Thrones and Dominions/Dominations in the Old English Version of the Homiliary of Angers

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Notes

1. The Homiliary of Angers is a Carolingian collection of “simple, mainly exegetical preaching material that centres on Gospel (and to a lesser extent epistolary) readings and may have served as an important tool for providing biblical teaching to medieval lay populations across Europe at smaller and lesser known centres and institutions” (Conti et al. 137). For the manuscript sigla and the list of the extant manuscripts of the Homiliary of Angers, see Conti et al. The homily for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost is transmitted by the following copies of the Homiliary of Angers: A 71 v, B 31 v, C 106 r–v, G 46 v, M 29 r, T 59 r, V 101 r, TF 2.3–2.12; see Conti, “The Taunton Fragment.” All Latin witnesses apart from B agree on this passage. B (31 v) reads: Sed semper gaudium pax et leticia; Cum angelis et archangelis laudantibus deum et benedicentibus dominum. In saecula saeculorum amen; “But always joy, peace, and gladness with angels and archangels praising God and extolling the Lord to all eternity. Amen.”

2. The Taunton Fragment is quoted from Gretsch’s edition. The accents are not reproduced; the punctus elevatus is represented by the semicolon.

3. Doane and Orchard insist that the plural rodor should be translated by “the firmament, the firm barrier between the visible and invisible heavens” (Doane).

4. In the Taunton Fragment, <eo> represents <o> after <r> also in the accusative (TF 6.5) and vocative (TF 3.16, 5.5, 6.3, 6.19) plural of the noun broðor ‘brother’.

5. Healey et al. (DOEC) record only one instance of roderes wealdend found in ÆCH II.14.255 in manuscripts C, F, K, M, R, and T. Three copies of this homily (NOX^e) display a regular form of this phrase with the plural of the noun rodor, rodera wealdend. For the manuscript sigla, see Godden, The Second Series xiii–xiv. Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies are quoted from Clemoes and Godden, The Second Series, and cited as ÆCH I and ÆCH II respectively, followed by their homily and line numbers.

6. For the argument that “In die depositionis beati Augustini anglorum doctoris” descends from “Legimus in ecclesiasticis historiis,” see Pelle.

7. The rest of the manuscripts do not translate the names of the angelic orders into English.

8. The order in which angelic hosts appear varies across the texts and copies of the same text. For instance, in ÆCH I.1.22–23 all manuscripts apart from Cotton Vitellius C. v name angels in the following order: angels, archangels, thrones, dominions/dominations, principality, powers, virtues, cherubim, and seraphim, but Cotton Vitellius C. v rearranges this list into angels, archangels, virtues, powers, principality, dominions/dominations, thrones, cherubim, and seraphim. The Durham Ritual agrees with the order found in most manuscripts of ÆCH I.1, but the Lorica of Gildas arranges angelic hosts differently: thrones, archangels, principality, powers, angels. For the order of angelic hosts in patristic literature, see Chase.

9. Old Latin is cited from Sabatier, the Vulgate from the Clementine version, and English translations from Douay-Rheims version.

10. All Old English translations of Matthew 5.34, with the only exception of the Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 302 (xi/xii) copy of ÆCH I.19 exhibiting heofonan, employ the singular of the noun heofon “heaven, sky, firmament” for cœlum (ÆCH I.19.56, ÆCH I.32.103, ÆCH II.30.30–31; the Old English Gospels, and the glosses to the Lindisfarne and Rushworth Gospels). All psalters use the plural of heofon.

11. Augustine’s Enarrationes in psalmos was a staple patristic text at the typical Anglo-Saxon library (Lapidge 127), the copies of which circulated widely at least since the eighth century; see the catalog in Lapidge.

12. For the text of the sermon, see Conti, Preaching Scripture 325–28.

13. For the place of rodor in Anglo-Saxon cosmology, see Discenza.

14. The noun rodor is conspicuously absent from the Old English Heptateuch, which uses fæstnis to translate firmamentum “firmament”. Only glosses to the Vitellius, Lambeth, Arundel, and Bosworth Psalters render firmamentum “firmament” by rodor; the Lambeth Psalter is the only one to use it consistently. Ælfric uses rodor only in the singular.

15. Genesis A treats heofon and rodor as referential synonyms also in compounds: heofenstolas ‘heavenly seats’ (line 8) and rodorstolas ‘heavenly seats’ (line 749) seem to denote the same entity; see McGillivray (273).

16. A corresponding passage is missing in Azarias. Remley attributes this lacuna to the scribe’s eye-skip (132–33).

17. An illumination to Psalm 11 is on folio 6 v of the Utrecht Psalter, 6 v of the Harley Psalter, and 20 r of the Eadwine Psalter.

18. Cotton Titus D. xxvii and Cotton Titus D. xxvi originally formed one manuscript.

19. See Afros’s (“Taunton Fragment”) discussion of the Taunton Fragment translator’s/scribe’s substitution of the Latin stagnum genesareth ‘the lake of Genesareth’ with the Old English ses deopnes ‘the depth/abyss of the sea’ in the homily for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost.