IMC 2014: Sessions

Session 1501: Writing and Power in Early Anglo-Saxon Northumbria

Thursday 10 July 2014, 09.00-10.30

Moderator/Chair:	Jay Paul Gates, Department of English, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York
Paper 1501-a	The Letter 'M' in the Book of Kells: The Division of Hands and an Insight into the 'Calligraphic Imagination' Evident in the Script (Language: English) Donncha MacGabhann, Institute of English Studies, University of London Index terms: Art History - General, Manuscripts and Palaeography
Paper 1501-b	Theodicy Involuted: St Cuthbert and Creation in the Anonymous Vita Sancti Cuthberti (Language: English) Britton Elliott Brooks, Faculty of English, University of Oxford Index terms: Hagiography, Language and Literature - Old English, Language and Literature - Latin, Monasticism
Abstract	Paper -a: This paper is based on detailed palaeographic analysis of the Book of Kells. It focuses on 'm', the most frequently elaborated letter in the manuscript. Analysis of the various categories of 'm' throughout the book provides evidence not previously revealed. This is complemented by analysis of the letter in blocks of pages attributed to the four scribes in the generally accepted division of hands. The evidence from these analyses does not support the four-scribe theory but rather suggests that it is the work of an individual. These conclusions accord with the single 'great scribe' proposed by palaeographers such as Julian Brown. Paper -b: One of the most striking features of the Anonymous Vita Sancti Cuthberti is the level of literal detail with which creation is depicted, full of specific place-names and un-allegorized detail: it is a recognizable and experientially accessible landscape. The numerous miraculous interactions between Cuthbert and creation are therefore placed not in a vague assemblage of exegetical set pieces, but are instead enacted upon the recognizable reality of Northumbria. This paper will argue that the miracles can be best understood within the framing of theodicy, and that they represent the involution of theodicy through Cuthbert's sanctity, which is able to reorder creation into its proper state within the postlapsarian and crucially, experiential, world.