The Ubi Sunt Motif and the Soul-and-Body Legend in Old English Homilies: Sources and Relationships

by CLAUDIA DI SCIACCA

A distinctive group of Old English anonymous homilies is characterized by their use of the ubi sunt topos within the context of the soul's address to the body. These homilies, I hope to show, rely on similar sources (including the Synonyma of Isidore of Seville and works attributed to Ephraim the Syrian) whose identification can contribute to our understanding of the literary and theological milieu from which the frequently imaginative eschatology of Anglo-Saxon vernacular homilists developed.