European political and military culture.

9
For
Bede, Sigeberht was a sincere monk, but one
who failed in his attempt to be a new Moses to
his people. From a modern perspective we can
perhaps catch a glimpse of a political and
religious innovator who anticipated the later
medieval attempt to synthesize religious and
political authority in a single figure.
THOMAS D. HILL
Cornell University
doi:10.1093/notesj/gjl131
The Author (2006). Published by Oxford University Press.
All rights reserved. For Permissions,
please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
OE M

AL AS A GLOSS FOR L CLASMA IN
ALDHELMIAN GLOSSARIES
THREE Old English glossaries with lemmata
derived from Aldhelms Prosa de virginitate
render L clasma (<Gr k0> lesion,
rupture) with OE <mal>: (1) the glossary
recorded in the mid-tenth-century manuscript
from Canterbury London, British Library,
MS Cotton Cleopatra A.iii, fos 92
r
117
r
(i.e. the so-called Third Cleopatra Glossary,
hereafter Cleo III; ClGl 3 [Quinn] 1019);
1
(2) the glossary recorded in the eleventh-
century manuscript Brussels, Royal Library,
MS 1650 (hereafter Brussels 1650; AldV 1
[Goossens] 3701);
2
and (3) the glossary
recorded during the tenth and eleventh
centuries in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS
Digby 146 (hereafter Digby 146; AldV 13.1
[Nap] 3815).
3
While <mal> is the only
interpretamentum in Cleo III, the lemma is
rendered in Brussels 1650 as <pace> (cp. L
pax peace, a peace by mutual agreement),
4
which has been written by the hand which
Goossens identifies as Hand B, and OE
<mal>, an addition by the hand which
Goossens identifies as Hand C. The latter
also wrote the lemma and the Old English
interpretamentum once more in the margin.
5
The entry in Digby 146 has the same inter-
pretamenta. Given the close connection
between the two glossaries, there is great
difficulty in knowing which glossary acted
as a source for the other. It may be the
case that Brussels 1650 Hand C took this gloss
from Digby 146 (or an apograph derived
from it), which s/he would have collated
with the glosses provided by Brussels 1650
Hands A and B.
6
Alternatively, the Old
English gloss in Digby 146, like most of
the others in the manuscript, might derive
from Brussels 1650.
7
The close relationship between Brussels
1650 and Digby 146 has been acknowledged
since 1900, when Napier published the
Digby 146 glosses and tried to disentangle the
connections between the two glossaries.
8
Yet,
it is only recently that scholars have become
aware of the fact that the Aldhelmian glosses
in Cleo III are also closely associated
9
For one immediate example note the coronation rituals
(which may have begun among the Anglo-Saxons) which
became such important and elaborate expressions of royalist
ideology and royal self-definition. The first anointed kings
were, after all, Saul and David (I Samuel 10:205; 16:1213).
For discussion of some of these issues see J. L. Nelson,
Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe (London:
Hambleton Press, 1986).
1
See Neil Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing
Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957), rpt. with a Supplement from
Anglo-Saxon England, v (1977), 12131 (Oxford, 1990), no.
143; and David N. Dumvillle, English Square Minuscule
Script: The Mid-Century Phases, Anglo-Saxon England,
xxiii (1994), 1379.
2
See Scott Gwara, Aldhelmi Malmesbiriensis Prosa de
virginitate cum Glossa Latina atque Anglosaxonica, Corpus
Christianorum Series Latina CXXIV and CXXIVa
(Turnhout, 2001), CXXIV 124, 94101, with references.
3
See ibid., 14756, with references. Title abbreviations
of Old English texts follow those provided by the online
version of The Complete Corpus of Old English in Machine
Readable Form (TEI Compatible Version), ed. Antonette di
Paolo Healey, http://ets.umdl.umich.edu/o/oec/ [accessed
from 10 January 2006 to 14 February 2006]. The editions
used in this article coincide with those quoted in the corpus;
therefore, no bibliographical references are given for them.
