The Rhetoric of Exile in the Preaching and Teaching of the Anglo-Saxon Church: Glimpses of the Cultural Ideology in Old English Homilies

ideas, for example, those between the past and the present, between the body and the soul, the physical and the spiritual, and, of course, between the exile condition and the home. Blickling Homily X has a central theme of death, eschatology, and the transience of the world, and in this homily the ubi sunt passage is used to underscore how man must give up every earthly possession in time of death, when the body and the soul must be separated: Hwaet biþ hit la ells buton flaesc seoððan se ecaea dael ofbiþ, þaet is seo sawl? hwaet biþ la ells seo laf buton syrma mete? Hwaer beoþ þonne his welan & his wista? hwaer beoð þonne his wlencea & his anmedlan? hwaer beoþ þonne his idlan gescyrplan þe he þone lichoman aer mid fraetwode? hwaer cumaþ þonne his willan & his fyrenlustas ðe he her on worlde beeode? Hwaet he þonne sceal mid his saule anre Gode aelmihtigum riht agyldan, ealles þaes þe he her on worlde to wommum gefremede. xi Lo! What else is it without flesh after the eternal portion, which is the soul, goes away? Lo! What else is the remainder but the food of worms? Where are then his wealth and his feasts? Where are then his pride and his arrogance? Where are then his vain garments with which he earlier adorned his body? Where then do his will and his sinful lusts come, which he practiced here in the world? Behold! He then shall with his soul alone rightly to God Almighty compensate all that which he here in this world committed as crimes. In this passage, the ubi sunt rhetorical questions are used with a tone of reproach and with a focus on the body: i.e., this rhetoric is employed to accentuate the antithetical images of the decayable body and the soul that must face the final judgment. The homiletic ubi sunt topos, 16 The Rhetoric of Exile in Old English Homilies The Hilltop Review, Winter 2014 on the other hand, is also frequently deployed with a different focus on the earthly things rather than the human body. A vivid example can be seen in Vercelli Homily X: For þan nis naht þysses middangeardes wlite 7 þysse worulde wela; he is hwilendlic 7 yfellic 7 forwordenlic, swa ða rican syndon her in worulde. Hwaer syndon þa caseras 7 cyningas, þa þe gio waeron, oððe þa cyningas þe we io cuðon? Hwaer syndon þa ealdormen þa þe bebodu setton? Hwaer is demera domstow? Hwaer is hira ofermetto, butan mid moldan beþeahte 7 in witu gecyrred? Wa is woruldescriftum, butan hie mid rihte reccen. Nis þam leornerum na sel þonne leornendum, butan hie mid rihte domas secen. Hwaer coman middangeardes gestreon? Hwaer com worulde wela? Hwaer cwom foldan faegernes? Hwaer coman þa þe geornlicost aehta tiledon 7 oðrum eft yrfe laefdon? Swa laene is sio oferlufu eorðan gestreona, emne hit bið gelice rena scurum, þonne he of heofenum swiðost dreoseð 7 eft hraðe eal toglideð—bið faeger weder 7 beorht sunne. Swa tealte syndon eaorðan dreamas, 7 swa todaeleð lic 7 sawle. Þonne is us uncuð hu se dema ymb þaet gedon wylle. Therefore, the brightness of this middle-earth and the prosperity in this world is nothing; it is transitory and poor and perishable. So are the powerful here in the world. Where are the powerful caesars and kings, those who once were, or the kings whom we once knew? Where are the aldermen, those who made commands? Where is the tribunal of judges? Where is their pride, except covered with dust and converted to torture? Woe is to confessors, unless they make decisions rightly. It is not better for the teacher than the learner, unless they seek judgments rightly. Where did the treasures of the middle-earth come? Where did the prosperity of the world come? Where did the earth’s fairness come? Those who most earnestly strived for possessions and then bequeathed heritage to other, where did they come? So transitory is the excessive love of earthly treasures, indeed it is like the showers of rains, when it falls most fiercely from heavens and afterwards all quickly glides away—it is fair weather and bright sun. Just ass the earthly joys are unstable, so body and soul separate. Then it is unknown to us how the judge will do about it. In this passage, the focus shifts from the body, and the tone is more delighted and hopeful than the previous one from Blickling, but the central theme of transience of the physical beings on earth is the same. With a similar focus on the pleasant yet transient nature of the world, AElfric also uses the ubi sunt motif to dramatize his preaching in a fragment, a seventyeight-line passage added to the sermon for the First Sunday after Easter: Hwaer beoð wyrta blostman on winterlicre tide? Hwaer beoð ealle ofaetuu of eallum treowcynne? Hwaer beoð hi gesewene on winterlicum cyle on aenigum beame, þe ealle eft cuciað, on wyrtum and on treowum, þurh þone ecan wyrhtan, eal swa eaðelice swa he hi aer geworhte? xii Where are the blossoms of plants in winter’s time? Where are all the fruits of all kinds of trees? Where are they seen in the wintry chill on any tree, which will all again come to life on plants and on trees, through the eternal Maker, all as easily as he formerly made them? While many other instances of ubi sunt passages occur throughout Old English homilies, these examples quoted above represent some typical contexts and didactic purposes