The Old English Life of St Neot and the

legends of King Alfred

m a l c ol m god de n
abs t rac t
The Old English Life of St Neot has been generally dated to the twelfth century and
dismissed as a late and derivative work. The article argues that it was written much
earlier, in the rst few decades of the eleventh century, and is both a signicant
example of late Old English hagiographic literature and an important witness to early
legends about King Alfred and his posthumous reputation.

The Old English Life of St Neot is important for many reasons. It is one of
the small number of surviving legends of saints in Old English prose that are
not by lfric, and one of only three in that group which deal with English
saints.1 It is one of very few examples of Old English literary composition in
the period immediately following lfric and Wulfstan in the eleventh century,
and provides important though hitherto unnoticed evidence for the inuence
of lfric on subsequent authors. It has much material on St Neot that is otherwise unrecorded and, unlike nearly all the other saints lives, appears not to
be a translation of a known Latin source. It is the earliest reection in English
literature of the cultural relations between Anglo-Saxon England and Celtic
Cornwall, and relates to a key period in the history of those two regions. Not
least, it is much the fullest Old English witness to the posthumous reputation
of King Alfred, and one with a strikingly negative view of the king, as well as
being one of the earliest witnesses (perhaps the earliest) to the story of Alfred
and the cakes. It is thus both an important representative of vernacular literature in late Anglo-Saxon England and a striking record of the way in which
Alfred was viewed in that period. Despite all this, it is little read and seldom
discussed, and the last published edition was printed nearly a century ago, with
no annotation or introduction.2
1

Of approximately sixty-eight surviving saints lives in Old English prose, about fty are by
lfric. The other two anonymous lives of English saints are those of Chad and Guthlac.
Jane Robertss survey of anonymous Old English lives of English saints (The English Saints
Remembered in Old English Anonymous Homilies, Old English Prose: Basic Readings, ed. P. E.
Szarmach (New York and London, 2000), pp. 43362) also lists pieces on Mildred, Seaxburh,
Paulinus and Augustine of Canterbury but these are all very short notices rather than full lives.
Early English Homilies from the Twelfth Century MS Vesp. D. xiv, ed. R. D. N. Warner, EETS os
152 (London, 1917 for 1915), 12934. There is also an unpublished edition by M. P. Richards,

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Malcolm Godden
The lack of interest may be in part a hangover from the Victorian disparagement of the early lives of St Neot because of their negative picture of Alfred,
in the work of patriotic historians such as Charles Plummer, who complained
in his Ford lectures of 1901: It is pitiable that modern writers should lend
even half an ear to these wretched tales, which besmirch the fair fame of our
hero king, in order to exalt a phantom saint.3 But the modern neglect is probably more because of the now dominant consensus that the Life is not an Old
English work at all but an early Middle English one, composed in the twelfth
century and so too late and too derivative to tell us about Anglo-Saxon literature and history and at the same time too early to be seen as part of Middle
English literature. Yet the case for that late date has never been presented in
any substance: it is one of those conventions of modern scholarship that are
almost universally accepted but need to be questioned. A variety of evidence,
including language, relation to other texts, content and the treatment of Alfred
and the vikings, coheres to suggest that the Life was composed early in the
eleventh century, a good century earlier than the now accepted date, and has
much to tell us about the literary and cultural history of that period. That is not
to say, of course, that its view of King Alfred is any the more likely to be sound
evidence for the historical king, though it does have much to say about his early
reputation.
the date and origin of t he old en g l i s h l i f e
Neot was originally a Cornish saint, it seems, probably living in the ninth
century, in the last period of Cornish independence, but like Cornwall itself he
was steadily taken over by the English.4 The earliest reference to him appears
to be the curious story in Assers Life of Alfred, supposedly written in 893,
which reports that in his youth Alfred visited a church in Cornwall while on
a hunting trip and was miraculously healed there, and identies the church as
the one where St Gueriir rests, and now St Neot lies there too.5 The phrasing presumably implies that (the otherwise unknown) St Guerir was buried
there at the time of Alfreds supposed visit in the 860s, but that Neot had

3
4

An Edition and Translation of the Old English of Seinte Neote (unpubl. PhD dissertation,
Wisconsin Univ., 1971).
C. Plummer, The Life and Times of King Alfred the Great (Oxford, 1902), p. 58.
For Neots Cornish origins, see N. Orme, The Saints of Cornwall (Oxford, 2000), pp. 2003.
For the gradual (and apparently largely peaceful) appropriation of Cornwall by West Saxon
kings in the ninth and tenth centuries, see esp. C. Insley, Athelstan, Charters and the English
in Cornwall, Charters and Charter Scholarship in Britain and Ireland, ed. M. T. Flanagan and J. A.
Green (Basingstoke, 2005), pp. 1531.
Assers Life of King Alfred, together with the Annals of Saint Neots erroneously Ascribed to Asser, ed. W.
H. Stevenson (Oxford, 1904), reissued with an introduction by Dorothy Whitelock (Oxford,
1959), ch. 74.

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The Old English Life of St Neot

died and been buried there since, or possibly that his body had been moved
there from another site. If the reference is original,6 it indicates that there was
already some kind of cult of St Neot by 893, centred on a Cornish church
which in anecdote at least had a connection with King Alfred, and that Neot
was thought to have lived in Alfreds time, or earlier.7 At some time in the following century or so, however, the story of Neot was recycled to present him
as an English saint from Glastonbury who had moved to Cornwall in search
of solitude in the wilderness. Then around 1000 it was claimed that his body
had been stolen from the Cornish church where he had been buried and taken
to the monastery of Eynesbury in eastern England, near Cambridge, which
became the new centre of his cult and the new St Neots. Shortly afterwards his
bones were supposedly transferred again to Crowland in the East Anglian fens,
which also claimed him as its saint. In the process, he became a kinsman of
King Alfred, in some versions his brother, and his main claim to fame became
his key role in the restoration of Wessex after the viking invasion.
The Old English text runs to just two hundred lines in the standard edition.
It is cast as a sermon on the saints festival, with a peroration on the end of
the world, but the body of the text is concerned with Neot himself and King
Alfred. It describes Neots ascetic and devout life as a youth and then as a
priest at Glastonbury, his ordination by St lfheah, his seven visits to Rome
and his subsequent move to a more isolated life in Cornwall where he is visited
by angels and his dropped sandal is miraculously saved from a fox. There too
he is visited by King Alfred and Neot rebukes him for his wickedness and foretells that he will be expelled from his kingdom, but promises that if he thinks
of Neot in the depths of his misery the saint will help him. Neot then dies and
is buried with honour in Cornwall. His prediction is soon fullled. The Danes
under Guthrum threaten invasion, Alfred ees in fear and hides in Athelney
where he takes refuge unrecognized with a swineherd, whose wife rebukes him
for his gluttony and makes him tend her cakes. But St Neot then appears to
him and promises to restore his army and defeat his enemies. This duly comes
to pass: Guthrum comes to Alfred seeking baptism and departs the country,
Alfred is restored and becomes famous for his learning. The text ends with
6

Stevenson (Assers Life, p. 297) thought it an early (pre-1000) interpolation; Simon Keynes
and Michael Lapidge (Alfred the Great: Assers Life of King Alfred and other Contemporary Sources
(Harmondsworth, 1983), p. 254), thought it not impossible that it was original, but Lapidge
in The Annals of St Neots with Vita Prima Sancti Neoti (ed. D. Dumville and M. Lapidge, The
AS Chronicle: a Collaborative Edition, ed. D. Dumville and S. Keynes 17 (Cambridge, 1985),
lxxxvi) argued that it was original; Alfred Smyth (King Alfred the Great (Oxford, 1995), p. 210)
thought it original but viewed the Life itself as the work of Byrhtferth c. 1000.
Orme (The Saints of Cornwall) suggests that Neot may have been a priest in attendance at the
church at the time of Alfreds visit.

195

Malcolm Godden
a lament for the good times of the past and the tribulations and sins of the
present, as the worlds end approaches.
The Life survives only in a manuscript of the mid-twelfth century, London,
British Library, Cotton Vespasian D. xiv, ff. 4169, produced at Rochester
or Canterbury.8 But most of the contents of this manuscript are clearly of
pre-Conquest origin: thirty-four of the fty-three items are the work of
lfric, and two others are Old English works known from earlier copies.
Of the remaining seventeen, only two can be positively dated to the twelfth
century: a sermon on the Virgin Mary translated from one by Ralph dEscures,
bishop of Rochester 110814 and archbishop of Canterbury 111421; and a
brief moral treatise translated from a section of the Elucidarium of Honorius
Augustodunensis, itself written probably around 1100 when Honorius was
in the circle of Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury.9 Most of the items by
lfric in this manuscript appear to be derived from much earlier copies made
in Canterbury and Rochester.10 On the face of it, then, the manuscript contains a compilation of mainly pre-Conquest works available in Canterbury or
Rochester libraries supplemented with a few post-Conquest items from the
same locality.
Early commentators suggested that the Old English Life of Neot was written
by lfric, largely on the grounds that most of the other items in the manuscript were by him and he was a noted writer of vernacular saints lives.11 But
Plummer in 1902 and Stevenson in 1904 dismissed this notion on the grounds
that lfric would not have made the anachronistic reference to St lfheah
as Neots mentor,12 and Stevenson argued that in any case the Life must have
been written much later, since it is difficult to believe that an English author
of the eleventh century could ascribe tyrannical conduct to King Alfred.13
Plummer too preferred a late date, in the late eleventh or early twelfth century.
8

