The account in the tenth-century Old English poem Genesis B of Luciferâs revolt against God has attracted much praise and scholarly attention.* The dramatic presentation of Luciferâs superbia is integrated both thematically and structurally into the poemâs account of the fall of Adam and Eve, so that the largely apocryphal story of the revolt in heaven, with its particular focus on Luciferâs motivations, stands in direct causal relation to the human fall.1 Critical responses to this striking presentation have often analyzed Luciferâs role in the poem against the heroic ideals of loyalty familiar from the cultural world of Old English traditional poetry.2 The idealized comitatus model of society depicted in this poetry is centered upon the competitive interactions of âa multitude of petty hierarchies, each self-sufficient, self-justifying, and opportunistic,â within which hierarchies the lord âoperates with a band of freely sworn but loosely committed followers for his own advantage in a situation of universal competition and equality among war bands.â3 The literary ideals of loyalty and fellowship upon which such relationships depend, largely abstract and essentially timeless, provide one important context against which an audienceâmedieval or modernâmight evaluate and condemn Luciferâs behavior. It is equally possible, however, to read the account of Luciferâs treasonous behavior in a more explicitly historicist manner as an expression of recurrent early medieval concerns with both the ideologies and the practical realities governing the operation of royal power. The unusual provenance of Genesis Bâdemonstrably a translation or adaptation of an Old Saxon exemplar of which only fragments now surviveâoffers both challenges and opportunities for such an approach. In its surviving form, the poem is a product of tenth-century Anglo-Saxon England, but as a partial instantiation of an earlier Old Saxon Genesis poem, the text reflects developments and disputes regarding the operation of royal authority current in Francia in the first half of the ninth century.4
The poemâs account of Luciferâs revolt closely aligns with realities of treasonous behavior contemporary with the composition of the Old Saxon poem. As a result, the moral and ethical expectations of early ninth-century Francia provide an alternative framework for evaluating Luciferâs actions; in turn, the poetic account normalizes these same expectations, establishing Lucifer as a benchmark against which all subsequent traitors might be measured. The centrality of these ideas relating to royal authority and treason in the account of the revolt in heaven may also explain the interest in the Old Saxon text in Anglo-Saxon Englandâspecifically in Wessexâin the late ninth and early tenth centuries. West Saxon political life was significantly shaped during this period by problematic negotiations of royal authority that coincided with an increasingly-evident interest in imperial-style rule and a concern with the articulation of treason as a legal concept. The moral and political subtext of the account of Luciferâs revolt would have particularly resonated in such an environment. This is likely to have been a factor behind the West Saxon engagement with the poem during this period.
The Old English text of Genesis B is preserved in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius 11, an anthology of biblically-inspired Old English verse probably produced during the years c. 960â990, in which it comprises an interpolation into the longer Old English poem Genesis A.5 The interpolated text begins in media res with Godâs prohibition against eating the fruit of the tree before departing from the biblical source to describe the apocryphal revolt and fall of Lucifer and his followers. The poem then continues with a highly idiosyncratic account of the temptation, fall, and expulsion from Eden of Adam and Eve. Linguistic evidence suggests that the process by which the Old Saxon source was transformed into the extant Old English poem probably began in Wessex around the year 900, with the text being revised and recopied over a number of decades before its inclusion in Junius 11.6 How or when the Old Saxon text arrived in England is unknown.7 The composition of the original Old Saxon poem can, however, be dated with a fair degree of confidence to a relatively precise historical moment. Three surviving fragments of this poem are preserved, alongside a single extract from the Heliand (a ninth-century Old Saxon poetic Gospel harmony), as marginalia in Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica, MS Palatinus Latinus 1447. These verse fragments were copied in three different hands, each of which is usually dated to the third quarter of the ninth century.8 The poemâs composition is likely to have taken place some years earlier than this. The Old Saxon poem is generally held to have been written after the Heliand (to which it seems to allude), which is unlikely to have been written before 819 at the earliest.9 A plausible date range for the composition of the Old Saxon Genesis can thus be established as c. 820â850. The poemâs place of origin is unknown, though it was presumably composed within one of the Frankish centers of learning. The Old Saxon poem partially preserved in the text of Genesis B was composed, therefore, within the Carolingian empire, either during the often-turbulent reign of Louis the Pious (r. 814â40), or during the years of dynastic struggle that followed his death.
In the early ninth century, the legacy of the expansion and consolidation of Carolingian power during the reign of Charlemagne was an empire so vast as to be beyond the scope of purely centralized authority. The situation upon the emperorâs death in 814 resembled, in the words of Janet Nelson, âa conglomeration of regnaâregions, formally independent kingdoms, and sub-kingdoms [â¦] all of which had a great deal of autonomy.â10 This regionalism was a potential source of tension and dissent that could be exploited by individual members of the ruling elite, whether aristocrats dissatisfied by the ill-defined and largely ad hoc nature of power-sharing arrangements within the polity or ambitious members of the royal family, divisions and rivalries amongst whom were exacerbated by the Frankish tradition of partible inheritance. In such circumstances, individual acts of treason, consisting of a breach of fidelity towards the emperor, could (and did) lead to serious revolts requiring a swift and usually violent response.11
The succession of Charlemagneâs son Louis the Pious in 814 coincided with an increasingly visible attempt to assert an explicitly Christian ideology for the operation of power within a unified empire. On the one hand, the promulgation in 817 of the Ordinatio imperii articulated this developing ideology by establishing the formal basis for the division of royal authority within a unified imperial framework. The Ordinatio simultaneously established or consolidated sub-kingships for Louisâ three eldest sons and, in a break with the tradition of partible inheritance, laid out Louisâ vision for the continuation of imperial rule after his death. According to the Ordinatio, Louisâ eldest son Lothar was appointed co-emperor during Louisâ lifetime and was to succeed his father as Emperor after the latterâs death; his younger brothers, Pippin and Louis the German, though distinguished by the name of king (regiis insigniri nominibus), were to hold power in their kingdoms subject to Lotharâs overall imperial authority (sub seniore fratre regali potestate potiantur).12 On the other hand, the ideological developments of Louisâ early reign also sought to implicate royal followersâwhether ecclesiastical or secularâwithin the operation of an imperial ministerium. A series of cartularies issued throughout the 820s, including, most significantly perhaps, the Admonitio ad omnes regni ordines (823â25), describes how this ministeriumâdefined in terms of defending the Church and upholding peace and justice throughout the Empireâresides in its totality in the person of the Emperor, but is nevertheless shared in degree by each of his followers.13 The concept of ministerium encapsulates what Mayke de Jong has described as the âcorporate identityâ of clerical and lay magnates, bound together by âa religiously articulated sense of âministryâ and service to a public cause embodied by royal and imperial authority.â14
These attempts, early in Louisâ reign, to formalize the operation of imperial power, though intended to secure âperpetual peaceâ (perpetuam pacem) within the empire, were an inevitable cause of resentment, dissent, and treason.15 The centralization of the resources of political authority in the hands of Louis and his sons was opposed by others with expectations of royal power, such as Louisâ nephew Bernard, whose hereditary sub-kingship of Italy was conspicuously disregarded in the Ordinatio. Bernard responded with a revolt intended to secure the secession of Italy from imperial control. On the failure of this revolt, Bernard was tried for treason and condemned to death. Louis commuted his punishment to blinding, although Bernard nevertheless died from the resulting trauma. The Ordinatio was no more successful at preventing discord between Louis and his sons. From the beginning, the subordination of Pippin and Louis the German under Lotharâs imperial authority was a source of resentment, and tensions were exacerbated when, in 829, Louis attempted to overturn the provisions of the Ordinatio in order to provide a kingdom for his youngest son, Charles the Bald (b. 823). Together with Louisâ unwillingness to allow his sons total administrative freedom within their respective regna, the ongoing disputes regarding arrangements for the imperial succession led to a series of conflicts between Louis and his three eldest sons, both individually and separately, and between the sons themselves. These campaigns, which twice led to the emperorâs capture and temporary deposition (in 831 and 833), marked the final decade of Louisâ reign.16
Following Louisâ death in 840, the division of the empire between Lothar, Louis the German, and Charles the Bald was ultimately secured after three years of fraternal conflict by the Treaty of Verdun in 843 (Pippin having pre-deceased his father by two years). Despite this apparent fragmentation of the Empire, the decade following the death of Louis the Pious is marked in contemporary sources by a recurrent âChristian-imperial discourse.â17 As de Jong points out, this discourse tends to respond to the turmoil of the 830s and 40s by invoking a concept of imperium that privileges unanimity amongst those âparticipating in imperial ruleâ over the unity of the Empire as a territorial entity, so that imperium came to refer to âthe exercise of imperial authority by the senior member(s) of the Carolingian dynasty.â18
The concern with correctly articulating royal authority in an imperial context evident in the reign of Louis the Pious and in the decade following his death provides a telling context for the depiction of Luciferâs treason in Genesis B. In the poem, Luciferâs betrayal is founded upon his conception of his own authority as ruler. In his first speech, Lucifer declares âic hæbbe geweald micel / to gyrwanne godlecran stol, / hearran on heofneâ [I have great authority to prepare a better throne, higher in heaven] (280bâ82a). Luciferâs claim to possess geweald micel is not simply a presumption of ability: the noun geweald means not only âpower to doâ but also âpower of one in authority, rule, dominion, sway.â19 It is in this latter sense that the cognate noun giwald is used twice in the surviving fragments of the Old Saxon Genesis. The treasonous behavior of Lucifer, represented in Genesis B, contrasts pointedly with the idealized loyalty displayed by Abraham in the Abraham and Sodom fragment of the Old Saxon poem.20 Not only does Abraham kneel before the Lordâs angelic messengers, professing his loyalty in a form of commendation, but in his subsequent intercession on behalf of the inhabitants of Sodom, he is careful to acknowledge Godâs absolute authority over his creation:
âall bi thinun dadiun sted
thius uuerold an thinum uuillean. thu giuuald hauas
oÆar thesan middilgard âmanna kunnias [â¦]
Thu ruomes so rehtæs, âriki drohtin,
so thu ni uuili that thar antgeldan guoduuillige mann
uuamscaÄono uuerek thuoh thu is giuuald habes
te gifrummianna. â(192bâ94, 198â201a)
[Through your works this world stands according to your will. You have authority over the race of men throughout this middle-earth [â¦] You strive so on behalf of justice, powerful lord, so that you do not wish that men of righteous intention should have to pay the price for the deeds of the wicked, although you have the authority to do this].
In contrast to Abrahamâs humility before divine authority, Luciferâs claim to possess geweald micel represents a vainglorious refusal to recognize that the foundation of this authority lies not in himself, but in God.21 The poet has already emphasized this point in the initial account of Luciferâs creation as the preeminent angel:
ænne hæfde he swa swiðne geworhtne
swa mihtigne on his modgeþohte, he let hine swa micles wealdan,
hehstne to him on heofona rice, hæfde he hine swa hwitne geworhtne,
swa wynlic wæs his wæstm on heofonum: þæt him com from weroda âdrihtne.
gelic wæs he þam leohtum steorrum. lof sceolde he drihtnes wyrcean,
dyran sceolde he his dreamas on heofonum and sceolde his âdrihtne þancian
þæs leanes þe he him on þam leohte gescerede þonne læte he his hine âlange wealdan. (252bâ58)
[He had created one of them so great, so mighty in his intellect, permitted him to wield authority so extensively, highest after Him in the kingdom of heaven, had created him so radiant, so beautiful in heaven was the form that came to him from the Lord of hosts, that he was like the shining stars. He ought to have performed his Lordâs praise, ought to have valued his joys in heaven, and ought to have thanked his Lord for the rewards that He gave him in that radianceâthen He would have permitted him to wield authority over what was his for a long time].
The patterns of repetition in this passage express Luciferâs obligation to his lord. The reiterative progression âswa swiðne ⦠swa mihtigne ⦠swa micles ⦠swa hwitne ⦠swa wynlicâ establishes the extent of Godâs generosity towards his follower; the subsequent sequence âlof sceolde ⦠dyran sceolde ⦠sceolde ⦠þancianâ similarly establishes the reciprocal obligations that such generosity imposes upon Lucifer. The poetâs emphasis on this point removes any possible mitigation for Luciferâs treasonous behavior, but it also conveys that, despite his exulted position, whatever geweald the angel possesses is derived from and subordinate to Godâs overall authority. In the statement that God âlet hine swa micles wealdanâ [permitted him to wield authority so extensively], the verb lætan has a precise and quasi-legalistic force. The verb is used in this sense shortly before this passage, in the opening lines of Genesis B. Following Godâs (fragmentary) injunction regarding the tree, Adam and Eveâlike Abrahamâbow humbly before God. It is after they have performed this obeisance that God bestows upon them the land of Eden: âhe let heo þæt land buanâ [he permitted them to occupy that land] (239b). That this beneficence represents a royal prerogative is suggested by a similar usage of cognate latan in the Old Saxon Abraham and Sodom fragment. In that fragment, Abraham petitions the Lord to operate his prerogative of mercy and grant the sinful city-dwellers life and land: âlatan te liua that sia muotin that land uuaranâ [grant them life that they might occupy the land] (216). The implication here is that the crimes of the Sodomites have led them to forfeit their lives and possessions to the Lord, who alone has the authority to grant them backâas he subsequently does.22 The sense of a formal grant evident in these two passage pertains also in the use of the verb lætan in the account of Luciferâs devolved authority in ÂGenesis B.
