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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Athelston is one of the most vigorous and independent of Middle English romances, yet it is one about which least is known. Various writers have commented on this “strange neglect,” but in the years since 1829 when Hartshorne first published the text in his Ancient Metrical Tales, it has only twice been made the subject of serious study. Zupitza's edition in Englische Studien XIII-XIV (1889–1890) was primarily textual in character and devoted less than two pages to questions of origin. In Englische Studien XXXVI (1906), Prof. Gerould discussed “Social and Historical Reminiscences in Athelston.” Frankly accepting Zupitza's brief conjectures as to the original personages and events of the story, he concerned himself with the study of sworn brotherhood, a custom prominently referred to in the romance, and with the interesting possibility that the characterization of king and bishop in the romance had been influenced by the vivid personalities of Henry II and Thomas Becket. Certainly their memory was as living for the fourteenth century as it had been for the twelfth since it was continually renewed by the pilgrim hosts at Becket's shrine. A story which had to tell of the quarrel between a king and a churchman might well borrow something from the traditional violence of King Henry and the fearless courage of Becket, but such influence in Athelston, if it existed at all, must have affected simply the characterization of the two dominant personalities; in other respects, in motive, detail and incident, there is no real correspondence between history and the romance. In a story so closely knit as Athelston it is unprofitable to believe that it had absorbed unrelated incidents or that it had varied very much from whatever was its basic type. From the false accusation brought by the king's friend against his sworn brother, through the king's quarrel with the archbishop who hurries to the defense of the king's sister and her husband, to the great climax when the accused pass through the ordeal by fire, the story pursues an almost inevitable course which allows for hardly one of the haphazard accretions usual in mediaeval romance.
1 The poem was also printed by Th. Wright, Reliquiae Antiquae, 1845, ii, 85 ff., and by Lord Francis Hervey, Corolla Sancti Eadmundi, London, 1907, p. 525 ff., a text unlisted by Wells, Manual of Writings in Middle English, 1916, p. 766. It was translated by Dr. Edith Eickert, Romances of Friendship, London, 1908.
2 There were three Anglo-Saxon kings of this name. Aethelstan I (839–852), an obscure king of East Anglia and Kent of whom the chroniclers tell little more than his name (cf. Oman, England before the Norman Conquest, Lond. 1913, p. 396, and Hervey, op. cit. p. xviiiff.); the Danish prince Guthrum who was conquered (878) by King Alfred and who received at his baptism the name Aethelstan (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle); and Aethelstan III, the famous victor of Brunanburgh (937). Of him, according to William of Malmesbury, songs and stories were long current. The attempt made by Hervey to identify the Athelston of the romance with the first of these kings is wholly unconvincing. For it no better reasons are given than that the Kentish coloring of the romance points to the history of a Kentish king, and that the mention of St. Edmund places the story in the ninth, not the tenth century. Since it can be shown that the whole poem was based on a story invariably ascribed to the eleventh century, it is impossible to regard the historical names used as anything more than deliberate disguises. Further comment on the use of the names Athelston and Alryke is given below.
3 Eadgyth, sister of Aethelstan III, married Otto the Great, son of Henry the Fowler. Nothing save the name connects this lady with the romance. In this, although the story of her ordeal is referable to an altogether different personage, it is not impossible that some suggestion for the special sanctity of the heroine came from the likeness of her name to that of Saint Edith, a tenth-century Anglo-Saxon saint who was still greatly venerated in the fourteenth century. Cf. Eandlynge Synne, l. 9227, and Gerould, Saints Legends, 1916, Index. It was also the name of the wife of Edward the Confessor. See below, note 12.
4 For these and the other names mentioned, see W. G. Searle, Onomasticon Anglo-Saxonicum, Cambridge, 1897, and Anglo-Saxon Bishops, Kings and Nobles, Cambridge, 1899.
5 A full account of Saint Edmund is given in the Corolla Sancti Eadmundi, but see also C. Gross, Sources and Literature of English History, London, 1915, Index.
6 For Horn, see Schofield, Publ. Mod. Lang. Ass., xviii; Heuser, Anglia, xxxi, 105; for Beves, Stimmung, Der agn. Boeve, 1899; Deutschbein, Sagengeschichte Englands, 1906, p. 201; for Guy, Deutschbein, p. 214 ff.