4
Unless otherwise specified, the meanings of the Latin
terms mentioned in the text rely on Charlton T. Lewis, and
Charles Short (eds), A Latin Dictionary Founded on Andrews
Edition of Freunds Latin Dictionary (Oxford, 1879).
5
Louis Goossens, The Old English Glosses of MS.
Brussels, Royal Library, 1650 (Aldhelms De laudibus
virginitatis), Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke Academie
voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en schone Kunsten van
Belgie 74 (Brussels, 1974), 390.
6
On the relationship between Brussels 1650 Hand C
and Digby 146, as well as the so-called Digby apograph,
see Gwara, Aldhelmi Malmesbiriensis Prosa de virginitate,
CXXIV, 199208.
7
See ibid., 1979.
8
Arthur S. Napier, Old English Glosses, Anecdota
Oxoniensia (Oxford, 1900), xxiiixxvi.
December 2006 NOTES AND QUERIES 395

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with those in the two aforementioned
glossaries, although one cannot argue that
they derive from Cleo III or its immediate
source.
9
It seems, then, that the gloss under
consideration was part of a common body
of Aldhelmian glosses which would have
existed already by the mid-tenth century.
10
This common body may originate from
Canterbury, where Gwara would also like
to locate the writing of Brussels 1650
and Digby 146;
11
or, as suggested by Gretsch,
it may have developed in the houses under
the influence of thelwold, who spent
some time in Glastonbury before becoming
abbot of Abingdon (c. 95463) and bishop
of Winchester (96384).
12
Once the use of OE <mal> to render
L clasma has been dated and, to a certain
extent, localized, its etymology can be
explored. To do so one needs to look at the
context of the lemma in Prosa de virginitate.
The term appears in ch. XXXVIII: Ceteris
enim uiolati foederis clasma concorditer
reconciliantibus solus ultricem cruentae
mortis uindictam exsolues,
13
which Lapidge
and Herren, simplifying Aldhelms syntax,
translate as follows: The others have harmo-
niously repaired the lesion of the violated
alliance; you alone shall pay the vengeful
punishment of a bloody death.
14
The use of
<mal> and L pax to render L clasma in this
context has caused much puzzlement amongst
scholars. Goossens suggests that the terms may
initially have been intended as interpretamenta
for L foederis (cp. L foedus agreement,
alliance) and Rusche points out that
L clasma may in fact be a form of L clama
(cp. L clamium, -ia, -eum, -um claim).
15
These
suggestions would lead one to associate the
term with OE m al suit, cause, case, action,
agreement, covenant, which is commonly
believed to be Norse-derived (cp. OIc. mal
speech, suit, action, cause, stipulation, agree-
ment; cf. WS m l and nWS mel council,
meeting, speech < PGmc *malan).
16
As
far as the dates of the Brussels and Digby
manuscripts are concerned, this suggestion
would fit particularly well the record of
the term in the seemingly Norse-derived
construction beran up m al in ChronE (Irvine)
9
See Philip Guthrie Rusche, The Cleopatra Glossaries:
An Edition with Commentary on the Glosses and their
Sources (PhD diss., Yale University, 1996), 969; and
Mechthild Gretsch, The Intellectual Foundations of the
English Benedictine Reform, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-
Saxon England 25 (Cambridge, 1999), 14954.
10
On the possibility that the glosses were already in
circulation before the Cleopatra manuscript was written, see
Gretsch, Intellectual Foundations of the English Benedictine
Reform, 13941 and 368.
11
Scott Gwara, Canterbury Affiliations of London,
British Library MS Royal 7 D.xxiv and Brussels,
Bibliothe` que Royale MS 1650 (Aldhelms Prosa de
virginitate), Romanobarbarica, xiv (19967), 35974.
On Canterbury as the origin of the common body of glosses,
see also Gwara, Aldhelmi Malmesbiriensis Prosa de
virginitate, CXXIV, chs. 3 and 4.
12
Gretsch, Intellectual Foundations of the English
Benedictine Reform, ch. 9; and eadem, Winchester
Vocabulary and Standard Old English: The Vernacular in
Late Anglo-Saxon England, Bulletin of the John Rylands
University Library of Manchester, lxxxiii (2001), 67 and 73.