Each of these examples presents God as a gracious lord conferring honores on his followers. Lucifer, in contrast to Abraham, disregards this act of patronage, seeing his honores as his own inalienable possession rather than a mark of divine favor. In fact, the bestowal of honores is explicitly conditional. Adam and Eve will enjoy the land granted to them so long as they are loyal to Godâs word: âðenden heo his halige word healdan woldonâ [while they would obey his holy word] (245). So, too, Luciferâs geweald is conditional upon his obedience: âþonne læte he his hine lange wealdanâ [then He would have permitted him to wield authority over what was his for a long time] (258b). The poem presents a divine polity in which authority is divisible but remains dependent upon the superordinate power of God. Lucifer, Godâs preeminent follower, holds office second only to God himself. In terms of contemporary Carolingian politics, Lucifer occupies a privileged position in the polity as a prominent participant in a divine ministerium. The poem makes clear, however, that this participation is predicated upon his continued obedience and fidelity to God, the ultimate source of this ministerium.
Luciferâs rejection of this dependent position can also be understood in terms of the realities of early ninth-century Carolingian politics. A notable feature of the Ordinatio of 817 is the stress that it places upon Lotharâs status as elder brother (senior frater) and the corresponding juniority of Pippin and Louis (iuniores fratres). In so doing, the language of the Ordinatio reflects contemporary Carolingian conceptualizations of the moral basis of hierarchical relationships, according to which iuniores were required to show humility as well as obedience in their behavior towards their seniores.23 As well as restricting the younger brothersâ freedom to wage war, receive envoys, or even marry without Lotharâs consent, the Ordinatio also required them to mark their fidelity to Lothar each year by coming to him for a ceremonial exchange of gifts. Such conditions were, according to the account of Thegan of Trier, perceived by Pippin and Louis as an affront to their royal dignity (ceteri filii ob hoc indignati sunt), and they contributed to the political unrest in the decades following the promulgation of the Ordinatio.24
The indignitas felt by Pippin and Louis on account of their subordination to Lothar offers a striking parallel to the proud resentment that leads to Luciferâs treason in Genesis B. Indeed, the language of the poem appears to draw upon precisely the same discourse of juniority and seniority. The first words spoken by Lucifer in the poem constitute a statement of his own self-sufficiency: ââhwæt sceal ic winnan?â cwæð he. ânis me wihtæ þearf / hearran to habbanneââ [âWhy must I toil?â he said, âThere is no need for me to have a superiorâ] (278â79a). The Old English noun hearra is a relatively rare poetic word for a lord. Of the twenty-nine recorded usages of the word in the surviving corpus of Old English verse, all, save three, are found in Genesis B wherein the Old English term appears as an âassimilationâ of the more common Old Saxon noun hêrro.25 The frequent recurrence of the term, and its repeated collocation with the noun hyldo [favor], establishes a thematic concern with the operation of lordship that runs throughout the narrative of both the angelic and human falls.26 More specifically, however, the Old Saxon word hêrro represents a substantivized form of the comparative of the adjective hêr, the original meaning of which was âold,â and seems to have been formed by direct analogy with, and as a vernacular counterpart to, the Latin term senior.27 Like the Latin term, it denotes not lordship per se, but seniority within a hierarchical social structure.
By contrast, Luciferâs own subordinate position within the heavenly polity is characterized in Genesis B by the use of the Old English term geongra [subordinate] and the related (and unique) forms geongordom [subservience] and giongorscipe [service], reflecting the cognate Old Saxon words jungiro, jungardom, and jungarskepi. The Old Saxon noun jungiro represents the âlogical complementâ of hêrro, being similarly formed by analogy with Latin iunior.28 The use of the nouns hearra and geongra (and related forms) in the surviving Old English text of Genesis B thus preserves an echo of terminology associated with formal power in early ninth-century Francia, expressing the hierarchical distinction between seniores and iuniores. The hierarchical relations depicted in the original Old Saxon poem were governed by a precise, formal vocabulary that encoded both moral and social obligations. As the example of the Ordinatio Imperii shows, this vocabulary was socially freighted in ways that could intersect destructively with conceptions of personal dignitas. Thus, the poemâs emphasis on the rejection of a subordinate position as a motivation for Luciferâs actions places his treason within a recognizable moral framework, according to which his pride is condemned as a specifically social evil.
According to the poet, God created the race of angels precisely that they might fulfill the role of royal followers: âþæt hie his giongorscipe fyligan woldenâ [so that they would perform his service] (249). It is this obligation that Lucifer rejects. At first, Lucifer lacks the desire to serve the Lord: âne meahte he æt his hige findan / þæt he gode wolde geongerdome, / þeodne þeowianâ [he could not find it in his heart that he would serve God, the Lord, in subservience] (266bâ68a). Subsequently, he expresses doubts about his continued obedienceââhim tweo þuhte / þæt he gode wolde geongra weorðanâ [it seemed doubtful to him that he would be a subordinate of God] (276bâ77)âand questions his need to serveââhwy sceal ic æfter his hyldo ðeowian, / bugan him swilces geongordomesâ [why must I serve him for his favor, bow to him with such subservience] (282bâ83a). His first speech culminates with the outright rejection of his subservient role: âne wille ic leng his geongra wurþanâ [I no longer intend to be his subordinate] (291b). The progress from initial unwillingness to this disavowal of his position as Godâs subordinate marks Luciferâs descent into treason. The driving force behind this movement is Luciferâs superbia, but this sinful pride is manifest in social terms as a sense of indignitas at his dependent position. Lucifer frames his complaint in terms of justiceââme þæt riht ne þinceðâ [that does not seem just to me] (289b)âand characterizes his service to God as a form of flattery (oleccan) (290a). This account of Luciferâs pride recalls Alcuinâs influential definition of superbia as contempt for divine authority (contemptu mandatorum Dei), which manifests in social relations as an arrogant and disruptive disobedience: âFit etiam per contumaciam superbia, quando despiciunt homines senioribus obedire suis. Ex ipsa vero nascitur omnis inobedientia, et omnis praesumptio, et omnis pertinacia, contentiones, haereses, arrogantiaâ [Superbia also arises from arrogance, when people despise obeying their seniores. Truly, from that is born all disobedience, and all presumption, and all obstinacy, disputes, heresies, conceitedness].29 This understanding of the moral and social ramifications of pride is closely mirrored in Genesis B, wherein Luciferâs treason is inseparable from his superbia, expressed as an arrogant rejection of his subordination within the social hierarchy of heaven.
In rejecting the role of Godâs geongra, Lucifer appeals to the strength of his following:
âbigstandað me strange geneatas þa ne willað me æt þam striðe
âgeswican,
âhæleþas heardmode. hie habbað me to hearran gecorene,
ârofe rincas. mid swilcum mæg man ræd geþencean,
âfon mid swilcum folcgesteallan. frynd synd hie mine georne,
âholde on hyra hygesceaftum. ââic mæg hyra hearra wesan,
ârædan on þis rice. (284â89a)
[Strong companions stand beside me, resolute heroes who will not betray me in the conflict. They have chosen me as their lord, brave warriors. With such as these may one devise counsel, make a start with such comrades. They are my eager friends, loyal in their hearts. I may be their lord, rule in this kingdom].
