Wulfstan and his Library: The <i>De officio missae</i> and The Homiliary of Saint-Père de Chartres

Wulfstan, Archbishop of York (1002–1023) and Bishop of Worcester (1002–1016), is best known not by these titles of his ecclesiastical office, but as an author of sermons, a statesman, and a legal theorist.1 Appointed as Bishop of London in 996, he became actively involved in the politics of the time, particular after his 1002 elevation to Worcester and York, and wrote laws for both Æthelred and Cnut up until his death in 1023. Even his most famous homily, the Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, has been tied directly to his political involvement.2 Yet he was also a bishop and archbishop, and one of the most important ecclesiastical figures in England during the early eleventh century. He was likely in attendance at several important councils in various parts of England and the Liber Eliensis recalls his close relationship to three different kings of England: Æthelred, Edmund Ironside, and Cnut.3While studies often focus on either Wulfstan's homiletic or political writings, there remains another body of work closely tied to his activities as a bishop and archbishop, the so-called “Archbishop Wulfstan's Commonplace Book” or “Handbook.”4 Although traditionally treated as a single compilation that stems from Wulfstan's own hypothetical notebook, the “Commonplace Book” is represented through a complex manuscript tradition.5 Moreover, the inaccuracy of this title has been noted by scholars such as Andrew Rabin who states that it suggests “an eclectic notebook consisting of random quotations reflecting the idiosyncratic interests of its compiler.”6 While more recent studies refer to a core group of “Commonplace Book” manuscripts within the larger list established by earlier scholars, this scholarship does not typically address the bilingual Latin and Old English elements of them.7 Moreover, although this title suggests a single, traceable exemplar of the “Commonplace Book,” no two manuscripts preserve the same selection or broad arrangement of texts. Rather, many of the manuscripts are referred to as “miscellanies” and contain numerous untitled, anonymous works.In the case of the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts, the smaller, anonymous texts found in them are often viewed only as sources for Wulfstan's more well-known homilies and political texts, and thus remain understudied.8 Elaine Treharne has suggested that there is an “implicit scholarly response that privileges the poetic over the prose, the named-author prose over the anonymous, and the original over the copied and adapted” and that this leaves many codices that contain shorter, and often anonymous, religious prose works understudied.9 While Treharne's interest was in vernacular manuscripts, her focus on manuscripts associated with Worcester and Exeter includes several “Commonplace Book” ones. Indeed, many of these same aesthetic considerations likewise impact the anonymous, and often shorter, Latin texts in eleventh-century codices, such as the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts.10 Many of these texts were written or copied by the second and third generations after the Benedictine reforms of Dunstan, Æthelwold, and Oswald, yet because they draw less scholarly attention, their sources, content, and composition remain largely unexamined and their contributions to the texts and manuscripts produced in the eleventh century remain unclear.Moreover, several studies have addressed the intellectual environments of tenth- and eleventh-century English monasteries, the places in which these second- and third-generation codices were copied, by working to recreate their available libraries.11 The focus of this work has often revolved around more firmly traceable Latin texts and preaching texts and has demonstrated the number of Carolingian homiliaries in use in England during the tenth and eleventh centuries, as well as the fact that multiple copies of specific homiletic collections, such as the Homiliary of Angers or the Homiliary of Saint-Père de Chartres, were used across several different English monastic centers.12 Yet discussions of libraries and intellectual networks tend to remain isolated to the influence of Carolingian texts on English intellectual life, and to the libraries and intellectual environments of specific institutions, such as Canterbury or Winchester, despite evidence that suggests these collections were not necessarily static.13Only recently has there been a focus on breaking down the genre boundaries, such as political or homiletic, that were traditionally placed on the corpus of work produced by authors such as Wulfstan.14 However, even then the variety of smaller works in the “Commonplace Book” still do not fall strictly into a definable genre category, nor does the “Commonplace Book” tradition, largely because the diversity of texts in the manuscripts resists any clear categorization.15 However, as Lászlo Sándor Chardonnens has demonstrated, anonymous, smaller works are both fundamental and important to an understanding of the complex networks of contact and intellectual sharing at play in the early eleventh century, particularly in relation to texts found in manuscripts similar to the “Commonplace Book” ones.16 The study of these smaller, anonymous texts in manuscripts not only helps to illustrate the benefit of reconsidering established genre boundaries, but also allows for a broader understanding of the way that these texts functioned in the intellectual landscape in which they were copied.Recent research has demonstrated that Wulfstan was an avid editor and rewriter who made deliberate editorial choices as he composed his own texts, activities which can often be seen through examples of his own handwriting in surviving manuscripts.17 Yet the idea of Wulfstan as an editor, concerned with the organization and presentation of texts, is rarely considered across the “Commonplace Book” tradition, rather than in relation to single manuscripts. However, a closer examination of the smaller, anonymous texts found in several of the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts suggests a more complex origin, organization, and place