1 The Summoner's Tale, lines 1885-1905, ed. Benson, Larry D., The Riverside Chaucer (Boston, 1987), 131.Google Scholar

I am grateful to Thompson, Pauline, Orchard, Andy, Hall, Tom, Liuzza, Roy, and Adams, Anthony for reading and commenting on early versions of this paper. Special thanks are due to Jane Roberts for her very helpful review.Google Scholar

2 Ibid., line 1914.Google Scholar

3 This passage is addressed directly by Lancashire, Ian, “Moses, Elijah, and the Back Parts of God: Satiric Scatology in Chaucer's Summoner's Tale,” Mosaic 14:3 (1981): 17–30, and Szittya, Penn R., “The Friar as False Apostle: Antifraternal Exegesis and the Summoner's Tale,” Studies in Philology 71 (1974): 19-46.Google Scholar

4 Shaw, Teresa M., The Burden of the Flesh: Fasting and Sexuality in Early Christianity (Minneapolis, 1998); Bynum, Caroline Walker, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley, 1987); and Bell, Rudolph M., Holy Anorexia (Chicago, 1985). Older but still useful accounts of early food asceticism include Musurillo, Herbert, “The Problem of Ascetical Fasting in the Greek Patristic Writers,” Traditio 12 (1956): 1-64; Arbesmann, Rudolf, “Fasting and Prophecy in Pagan and Christian Antiquity,” Traditio 7 (1949/51): 1-71; and Gougaud, Louis, Devotional and Ascetic Practices in the Middle Ages , trans. Bateman, G. G. (London, 1927).Google Scholar

5 The primary account of Guthlac's life is the substantial Latin prose Vita Sancti Guthlaci, written, probably within a generation of Guthlac's death, by the otherwise unknown monk Felix. Jane Roberts describes thirteen surviving manuscripts (some fragmentary) in “An Inventory of Early Guthlac Materials,” Mediaeval Studies 32 (1970): 193–233; see also Bertram Colgrave's still-standard edition: Felix's Life of Saint Guthlac: Introduction, Text, Translation, and Notes (Cambridge, 1956), 26-44. All other presently known versions of Guthlac's life (except, perhaps, the Old English poem Guthlac A, whose relation is still debated) derive from Felix's Vita and are catalogued exhaustively by Roberts, “Inventory.” Further discussion of the Anglo-Saxon versions is available in Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture , ed. Biggs, Frederick, Hill, Thomas, Szarmach, Paul, and Whatley, Gordon (Kalamazoo, 2001) under the entry “Guthlacus, vita,” 244-47. Guthlac's visit to hell and subsequent rescue by the apostle Bartholomew occur in chapters 31-33 of Felix's Vita (Colgrave, , ed., Felix's Life, 100-108). All references to Felix's Vita Sancti Guthlaci are by chapter and page number following Colgrave's edition. I follow Colgrave's chapter numbering; chapter divisions and numbers vary in the manuscripts. Translations of all texts are mine throughout.Google Scholar

6 Guthlac A, which deals with the saint's early eremitic life, and Guthlac B, which describes his death, appear consecutively after the three Christ poems in MS Exeter Dean and Chapter 3501, ed. Muir, Bernard J., The Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry , 2 vols. (Exeter, 1994), 1:111–59; and Krapp, George and Dobbie, Elliott, The Exeter Book, Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 3 (New York, 1936), 49-88. The poems are also edited by Roberts, Jane, The Guthlac Poems of the Exeter Book (Oxford, 1979). Vercelli Homily 23 has been edited most recently by Scragg, Donald, ed., The Vercelli Homiles, EETS, o.s., 300 (Oxford, 1992), 383-92. For representative scholarship on themes of eschatology and temptation in the Guthlac material, see O'Keeffe, Katherine O'Brien, “Guthlac's Crossings,” Quaestio 2 (2001): 1-26; Hill, Thomas D., “The Middle Way: Idel-Wuldor and Egesa in the Old English Guthlac A,” Review of English Studies, n.s., 30 (1979): 182-87; Calder, Daniel G., “Guthlac A and Guthlac B: Some Discriminations,” in Anglo-Saxon Poetry: Essays in Appreciation for John C. McGalliard , ed. Nicholson, Lewis E., Frese, Dolores Warwick, and Gerber, John C. (Notre Dame, 1975), 65-80; and Shook, Lawrence K., “The Prologue of the Old-English ‘Guthlac A’,” Mediaeval Studies 23 (1961): 294-304.Google Scholar

7 The earliest substantial investigation of relationships between the Vita Sancti Guthlaci and Evagrius's Vita Sancti Antonii is Kurtz, Benjamin, “From St. Antony to St. Guthlac: A Study in Biography,” University of California Publications in Modern Philology 12 (1926): 103–46. More recently, Christian Aggeler has elaborated on Felix's adaptation of the Antonian model in “Fashioning a Northern Antony,” the first chapter of his thesis, “Reinventing the Holy Man: The Medieval English Guthlac Cycle and its Contexts” (PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 2001), 11-93; but see also my own argument that Kurtz and Aggeler place excessive emphasis on Anthony's Life as a source for Guthlac's: “Intertextuality in the Lives of Saint Guthlac” (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 2004), 25-67. On traditions of demonic temptation in Anglo-Saxon England, including the Guthlac corpus, see Dendle, Peter, Satan Unbound: The Devil in Old English Narrative Literature (Toronto, 2001), esp. chap. 5, 'The Devil and the Demons,” 87-114. On demonic temptation in early Christianity generally, see Bitton-Ashkelony, Brouria, “Demons and Prayers: Spiritual Exercises in the Monastic Community of Gaza in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries,” Vigiliae Christianae 57 (2003): 200-221; Brakke, David, “The Making of Monastic Demonology: Three Ascetic Teachers on Withdrawal and Resistance,” Church History 70 (2001): 19-48; and Walzel, Diana Lynn, “Sources of Medieval Demonology,” Rice University Studies 60 (1974): 83-99.Google Scholar