The repetition of the noun hearra in these lines establishes a hierarchical relationship between Lucifer and his followers that mirrors that which should exist between God and Lucifer. Luciferâs speech places particular emphasis on the loyalty of his supporters, both positively through the use of the adjective hold [loyal] and negatively in the statement that they will not âbetrayâ him (geswican) when danger threatens. This appeal to the loyalty of his followers to justify his own treasonous behavior has been frequently understood as a form of irony.30 A.N. Doane, for example, comments upon âthe patent absurdity of one who himself refuses to give service or recognize a hierarchy reaching above but who nevertheless predicates his fortunes on services demanded as his due from a hierarchy reaching below.â31 To an audience familiar with the complex and negotiable operation of power in early ninth-century Francia, however, this seeming absurdity may have looked like pragmatic reality.
Doaneâs discussion of Luciferâs expectations in terms of hierarchies reaching above and below reflects a familiar historiographical distinction between âverticalâ (formal) and âhorizontalâ (informal) power structures. In recent years, however, the validity of such a binary distinction as applied to the early medieval period has been strongly questioned. Matthew Innes and Stephen Baxter stress that the effective operation of power in this period relied upon the interactional relationship between formal structures of power and informal structures based on local and social bonds of loyalty.32 As Charles West argues, the construction of aristocratic retinues, such as that described by ÂLucifer, depended upon such a combination of formal and informal power structures, but it was nevertheless considered âmorally binding,â implicating aristocratic followers in their lordâs actions.33 The existence of such retinues not only facilitated the operation of power at regional and local levels but also played a key role in wider power politics. The active role of aristocratic support networks was an important legitimizing factor that could govern the success or failure of bids for power, even where this involved challenging an existing ruler during his lifetime or disregarding arrangements for the succession after his death.34
Luciferâs expectations of support would seem to be based upon such an understanding of the moral bond between himself and his followers, and of the potential for their support to lend legitimacy to his bid for autonomy. Luciferâs speech does invoke formal power structures through the language of fidelity and betrayal and in the references to Luciferâs role as hearra. At the same time, however, the language of friendship (frynd) and the description of his angelic followers as geneatas [companions] and folcgesteallan [comrades] invokes informal ties based on friendship, kinship, and personal loyalty that operate at regional and local levels.35 The repetition of the phrase mid swilcum [with such] similarly invokes the strength of his following as a legitimizing factor in his revolt. An audience familiar with the âpolycentricâ nature of the Frankish polity would surely have recognized in Luciferâs speech a negotiation between formal and informal or local power structures as part of his reconsideration of his role in the heavenly polity.36 Luciferâs boast reflects pragmatic realities at least as much as much as it does an ironic failure of heroic ideals.
Luciferâs laments following the failure of his revolt also emphasize the local aspect of his bid for power. Addressing his loyal followers, who share his banishment, Lucifer (now Satan) compares their position in hell to the territory they previously occupied in heaven:
[This narrow place is very unlike that other with which we were previously familiar high in the kingdom of heaven, which my lord granted to meâalthough because of the ruler of all we were not allowed to possess it, to strive on behalf of our kingdom].
According to Fabienne Michelet, the phrase romigan ures rices here describes Luciferâs ambition to possess the whole of the kingdom of heaven.37 Yet the lines clearly refer to a specific place (styde) within the wider kingdom of heaven (on heofonrice) with which Lucifer had been endowed by God. The verb romigan has caused confusion on this point. The word is otherwise unrecorded in Old English, but the generally accepted translation of the cognate Old Saxon romon is âto strive (for),â which seemingly supports the contention of Michelet and others that Lucifer is concerned here with territorial expansion rather than consolidation.38 However, the single use of this verb in the surviving portions of the Old Saxon Genesis suggests that it requires a more nuanced translation. In Abrahamâs petition on behalf of the Sodomites (quoted above), Abraham describes how God âstrives for justiceâ (ruomes so rehtæs). As Doane notes in his commentary, the meaning of romon here cannot be to âstrive forâ something not already possessed;39 rather, the meaning must be something closer to âstrive on behalf of.â A similar meaning can be ascribed to the Old English verb romigan in Luciferâs speech. This again points towards the foundations of Luciferâ revolt within a particular, local powerbaseâin Carolingian terms, the regnum that had been granted to him by God.
The language Lucifer uses to describe his ambitions is consistently comparative. He aims to provide himself with a throne to rival that of Godâmore splendid, stronger, higher in heaven (272bâ74a, 280bâ82a). He believes that his following is more powerful than that of God (268bâ271a). He can, he says, be as good as God himself: âic mæg wesan god swa heâ [I can be as good/as godlike as he] (283b). In one sense, this comparative language simply highlights Luciferâs essential miscomprehension of the nature of God. As Doane explains, Luciferâs mistake is to imagine that Godâs power is relative when it is, in fact, absolute.40 In another sense, however, this language also points to the poetâs particular understanding of Luciferâs treasonous behavior. Luciferâs actions do not constitute a rebellion against a particular system of governance or an attempt to overthrow or disrupt the operation of power per se. As Paul Fouracre points out, such rebellions were rarely seen in the early medieval period.41 Luciferâs revolt instead follows a more familiar ninth-century paradigm in aiming primarily at the redistribution of power amongst the members of an elite group rather than challenging the authority upon which such power was based. Lucifer seeks to redraw the balance of power within the heavenly polity. By providing himself with a higher, better throne, he effectively intends to re-center this polity upon his own particular geographical powerbase. Once again, the revolt in heaven mirrors the struggles that characterized the political life of Francia in the first half of the ninth century, as brother competed with brother and father with son in an ongoing struggle to maximize their own share of imperial power.
Luciferâs punishment also reflects contemporary practices of power. His relocation to hell is repeatedly characterized as a movement from light into darkness. The poet places great emphasis on the brightness of Luciferâs person before his fall (254b, 338bâ39a), comparing him to the light of the stars: âgelic was he þam leohtum steorrumâ [he was like to the bright stars] (256a). Luciferâs first boast concerns this brightness of his person: âcwæð þæt his lic wære leoht and scene, / hwit and hiowbeorhtâ [he said that his form was light and shining, white and bright-hued] (265â66a). This brightness is associated also with the kingdom of heaven itself. The poet plays on the polysemy of the word leohtâwhich, like its Old Saxon counterpart lioht, can carry an expanding meaning of âworldâ or âlifeââin order to contrast heaven and hell. Lucifer is endowed with gifts âon þam leohteâ [in that light/in heaven] (258a), but following his revolt, is condemned to dwell âon wyrse leoht ⦠on þa sweartan helleâ [in a worse light ⦠in that dark hell] (310b; 312b). Though it is filled with fire, hell is âleohtes leasâ [deprived of light] (333a). Lucifer twice complains of being cut-off from the light of heavenââþæs leohtes bescyredeâ [392b; 394b]âand despairs of ever regaining that light: âNe gelyfe ic me nu þæs leohtes furðorâ [I now no longer have hope of that light for myself] (401a). Hell is repeatedly characterized by adjectives denoting darkness: þrosm (326a); þystro (326a, 389b); and sweart (312b, 345b, 391a).
