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"The Dream of the Rood" and Liturgical Drama Julia Bolton Holloway It is the aim of this paper to examine the "Dream of the Rood" and medieval liturgical drama within a matrix of pil grimage and liturgy. To do so it will be necessary also to discuss the various forms in which the text of the "Dream of the Rood" has been found: (1) incised on the stone Ruthwell Cross in runes, (2) engraved on the silver Brussels Cross, and (3) written on the parchment pages of the Vercelli Book in Latin letters. Attention will also need to be given to the cross at Bewcastle, which has been identified as a companion to the Ruthwell Cross. An investigation of the liturgical practices established at Jerusalem and Constantinople and conveyed else where through pilgrim accounts will additionally note the pre sence and importance of women as well as men in the original rituals and observe how the connection continued to be made between women and the Cross through time. The Bewcastle and Ruthwell crosses are Anglo-Saxon monu ments which, like the Franks Casket and St. Cuthbert's Coffin, are incised with pagan Anglo-Saxon runes and, in the case of Ruthwell, also with Roman Christian lettering. The Bewcastle Cross is primarily a political monument, the Ruthwell Cross a liturgical one. We are uncertain of their dates. Earlier and English scholars tended to date them in the seventh century; later and American scholars are more comfortable with an eighth to tenth-century date. The English dating, however, concurs better with the seventh-century historical and cultural context which Bede describes in his History of the English Church and JULIA BOLTON HOLLOWAY, Assistant Professor of Humanities at the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Colorado, Boulder, has edited Brunetto Latini's II Tesoretto, has written a book on pilgrimage in Dante, Langland and Chau cer, and has directed and produced medieval liturgical dramas from Orléans 201. 19 20 Comparative Drama People.1 The Bewcastle Cross has been thought to refer to itself as a "sigebeacn," and its runes to give the names of Kings Oswy, Ecgfrith, Alcfrith, and Wulfhere as well as Queens Eanfled, Cyneburgh, and Cyneswitha and Bishop Wilfrid. King Oswy was the brother of the King Oswald who had erected the cross at Heavenfield in 634 A.D. (Bede 111.2) in imitation of Constan tine, and whose head was kept in St. Cuthbert's Coffin. Alcfrith, who had desired to go on pilgrimage to Rome—a spiritual exer cise forbidden by his father, King Oswy—participated in the Council of Whitby with his father and Bishop Wilfrid in 664 A.D. (Bede III.25). The region of Ruthwell in Scotland is not very distant from Bewcastle, and could only have been under Anglo-Saxon control during the reigns of Oswald, Oswy, and Alcfrith since it was lost under Alcfrith's brother, Ecgfrith, in 685 A.D. (Bede III.25, IV.26). What follows is complex. Oswy had married Eanfled, daughter of Queen Ethelberga of Kent and King Edwin of Northumbria, who had been murdered by King Penda of Mercia. Oswy's son, Alcfrith, married Cyne burgh, whose mother was Cynesthwitha of Mercia who had held Ecgfrith hostage and whose father was the same pagan Penda who had killed not only Edwin, Eanfled's father, but also Oswald, Oswy's saintly brother. Thus Penda was the slayer of both Alcfrith's grandfather and uncle. The marriage thus may represent a typical Beowulfian, Anglo-Saxon "peace-weaving," and the Bewcastle Cross may memorialize it. Ecgfrith later married Etheldreda who retained her virginity and founded Ely (Bede IV. 19). The names of these kings and queens, with those of the Mercian King Wulfhere and Bishop Wilfrid, have been thought to appear in runes on the Bewcastle Cross, perhaps as a peace settlement, a "peace-weaving" for a blood feud between the formerly pagan Mercian and the Christian Northumbrian royal houses.2 Bede (IV.21) speaks of such a "peace-weaving," wrought with the aid of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Theo dore of Tarsus, in 679 A.D. It appears here that Wilfrid was similarly instrumental in bringing about peace. Additionally, Wilfrid...
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