10
11
12
13

For the origin and provenance, see M. P. Richards, On the Date and Provenance of MS
Cotton Vespasian D. xiv ff. 4169, Manuscripta 17 (1973), 315; R. Handley, British Museum
MS Cotton Vespasian D. xiv, N&Q 21 (1974), 24350; E. M. Treharne, The Date and
Origins of Three Twelfth-Century Old English Manuscripts, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts and Their
Heritage, ed. P. Pulsiano and E. M. Treharne (Aldershot, 1998), pp. 22753. The second part
of the manuscript is an entirely unrelated ninth-century volume.
For the view that Honoriuss cognomen does not mean of Autun and that he was probably German, see V. I. J. Flint, Honorius Augustodunensis (d. c. 1140), Oxford Dictionary
of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004), [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/
article/53485].
See lfrics Catholic Homilies: the Second Series, Text, ed. M. R. Godden, EETS ss 5 (Oxford,
1979), xlxli, lxlxii.
S. Turner, The History of the Anglo-Saxons, 3rd ed., 3 vols. (London 1820) II, 60; R. Wlcker,
Ein angelschsischen Leben des Neot, Anglia 3 (1880), 10214, at 104.
Plummer, Life and Times, p. 55; Assers Life, ed. Stevenson, pp. 2589.
Assers Life, ed. Stevenson, p. 260.

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The Old English Life of St Neot

Mary Richards writing in 1981 argued for an earlier date, around the middle of
the eleventh century,14 but her views have not found favour and a long list of
scholars have cited it as a twelfth-century composition, though in most cases
without giving reasons.15
Relations with other Old English Texts
Whenever the author wrote, he was remarkably familiar with Old English
homiletic and hagiographic writing. Dorothy Whitelock noted the close parallel between the Lifes apocalyptic conclusion and the sermons of Wulfstan,
and Richards added some striking parallels with the Old English Bede and a
Blickling homily.16 The conclusion announcing the coming end of the world
is packed with characteristic phrases from Wulfstans apocalyptic sermons on
the same theme. Compare for instance the Lifes y hit is e wyrse wide on
eore, and beo an we mugen understanden, t hit is neh domesdge17 with
Wulfstans Ac y hit is e wyrse wide on earde e man oft herede t man
scolde hyrwan.18 Or again compare Ne spare nu se fder an sune, ne nan
mann oren, ac lc man win ongean oren, and Godes lage ne geme, swa
swa me scolde19 with the following from Wulfstans Sermo ad Anglos: Ne bearh
nu foroft gesib gesibban e ma e fremdan, ne fder his suna, ne hwilum
14
15

16
17
18
19

The Medieval Hagiography of St. Neot, AB 99 (1981), 25978, at 263.

Lapidge (citing E. G. Stanley in support), Annals, ed. Dumville and Lapidge, p. cxvi; P.
Clemoes in lfrics Catholic Homilies: the First Series, Text, ed. P. Clemoes, EETS ss 17 (Oxford,
1997), 17; D. G. Scragg, The Corpus of Anonymous Lives and their Manuscript Contexts,
Holy Men and Holy Women: Old English Prose Saints Lives and their Contexts, ed. P. Szarmach
(Albany, 1996), pp. 20930, at p. 219; Roberts, The English Saints Remembered, p. 447; J.
Proud, Old English Prose Saints Lives in the Twelfth Century: the Evidence of the Extant
Manuscripts, Rewriting Old English in the Twelfth Century, ed. M. Swan and E. M. Treharne
(Cambridge, 2000), pp. 11731, at p. 128; Old English Homilies from MS Bodley 343, ed. S. Irvine,
EETS os 302 (Oxford, 1993), liii, n. 1; Smyth, King Alfred the Great, p. 327. In an earler article
(Vernacular Homilies and Prose Saints Lives before lfric, ASE 8 (1979), 22377, at 261)
Scragg had listed Neot among pieces that may belong to the pre-lfrician tradition though
that is scarcely possible given the inuences of lfric and Wulfstan noted below. Keynes
and Lapidge (Alfred the Great) suggested the late eleventh century or early twelfth, and Elaine
Treharne (in Periodization and Categorization: the Silence of (the) English in the Twelfth
Century, New Medieval Literatures 8, ed. R. Copeland, W. Scase and D. Wallace (Brepols, 2007),
24875, at 265) suggested a date after 1080.
Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, ed. D. Whitelock (London, 1939), p. 18, rephrased with more certainty
in the third edition (London, 1963); Richards, An Edition, p. 76.
Early English Homilies, ed. Warner, p. 133, lines 323, and so things are the worse widely on
earth, and from that we can perceive that it is near doomsday.
The Homilies of Wulfstan, ed. D. Bethurum (Oxford, 1957), XXI, lines 1416, and so things are
the worse widely in the land, so that what should be scorned is often praised.
Early English Homilies, ed. Warner, p. 133, lines 346, the father does not spare the son, nor
anyone another, but everyone strives against others and cares nothing for Gods law, as one
ought to do.

197

Malcolm Godden
bearn his agenum fder, ne broer orum, and mycel is neodearf manna
gehwylcum t he Godes lage gyme, together with Ne man God ne lufa
swa swa man scolde from another homily.20 Or this from slightly earlier in the
conclusion to the Life: and se inc nu wrrest and geapest, e oerne mig
beswican and his hte him of anymen,21 with this from another later sermon
by Wulfstan: Ac nu inc e wrra and mycele e snotera se e can mid
leasungan wwerdlice werian and mid unsoe so oferswian.22
There are echoes too of other Old English homilies in this conclusion. Its
Nu is ighwanen heof and wop echoes the Blickling homilys nu is ghwonon hream and wop, nu is heaf ghwonon.23 The reference to the decline
of crops, and wstmes, iger gea on wude gea on felde, ne synd swa gode, swa
heo iu wron, ac yfele swye eall eore wstme, closely matches the similar
passage in the anonymous Sunday letter homily Napier 44: ealle as eorlice
ing seon ancerrede for manna ungeleaffulnysse, t hio ne sion swa gode, swa hio
iu wron.24
What has not been noted before is the parallels with the writings of lfric,
which suggest an author steeped in his works.25 Thus the Life begins with these
words: Mn a leofeste, we wylle eow cyen beo sumen dle emb yssen
halgen, e we todig wurige, t eower geleafe e trumre seo; for an mancynn
behofe godcundre lare, t heo urh a mugen to lifes wege becumen.26 The
italicized words combine the opening of lfrics sermon on the Forty Soldiers:
We wylla eow gereccan ra feowertigra cempena rowunge, t eower geleafa
20

21
22
23

24

25
26

Homilies of Wulfstan, ed. Bethurum, XX (BH), lines 568, 201, kinsman has not protected
kinsman any more than a stranger, nor father his son, nor at times a child his own father, nor
brother his brother, there is great need for everyone to care for Gods law; ibid. V, line 29,
no one loves God as one ought to.
Early English Homilies, ed. Warner, p. 133, lines 302, and he now seems most wary and clever
who can deceive another and take his property from him.
Homilies of Wulfstan, ed. Bethurum, XXI, lines 235, but he now seems more wary and much
the wiser who can most condently protect himself with lies and defeat truth with untruth.
Early English Homilies, ed. Warner, p. 133, lines 267, now everywhere there is lamentation
and weeping; The Blickling Homilies, ed. R. Morris, EETS os 58, 63, 73 (Oxford, 187480, repr.
1967), X, p. 115, lines 1516, now there is everywhere crying and weeping, there is lamentation everywhere. (Noted Richards, An Edition, p. 78.)
Early English Homilies, ed. Warner, p. 133, lines 279, and crops, both in woods and elds,
are not as good as they were of old, but all the crops of the earth are becoming much worse;
Wulfstan: Sammlung der ihm zugeschriebenen Homilien nebst Untersuchungen ber ihre Echtheit, ed. A. S.
Napier (Berlin, 1883), XLIV, p. 220, lines 235, all these earthly things are corrupted because
of peoples faithlessness, so that they are not as good as they were of old.
Richards (Medieval Hagiography, p. 263) noted a general debt to lfrics saints lives but not
any verbal correspondences.
Early English Homilies, ed. Warner, p. 129, lines 47, Beloved people, I want to tell you something about this saint whom we honour today, so that your faith may be the stronger, for men
need divine instruction so that they may come through that to the way of life.

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The Old English Life of St Neot

e trumre sy onne ge gehyra hu egenlice hi rowodon for Criste27 with these
words from his preface to the rst series of Catholic Homilies: for am e
menn behoa godre lare.28
Its account of Neot praying at the moment of death uses an expression that
is common in lfrics saints lives but not found elsewhere in Old English;
compare:
and a on an ytemesten dige his handbreden up to heofone astrehte29

with lfric on St Cuthbert:

astrehtum handbredum to heofenlicum rodore;

or on St Benedict:
and his handbredu astrehte wi heofonas weard;

or again on St Oswald:
and swa hwr swa he ws he wurode fre God up awendum handbredum wi s
heofones weard.30

One might note too that the word handbrede in the sense palm of the hand is
rare in general in Old English and is not recorded again in that sense after the
eleventh century. Again, the account of Neots resistance to the devils invisible arrows of temptation: a ongann se ungeseowenlice feond him togeanes
andigen, swa him lc god ofinc. Ongann a snden his ttrige wpnen, t synd
costnungen, togeanes an halgen were. Ac he one feond oferswa mid rihten geleafen urh
Godes gescyldnysse31 is similar to lfrics account of Cuthberts resistance: se e
r foroft. a ttrigan an. deoicere costnunge. on him sylfum adwscte. urh gescyldnysse.
soes drihtnes.32 We may note too the account of the departure of Guthrum:
27