The poetâs references to Luciferâs brightness relates, of course, to the usual interpretation of his name as âbearer of light,â while the contrast between the light of heaven and the darkness of hell is so conventional that it might almost pass unnoticed. In the context of the poemâs presentation of Lucifer treason, however, the stress that the poet places upon this aspect of Luciferâs punishmentâthe move from light to darkâcalls to mind the use of blinding as a political punishment in Carolingian Francia. Geneviève Bührer-Thierry provides compelling evidence not only that this punishment increased in prominence during the reign of Charlemagne and his successors but also that it seems to have been specifically connected with the crime of treason.42 As a supposedly merciful alternative to the death penalty, blinding is well attested as a punishment for revolt in this period, as in the case of Bernard of Italy. Similarly, Carloman, son of Charles the Bald, was blinded on his fatherâs orders as punishment for his own failed revolt in 873.43 The emergence of this form of punishment for treason coincided, moreover, with a growing tendencyâespecially in the reign of Louis the Piousâto conceptualize imperium in terms of radiant light, whose source was the person of the emperor himself, and in which participants in the ministerium could, to a degree, share. Bührer-Thierry explains the connection between this ideological trend and the rise of blinding as a punishment for treason:
by revolting against the king or trying to usurp his functions, these men lost the capacity to participate in his ministerium; and the punishment that deprived them of their sight, which only the legitimate emperor had the right to pronounce, demonstrated that they had been cast forever into the world of darkness, incapable at one and the same time of seeing the king who radiated splendor and of reflecting the portion of brightness that had once been confided to them.44
In this context, Luciferâs representation of himself as a source of light gains added significance: he presents himself as the source of the radiance of imperium, failing to acknowledge that this brightness is rightly a reflection of the divine light. He is punished for his treason in a fitting manner by being cast into darkness, not through blinding, but through his fall. The depiction of his punishment in terms of a move from light to darkness literalizes the symbolic conceptualization of punitive blinding in cases of revolt and treason.
Luciferâs fall in Genesis B demonstrates how consistently and how meticulously the poetic account invokes the ideologies and realities of early ninth-century Frankish power politics to explicate Luciferâs behavior. The effects of this poetic strategy are two-pronged. On the one hand, contemporary ideological developments regarding the nature of imperial rule, together with an ideal of a corporate, Christian ministerium in which the aristocratic elite participated, provide the ethical and moral basis according to which Luciferâs actions can be condemned as treasonous, as well as the justification for his particularly appropriate punishment. On the other hand, by presenting Lucifer as an aristocratic lord or sub-king in revolt, the poem invites its audience to view any such treasonous act within the world as participating in Luciferâs originary sin, and it implicates those perpetrating such acts in Luciferâs punishment through immediate temporal penalties (such as blinding) and through the threat of coming damnation.45 In this way, the poet both draws upon and simultaneously propagates the dominant political ideologies of the period.
The effectiveness of this strategy depends, crucially, upon presenting Lucifer in realistic and recognizable terms as a contemporary aristocratic figureâa dissatisfied subordinate, indignant at his inferior position and lack of autonomy and seeking to increase his share of imperial power.46 Critical interpretations of Luciferâs behavior that rely solely on the timeless values of heroic verse, though valid in their own terms, potentially mask this specific and historical valence. Scholars have long been used to thinking about Genesis B in terms of abstract oppositions of ideals of loyalty and disloyalty, or obedience and disobedience.47 Contextualizing the poemâs account of Luciferâs fall in relation to its early ninth-century Carolingian provenance situates Genesis B within a specific, historically-grounded, and ideologically developed depiction of treason that is central to its interpretation of Luciferâs foundational act of sin for a contemporary audience.
The kings of Wessex in the late-ninth and early-tenth centuries faced problems relating to the division of political authority and the ambitions of claimants upon royal power that parallel, albeit on a smaller scale, those faced by Louis the Pious and his sons. The career of Ãthelwulf of Wessex (d. 858) parallels the Carolingian practice of sub-kingship. Following the successful expansion of West Saxon authority into areas previously under Mercian control during the reign of his father Ecgberht in the mid-820s, Ãthelwulf ruled as sub-king of Kent until his fatherâs death in 839. During this period, Ãthelwulf issued charters as king, and may also have issued his own coinage, apparently enjoying a considerable degree of autonomy. Following his succession to the overall kingship of Wessex, Ãthelwulf followed his fatherâs example by appointing his own eldest son Ãthelstan as sub-king of Kent, followed, after Ãthelstanâs death in the mid-850s, by his third son Ãthelberht.48 In contrast to his own relative autonomy within the region, however, Ãthelwulf appears to have prevented his sons from either issuing charters or minting currency in their own names, a policy which Joanna Story interprets as a means of ârestricting his sonsâ ability to establish their own patronage networksâ comparable to the attempts made by Ãthelwulfâs contemporary Charles the Bald to limit his own sonsâ abilities to construct aristocratic powerbases.49
The adoption of this policy shows that, in the mid-ninth century, Anglo-Saxon rulers were as worried as their Frankish counterparts about the threat posed by ambitious subordinates backed by local networks of aristocratic support. With good reason. When he departed for Rome in 855, Ãthelwulf apparently committed the kingdom of Wessex to Ãthelbald. Asser, in his Vita Alfredi regis, records how, on Ãthelwulfâs return in 856, newly married to Charles the Baldâs daughter Judith, Ãthelbald moved to prevent him from regaining his kingdom:
Nam Ãthelbaldus rex, [Ãthelwulfi regis filius,] et Ealhstan, Scireburnensis ecclesiae episcopus, Eanwulf quoque Summurtunensis pagae comes coniurasse referuntur, ne unquam Ãthelwulf rex, a Roma revertens, iterum in regno reciperetur. (XII.4â9)50
[Then King Ãthelbald, King Ãthelwulfâs son, with Ealhstan, Bishop of Sherbourne and Eanwulf the ealdorman of Sommerset are declared to have conspired that, on his return from Rome, King Ãthelwulf should never again be received into his kingdom].
Asserâs decision to list the chief supporters of Ãthelbaldâs revolt testifies to the participation of aristocratic (and ecclesiastical) support networks in dynastic politics. In such a context, Luciferâs calculations regarding the strength of his following would surely have resonated with contemporary political realities, as much as with heroic ideals.