within the intellectual networks of the early eleventh century than previous scholarship has allowed for.This paper will provide an edition of one of the small, anonymous texts from the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts, the and its to another “Commonplace Book” the a most often as a of their it will be that a of the Carolingian the Homiliary of Saint-Père de Chartres, was used as a for the two texts in the early eleventh century. through this of the it will be that the two were not the of but of and with the fact that the in its surviving in Wulfstan's own it will be that the of the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts in which the two texts are found was not a of but a deliberate compilation with specific that was of specific interest to of these two texts, is a that with the of the the of the and the the has a of scholarly and has been as an anonymous copied into the “Commonplace is found in a of of the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts but in no English manuscripts. manuscripts and these manuscripts, one can be directly to was produced at Worcester 1002 and Wulfstan's to the and his and various and made by particular is the fact that the title written in Wulfstan's own that Wulfstan and this as he many in this close to the in three of these manuscripts and is a second anonymous in the manuscripts the The directly the as there are texts the but they remain of a similar While this does not in the organization of the texts that it in with suggests that this manuscript have been to The has been as an from a from the century which was on the but for which there is evidence of in the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts the is to but the with the of The is up into with on a different with a then to the early the of the of the of the of the and the this has been a of their scholarly has been or closely nor have they been considered within the broader of the “Commonplace Book” tradition, or the early eleventh-century to which they of work have the as to an understanding of the larger and the editor of the most recent edition of the to the but them in the both the and anonymous of the have likewise to its from their study of and the the and an but not provide a of this or it to the and only one English manuscript not associated with the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts that the which they as a from the same manuscript to which and the manuscript is most well-known for one of the and best surviving copies of the Homiliary of Saint-Père de The a of homilies or for was written during the or early tenth century, in the of but its from to be the manuscript Chartres, has recently manuscripts which in or in and preserve the several of which the is that the Homiliary different homilies that were and by a single, The texts are from a variety of places and well-known authors such as of the and in to several this homiliaries such as this one because of their as sources both for preaching and for particularly in Old manuscript evidence suggests that the Homiliary was copied in England during the tenth and eleventh several early of the a from Canterbury and an eleventh-century that was produced at the fact that a number of Old English anonymous homilies used texts found in the Homiliary as sources, its during at the tenth suggests that as many as different copies can be in English libraries from the tenth to early While it has been suggested that Wulfstan to the there is evidence that there have been a in Worcester during the eleventh century for the of the that in the Homiliary was into the Worcester of the and a was written during the eleventh or early century at is the of the Homiliary in England and is considered one of its best surviving the fact that it has no to Wulfstan or is considered a of the of the Homiliary that have in eleventh-century The of the that and is a single found on the title the of and the and also of the a of of this homily, in does closely the of the However, the in one clear and important way that will its to the the of the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts and this title and their The is that the in the of the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts is than the in The with a title and several of that are not found in the of the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts. will be it is this in that the the and the found in the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts and to their both this in and the of the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts are by and as copies of the fact that in the same as work is there are three of the that the The is the by from the which does not in any English manuscripts from the The second is the found in the of the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts, which several into and the of the third is the found in the Homiliary represented by which the that is in the with a composition to the can be seen in the various of the established of found in surviving of the and with the in ad de the of which in the previous for the most to the to is to and to the that has been in the place for the and of of the of the and in which during of it is to to the of the and a is a is from the which in the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts, in the second of the the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts the with the a is a the found in the the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts, the is to the or to as a this in a to the that does not in the manuscripts the found in the has another of this third The of the that is from the in the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts is by a is similar in its to the but then for several is as the similar texts in ad ad in in a a a in de his de his his de the of for the most to the to the is to and to the that they be and with a body and they to the of a of the and they the which they into their with or from the of this the which they to in be and either by they or by well by and it be that the and and which is be and it they will not only be from the of the and from the of the but they will also be with who with to the on the of the them