‘Judith’: The Homily and the Poem

Abstract

Recent interpretations of the Old English poem Judith have discussed it either in the light of the interpretations suggested by Ælfric, or in terms of widely known patristic treatments which antedate the poem. Thus Professor J. E. Cross refers to Ælfric's Letter to Sigeweard, and discusses the poem as an exhortation intended for ‘contemporary stiffening’ of resistance to the invading Danes. Professor B. F. Huppé, who cites both the Letter to Sigeweard and the peroration of Ælfric's homily on Judith, revives an interpretation originally proposed by T. G. Foster in 1892, and later supported by A. S. Cook in his 1904 edition of the poem: that the heroine Judith was meant to represent Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, in her victorious exploits against the Vikings of the eastern Danelaw, so that the poem is a celebration of English success in countering Danish attacks. This particular interpretation was discussed by Timmer in his introduction to the Methuen edition of Judith, and dismissed, primarily for the reason that there is no evidence that an Old English poem written about a religious figure could symbolize a secular hero. A perhaps more compelling reason for dismissing Huppé's interpretation is the West Saxon ‘conspiracy of silence’ about Æthelflæd: a southern poet of the tenth century would hardly have praised the Mercian leader when West Saxon policy was to cast ‘a blanket of official silence over all [her] achievements.’ In more general terms, however, Huppé agrees with Cross that the poem is a patriotic work, with ‘direct relevance’ to the situation in England, and he elaborates on the idea that the heroine is depicted as an example of ‘heroic virtue.’ In this, his interpretation relates to a third recent interpretation, that of Jackson J. Campbell. Like Huppé, Campbell considers the poem in the light of the exegetical commentaries on the Vulgate Book of Judith. There are not a great number of these, but they are all similar, or easy to relate to one another. The Fathers discuss Judith tropologically as an example of chaste widowhood, or simply as an example of chastity, ‘chaste purity’ (Aldhelm), the life of the dedicated contemplative, vowed to chastity (Jerome); in this case Holofernes represents the flesh, or carnal temptation, ‘the vice of the wicked flesh’ (Aldhelm). Secondly, they see her as a type of the Church, cutting off the head of the Old Serpent symbolized by Holofernes. Most Anglo-Saxons who knew the story of Judith would probably have known these stock interpretations; in particular Campbell shows how the poem suggests the interpretation that Judith is a type of Ecclesia.

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