For an argument in favour of Abingdon as the place of
origin of the Brussels and Digby manuscripts, see Louis
Goossens, Latin and Old English Aldhelm Glosses: A
Direct Link in the Abingdon Group, in Anglo-Saxon
Glossography: Papers Read at the International Conference
Held in the Koninklijka Academie voor Wetenschappen
Letteren en Schone Kunsten van Belgie, Brussels, 8 and 9
September 1986, ed. R. Derolez (Brussels, 1992), 13949;
and David W. Porter, thelwolds Bowl and The
Chronicle of Abingdon, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen,
xcvii (1996), 1637. For a summary of thelwolds career,
see Michael Lapidge, thelwold, in The Blackwell
Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Michael
Lapidge et al. (Oxford, 1999), 19.
13
Gwara, Aldhelmi Malmesbiriensis Prosa de virginitate,
CXXIVa, 565.
14
Michael Lapidge and Michael Herren (trans.),
Aldhelm: The Prose Works (Cambridge, 1979), 105.
15
Goossens, Old English Glosses, 390 n. to 3701; Rusche
Cleopatra Glossaries, 712 n. to Cleo III 683 (according to
his counting system). On L clamium, see the Dictionary of
Medieval Latin from British Sources, ed. R. E. Latham et al.
(London: 1975), s.v. clamium.
16
Cp. Mary S. Serjeantson, A History of Foreign Words
in English (London, 1935), 73. See Richard Cleasby, and
Gudbrand Vigfusson (eds), An Icelandic-English Dictionary,
2nd edn with a Supplement by William A. Craigie (Oxford,
1957), s.v. mal. The meanings of the Old English terms
mentioned in the text are drawn from J. R. Clark Hall (ed.),
A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th edn with a
Supplement by Herbert D. Meritt (Cambridge, 1960). The
reconstructions of the Proto-Germanic terms rely on
Vladimir Orel, A Handbook of Germanic Etymology
(Leiden, 2003). On WS m l vs nWS mel, see Richard
M. Hogg, A Grammar of Old English, vol. 1, Phonology
(Oxford, 1992), 7.10. On the reasons for considering OE
m al as Norse-derived, see Erik Bjo rkman, Scandinavian
Loanwords in Middle English, Studien zur englischen
Philologie 7 and 11 (Halle, 19002), 1034.
396 NOTES AND QUERIES December 2006

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1052.59 ( ChronF [Baker] 1051.223),
17
an
entry which belongs to a group of annals with
likely Kentish or, at least, south-east origin.
18
However, when the suggestion is brought in
line with the Cleo III entry, it becomes more
problematic because one may not expect the
presence of a Norse-derived term at such an
early date in a non-Scandinavianized area.
19
Admittedly, OE m al is a technical term and
its character would not be at odds with the
earliest Norse-derived terms recorded in Old
English texts.
20
Moreover, as pointed out by
Dance, one has to be careful not to put too
much emphasis on the dialectal distribution
of a term when attempting to establish its
etymology because there are many reasons
why a scribe could have used a Norse-derived
term; this selection does not necessarily imply
that the term in question was common in
the dialectal area where s/he was working.
21
Despite these caveats, the date and likely
origin of the gloss would rather lead one to
think of a native origin for the term.
OE m al spot, mark, blemish (<PGmc
*mailan) presents itself as a good alternative
to the Norse-derived m al. The meaning of
L clasma in the Aldhelmian text is not far
from that of L macula, which could refer to
a stain, fault or blemish in appearance or
in character.
22
Interestingly, L maculare is
used in various Aldhelmian glossaries to
render L violati (cp. L violare to treat with
violence, dishonour, violate, break) in the
context from Prosa de virginitate quoted
above (e.g. AldV 1 [Goossens] 3700) and
both the noun and the past participle seem
to refer to the same concept: the breach or
violation of the pact.
23
The use of OE m al,
which renders L macula in the Cleopatra
glossaries (ClGl 1 [Stryker] 4050 ClGl 3
[Quinn] 1692), would therefore not be out
of place.