It seems quite likely, moreover, that it was during this period that the Old Saxon poem first travelled to England. Barbara Raw convincingly argues that the illustrations accompanying the composite Old English Genesis text in Junius 11 derive from a sequence designed originally to accompany the text of the Old Saxon Genesis; based on the similarities between these illustrations and surviving examples of ninth-century West Frankish Bible manuscripts, Raw suggests that the Old Saxon poem travelled to England in a high-status manuscript, probably illuminated in Tours during the reign of Charles the Bald (r. 843â77).51 Both Raw and Doane posit Ãthelwulfâs marriage to Judith as a likely occasion for the bestowing of just such a high status manuscript.52 This is an attractive speculation, but it should be noted that strong ties between Wessex and Francia dated back at least as far as the reign of Ecgberht. Ecgberht, who, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, achieved the imperial-style distinction of Bretwalda in the year 827, may have spent as long as thirteen years in exile in Francia before he succeeded to the West Saxon kingdom in 802.53 His son Ãthelwulf is known to have maintained good contacts with the West Frankish court even before his marriage to Judith, and was served by a Frankish secretary named Felix.54 Ãthelwulfâs son and ultimate successor Alfred famously recruited continental scholars to assist him in his political and cultural endeavors.55 There were ready conduits, therefore, by which both the Old Saxon poem, and the Carolingian imperial ideologies that underpin it, might have been transmitted to the West Saxon court.
The process of linguistic adaptation of the Old Saxon poem that resulted in the text preserved in Junius 11 appears to have begun around the year 900.56 This was, again, a period of probable dynastic tension in Wessex. In 898, King Alfred followed the practice of his father and grandfather by appointing his own son Edward the Elder as sub-king of Kent.57 Janet Nelson suggests that the designation of Edward as sub-king late in Alfredâs reign was the result of tensions regarding arrangements for Alfredâs succession and that Edwardâs appointment may have coincided with a general diminution of Alfredâs authority.58 Equally, it may have been an attempt to consolidate Edwardâs position, as Alfredâs designated successor, in the face of a potential challenge from his cousin Ãthelwold, son of Alfredâs older brother Ãthelræd I. From his accession to the throne in 871, Alfred attempted to circumscribe the potential claims of his nephew by withholding from him lands that he may otherwise have expected to inherit, limiting his ability to construct a network of support for any future claim on the kingship, such as that on which Lucifer founds his rebellion in the poetic account.59
Despite these maneuvers, however, Ãthelwold contested Edwardâs succession upon the death of Alfred in 899, presenting himself as a legitimate alternative candidate for royal power in a revolt that was only finally defeated with Ãthelwoldâs death at the Battle of Holme in 902. Ryan Lavelle argues that the threat posed by Ãthelwoldâs claim was sufficiently serious to have driven developing ideas of royal authority during Edwardâs rule.60 These developments encompassed increasingly ambitious gestures towards imperial-style rule during the reigns of Edward and his son Ãthelstan (r. 924â939).61 The period of dynastic challenge, consolidation, and ideological development in the early years of the tenth century thus provides a rich potential context for, and perhaps an explanation of, interest in the Old Saxon poem and its account of Luciferâs revolt in precisely these years.
The poemâs depiction of Lucifer as a subordinate aristocrat or sub-king pressing a claim to royal authorityâfounded upon a network of aristocratic supportâin treasonous revolt against his rightful lord would surely have resonated with a politically engaged audience of early tenth-century Anglo-Saxons. This is not to say that all aspects of the political ideology encoded in the Old Saxon poem would have been intelligible to an Anglo-Saxon audience.62 It seems doubtful, for example, that Luciferâs punishment could have been interpreted in the same way in Anglo-Saxon England. Evidence from the tenth and early eleventh centuries does suggest that punitive blinding was increasingly accepted as an alternative to execution, both as a judicial punishment and as a non-judicial or quasi-legal means of asserting political power and eliminating potential threats to that power.63 The punishment seems not, however, to have carried a precise ideological significance in the way that it did in ninth-century Francia, and was apparently not considered a particularly appropriate punishment for treason in England before the Norman Conquest.64 But the overall picture would have been clear enough, and the parallels that the poem draws between treason within the world and the crime for which Lucifer is damned would undoubtedly have recommended it to the West Saxon royal dynasty.
The interest in the Old Saxon poem at the turn of the tenth century also coincides, moreover, with an extension of the Anglo-Saxon understanding of treason as a legal concept.65 This is particularly evident in the law-code issued by Alfred in the final decade of the ninth century. The extensive Prologue to this code explains how systems of compensation were established by Christian law-makers as a merciful alternative to harsher punishments:
hie ða gesetton, for ðære mildheortnesse þe Crist lærde, æt mæstra hwelcre misdæde þætte ða weoruldhlafordas moston mid hiora leafan buton synne æt þam forman gylte þære fiohbote onfon, þe hie ða gesettan; buton æt hlafordsearwe hie nane mildheortnesse ne dorston gecweðen, forþam ðe God ælmihtig þam nane ne gedemde þe hine oferhogdon, ne Crist Godes sunu þam nane ne gedemde þe hine to deaðe sealde, 7 he bebead þone hlaford lufian swa hine.66
[Then, for the mercifulness that Christ taught, they established that for almost all wrong-doing, at the first offence, a secular lord could, by their leave and without sin, receive the monetary compensation which they established; except that they dared not declare any mercy for treason, because almighty God decreed none for those who scorned him, nor did Christ, Godâs son, decree any for him who gave him up to death, and he commended each person to love the lord as himself].
In exempting the crime of treason (hlafordsearu) from the operation of Christian mercy, the author of the Prologue draws an explicit analogy between the loyalty owed to the king by his followers and that owed by created beings to their Godâto the extent that the divine Lord and the secular lord become linguistically confused in the reoccurrence of the lexeme hlaford in the final clause of this passage. The operation of absolute justice upon those who betray God establishes by analogy the right of kings to execute similar justice upon those guilty of worldly treason. The reference to Judas, betrayer of Christ, is clear enough, but the preceding reference to God refusing mercy to those who scorned him (þe hine oferhogdon) is more allusive. David Pratt interprets this as a reference to the prescription of the death penalty for sacrificing to idols in Exodus 22:20.67 A more likely explanation, however, is that it refers to the disobedience of Lucifer and his followers, whose fallâunlike that of humankindâis irredeemable. If this is correct, then the Alfredian code draws an ideological connection between worldly treason and Luciferâs revolt paralleling that found in a more developed form in the narrative verse of Genesis B. While there is no evidence for any direct connection between these two texts, the Alfredian law-code further suggests that the intellectual climate of the West Saxon court at the turn of the tenth century could very well have supported an interest in the account of Luciferâs revolt in the Old Saxon poem.
The account of Luciferâs revolt in Genesis B emerges as a text open to multiple layers of interpretation. Viewed in purely heroic terms, Luciferâs actions are condemnable as those of an ungrateful follower in a comitatus society. In that sense, the ethos and values of heroic poetry provide a simple moral framework within which to critique Luciferâs betrayal, aligning unproblematically with the judgement implicit in the underlying Christian narrative. A more complex picture appears, however, when the text is read in a precise historical context: that of the composition of the original Old Saxon poem in Frankia in the early ninth century. Lucifer emerges as a vividly realistic depiction of a Carolingian aristocrat embroiled in the murky realities of contemporary power politics. In such a context, evaluating Luciferâs actions is more complex. Although his behavior can still be condemned in moral and ethical terms as treasonous, the recognition that it aligns with pragmatic realities amongst the governing elite undercuts the simplicity of this judgement. Thus, the poem draws more heavily upon the underlying Christian framework to condemn ÂLuciferâs behavior, reflecting back upon the political context from which it originated with a clear ideological statement about the moral and spiritual culpability of those who engage in treason.
