Aelfric and the Cult of Saints in Late Anglo-Saxon England

The cult of saints was one of the most important aspects of life in the Middle Ages, and it often formed the nucleus of developing group identities in a town, a province or a country. The literature of Anglo-Saxon England is unique among contemporary European literatures in that it features a vast amount of saints’ Lives in the vernacular. Of these Lives, Aelfric is the most important author, and his saints’ Lives have never previously been explored in their contemporary setting. In this study, Gretsch analyzes Aelfric’s Lives of five important saints in the light of their cults in Anglo-Saxon England. This gives the reader fascinating glimpses of ‘Aelfric at work’: he adapts the cults and rewrites the received Latin hagiography of the five saints, with the result that each of their English Lives conveys a distinct message to the contemporary political elite and to a lay audience at large.

• The first study of Aelfric’s saints’ Lives in their contemporary setting • Examines Aelfric’s aims in selecting his saints, and rewriting his hagiographical sources • Focuses on five of the most important saints in the light of their cults in Anglo-Saxon England

1. Aelfric’s Sanctorale and the Benedictional of Aethelwold; 2. Gregory: the Apostle of the English; 3. Cuthbert: from Northumbrian Saint to Saint of All England; 4. Benedict: Father of Monks - and what else?; 5. Swithun and Aethelthryth: Two ‘Saints of our Days’; 6. Epilogue.

\'This saintly biographer wrote with a purpose … Gretsch has done much to show in detail how a refashioning of images of holiness engaged the creative talents of one of the most important vernacular writers of the early Middle Ages.\' Church Times

\'Among the many strengths of this carefully written monograph are Gretsch\'s efforts to contextualise Aelfric’s adaptations of his sources in relation to the English Benedictine reform movement, led by Bishop Aethelwold during the reign of King Edgar, and the military crisis of the reign of Aethelred … it provides a rightly informative and insightful introduction to Aelfric\'s hagiographic oeuvre and his methods of composition, and will surely constitute an important model for further work on this prolific early medieval author.\' Journal of Ecclesiastical History

\'… this is a wide-ranging and fascinating study, adding significantly to our understanding of Aelfric\'s achievement, and also, on the way, to his context within the Benedictine Reform of the later tenth century.\' The Glass