Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days Part 1

Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days.

by Emily Hickey.

FOREWORDS

This little book makes no claim to be a history of pre-Conquest Literature. It is an attempt to increase the interest which Catholics may well feel in this part of the great 'inheritance of their fathers.'

It is not meant to be a formal course of reading, but a sort of talk, as it were, about beautiful things said and sung in old days: things which to have learned to love is to have incurred a great and living debt. I have tried to clothe some of these in the nearest approach I could find to the native garb in which their makers had sent them forth, with the humblest acknowledgement that nothing comes up to that native garb itself. In writing the book I have naturally incurred debt in various directions; debt of which the source would be difficult always to trace.

I may mention my obligations to the work of Professor Morley, Professor Earle, Professor Ten Brink, and Professor Albert S. Cook: also to the writers of Chapters I-VII of "The Cambridge History of English Literature," vol. i.

If this little book in any way fulfils the wishes of those Catholic teachers who have asked me to print some thoughts of mine about English Literature, I shall be glad indeed.

EMILY HICKEY.

CHAPTER I

The beginnings of Literature in England. Two poets of the best period of our old poetry, Caedmon and Cynewulf. The language they wrote in.

The monastery at Whitby. The story of Caedmon's gift of song.

How many of us I wonder, realise in anything like its full extent the beauty and the glory of our Catholic heritage. Do we think how the Great Mother, the keeper of truth, the guardian of beauty, the muse of learning, the fosterer of progress, has given us gifts in munificent generosity, gifts that sprang from her holy bosom, to enlighten, to cheer, to guide and to help; gifts that she, large, liberal, glorious, could not but give, for she, like her Lord, is giver and bestower; and to be of her children is to be of the givers and bestowers. The Catholic Church is the source of fine literature, of true art, as of n.o.ble speech and n.o.ble deed.

We are going to look at a small portion of that part of our Catholic heritage which consists of our early literature; we are going to think about the beginning of Christian work of this kind in the form of poetry and prose in England. When I say Christian poetry and prose, I am using the word Christian as opposed to pagan, and inclusive of secular as well as religious verse, though the amount of secular verse is, in the earliest time, comparatively very small. Some of the pagan work was retouched by Christians who cared for the truth and strength and beauty of it. The ideal of the English heathen poet was, in many respects, a fine one. He loved valour and generosity and loyalty, and all these things are found, for instance, in the poem "Beowulf," a poem full of interest of various kinds; full, too, as Professor Harrison says, "of evidences of having been fumigated here and there by a Christian incense-bearer." But "the poem is a heathen poem, just 'fumigated' here and there by its editor." There is a vast difference between "fumigating" a heathen work and adapting it to blessedly changed belief, seeing in old story the potential vessel of Christian thought and Christian teaching. To fumigate with incense is one thing--to use that incense in the work of dedication and consecration is another. For instance, the old story of the "Quest of the Graal," best known to modern readers through Tennyson's "Idylls of the King," has been Christianised and consecrated. And so it was with some fine old English (or Anglo-Saxon) poetry. But, just now, we are going to listen to Catholic poets and teachers only.

We begin with the work of poets. Out of all those who wrote in what was the best period of our old poetry, a period that lasted some hundred and fifty or seventy-five years, we know the names of two only, Caedmon and Cynewulf.

And here may I say that scholars agree that the names are to be p.r.o.nounced _Kadmon_ and _Kun-e-wolf_; in the second name we sound the _y_ like a French _u_, make a syllable of the _e_, not sounding it as _ee_, but short, and make the last syllable just what we now p.r.o.nounce as _wolf_.

Both of these poets deserve our love and our praise, as singers and inspirers of other singers, but we know much more about Caedmon's life than we know about his share in the poetry that has been attributed to him; that is the poetry which has gone under his name. That he did write much fine verse we know. On the other hand, we know a good deal as to the authenticity of Cynewulf's poetry, and nothing about his life.

Both of these poets wrote in the language spoken in England before the period of French influence. That influence upon English at first seemed to be disastrous; the language became broken up and spoilt: but this was only for a time; and by and by, out of roughness and chaotic grammar there grew up a beautiful and stately speech meet for great poets to sing in, and great men and women to use. So it is that what for a time seems to be disastrous may one day be realised as benign and beautiful.

This pre-Conquest language has to be learned as we learn a foreign tongue. It is much easier to learn than Latin or German, but still it has to be learned; so we shall have to listen to the thought of these poets in the language of our own day, allowing ourselves now and then the use of words or expressions which it is fair to employ in rendering old poetry or prose, though we do not use them in ordinary speech or writing.