To put this another way, where a reading of the text as heroically-infused verse sees the poet turning to familiar heroic values to contextualize and condemn Luciferâs originary sin, a historicist reading recognizes how the poet uses the inherently sinful nature of Luciferâs actions to contextualize and condemn familiar instances of treason within the real world. This concern with treason, and with the operation of royal power, would have carried a particular resonance at the time of poemâs composition in Frankia in the second quarter of the ninth century. It would also have resonated with the concerns and interests of the West Saxon rulers at the beginning of the tenth century. It seems likely that the political and ideological subtext of the Old Saxon poem was a factor in the process of linguistic adaptation and appropriation that began in Wessex at this time.
Thomas D. Hill, âThe Fall of Angels and Man in the Old English Genesis B,â in Anglo-Saxon Poetry: Essays in Appreciation for John C. McGalliard, ed. Lewis E. Nicholson and Dolores Warwick Frese, 279â90 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975); Renée R. Trilling, The Aesthetics of Nostalgia: Historical Representation in Old English Verse (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 90â96.
Most influentially, R.E. Woolf, âThe Devil in Old English Poetry,â Review of English Studies 4 (1953): 1â12. See also: J.M. Evans, âGenesis B and its Background,â Review of English Studies 14 (1963): 1â16, 113â23 at 116â23; Alain Renoir, âThe Self-Deception of Temptation: Boethian Psychology in Genesis B,â in Old English Poetry: Fifteen Essays, ed. R.P. Creed, 47â67 (Providence: Brown University Press, 1967), 51â53; Michael D. Cherniss, âHeroic Ideals and the Moral Climate of Genesis B,â Modern Language Quarterly 30 (1969): 479â97; Joyce M. Hill, âFigures of Evil in Old English Poetry,â Leeds Studies in English 8 (1975): 5â19 at 5â6; Peter J. Lucas, âLoyalty and Obedience in the Old English Genesis and the Interpolation of Genesis B into Genesis A,â Neophilologus 76 (1992): 121â35; Jeffrey Burton Russell, Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984), 134â39; Fabienne L. Michelet, Creation, Migration, and Conquest: Imaginary Geography and Sense of Space in Old English Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 64â65.
The Saxon Genesis: An Edition of the West Saxon Genesis B and the Old Saxon Vatican Genesis, ed. A.N. Doane (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), 123. The text of both Genesis B and the Old Saxon Genesis is cited by line number from this edition. Translations are my own.
The importance of the ninth-century Frankish context is similarly emphasized by Doane in Saxon Genesis. For a recent discussion of how the account of the temptation of Adam and Eve in the poem âreflects the intellectual milieu of the Carolingian mid-ninth centuryâ (16), see: Daniel Anlezark, âThe Old English Genesis B and Irenaeus of Lyon,â Medium Ãvum 86 (2017): 1â21. For a reading of the poem in light of contemporary Carolingian penitential theories and practices, see: Alexander J. Sager, âAfter the Apple: Repentance in Genesis B and its Continental Context,â Journal of English and Germanic Philology 112 (2013): 292â310.
On the date of the manuscript, see: Leslie Lockett, âAn Integrated Re-Examination of the Dating of Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 11,â Anglo-Saxon England 31 (2002): 141â73.
The Later Genesis, ed. B.J. Timmer (Oxford: Scrivener Press, 1948), 19â42; Doane, introduction to Saxon Genesis, 47â54. On the process of adaptation, see especially: Michael J. Capek, âThe Nationality of a Translator: Some Notes on the Syntax of Genesis B,â Neophilologus 55 (1971): 89â96; René Derolez, âGenesis: Old Saxon and Old English,â English Studies 76 (1995): 409â23; A.N. Doane, âThe Transmission of Genesis B,â in Anglo-Saxon England and the Continent, ed. Hans Sauer and Joanna Story with the assistance of Gaby Waxenberger, 63â81 (Tempe, Arizona: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2011).
For speculation on this point, see: Barbara Raw, âThe Probable Derivation of Most of the Illustrations in Junius 11 from an Illustrated Old Saxon Genesis,â Anglo-Saxon England 5 (1976): 133â48 at 148; Doane, introduction to Saxon Genesis, 52â53.
Janet L. Nelson, âThe Frankish Kingdoms, 814â898: The West,â in The New Cambridge Medieval History Vol. II c.700âc.900, ed. Rosamond McKitterick, 110â141 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 111.
See further: Jennifer R. Davis, Charlemagneâs Practice of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), esp. 152â57, 339â40.
Ordinatio Imperii, 817, prologue in Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Capitularia Regum Francorum, vol. 1, ed. Alfred Boretius (Hannover: Impensis Bibliopolii Hahniani, 1883), 1: 271.
Mayke de Jong, âThe Empire that was always Decaying: The Carolingians (800â888),â Medieval Worlds 2 (2015): 6â25 at 13.
Cf. Eric J. Goldberg, Struggle for Empire: Kingship and Conflict Under Louis the German, 817â876 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006), 59â77.
T. Northcote Toller, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Supplement (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908â21), s.v. âgeâweald,â I:4, 4a.
Alcuin describes how the vainglorious man ânon dat Deo honorem sed sibi: nec divinae imputat gratiae quidquid boni facit, sed quasi ex se habeat vel saecularis dignitatem honoris, vel spiritualis decorem sapientiaeâ [gives honor not to God but to himself; and credits whatever good he does not to divine grace, but as though he has from himself the dignity of secular honors or the beauty of spiritual wisdom]. De virtutibus et vitiis liber, ch. 34, in Patrologiae cursus completus: Series Latina, vol. 101, ed. Jacques Paul Migne (Paris: Migne, 1851), 635.
Cf. Genesis, 220â23 and 234â42. On the juridical force of line 216, see: Doane, commentary in Saxon Genesis, 337.
Cf. Rachel Stone, Morality and Masculinity in the Carolingian Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 212â13. Stone cites Alcuinâs formulation of the virtues proper to different ranks in society: âpotestatibus et iudicibus iustitiam et misericordiam; iunioribus oboedientiam humilitatem et fidem in senioribusâ [for the powerful and for judges, justice and mercy; for subordinates, obedience, humility, and fidelity to their superiors]. Epistola 184, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Epistolae, vol. 4, ed. Ernst Dümmler (Berlin: Weidmann, 1895), 310.
Thegan, Gesta Hludowici imperatoris, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum, vol. 64, ed. Ernst Tremp (Hanover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1995), 210. On Theganâs use of the term indignati, see: Goldberg, Struggle for Empire, 31.
Dictionary of Old English: AâH, s.v. âheÌÌarra, heÌÌrraâ: <https://tapor.library.utoronto.ca/doe/> (accessed May 29, 2018.)
