The Lambeth Homilies are a collection of

homilies A homily (from Greek ὁμιλία, ''homilía'') is a commentary that follows a reading of scripture, giving the "public explanation of a sacred doctrine" or text. The works of Origen and John Chrysostom (known as Paschal Homily) are considered ex ...

found in a manuscript (MS Lambeth 487) in

Lambeth Palace Library Lambeth Palace is the official London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is situated in north Lambeth, London, on the south bank of the River Thames, south-east of the Palace of Westminster, which houses Parliament, on the oppos ...

, London. The collection contains seventeen sermons and is notable for being one of the latest examples of

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

, written as it was c. 1200, well into the period of

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...

Date and provenance

Julius P. Gilson of the British Museum dated the manuscript 1185–1225. It is copied from two very different exemplars in different

orthographies An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...

, both from the twelfth century and both from the same area in the

West Midlands West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

; the older (E) contains eleventh-century documents transliterated into Middle English; the newer (L) contains only Middle English texts. Until R. M. Wilson's 1935 investigation of the dialect, the collection was thought to be written in the

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...

dialect of the London area; Wilson's West Midlands provenance is generally accepted. Since the devotional poem "On Ureisun of ure Louerde" ("A Prayer of Our Lord") which concludes the manuscript, is usually "associated with a group of texts written for or by women". It is considered possible that the manuscript was owned by a thirteenth-century woman. Hope Emily Allen, in a 1929 article, could not prove that the author of the Homilies was to be identified as the author of the ''

Ancrene Wisse ''Ancrene Wisse'' (also known as the ''Ancrene Riwle'' or ''Guide for Anchoresses'') is an anonymous monastic rule (or manual) for female anchoresses written in the early 13th century. The work consists of eight parts: divine service, keeping th ...

'', a twelfth-century religious tract written for an audience of female recluses, but considered it a possibility.

According to R. M. Wilson, one of the seventeen sermons (no. 7) is certainly of Middle English origin; two (nos. 9 and 10) are adaptations in Middle English of material originally in Old English. The sermons are followed by an incomplete ''

Poema Morale The ''Poema Morale'' ("Conduct of life" or "Moral Ode") is an early Middle English moral poem outlining proper Christian conduct. The poem was popular enough to have survived in seven manuscripts, including the homiletic collections known as the La ...

'' and a likewise unfinished "On Ureisun of ure Louerde", a brief devotional poem.Alt URL
/ref> The sermons are written in one hand, by the scribe who also wrote the unfinished part of the ''Poema Morale'', which breaks off on f.65a; a different scribe started the devotional poem on f.65b. It shares five sermons (and the ''Poema Morale'') with the

Trinity Homilies The Trinity Homilies are a collection of 36 homilies found in MS Trinity 335 (B.14.52), held in Trinity College, Cambridge. Produced probably early in the thirteenth century in the Early Middle English period, the collection is of great linguistic ...

. Sermon no.2 incorporates material from a sermon by Wulfstan; sermons 9, 10, and 11 incorporate material by

Ælfric of Eynsham Ælfric of Eynsham ( ang, Ælfrīc; la, Alfricus, Elphricus; ) was an English abbot and a student of Æthelwold of Winchester, and a consummate, prolific writer in Old English of hagiography, homilies, biblical commentaries, and other genres ...

. The influence of Parisian schools of rhetoric was discerned in four sermons, and especially (the use of ''distinctiones'') in nos. 13 and 17. Recent scholarship has argued that the sermons should not be read as "backward looking", but that they rather should be located in "the broader historical developments in preaching and pastoral reform taking place during the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries", given their interest in addressing a lay as well as a clerical audience.

References

Citations Bibliography * *

External links

Detailed description of London, Lambeth Palace, 487
by

Elaine Treharne Elaine Treharne was born in Aberystwyth, Wales, in 1964. She is a Senior Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and the Roberta Bowman Denning Professor of the Humanities, Professor of English, Courtesy Professor of German Studies an ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lambeth Homilies 12th-century manuscripts 13th-century manuscripts Homiletics Middle English literature Old English literature Christian sermons

Date and provenance

Contents

References

Further reading

External links