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 e ...

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 opposite b ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

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

Old English Old English ( or , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

, 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 pe ...

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, punctuation, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and emphasis. Most national and international languages have an established writing syst ...

, both from the twelfth century and both from the same area in the West Midlands; 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 counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...

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 anchoresses written in the early 13th century. The work consists of eight parts: divine service, keeping the ...

'', 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 ("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 Lambeth Homilies ...

'' 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 Homily, homilies found in MS Trinity 335 (B.14.52), held in Trinity College, Cambridge. Produced probably early in the thirteenth century in the Middle English#Early Middle English, Early Middle English pe ...

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

Ælfric of Eynsham Ælfric of Eynsham (; ; ) 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. He is also known variously as '' ...

. 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 {{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