Chapter XII

Abbot Ælfric, writer of Homilies, Lives of Saints, and other works.
Wulfstan, Archbishop of Canterbury.

The greatest of English prose-writers before the Conquest was Ælfric, who was educated at the school at Winchester which Æthelwold, a pupil of St Dunstan, had founded. His works are very numerous. He wrote Homilies, or Sermons, on Scriptural subjects, and Lives of the Saints. I have quoted a passage about "Judith," which occurs in the summary of the books of the Old Testament, written for a friend of his, one Sigeweard, who had often asked him for English writings, which he had delayed giving him until after he had, at Sigeweard's earnest request, come to his house, and then Sigeweard had complained to him that he could not get at his writings. This little incident reminds us how differently from now people had to arrange about books and writings, and how much more dependent they were on teaching through the ear and the eye.

I must give you a little specimen of Ælfric's writing, a piece taken from his beautiful homily on Holy Innocents' Day. It is in very simple, direct language, and I think you will say it is not without a touch of that lovely thing which it is easy to feel and hard to define--poetry. I should like to have heard the sermon, and I hope you will feel somewhat as I do!

"Christ despised not His young soldiers, although he was not present in body at their slaughter. Blessed were they born that they might for His sake suffer death. Happy is that their (tender) age, which was not yet able to confess Christ, and was allowed to suffer for Christ. They were the Saviour's witnesses, although as yet they knew Him not. They were not ripe for the slaughter, but yet did they blessedly die to live! Blessed was their birth, for they found eternal life on the threshold of this present life. They were snatched from mother-breasts, but they were straightway given into the keeping of angel-bosoms. The cruel persecutor (Herod) could with no service benefit those little ones so greatly as he benefited them with the hatred of his cruel persecution. They are called martyrs' blossoms because they were as blossoms upspringing in the cold of earth's unbelief, thus withered with the frost of persecution. Blessed are the wombs that bare them, and the breasts which suckled such as these. The mothers indeed suffered in the martyrdom of their children; the sword which pierced the children's limbs pierced to the mothers' hearts: and it must needs be that they be sharers of the eternal reward, when they were companions in the suffering."

I will now tell you about a very different kind of sermon from Ælfric's--one of the sermons preached by Wulfstan, Archbishop of York, who was not, like Ælfric, leading a quiet life in an abbey, but throwing himself into the struggles and needs of a most disastrous time. He saw how the Danish inroads had terribly demoralised the English people, and he spoke out as God's preacher, who comes face to face with wrong, must speak.

He begins by telling his "beloved men" how evil will go on increasing till Antichrist's coming; and then will it be awful, and terrible all through the world. "Too greatly has the devil for many years led this folk astray, and little faithfulness has there been among men, albeit they spake well; and wrongs too many have ruled in the land; and not always were there many who thought earnestly about the remedy as they should; but day by day they added one evil upon another and they reared up wrong, and many evil laws all throughout this nation. And therefore have we suffered many losses and shames: and if we shall await any cure then must we deserve it from God better than heretofore have we done. For with great earning have we earned the miseries that oppress us, and with great earning must we obtain the remedy from God if from henceforth it is to grow better." He tells them how in heathen lands they dare not withhold what has been devoted to the worship of idols: "and here we withhold the rights of God. And everywhere in heathen lands none dare injure or lessen within or without any of the things offered to idols: and we have robbed God's houses within and without." And so he goes on pouring out from his very soul the fiery words that tell of the warning of God's laws, and the worsening of folk-laws; and how the Sanctuaries are unprotected, and God's houses are robbed and stripped of their property, and holy orders are despised, and widows forced wrongfully to marry, and too many are made poor and humbled, and poor men are sorely betrayed and cruelly plotted against; and far and wide innocent people are given into the power of foreigners, and cradle-children made slaves through cruel evil laws for a little theft: and freeman's right taken away, and thrall's right narrowed, and alms' right diminished. It goes on and on, the terrible list of wrongs that have brought God's wrath on the land. The sermon is not for the building-up of faithful ones, but for the rousing and stirring up of those whose baptismal vow has been terribly and shamefully broken, His words are clashed out as he brings men face to face with their sin.

And then comes the preaching of the true penance. "Let us do what is needful, bow to the right, and in somewise forsake the wrong, and mend where we have broken." And the preacher's voice now takes the tender tone of entreaty. "Let us creep to Christ and with trembling heart often call upon Him, and deserve His mercy; and let us love God, and obey His laws, and fulfil what we promised when we received baptism; or what those promised who were our sponsors at baptism. And let us rightly order word and work, and earnestly cleanse the thoughts of our hearts, and carefully keep oath and pledge and have honesty among us without weakness, and let us often understand the great judgement which we all must meet, and earnestly protect ourselves against the burning fire of the punishment of hell, and earn for ourselves the glories and the joys which God has prepared for them that do His will in the world. God help us. Amen."