7 The “Brother help Brother” story told by William of Malmesbury in connection with Aethelstan and the false cup-bearer, might have led Zupitza to the true source of the romance had he followed the tale through the chronicles. In the Annales de Wintonia (Rolls Series, p. 25) it is shifted from iEthelstan to Edward the Confessor and Earl Godwin, and immediately follows the legend of Queen Emma.
8 Full biographical detail concerning Emma may be found in the Diet, of National Biography, Freeman's Norman Conquest, Gross Sources, etc.
9 Gross, Sources, Nos. 1696, 1764.
10 It may be well to point out that the author of Athelston has simply divided the part played by Emma between the king's wife and his sister; the first one sends for help, the latter endures the imprisonment and ordeal. One scene only, that in which the queen makes her personal plea to Athelston for mercy, is new. The reason for its general character will be given; the reason for its introduction was probably the desire to blacken the royal character as much as possible in contrast with the nobleness of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
11 In addition to Athelston's wife the author of the romance created two new characters, the messenger, who was a dramatic impersonation of the message sent by Queen Emma, and Egelan, husband of the king's sister, whose part in the romance is simply an ineffective doubling of his wife's, to whom the main business of Emma's rôle was transferred, i. e., the enduring of the false accusation, the imprisonment and the ordeal.
12 Prof. Gerould's notes prove the popularity of this well-known motif; its introduction into the romance was an effective touch since it increased Wymound's villainy. Instead of a royal favorite accusing the king's relative, we have one sworn brother accusing another who is also a sworn brother of the king. The suggestion for providing the king with brothers of some sort seems to have come from the chronicles which likewise afforded the historically related names of Athelston and his sister Edith as substitutes for the names of Edward the Confessor and his mother Emma. The chronicles give various brothers to King Edward (Cf. Freeman, Norman Conquest, Note ss, The Children of Æthelred). He seems really to have had a half brother iEthelstan though occasionally in such a text as the English translation of Higden's Polychronicon, Rolls Ser. vii, 43, we are told that the four sons of Æthelred and Emma were “Edwyne, Ethelstan, Alfrede, and Edwarde.” It is probable that these real brothers or half-brothers of Edward, not only suggested the introduction of the sworn brothers motif, but that the name of tihe obscure brother Æthelstan suggested borrowing the names of the famous king and his relatives for the personages of the transformed Emma legend. Prom this point of view the use of the name Edith may have double significance, since it was alike the name of Æthel'stan's sister and of the Confessor's wife.
13 Warton, History of Eng. Poetry, 1840, pp. 81–82. Cf. E K. Chambers, Mediaeval Stage, Oxford, 1903, i, 56.
14 line passive part of Alwyn, Bishop of Winchester, Emma's fellow sufferer in the original tale, is practically dropped in Athelston except in the passage in which Alryke receives the penitent king.
15 For instance, in telling how the queen had to step forth barelegged, the poet remarked, “Away, vulle bycome yt queue so bare vorto be,” l. 6844. For bibliographical details concerning the chronicle see Wells, Manual, p. 794.
16 Rolls Series, 1865–86; Gross, Sources, p. 371, No. 1793. Hdgden's account (vol. vii, p. 162) abbreviated that of Bichard of Devizes by omitting the long formal letter of the queen, by greatly condensing the speech made by Bobert of Jumièges, and by omitting the detailed description of the queen's night of prayer and the church and people on the day of the ordeal. In many sentences Higden preserved the actual phraseology of the Annales de Wintonia. In the following quotation from Robert's speech, Higden's variations from the Annales (p. 22) are given in parentheses. (Sed esto quod) foemina vult purgare pontificem. Et (sed) quis purgabit earn, quae dicitur consensisse in necem filii sui (omitted) Eluredi (Aluredi), et procurasse venenum Edwardo ? “
17 The Chronicon covers the years 959–1366, and down to 1336 was mainly derived from Higden and Heminburgh (Gross, Sources, p. 376, No. 1807). The text is printed in the Rolls Series, 1889–95.
18 For Bromipton's Chronicon, 588–1198, see Gross, Sources, No. 1727. For Budborne's Historia de foundatione et successions ecclesiasia Winttoniensis, 164–1138, see Henry Wharton, Anglia Sacra, 1691, Vol. i, p. 177 ff., and Gross, Sources, No. 1839.
19 Cf. Mayor, Rolls Ser. ii, p. x, and E. H. Pearce, The Monks of Westminster, Cambridge, 1916, p. 100, where the fullest account of Richard's monastic activities is given. In 1364 he was “Scolaris Oxon.” The Emma legend is found in the Speculum, Bk. iv, c. xx (Rolls Ser. ii, 254–255).
