., the Nails, the Thorns, “le signe.”
42 Editors of English versions of the Fierabras legend (see below, notes 47-49) have proposed various interpretations for l'ensigne. Herrtage, Sir Ferumbras, p. 191, identified it with the “title placed over Our Lord's head”; Hausknecht, Sowdone of Babylon, p. 108, n. for v. 665, believed it meant, not the inscription, but rather Christ's shroud (sudatorium, suaire). Miss O'Sullivan, Firumbras, p. xxxix, n. 2, not committing herself about I'ensigne, established the meaning of suaire, sudary, as the napkin placed about Christ's head. In all versions, Latin and French, of the Descriplio, it should be noted, the fragment of the Cross and the sudarium, suaire, were mentioned as separate relics. In the Sowdon of Babylon, the “Crosse” unquestionably translates I'ensigne.
43 Bédier, Romania, xvii, 40: “Fierabras n'est rien autre chose que la Chanson de reliques de saint-Denis.” Cf. also Bédier's Légendes Épiques (Paris, 1929), iv, 158-164. For Abbot Suger's comments on the Abbey's possession of the Passion relics, the Nail, the Crown of Thorns, also the arm of St. Simeon, see Erwin Panofsky, Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St. Denis (Princeton, 1946), pp. 86, 101, 133.
44 W. W. Skeat ed., EETSES, xxix (London, 1870), Bk. iii, vss. 437-459.
45 Erik Björkman ed. (Heidelberg, 1915). Björkman, p. 171, n. on vss. 3426 f., merely noted the absence of the Lance from accounts of Charlemagne's Eastern journey. On the MA see Wells, Manual, pp. 36 ff., 767; also the recent translation in Medieval English Verse and Prose, by Roger S. Loornis and Rudolph Willard (New York, 1948), esp. pp. 135, 551.
46 R. H. Griffith, “Malory, Morte Arthure, and Fierabras,” Anglia, xxxii (1909), 389-398.
47 E. Hausknecht ed., EETSES, xxxviii (London, 1881); cf. Wells, Manual, pp. 84, 775. Brandin, Romania, lxiv, 28, thought the Sowdone, in some parts, an almost literal translation of the Egerton Destruction de Rome. He merely noted, p. 24, in the Destruction, the exceptional reference to the Lance.
48 Sir Ferumbras, Ashmole MS. 33, c. 1380, ed. S. J. Herrtage, EETSES, xxxiv (London, 1879). Cf. Wells, Manual, pp. 86, 776.
49 Firumbras and Otuel and Roland, ed. Mary O'Sullivan, EETS, cxcviii (London, 1935). After a survey, pp. xxvii-xi, of all the versions of Fierabras, except the Egerton MS. which she did not yet know, Miss O'Sullivan, p. xl, remarked on the unique addition of the Lance to the other relics in the Fillingham Firumbras.
50 Bédier, Romania, xvii, 39; Légendes Epiques, iv, 164. He dated the Descriptio between 1109-24 (Leg. Ep., iv, 125 ff.) and the Fierabras (iv, 157) about 1170.
51 Rose Peebles, The Legend of Longinus in Ecclesiastical Tradition and in English Literature (Baltimore, 1911), Ch. vi.
52 Charlemagne and Roland, pp. 429 ff.
53 See Speculum, xxv, 450-451.
54 Cf. Romanic Review, xli, 251 ff, for questionable attempts to date the Roland after the discovery of the Passion Lance at Antioch, 1098. It is unfortunate that in his impressive study, La Chanson de Roland dans les littératures française et espagnole au moyen âge (Paris, 1951), p. 291 f., Jules Horrent not only accepts a post-1098 date for the Lance passage in the Roland but thinks it has “l'apparence de digression.” Since it alone explains the war cry Monjoie which rings throughout the Roland and also the name Joyeuse, one may well ask what else is more integral to the whole poem?