We shall sometimes use translations, and sometimes I will tell you about the poetry, giving the gist of it as best I can.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHITBY ABBEY]

At Whitby you may see the ruins of what must have been a very beautiful monastery, built high on a hill, swept by brisk and health-giving winds with the strength and freshness of moorland and sea. This monastery, part of which was for monks, and part for nuns, was ruled by Abbess Hild.[A] This seems strange to us, but it was because the Celtic usage prevailed in the government of the Abbey.

[Footnote A: Hilda is the Latinised form, which it is a pity to use instead of the English one.]

We must never forget the work of the Celtic missionaries who brought Christianity from the Western Islands to the North of England: and, of course, their "ways" as well as their message were impressed on the converts. Later on, as we know, the Roman usage was established all over the country.

Among the monks of Streoneshalh, as Whitby was then called, the Danes having given it its present name, there was, as St Bede the Venerable tells us, "a brother specially renowned and honoured by Divine grace, because it was his wont to make fitting songs appertaining to piety and virtue; so that whatever he learned from scholars about the Divine Writings, that did he, in a short time, with the greatest sweetness and fervour, adorn with the language of poetry, and bring forth in the English speech. And because of his poems the hearts of many men were brought to despise the world, and were inspired with desire for the fellows.h.i.+p of the heavenly life.... He was a layman until he was far advanced in years, and he had never learnt any songs. It was then the custom that, when there was a feast on some occasion of rejoicing, all present should sing to the harp in turn. And when Caedmon saw the harp coming near him, he would get up, feeling ashamed, and go home to his house. Now once upon a time he had done this and had left the house where they were feasting, and gone to the stall where the cattle were, which it was his duty that night to attend to. There, when his work was done, he lay down and slept, and in a dream he saw a man standing by him, who hailed him and greeted him and called him by his name, saying: 'Caedmon, sing me something.' And Caedmon answered and said, 'I can sing nothing, and therefore did I go from this feast, and depart hither, because I could not.' And again he that was speaking with him, said: 'Nevertheless, thou must sing for me.'"

Then Caedmon understood, and he said in the same spirit that prompted Our Lady's "Be it done unto me according to thy word," "What shall I sing?" And the guest of his dream said, "Sing the Creation for me."

As soon as Caedmon had received this answer, he at once began to sing to the praise of G.o.d the Creator verses and words which he had never heard.

St Bede quotes a few lines in the Northern dialect, which may be rendered thus:

"Now shall we praise the Guardian of the Kingdom of Heaven, the might of the Creator and the thought of His mind, the works of the Father of glory; how He made the beginning of all wonders, the everlasting Lord.

First did He shape for the children of men Heaven for a roof, the holy Shaper. Then the mid-world the Guardian of Mankind, the Eternal Lord, the King Almighty, created thereafter, the earth for men."

When Caedmon awoke the gift remained with him, and he went on composing more poetry. He told the town-reeve about the gift he had received, and the town-reeve took him to the Abbess and showed her all the matter.

Abbess Hild called together all the most learned men and the students, and by her desire the dream was told to them, and the songs sung to them that they might all judge what this might be and whence the gift had come. And they were all sure that a divine gift had been bestowed on Caedmon by G.o.d Himself. They gave him a holy story and words of divine lore, and bad him sing them if he could, putting them into the measure of verse. In the morning he came back, having set them in most beautiful poetry. And after that the Abbess had him instructed, and he left the life in the world for the religious life. We are told by St Bede that he made much beautiful verse, being taught much holy lore and making songs so winsome to hear that his teachers themselves learned at his mouth.

"He sang of the creation of earth and the making of man, and the history of Genesis, and the going out of the Israelites from the land of the Egyptians, and their entering into the Land of Promise, and many other stories told in the Books of the Canon. He also sang concerning the Humanity of Christ and about His Pa.s.sion and His Ascension, and about the coming of the Holy Ghost, and the teaching of the Apostles. And he sang also of the Judgement to come and of the sweetness of the Kingdom of Heaven. About these things he made many songs, as well as about the Divine goodness and judgment. And this poet always had before him the desire to draw men away from the love of sin and of evil doing, and to make them earnestly desire to do good deeds."

At last a fair end was set upon his life when, glad of heart, full of love to those around him, he received Holy Viatic.u.m, and prayed and signed himself with the Holy Sign, and entered sweetly into his rest.

This is the story told for the most part, as it is best to tell it in the way in which St Bede recorded it; and Alfred rendered it into the English of his day, from which English I have now taken it.

CHAPTER II

Caedmon and his influence. Poem, "Genesis." "The Fall of The Angels."

"Exodus," English a war-loving race. Destruction of the Egyptians, Fate and the Lord of Fate.

