THE IMAGE OF THE TEMPLE IN THE
PSYCHOMACHIA AND LATE ANGLO-SAXON
LITERATURE
MARKATHERTON
Introduction
In about the year 405 a classical poet living in Spain completed the
Latin poem that came to be known in the medieval world as the
Psychomachia. 1 This is the 'struggle of the soul', an allegory of the
war between the Virtues and the Vices personified as female warriors.
The style of the poem is firmly classical, with numerous allusions to
Ovid and Vergil; even its basic theme, the personification of abstract
moral qualities, was common in Roman pagan literature.2 Its doctrinal
content, however, is strictly Christian, and the work became extremely
popular in the early medieval period as a model poem and school
text.3 The extent of its popularity in Anglo-Saxon England is seen in
the echoes of the Psychomachia in the works of Anglo-Latin writers,4
in the fact that manuscripts of the text were imported from the
Continent,5 and in the survival of four illustrated versions of the poem
which were produced at English scriptoria in the late tenth or early
1 M. P. Cunningham (ed.), Aurelii Prudentii dementis carmina, Corpus Christianorum
Series Latina cxxvi (Turnhout: Brepols, 1966), 149-81. A convenient edition with translation
is H.J.Thomson (ed.), Prudentius, i, Loeb Classical Library (London: Heinemann, 1969),
274-343.
2 Kenneth R. Haworth, Deified virtues, demonic vices and descriptive allegory in Prudentius
Psychomachia (Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1980), 55-73. Macklin Smith, Prudentius
Psychomachia: a reexamination (Princeton: University Press, 1976), 151-5.
3 E.R. Curtius, European literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. W.R. Trask, Bolingen
Series, xxxvi (London and New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1953), 458-9, 463-4.
4 Gernot R. Wieland, 'Prudentius', in Sources ofAnglo-Saxon literary culture: a trial version,
eds P.M. Biggs, T.D. Hill and P.E. Szarmach, with the assistance of K. Hammond, Medieval
and Renaissance Texts and Studies, Ixxiv (Binghamton: State University of New York, 1990),
150-6.
5 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson C. 697, written in north-east France at the end
of the ninth century and later owned at Bury St Edmunds; and Cambridge, Corpus Christi
College, MS 223, written at Saint-Bertin in the late ninth or early tenth century and imported
into England by the tenth century. See Gernot R. Wieland, 'Psychomachia manuscripts', Old
English Newsletter, xxviii, 3 (Spring 1995), B-16
B-19, at B-16.
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eleventh centuries." As various studies of the influence of the
Psychomachia indicate, the evident popularity of the poem suggests
that Anglo-Saxon readers were fascinated by its themes, particularly
its depiction of the life of the soul through the imagery of war and
conflict. 7 This article, however, will focus on the rarely mentioned
conclusion of the poem, the episode of the dedication of the Temple,
and discuss its significance for the Anglo-Saxon readership of the
early eleventh century. I will compare and contrast how this image is
depicted in the surviving illustrations, and discuss some artistic and
literary parallels in liturgical manuscripts and homiletic works of the
same period.
The Artistic Tradition of the 'Psychomachia'
Before looking at the depiction of the temple by the Anglo-Saxon
illustrators of the poem, it will be helpful to consider the long-standing
artistic tradition in which they worked. The pattern of manuscript
transmission from the assumed fifth-century archetype has been
traced by Woodruff, and following her analysis, it seems that the
earliest surviving manuscripts were written in ninth- or tenth-century
Francia and can be divided into two groups according to their
iconography. 8 Group one, with which we are mostly concerned,
consists of the four Anglo-Saxon illustrated manuscripts made around
6 For late Anglo-Saxon illustrated manuscripts I will refer to two standard reference works:
Elzbieta Temple, Anglo-Saxon manuscripts 900-1066, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in
the British Isles, ii (London: Harvey Miller, 1976), referring in each case to the catalogue
number; and Thomas Ohlgren, Insular and Anglo-Saxon illuminated manuscripts: an iconographic
catalogue c.A.D. 625 to 1100 (New York and London: Garland, 1986), referring to catalogue
number and individual entries within that. For both the Anglo-Saxon and the continental
illustrated manuscripts of Prudentius, I will refer to the plates in Rudolf Stettiner, Die ittustrierten
Prudentiushandschriften:Tafelband (Berlin: G. Grotesche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1905).
7 Gernot R.Wieland,'The Anglo-Saxon manuscripts of Prudentius's Psychomachia,AnghSaxon England, xvi (1987), 2 13-31. John P. Hermann, 'Some varieties of psychomachia in Old
English', American Benedictine Review, xxxiv (1983), 74-86 and 188-222. John P. Hermann,
Allegories of war: language and violence in Old English poetry (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1989).
H Helen Woodruff, 'The illustrated manuscripts of Prudentius', Art Studies (1929), 33-79,
at 50; this article was reprinted as Helen Woodruff, The illustrated manuscripts of Prudentius
(Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1930). I will follow Woodruff for the division of
the manuscripts into two groups, but only cautiously for the stemmatic method. Woodruff
bases her manuscript sigla and stemmata on Rudolf Stettiner, Die illustrierten Prudentiushandschriften, University of Strassburg doctoral dissertation (Berlin: J.J. Preuss, 1895). Her
stemmatic approach has been criticized by Wieland, 'Psychomachia manuscripts', B-17
B-18, since she postulates only one continental exemplar for all four Anglo-Saxon illustrated
Psychomachia manuscripts, while Wieland suggests that differences in pictorial detail between
the manuscripts indicate at least two exemplars. This is possible, but an even more rigorous
application of the stemmatic approach may be misleading, for 'the underlying assumption
that artists, like scribes, were under an obligation to reproduce the content of their model is
debatable. Sometimes artists may have worked like this, sometimes not. How can we tell?
For this comment see John Lowden, The Octateuchs: a study in Byzantine manuscript illumination
(University Park: The Pennsylvania University Press, 1992), 3.The varied approaches of AngloSaxon artists to their models is discussed by Richard Gameson, The role of art in the late AngloSaxon church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), esp. at 9-14.
THE TEMPLE IN THE PSYCHOMACHIA
265
the year 1000, namely Cambridge, Corpus Christ! College MS 23
(hereafter CCCC 23), London, British Library, Cotton Cleopatra C
VIII (Cleo. C VIII), London, British Library MS Additional 24199
(Add. 24199), and the fragment Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm.
2903Ib; added to these are two southern French codices: firstly PI,
a manuscript now divided as Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale MS lat.
8318 and Rome, Vatican Library, MS Reg. lat. 596, written in the
tenth century at Tours; and, secondly, Leyden, University Library
Cod.Vossianus lat. oct. 15 (Le 1), with illustrations drawn by Ademar
of Chabannes in the early eleventh century.9 In group one, the Virtues
are portrayed in long garments with their heads covered (except where
the text requires other dress). For the Vices, the clothing is more
varied; they wear either long or short tunics, sometimes with a mantle
fastened at the shoulder and occasionally with a belted garment
fastened over one shoulder leaving the other bare. In the more
numerous group two illustrated manuscripts, the Virtues appear as
warriors in mail with helmets. The Vices, on the other hand, have
dishevelled flame-like hair and wear a tunic with a skirt divided into
three points that has been described as a 'flame-skirt'. 10
The flame-skirt also occurs in the Utrecht Psalter, written and
illustrated at the school of Rheims in the ninth century: on folio 79V,
for example, a man is led away by four devils in flame-skirts and with
flame-like hair. 11 In other illustrations, a fairly similar group of evillooking men beset the psalmist with spears and other weapons. 12
The parallel with the group two Psychomachia is apparent in scene
16 of the Bern Prudentius. 13 Here a group of Vices in flame-skirts
beset Patience, who nevertheless remains undaunted by their spears
and other weapons. The scene is very similar to that on fo. 9r of the
Utrecht Psalter. The equivalent picture in group one, as represented
by Ademar's drawing in Lei, is very different. 14 Here the Vices are
dressed in long robes or military clothing and attack the Virtue with
firebrands. Patience herself is unarmed and stands in the orans
position, the old gesture of prayer found originally on antique frescoes,
for instance in the catacombs of Priscilla, crypt of the Velatio Virginis,
Rome, dating back to the third century. 15
'Temple, Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, nos 48, 49, 51 and 50; Woodruff, 'Illustrated
manuscripts', 36-8. On Le 1, see also Richard Landes, Relics, apocalypse, and the deceits of history:
Ademar of Chabannes, 989-1034 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 353-62.
'"Woodruff, 'Illustrated manuscripts', 35.
" Utrecht, Rijksuniversiteit Bibliotheek, MS 32, written c. A.D. 830 at Hautvillers, near
Rheims. E.T. De Wald, The illustrations of the Utrecht Psalter (Princeton, NJ: University Press,
1932). Koert van der Horst and Jacobus H.A. Engelbregt, Utrecht-Psalter (Graz: Akademische
Druck-undVerlagsanstalt, 1984).
12 Horst and Engelbregt, Utrecht-Psalter, 4r and 9r.
13 Bern, Stadtbibliothek, MS 264, fo. 38r. The illustration for scene 16 is reproduced in
Woodruff, 'Illustrated manuscripts', fig. 54 and Stettiner, Tafelband, pi. 41. In all, there are 90
scenes in the illustrated cycle of the Psychomachia, outlined by Stettiner, Tafelband, 10-16.
14 Lei, fo. 38r. Stettiner, Tafelband, pi. 20.3.
15 Irmgard Hutter, Early Christian and Byzantine an (London: Herbert Press, 1988),
pi. 21.
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BULLETIN JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
Other comparisons show that it is usually the group one
manuscripts that preserve the late antique features of the fifth-century
archetype. As we shall see, the depiction of the temple in the final
scenes of the illustrated cycle is similar to that of buildings in fifthcentury pictorial art, for instance on the nave mosaics of the church
of S. Maria Maggiore in Rome. 16 Another good example is the figure
of Fides (Faith) in scene 21 of PI, where she wears a long garment
and mantle which is drawn about her right arm but allows her hand
to extend in a speaking gesture. In her left hand she holds a scroll. 17
As Woodruff points out, such garments are seen in catacomb frescoes,
sarcophagi and early manuscripts such as the Vienna Genesis. 18
There is evidence that the group one iconographic tradition was
somewhat modified in the sixth century under eastern influence. 19
This particularly affected the iconography of the Old Testament scenes
and also introduced images of certain sixth-century artefacts, such
as the different style of chariot and the sixth-century altar, which are
not present in the illustrations of group two. Occasionally, however,
the latter group presents antique images in its drawings which the
group one tradition has apparently discarded. For example, in scene
7 (Prudentius invokes God) Prudentius, with arms extended,
approaches an altar placed before a building, evidently a church.
The church is absent from the group one pictures.20 However, even
in this scene we detect the influence of the Rheims school, for here
three of the group two manuscripts have a lamp or 'corona' hung in
the entrance of the building, a feature that is certainly antique, for it
occurs in the mosaics of S. Maria Maggiore; however, it also occurs
in the Utrecht Psalter.21 It seems that the Rheims school introduced
antique motifs such as the temple lamp into the Psychomachia cycle
that were probably not found in the fifth-century original. At the
same time the iconography was reworked.
As is well known, the Utrecht Psalter became immensely
influential in England after it was taken to Canterbury around the
year 1OOO,22 but its architectural images of antique temples, though
popular, apparently do not affect the images of churches or temples
16 Lei, fo. 43r; Stettiner, Tafelband, pi. 26.3. Woodruff, 'Illustrated manuscripts', 67 and
figs 127 and 130. Jean Lassus, The early Christian and Byzantine world (London: Hamlyn,
1967), pis 22 and 23.
17 PI, fo. 50r; Stettiner, Tafelband, pi. 2.3.
18 Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, cod. theol. gr. 31. Woodruff, 'Illustrated manuscripts of
Prudentius', 67.
19 Woodruff, 'Illustrated manuscripts of Prudentius', 75.
20 Ibid., 67.
Paris, Bibliotheque Nationalc, tat.
21 Ibid., figs 70, 71, 74. The manuscripts are: P2
8085, fo. 56V; Stettiner, Tafelband, pi. 86.10; B2 Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale 10066-77,fo.
Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale 9968-72, fo. 78';
114r; Stettiner, Tafelband, pi. 173.5; B3
Stettiner, Tafelband, pi. 183.1.
22 A recent study, with a good summary of previous scholarship, is William Noel, 7«
Harley Psalter, Cambridge Studies in Palaeography and Codicology, iv (Cambridge: University
Press, 1995).
THE TEMPLE IN THE PSYCHOMACHIA
267
in the Anglo-Saxon Psychomachia manuscripts. In the eleventh
century, various artists participated in the task of copying and adapting
the Utrecht Psalter in order to produce a new version of its text and
illustrations now extant as London, British Library, MS Harley 603,
and in general instances of the Utrecht Psalter image of the temple
abound in their illustrations. One such image of an elaborate antiquestyle temple was added to London, British Library MS Royal 15. A.
XVI; here the artists apparently used Harley as the model rather
than Utrecht.23 Temples of this type, however, do not occur in the
Anglo-Saxon Psychomachia illustrations.
We can sum up our survey of the illustrated manuscripts as
follows. The fifth-century original was reworked to a certain extent
probably through
in the sixth century and this reworking
became the basis of the group one
Carolingian intermediaries
manuscripts, which in general preserve the antique features faithfully.
Group two, on the other hand, has been considerably reworked and,
though often antique in its iconography, derives this style from the
Carolingian tradition represented by the Utrecht Psalter. Though
later influential in England, the Utrecht Psalter seems to have arrived
there too late to exert any substantial iconographic influence on the
illustrators of the Psychomachia, who may not have been familiar with
the many images of the temple which the Utrecht Psalter was about
to introduce into the repertoire of eleventh-century English artists.
The Dedication of the Temple
The final scene of Prudentius's Psychomachia culminates in the victory
of the Virtues and the building of the new temple. A resplendent
edifice, its riches recall the New Jerusalem described in the Revelation
of St John, chapter 21. Its foundations form a perfect square, and on
each side are three shining arches of precious stone. Its walls are
likewise adorned with gemstones, twelve different kinds24 which, when
the light shines through them, reveal their quasi-mystical qualities:
has inter species smaragdina gramine verno
prata virent volvitque vagos lux herbida fluctus
Amid these beauties are emeralds like grassy meadows in spring, whose green
light rolls out everchanging waves.25
Inside the temple is an inner chamber resting, appropriately, on seven
pillars. Here Wisdom herself sits enthroned.26
The artist who first added illustrations to the text of the Psychomachia in the fifth century probably illustrated this particular scene
23 Noel, Harley Psalter, 147;Temple, Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, no. 64, ill. 203 and no. 85,
ill. 211.
24 Psychomachia, lines 849-67.
25 Psychomachia, lines 862-3; the translation is from Thomson, Prudentius (see note 1).
26 Psychomachia, line 875; c.f. Proverbs 9:1.
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with four miniatures. Of these, the first and third depicted allegorical
figures: in the one Faith and Concord laying the foundations of the
temple, in the other Wisdom seated on her throne; the second and
fourth illustrations were reserved for the temple itself.
Although it is now lost to us, we gain a good impression of the
fifth-century artist's work from manuscript PI, made at Tours in the
tenth century, but preserving the antique tradition. In his depiction
of the temple,27 the artist drew an almost square gabled edifice built
of large stone ashlars. Wide steps lead up to the impressive entrance
flanked by columns (Fig. 26). Significantly, there are, in all, seven
columns, each with pedestal and ornate capital. Above are galleries
on three levels and a decorated gabled roof. In short, the artist drew
a fifth-century roman-style basilica. The building drawn in PI is
similar in shape to the three-aisled basilica of S. Apollinaire in Classe,
Ravenna28 or the fifth-century basilica at Der Turmanin, Northern
Syria,29 where the ashlars, galleries and arcades also recall the tenthcentury drawing.
When the artist of the de luxe manuscript CCCC 23, working
probably at Canterbury in the late tenth century, came to illustrate
his text of the Psychomachia, he followed his antique-style exemplar,
probably a Carolingian manuscript, which almost certainly contained
two depictions of the temple. 30 This model has not survived but it is
likely that its drawings were very similar to those of the Tours
manuscript PI (Fig. 26) and also to the sketches by Ademar in Le 1,
another southern French manuscript, which also depict two versions
of the temple. 31 The first of these two versions (Fig. 27) is very like
the basilica in PI. The second (Fig. 28) is apparently a simplified
version: the columns and one of the galleries have been removed and
the building now has an entrance arch instead of a rectangular
opening. Following such a model, the CCCC 23 artist changed little
(Figs 29 and 30). 32 He modified the shape of the windows, changed
the roofing material, and drew the side chamber without perspective,
its roof flush to the wall of the main building. In general, however, he
attempted to reproduce fairly accurately the basic shape and
characteristics of the building he was copying. The same can be said
of another artist hand III of Add. 24199, dated c. 1100; again his
27 This illustration occurs in the part of manuscript PI now preserved in Rome, Vatican
Library, MS Reg. lat. 596, fo. 26V; Stettiner, Tafelband, pi. 13.
28 Lassus, Early Christian and Byzantine world, colour pi. 30.
29 Hutter, Early Christian and Byzantine an, pi. 50.
30 Probably imitating the format of its antique-style exemplar, CCCC 23 is a large, de luxe
manuscript in which 'the lines of script only occupy two-thirds of the width of the ruled space,
while the illustrations fill it: originally the script would have been written in spacious rustic
capitals filling the length of the ruled space' (Noel, Harley Psalter, 201).
31 Lei, fo. 43r; Stettiner, Tafelband, pi. 26.3.
32 CCCC 23, fos 38V and 401; Stettiner, Tafelband, pis 65.8 and 66.10; Ohlgren, Iconographic
catalogue, no. 153: 63 and 65.
THE TEMPLE IN THE PSYCHOMACHIA
269
Figure 26
Illustration of the Temple, from Prudentius
Psychomachia (Drawn by Mark Atherton)
Figure 27
First Illustration of the Temple, from
Prudentius Psychomachia (Drawn by
Mark Atherton)
Figure 28
Second Illustration of the Temple,
from Prudentius Psychomachia
(Drawn by Mark Atherton)
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BULLETIN JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
Figure 29
First Illustration of the Temple, from
Prudentius Psychomachia (Drawn by
Mark Athenon)
Figure 30
Second Illustration of the Temple, from
Prudentius Psychomachia (Drawn by
Mark Athenon)
Figure 31
Illustration of the Temple, from
Prudentius Psychomachia (Drawn by Mark
Athenon)
THE TEMPLE IN THE PSYCHOMACHIA
Figure 32
First Illustration of the Temple, from Prudentius
Psychomachia (Drawn by Mark Athenon)
Figure 33
Second Illustration of the Temple, from
Prudentius Psychomachia (Drawn by Mark
Athenon)
271
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temple, though roughly sketched, still looks like a Roman basilica
(Fig. 31)."
A third artist, however, made no attempt to reproduce the temple
he saw in his model. In hand I of Cleo. C VIII, the artist's two
representations of Prudentius's temple look remarkably like
contemporary Anglo-Saxon churches (Figs 32 and 33). 34 Again we
could note the different style of the roof and the windows. Both these
are features of churches and other buildings depicted in Anglo-Saxon
manuscripts of the tenth and eleventh centuries. 35 But the artist of
this manuscript changes the whole form of his building. Especially
in the second drawing it is very different from Le 1 or CCCC 23
(Figs 27-30).The building here has a nave and porticus, and its tower
resembles that of St John's church, Barnack, Northamptonshire,
which dates back to the same period, the late tenth or early eleventh
century. 36
An innovation such as this requires some explanation. One
possible factor is the role of fashion, for it is clear that Cleo. C VIII
shares many of its architectural features with earlier illustrated
manuscripts. In the Benedictional of ALthelwold, for instance, an
illustration of the entry into Jerusalem renders the city's buildings
with the same openings, towers, roofs, tiles and ashlars as the buildings
of Cleo. C VIII. 37 Of these features, the pegged tiles, the horizontal
string-courses, the omission of stones on the towers, and the shape
of the windows may all reflect features of contemporary English
buildings. At the very least they show that the Anglo-Saxon artists of
this period employed an identifiably English style for the depiction
of buildings.
Despite this tendency to modernize, however, it is clear that the
artist of Cleo. C VIII has done more than simply follow the tenth33 Add. 24199 (scene 88), fo. 36'; Stettiner, Tafelband, pi. 66.16; Ohlgren, Iconographic
catalogue, no. 156: 63. Temple, Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, no. 51 lists the three artists of Add.
24199 as: hand I, late tenth century (fos 2-26), hand II, second half of the eleventh century
(fos 26V-27V, 28\ 29V, 31 V, 33l) and hand III, c. 1100 (the remaining drawings).
34 Cleo. C VIII,fos 35r and 36V; Stettiner, Tafelband, pis 46.3 and 44.4; Ohlgren, Iconographic
catalogue, no. 154: 51 and 53. See also the reproductions of the illustrations of Cleo. C VIII in
Thomas Ohlgren, Anglo-Saxon textual illustration (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute
Publications, 1992), pis 15.51 and 15.52. The artists of Cleo. C VIII are: hand I (fos 4r, 7V
lower illustration
16V, 27V-33V) and hand II (fos 18-27); seeTemple, Anglo-Saxon manuscripts,
no. 49. A third hand (fos 4V-7V upper illustration) has been noted byT.A. Heslop, 'The
production of deluxe manuscripts and the patronage of King Cnut and Queen Emma', AngloSaxon England, xix (1990), 151-95, at 167, n. 45.
35 M.O.H. Carver, 'Contemporary artefacts illustrated in late Saxon manuscripts',
Archaeologia, cviii (1986), 117-45, at 121.
36 H.M.Taylorand J.Taylor, Anglo-Saxon architecture, 2 vols (Cambridge: University Press,
1965 1980), fig. 371.
37 London, British Library, MS Add. 49598, written 971 -84 at the Old Minster,Winchester,
fo. 45'.Temple, Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, no. 23; Ohlgren, Iconographic catalogue, no. Ill: 13.
For a facsimile, see George Frederick Warner and Henry Austin Wilson (ed.), The Benedictional
of&thehuold,Thz Roxburghe Club (Oxford: University Press, 1910), fo. 45V; or Robert Deshman,
The Benedictional ofJEthekvold, Studies in Manuscript Illumination, ix (Princeton, NJ: University
Press, 1995), pi. 21.
THE TEMPLE IN THE PSYCHOMACHIA
273
century fashion for drawing windows and roofs. By drawing a church
he has changed the iconography of the picture. Why would he do
this? One answer may be that he is blissfully ignorant: he rationalizes
the strange image by replacing it with something more familiar.
There are parallels for such a rationalizing approach in
manuscripts CCCC 23 and Add. 24199, for instance in their portrayal
of the vice Pompa (Pomp) in scene 52. 38 At lines 439-40 of the
Psychomachia, Pomp, 'the parader of vain splendour' is deprived of
her frivolous peplum, apparently a particular term in the poem for a
kind of cloak or ceremonial robe: 39
Pompa, ostentatrix vani splendoris, inani
exuitur nudata peplo ...
The illustrators of PI and Lei draw Pomp wearing this garment,
which appears to be a long, thin stole decorated with a pattern of
dots or squares and adorned with three tassles at each end; in a reflex
of this image in Cleo. C VIII the squares have become loops (Fig.
34). By contrast, the corresponding images of CCCC 23 and Add.
24199 re-interpret Pomp's stole. In all the group one illustrations,
Pomp's posture is the same: she wears the stole round her neck,
holding up part of it in her raised right arm; what differs is the way
the garment is interpreted. In CCCC 23 the artist reworks the image
(Fig. 35). On fo. 23r Pomp wears a garment in form very similar to
the vestments of ecclesiasts as seen in various Anglo-Saxon illustrated
manuscripts, such as the Liber Vitae of the New Minster40 or the
Lanalet Pontifical. 41 The two ends of Pomp's garment in CCCC 23
are decorated with crosses as though it is an ecclesiastical stole, a
curious misunderstanding of the garment, unless the artist is attacking
the pomp of the Church (which is doubtful). In this instance the
artist has rationalized his (assumed) model but this has resulted in a
new image that is inappropriate to the text he is illustrating.
By contrast, in the work of the tenth-century hand I of Add.
24199, the artist has rationalized the image of the model in a more
thoughtful and appropriate manner (Fig. 36). Here, Pomp's stole,
though similar in form to a vestment, seems to be a recognized female
'8 CCCC 23, fo. 23 r; Stettiner, Tafelband, 59.3; Ohlgren, Iconographic catalogue, no. 153:
38. Add. 24199, fo. 21 V; Stettiner, Tafelband, 60.11; Ohlgren, Iconographic catalogue, no. 156:
36.
39 The Latin noun pepluni, Greek 'peplon', refers originally to the robe '\vith which the
statue of Athene at Athens was clad at the Panathenaea'; see D.P. Simpson (ed.) Cassell's Latin
dictionary (London: Macmillan, 1987), 432; or CharltonT. Louis and Charles Short, A Latin
dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 1332.
10 London, British Library, MS Stowe 944, to 6V , written c. 1031 at the New Minster,
Winchester. Temple,/lM£/0-Sax0w manuscripts, no. 78, ill. 248. For a facsimile, see Simon Keynes
(ed.), The Liber Vnac ofthe AVsr Minsm and HydcAbbey\\ "inchcster, Early Hnglish Manuscripts
in Facsimile, xxvi (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1996).
" Rouen, Bibliotheque Mumcipale, MS A. 27 (368), fo. T, written in \\essex in the second
quarter of the eleventh century. Temple, Angln-Saxon manuscripts, no. 90, ill. 256; Ohlgren,
lionographic catalogue, no. 195: 1.
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Figure 34
Figure of Pompa, from Prudentius
Psychomachia {Reconstruction drawn by
Paul Booth)
Figure 35
Figure of Pompa, from Prudentius
Psychomachia (Drawn by Paul Booth)
Figure 36
Figure of Pompa, from Prudentius
Psychomachia (Drawn by Paul Booth)
THE TEMPLE IN THE PSYCHOMACHIA
275
garment,42 as worn by Queen ALlfgyfu in the Liber Vitae of the New
Minster,43 but decorated here in an elaborate and perhaps deliberately
ostentatious manner. The artist has thus transformed the older image
into something that is presumably more recognizable to the immediate
eleventh-century reader or viewer of the manuscript.
Lei provides a further case of an artist struggling with the
problem of what to do with an unfamiliar or unfashionable image.
This is the traditional image of the wingless angel, which by early
medieval times, had become obsolete. Saxl has traced this image to
Greek and Hebrew tradition,44 surviving for instance in the nave
mosaics of S. Maria Maggiore, where the angel that meets Joshua is
is a wingless, human figure, as
though nimbed
a warrior, who
in the biblical text;45 the same scene in the tenth-century Joshua Roll,
however, has a winged warrior angel. 46 The winged figure is the
classical winged messenger of the gods, an antique image which
replaces the traditional wingless image of the angel. The same change
occurs in the Psychomachia tradition. In scene 6, where Abraham
meets the three angels, the poem and the biblical text both state that
the angels take on human form.47 If, as suggested above, Ademar's
Lei drawings preserve the old tradition, then the original model had
wingless angels as in the S. Maria Maggiore mosaics. Ademar seems
to have sketched in the wings of one of the angels, perhaps revealing
his uncertainty as to whether the image was recognizable without its
wings. 48
Uncertainty about the reader's recognition of the image may have
motivated the Cleo. C VIII artist's alteration of the image of the
temple. The manuscript itself is a book for study; it is annotated
with helpful Latin glosses that explain lexical and grammatical
difficulties and comment on the content of the text. 49 For instance,
at this point in the text the twelve gemstones that decorate the new
temple are explained in the margins (fo. 35V). Moreover the drawings
themselves are labelled with captions in both Latin and Old English.
Scene 88 is clearly marked hie templum domini in Latin and her is
42 C.R. Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon art: a new perspective (Manchester: University Press, 1982),
48. For a discussion of women's costume in the tenth and eleventh centuries, see Gale R.
Owen-Crocker, Dress in Anglo-Saxon England (Manchester: University Press, 1986), 131-48
"Temple, Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, no. 78, ill. 244; Keynes, Liber vitae, pi. v. The miniature
represents King Cnut and Queen .tlfgyfu attended by angels and watched by monks as they
present an altar cross to Christ, depicted at the top of the picture with the Virgin Mary and St
Peter, the two patron saints of the New Minster, Winchester. Given the celebratory nature of
this event and the fact that this garment is otherwise rare in manuscript illustrations, it is
possible (I would suggest) that the stole is part of ^Elfgyfu's formal, ceremonial dress for the
occasion.
44 Fritz Saxl, 'Continuity and variation in the meaning of images', Lectures, 2 vols (London:
Warburg Institute, 1957), i, 1-12, at 8, and ii, pis 7a-10b; reprinted in Fritz Saxl, A hcrna^c of
images (Harmondsvvorth: Penguin, 1970), 13-27.
45 Joshua 5:13; Saxl, lectures, ii, pi. 7b.
'" Rome, Vatican Library, cod. gr. 431; Saxl, Lectures, i, 8 and ii, pi. 7c.
47 Psychomachia, praefatio, lines 45-<>; Genesis 8: 12.
48 Ix-1, fo. 37 V ; Stettiner, Tajclband, 19.2.
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BULLETIN JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
drihtenes tempi in Old English (fo. 35r). From this it seems probable
that
unlike the CCCC 23 artist's copying of Pomp's garment
the artist understood his exemplar but nevertheless wished to make
his illustration of the concept more familiar to his reader or viewer.
Perhaps he felt that line 814 of the poem also had contemporary
relevance:
Surgat et in nostris templum venerabile castris
In our camp too let a sacred temple arise
Arguably, the artist knew the text well and illustrated it accordingly:
any alterations he made may have been part of a deliberate didactic
scheme to render the text more intelligible by relating his images to
the everyday world of the Anglo-Saxons.
This raises the question of the role of copying and the extent to
which medieval manuscript art draws on 'real life'. As Carver has
pointed out, the first scholars to study this area tended to ignore
such difficulties, optimistically assuming that manuscript illustrations
reflect contemporary life. 50 In the last forty or fifty years, scholars
have tackled questions such as these much more rigorously.
Krautheimer has pointed out that, in medieval times, there is a lack
of geometrical precision in describing or imitating architectural shapes
and patterns. Thus the copy of the Holy Sepulchre at Paderborn is
octagonal, whereas in Cambridge it is round. 51 For the medieval, it is
not important to imitate all the architectural details, for the religious
content itself is far more important. 52 Despite these findings,
Uberwasser feels that the architectural details in ottonian manuscript
illumination can be related to actual architecture. 53 Others are less
sure, arguing that only certain details of a building are illustrated in
a realistic way. Lavedan, for instance, argues that the realistic details
are combined to form something unrealistic, an 'ideogram' of a
building. 54 Peroni agrees, but with a proviso: where a building is
labelled in a picture, there may be an identifiable link between
illustration and reality. 55
Such conclusions are supported by two depictions of the
dedication of a church in late Anglo-Saxon liturgical manuscripts,
notably in a pontifical, that is, a book containing services to be
49 For a survey of similar glosses in another Prudentius manuscript, see Gernot R. Wieland,
The Latin glosses onArator and Prudentius in Cambridge University Library MS Gg. 5.35 (Toronto:
Pontifical Institute, 1983).
50 Carver, 'Contemporary artefacts', 118.
51 R. Krautheimer, 'Iconography of medieval architecture', Journal of the Warburg and
Counauld Institutes, v (1942), 1-33, at 6-8.
52 Krautheimer,'Iconography', 13.
53 W. Uberwasser, 'Deutsche Architekturdarstellung um das Jahr 1000', Festschrift fur Ham
Jantzen (Berlin: Mann, 1951), 45-60.
54Pierre Lavedan, Representation des villes dans Van du ntoyen age (Paris: Vanoest, 1954), 44.
55 A. Peroni, 'Raffigurazione e progettazione di strutture urbane e architettoniche nell'alto
medioevo', Settimane di Studio del Centra Italiano di Studi sull'Alto Medioevo, xxi (1974),
679-710.
THE TEMPLE IN THE PSYCHOMACHIA
277
performed by a bishop,56 and in a benedictional, a book containing
'the episcopal benedictions to be said during the Canon of the mass,
after the Pater Noster, on Sundays and feast days'. 57 In the Lanalet
Pontifical, of the second quarter of the eleventh century, a bishop is
depicted as he begins the act of consecration, standing before the
door of a church; 58 behind him to the left is a group of clerics,
including a monk with a book immediately behind the bishop, and
in the foreground a group of secular figures, including two men with
swords, and two barrels. As a whole the depiction of the church is an
ideogram, but there are several 'realistic' details that mark its identity
on the
and function; these include the ironwork on the door, and
a cross, tiled roof and curtained window. The
tower of the church
two barrels (if that is what they are) perhaps contain the water and
salt necessary for the rites of exorcism and hallowing of the new
building. The text which accompanies the picture on the facing page
(fo. 3r) begins with the words 'ordo qualiter domus dei consecranda
est' and details the order of service for these consecration rites; 59 the
order of service ends at folio 47V with a Latin sermon "on the
dedication of the temple', which I will discuss below.
An even more striking incidence of an ideogram of a building
with realistic detail occurs in the Benedictional of ^Ethelwold. 60 In a
miniature accompanying the benedictions for the consecration of a
church, a bishop stands in front of an altar under a large arch or
baldachin, blessing the congregation. 61 The function of the illustration
as ideogram is clear from the construction of the picture, which
simultaneously conveys an impression of the outside and inside of
the church building. Inside is the altar and a group of clerics and
tonsured monks attending the service. Outside, above the arch at the
top of the picture, the viewer can see the church towers, a belfry
hung with a bell, and two weathercocks. Such 'realistic' details, along
with the simpler treatment this picture has received compared with
the elaborate coloured frames and decoration of the biblical scenes
in the rest of the manuscript, have led to the view that a contemporary
situation is indicated here. 62 Warner, for instance, relates the miniature
56 Helmut Gneuss, 'Liturgical books in Anglo-Saxon England and their Old English
terminology', in M. Lapidge and H. Gneuss (eds), Learning and literature in Anglo-Saxon England:
studies presented to Peter Clemoes on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday (Cambridge: University
Press, 1985), 91-141, at 131-3.
57 Gneuss, 'Liturgical books', 133.
58 Rouen, Bibliotheque Municipale, MS A.27 (368), written in the early eleventh century
at Crediton, fo. 2 V ; Temple, Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, no. 90; Ohlgren, Iconographic catalogue,
l l»5: 2.The illustration is reproduced in Gilbert H. Doble (ed.), Pontificale Lanaletense, Henry
Bradshaw Society, Ixxiv i Ixmdon: Harrison, 1937), pi. 1.1 am grateful to Graham Wilks, who
recently consulted this manuscript, lor his advice on details of the illustrations.
59 See Doble, Pontificale, 2-37.
'"'Warner and Wilson, Benedictwnal, fo. 118V ; Ohlgren, Lonographu catalogue, no. 111: 26;
David M Wilson, Anglo-Saxon art: from the seventh century to the \ornian conquest flxmdon:
Thames and Hudson, 1984), fig. 219.
"' The miniature is discussed in Deshman, Benedictional of ^thehcM, 1 39-46.
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BULLETIN JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
to the consecration ofWinchester Cathedral in 980.63
Such instances support the contention that, within limits, AngloSaxon artists could depict 'realistic' details from the contemporary
world within illustrations intended to convey Christian themes.
Exploring this idea, Wilson, Dodwell and Carver extend the discussion
from buildings to other artefacts. In a brief study, Wilson considers
whether Anglo-Saxon manuscript drawings can supplement the
findings of archaeology, for instance on the height of spears.64 Dodwell
also tackles the question, particularly with regard to clothing. 65
Drawing on Dodwell's work, but applying the approach systematically
to the depiction of artefacts and architectural details, Carver attempts
to identify 'realists' among the various artists who worked on the
copying of the Utrecht Psalter at Canterbury in the first half of the
eleventh century. 66 He proposes a useful set of criteria for identifying
innovations in manuscript art, particularly on the level of artefacts,
or rather images of artefacts.
As Carver has pointed out, it is possible, through a survey of
each artist's illustrations, to see various personal preferences involved
in the work of copying. 67 In the subsequent discussion, I will apply
such an approach to the Psychomachia cycle, using terminology which
is, of course, modern: it is unlikely that the artists themselves or their
patrons would have conceived of their work in quite this way.
Nevertheless the terms are useful in identifying the approaches, or
combinations of approaches, taken by the various artists to the
depiction of such images as the temple.
The copyist (in the strict sense of the word) adheres closely to
the images and iconography of the exemplar. Stylistically, the work
may be of very high quality, as in CCCC 23, or rather poor as in the
rough sketches of Le 1 or hand III of Add. 24199, but in each case
the copyist shows no desire to alter the meaning or the content of the
model. If we allow for stylistic differences and some modernization,
it is clear that the three artists follow their exemplar closely and
reproduce the image of the temple in a recognizably antique form.
The embellisher has a love of decoration apparently for its own
sake. He or she seems to be especially concerned with the aesthetic
as opposed to utilitarian aspect of his or her work. A study of hand I
of Add. 24199 would probably reveal this as his dominant trait, despite
the lack of colour in his monochrome drawings. In scene II 68 he
62 Deshman, Benedictional of/Ethelwold, 140.
63 Warner and Wilson, Benedictional, xxx.
64 David M.Wilson, The Anglo-Saxons (Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1971), 118.
65 C.R. Dodwell and P. Clemoes, The Old English Illustrated Hexateuch, Early English
Manuscripts in Facsimile, xviii (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1974), 66; C.R. Dodwell,
'L'Originalite de plusieurs illustrations anglo-saxonnes de I'ancien testament', Cahien de
civilisation medievale, xiv (1971), 319-28.
66 Carver, 'Contemporary artefacts' (see note 34).
67 Carver, 'Contemporary artefacts', 132.
THE TEMPLE IX THE PSYCHOMACHIA
279
draws unusually lush vegetation on the ground and fills the sky with
calligraphic loops and spirals rather like the overall decoration of the
Benedictional of ^Ethelwold. 69 His temple and altar in scene 16 in
are also decorated
contrast to those of Lei or Cleo. C VIII
elaborately. 70 We should stress that the artist himself probably would
not have seen his work as a love of embellishment for its own sake.
Godeman, the 'embellisher' of the Benedictional of Aithelwold,
describes the purpose of his work in a poem at the beginning of the
manuscript. 71 He does not see the decoration of well-adorned frames
and many colours as there for its own sake; rather, it will aid the
bishop in his work of sanctifying his flock.72
The antiquarian is interested in preserving or reviving the styles
of antiquity. As we have seen in the case of Le 1, Ademar, a copyist of
this inclination, wished to preserve the older antique style as seen in
the figures of the wingless angels. Similarly his temple is deliberately
antique in appearance, for this is the old way of showing the image,
which, as a historian, Ademar perhaps wanted to record for posterity. 73
The carolingian artists of the continental Psychomachia illustrations,
on the other hand, consciously revive antique images even if they are
not present in their exemplars of the Psychomachia. They therefore
provide their Virtues with roman weapons and artefacts and present
their buildings as roman basilican churches in the style of the Utrecht
Psalter. This romanizing policy is typically Carolingian and may even
be 'realistic' in that the Carolingians themselves consciously emulated
things Roman.74 Another possible reason for this antiquarian tendency
may be appropriateness: an antique poem is illustrated in an antique
style; this attitude perhaps explains the close copying of the antique
form of the temple in CCCC 23.
The modernizcr is the fashion-conscious artist who changes the
style of roof on a building because that is the fashionable way to
depict a roof. The work of the modernizer will potentially overlap
with that of the so-called 'realist*, who appears to draw objects as he
68 The drawing depicts Pudicitia defending herself against the firebrand of Libido; Add.
24199, fo. 5 X ; Stettiner, Tafelband, pi. 35.1; Ohlgren, Iconographic catalogue, no. 156: 8.
w See, for instance, Warner and Wilson, Bcnedicnonul, fo. 64V ; Ohlgren, l^^ihigraphic catalogue,
no. Ill: 16.
70 Scene 16 depicts Pudicitia dedicating her sword at an altar in a temple; in Add. 24199
recognizably antique in form, as in Lei.
despite the decorative style
(hand I), the temple is
Cleo. C. VIII (hand I), on the other hand, has a stylized, two-dimensional ideogram of a building. Add. 24199, fo. 8r; Stettiner, Tafelband, pi. 52.11; Ohlgren, Iconographic catalogue, no. 156:
8. Lei, fo. 38r; Stettiner, Tafelband, pi. 20.3. Cleo. C. VIII,fo. 10r; Stettiner, Tafelband, pi. 52.16;
Ohlgren, Iconographic catalogue, no. 154: 11; Ohlgren Anglo-Saxon textual illustration, pi. 15.11.
71 Warner and Wilson, Benedictional, fo. 4 %
72 See the printed text in Warner and Wilson, Benedictional, page 1, lines 12-17, and the
translation on page xiii.
7 'Woodruff, 'Illustrated manuscripts', 38; A. Goldschmidt,/lw early manuscript ofihcAcwp
fables ufAruinu* and rcLucd manuscripts (Princeton, NJ: University Press, l c>47), 40; I .andes,
Rclh *. apocalypse and the deceits of history, 355.
4 J. Hubert,]. Porcher and\V K Volbach, Carolingian an (London:'ITiames and Hudson,
1970), U-7.
280
BULLETIN JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
or she observes them in the world outside the scriptorium. Whether
the 'realism' is unconscious or deliberate is often difficult to say. Such
an artist has, however, been identified by Carver at work in Christ
Church, Canterbury, copying the Utrecht Psalter. 75 His work may
be similar to that of the modernizer since the fashionable image of,
say, a roof may also reflect current building practice. It is likely, as I
have said, that the Cleo. C VIII drawings of the temple are influenced
by these fashion-conscious, 'realist' tendencies which predominate
over the antiquarianism, close copying, and decorative tendencies
that feature so strongly in the equivalent pictures of Lei, CCCC 23
and Add. 24199.
Literary Parallels to the Theme of the Temple in the 'Psychomachia'
I now turn to the intellectual background: the ideas on the significance
of the temple and the popular literary texts on this theme with which
the Anglo-Saxon illustrators of the poem were probably familiar. As
I have indicated, the general theme of the 'psychomachia' or spiritual
struggle was characteristic of Anglo-Saxon monastic spirituality and
reflected in Anglo-Latin and Old English literature.76 The Old English
poem Solomon and Saturn, for instance, creatively adapts the themes
of the Psychomachia to the words of the paternoster. 77 The theme of
the overcoming of vices by various virtues was also part of the
homiletic tradition, a commonplace, made popular by Alcuin,78 and
perhaps disseminated further by oral and written sermons in the
vernacular, for instance the long treatment of the remedies for the
cardinal vices in the anonymous Vercelli Homily XX. 79
The anagogical imagery (ultimately from Revelation) of the New
with which
Jerusalem and the enthronement of Wisdom
seems also to have had some
Prudentius's Psychomachia ends
dissemination through the vernacular homiletic tradition. Included
among a collection of homilies mainly by ALlfric, for instance, is a
sermon for Easter by an unknown author80 which contains a 'Sunday
list' of sacred events that took place on Sundays, one of which is
John's vision of the new Jerusalem with its twelve gates and (as in the
75 Carver, 'Contemporary artefacts', 121; his argument is endorsed by Noel, Harley
Psalter, 52.
76 See note 7 above.
77 John P. Hermann, 'The Pater Noster battle sequence in Solomon and Saturn and the
Psychomachia of Prudentius', Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, Ixxvii (1976), 206-10.
78 Alcuin, De uirtutibus et uitiis liber, Patrologia Latina, ci, 613-38. Clare A. Lees, 'The
dissemination of Alcuin's De uirtutibus et uitiis liber in Old English; a preliminary survey', Leeds
Studies in English, new series, xvi (1985), 174-89. Paul E. Szarmach, 'The Latin tradition of
Alcuin's Liber de uirtutibus et uitiis, cap. xxvii-xxxv, with special reference to Vercelli Homily
XX',Mediaevalia, xii (1986), 13-41.
79 Donald G. Scragg (ed.), The Vercelli homilies and related texts, Early English Text Society,
o.s. ccc (Oxford: University Press, 1992).
HO The homily In die sancto pasche occurs in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 162,
382-91; it is edited by Clare A. Lees, 'Theme and echo in an anonymous Old English homily
for Easter', Traditio, xlii (1985), 115-42.
THE TEMPLE IN THE PSYCHOMACHIA
281
Psychomachid) twelve gemstones.81 In the same manuscript also is a
Rogationtide sermon,82 which concludes its version of the Apocalypse
ofThomas with an adaptation of St John's vision. Beginning with
how John saw the 'halgan ceastre Hierusalem' (line 130) and its twelve
gates adorned with twelve gemstones, the homilist ends with a picture
of the Lord enthroned (lines 140-41). The manuscript has links with
South-Eastern England, placing it at least in a milieu close to that of
the artists of CCCC 23 and Cleo. C VIII.
In these passages there is no specific mention of the temple; for
this one must look elsewhere in the literary tradition. The theme of
the temple as a symbolic figure goes back at least as far as Bede's De
templo.83 In this commentary, Bede discussed exhaustively the proposition that 'the house of the Lord which king Solomon built in Jerusalem
was made as a figure of the holy universal Church'.84 In the late
tenth century, such ideas are taken up by AUfric in his sermon In
dedicatione ecclesiae in the second series of his Catholic Homilies,85 in
which he narrates on the historical level the account of Solomon
building the temple (lines 4-73), then states that 'this narrative has a
spiritual signification' in that Solomon means 'peace', that is Christ,
and that the new Church is made not of stones but of 'living souls'
(lines 73-147).
Following ALlfric, Wulfstan's sermon De dedicatione ecclesiae86
adapts a similar typological interpretation of the templgeweorc (line
15) built by Solomon:
Leofan men, se eordlica cyning Salomon getacnad bame heofenlican cyning, baet
is, Grist sylfhe; 7 baet an bus be he araerde Gode to lofe of eordlican antimbre, ban
getacnad ba halgan ecclesiam be Grist getimbrode of gastlicum andweorce.
And ealle Codes cyrican syn getealde sefter gastlicum andgyte to anre cyrican, 7
seo is ecdesia genamad, fordam eal cristen folc is burh anfealdne geleafan geleafful
worden ... (lines 66-72)
(Dearly beloved, the earthly king Solomon signifies the heavenly king, that is Christ
81 Revelation 21:19-21; Lees, 'Old English homily for Easter', lines 59-65.
82 In quarto feria in letania maiore, CCCC 162,422-31; edited as Bazire and Cross homily III
in Joyce Bazire and James E. Cross (eds), Eleven Old English Rogationtide homilies,ToTonto Old
English Series, vii (Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press, 1982), 40-55.
83 D. Hurst (ed.), Bedae uenerabilis opera. Pars II. Opera exegetica, Corpus Christianorum
Series Latina, cxixA (Turnhout: Brepols, 1969), 141 -234. Scan Connolly and Jennifer O'Reilly
(trans.), Bede: on the temple (Liverpool: University Press, 1995).
84 Bede, De templo, book 1, chapter 1.1. Bede himself drew on earlier exegetical and artistic
traditions for his interpretation of the temple, referring in bk 2, ch. 17.2 to Cassiodorus's plan
of the temple in his (now lost) Codex Grandior, a plan probably of similar type occurs in the
Codex Amiatinus, discussed in R.L.S. Bruce-Mitford, 'The art of the Codex Amiatinus', Journal
of the British Archaeological Association, 3rd series, xxxii (1969), 1-25; K. Corsano, 'The first
quire of the Codex Amiatinus and the Institutiones of Cassiodorus', Scriptorium, xli (1987), 334. On the earlier exegetical tradition see B. Runnel, 'Jewish symbolism of the Temple and the
Tabernacle and Christian symbolism of the Holy Sepulchre and the heavenly Tabernacle',
Jewish an, xii/xiii (1986-87), 147-68; A.G. Holder, 'Allegory and history in Bede's interpretation
of sacred architecture', American Benedictine Review, xl (1989), 115-31.
85 Malcolm Godden (ed.), jElfric's Catholic Homilies. The second series. Text, Early English
Text Society, s.s. v (London: Oxford University Press, 1979), 335-45.
86 Dorothy Bethurum (ed.), Homilies of Vfolfstan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), 246-50.
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BULLETIN JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
himself; and the house which he built to the glory of God by earthly construction
signifies the holy eccksia which Christ constructed through spiritual work. And all
God's churches are considered according to their spiritual meaning as one church,
which is called ecclesia, since all Christian people are made faithful through one
faith ...)
Wulfstan continues with a tropological interpretation (i.e. on the level
of the soul), referring to the need for each Christian to become a
house worthy for God to inhabit (lines 74-8), a theme also of
Prudentius's poem. Some mention of baptism in the sermon (lines
78-9; 140-2) perhaps indicates that Wulfstan is also alluding to the
ceremonies of the dedication itself. In the ecclesiatical practices for
such occasions, express parallels are made between the individual
person undergoing baptism and the ceremony of consecration in
which the building is also cleansed prior to the actual hallowing of
the new church as a domus dei. 81 Such parallels between the construction of a material church and the edification and consecration
of a spiritual ecclesia in the souls of believers formed the theological
background to the various stages in the medieval dedication rites as
practised in the period. The biblical theme of the soul as a temple is
alluded to further in the prayers offered on this occasion
as
recorded in the the Benedictional of Aithelwold88 and in one of the
Claudius Pontificals. 89
While the moral (tropological) significance of the temple occurs
in Wulfstan, it is particularly emphasized in an anonymous Latin
homily also intended to be read on the occasion of the consecration
of a church. Here we have the clearest analogue to the dedication of
the temple in the Psychomachia of Prudentius. In dedicatione templi
('On the Dedication of the Temple'), the title of this anonymous
sermon, is a reworking by 'Pseudo-Augustine', at some time in the
early medieval period, of a Latin sermon by Caesarius of Aries;90 it is
preserved in four liturgical manuscripts the Lanalet Pontifical (with
its accompanying illustration of the consecration ceremony discussed
above) and the Benedictional of Archbishop Robert
and in two
late eleventh-century copies of Paul the Deacon's homiliary.91 In this
87 John Gage, 'The Anglo-Saxon ceremonial of the dedication and consecration of churches,
illustrated from a pontifical in the public library at Rouen', Archaeologia, xxv (1834), 235-74.
L. Bowen, 'The tropology of medieval dedication rights', Speculum, xvi (1941), 469-79.
8S Warner and Wilson, Benedictional, 119r-l 19V.
89 D.H.Turner (ed.), The Claudius pontificals, Henry Bradshaw Society, xcvii (Chichester
Regnum Press, 1971), xx-xxiv, 41-54.