Thus, Goossenss suggestion regarding
the association with L foederis of the two
terms which are seemingly presented as inter-
pretamenta for L clasma in Brussels 1650
and Digby 146 could be slightly revised.
Brussels 1650 Hand C would have encountered
the gloss by Hand B when working through
the text; s/he would have added the correct
interpretamentum for the Latin term and,
when extracting the lemma from the text
and glossing it (possibly in preparation
for a compilation of glossae collectae),
24
s/he would have chosen (knowingly or
unknowingly) the correct interpretamentum,
not the interpretamentum intended for
L foederis. The presence of the parenthesis
in the previous sentence responds to the fact
that accuracy may not have been the top
priority in Hand Cs agenda; rather, the
language of the interpretamentum may have
17
See Dietrich Hofmann, Nordisch-englische
Lehnbeziehungen der Wikingerzeit, Bibliotheca
Arnamagnana 14 (Copenhagen, 1955), 368.
18
See Susan Irvine (ed.), The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A
Collaborative Edition, vol. 7, MS E (Cambridge, 2004), lxxvi,
with references.
19
The treaty between Alfred and Guthrum (LawAGu 1)
establishes the border of the territories under the control of
the Scandinavian newcomers as running up the Thames,
and then up the Lea, and along the Lea to its source, then in
a straight line to Bedford, and then up the Ouse to Watling
Street, as translated by Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge
(trans.), Alfred the Great: Assers Life of King Alfred and
Other Contemporary Sources (Harmondsworth, 1993), 171.
On this border, see further R. H. C. Davis, Alfred and
Guthrums Frontier, English Historical Review, xcvii (1982),
80310, rpt. in From Alfred the Great to Stephen (London,
1991), 4754; David N. Dumville, The Treaty of Alfred and
Guthrum, in his Wessex and England from Alfred to Edgar:
Six Essays on Political, Cultural and Ecclesiastical Revival
(Woodbridge, 1992), 114; and Paul Kershaw, The Alfred-
Guthrum Treaty: Scripting Accommodation and Interaction
in Viking Age England, in Cultures in Contact: Scandinavian
Settlement in England in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, ed.
Dawn M. Hadley and Julian D. Richards, Studies in the
Early Middle Ages 2 (Turnhout, 2000), 4364.
20
For a chronological presentation of the Norse-derived
terms recorded in Old English, see Serjeantson, A History of
Foreign Words in English, 6174; her survey is, however,
neither complete nor fully reliable.
21
Richard Dance, The Battle of Maldon Line 91 and
the Origins of Call: A Reconsideration, Neuphilologische
Mitteilungen, c (1999), 148.
22
See Evald Lide n, Etymologien, Beitrage zur
Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur, xv (1891),
5134, for an argument in favour of the direct etymological
and semantic relationship between the terms associated with
OE mel / OIc. mal / OHG mahal, m al and OE m al / OHG
meil. He argues that the initial meaning of the former would
have been the same as that of L macula (cp. OE spot
meaning both mark, stain and place). The association of
these terms is, however, problematic and it seems better to
interpret OE m al meaning claim or agreement as a Norse-
derived loanword (see above, n. 16).
23
See Gwara, Aldhelmi Malmesbiriensis Prosa de
virginitate, CXXIVa, 564.
24
See ibid., CXXIV, 99100, with references.
December 2006 NOTES AND QUERIES 397

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been a more important factor. Indeed, Brussels
1650 offers cases when Hand C chose for the
marginal gloss the same interpretamentum as
s/he had added to the main body of the text,
25
and cases when s/he chose for the marginal
gloss the interpretamentum which was already
present in the manuscript.
26
The main reason
behind his/her choice in most cases seems to
have been the fact that the interpretamentum
was an Old English term.
27
Even though
there are also some cases when Hand C
chose Latin interpretamenta, their accuracy as
glosses for the lemmata they are associated
with cannot be fully accepted.
