The continental sources of Anglo-Saxon literature: A case study of the Collectio canonum Hibernensis.

摘要

This dissertation analyzes the influence of continental imports on the corpus of Anglo-Saxon literature. One such text, the Collectio canonum Hibernensis, is a Hiberno-Latin compilation of canons that was transported to monastic centers in France, Germany and Brittany by Irish missionaries in the 8th century and then brought to England by Breton ecclesiastics in the 10th. Subsequent to its arrival in England, the Hibernensis was employed by ecclesiastics as a canonical source during the Benedictine Reform, the most significant and prolific period of Anglo-Saxon legislation. For all that it can tell us about the sources of Anglo-Saxon literature, however, the Hibernensis has yet to be studied in light of the English texts that referenced it. This dissertation remedies this oversight and shows that Anglo-Saxon literature was largely dependent on continental imports like the Hibernensis and that, as a result, the Anglo-Saxon corpus should be seen as a dynamic entity that absorbed products of the successful continental reform in an effort to answer the legislative demands of its own society.; Beginning with an examination of the early Anglo-Saxon royal codes and church synods, I show that English law evolved from an entity dominated by royal interests into a sophisticated body of legislation that addressed secular and ecclesiastical concerns together. Moreover, I argue that that innovation was due to the influence of regulatory materials, like the Collectio canonum Hibernensis, that were employed in the continental centers and then imported to England. I show that the Hibernensis was known to, and used by, Anglo-Saxon scholars by explaining the process of the text's importation to England and its subsequent dissemination to the monastic centers there. I then analyze the references to the Hibernensis in the work of Oda of Canterbury, AElfric of Eynsham and Wulfstan of York and prove that the Hibernensis had a definitive place in the regulatory literature that emerged from the Benedictine reform movement. Using this methodology, I confirm that the corpus of Anglo-Saxon regulatory literature was the result of an evolved legal sensibility that perceived Church and State interests as inevitably conjoined and a fervent desire for legislative innovation.