28
29
30

31

32

lfrics Lives of Saints, ed. W. W. Skeat, EETS os 76, 82, 94, 114 (London, 18811900, repr. as
two volumes 1966), XI, lines 12, I want to tell you about the passion of the forty soldiers,
so that your faith may be stronger when you hear how bravely they suffered for Christ.
CH I, ed. Clemoes, Praefatio, lines 578, because men need good instruction.
Early English Homilies, ed. Warner, p. 132, lines 45, and then on the last day he stretched his
palms up towards heaven.
CH II, ed. Godden, X, line 81, with his palms stretched towards the heavenly rmament;
ibid. XI, lines 47980, and stretched his palms towards heaven; lfrics Lives, ed. Skeat,
XXVI, lines 11718, and wherever he was he always honoured God with his palms turned
up towards heaven.
Early English Homilies, ed. Warner, p. 130, lines 1721, then the invisible foe began to be
hostile to him, as all good offends him. He began then to send his poisoned weapons, which
are trials, against the holy man. But he overcame the foe with true faith through Gods
protection.
CH II, ed. Godden, X, lines 12931, who very often extinguished the poisoned arrows of
diabolic trial in himself through the protection of the true Lord.

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Malcolm Godden
and syen gesund gewende mid his herelafe to his agenen earde mid ealre
sibbe.33
The phrase mid ealre sibbe otherwise occurs only in lfrics homily on
SS Simon and Jude and mid ealre sibbe eow undereodan34 and there
too forms an alliterative unit in lfrics characteristic fashion, as it does
here. The word herelaf remnant of an army, referring here to the defeat of
Guthrums viking force, occurs some thirteen times in Old English, ten of
them in lfrics work, mainly in alliterative contexts; the others are in The
Battle of Brunanburh and a gloss to Aldhelm, suggesting it was not a normal
prose word.35 It does not appear again in later English, unless the Life of St
Neot is an instance. All of these passages in the Life are part of the narrative
of Neots life rather than the homiletic opening and conclusion, but none
has parallels in its presumed source, the Latin Vita I (to be discussed below).
Again, the clause and rtoecan t ece lif36 is one which the author could
have found verbatim in at least two places in lfric37 and nowhere else in the
extant corpus.
Like lfric too, the author picks up characteristic phrasing from Old
English verse. His reference to the restored king, and his word wide sprang,
echoes the verse half-lines lof wide sprang (Fates of the Apostles) and bld wide
sprang (Beowulf), but also parallels lfrics alliterative line swa t ure word
sprang wide geond as eoran (Lives of Saints XIII).38
The parallel with the Old English Bede cited by Richards is in some ways
more striking than any of these. When Neot appears, after his death, in a vision
to King Alfred, in ight from his enemies and in the depths of despair, he asks
him what he would give if someone would promise him relief: Eala, u king,
hwt wylt u to mede gesyllen an e e fram yssen unenyssen alyse?39
This is remarkably reminiscent of the Old English Bedes description of the
words of a similar visionary gure to the future king Edwin, also in ight
from his enemies and in similar depths of despair: Ac gesaga me hwylce mede

33
34
35
36
37
38

39

Early English Homilies, ed. Warner, p. 133, lines 1617, and afterwards returned unharmed
with the remainder of his army to his own land, in complete peace.
CH II, ed. Godden, XXXIII, lines 323, and [will] receive you in complete peace.
The gures are taken from The Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, ed. A. diPaolo Healey
(Toronto, 2009) (http://www.doe.utoronto.ca/pub/webcorpus.html).
Early English Homilies, ed. Warner, p. 130, line 28; and in addition the eternal life.
CH I, ed. Clemoes, IV, line 61; ibid., XXII, lines 1956.
Early English Homilies, ed. Warner, p. 133, line 18; Fates of the Apostles 6, in The Vercelli Book, ed.
G. P. Krapp, ASPR 2; Beowulf 18 (Klaebers Beowulf, ed. R. D. Fulk, R. E. Bjork and J. D. Niles
(Toronto, 2008)); lfrics Lives, ed. Skeat, XIII, line 151.
Early English Homilies, ed. Warner, p. 133, lines 34, O king, what will you give as a reward to
one who releases you from these hardships?

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The Old English Life of St Neot

u wille syllan am men, gif hwylc sy, tte ec from issum nearonessum
alyse.40
Some of these parallels may be coincidental, but overall this looks like
the work of someone not copying from Old English sources but thoroughly
imbued with their language, style and modes of expression and using his familiarity with them and their techniques to write up the story of St Neot in similar
fashion. Knowledge of lfrics work would not be surprising in a twelfthcentury author, given the number of manuscripts from that period which
include his work, and there is some evidence for a knowledge of Wulfstans
work in that period, though much less.41 A copy of the Old English version of
Bede was glossed by the tremulous scribe of Worcester at the end of the century.42 But although there is evidence of such Old English texts being excerpted
or expanded or occasionally recast in the twelfth century and even into the
thirteenth (or at least there are examples of such adaptations which rst appear
in late manuscripts), the kind of wholesale recomposition using phrases and
expressions drawn from lfric and Wulfstan and others that we see in the Life
of Neot, showing remarkable familiarity with a range of Old English texts,
and condence in imitating their language and style, is without parallel in the
twelfth century, though there are many examples from the eleventh, if mostly
less impressive and original than the Neot Life. Similarly, the closing warning
about the nearness of doomsday could in principle belong to a later period, but
it is decidedly more characteristic of the decades surrounding the year 1000, as
in the writings of Wulfstan.
Language
One reason for dating the Life in the twelfth century appears to be the language, which is cited by some commentators as a factor.43 Certainly the extant
version shows the characteristic features of twelfth-century English in spelling
40