28
Thus, the
fact that m al was an Old English term is
likely to have played a very important role in
its selection for the marginal gloss in AldV 1
(Goossens) 3701; this may not have been
the only factor at work but one cannot
know what exactly went through the mind
of Hand C as s/he was doing his/her work.
29
SARA M. PONS-SANZ
The University of Nottingham
doi:10.1093/notesj/gjl132
The Author (2006). Published by Oxford University Press.
All rights reserved. For Permissions,
please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
WHO DOES LAUM REFER TO AT
BEOWULF, LINE 1257A?
AFTER Beowulfs fight against Grendel,
the monster just barely manages to escape.
Grendel dies in the cave he inhabits together
with his mother. The Danes celebrate
Beowulfs heroic achievement, and after the
festivity they retire to sleep: little do they
anticipate that Grendels mother would
avenge her sons death. schere, a trusted
counsellor at Hrothgars court, has to pay
dearly with his life:
t gesyne wear
widcu werum tte wrecend a gyt
lifde fter laum lange rage
fter guceare; Grendles modor
ides aglcwif yrme gemunde
se e wteregesan wunian scolde
cealde streamas sian Cain wear
to ecgbanan angan breer
fderenmge;
(Beowulf, lines 1255b63a)
1
The vocabulary of the quoted passage
does not present particular difficulties, and
the syntactic constructions also seem clear. The
text was translated by Kemble in 1837 as
follows: that was seen, notorious to men, that
a revenger yet lived after the loathed one, for
a long time, after the warlike care: Grendels
mother, a woman, a wretched woman, remem-
bered her sorrow, she namely, who was
doomed to inhabit the terror of waters, the
cold streams, after Cain became the murderer
of his only brother.
2
Subsequent translations
do not differ in any significant way.
3
25
E.g. in fo 36
r
, s/he would have seen that L simultatem
(cp. L simultas hostile encounter) had been rendered by
Hand B as L <discordiam>; s/he added the Old English
gloss <ungehrnesse> and that is the term which s/he chose
for the marginal gloss (AldV 1 [Goossens] 3690).
26
E.g. in fo 23
v
, s/he rendered L fortunatum (cp. L
fortunatus fortunate, blessed) as <dictatum>, but in the
marginal gloss the lemma is rendered by <gegodedne>,
which is the interpretamentum entered by Hand A (AldV 1
[Goossens] 2489).
27
E.g. see above, nn. 25 and 26.
28
E.g. Hand C added the marginal gloss <Naptar: genus
frumenti> in fo 15
r
, even though Hand A had rendered the
lemma naptarum (cp. L naphtha naphtha, coal oil) as
<tyrwena> and <heorana> (Hand CD used <teorwena>;
AldV 1 [Goossens] 1648). The interpretamentum chosen by
Hand C, though, seems to render Hand As <heorana>
(cp. OE heorde hards) rather than the Latin lemma. Yet,
Brussels 1650 Hand C was not the only one to make such
mistake when rendering the Latin term; see Dictionary of
Old English, ed. Ashley Crabdell Amos et al. (Toronto,
1986), s.v. a-cumba.
29
I would like to thank the British Academy for its
financial support (through the Postdoctoral Fellowship
Scheme) during the writing process of this article.
1
Quoted from Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson
(eds), Beowulf. An Edition (Oxford, 1998), 90 (diacritics have
been omitted). The manuscript reading <camp> at line
1261b is generally emended to Cain.
2
J. M. Kemble, A Translation of the Anglo-Saxon Poem
of Beowulf with a Copious Glossary, Preface and Philological
Notes (London, 1837), 52.
3
In his translation Orchard also considers Grendles
modor (line 1258b) as beginning a fresh clause and
functioning as the antecedent of the relative clause: That
became clear, widely-known to men, that an avenger still
lived after the hateful one, a long time after the war-strife.
Grendels mother, an awesome assailant in womans form,
called to mind her misery, she who had to inhabit the dread
waters, the cold streams, since Cain became the sword-slayer
to his only brother, his paternal kinsman; see Andy
Orchard, A Critical Companion to Beowulf (Woodbridge,
2003), 188.
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