Blickling Homilies
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The Blickling Homilies is the name given to a collection of anonymous
homilies A homily (from Greek ὁμιλία, ''homilía'') is a commentary that follows a reading of scripture, giving the "public explanation of a sacred doctrine" or text. The works of Origen and John Chrysostom (known as Paschal Homily) are considered ex ...
from Anglo-Saxon England. They are written in
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
, and were written down at some point before the end of the tenth century, making them one of the oldest collections of sermons to survive from medieval England, the other main witness being the
Vercelli Book The Vercelli Book is one of the oldest of the four Old English Poetic Codices (the others being the Junius manuscript in the Bodleian Library, the Exeter Book in Exeter Cathedral Library, and the Nowell Codex in the British Library). It is an ant ...
. Their name derives from
Blickling Hall Blickling Hall is a Jacobean stately home situated in 5,000 acres of parkland in a loop of the River Bure, near the village of Blickling north of Aylsham in Norfolk, England. The mansion was built on the ruins of a Tudor building for Sir Henry ...
in
Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...
, which once housed them; the manuscript is now Princeton,
Scheide Library The Scheide Library once a private library, is now a permanent part of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections of the Princeton University Library. It is housed in the Harvey S. Firestone Memorial Library on the campus of Princeton Un ...
, MS 71.


The Homilies

The homilies in the collection deal primarily with
Lent Lent ( la, Quadragesima, 'Fortieth') is a solemn religious observance in the liturgical calendar commemorating the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert and enduring temptation by Satan, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke ...
, with items for
Passion Sunday Passion Sunday is the fifth Sunday of Lent, marking the beginning of Passiontide. In 1969, the Roman Catholic Church removed Passiontide from the liturgical year of the Novus Ordo, but it is still observed in the Extraordinary Form, the Persona ...
,
Palm Sunday Palm Sunday is a Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in each of the four canonical Gospels. Palm Sunday marks the first day of Hol ...
and
Holy Week Holy Week ( la, Hebdomada Sancta or , ; grc, Ἁγία καὶ Μεγάλη Ἑβδομάς, translit=Hagia kai Megale Hebdomas, lit=Holy and Great Week) is the most sacred week in the liturgical year in Christianity. In Eastern Churches, w ...
, as well as homilies dealing with Rogation Days, Ascension Day and Pentecost. The rest of the homilies in the collection are saints’ feast days. As numbered in the first edition of the homilies, by Richard Morris, the contents are: # Incarnation of the Lord (''In Natali Domini'') #
Quinquagesima Quinquagesima (), in the Western Christian Churches, is the last Sunday of Shrovetide, being the Sunday before Ash Wednesday. It is also called Quinquagesima Sunday, Quinquagesimae, Estomihi, Shrove Sunday, Pork Sunday, or the Sunday next before ...
/Shrove Sunday (''Dominica Prima in Quinquagesima'') # The First Sunday in
Lent Lent ( la, Quadragesima, 'Fortieth') is a solemn religious observance in the liturgical calendar commemorating the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert and enduring temptation by Satan, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke ...
(''Dominica Prima in Quadragesima'') # The Third Sunday in Lent (''Dominica Tertia in Quadragesima'') # The Fifth Sunday in Lent (''Dominica V in Quadragesima'') #
Palm Sunday Palm Sunday is a Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in each of the four canonical Gospels. Palm Sunday marks the first day of Hol ...
(''Dominica VI in Quadragesima'') #
Easter Day Easter,Traditional names for the feast in English are "Easter Day", as in the ''Book of Common Prayer''; "Easter Sunday", used by James Ussher''The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, Volume 4'') and Samuel Pepys''The Diary of Samuel P ...
(''Dominica Pascha'') #
Rogation Monday Rogation days are days of prayer and fasting in Western Christianity. They are observed with processions and the Litany of the Saints. The so-called ''major'' rogation is held on 25 April; the ''minor'' rogations are held on Monday to Wednesday ...
(''To Þam Forman Gangdæge''), called "Soul's Need" by Morrris #
Rogation Tuesday Rogation days are days of prayer and fasting in Western Christianity. They are observed with processions and the Litany of the Saints. The so-called ''major'' rogation is held on 25 April; the ''minor'' rogations are held on Monday to Wednesday ...
(''To Þam Oþerum Gangdæge''), called "Christ the Golden-Blossom" by Morris # Rogation Wednesday (''To Þam Þriddan Gangdæge''), called "The End of This World is Near" by Morris # Ascension Thursday (''On Þa Halgan Þunres Dei'') #
Pentecost Sunday Pentecost (also called Whit Sunday, Whitsunday or Whitsun) is a Christian holiday which takes place on the 50th day (the seventh Sunday) after Easter Sunday. It commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and other followers of ...
(''Pentecostent - Spiritus Domini'') #
Assumption of the Virgin Mary The Assumption of Mary is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII defined it in 1950 in his apostolic constitution ''Munificentissimus Deus'' as follows: We proclaim and define it to be a dogma revealed by Go ...
(''Sancta Maria Mater Domini Nostri Iesu Cristi'') # The Birth of
John the Baptist John the Baptist or , , or , ;Wetterau, Bruce. ''World history''. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1994. syc, ܝܘܿܚܲܢܵܢ ܡܲܥܡܕ݂ܵܢܵܐ, Yoḥanān Maʿmḏānā; he, יוחנן המטביל, Yohanān HaMatbil; la, Ioannes Bapti ...
(''Sancte Iohannes Baptista Spel'') # The Story of SS
Peter Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a sur ...
and
Paul Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) * Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...
(''Spel Be Petrus ond Paulus''). Compare '' Passio sanctorum Petri et Pauli''. # A Fragment # The Feast of
St Michael Michael (; he, מִיכָאֵל, lit=Who is like El od, translit=Mīḵāʾēl; el, Μιχαήλ, translit=Mikhaḗl; la, Michahel; ar, ميخائيل ، مِيكَالَ ، ميكائيل, translit=Mīkāʾīl, Mīkāl, Mīkhāʾīl), also ...
the Archangel (''To Sancte Michaheles Mæssan''), called "Dedication of
St Michael Michael (; he, מִיכָאֵל, lit=Who is like El od, translit=Mīḵāʾēl; el, Μιχαήλ, translit=Mikhaḗl; la, Michahel; ar, ميخائيل ، مِيكَالَ ، ميكائيل, translit=Mīkāʾīl, Mīkāl, Mīkhāʾīl), also ...
's Church" by Morris # The Feast of St Martin (''To Sancte Martines Mæssan'') #
St Andrew Andrew the Apostle ( grc-koi, Ἀνδρέᾱς, Andréās ; la, Andrēās ; , syc, ܐܰܢܕ݁ܪܶܐܘܳܣ, ʾAnd’reʾwās), also called Saint Andrew, was an apostle of Jesus according to the New Testament. He is the brother of Simon Pete ...
(''S. Andreas''); lacks beginning and ending.