41

42
43

The Old English Version of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. T. A. Miller, EETS
os 95 and 96 (London, 189091), 128, lines 257, but tell me what reward you will give the
person, if such there be, who releases you from these privations. Bede does not identify the
visitant but the contemporary Whitby Life of Gregory the Great (The Earliest Life of Gregory the
Great by an Anonymous Monk of Whitby, ed. B. Colgrave (Lawrence, KS, 1968), ch. 16), which
gives a slightly different form of the story, identies him as St Paulinus. Another version of
the vision is mentioned in the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto (see below), where the visitant is
identied as St Peter.
See e.g. M. Swan, lfrics Catholic Homilies in the Twelfth Century, and J. Wilcox, Wulfstan
and the Twelfth Century, Rewriting Old English in the Twelfth Century, ed. Swan and Treharne,
pp. 6282 and 8397.
See W. Collier, The Tremulous Worcester Hand and Gregorys Pastoral Care, Rewriting Old
English in the Twelfth Century, ed. Swan and Treharne, pp. 195208.
See e.g. Lapidge, Annals, ed. Dumville and Lapidge, p. cxvi; Scragg, The Corpus, p. 219.

201

Malcolm Godden
and accidence, but that is equally true of the same manuscripts copies of
lfrics writings, which are known to have been originally composed in the
period 9901010, and it tells us nothing of the date of composition. Nothing
linguistically distinguishes the passages or phrases borrowed from lfric and
Wulfstan from the ones apparently composed by the author. The one specic
item cited by those in favour of a late date, the use of the indenite pronoun
me, is a case in point: it is indeed characteristic of early Middle English, but
since it appears in a twelfth-century copy of an lfric homily in another manuscript, for original Old English mon, it is clearly possible for it to have been
introduced by scribes copying earlier work.44 The vocabulary and style, on the
other hand, are thoroughly characteristic of Old English work. As far as I can
discover there is not a single word in the text that was not current in tenthcentury English or earlier, and one might expect a text composed in the twelfth
century to betray some signs of the changes in lexis that are generally evident at
that date. The sermon on the Virgin Mary in the same manuscript, for instance,
reveals its twelfth-century origins almost immediately by its diction, with bestuddede, not found in Old English but apparently derived from French or possibly
Medieval Latin, in the opening lines.45 Moreover, some of the vocabulary in the
Old English Life would have been distinctly obsolescent by the twelfth century,
such as handbredu palm, herelaf remnants of an army, and law.46 Nor is there
anything in the phrasing or syntax which might suggest a post-Conquest date,
apart from changes which might equally be due to a scribe. One cannot rule
out the possibility that the Life is a skilful imitation of pre-Conquest writing
by a twelfth-century author capable of reproducing the language of an earlier
century without stumbling; but the notion that the language actually points to
twelfth-century composition has nothing to be said for it.
The Latin vitae
It was long thought that the Old English Life was based on some early lost
and unrecorded Latin vita, and that this vita was also the source for the earliest
Latin lives, which survive only in manuscripts of the twelfth century and later
and were generally thought to have been written after the Conquest.47 But then
44

45
46
47

Scragg, The Corpus, p. 219; for the lfric example, see Old English Homilies, ed. Irvine, III,
line 162 and note on p. 75. My colleague Dr Winfried Rudolf tells me that it is also found in
the mid-eleventh century Canterbury manuscript, London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius
A. iii.
Early English Homilies, ed. Warner, p. 134, line 10. (For the etymology, see the entry under
studien in the Middle English Dictionary at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med/.)
For , see A. Fischer, Lexical Change in Late Old English, The History and the Dialects of
English, ed. A. Fischer (Heidelberg, 1989), pp. 10314.
Assers Life, ed. Stevenson, pp. 25960; G. H. Doble, S. Neot: Patron of St. Neot, Cornwall, and
St. Neots, Huntingdonshire (Exeter, 1929); Richards, Medieval Hagiography, p. 273.