from these the of their it be that these have been on the that has been in the place for the and of of on the of the and in which during specific of it is for the to and to the a is a is only in the and two that to the original found in the The most in the is the deliberate of the to the previous of the the of the prose is to the Homiliary until the the to a of the various this can thus three of the and that the by and found in the which does not in any English manuscripts from the The second is the found in the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts and and is the from the Homiliary which is best represented by the as it in The of evidence suggests that this third of the is to the While it has been that the was a of the original the evidence that the was an of the Homiliary the is a that only in of the so-called “Commonplace Book” manuscripts and is often as a Although and this to the homily, only its the of the Homiliary the third which it does demonstrated this is the that is from the in the “Commonplace Book,” the second of the which with this is found this suggests that the single in a of the Homiliary similar to was to two the and the of the The fact that these two texts only in manuscripts associated with the “Commonplace Book” and with Wulfstan's the in suggests that Wulfstan was the the of this single Homiliary evidence in both the and to the fact that this of texts was not in one into two “Commonplace Book” texts, but was the of the deliberate of will several elements to a made to the single from the Homiliary into two texts. elements the of a second of the specific from the Homiliary of the and the titles to the texts in the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts. Moreover, of these in a with a specific focus and use as it to the Wulfstan's in the with the Homiliary it is not of this a deliberate was made to the from the that became known as the and second to it into a on the of the the The of the closely to the of the Homiliary found in However, this only of the of the the prose of the does not to the Homiliary this on yet another this but which not on While the Homiliary that up the of the a to do during the this of the of the various and involved in The of this can only have from a of the Homiliary that the as it is a that is different from the the to which it was in the The and the of it from the in the Homiliary into the specific were made in to which to and which to the Homiliary of the there are two from the “Commonplace Book” is to that the and of the of the from the Homiliary is for two are as de his his de it be that these have been on the that is in the place for the and of of on the of the and in which during specific of it is for the to and to the the Homiliary these two as a the from the of and the which is to the Homiliary and the of the to the from that the of the these it be that these have been on the that the will to the or the texts found in the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts, these their the within the does not on to this of the and the of the this that the of the single into two texts was the titles of the two works found in the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts their relationship to the in the Homiliary and the this the title written in Wulfstan's a manuscript likely from the title is the that as the for these two texts in the Homiliary is the title The of this the of and the to the of the the second the of the the of the from and the in the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts. The title to the in is close to the of the Homiliary and the title found in is even more in its the same time, the from the Homiliary that the the will to a of specific is likewise similar to the title to the in the “Commonplace close of the two works in the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts to both the title in and the suggests that they have from a of the Homiliary and in them the titles for the texts were also from the that there have been to a of the the that in at Worcester in the early eleventh century, the texts only in these “Commonplace Book” manuscripts. this of the the single was and to two texts. The of used the Homiliary and on to a that was in and which a of the and the place of the The the and of the which on the title is to the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts but have been by the in the the Homiliary this from the of it in England have been considered as from the larger However, as this study has the in the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts were not from the Carolingian work but were by way of the or not the of the Homiliary used for this the to in the as remain a but the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts do not the two texts found in the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts are anonymous that no in their manuscript of their in the not to the of the Homiliary but to actively use it as that be is in understanding of the of the two texts the and the the early eleventh century Wulfstan was bishop and the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts to be and copied, Worcester not yet a monastic as was found in monastic the established by at after his of from the and their by Worcester to have a single of both and at the of Wulfstan's been to Worcester and it that the monastic and by in two and a single religious fact that two religious in Worcester at this on the place of these texts within that The of these works a that the of the to the and to do in a way that not the this was the of several important tied to the of such as and with of the are and their and or is to that these two one from the Homiliary and the largely from the and of the in a and the second by this of the Homiliary the with a an different of religious this the is of the the of by during which were to be a and established does not as an for but rather the of one and it is with the the of this was not a to but rather the a understanding of the religious of the of these texts one another in the manuscripts that preserve despite been from the same The manuscript that both is written at Worcester in the of the century, likely from a manuscript used by this manuscript on and on The the of an anonymous the no in the manuscript of its The fact that has been or considered in to the texts that it has the to the that one in the intellectual in which it was copied, that is early eleventh-century of the manuscript that one of these texts is copied with the same group of texts and is of a and the after two texts. The is a the title ad to in the is addressed to and is around the of the this is Wulfstan's in the manuscript de a although a by is similar in to and the of the this places the at the of a group that is to and which the various and associated with the rather than the of the three manuscripts that preserve the and this is found both and the de the idea that they through the various of the “Commonplace Book” the is with which is ad of a Bishop to is by an anonymous de the ecclesiastical and the was the case with is placed within a but this one the various ecclesiastical their and the for the and texts also in to one another in and not which as a manuscript through the the group to which at and the of this have been for the of monastic that have been to a in Worcester in which both and who both and Wulfstan a of made up the religious the two of texts a and of that have its with a and more understanding of the the various the that Wulfstan in the of this intellectual also be the of his editorial in can be that he was with the While numerous were for the of this it is that his was the While the does not likewise with his there is evidence that he of and was with manuscripts, or Winchester, and which is considered another of the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts, contain an Old English of the that is to Wulfstan's to that he it to to such as to a Wulfstan's of the texts that the and his interest in the of the manuscripts, the is by a that with is associated with the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts the also in a and more Old English the two which the and were from by Wulfstan to his specific and thus provide evidence for his of the Latin in the and and were by into Old English at Wulfstan's to the of a of not well in as Wulfstan's interests not and he the to by and until it a of his own of the to by that Wulfstan a interest in the of these and he not have the Latin as or he them texts in a way that be to specific of his religious as have the single found in the Homiliary was used and in that a of Wulfstan's interests as a bishop and not only he have to this but he actively it to the of his The single from which the two texts and were its homiletic in the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts. Yet the Wulfstan the two different elements in the single and to it the into the thus two texts, of which a title of or any that a homily, or the Homiliary was the of the The to the and it from its Homiliary also it from scholars as a homiletic Yet it also be noted that this in its any of its and the of by or works that were considered because they were this the two anonymous, smaller texts which are to are no less in their own but do not into the of Wulfstan's or and thus have been in studies of Wulfstan's corpus of these texts are not Wulfstan's found in the Sermo Lupi ad or his numerous are to on the place of a in a religious are of Wulfstan's as a bishop a group of than of the and Wulfstan is seen Wulfstan's interests and the political for which he is most well and his “Commonplace Book” can be not as a of his but as of a intellectual in early eleventh-century is this and this of the Homiliary of Saint-Père de which draw Worcester and Wulfstan more closely into the networks of anonymous Old English homilies produced during the tenth at in this of the “Commonplace Book” can the that Wulfstan in and texts that were both and to the of his religious The fact that they were copied multiple into numerous manuscripts, several of which to the early eleventh century and to Wulfstan's as Bishop of Worcester (1002–1016), to their and viewed this the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts are more complex than of Wulfstan's which the clear focus on the smaller, anonymous, and often texts in these manuscripts can into the intellectual in which they were Homiliary of Saint-Père de was used across of at the and of England in the tenth century and its use as a for these texts in the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts can place it in this important up numerous Wulfstan's and the that he in the intellectual and religious of early eleventh-century the century, also from Worcester to it was to and The of this manuscript that Wulfstan's editorial and to the manuscripts produced his and his own of was from the “Commonplace Book” manuscripts, as well as which the Homiliary of Saint-Père de Chartres, and is the English of the that was used as the for the of the manuscripts Exeter was produced during Wulfstan's at Worcester and in his of its close to Wulfstan and early is as the is the most closely to Wulfstan's and was likely produced in although by it was in Exeter and is often to be the on on that to Exeter in was copied during the of Wulfstan and does not contain any as was the case with Wulfstan's its is considered to be of the “Commonplace Book” tradition, although it is it was is used until it to be the of the ad ad in in a a a in de his corpus in in de in in corpus in corpus a a de in de his his the of for the most to the to the is to and to the that they be and with a body and they to the of a of the and they the which they into their with or from the of this the which they to in be and either by they or by well by and it be that the and and which is be and it they will not only be from the of the and from the of the but they will also be with who with to the on the of the them from these the of their the is the of but the the of the the the body of the the the and in the the which from the of the on the that is and it is a as that is a it is with a in of the for the of and the which in Latin is that is the body and of be his be into He often as do do it in the ecclesiastical which are on of are and the body and of the of the the of these same they are both from the and it is in which has a and

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