8 Felix's Life , ed. Colgrave, , 30.98–100.Google Scholar

9 A classic instance of this connection appears in chap. 13, “Saints and Heroes,” of Henry Meyer-Harting's The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England , 3^rd ed. (University Park, PA, 1991), 220–39. See more recently Hall, Alaric, “Constructing Anglo-Saxon Sanctity: Tradition, Innovation and Saint Guthlac,” in Images of Sanctity: Essays in Honour of Gary Dickson , ed. Strickland, Debra Higgs (Leiden, 2007), 207-35; and Siewers, Alfred K., “Landscapes of Conversion: Guthlac's Mound and Grendel's Mere as Expressions of Anglo-Saxon Nation-Building,” Viator 34 (2003): 1-39. See also Olsen, Alexandra Hennessey, Guthlac of Croyland: A Study of Heroic Hagiography (Washington, DC, 1981) and Aggeler, , “Reinventing the Holy Man,” chapters 1 and 3, 11-93 and 139-96 respectively.Google Scholar

10 Some of the most sophisticated studies of the Guthlac material to date assess its relationships with monasticism. See Conner, Patrick W., “Source Studies, the Old English Guthlac A and the English Benedictine Reformation,” Revue Bénédictine 103 (1993): 380–413; and Jones, Christopher A., “Envisioning the Cenobium in the Old English Guthlac A,” Mediaeval Studies 57 (1995): 259-91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Guthlac's refusal of alcohol would presumably have pleased Benedict, whose Rule grudgingly allows monks a daily measure of wine even though “legamus uinum omnino monachorum non esse,” “we read that wine is not at all for monks” and “quibus autem donat deus tolerantiam abstinentiae, propriam se habituros mercedem sciant,” “those to whom God has given the gift of abstinence will know that they will have their reward.” Benedicti Regula , ed. Hanslik, Rudolf, CSEL 75, 2nd ed. (Vienna, 1977), 111. Cf. Cuthbert's refusal to drink alcohol, discussed on p. 122 below.Google Scholar

12 Felix's Life , ed. Colgrave, (n. 5 above), 28.94. “From the time when he began to inhabit the wilderness, the temperance of his daily life was so great that he used to eat no food except a bit of barley bread and a little cup of muddy water after the setting of the sun. When the sun reached its western limits, he tasted the small sustenance of mortal life, giving thanks.” Google Scholar

13 The Vita Sancti Pauli primi eremitae and the Vita Sancti Guthlaci had a close connection in the mind of at least one reader, who chose to bind them together as a libellus, now Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 389. Descriptions of the manuscript appear in Felix's Life , ed. Colgrave, , 27–28; Roberts, , “Inventory,” 195–96; and Gneuss, Helmut, A Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 241 (Tempe, 2001), p. 37, no. 103.Google Scholar

14 PL 23:22A. Source identified by Colgrave, , ed., Felix's Life , 94.Google Scholar

15 PL 73:139A. “They sometimes appear chanting psalms with modulation; and alas! in this they use the sacred words of scripture with an impure mouth. Like Echo, they frequently repeat the final words when we are reading. They also wake up sleepers for prayer, so that they can steal the whole night's sleep, and taking on themselves the guise of superior monks, they constrain many other monks and tally up earlier crimes of which they are aware. But their admonishments must be rejected, and their exhortations of fasting, and their deceitful proposal of vigils.” Cf. the passage from the Sayings of the Desert Fathers printed below on p. 115.Google Scholar

16 On homiles in general, see Hall, Thomas N., “The Early Medieval Sermon,” in The Sermon , ed. Kienzle, Beverly Mayne, Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental 81-83 (Turnhout, 2000), 203–69; Hamesse, Jacqueline and Hermand, X., eds. De l'homélie au sermon: Histoire de la prédication médiévale (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1993); and Longère, Jean, La prédication médiévale (Paris, 1983). On Anglo-Saxon homilies (including some discussion of Latin sources), see Cross, James E., “Vernacular Sermons in Old English” in Kienzle, , ed., The Sermon, 561-69; and Tristram, Hildegard L. C., Early Insular Preaching: Verbal Artistry and Method of Composition (Vienna, 1995). On homiletic style, see nn. 19 and 27 below.Google Scholar

17 Felix's Life , ed. Colgrave, , 30.98. “Moses and Elijah, and the Savior of the human race himself, first of all ascended the heights of fasting; but likewise those famous monks who lived in Egypt destroyed the faults of human weakness with the blade of abstinence.” Google Scholar

18 Spencer, Helen L., ed., “Vernacular and Latin Versions of a Sermon for Lent: ‘A Lost Penitential Homily’ Found,” Mediaeval Studies 44 (1982): 271–305 at 287-89. “Moses fasted in the desert, by which he was worthy to hear mysteries. David fasted after his sin, by which he was worthy to erase his transgression. … Christ fasted for forty days and nights, by which he conqured his adversary.” It is interesting that this untitled but very popular homily proceeds to address the importance of moderation in fasting. See Scragg, , Vercelli Homilies (n. 6 above), 70-72 and p. 123 below.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 For examples of alliteration and repetition in early Latin homilies, see esp. Tristram, , Early Insular Preaching , 46–49. Stylistic techniques in Anglo-Latin prose are, for the most part, sadly neglected in scholarship, but see Lapidge, Michael, “Poeticism in Pre-Conquest Anglo-Latin Prose” and Sharpe, Richard, “The Varieties of Bede's Prose,” in Aspects of the Language of Latin Prose , ed. Reinhardt, Tobias, Lapidge, Michael, and Adams, J. N., Proc. Brit. Acad. 129 (Oxford, 2005), 321-37 and 339-55 respectively; Orchard, Andy, “Old Sources, New Resources: Finding the Right Formula for Boniface,” Anglo-Saxon England 30 (2001): 15-38; and Downey, , “Intertextuality” (n. 7 above), 67-87. On comparable stylistic techniques in Old English homilies, see n. 27 below.Google Scholar

20 Felix's Life , ed. Colgrave, , 30.98-100. “And therefore, if you want to wash away your previously commited crimes, to destroy what threatens, afflict your flesh with the whips of abstinence, and break the insolence of your spirit with the rods of fasting. For as much as you are broken in this world, by that much you will be strengthened in eternity; and as much as you afflict yourself in the present, by that much you will rejoice in the future. For when you lie prostrated with fasting, then you will be lifted higher in the sight of God.” Google Scholar

