Winchester and the standardization of Old English vocabulary

Abstract

Over a century ago Eduard Dietrich noted that Æfric, pupil of Bishop Æthelwold and educated at Winchester, consistently used certain words (e.g.ælfremed, (ge)gearcian, (ge)fredan) in preference to synonyms (e.g.fremde, (ge)gearwian, (ge)felan) commonly found in other writers. The small number of words given by Dietrich as characteristic of Æfric's usage has been increased as a result of some lexical studies of more recent date. Karl Jost, for example, notes, among several other peculiarities of his vocabulary, Æfric's exclusive use ofbehreowsianandbehreowsunginstead of their synonymshreowsianandhreowsung.Hans Schabram's study of the Old English terminology forsuperbiashows that Ælfric's language displays a remarkable uniformity in the almost exclusive choice ofmodigand its derivatives. One of the results of Elmar Seebold's work on the Old English equivalents forsapiensandprudensis to show that Ælfric always employedsnotorandsnotornesto express the concepts ‘prudens’ and ‘prudentia’. Furthermore, in his study of the Old English vocabulary forcorona, Josef Kirschner argues that Ælfric's almost exclusive use ofwuldorbeagforcoronain a figurative-religious sense (e.g. ‘corona vitae aeternae’, ‘corona martyrii’) suggests a deliberate attempt to standardize vocabulary.

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