Origin and audience of the collection

Little is known about the origin of the homilies or their intended audience. In the assessment of D. G. Scragg, the manuscript :is in origin a collection, put together, perhaps over a period of time, from a number of sources ... the scribes took care to put together a book which followed a preconceived design, following the chronology of the church year, and they perhaps took individual items from different sources, rather than blocks of items. There is little overlap with the homilies of the
Vercelli Book The Vercelli Book is one of the oldest of the four Old English Poetic Codices (the others being the Junius manuscript in the Bodleian Library, the Exeter Book in Exeter Cathedral Library, and the Nowell Codex in the British Library). It is an ant ...
, from south-eastern England, suggesting that the Blickling Homilies were gathered in a different regional and intellectual milieu; the language of the Homilies suggests a
Mercia la, Merciorum regnum , conventional_long_name=Kingdom of Mercia , common_name=Mercia , status=Kingdom , status_text=Independent kingdom (527–879) Client state of Wessex () , life_span=527–918 , era= Heptarchy , event_start= , date_start= , ...
n origin'. The collection does have some overlaps with another homily collection, MS Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 198, whose origins are also poorly understood, but which are likely to have been in the West Midlands. Meanwhile, although it is surely significant that the homilies were in Old English rather than Latin, 'little sense of a specific congregation or reading audience prevails in this collection of ancient and commonplace materials for the instruction of Christian folk', and the intended audience of the material is essentially unknown.


