Wulfstan (died 1023) - Homilist

Homilist

Wulfstan was one of the most distinguished and effective Old English prose writers. His writings cover a wide range of topics in an even greater range of genres, including homilies (or sermons), secular laws, religious canons, and political theory. With Ælfric of Eynsham, he is one of the two major vernacular writers in early eleventh-century England, a period which, ecclesiastically anyway, was still very much enamoured of and greatly influenced by the Benedictine Reform. The Benedictine Reform was a movement which sought to institute monastic standards among the secular clergy, a movement made popular by the churchmen of the Carolingian Empire in the ninth and tenth centuries. The Reform promoted a regular (i.e. based on a regula, or rule) life for priests and clerics, a strict church hierarchy, the primacy of the Roman see, the authority of codified or canonical church law, and stressed the importance of catholic, that is universal, church practices throughout all Christendom. These ideas could only thrive in a social and political atmosphere which recognized the importance of both the clergy's and the laity's obedience to the authority of the church on all things spiritual, and also on many things secular and juridical. This was one of the main theoretical models behind much of Wulfstan's legal and quasi-legal writings. But Wulfstan was not blind to the fact that, in order for this Reform model to thrive in England, the English clergy and laity (especially the laity) needed to be educated in the basic tenets of the faith. Nothing less than the legitimacy of English Christendom rested on Englishmen's steadfastness on certain fundamental Christian beliefs and practices, like, for example, knowledge of Christ's life and passion, memorization of the Pater Noster and the Apostles' Creed, proper baptism, and the correct date and method of celebrating Easter mass. It is towards the promotion of such beliefs and practices, that Wulfstan engaged in writing a number of homilies dedicated to educating both clergy and laity in those Christian fundamentals which he saw as so important for both the flourishing of Christian lives and the success of the English polity.

In a series of homilies begun during his tenure as Bishop of London, Wulfstan attained a high degree of competence in rhetorical prose, working with a distinctive rhythmical system based around alliterative pairings. He used intensifying words, distinctive vocabulary and compounds, rhetorical figures, and repeated phrases as literary devices. These devices lend Wulfstan's homilies their tempo-driven, almost feverish, quality, allowing them to build toward multiple climaxes. An example from one of his earliest sermons, titled Secundum Lucam, describes with vivid rhetorical force the unpleasantries of Hell (notice the alliteration, parallelism, and rhyme):

Wa þam þonne þe ær geearnode helle wite. Ðær is ece bryne grimme gemencged, & ðær is ece gryre; þær is granung & wanung & aa singal heof; þær is ealra yrmða gehwylc & ealra deofla geþring. Wa þam þe þær sceal wunian on wite. Betere him wære þæt he man nære æfre geworden þonne he gewurde.

• "Woe then to him who has earned for himself the torments of Hell. There there is everlasting fire roiling painfully, and there there is everlasting filth. There there is groaning and moaning and always constant wailing. There there is every kind of misery, and the press of every kind of devil. Woe to him who dwells in torment: better it were for him that he were never born, than that he become thus."

This type of heavy-handed, though effective, rhetoric immediately made Wulfstan's homilies popular tools for use at the pulpit.

There is good evidence that Wulfstan's homiletic style was appreciated by his contemporaries. While yet bishop of London, in 1002 he received an anonymous letter in Latin praising his style and eloquence. In this letter, an unknown contemporary refuses to do a bit of translation for Wulfstan because he fears he could never properly imitate the Bishop's style The Chronicle of Ely said of his preaching that "when he spoke, it was as if his listeners were hearing the very wisdom of God Himself." Though they were rhetorically ornate, Wulfstan's homilies show a conscious effort to avoid the intellectual conceits presumably favoured by educated (i.e. monastic) audiences; his target audience was the common English Christian, and his message was suited to everyone who wished to flock to the cathedral to hear it. Wulfstan refused to include in his works confusing or philosophical concepts, speculation, or long narratives – devices which other homilies of the time regularly employed (likely to the dismay of the average parishioner). He also rarely used Latin phrases or words, though a few of his homilies do survive in Latin form, versions that were either drafts for later English homilies, or else meant to be addressed to a learned clergy. Even so, even his Latin sermons employ a straightforward approach to sermonizing. Wulfstan's homilies are concerned only with the "bare bones, but these he invests with a sense of urgency of moral or legal rigorism in a time of great danger".

The canon of Wulfstan's homiletic works is somewhat ambiguous, as it is often difficult to tell if a homily in his style was actually written by Wulfstan, or is merely the work of someone who had appreciated Wulfstanian style and imitated it. However, throughout his episcopal career, he is believed to have written upwards of 30 sermons in Old English. The number of his Latin sermons has not yet been established. He may also have been responsible, wholly or in part, for other extant anonymous Old English sermons, for his style can be detected in a range of homiletic texts which cannot be directly attributed to him. However, as mentioned, some scholars believe that Wulfstan's powerful rhetorical style produced imitators, whose homilies would now be difficult to distinguish from genuine Wulfstanian homilies. Those homilies which are certainly by Wulfstan can be divided into 'blocks', that is by subject and theme, and in this way it can be seen that at different points in his life Wulfstan was concerned with different aspects of Christian life in England. The first 'block' was written ca. 996–1002 and is concerned with eschatology, that is, the end of the world. These homilies give frequent descriptions of the coming of Antichrist and the evils that will befall the world before Christ's Second Coming. They likely play on the anxiety that surely developed as the end of the first millennium AD approached. The second 'block', written around 1002–1008, is concerned with the tenets of the Christian faith. The third 'block', written around 1008–1020, concerns archiepiscopal functions. The fourth and final 'block', written around 1014–1023, known as the "Evil Days" 'block', concerns the evils that befall a kingdom and people who do not live proper Christian lives. This final block contains his most famous homily, the Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, where Wulfstan rails against the deplorable customs of his time, and sees recent Viking invasions as God's punishment of the English for their lax ways. About 1008 (and again in a revision about 1016) he wrote a lengthy work which, although not strictly homiletic, summarizes many of the favorite points he had hitherto expounded upon in his homilies. Titled by modern editors as the Institutes of Polity, it is a piece of 'estates literature' which details, from the perspective of a Christian polity, the duties of each member of society, beginning with the top (the king) and ending at the bottom (common folk).