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COPYRIGHT 2005 Adam Mickiewicz University Press
ABSTRACT
The paper undertakes an analysis of the 14th-century alliterative poem, St. Erkenwald, reading it as a poetic call to spiritual renewal of the English society through a vivid reenactment of oldtime pagan and Christian traditions. In particular, the analysis focuses on the strategies of characterisation of the poem's double hero the Christian bishop Erkenwald and his pagan counterpart, the anonymous judge, here interpreted as a druid. Together, the two protagonists are shown to form a complementary portrait of a model Christian leader. Arguments are provided for the druid hypothesis in the interpretation of the righteous pagan. The poem's great emphasis upon the Holy Spirit is also demonstrated, with some suggestions as to the date of the described miracle.
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In medieval England of the late 14th century handling sin posed a problem not only for preachers but for poets as well, demanding from them a creative approach. The age of Chaucer has been described as moving "from a series of crises to a general sense of crisis" (Brown and Butcher 1991: 205). This was, among other things, a time rife with religious tensions and endemic corruption in the Church. As a result, the Church was losing its moral authority. The distribution of power between clerical and royal authorities had been constantly renegotiated through the repeated conflicts between English rulers and Roman popes (the Investiture Controversy, initiated by the Plantagenet successors of William the Conqueror, eventually leading to the Church's considerable dependence on the king under Richard II and to complete royal control of the Church under the early Tudors, see Chelini 1996: 42, 165, 377). The dissenting movement of Lollardy claimed the sole authority of the Bible in matters of belief, denying that the study of the Bible should be reserved to clergy, and promoting Biblical knowledge in English among the laity. Not surprisingly, professional religious leadership came under attack in Piers Plowman and numerous poems against simony (such as The Simonie and London Lickpennv). On the other hand, literary attempts to restore ecclesiastical authority by reviving ideals from the past were equally numerous. Significantly enough, in the most important literary work of the period, The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer sends the English society in capsule on a pilgrimage leading away from London, the centre of royal, parliamentary, and judicial power, to Canterbury, the shrine of the "holy blisful martir" (Chaucer 1988: 23). This symbolic journey suggests a need for true spiritual authority. We know that for Chaucer the pilgrim the journey was more than going to buy indulgences at St. Thomas's shrine for he describes himself as "Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage / To Caunterbury with rid devout corage" (Chaucer 1988: 23; emphases mine). The repetition within several lines of the same rhyming words in reverse order and the shift from the plural to the singular, corages/pilgrimages (Chancer 1988: 23, 11. 11-12), underscore the importance of an individual renewal of the heart in all members of the society. The theme of spiritual authority represented by a holy bishop is also central to the late-fourteenth-century romance, Athelston, which is concerned with issues of truth and justice against the background of Anglo-Saxon England, with particularly vivid evocations of London. In the same vein, an anonymous fourteenth-century verse narrative, the alliterative legend of St. Erkenwald, imaginatively recreates the atmosphere of the early English Church to unlock the deep-buried sources of spiritual vigour for its fourteenth-century audience.
Historical claims often provide the basis for authority in medieval culture, and so it is not surprising that the Erkenwald-poet seeks to rebuild the crumbling authority of the Church by vivifying its glorious past. The poem focuses on the figure of a holy bishop in a remote, pre-Norman-Conquest social environment, in which the authority of the bishop over his diocese was unquestionable. Elected by the clergy as well as lay citizens of the town in which he resided, a bishop of the seventh century was a true spiritual leader of the local Church. Under Richard II, by contrast, bishops were appointed by the king and nominated by the pope. In the age of Chaucer, moreover, most of the English bishops were absorbed in secular affairs, monopolising for instance the principal offices of the State. They were involved in administration, politics, and sometimes warfare. Consequently, they paid little attention to the deplorable state of their dioceses. They especially neglected the proper control of the Spiritual Courts, which was an important branch of their duties. Thus, during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, "Wat Tyler's men beheaded the Archbishop...
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