21 Scragg, , Vercelli Homilies (n. 6 above), 94–95. “Those who here weep for their sins will be in great happiness there with the all-powerful God. Those who here give their alms generously in God's name for their misdeeds, God will give them forgiveness for their sins, and they will be fed in great rejoicing. Those who fast the most here in our Lord's name because of the weakness of their souls, and who ask him for forgiveness of their sins, will be led into the eternal fellowship.” On the “here … there” topos, see Tristram, Hildegard L. C., “Stock Descriptions of Heaven and Hell in Old English Prose and Poetry,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 79 (1978): 102–13.Google Scholar

22 Felix's Life , ed. Colgrave, , 30.100. “Therefore your fasting should not be for two days or three days, nor an abstinence from gluttony every day; rather, a strong castigation is a fast of seven days. For just as God formed the shape of the world in six days and rested on the seventh, it is fitting for a person to be re-shaped in spirit through six days of fasting, and to give rest to the flesh by eating on the seventh day.” On the technical terms biduanum/biduum and triduanum/triduum, see pp. 111–14 below.Google Scholar

23 For the sake of convenience I refer to a single translator, but the Old English prose Life shows signs of having passed through multiple hands before its inscription in the forms in which it presently survives. The possibility that it underwent several redactions hardly detracts from an argument that this scene was of interest to readers. See Roberts, Jane, “The Old English Prose Translation of Felix's Vita Sancti Guthlaci,” in Studies in Earlier Old English Prose , ed. Szarmach, Paul (Albany, 1985), 363–79; and eadem, “Hagiography and Literature: The Case of Guthlac of Crowland,” in Mercia: An Anglo-Saxon Kingdom in Europe , ed. Brown, Michelle P. and Farr, Carol A. (London, 2001), 69-86. The Vespasian Life is still ed. Gonser, Paul, Das angelsächsische Prosa-Leben des heiligen Guthlac, Anglistische Forschungen 27 (Heidelberg, 1909). The Vercelli Homily is most recently edited by Scragg (n. 6 above); a detailed linguistic analysis, including discussion of the passages examined here, is available in Pilch, Herbert, “The Last Vercelli Homily: A Sentence Analytical Edition,” in Historical Linguistics and Philology , ed. Fisiak, Jacek (Berlin, 1990), 297-336.Google Scholar

24 Gordon Whatley, E., “Lost in Translation: Some Episodes in Old English Prose Saints' Lives,” Anglo-Saxon England 26 (1997): 187–208, at 193, argues convincingly that the Old English prose translator worked very carefully and consciously to condense Felix's prose while staying faithful to the Latin: “Felix's purple passages are often simplified and his Latin periods are usually broken down into shorter English sentences. Occasionally there is considerable compression.” Colgrave, , ed., in Felix's Life (n. 5 above), makes similar comments on p. 19 of his introduction.Google Scholar

25 Roberts, , “Old English Prose Translation.” Google Scholar

26 Scragg, , Vercelli Homilies , 386. “Moses and Elijah fasted, and likewise the Savior of the whole world fasted in the wilderness, and likewise the great monks who were in Egypt and lived in the wilderness fasted so that through their abstinence they struck down and destroyed all the sins that were in them.” Google Scholar

27 On stylistic techniques in Old English homilies, see Tristram, , Early Insular Preaching (n. 16 above), esp. 50-55; Scragg, Donald G., Dating and Style in Old English Composite Homilies, Chadwick Memorial Lectures 9 (Cambridge, 1999); Letson, D. R., “The Poetic Content of the Revival Homily”; Dalbey, Marcia A., “Themes and Techniques in Blickling Lenten Homilies”; and Szarmach, Paul E., “The Vercelli Homilies: Style and Structure,” all in The Old English Homily and Its Backgrounds , ed. Szarmach, Paul E. and Huppé, Bernard F. (Albany, 1978), 139-56, 221-39, and 241-67 respectively. See esp. Zacher, Samantha, “The Style and Rhetoric of the Vercelli Homilies” (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 2003), for a thorough treatment of alliteration, verbal repetition, and doublets, as well as some remarks on the style of Guthlac's demons' speech, on 191-93 and 199-201. On repetition and alliteration in Old English prose translation from Latin, see Drout, Michael, How Tradition Works: A Meme-Based Cultural Poetics of the Anglo-Saxon Tenth Century (Tempe, 2006), esp. chap. 6, “Repetition, Pattern Recognition, Tradition, and Style,” 167-78, and chap. 7, “The Interplay of Traditions: Style and the Old English Translation of the Enlarged Rule of Chrodegang,” 179-218. Orchard, Andy (“Rhetoric and Style in the Old English Life of Mary of Egypt,” The Old English Life of Mary of Egypt, Old English Newsletter Subsidia 33 [Kalamazoo, 2005], 31-55) includes copious references to further studies of these features.Google Scholar

28 Scragg, , Vercelli Homilies , 386–87. “For the more you work and toil here in the world for forgiveness of your sins, by that much again will you be strengthened securely in eternity; and as much as you suffer hardship in this present life, by that much you will rejoice in the future; and when you are laid low in fasting here in the world, then you are lifted up before God's eyes.” For the Latin text, which is consistent in all surviving versions, see n. 20 above.Google Scholar

29 Gonser, , Das angelsächsische Prosa-Leben , 125–26; Felix's Life , ed. Colgrave, , 30.100.Google Scholar

30 Demons or the devil appear as informed and rhetorically competent speech-givers elsewhere in Old English literature; compare, for example, the devil's lengthy account of the workings of temptation in Juliana, lines 289-553, The Exeter Book , ed. Krapp, and Dobbie, (n. 6 above), 121–28; Satan's autobiographical speech in Christ and Satan, lines 81-188, ed. Krapp, George and Dobbie, Elliott, The Junius Manuscript, The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 1 (New York, 1931), 138-42; and the multiple versions of the piece known as “The Devil's Account of the Next World,” which appears as part of Vercelli Homily 9, ed. Scragg, , Vercelli Homilies, 158-84. On “The Devil's Account” see further Robinson, Fred C., “The Devil's Account of the Next World: An Anecdote from Old English Homiletic Literature,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 73 (1972): 362-71; and Scragg, Donald G., “‘The Devil's Account of the Next World’ Revisited,” American Notes and Queries 24 (1986): 107-10.Google Scholar

31 See Roberts, , “Inventory” (n. 5 above), 204–5. The Guthlac lives do not appear in any edition of the South English Legendary but are described and edited by Bolton, Whitney F. in “The Middle English and Latin Poems of Saint Guthlac” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 1954). The foundational work on the South English Legendary is Manfred Görlach, The Textual Tradition of the South English Legendary, Leeds Texts and Monographs, n.s., 6 (Leeds, 1974). The South English Legendary: A Critical Assessment (ed. Jankofsky, Klaus [Tübingen, 1992]) is a collection of studies on the Legendary. More recent works include Thompson, Anne B., Everyday Saints and the Art of Narrative in the South English Legendary (Burlington, VT, 2003); Liszka, Thomas R., “The South English Legendaries,” in The North Sea World in the Middle Ages: Studies in the Cultural History of North-Western Europe , ed. Liszka, Thomas R. and Walker, Lorna E. M. (Dublin, 2001), 243-80; and Frederick, Jill, “The South English Legendary: Anglo-Saxon Saints and National Identity,” in Literary Appropriations of the Anglo-Saxons from the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Century , ed. Scragg, Donald G. and Weinberg, Carole, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 29 (Cambridge, 2000), 57-73.Google Scholar

32 Bolton, , “Middle English and Latin Poems,” 186–87. “Moses and the prophet Elijah, and then Jesus Christ himself, who was born of Mary, first came to the manifestation of holiness through fasting. Therefore we advise you that you fast frequently and mortify the wretched flesh and break it through fasting, for the more it is broken here, the more joy it will bring, for if through fasting you are brought to the ground here, our Lord will lift you up very high in the joy of heaven. Therefore do not fast for two or three days of the week, but fast for the entire week. For in this you may see that, as our Lord made everything that is in six days, and rested on the seventh day, so, truly, should a person who wishes to follow him in custom fast for six days of the week, without food in his prayers, and on the seventh should at last relieve his fasting and eat meat. The person who wishes to follow our Lord should conduct such a life.” Google Scholar

33 Ibid., 187, 213, and 226.Google Scholar

34 Ibid., 226.Google Scholar

35 Ibid. “And the more you suffer penance here, you will be near God in the bliss of heaven.” Google Scholar

36 Henry's verse life is based on a prose epitome of Felix's Vita made by Peter of Blois. For history and manuscript descriptions, see Roberts, “Inventory,” 205-8. On Henry and his writings, see Rigg, Andrew George, A History of Anglo-Latin Literature 1066-1422 (Cambridge, 1992), 179–93. On Henry's Life of Guthlac , see Bolton, Whitney F., “The Latin Revisions of Felix's ‘Vita Sancti Guthlaci,’” Mediaeval Studies 21 (1959): 36-52. The verse life is edited by Bolton, “Middle English and Latin Poems,” 38-106. A much-needed new edition in currently in preparation by David Townsend.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 Bolton, , “Middle English and Latin Poems,” 67. On eating too soon as a form of gluttony, see n. 53 below.Google Scholar

38 Although I have not addressed them here, it is worth nothing that the temptation to over-fast appears in most of the later historical epitomes of Guthlac's life. Of the epitomes and chronicle entries listed by Roberts (“Inventory,” 209-13), those attributed to Ordericus Vitalis, John of Wallingford, Roger of Wendover, Matthew Paris, John of Brompton, and Ingulf all include this episode. The John of Brompton account is especially interesting because it omits the visit to hell, thereby giving the fasting temptation special prominence, as in South English Legendary B. Google Scholar

39 This account of Guthlac does not appear in Roberts's “Inventory.” On Alexander and his writings, see Rigg, , History of Anglo-Latin , 131–33.Google Scholar

40 Alexandri Essebiensis Opera poetica , ed. Dinkova-Bruun, Greti, CCM 188A: Alexandri Essebiensis Opera Omnia 2 (Turnhout, 2004), 254–55. “Guthlac's boyhood age shone with sacred pursuits, but his adolescent mind sets itself to cruel ones. His adult life expiates the sins of his previous age, and an old age, remarkable in behavior and signs, follows. Enemies with wicked traps are not able to take away his hope; they try to seduce him with pleasant words. They say they are conquered and do not wish to harm him anymore, but rather to suggest rules by which he might conquer the flesh. He recognizes their tricks, refuses to believe their promises, defeats their great temptations with a greater strength. He is tortured by the demons with iron rods, dragged to the gate of hell, but he is not conquered. Bartholomew is proved to have protected him.” Google Scholar

41 Leyser, Conrad ( Authority and Asceticism from Augustine to Gregory the Great [Oxford, 2000]) explores many differing attitudes toward ascetics' accountability in the fourth through sixth centuries. Chadwick, Henry (“The Ascetic Ideal in the History of the Church,” in Monks, Hermits, and the Ascetic Tradition , ed. Sheils, W. J. [London, 1985], 1-23) and Brown, Peter (“The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity,” Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity [Berkeley, 1982], 103-52, esp. 131-38) offer general observations on the functions of early asceticism. Mayr-Harting, (Coming of Christianity, 79-81) also speaks generally about the variety of eremitic practice in early Christianity. See also Jones, E. A., “Hermits and Anchorites in Historical Context,” and Dyas, Dee, “‘Wildernesse is Anlich lif of Ancre Wununge’: The Wilderness and Medieval Anchoritic Spirituality,” in Approaching Medieval English Anchoritic and Mystical Texts , ed. Dyas, Dee, Edden, Valerie, and Ellis, Roger (Cambridge, 2005), 3-18 and 19-33 respectively. On ascetic practice see n. 49 below. With regard to Anglo-Saxon ascetics and authority, two recent studies note that not all Anglo-Saxon solitaries can be associated with specific monasteries: Sarah Foot, Monastic Life in Anglo-Saxon England, c. 600-900 (Cambridge, 2006), 4 n. 10; and Blair, John, The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society (Oxford, 2005), 144. Blair further discusses relations between hermitages and monasteries on 216-20. Anxieties about unregulated hermits seem to have been part of Christianity's long debate over communal versus solitary, or active versus contemplative, lifestyles. On this issue in Anglo-Saxon England, see Clayton, Mary, “Hermits and the Contemplative Life in Anglo-Saxon England,” in Holy Men and Holy Women: Old English Prose Saints' Lives and their Contexts , ed. Szarmach, Paul (Albany, 1996), 147-75; and Stancliffe, Clare, “Cuthbert and the Polarity between Pastor and Solitary,” in St. Cuthbert: His Cult and Community to AD 1200 , ed. Bonner, Gerald, Rollason, David, and Stancliffe, Clare (Woodbridge, 1989), 21-44.Google Scholar

