Methodologies, Mantras, and Paradigms: Research in Early Medieval English Literature

Joyce Hill, University of Leeds

In making a contribution to the discussion of the state of medieval studies, it is necessary to begin by defining the period, scope, and academic locale of what is referred to in my title as "early medieval English literature." It is the vernacular literature of Anglo-Saxon England, a period which in terms of date covers, in round figures, the period from about 500 to about 1100 a.d. In practice, the technology of writing comes with Christianity in the final years of the sixth century and throughout the seventh, so that the beginnings of a written tradition—and particularly of a written tradition in English—are somewhat later than the cultural start date of about 500, which indicates the Anglo-Saxon settlement. At the other end of the period, the firm date of Saturday, 14 October 1066, for the political end of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom is not, overnight, the end of Old English language or literature, and so modern scholars commonly allow for the remainder of the century, up to 1100, with the period of English vernacular writings up to circa 1200 now being critically and perceptively examined for what it can tell us of transmission and continuity with respect to the pre-Conquest traditions in certain areas of vernacular literary activity. Of course, there is a wonderfully rich vernacular tradition of creative literature later on, in Middle English, displaying the originality with which modern readers are so comfortable, but the recognition by a group of scholars led by Elaine Treharne and Mary Swan, who recently published Rewriting Old English in the Twelfth Century,1 focuses on the reality of certain kinds of continuity after the Norman Conquest and invites reappraisal not only of what survives, what was created, how, and why but also of how we define boundaries and how we assess, within the study of a written culture, what has often been neglected because it has been dismissed as "derivative" and thus of no literary or cultural value. There are well-established mantras and paradigms here, about periodicity and period boundaries, about "originality," and about what is thus worthy of study, and by whom. But the more modern approach points to the value of analyzing manuscripts, manuscript production, and the purposeful interaction with identifiable sources that challenge the dismissive assumptions of earlier generations, and which are opening up important areas of study, complementary to similar approaches within the mainstream of the period itself. I will return to these issues later, since they identify developing areas of research which look to the future. I suspect that they are, in any case, issues of significance for medieval studies in general, rather than being topics of interest solely to research in the literary traditions of Anglo-Saxon England.