Elizabeth Elstob's "English-Saxon Homily on the Birth-day of St. Gregory"

Table of Contents

Introduction

by Timothy Graham

Elizabeth Elstob's An English-Saxon Homily on the Birth-Day of St. Gregory, published in 1709, stands as a landmark in the history of Anglo-Saxon studies. Elstob is the first woman known to have developed an interest in Old English texts, and her two major publications in the field—the homily edition an The Rudiments of Grammar for the English-Saxon Tongue, which was published in 1715—were both intended to appeal to a female readership. Her English-Saxon Homily marked the first time that one of Ælfric's Catholic Homilies had appeared in a critical edition accompanied by textual apparatus and a Modern English translation. The publication aroused much contemporary admiration and support, yet also provoked vituperative hostility from one of eighteenth-century England's leading antiquaries, Thomas Hearne. Twice re-published in the nineteenth century, Elstob's edition became the focus of renewed critical attention in the 1980s, as Elstob emerged as a key figure within the context of gender studies. The present facsimile seeks to make her edition available to as broad an audience as possible by offering the opportunity to encounter in its original format a text of which many are aware, but which few have had the chance to study at first hand.

Elstob's Life

Elizabeth Elstob was born on 29 September 1683 in Newcastle upon Tyne. Her father Ralph, a merchant, died when she was five years old. Her mother Jane, who took charge of Elizabeth's early education, which included instruction in Latin, died just three years later, in 1691. Elizabeth was then sent to live with her uncle, the Rev. Charles Elstob, a prebendary of Canterbury Cathedral. Although he was initially hostile to Elizabeth's linguistic proclivities—remarking, as she was to recall in adulthood, that one Tongue is enough for a Woman—he seems later to have supported her endeavors, and he was one of the subscribers to the English-Saxon Homily. In 1691, Elizabeth's brother William (1673-1715) entered Queen's College, Oxford, then the pre-eminent center for Anglo-Saxon studies, and in 1696 William was elected to a Fellowship at University College, whose Master, Arthur Charlett, played a significant part in promoting the work of the Oxford Saxonists. The awakening of William's interest in Old English texts was to have a profound impact on Elizabeth for the next part of her life. She may have left Canterbury to join him in Oxford around 1698. She certainly moved with him to London when he was appointed rector of St. Swithin's and St. Mary Bothaw's in 1702, and from their base in London the two made frequent visits to Oxford. Elizabeth both assisted William on his scholarly projects—the most important of which was a transcription of the Old English version of Orosius' History against the Pagans—and undertook major projects of her own. She became well known to the circle of Oxford Saxonists, earning the respect of the great paleographer Humfrey Wanley and of George Hickes, the acknowledged leader-in-exile of the Oxford group.

Elizabeth's own work on Anglo-Saxon texts included projects both published and unpublished. Her first, often overlooked publication in the field was an edition of the Old English text of the Athanasian Creed found in the Salisbury Psalter (Salisbury Cathedral Library, MS 150). Her edition appeared in 1708 in William Wotton's Conspectus brevis, which was an abridged version (incorporating some additional material) of Hickes's monumental Linguarum veterum septentrionalium thesaurus grammatico-criticus et archæologicus. Elizabeth's versatility as a linguist is evident from her having published, also in 1708, her translation of Madeleine de Scudéry' Discours de la gloire. It was just one year later that her edition of Ælfric's homily for St. Gregory's Day appeared. Elizabeth spent the next several years working on two major Old English projects, neither of which was to see the light of day. She assisted her brother on preparing materials for a planned new edition of the Anglo-Saxon laws, to supersede Abraham Wheelock's second edition, published in 1644, of William Lambarde' Archaionomia of 1568. Elizabeth's work toward this project included the preparation on parchment of a transcript (now London, British Library, MS Harley 1866) of the Kentish laws in the twelfth-century Textus Roffensis (Rochester Cathedral Library, MS A. 3. 5). Of even greater scope was her planned edition of both series of Ælfric' Catholic Homilies which, in common with other early Anglo-Saxonists, Elstob valued not least for their perceived adumbrations of Anglican doctrines. The edition—like the English-Saxon Homily of 1709—was to include a Modern English translation and notes. Elstob's transcription of the homilies survives as London, British Library, MSS Lansdowne 370-74 and Egerton 838, and was described by Hickes as the most correct that I ever saw or read. Although thirty-six pages of proofs were printed, and although publication was announced for Michaelmas 1715, the edition never appeared.

It was in 1715 that Elstob's last published work was issued, The Rudiments of Grammar for the English-Saxon Tongue, which was the first grammar of Old English to be written in Modern English. In her preface to the work, Elstob acknowledged that she had been inspired to write the grammar when, during a visit to Canterbury following the publication of the English-Saxon Homily, she had been approached by a young woman who desired instruction in the Old English language. Although this young woman had subsequently moved to another part of the country, disappearing from Elstob's orbit, Elstob still believed it would be worthwhile to offer others of her own sex the Rudiments of that Language in an English Dress. The preface includes an extended, impassioned plea for the study of Old English, directed at those who unjustifiably castigated the language as barren or barbarous. The grammar itself is largely based on that of Hickes in his Thesaurus , although in several respects Elstob was able to sharpen the ways in which the material is presented, and she took the notable step of utilizing the vernacular grammatical terms first coined by Ælfric in his Grammar.