42 See Benedicti Regula , chap. 1 (ed. Hanslik, [n. 11 above], 18-20) and Regula Magistri, chap. 1 (ed. de Vogüé, Adalbert [Paris, 1964], 328-50). Basil speaks against the solitary life in chapter 7 of his longer rule (S. N. Basilii Caesareae Cappadociae Archeipiscopi Regulae Fusius Tractatae, PG 31:927B-934C). Cf. Wigfrith's claim, toward the end of Guthlac's Vita, to have seen false hermits in Ireland (discussed on p. 126 below).Google Scholar

43 Felix's Life , ed. Colgrave, , 46.142-46. Curiously, Headda's visit is also associated with eating; see above, p. 94.Google Scholar

44 Foot (Monastic Life, 48-60) provides an excellent summary of the Regula Mixta in Anglo-Saxon England. More generally, see de Vogüé, Adalbert, “The Cenobitic Rules of the West,” Cistercian Studies 12 (1977): 175–83.Google Scholar

45 Foot (Monastic Life, 232-39) surveys eating practices in Anglo-Saxon monasteries under the Regula Mixta. Hugh Magennis examines some patristic and Anglo-Saxon Christian attitudes toward food and drink in “Poetry and Prose of Christian Teaching,” chap. 3 of Anglo-Saxon Appetites: Food and Drink and Their Consumption in Old English and Related Literature (Dublin, 1999), 85–128.Google Scholar

46 Whether or not Felix was familiar with Cassian at first hand, his account of Guthlac's eremitism appears to be fundamentally influenced by the models Cassian presents. On the circulation of Cassian's writings in Anglo-Saxon England, see Lake, Stephen, “Knowledge of the Writings of John Cassian in Early Anglo-Saxon England,” Anglo-Saxon England 32 (2003): 27–41; see also the entry for “Cassian, John” in Michael Lapidge, The Anglo-Saxon Library (Oxford, 2006), 295-96. Stewart, Columba (Cassian the Monk [Oxford, 1998]) provides a general overview of Cassian's life and thought. I use here Michael Petschenig's edition, Iohannis Cassiani Conlationes XXIIII, CSEL 13 (Vienna, 1886); the Conlationes are also edited by Eugene Pichery, Conférences, SC 42, 54, 64 (Paris, 1955-59).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47 Conlationes 2.18-19 (ed. Petschenig, , 60–61).Google Scholar

48 Ibid, 2.17 and 2.24 (ed. Petschenig, , 60 and 62-63). On complete abstention from food for more than twenty-four hours, see below, p. 113.Google Scholar

49 Shaw, , Burden of the Flesh (n. 4 above). Shaw's introduction (1-26) emphasizes variation in ascetic practice. Musurillo (“Ascetical Fasting”), Arbesmann (“Fasting and Prophecy”), and Gougaud (Devotional and Ascetic Practices [all n. 4 above]) likewise give an overall impression of great variety in individual practice.Google Scholar

50 Regula Benedicti 39 (ed. Hanslik, [n. 12 above], 108–9).Google Scholar

51 The Rules of Benedict and the Master are closely related. It is generally, but not universally, accepted that the Rule of the Master was written first and that Benedict drew from it for his own Rule. On this issue see Dunn, M., “The Master and St. Benedict: A Rejoinder,” English Historical Review 424 (1992): 104–11; de Vogüé, Adalbert, “The Master and St. Benedict: A Reply to Marilyn Dunn,” English Historical Review 107 (1992): 95-103; and “Mastering Benedict: Monastic Rules and Their Authors in the Early Medieval West,” English Historical Review 416 (1990): 567-94.Google Scholar

52 Regula Magistri 28.39 and 28.44 (ed. de Vogüé, , 158). On the reference to the “bridegroom” of Mark 2:19, cf. Musurillo, , “Ascetical Fasting,” 24.Google Scholar

53 Eating late in the day seems to have been an important part of ascetic lifestyles in Anglo-Saxon England and elsewhere, so much so that eating too soon was considered a serious form of gluttony. On this issue see Frank, Roberta, “Old English Æræt: ‘Too Much’ or ‘Too Soon’?” in Words, Texts and Manuscripts: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Culture Presented to Helmut Gneuss on the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday , ed. Korhammer, Michael (Woodbridge, 1992), 293–304.Google Scholar

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55 Regula Benedicti 53.10 (ed. Hanslik, , 136).Google Scholar

56 On Columbanus's rules, see Stevenson, Jane Barbara, “The Monastic Rules of Columbanus,” Columbanus: Studies on the Latin Writings , ed. Lapidge, Michael (Woodbridge, 1997), 203–16.Google Scholar

57 Regula Monachorum chap. 3, ed Murdoch Walker, G. S., Sancti Columbani Opera, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae 2 (Dublin, 1957), 124.29. This phrase is likely borrowed from Jerome's instruction to Paulinus of Nola, Epistula 58.6, Sancti Hieronymi Epistulae , ed. Hilberg, Isidorus, CSEL 54-56 (Vienna, 1910-18), 1.535.8. A reference in Columbanus's Regula Coenobialis to monks eating before the ninth hour suggests that his Rule did not necessarily require meals to be delayed until evening on all days (Opera , ed. Walker, , 161 n. 3).Google Scholar

58 Regula Monachorum 3 (ed. Walker, , 126.7). “Therefore fasting should be daily, just as eating should be daily; and although eating must be daily, it should gratify the body only poorly and sparingly; eating must be daily because progress must be daily, praying must be daily, working must be daily, and reading must be daily.” Google Scholar