Blickling Homily XVI

The most famous and extensively studied of the Blickling Homilies is XVI (XVII in the numbering of Morris's edition), 'To Sanctae Michaeles Mæssan' ('On St Michael's Mass', generally celebrated on September 29 in tenth- to eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon England). The homily is not noted for being well composed, but for its relationship with Anglo-Saxon pilgrimage to Italy on the one hand, and some striking similarities with the Old English poem '' Beowulf'' on the other. The homily is a translation of a version of a Latin hagiographical text known as 'De apparitione Sancti Michaelis' (''
Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina The ''Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina'' (') is a catalogue of Latin hagiographic materials, including ancient literary works on the saints' lives, the translations of their relics, and their miracles, arranged alphabetically by saint. The list ...
'' 5948). This story provides a foundation myth for the
Sanctuary of Monte Sant'Angelo The Sanctuary of Saint Michael the Archangel ( it, Santuario di San Michele Arcangelo) is a Roman Catholic shrine on Mount Gargano, Italy, part of the commune of Monte Sant'Angelo, in the province of Foggia, northern Apulia. It has the dignit ...
, in Apulia, southeast Italy, the oldest Western European church dedicated to St Michael and a major pilgrimage site in the Middle Ages. Our earliest manuscripts of 'De apparitione' are of the early ninth century, and so this version was probably composed in the eighth century. The text tells of three different 'apparitions' by St Michael, which 'appear to have nothing in common and suggest at least three layers of narrative accretion'; the oldest strata of the text seem to go back to an earlier, lost version of perhaps the sixth century. Having come to Italy from the Near East, the cult of Michael spread to Frankia, where peregrinating Irish monks learned of it; the cult became popular in Ireland, from where the cult had spread to Anglo-Saxon England already by the seventh century. It is also clear that a number of Anglo-Saxon pilgrims passed through Monte Gargano: among the many pilgrims who inscribed their names on the cave walls, five bore Anglo-Saxon names, some inscribing in
runes Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised ...
. Their date is uncertain but must be between c. 700 and c. 850. In the assessment of North, Allard, and Gillies, 'this aspect of history transforms the genre of this work lickling Homily XVI... from ... homily to tourist brochure'. Blickling Homily XVI seems to have a common source with Ælfric of Eynsham's later homily for September 29, which was clearly a Latin or vernacular version of the 'De apparitione'. The most striking difference between Blickling Homily XVI and the Latin text of which it is a translation is that Blickling Homily XVI ends with a description of Hell, derived ultimately from the '' Visio sancti Pauli''; the closest parallels are with a ninth-century, Latin version of the ''Visio'' known as Redaction XI, of Insular and probably Irish origin. The Blickling Homily XVI description of Hell is recognised as a close parallel to the description of Grendel's home in '' Beowulf'' (lines 2719-33). The homily may have influenced the poem directly, or both texts may have drawn on common sources; the main recent study of the connection is Charles D. Wright's, which argues for independent descent from a common source.


Bibliography

The Blickling homilies were first edited and translated in the nineteenth century by Richard Morris, and were republished again in a more recent volume by Richard J. Kelly, although several scholars have since pointed to the many serious deficiencies with the latter. Samantha Zacher has indicated that a new edition is underway at the University of Toronto. There is also a new translation in progress at Rutgers University, where as of St. Valentine's Day 2021 the first five homilies are available and Aaron Hostetter calls for translations.


Editions and translations

*Morris, R. (ed. and tr.), ''The Blickling Homilies of the Tenth Century''. Early English Text Society, o.s
5863
an
73
(Oxford University Press: London, 1874–80; reprinted as one volume i
1880
1967, an
2000Also available from Google Books
* Willard, Rudolph (ed.), ''The Blickling Homilies: The John H. Scheide Library, Titusville, Pennsylvania'', Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile 10 (Rosenkilde and Bagger: Copenhagen, 1960) acsimile edition*Kelly, Richard J. (ed. and tr.), ''The Blickling Homilies'', 2 vols. (Continuum: London and New York: 2003-9)


Secondary literature

*Gatch, Milton McC., "The unknowable audience of the Blickling Homilies", ''Anglo-Saxon England'' 18 (1989), 99-115 *Jeffrey, J. Elizabeth. ''Blickling Spirituality and the Old English Vernacular Homily: A Textual Analysis'' (Mellen: Lewiston, 1989) * Lapidge, Michael (ed.), ''The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England'' (Blackwell: Oxford, 1999), pp. 241–2 *Scragg, D.G., "The homilies of the Blickling Manuscript" in ''Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England'', ed. Michael Lapidge and Helmut Gneuss (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1985), pp. 299–316


Notes


External links


In Parentheses: Old English Series
- Richard Morris' translation, available online as a PDF {{DEFAULTSORT:Blickling Homilies Christian sermons 10th-century Christian texts Old English literature 10th-century manuscripts