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ynewulf, while one of only four Anglo Saxon poets with work still in existence, was a prolific poet with literally thousands of known lines of verse.  These verses reveal much about the attitudes of the Anglo Saxon peoples as well as its Church as the poet takes existing Latin stories and paints a different, more vibrantly colorful interpretation of the people, the events and the faith.

Cynewulf himself remains largely a mystery, with little more than conjecture about his life.  One of the ecclesiastical poets of the period, Cynewulf may or may not be the same person as the Bishop of Lindisfarne of the same name, but is most likely either he or a contemporary described as “a gleeman or minstrel at the court of one of the Northumbrian kings… converted to Christianity as an adult and, throughout his life, devoted … to writing religious poems. In the pieces that are unquestionably credited to him, he left 2,600 lines of poetry.”

As records verifying Cynewulf’s identity do not exist, it is an analysis of his most famous work, Elene, which appears in the Vercelli and Exeter manuscripts that provides a key clue to Cynewulf’s origin.  The manuscripts, of late West Saxon creation, use false rhymes that, when corrected in translation to Anglian, result in a correction of the phonemes.  If Cynewulf was a native Anglian speaker, he is most likely to have been born in Northumbria or Mercia, two of the kingdoms of the Anglo Saxon heptarchy.  Further analysis of word forms and the spelling of his name, as well as themes of the cross in his poetry and his use of an acrostic signature, puts his most likely origin in Mercia in the mid-ninth century.  Four different historical figures have been suggested as the poet, the earliest being Lindisfarne’s bishop who died a decade before the infamous Viking attack on the island in 796.  

 

We infer from the nature of his poetry that he was of a deeply religious nature, but it is hazardous to deduce the character of a poet from his apparently subjective work; we learn that he lived to an old age, which he felt to be a burden; that, at some time of his life, he had known the favor of princes and enjoyed the gifts of kings; he must have been the thegn or scop of some great lord, and not merely an itinerant singer or gleeman, as some critics have held. He was a man of learning, certainly a good Latin scholar, for some of his work is based upon Latin originals.

 

Cynewulf’s works include Elene and Juliana which are the only two lives of saints in the Old English vernacular, Crist II, and The Fates of the Apostles.  Many others were formerly ascribed to him including Guthlac, The Dream of the Rood, and The Phoenix, but only those four contain his acrostic and runic signature.  They are all religious works featuring stories of martyrdom for one’s faith, contain allusions from Old Testament books, and are in the Anglian four beat per line and alliterative style.  For example, these lines from Elene, with the alliteration of the R and ð (hard th) in the first line, the ð repeated in the second line,and the C (pronounced as K) in the second.

 

Ridon ymb rofne,     ðonne rand dynede,

camp wudu clynede,     cyning ðreate for 

 

That the other works are so suggestive of Cynewulf’s poetry may well point to his being part of a school of Mercian poetry, a possibility strongly supported by the sophistication of his own work and the unlikelihood that it could have been the work of a single writer.

 

 

Elene is Cynewulf’s longest poem, with 1,321 lines.  The autobiographical epilogue to Elene suggests the poet was an old man and therefore may have been the last written of the four poems.  He says in the epilogue that God gave him the power to express wisdom in verse and that as a gift of God, poetry is an important way to spread wisdom.

 

... until he… 

unlocked my

heart, and loosed the power of song, which joyfully

and gladly I have used in the world.

 

 Cynewulf’s Elene tells how Constantine bade his mother, St. Helena, to find the true cross.  The poem differs from the typical passive female saints of earlier English depictions as well as the Greco-Roman saints in its portrayal of St. Helena as a strong and authoritative woman, far more like Old Norse female characters.  In the latter even the character Judas whom Helena seeks to convert in the long run is her master, while Cynewulf’s saint dominates all, even her own son, the Emperor Constantine. 

Runes were used in Anglo Saxon poetry to lend deeper, symbolic meanings and were also part and parcel of the riddles these people enjoyed.  Likewise Cynewulf used runes for their other meanings as full words, such as “wealth”, “joy” and “water”, all words that fit into the lines of the poems.  But they also stand for letters, and he spells his own name with them. 

 

Here the thoughtful man who takes pleasure in verse, can discover who composed this poem.

 

His use of a runic signature is of significant importance in the history of literature.  Before Cynewulf poets did not claim ownership of their poems but rather expected them to be altered, improved upon and made new by each hand.  Cynewulf developed the dual nature of the signature and the use of his name in acrostic form in his poems and therefore was the very first assertion of authorship.

 

 

Lindisfarne Castle

 

 

Nan Hawthorne is a woman of myriad interests and talents. Besides writing historical fiction, notably her first novel An Involuntary King: A Tale of Anglo Saxon England, she has several blogs on related topics, a radio station online Radio Dé Danaan playing music from all over the Celtic world, and relaxes with her "yarn painting" and other crafts. One of her blogs, Today in Medieval History gives a daily account of historical events. Visit her at www.nanhawthorne.com.

 

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