59 On early penitential handbooks see Frantzen, Alan J., “The Tradition of Penitentials in Anglo-Saxon England,” Anglo-Saxon England 11 (1983): 23–56; idem, The Literature of Penance in Anglo-Saxon England (New Brunswick, 1983); Bieler, Ludwig, The Irish Penitentials (Dublin, 1963); and McNeill, John T. and Gamer, Helena M., Medieval Handbooks of Penance, Records of Civilization: Sources and Studies 29 (New York, 1938, repr. 1965).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

60 McNeill, and Gamer, , Handbooks of Penance , 227. Frantzen, Alan J. (“The Penitentials Attributed to Bede,” Speculum 58 [1983]: 573-97) addresses the question of Bede's authorship. On the variety of ways in which multiple-year penances might be carried out, see Frantzen, , Literature of Penance, 16. The Penitental of Theodore includes a section condemning those who fast on Sundays and feast days (McNeill, and Gamer, , Handbooks of Penance, 194). It is likely to seem an irony to present-day readers that the penance for such negligence was seven, twenty, or forty days' fasting.Google Scholar

61 See, e.g., McNeill, and Gamer, , Handbooks of Penance , 231 and 236-38.Google Scholar

62 Regula Magistri 13.50-52 (ed. de Vogüé, [n. 46 above], 42). “If, perhaps because of the lightness of the fault, the abbot does not wish to double the fast for him [the excommunicant], if the brothers eat at the sixth hour, let one dish, a piece of very coarse bread, and water be given to him by his superior at the ninth hour, out of mercy. If the guiltless brothers eat at the ninth hour, let the same meal be delayed for him until the evening.” Google Scholar

63 The terms biduanum, triduanum, and superpositio are clearly set out by Arbesmann, “Fasting and Prophecy” (n. 4 above), 34 n. 29. See also McNeill, and Gamer, , Handbooks of Penance , 31. See also the entries for biduanus and biduum in the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources 1, ed. Latham, Ronald E. (London, 1975), 197. The meanings of these terms in the penitentials and elsewhere are varied and obscure. It is not always clear that practitioners of superpositio are meant to abstain from all food for the specified period, which might also or alternatively have involved other forms of penance such as vigils and flagellation; all that can be said for certain is that these terms could be used by some writers to indicate complete abstention from food for two or three days, and this is the sense in which I use the terms here.Google Scholar

64 See, e.g., the list of commutations in McNeill, and Gamer, , Handbooks of Penance , 236.Google Scholar

65 Vita sancti Martini 14 (ed. Fontaine, Jaques, Sulpice Severe: Vie de Saint Martin , SC 133 [Paris, 1967], 284).Google Scholar

66 Vita sancti Columbani, 7, 22, and 27 (ed. Krusch, Bruno, Ionae Vitae Sanctorum Columbani, Vedastis, Iohannis [Hanover, 1905], 164, 204, and 215).Google Scholar

67 The development of the three-day period as the longest acceptable duration for a total fast may be reflected in some slight changes to descriptions of Saint Anthony's fasting practices. Athanasius, in his Life of Antony 7.6, writes that ήσθιέ τε άπαξ της ήμέρας μετά δύσιν ηλίου, ήν δ' δτε καί διά. δύο, πολλάκις καί διά τεσσάρων μεταλάμβανεν, “he ate once a day, at the setting of the sun, and sometimes ate after two days, and often after four” (ed. Bartelink, G. J. M., Athanase d'Alexandrie: Vie d'Antoine , SC 400 [Paris, 1994], 152.25-27). Evagrius translates this phrase as “edebat semel in die post solis occasum, nonnunquam biduo triduoque sic permanens, quarta demum die reficiebatur,” “he ate once a day, at the setting of the sun, and sometimes, abstaining for two and three days, he ate at last on the fourth day” (PL 73:130D); the entry for Anthony in the Old English Martyrology, for which Evagrius's Vita is the ultimate source, reports that “he fæste hwilum twegen dagas, hwilum ϸry tosomne,” “he fasted sometimes for two days, sometimes for three together” (ed. Kotzor, Günter, Das altenglische Martyrologium [Munich, 1981], 17). The reference to four-day fasting, already slightly decentered by Evagrius's insertion of the word triduo, has disappeared somewhere along the way to the Old English version. On the sources of the Old English Martyrology's entry for Anthony, see Cross, James E., “On the Library of the Old English Martyrologist,” Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England: Studies Presented to Peter Clemoes on the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday , ed. Lapidge, M. and Gneuss, H. (Cambridge, 1985), 227-49.Google Scholar

68 Apophthegmata Patrum , Syncletica 15 (PG 65:426C-D). “Extreme asceticism comes from the enemy. Even his disciples do this. How will we discern the divine and ordered asceticism from the tyrranical and demonic? Clearly by its moderation. Keep one rule of fasting all the time. Do not refuse to eat for four or five days and then end your fast with too much food on the following day. Lack of moderation is always destructive.” Google Scholar

69 See Shaw, , Burden of the Flesh , chap. 3, “The Physiology of Ascetic Fasting,” 79-128; Bynum, , Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 42, 78-79, and 85-101; and Bell, , Holy Anorexia (all n. 4 above), 118-25.Google Scholar

70 Regulae Brevius Tractatae 128 (PG 31:1167D). “Abstinence does not constitute withdrawal from food, which leads to nothing, and from which follows the immoderate affliction of the body that is condemned by the apostle; rather, abstinence constitutes complete departure from one's own will. How dangerous it is to go against the Lord's commandment because of one's own will is clear from the apostle's words: ‘Doing the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts, we were by nature children of wrath.’” Google Scholar

71 Regula Monachorum 3 (ed. Walker, [n. 57 above], 126.5).Google Scholar

72 Ibid., 13 (ed. Walker, , 136.24). “There is a reasonable measure in the middle between too little and too much, always calling us back from every excess, supplying that which is set by necessity everywhere in every posited situation, and refusing that which is irrational due to excessive desire. … Restrain yourselves from the right and from the left, and always direct yourselves straight ahead by discretion, that is, through the light of God, frequently saying along with the chanting of the victorious psalmist, ‘My God, enlighten my shadows, since in you I am rescued from temptation. Indeed a human being's life on earth is temptation.’” Google Scholar

73 Shaw (Burden of the Flesh, 96-112) offers an extensive treatment of Jerome's attitudes toward fasting and excessive fasting. Jerome writes about Blesilla's asceticism and her death in Epistulae 38 and 39 (ed. Hilberg, [n. 57 above], 289-93 and 293-311). For evidence of substantial readership of Jerome (including his letters) in Anglo-Saxon England, see the entry in Lapidge, , Anglo-Saxon Library (n. 46 above), 313–16.Google Scholar

74 Epistula 52.12 (ed. Hilberg, , 1.435.6); Liber Scintillarum 10.21 (ed. Rochais, Henricus M., Defensoris Liber Scintillarum , CCL 117 [Turnholt, 1957], 49). The Old English gloss of the Liber Scintillarum is edited unreliably by Rhodes, Ernest Wood, Defensor's Liber Scintillarum: With an Interlinear Anglo-Saxon Version, EETS, o.s., 93 (London, 1889), and more successfully by Getty, Sarah Sovereign, “An Edition, with Commentary, of the Latin / Anglo-Saxon Liber Scintillarum” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1970).Google Scholar

75 Epistula 54.10.5 (ed. Hillberg, [n. 57 above], 1.477.15); Liber Scintillarum 10.22 (ed. Rochais, , 48) “It is much better to take a small amount daily than to take a satisfying amount occasionally. The best rain is that which falls gently on the earth; a sudden and excessive storm churns up the fields.” Google Scholar

76 Epistula 125.7 (ed. Hilberg, , 3.124.15); Liber Scintillarum 10.17 (ed. Rochais, , 48). “[Fasting] ought to be moderated, so that too much of it does not harm the stomach … moderate and timely food is useful for the flesh and the spirit.” Google Scholar

77 Epistula 125.7 and 11 (ed. Hilberg, , 3.124 and 135).Google Scholar

78 Epistula 22.37 (ed. Hilberg, , 1.202.6). Other admonitions against extreme fasting appear throughout Jerome's Epistula 130, a lengthy treatise on asceticism written for the Roman noblewoman Demetrias.Google Scholar

79 Conlationes 2.24 (ed. Petschenig, [n. 46 above], 62-63).Google Scholar

80 Ibid., 2.16 (ed. Petschenig, , 59). “The extreme of fasting comes to the same end as overeating does. … It is inevitable that a person who has been weakened by an excess of abstinence will return to that state in which a negligent person is caught because of his heedlessness. Thus we frequently see people who could not be deceived by gluttony overcome by immoderate fasting and who, on account of their weakness, have fallen into the very passion that they have conquered.” Google Scholar

81 Iohannis Cassiani De Institutis Coenobiorum , ed. Petschenig, Michael, CSEL 17 (Vienna, 1888), 7. De Institutis Coenobiorum is also edited by Jean Claude Guy, Jean Cassien: Institutions cénobitiques, SC 109 (Paris, 1965).Google Scholar

82 Along with the Vita Sancti Martini, Sulpicius's Dialogues seem to have been well known in Anglo-Saxon England; see the entry in Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Library (n. 46 above), 333–34.Google Scholar

83 Dialogus 1.8.5 (ed. Halm, Karl, Sulpicii Severi libri qui supersunt, CSEL 1 [Vienna, 1866], 160). Cf. Dialogues 1.4-5, 1.20, and 2.8.Google Scholar

84 Colgrave (n. 5 above) records verbal borrowings from the Vita Sancti Martini on pp. 60 and 162, but does not note a likely borrowing from Dialogus 1.17.4-5 (ed. Halm, , 170): “qui ab hominibus frequentaretur, non posse ab angelis frequentari,” “He who is visited by human beings is not able to be visted by angels,” echoed by Felix in 39:122: “qui frequentatur ab hominibus, frequentari ab angelis nequit.” Google Scholar

85 Several manuscripts of the Sententiae remain from Anglo-Saxon England; see the substantial entry for Isidore in Lapidge, , Anglo-Saxon Library , 309–13.Google Scholar

86 Sententiarum Libri Tres 2.44.13-15 (PL 83:652C-D). “Immoderate abstinence should not be applied to the body, lest when the flesh is overburdened with the weight of fasting, it neither does badly afterward nor begins to do well. … Therefore the substance of the flesh ought to be moderated with careful discretion, that is, so that it is neither completely extinguished, nor immoderately relaxed. Because the weakness of the flesh is so overwhelming, no one is able to attain perfection. For although each person may have some love of sanctity, nevertheless reward cannot follow labor for someone who tries overzealously to serve the intention of his heart. Excessive weakening of the body breaks the strength of the soul and makes the natural ability of the mind waste away.” Google Scholar

87 Smaragdi Abbatis Expositio in Regulam S. Benedicti , ed. Spannagel, Alfred and Engelbert, Pius, Corpus Consuetudinum Monasticarum 8 (Siegburg, 1974), 119. “Weakening of the body breaks the strength of the soul and makes the natural ability of the mind waste away. But whatever is done with temperance nourishes the health of body and soul. Immoderate abstinence ought not to be inflicted on the body, lest it be so heavily burdened by fasting that it is not able to accomplish the good it is trying to do. But the matter of the flesh ought to be moderated with discretion, so that it is neither destroyed nor immoderately relaxed.” Cf. Regula Benedicti 4.36 (ed. Hanslik, [n. 11 above], 34).Google Scholar

88 Vita sancti Caesarii chapters 6-7, ed. Morin, Germain, Sancti Caesarii episcopi Arelatensis opera omnia nunc primum in unum collecta , 2 vols. (Maredsous, 1942), 2:298–99.Google Scholar

89 Cf. Horden, Peregrine, “The Death of Ascetics: Sickness and Monasticism in the Early Byzantine Middle East,” in Sheils, , Monks, Hermits (n. 41 above), 41–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