202

The Old English Life of St Neot

Keynes and Lapidge in their inuential collection of 1983 proposed a different theory, that the Old English Life, which they dated to the late eleventh or
early twelfth century, was directly based on one of the surviving Latin lives
(designated Vita I ), which they apparently dated early in the eleventh century.48
And in 1985 Lapidge developed that view, arguing that the Life was a twelfthcentury work based on Vita I, which he thought was composed around 1050 by
an author trained in England but not himself English.49 Vita I is much longer
and more verbose than the Old English Life but does tell the same general
story and there are a few points of moderately close agreement in detail. Yet
on the whole they are very different texts and there is much in the Old English
Life that cannot derive from Vita I and nothing that would positively point to
the use of the Vita as the primary source. The two passages cited by Lapidge,
on the location of the hermitage in Cornwall and the burial of the saint, do
agree in content but that does not preclude the earlier theory that both were
drawing on an earlier lost Latin vita. If the Old English author did use Vita I,
he has radically transformed the structure and content of the story in a way that
is unusual with Old English saints legends, rearranging the events of his life in
a different order, omitting much and adding a great deal of new material. The
Vitas extensive detail on the monastic life of Neot and his relations with his
fellow monks is entirely absent from the Old English Life, as is the whole long
sequel on the translation of his body, while the Life includes the story of the
fox and the sandal, many biblical quotations that are not in the Vita, and much
other new detail. Particularly striking is the Lifes failure to mention that Neot
was a kinsman of Alfred (specically a brother in two of the manuscripts of the
Vita); it seems a surprisingly important detail to ignore if it was in his source.
Another representative difference that points towards the earlier view, that
the source was an earlier Latin vita, is the reference to Rome. The Old English
Life reports that Neot visited Rome seven times, apparently before his move
to Cornwall. Vita I records instead that he made a (single) visit to Rome seven
years after his move from Glastonbury to the wilder landscape of Cornwall. It
seems likely that the two accounts have a common source here and possible
that the Old English detail is based on a misinterpretation or textual corruption
of something like the reading of the Latin text. But Vita I has the expression
uno integro lustro annisque duobus, that is, one whole lustrum (i.e. a period of
48
49

Keynes and Lapidge, Alfred the Great, pp. 1978.

Annals, ed. Dumville and Lapidge, p. cxvi. For doubts about so early a date of composition for
Vita I, see the reviews of this volume by N. Brooks (EHR 103 (1988), 4712) and J. Campbell
(N&Q 34 (1987), 51719). On the other hand, Alfred Smyth has argued vigorously for an
earlier date, suggesting that the author was in fact Byrhtferth of Ramsey or a close associate,
writing around 1000 (King Alfred the Great, pp. 34154). But the theory of its use for the Old
English Life has not I think been questioned.

203

Malcolm Godden
ve years) and two years. It is impossible that the Old English author misread
this as seven journeys, but easy to imagine that Vita I was recasting an earlier
and simpler Latin text which did use the numeral septem.50
Further pointers against Vita I as a source are the many points in which the
Life agrees not with Vita I but with the other relatively early Latin Vita, known
as Vita II.51 This essentially tells the same story as Vita I but in quite different
words, with only occasional verbal parallels. It lacks the long nal section on
the translation of the saint, but includes a sequence of miracles performed by
Neot in Cornwall, as well as a different opening section on his parentage. The
opening clearly dates it (in its present form) after the Norman Conquest, and
it has generally been taken as a rewriting of Vita I,52 but if so the verbal parallels are remarkably sparse and the omission of the translation of the saint is
surprising. Richards noted several signicant points of agreement between the
Old English Life and Vita II that are not shared by Vita I,53 and another is the
prominent role of the spring (fons, wtersea). Both texts mention a spring or
springs as a feature of Neots hermitage:
Erat ibi (ut aiunt) et est usque hodie fons quidam irriguus, qui totum locum reddebat
aptiorem, gratam ei conferens amnitatem.54
and he him r wununge getimbrode on swye fgeren stowe, and myrige wterseaes r abuten stande, and a synden swye wynsume of to ycgene.55

Both texts then go on to locate an important miracle at this spring, when the
saint is standing in it in his usual fashion saying his psalms:
50
51

52

53
54
55

The context in the Life text does not allow the possibility that seven times is a scribal error
for seven years after in the transmission of the Old English text.
This was originally edited by Jean Mabillon in his Acta Sanctorum collection (9 vols., Paris,
16681701), and reprinted in the Bollandists Acta Sanctorum quotquot toto orbe coluntur (Antwerp
and Brussels, 16431940), July VII (hereafter AS). Citations are from the latter, and hereafter
referred to in the text as Vita II.
Alfreds Life, ed. Stevenson, p. 257; Lapidge, Annals, ed. Dumville and Lapidge, p. cxii. Doble
(S. Neot, p. 20) was more doubtful, and Richards (Medieval Hagiography, p. 273) concluded
that the Old English Life, Vita I and Vita II were independently derived from a lost Latin vita.
The manuscript used by Mabillon, now lost, was apparently of the twelfth century and housed
at Bec, which by that date was the mother-house of St Neots in Cambridgeshire. The only
other known copy is a thirteenth-century manuscript containing lives of four British saints,
Winifred, Erkenwald, Neot and Wulfstan, used and probably written at the Cistercian abbey
of Holm Cultram (Cumberland). Richards suggested that Vita II was composed at Exeter,
Lapidge suggested Glastonbury.
Richards, Medieval Hagiography, p. 274.
Vita II, AS, 28, There was there, as they say, and is still up to the present day, a well-watered
spring, which made the whole place more tting, conferring a welcome beauty to it.
Early English Homilies, ed. Warner, p. 130, lines 810, And he built a dwelling for himself
there, in a very beautiful spot, and pleasant pools stand around there, and those are very
pleasant to drink from.

