Parish Priests and Their People in the Middle Ages in England

by Edward Lewes Cutts

The Anglo-Saxon poems attributed to Cædmon are said by the critics to be, in their present form, probably not of earlier date than the eleventh century. In any case, they are very remarkable productions of a school of native poetry; and we think it worth while to give some examples of them. The first is taken from the account of the Creation—

Here the eternal Lord, Head of Creation
In the beginning shaped the universe,
The sky upreared, and this fair spacious earth
By His strong might was stablished evermore.
As yet no verdure decked the new-born world;
The ocean far and wide in deepest night
Concealed the universe. Then o’er the deep
Was swiftly borne on bright and radiant wing,
The spirit of the Lord. The mighty King
Bade Light come forth far o’er the spacious deep,
And instantly His high behest was done,
And holy Light shone brightly o’er the waste,
Fulfilling His command. In triumph then
He severed light from darkness, and to both
The Lord of Life gave names; and holy light
Firstborn of all created things, beauteous
And bright, above all creatures fair,
He called the Day ...
Then time past o’er the quivering face of earth,
And Even, first at God’s command dispelled
The radiant Day, till onward rolled the dark
And murky cloud which God Himself called Night,
Chasing away the Even’s twilight gleam.
*******

Next we take the poet’s conception of Satan and his fall—

Of old
The King eternal by His sovereign might
Ordained ten Angel tribes, of equal rank,
With beauty, power and wisdom richly dowered;
And in the host Angelic, whom, in love,
He moulded in His own similitude,
He evermore reposed a holy trust
To work His will in loving loyalty,
And added by His grace, celestial wit
And bliss unspeakable.
One of the host
Angelic He endowed with peerless might
And arch intelligence. To him alone
The Lord of Hosts gave undisputed sway
O’er all the Angel tribes, exalted high,
Above all Principalities and Powers,
That next to God omnipotent he stood
O’er all created things, lone and supreme.
So heavenly fair and beauteous was his form,
Fashioned by God Himself, that by compare,
Less glorious spirits grew dim; e’en as the stars
In God’s fixed belt, pale in the glowing light
Of nine resplendent spheres.
Long had he reigned,
August Vicegerent of the Heavenly King,
But for presumptuous pride which filled the heart
With dire ingratitude and hostile thoughts
Against the eternal throne.
Nor was it hid from God’s omniscient eye
That this archangel, though beloved still,
Began to harbour dark presumptuous thoughts,
And in rebellion rise against his God
With words of pride and hate.
For thus he spake
Within his traitorous heart:
“No longer I,
With radiant form endowed and heavenly mien,
Will brook subjection to a tyrant God,
Or be His willing slave. Such power is mine,
Such goodly fellowship, I well believe
’Tis greater e’en than God’s own following.”
With many a word of bold defiance spake
The Angel of Presumption; for he hoped
In heaven to rear a more exalted throne
And stronger, than the seats he now possessed.
Then moved by traitorous guile he built in thought
Vast palaces within the northern realm,
And richer western plains of Paradise,
And evermore he dwelled in doubtful mood
Whether ’twere better in acknowledged war
To risk his high estate, or prostrate fall
Mock-loyal as his God’s inferior.
*******
When the All-Powerful in secret knew
The great presumption of His Angel-chief,
*******
Heavenly Justice hurled him from his throne,
And cast him headlong down the burning gulf
Which leads to deepest hell.
For three long days
And three successive nights the apostate falls
Forgotten with his lone rebellious tribe.
*******
Then Satan sorrowing spake—
“This straitened place,
O how unlike those heavenly seats where once
In heaven’s high kingdom we as princes reigned.
*******
’Tis this most grieves
My anxious heart, that earthborn man should hold
My glorious seat and dwell in endless joy,
While we in Hell’s avenging horrors pine.
*******
Here then lies
Our only hope of adequate revenge—
To ruin, if we may, this new-born man,
And on his race eternal woe entail.”
*******

Next a brief fragment from the account of Satan’s invasion of Paradise—

Without delay the Apostate Angel donned
His glistening arms, and lightly on his head
His helmet bound, secured with many a clasp,
And started toward his fatal enterprise.
High toward the fiery concave first he shot,
A spiry column, bright with lurid flame,
Showed where he took his flight. The gates of Hell
Were quickly left behind as lion-like
In strength, and desperate in fiendish mood
He dashed the fire aside.
*******
Onward he took his way, and soon descried
Far off the trembling light of this fair world.
*******
Ere long amid the shade
Of Eden’s fair wide-spreading foliage
He saw the Parents of Mankind; the man
Whose comely form bespoke a wise design,
And by his side, radiant with guileless youth,
His God-created spouse. Above them spread
Two trees rich laden with immortal fruit.[246]

The parallelism with the “Paradise Lost” is, in many places, so striking that we should conclude that Milton knew the work of his predecessor by so many centuries, if we were not assured that the work was unknown in Milton’s day.

The publications of the Early English Text Society have made known a considerable number of religious treatises, tracts, poems, and short pieces in the English language, which throw light upon the popular religion of the three centuries from the thirteenth to the fifteenth.

Legendary histories of saints and apocryphal stories indicate the general acceptance of the marvellous; addresses to the Blessed Virgin Mary, or by her to the soul, bear witness to the existence of a general veneration for the virgin mother, but the tone of them is more calm and chastened than the addresses in some of the popular Italian devotions; there are others which give sound teaching; and others which reveal the existence of a strain of profound and pathetic religious sentiment in the heart of the people.

Here from a MS. of the fifteenth century[247] is a poem of six stanzas, every stanza ending with the line, “Why art thou froward since I am merciable?” It begins—