20 Rolls Ser. ii, p. clxv; J. Armitage Robinson and M. R. James, The Manuscripts of Westminster, Cambridge, 1909, p. 25.
21 It appears, for instance, in none of the Lives of Edward the Confessor printed by Luard, Rolls Ser. 1858.
22 The agreement between the texts of Higden and of Richard is not merely in the matter of content but also in diction. In the Annales for instance, the writing of the queen's letter had been thus introduced, “Regina—permissa est scribere omnibus episcopis quos sibi fidos crediderat, et dolores suos exponere. Forma scriptorum talis erat,” etc., (p. 20) which Higden (p. 162) had changed to “sed (omitted) Emma … scripsit episcopis Angliae, in quibus con-fidebat, se plus de praesulis (Wyntoniensis) dedecore quam (sua) (omitted) de sua (de sua omitted) verecundia torqueri, (;) paratam (que) se (Dei) probare Dei (omitted) iudico ferrique candentis examine (,) episcopum fore (omitted) injuste (fore) diffamatum.” (Richard's variations are given in parenthesis; the texts are here practically identical.)
23 There are distinct verbal reminiscences of the Annals in Richard's text. Most interesting, perhaps, is the identical sentence in the Annals (p. 25) and in Richard's text (p. 255): “Robertus archiepiscopus fugit ex (extra) Anglia.” In Higden's account (p. 184) this read: “Robertus Cantuariensis fugit in Normanniam.” It ia a noteworthy fact that the villain's stay at Dover is mentioned only in the Winchester Annals and in the romance of Athelston, a detail pointing clearly to the close relationship between the Annals and the romance.
24 Zupitza (Eng. Stud., xiv, 330 ff.) proved the mingling of Northern and Midland forms in the poem. His conclusion that it is an example of North Midland dialect does not invalidate the present theory that the poem was actually composed in London by a minstrel whose home may have been in the more northern district. Morsbach, Mitteleng. Grammatik, p. 8, classes Athelston with other NorthEast Midland romances.
Zupitza's conclusion (p. 337) that the poem was composed before 1400 is not to be doubted but his reference of it to 1350 is admittedly sheer conjecture. If the poem is, as I believe, to be connected with Richard of Cirencester who did not come to Westminster until 1355 and who had probably but little opportunity to devote himself to chronicle lore until after his return from Oxford, the date of its composition lies between 1365 and 1391 when he received permission to go on the long journey to Rome.
25 In the legend of Emma Archbishop Robert arranged the details of the ordeal even as Alryke does in the romance. Like Bishop Alwyn, Alryke receives the penitent submission of the king and gives him absolution. In an edition of Athelston which she is preparing as an M. A. thesis for Wellesley College, Miss Beatrice Putney will present a fuller discussion of the historical elements in both legend and romance than has been possible here. It may be remarked, however, that there were quarrels enough in the fourteenth century between the English kings and archbishops of Canterbury to afford ample suggestion to any contemporary writer for all the details in Athelston that seem reminiscent of the Becket quarrel.
26 Cf. Luard, Lives of Edward the Confessor, pp. xxxi-xxxiii.
27 Although Freeman calls it “a great case,” he gives no other authority for the story than this one manuscript. Neither does Plummer, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ii, 234. Curiously enough Freeman gives the monk's name as Aelfricus, although he is quoting from this single text in which the name is plainly Aelricus. In this mistake he is followed by Plummer and other modern historians.
28 Cf. the Speculum, p. 209 ff., 212 ff., etc. in which by marginal references the borrowings from the Vita are made plain.
29 The romance tells with considerable gusto of how Archbishop Alryke forces the king to tell him who had made the false accusation. A message is then sent to Wymound enticing him from Dover to London where, having failed to endure the ordeal, he is dragged by horses to the Elms and there hung.
30 It is worthy of note that the history of the legend in the chronicles shows a circulation largely confined to Benedictine communities such as those at St. Swithin's, Winchester, Gloucester Abbey, St. Werburgh's, Chester, Malmesbury and Westminster.
31 Chambers, Mediaeval Stage, Oxford, 1903, i, 56; Pound, “The Eng. Ballads and the Church,” Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc., xxxv, 182 (1920).
32 The writer has in hand other studies of the same general character. Por all such work the model and inspiration is M. Bedier's Les Légendes Épiques, 1908.