Elstob published no more after 1715, a year marked by events that had a momentous impact on her life and circumstances. Her brother William, with whom she had collaborated so closely, died in March, while Hickes, her major scholarly supporter, died nine months later. William's demise left Elizabeth in severe financial straits, encumbered by debt. Within a few years, she was obliged to leave London, entrusting her books and papers to the custody of a neighbor from whom she never succeeded in recovering them. The next part of her life was passed in relative obscurity, removed from academic circles. For about twenty years she supported herself modestly by running an elementary school for girls in Evesham, Worcestershire. It was there that George Ballard, a Gloucestershire corset-maker with antiquarian leanings, came upon her in 1735. Over the following years Elstob and Ballard struck up a correspondence—now preserved at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, in MS Ballard 43—that bears witness to the sense of isolation from the scholarly community that pressed upon Elstob. The correspondence includes a poignant memoir (written in the third person) in which she offers an account of the years of her scholarly undertakings and expresses her regret that she had been obliged to abandon such work by a necessity of getting her Bread, which with much difficulty, labour, and ill health, she has endeavour'd to do for many Years, with very indifferent success. Ballard put Elstob in touch with a circle of ladies sympathetically inclined to her, and in 1739 she was appointed governess to the children of the Duchess of Portland, Margaret Harley, the granddaughter of Robert Harley, the great collector of manuscripts who many years previously had purchased Elstob's transcript of the Textus Roffensis. Elstob continued in the duchess's employment for seventeen years, apparently happy in the performance of her duties within the household. She died on 30 May 1756 and was buried in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster. Fittingly, the same church housed the mortal remains of George Hickes, who, more than anyone else, had recognized the importance of her contributions to the study of Old English materials.

The Structure of the Work

An English-Saxon Homily on the Birth-Day of St. Gregory is made up of six sections: the epistle dedicatory, addressed to Queen Anne (1702-14); Elstob's preface; her edition of Ælfric's homily on St. Gregory; her brother William's Latin translation of the homily; an appendix containing some letters of Gregory that are relevant to the homily, along with other documentary materials; and a list of the subscribers whose financial support made possible the publication of the work. A sequence of illustrations and historiated initials punctuates the volume, highlighting its major themes.

The Epistle Dedicatory

Elstob begins her epistle by apologizing for presenting the queen with a text written in such outdated language—a language known to few men and, Elstob believes, no women since the days when it was current. None the less, this was the language in which Queen Anne's royal forebears formed the laws of England and which was used by the English at the time when they received the Christian faith of which Anne is now the defender. Elstob offers Anne a view of history that emphasizes the role played by three royal women in the spread and defense of Christianity: the Emperor Constantine's mother Helen, who was believed to have been British and to have played an important role in effecting the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity; Berhta, the Christian wife of King Æthelberht I of Kent (d. 616), praised by Pope Gregory for her help in bringing about the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons; and Elizabeth I (1558-1603), under whom the doctrine and structure of the Church of England became fully defined following the break with Rome. Elstob expresses the hope that Anne will equal the achievements of these royal women: Inasmuch as, what they did for the Introduction of the Christian Faith at first, and the Reformation of it when corrupted, we more than hope . . . will by Your Majesty be render'd compleat, in the future Security and lasting Establishment of the Church of Christ. The themes of the epistle dedicatory are further emphasized by the illustration at its head and the scene within the historiated initial that begins it; these are discussed below.

The Preface

Elstob's preface is the largest of the book's components, occupying sixty pages (sixteen more pages than the homily edition itself). In the preface, Elstob offers a justification for her publication of Ælfric's homily and a discussion of issues raised by the content of the homily. Her edition and its accompanying Modern English translation were intended for a female readership, as William Elstob states explicitly at the beginning of his Latin translation of the homily. Elizabeth begins her own preface by defending learning among women and by taking up the cause against those who argue that the literature of the Anglo-Saxons is barbarous, antiquated, and irrelevant. She then provides an account of the path that led her to the study of Anglo-Saxon texts. She notes that some years previously, she had happened upon the Old English translation of Orosius' Historiarum contra paganos libri septem that a near Relation and Friend planned to publish (p. vi). The person to whom she here alludes is her brother, who never did succeed in publishing the Orosius, but whose transcription formed the basis for the edition published by Daines Barrington in London in 1773. Elstob informs her readers that she found the language of the Old English Orosius relatively easy, that she noted the many correspondences between that language and the Northern English dialect familiar to her from her early years, and that she progressed from the Orosius to the study of other Old English texts, both printed and manuscript. She began to make her own copies from manuscripts and was encouraged by Hickes, who sanctioned the publication, in Wotton's much abridged version of his Thesaurus, of her transcript of the Old English version of the Athanasian Creed. Hickes wished Elstob to publish more, so that she might induce other women to study "the Original of their Mother Tongue (p. vii), and it was he who urged her to undertake the edition of Ælfric's homily on St. Gregory.

That homily recommended itself to Elstob because it told the story of the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, first conceived by Gregory before he became pope and eventually carried out by St. Augustine and his mission acting under Gregory's direction. Much of the rest of Elstob's preface is taken up by a discussion of the early Anglo-Saxon church, the purity of its teaching, and the perceivable similarities between