90 Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert , ed. Colgrave, Bertram (Cambridge, 1940), 174. “Having entered the monastery, he immediately took care to hold an observance of the regular life equal to the rest of the brothers, or even to outdo them in his zeal for stricter discipline, being more assiduous, namely, in reading, working, keeping vigil, and praying. But following the example of the extremely strong Samson, who was once a Nazarite, he diligently abstained from everything that was able to cause intoxication. He was not, however, able to undergo such great restraint from food, lest he be less ready for necessary work. He had an energetic body and was healthy in his strength, and he was fit for whatever exertions of labor he desired.” Google Scholar

91 Felix was intimately familiar with Bede's prose Life of Cuthbert and borrows from it at length ( Felix's Life , ed. Colgrave, , 16), and likely had Cuthbert's moderation in mind while describing Guthlac's. On Bede's prose Life, see most recently Eric Knibbs, “Exegetical Hagiography: Bede's Prose Vita sancti Cuthberti,” Revue bénédictine 114 (2004): 233-52.Google Scholar

92 Vita Beati Flacci Alcuini chap. 8 (PL 100:99D). “Unknown to everyone else, Raganard tried to afflict himself with too many vigils and an excess of abstinence, so much that because of this extremely serious intemperance he succumbed to fever. Father Albinus [Alcuin], coming to visit him, ordered them all except Sigulf to go out of the house, and said to [Raganard], ‘Why have you tried to act so intemperately without anyone's advice?’” I am grateful to Abram Ring, who is currently preparing an English translation of the Vita Alcuini, for drawing this episode to my attention.Google Scholar

93 See Spencer, , “Vernacular and Latin Versions” (n. 18 above) and Turville-Peter, J., “Translations of a Lost Penitential Homily,” Traditio 12 (1963): 51-78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

94 Twelfth Century Homilies in MS Bodley 343, ed. Belfour, Algernon, EETS, o.s., 137 (London, 1909, repr. 1962), 41–59.Google Scholar

95 Scragg, , Vercelli Homilies (n. 6 above), 80–81. “Dearest brothers, it is very good to fast within measure, because moderation is healthy. And whatever is too much and beyond measure is dangerous.” Google Scholar

96 On thematic continuities in the Vercelli Book, see Carragáin, Éamonn Ó, “How Did the Vercelli Collector Interpret The Dream of the Rood,” in Studies in Language and Literature in Honour of Paul Christophersen , ed. Tilling, P. (Coleraine, 1981), 63–104.Google Scholar

97 “De Oratione Moysi,” ed. Skeat, W. W., in Ælfric's Lives of Saints , EETS, o.s., 76 (London, 1881-1900, repr. 2003), 282–306, at 291. For ease of reading, I have altered Skeat's formatting and punctuation. “Many foolish deeds damage the human race, either because of self-will or because of ignorance. People act just as foolishly when they fast beyond their ability in the catholic Lent (as we ourselves have seen) until they become ill. Some have fasted in such a way that they refused to eat except on the second day and then eat greedily. But books tell us that some people fasted in such a way that they afflicted themselves excessively, and had no reward for this great affliction but were farther away from God's mercy. Now the holy fathers established that we should fast with wisdom, and eat with propriety every day, so that our bodies become neither too wasted nor too fat with empty pleasures. And this land, here on the outer edge of the breadth of the world, is not as full of strength as the strong land in the middle of the world, where one can fast more freely than here. Nor is the human race as strong as it was in the beginning.” No source for this passage has yet been identified.Google Scholar

98 Magennis, , Anglo-Saxon Appetites (n. 45 above), 85–92, offers a useful overview and analysis of the poem.Google Scholar

99 Lines 87-102, The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems , ed. Dobbie, Elliott, The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 6 (New York, 1942), 98–104, at 100-101. “If Britons [or] Franks coming from the south say to you that you should here on earth keep any other rule that Moses declared for his people, never value the acceptance of it, but keep the same [rule] that came from the south, from the guardian of the kingdom of the Romans, Gregory the pope of men. Thus he himself, the people's teacher, established and ordered the use of seasons for fasting; we even now observe his will in England … you should not ever follow another.” Google Scholar

100 Hilton, Chadwick B., “The Old English Seasons for Fasting: Its Place in the Vernacular Complaint Tradition,” Neophilologus 70 (1986): 155–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

101 Cf. the entries for Britannicus and Britannus in Latham, , Dictionary of Medieval Latin (n. 63 above), 218, and the entry for bryttisc in The Dictionary of Old English: B , ed. Amos, Ashley Crandell, Healey, Antonette diPaolo, et al. (Toronto, 1991).Google Scholar

102 Grant, Raymond J. S., “A Note on ‘The Seasons for Fasting,’” The Review of English Studies, n.s., 23 (1972): 302–4.Google Scholar

103 Felix's Life , ed. Colgrave, (n. 5 above), 184.Google Scholar

104 Ryan, John, Irish Monasticism: Origins and Early Development (Dublin, 1931; repr. 1972), 391–94; Thom, Catherine, Early Irish Monasticism: An Understanding of Its Cultural Roots (London, 2006), 27-32; Bitel, Lisa M., Isle of the Saints: Monastic Settlement and Christian Community in Early Ireland (Ithaca, 1990), 209-21; Smith, Julia M. H., “Celtic Ascetisim and Carolingian Authority in Early Medieval Brittany,” in Sheils, Monks, Hermits (n. 41 above), 53-63; Frantzen, , Literature of Penance (n. 59 above), 54-60.Google Scholar

105 See most recently Meaney, Audrey L., “Felix's Life of Guthlac: History or Hagiography?” and Higham, Nicholas J., “Guthlac's Vita, Mercia and East Anglia in the First Half of the Eighth Century,” both in Æthelbald and Offa: Two Eighth-century Kings of Mercia , ed. Hill, David and Worthington, Margaret, British Archaeological Reports British Series 383 (Oxford, 2005), 75-84 and 85-90 respectively.Google Scholar

106 Higham, , “Guthlac's Vita,” 89.Google Scholar

107 I am currently preparing a new reading of Vercelli Homily 23, which emphasizes the homily's internal coherence, taking into account the cultural significance of Guthlac's asceticism and drawing some comparisons with Alexander of Ashby's account of Guthlac, printed on p. 105 above.Google Scholar