Race and Ethnicity in Anglo-Saxon Literature (Studies in Medieval History and Culture, 24)

314 Pages·2003·3.08 MB·English

by  Stephen Harris

RACE AND ETHNICITY IN ANGLO-SAXON
LITERATURE
MEDIEVAL HISTORY AND CULTURE
VOLUME 24
STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL
HISTORY AND CULTURE
edited by
Francis G.Gentry
Professor of German
Pennsylvania State University
A ROUTLEDGE SERIES
OTHER BOOKS IN THIS SERIES:
WHERE TROUBADOURS WERE Illustrated Manuscripts
BISHOPS Mary C.Olson
The Occitania of Folc of Marseille (c.
QUEENS IN THE CULT OF THE
1150–1231)
FRENCH RENAISSANCE
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MONARCHY
JOHN CASSIAN AND THE Public Law, Royal Ceremonial, and
READING OF EGYPTIAN Political Discourse in the History of
MONASTIC CULTURE Regency Government, 1484–1610
Steven D.Driver Elizabeth A.McCartney
CHOOSING NOT TO MARRY THE CONTESTED THEOLOGICAL
Women and Autonomy in the Katherine AUTHORITY OF THOMAS
Group AQUINAS
Julie Hassel The Controversies between Hervaeus
Natalis and Durandus of St. Pourçain
FEMININE FIGURAE
Elizabeth Lowe
Representations of Gender in Religious
Texts by Medieval German Women BODY AND SACRED PLACE IN
Writers MEDIEVAL EUROPE, 1100–1389
Rebecca L.R.Garber Dawn Marie Hayes
BODIES OF PAIN WOMEN OF THE HUMILIATI
Suffering in the Works of Hartmann A Lay Religious Order in Medieval
von Aue Civic Life
Scott E.Pincikowski Sally Mayall Brasher
THE LITERAL SENSE AND THE CONSUMING PASSIONS
GOSPEL OF JOHN IN LATE The Uses of Cannibalism in Late
MEDIEVAL COMMENTARY AND Medieval and Early Modern Europe
LITERATURE Merrall Llewelyn Price
Mark Hazard
LITERARY HYBRIDS
THE REPRODUCTIVE Cross-dressing, Shapeshifting, and
UNCONSCIOUS IN LATE Indeterminacy in Medieval and
MEDIEVAL AND EARLY Modern French Narrative
MODERN ENGLAND Erika E.Hess
Jennifer Wynne Hellwarth
THE KING’S TWO MAPS
MYSTICAL LANGUAGE OF Cartography and Culture in
SENSE IN THE LATER MIDDLE Thirteenth-Century England
AGES Daniel Birkholz
Gordon Rudy
PESTILENCE IN MEDIEVAL AND
FAIR AND VARIED FORMS EARLY MODERN LITERATURE
Visual Textuality in Medieval Bryon Lee Grigsby
RACE AND ETHNICITY IN
ANGLO-SAXON
LITERATURE
Stephen J.Harris
ROUTLEDGE
NEW YORK & LONDON
Published in 2003 by
Routledge
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Published in Great Britain by
Routledge
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form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Harris, Stephen J., 1966–
Race and ethnicity in Anglo-Saxon literature/by Stephen J.Harris.
p. cm.— (Studies in medieval history and culture; v. 24)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-415-96872-0 (Hardcover: alk. paper)
1. English language—Old English, ca. 450–1100—History and criticism. 2. Race in
literature. 3. England—Ethnic relations—History—To 1500. 4. England—Race relations
—History—To 1500. 5. Ethnic relations in literature. 6. Germanic peoples in literature. 7.
Race relations in literature. 8. Ethnic groups in literature. 9. Ethnicity in literature. 10.
Kinship in literature. I. Title. II. Series.
Pri79 .R32H37 2003
829'.09355–dc21 2003010599
ISBN 0-203-49799-6 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-58001-X (Adobe eReader Format)
Series Editor Foreword
Far from providing just a musty whiff of yesteryear, research in Medieval Studies
enters the new century as fresh and vigorous as never before. Scholars representing
all disciplines and generations are consistently producing works of research of the
highest caliber, utilizing new approaches and methodologies. Volumes in the
Medieval History and Culture series will include studies on individual works and
authors of Latin and vernacular literatures, historical personalities and events,
theological and philosophical issues, and new critical approaches to medieval
literature and culture.
Momentous changes have occurred in Medieval Studies in the past thirty years
in teaching as well as in scholarship. Thus the goal of the Medieval History and
Culture series is to enhance research in the field by providing an outlet for
monographs by scholars in the early stages of their careers on all topics related to
the broad scope of Medieval Studies, while at the same time pointing to and
highlighting new directions that will shape and define scholarly discourse in the
future.
Francis G.Gentry
ad patres meos
T.Frank Harris
and
Allen J.Frantzen
The ultimate foundation of a free society is the binding tie of cohesive
sentiment. Such a sentiment is fostered by all those agencies of the
mind and spirit which may serve to gather up the traditions of a people,
transmit them from generation to generation, and thereby create the
continuity of a treasured common life which constitutes a civilization.
—Justice Felix Frankfurter,
Minersville School District v. Gobitis,
310 US. 586 (1940)
O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine
indignation. I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and
against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the
spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of
the streets.
—Isaiah 10:5–6
Contents
Acknowledgments x
Abbreviations and Short Titles xi
Chapter One: Voices of Race 1
Chapter Two: The Election of the Angles 45
Chapter Three: King Alfred’s Christendom 83
Chapter Four: Wulf among the Pagans 107
Chapter Five: Woden and Troy 131
Chapter Six: Ethnogenesis and The Battle of Maldon 157
Notes 187
Select Bibliography 257
Index 291