90 D.G. Morin (ed.), Sancti Caesarii Arelatensis sermones, Corpus Christianorum Series
Latina, civ, sermo 229, 905-910; Morin's edition gives the homily the title 'De natale templi'
THE TEMPLE IN THE PSYCHOMACHIA
283
Latin sermon, as in the Psychomachia, a major theme is the moral
struggle for the soul between Christ and the devil92 and the
overcoming of particular vices through equivalent virtues, so that
God can make temples of his followers in which he can then take up
his habitation.93
The sermon was evidently popular, and it was translated into
Old English probably in the late tenth century or early eleventh
century. This vernacular text occurs as a long and a short version in
the late eleventh-century Exeter homily collection London, Lambeth
Palace Library, MS 489; the full text was also added in the early
eleventh century to Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, MS lat. 943
the Sherborne Pontifical.94 The popularity of the work in both Latin
and Old English raises the possibility (to be considered shortly) that
it was known to the artists of CCCC 23 and Cleo. C VIII. Moreover,
the importance of the dedication of the church as a theme in late
Anglo-Saxon liturgy, sermon literature and manuscript art probably
also gave further incentive and cause to study this same theme as
presented in the Psychomachia, one of the basic study texts of the
91 This point is made by Neil R. Ker, Catalogue of manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), 438; see also Helmut Gneuss, 'Manuscripts written or owned
in England up to 1100' , Anglo-Saxon England, ix (1981), 1-60, items 130, 221, 922, 923.The
Anglo-Saxon manuscripts in which the Latin sermon occurs are as follows: (1) Untitled sermon
in the Lanalet Pontifical written at Crediton in the early eleventh century, Rouen MS A.27
(368), fos. 47v-53r; the sermon is mentioned, but not printed, in Doble, Pontificate Lanaletense,
37. (2) Sermo ad populum de dedkatione ecclesiae, in the so-called 'BenedictionaT [actually a
Pontifical] of Archbishop Robert, written at the New Minster, Winchester, c. 980, now Rouen,
Bibliotheque Municipale, MS Y.7 (369), fos. 87v-93r, printed in H. A. Wilson (ed.) The
Benedictional of Archbishop Robert, Henry Bradshaw Society, xxiv (London: Harrison, 1903),
69-72 and in Rudolf Brotanek, Texte und Untersuchungen zur altenglischen Literatur und
Kirchengeschichte (Halle a.d.S.: Max Niemeyer, 1913), 104-9. (3) Durham, Cathedral Library,
MS A. 111.29, fo. 299r, written at Durham in the late eleventh century. (4) Cambridge, Pembroke
College, MS 24, fo. 303V, written at Bury St Edmunds in the second half of the eleventh
century.
92 Brotanek, Texte und Untersuchungen, 108, lines 7-10; Morin, CCSL, civ, 909, lines 7-10.
93 Brotanek, Texte und Untersuchungen, 106, lines 14-22; 107, lines 23-9. Morin, CCSL,
civ, 907, lines 16-31; 909, lines 18-22. A similar theme of driving out the vices from the heart/
temple to replace them with virtues is treated more briefly in the opening section of Caesarius
of Aries, sermo 227, De natale ecclesie, ed. Morin, CCSL, civ, 897-900, at 897. Sermo 227 was
probably known in Anglo-Saxon England in this period, for it occurs as homily 77 in the
homiliary of Cambridge, Pembroke College, MS 25 (fos 157^1590, an eleventh-century copy
of a text of the carolingian 'Homiliary of St Pere de Chartres'; a copy of this homiliary must
have been kept at a centre of learning in or near Canterbury, for Latin homilies from it were
used as sources for a number of tenth-century anonymous Old English homilies originating in
the south-east of England. See James E. Cross (ed.), Cambridge Pembroke College MS 25: a
Carolingian sermonary used by Anglo-Saxon preachers, King's College London Medieval Studies,
i (London: King's College, 1987), 41.
94 In dedicatione Aecclesiae [sic] and Alia in dedicatione Aecclesie [sic] in London, Lambeth
Palace Library, MS 49, fos 38r-44v and 44v-51 r, a collection of homilies written probably at
Exeter in the third quarter of the eleventh century; and Sermo in dedicatione templi, written
perhaps at Sherborne in the early eleventh century on the final pages of the Sherborne Pontifical,
a manuscript itself written perhaps at Christ Church, Canterbury in the second half of the
tenth century, now in Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, MS 943, fos 164r-169V, edited by Brotanek,
Texte und Untersuchungen, 15-27. For a discussion of dates and origin, see Ker, Catalogue of
manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon, no. 283, items 6 and 7, and no. 364, item c.
284
BULLETIN JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
period. Here we may have yet another reason for the popularity of
the poem in Anglo-Saxon literary culture.
Finally, we might consider whether the content of such a sermon
could influence the Anglo-Saxon illustrator of the poem directly. In
the Old English version of De dedicatione templi,95 although it is mostly
a close translation of the Latin, there is at one point a special concern
to bring out the contrast between, on the one hand, the temples
'made by men's hands of trees and stones', that is to say
in the
Old English but not the Latin 'the temples which we call churches'
and, on the other hand, the 'living temples of God', that is, the soul,
which 'God made ... with his own hands in his own image'. 96 The
following extract from this long passage illustrates the point:
Latin: Templa enim ista ideo de lignis & lapidibus fabricantur; ut ibi templa dei
viventia congregentur.97
(For indeed those temples are constructed of timber and stones so that the living
temples of God may gather there.)
Old English: pas templu pe we ciercan nemnad sint getimbrude of trywum 7 of
stanum to bam pact pa lifigendan godes templu hi baer to gegaderian 7 paer godes
word gehyran 7 pact halige geryne baere msessan gestandan pe for eallum cristenum
folce geoffrud byd. 98
(The temples which we call churches are made of trees and stones so that the living
temples of God may gather there and hear God's word there and take the holy
mystery of the mass which is offered for all Christian people.)
If this sermon was known to the artist of Cleo. C VIII, it perhaps
inspired the radical reworking of the image of the temple, not merely
as a change in fashion, but as a conscious reemphasis of its content
and message.
Conclusion
To return to my original question: What significance can be attached
to the depiction by the Cleo. C VIII artist, in a realistic and
recognizable manner, of the tower and nave of an Anglo-Saxon church
as an illustration of the symbolic temple of Prudentius's poem?
Clearly, for the illustrators of the Psychomachia., it was difficult to
95 Brotanek, Texte und Untersuchungen, 15-27.
96 Ibid., 16-17.
97 Ibid., 105, lines 11-13; Morin, CCSL, civ, 905 line 28 906 line 1. The Old English
homilist omits the subsequent passage, Morin, CCSL, civ, 906, lines 1-30.
98 Brotanek, Texte und Untersuchungen, 17: 4-10. Here the Old English follows the original
Latin in its tropology, equating the temple with the individual soul. However, in contrast to the
Latin, the added material in the Old English passage states that the word 'temple' is the learned
term for what in the popular vernacular is referred to as a 'church'. Furthermore the Old
English stresses the function of the temple/church on the literal level as a physical building
intended for the activities of listening to the word and partaking of the mass; to this extent,
therefore, it emphasizes
rather more than the Latin
the literal and concrete over the
allegorical and figural interpretations of the concept.
THE TEMPLE IN THE PSYCHOMACHIA
285
convey all the multi-layered imagery of the temple solely through
the visual means of coloured line drawings. Working within the long
tradition of illustrating this poem, the artists had choices of various
kinds to make, as outlined above, between copying or adapting,
between (conscious or unconscious) modernization and
antiquarianism, between simple rendering or embellishment of the
image of the domus dei. There is evidence from the homiletic tradition
of the period that various literary parallels existed on a similar theme,
and these perhaps influenced the artists in their choice of
representational method. While the embellishings of Add. 24199 or
the fine antiquarian drawings of the temple in CCCC 23 apparently
highlight its mystical and typological meanings as the new Jerusalem
or the universal ecclesia, the new reworking of the image in Cleo. C
VIII suggests an attempt to render more clearly its moral, tropological
significance and its contemporary relevance to the eleventh-century
reader or beholder of the manuscript. In this sense, then, despite the
problems of anachronistic terminology, we have in Cleo. C VIII an
instance of one early medieval artist as 'realist', engaging with the
text and content of his theme, and illustrating it accordingly."
9Q My thanks are due to Dr Gale Owen-Crocker of the University of Manchester for her
encouragement in writing on this subject and to Professor Martin Carver of the University of
York as the original inspiration for my research on the illustrations of the Anglo-Saxon
Prudentms manuscripts. 1 would also like to thank I^odi Nauta and Sid Bradley for their
comments on earlier versions of this article and Paul Booth who kindly drew Figs ^4-t>