Constructing anglo-saxon sanctity: Tradition, innovation and Saint Guthlac

Guthlac Aand the Temptation of the Barrow

“…12 Thus, beginning 6 For instance, Shook 1960: 2;Sharma 2002: 195. 7 See Hall andColes 1994: 74. J. Peckover (1881: 318) details the discovery of barrows in addition to the one supposed to be on Anchor Hill.…”

“…54 A review of Gerould's comparison of the texts is thus instructive, as in the process what 54 The following authors take (or imply) more or less firm positions that the two texts are related : Anderson 1991;Neville 1999: 124, n. 157;Abdou 2000: 204;Dendle 2001: 103 and 161, n. 52;Horváth 2000: 2-3;Cohen 2003: 121, 126;Damon 2004: 92;Bhattacharji 2005: 41;Downey et al 2012. For the position that the texts are unrelated see : Clemoes 1995: 449, n. 61;Magennis 1996: 182;Harbus 2002: 103;Hines 2004: 62;Hall 2007: 210 (he does not take a firm position, but the whole thrust of his argument points toward their difference); Clarke 2006: 45;Clarke 2008: 98. becomes striking is the way Guthlac A diverges from the Vita in the development of almost every potential point of correspondence.…”

“…Although not every reading of beorg as barrow gives it a pagan cast, Wentersdorf's article importantly grafts paganism onto the barrow and sets the shape for most subsequent barrow articles, such as those by Alfred Siewers (2003) and Alaric Hall (2007), in which the barrow becomes the locus for a non-Christian and non-Anglo-Saxon identity which must be overcome by the Christian Anglo-Saxon Guthlac. various theories advanced to explain the relationship between Felix's Vita and Guthlac A. In addition to detangling a long-snarled academic knot, the following essay reveals several problems that have become embedded in Guthlac A scholarship.…”