Blickling homilies

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The Blickling Homilies are the second largest collection of anonymous homilies written in Old English. The Blickling Homilies are said to have been written down by possibly two different scribes before the end of the tenth century. This might be one of the oldest collection of homilies to survive (Scragg 73).

The Blickling Homilies are incomplete. The majority of the study surrounding them has been focused on finding their origin, which is still mostly unknown. The dozens of anonymous homilies written in Old English are compared to one another to draw parallels in an attempt to find common origins or authors. Old English scholar D. G. Scragg has developed a manuscript sigla to organize, list, and evaluate the numerous collections of anonymous writings (74).

There is little known about the homilies and their origin or the homilist, so the purpose and principles behind the homilies will never be fully known. The scribe(s) who put them together had a plan in choosing the sermons and wrote with a pretty consistent religious philosophy. The homilies in this collection deal primarily with Lent, but only include Sundays which the compiler saw fit. The second and fourth Sundays in Lent are not discussed, but the first and third are. Also, Passion Sunday, Palm Sunday, and Holy Week are included. There are three homilies dealing with Rogation Days. Ascension Day is the eleventh, and the twelfth day is Pentecost. The rest of the homilies in the collection are saints’ feast days.

The main focus of these homilies is concentrated on the immediate connection of the readers and their moral lives. It deals with urging and persuading readers in a very straightforward manner. The homilies in this collection are mostly not exegetical, which means that they do not explains the gospels, but rather they straightforwardly give instructions. Attempts at in-depth interpretation or explanation of the gospels are often not as clearly written. The Blickling Homilies basically tell the readers that by fasting, almsgiving, and refusing temptation they can prepare themselves for the Lenten season. The writings begin by stating the greatness of Christ’s power and glory and lets the reader know that God is everything, and that all people should be more God-like.

The Blickling Homilies are named ‘B’ in the list compiled by Scragg, but are officially called the Princeton University Library, W.H. Scheide Collection, The Blickling Homilies (Scragg 83). They contain 19 quires (a set of papers in a manuscript, by our modern standard 24 or 25 papers). The 11th quire is missing and there are probably four more missing at the very beginning of the text. The first quire opens in the middle of a sentence (Scragg 299). Not much of the text in these homilies overlaps with too many other homilies, but the study of how and where they overlap is still very much in progress.

The homilies have been named for the Blickling Hall in Norfolk, England. The first account of the book is that it was used as an oath book in the city of Lincoln. Then in 1724 the officials in Lincoln gave it to William Pownall, who in turn sold it to Richard Ellys of Nocton, Lincolnshire who was an ancestor of the Marquess of Lothian. The seat of the Marquess of Lothian had held the book for nearly 200 years previously. Then the 11th Marquess sold the homilies because of debt in 1932 to Cortlandt Field Bishop. In 1938 the Scheide family from Titusville, Pennsylvania bought the books and they have been in the Princeton library ever since (Szarmach 132).

[edit] Editions and Translations

• Kelley, Richard ed., The Blickling Homilies. New York: Continuum, 2003.

• Lapidge, Michael ed., Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1999. 241-42.

• Lapidge, Michael and Helmont Gneuss, Ed. Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England. “The Homilies of the Blickling Manuscripts.” D. G. Scragg. 299-316.

• Szarmach, Paul E. Ed, Old English Prose: Basic Reading, “The Corpus of Vernacular Homilies and Prose Saints.” D.G. Scragg, 73-150.

• Szarmach, Paul E., Teresa M. Tavormina, Joel T. Rosenthal, ed. Medieval England: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Pub, 1998. 132.