We possess poems on the subjects which St Bede tells us that Caedmon wrote upon, but we cannot be sure that any of these are actually that poet's work. St Bede tells us that many others after him wrote n.o.ble songs, but he sets Caedmon's work above that of all those others as having been the product of a gift direct from G.o.d. In any case he must have influenced those who wrote later than he. All our work whether we are poets, thinkers, fighters, craftsmen, servants, tradesfolk, teachers, must be only partly in what we do directly. This can to some extent be measured. We can tell how many hours' work we have done in a day; how many books we have written in a life's working-time; how much faithful service we have consciously offered. But by far the larger part of our work we cannot know. We cannot know how much we may have influenced others for good, we cannot calculate the effect that we have had upon them, and, through them, upon others. And to apply this thought specially to a poet, we may say that what he has done for others by suggesting, by stimulating, by inspiring, is not only a most valuable part of his work, but also an immeasurable part. A poet may inspire another poet simply to sing; or he may inspire him to sing on subjects akin to those dearest to himself; and the second poet, or the third or fourth, as it may be, may sing better than the first. But all the same, he owes it to the first poet, and, in a sense, the work of the latter poet is a part of the work of the earlier.

The poem "Genesis" is known to be the work of at least two people: part of it is a version of an old Saxon paraphrase of the Old Testament, and must have been written later than Caedmon's time. It is always interesting to know who it was that wrote work we care for, but it is a more important matter to possess the work itself. People in old times did not seem to care much whether their names were known or not. The author, for example, of the book which for so long has been read and studied and cherished as one of the Church's most treasured possessions, the "Imitation of Christ," remained for a long time unknown; and this is by no means a solitary instance. The interest in literary fame is mostly a modern thing. Besides in these old times people worked in a different sort of way from now. We must remember that the art of song went hand in hand with the art of verse-making. All sorts of people sang the words they had heard, changing, adding, as it might be; adding to, or taking from the beauty and force of what they were dealing with, in proportion to the strength of their memory, or the quality of their imagination.

The story of the "Fall of the Angels" forms part of the "Genesis," and it is well worth while to consider whether a very great poet of much later days, John Milton, may not have owed something when writing "Paradise Lost" to his early forerunner.

"Ten angel-tribes had the Guardian of all, the Holy Lord, created by the might of His hand, whom He well trusted to work His will in full allegiance to Him, for He had given them understanding and made them with His hands, the Lord Most Holy.

"He had set them in such blessedness. One thereof had He made so strong, so mighty in his intellect; to him did He grant great sway, next to Himself in the Kingdom of Heaven. So bright had He made him, so beautiful was his form in Heaven that was given him by the Lord of Hosts. He was like unto the stars of light. His duty was to praise the Lord, to laud Him because of his share of the gift of light. Dear was he to our Lord."

But it could not be hidden from G.o.d how pride had taken hold of His angel. And Satan resolves in that pride not to serve G.o.d. Bright and beautiful in his form, he will not obey the Almighty. He thinks within himself that he has more might and strength than the Holy G.o.d could find among his fellows. "Why should I toil, seeing there is no need that I should have a lord? With my hands I can work marvels as many as He.

Great power have I to make ready a goodlier throne, a higher one in Heaven. Why must I serve Him in liegedom, bow to Him in service? I am able to be G.o.d even as He. Strong comrades stand by me, who will not fail me in the strife; stout-hearted heroes."

And so does Satan resolve to be the foe of G.o.d.

Surely we must be reminded of Milton's great poem when we read how Satan, ruined and cast into h.e.l.l, speaks to his comrades, lost with him.

He compares the "narrow place" with the seat he had once known in Heaven, and denies the right doing of the Almighty in casting him down.

He says too that the chief of his sorrows is that Adam, made out of earth, shall possess the strong throne that once was his; Adam, made after G.o.d's likeness, from whom Heaven will be peopled with pure souls.

And he plans revenge on G.o.d by striving to destroy Adam and his offspring.

All this, and the appeal to one of his followers to go upward where Adam and Eve are, and bring about that they should forsake G.o.d's teaching and break His Commandments, so that weal might depart from them and punishment await them, may be compared with "Paradise Lost," Books I, II.

It is needless to say that the English were a war-like race. They loved the clash of swords, the whizzing of the arrow in its flight, the fierce combat, the struggle to keep the battle-stead, as they phrased the gaining of a victory. We shall see more of this by and by. And this spirit comes out in their poetry written after they had received Christianity. They delight in the story of struggle, of brave combat, of victory. They saw in the hosts of Pharaoh the old Teuton warriors, with the bright-s.h.i.+ning bucklers, and the voice of the trumpets and the waving of banners. Over the doomed host the poet of "Exodus" saw the vultures soaring in circles, hungry for the fight, when the doomed warriors should be their prey, and heard the wolves howling their direful evensong, deeming their food nigh them. Here is the description of the Destruction of the Egyptians. The translation is by Henry S.