'Comitatus' and Anglo -Saxon Poetry.

252 Pages·2017·9.32 MB·English

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LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School
1991
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Leslie Ann Stratyner
Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College
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Stratyner, Leslie Ann, "Forged Ties: the 'Comitatus' and Anglo -Saxon Poetry." (1991). LSU Historical
Dissertations and Theses. 5276.
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Forged ties: The comitatus and Anglo-Saxon poetry
Stratyner, Leslie Ann, Ph.D.
The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical Col., 1991
U M I
300 N. Zeeb Rd.
Ann Arbor, MI 48106
FORGED TIES: THE COMITATUS
AND ANGLO-SAXON POETRY
A Dissertation
Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the
Louisiana State University and
Agricultural and Mechanical College
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in
The Department of English
by
Leslie Stratyner
B.A., State University of New York at Albany, 1985
M.A. in English, State University of New York at Albany, 1989
December 1991
Contents
Abstract iv
Introduction 1
Notes 12
Chapter I
The Web of Obligations: Ties that Bind
The Comitatus 13
Introduction 13
Part 1: Practices and Institutions 14
The Lord/Thane Bond 14
The Kinship Group 19
"Sele-dreamas": The Joys of the Hall 23
The Feast 25
The Scop 26
"He me a]pas swor": Boasts, Oaths,
and the Comitatus 28
Feuds, Vengeance, Wergild, and the Comitatus 32
Treasure and the Comitatus 36
Part 2: Persons and Types 45
The Ideal Lord 46
The Bad Lord 48
The Failing Lord 51
The Ideal Thane 53
Bad Thanes 58
Grendel, the Anti-Thane 63
Beowulf, Byrhtnoth, and the Hero-ideal 71
Conclusion 82
Notes 83
Chapter II
"Cynna Gemyndig": Women and the Comitatus 90
Introduction 90
Wealhtheow and Cup-bearing 92
Treasure-giving 98
Peace-weaving 100
The "Evil Queens": Modthrytho and
Grendel1s Mother 102
Woman as Thane, Kinship as Comitatus 109
Conclusion 114
Notes 116
Chapter III
Fall and Redemption: "Genesis B” and
"The Dream of the Rood" 120
Introduction 120
"Genesis B" 126
"The Dream of the Rood" 139
Conclusion 149
Notes 151
Chapter IV
The Pattern in the Void: The Vanished Comitatus
in the Elegies 154
Introduction 154
"The Wife's Lament" 158
"The Husband's Message" 166
"Wulf and Eadwacer" 174
"Deor" 187
"The Ruin" 192
"Resignation" 195
"The Wanderer" 200
"The Seafarer" 208
Conclusion 215
Notes 216
Conclusion 221
Works Cited 226
Vita 243
Abstract
The focus of this study is the illumination of the most
unchanging and consistent aspect of Anglo-Saxon poetry: the
poetic representation of the ethos of the warrior band. The
ideals of the comitatus offer a contributing, if not
controlling, structure to nearly the entire corpus of Anglo-
Saxon poetry.
That warband could attain no finer poetic
representation than Beowulf and "The Battle of Maldon,"
which, in presenting not only positive but negative models
of behavior, best exemplify the ideals of the comitatus as
embodied in Anglo-Saxon verse. Chapter 1 examines the
institutions and practices of that masculine circle as
illustrated in these poems.
The second chapter is as a vital companion to the
first. Though the comitatus is exclusively male, it is a
mistaken presumption that women had no influence with regard
to that group. Contrary to common perceptions, women had a
critical position within the male organization of the
warband. Chapter 2 examines that role.
This, however, is not the entire scope of the
dissertation. Of course, it is virtually impossible for a
dissertation to detail every reference within Anglo-Saxon
verse where the ideals of the comitatus are pertinent; thus,
chapters 3 and 4 focus on the manifestations of the
comitatus in the poetic situations where we would least
expect it.
One would hardly anticipate discovering the ethos of
the comitatus permeating Eden or Calvary. Yet undeniably it
does. Chapter 3 discusses the Anglo-Saxon
"reinterpretations" of the fall of man and his redemption
(seen in "Genesis B" and "The Dream of the Rood").
The speakers of the elegies are all deprived of a
comitatus. Chapter 4 focuses on these poems, where
ironically, we can ascertain the vitality and importance of
the warband through an analysis of the consequences of its
lack, and even its apparent repudiation. By examining cases
in which the ideals of the comitatus seem irrelevant to the
poetic situation, those ideals are in truth revealed to be
the dominant paradigm. Thus, the controlling structure of
the comitatus is explicated in various genres extant in the
corpus of Anglo-Saxon poetry.
v
Introduction
"Much that is characteristic of the
oldest Germanic literature turns on the
relationship between the companions and
their lord."
Sir Frank Stenton
When the English historian Frank Stenton wrote those
words in the early 1940s, he was not asserting anything
revolutionary, even back then. Why then, fifty years later,
is it still necessary that we continue to expound upon the
influence of the comitatus on Anglo-Saxon poetry? Anyone
even haltingly familiar with criticism concerning Anglo-
Saxon verse knows that the territory is rife with
exploration of the various institutional factors which
comprise the framework of the comitatus and its atmosphere.
For example, James Earl's "The Role of the Men's Hall in the
Development of the Anglo-Saxon Superego," and Kathryn Hume's
"The Concept of the Hall in Old English Poetry" provide a
wealth of information about Anglo-Saxon mead halls. For a
thorough understanding of boasts and oaths, see Nolan and
Bloomfield's "Beotword, Gilpcwidas, and the Gilphlxden Scop
of Beowulf." In addition, studies of the influence of the
warrior ethos upon the poetry are not limited simply to the
heroic poems, such as Beowulf and "The Battle of Maldon."
1
Both Kathleen Dubbs and Robert Diamond write about heroism
in the Anglo-Saxon crucifixion poem "The Dream of the Rood."
Yet these are only sparse examples from an exceedingly
abundant well of scholarship. What is the purpose in
treading the path that has been trodden so many times
before?
I have undertaken this study because, to my knowledge,
no one has ever attempted to detail fully and in book-length
form the many elements that comprise the ethos of the
comitatus, and then apply that analysis to other Anglo-Saxon
poems. Edward B. Irving, with A Reading of Beowulf and
Rereading Beowulf comes closest, though of course he limits
himself to Beowulf. There are, admittedly, a plethora of
articles which concern, explicitly or tangentially, the
influence of the comitatus ethic upon the poetry. Yet a
more comprehensive study is required. The ideals of the
comitatus in one form or another offer a contributing, if
not controlling, structure to nearly the entire corpus of
Anglo-Saxon poetry. A thorough rather than incidental
illumination of the ethos of the warrior band as depicted in
the poetry is not merely warranted, but demanded.
The first chapter of this dissertation attempts to do
just that. In it I examine the poetic representation of the
comitatus within the poems where it is most evident; as my
examples for the poetic representations of the comitatus, I
choose exclusively Beowulf and "The Battle of Maldon." It