Cf. Tom Shippey, âHell, Heaven, and the Failures of Genesis B,â in Essays on Old, Middle, Modern English and Old Icelandic in Honor of Raymond P. Tripp, Jr., ed. Loren C. Gruber with Meredith Crellin Gruber and Gregory K. Jember, 151â71 (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000), 165â66.
D.H. Green, The Carolingian Lord: Semantic Studies on Four Old High German Words: Baldor, Frô, Truhtin, Hêrro (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), 405â87.
Green, Carolingian Lord, 440â41. Margaret J. Ehrhart, by contrast, thinks that these terms indicate a relationship based on âdiscipleshipâ rather than âservice.â âTempter as Teacher: Some Observations on the Vocabulary of the Old English Genesis B,â Neophilologus 59 (1975): 435â46.
Cherniss, âMoral climate,â 496, 486; Jane Chance, Woman as Hero in Old English Literature (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1986), 71; Michelet, Creation, Migration, and Conquest, 85â86; Andrew Lynch, ââNow evil deeds ariseâ: Evaluating Courage and Fear in Early English Fight Narratives,â in Gender and Emotions in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Destroying Order, Structuring Disorder, ed. Susan Broomhall, 17â33 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), 26â27.
Matthew Innes, State and Society in the Early Middle Ages: The Middle Rhine Valley, 400â1000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Stephen Baxter, The Earls of Mercia: Lordship and Power in Late Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Baxter defines informal power structures as ânetworks held together through social tiesâlordship, kinship, community, religious affiliationâ (11â12).
Charles West, Reframing the Feudal Revolution: Political and Social Transformation Between Marne and Moselle, c. 800âc. 1100 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 55. On the difficulties that such morally binding loyalties could cause for Carolingian rulers, see: Stone, Morality and Masculinity, 198.
Janet L. Nelson, âHincmar of Reims on King-making: The Evidence of the Annals of St. Bertin, 861â882,â in Coronations: Medieval and Early Modern Monarchic Ritual, ed. János M. Bak, 16â34 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).
Personal ties of affection are also invoked in repeated statement that Lucifer was dear to God (261a, 339bâ40a), but the relationship is in this case one-sided.
Cf. Alain Renoir, ââRomigan Ures Ricesâ: A Reconsideration,â Modern Language Notes 72 (1957): 1â4.
Paul Fouracre, âThe Incidence of Rebellion in the Early Medieval West,â in Making Early Medieval Societies: Conflict and Belonging in the Latin West, 300â1200, ed. Kate Cooper and Conrad Leyser, 104â24 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). My use throughout this article of the term ârevoltâ to describe Luciferâs treason reflects Fouracreâs distinction between ârevoltâ and ârebellion.â
Geneviève Bührer-Thierry, ââJust Angerâ or âVengeful Angerâ? The Punishment of Blinding in the Early Medieval West,â in Angerâs Past: The Social Uses of an Emotion in the Middle Ages, ed. Barbara H. Rosenwein, 75â91 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998).
Janet L. Nelson, âA Tale of Two Princes: Politics, Text and Ideology in a Carolingian Annal,â Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 10 (1988): 105â41.
Compare Doaneâs interpretation of the revolt in terms of a fundamental opposition between a developing imperial ideology and an older, comitatus-based model of society. Introduction to Saxon Genesis, 123; âTransmission,â 80. In my reading, the poet does not present Lucifer as an outmoded adherent of an outdated, superseded social model. ÂRather, the poet assumes the operation of an imperial ideology in which power works along both vertical and horizontal lines (that is to say, by negotiation of formal and informal structures) and positions Lucifer as an active player within the imperial ministerium.
Cf. J.R. Hall, âGeongordom and Hyldo in Genesis B: Serving the Lord for the Lordâs Favor,â Papers on Language and Literature 11 (1975): 302â07; Ehrhart, âTempter and Teacherâ; Lucas, âLoyalty and Obedience.â
Simon Keynes, âThe Control of Kent in the Ninth Century,â Early Medieval Europe 2 (1993): 111â31.
Joanna Story, Carolingian Connections: Anglo-Saxon England and Carolingian Francia, c. 750â870 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), 224. See further: Nelson, âFrankish Kingdoms,â 125.
Cited by chapter and line number from Asserâs Life of King Alfred together with the Annals of Saint Neots Erroneously ascribed to Asser, ed. William Henry Stevenson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1904).
Alfred the Great: Asserâs Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources, trans. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983), 26â8. On the possible role of these scholars in the transmission of Genesis B, see: Doane, âTransmission,â 67â70. The prominence of continental scholars at the West Saxon court is apparent also in the reigns of Alfredâs successors. Cf. Michael Wood, âA Carolingian Scholar in the Court of King ÃthelÂstan,â in England and the Continent in the Tenth Century: Studies in Honor of Wilhelm Levison (1876â1947), ed. David Rollason, Conrad Leyser, and Hannah Williams, 135â62 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010).
Barbara Yorke, âEdward as Ãtheling,â in Edward the Elder, 899â924, ed. N.J. Higham and D.H. Hill, 25â39 (London: Routledge, 2001), 32.
Janet L. Nelson, âReconstructing a Royal Family: Reflections on Alfred, From Asser, Chapter 2,â in People and Places in Northern Europe, 500â1600: Essays in Honor of Peter Hayes Sawyer, ed. Ian Wood and Niels Lund, 47â66 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1991), 62â64.
Ryan Lavelle, âThe Politics of Rebellion: The Ãtheling Ãthelwold and West Saxon Royal Succession, 899â902,â in Challenging the Boundaries of Medieval History: The Legacy of Timothy Reuter, ed. Patricia Skinner, 51â80 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009), 55â61. See also: Ann Williams, âSome Notes and Considerations on Problems Connected with the English Royal Succession, 860â1066,â in Proceedings of the Battle Conference 1978, ed. R. Allen Brown, 144â67 (ÂIpswich: Boydell, 1979), 148â49.
For a succinct summary of the evidence for West Saxon imperial ambitions, and for the suggestion that successive West Saxon rulers may have conceived of themselves (or Âwanted to present themselves) as the heirs to Christian imperium in Western Europe, see: Francis Leneghan, âTranslatio Imperii: The Old English Orosius and the Rise of Wessex,â Anglia 133 (2015): 656â705, esp. 663â73.
Matthew Firth, âAllegories of Sight: Blinding and Power in Late Anglo-Saxon England,â Ceræ 3 (2016): <http://openjournals.arts.uwa.edu.au/index.php/cerae/article/view/66> (accessed May 14, 2017).
Klaus van Eickels, âGendered Violence: Castration and Blinding as Punishment for Treason in Normandy and Anglo-Norman England,â Gender & History 16 (2004): 588â602; Charlene M. Eska, ââImbrued in their owne bloudâ: Castration in Early Welsh and Irish Sources,â in Castration and Culture in the Middle Ages, ed. Larissa Tracy, 149â73 (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2013), esp. 156â62.
David Pratt, The Political Thought of King Alfred the Great (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 232â38.