204

The Old English Life of St Neot

Factum est autem in una dierum, ut idem Domini Servus more solito staret in fonte,
in quo solitus erat ad rigoris incrementum totum ex integro Psalterium persolvere.56
Hit gelamp sume dige, t se halge were on rnemorgen digellice ferde to his wterseae, and r his drohtnunge and his salmsanges on an wtere hnacodan leomen
adreah, swa his gewune ws.57

There is nothing remotely similar to this setting in Vita I. But the Life is not
here borrowing from Vita II either since the following miracle is quite different in the two texts. In the Life the saint is interrupted at his prayers by
the sound of approaching horsemen; in his ight from them so as not to be
seen, he drops a sandal, and later sends his servant to fetch it; the servant
arrives to nd a fox carrying it off, but God sends the fox into a fatal sleep
and the sandal is retrieved from its jaws. In Vita II the saint is interrupted
by a hunt pursuing a deer, which he saves from the hounds.58 Vita II has
several of these miracle stories involving animals, including an account of
wild stags volunteering to take the place of the saints stolen yoke-oxen, and
all have analogues in the medieval lives of other Cornish saints, as does the
story of the fox and the sandal in the Old English Life.59 Given the similarity of topography and setting it seems likely that the Old English Life and
Vita II were both drawing on a south-western collection of miracles of Neot,
whereas Vita I is evidently a product of eastern England and has nothing of
that miracle collection.
One detail in particular seems to tell against either Vita I or Vita II as a
source for the Old English Life and to suggest an early date for it. The Life
reports that It says in writings that this holy man went to Glastonbury in the
time of St lfheah, the holy bishop, and received the priesthood from him.60
Both the early Latin vitae mention in passing the bishop who ordained Neot
but neither names him or says any more about him. If the author of the Life
really did get this fact from writings, the texts in question were not either of
these two Latin vitae. But the issue has become confused with what is really
56

57

58

59
60

Vita II, AS, 33, It happened one day that the Lords servant was standing in his usual fashion
in the spring, in which he was accustomed to perform the whole psalter, to enhance the
austerity.
Early English Homilies, ed. Warner, p. 130, 2932, It happened one day, that the saint went
early in the morning to his pool, and there performed his services and psalm-singing in the
water with bare limbs, as his custom was.
Vita II also lacks two signicant details which the Life shares with Vita I: the location of
Neots hermitage near Petrocstow and the length of time between his burial and his rst
translation (for which see below).
Doble, S. Neot, pp. 2930.
Early English Homilies, ed. Warner, p. 129, lines 247: Hit sig on gewritan, t es halge
were to Glstingebyrig gecerred wre on Sanctes lfeges dagen s halgen biscopes, and t
him underfeng one halge sacerdhad.

205

Malcolm Godden
a separate point. The vitae say at an earlier stage in the narrative that while
at the monastery of Glastonbury Neot gave advice to a fellow-monk called
Athelwold, who was afterwards bishop of Winchester, apparently meaning
the reformer St Athelwold, who was at Glastonbury in the 940s according to
legend. Vita II also identies Dunstan as the head of the monastery at the time.
One of the four manuscripts of Vita I has lfheah (or rather Helphego) instead
of Athelwold, and the textual relations suggest that Athelwold is the original
reading here (however mistaken historically). If so, it might seem to follow that
the Old English Life with its lfheah reects a corruption that developed
in the transmission of Vita I and must therefore be based on a manuscript of
Vita I rather than an antecedent source.61 But the Old English life does not
have anything resembling the story involving Athelwold, and its lfheah corresponds not to the Vitas Athelwold/lfheah, monk of Glastonbury, but to
the unnamed bishop of the Vita who ordained St Neot.62
But there is further signicance in the Lifes reference to St lfheah. The
only St lfheah generally recognized in medieval tradition was the famous
archbishop of Canterbury (100512) who was captured by the vikings when
they stormed the city in 1011, held as a hostage for some time and then brutally
killed in 1012. A cult soon developed and he became a major Canterbury saint,
until eventually eclipsed by a more famously murdered archbishop, Thomas
Becket. But he would be impossibly late to be a contemporary of Neot and
Alfred (hence in part the modern belief in a late date of composition for the
Life). But there is an alternative lfheah, lfheah the Bald, who was bishop
of Winchester 93451: he has been discounted on the grounds that he was
not a saint, but he was considered one at Winchester at least, in the later tenth
and eleventh centuries,63 and his well-known role in ordaining the two great
reformers, St Dunstan and St Athelwold, shortly before they moved from
King Athelstans court to the monastery at Glastonbury, at the outset of the
monastic reform movement, would have made him an appropriate gure to
identify as the bishop who ordained Neot when he went to Glastonbury. The
dates are still too late for a supposed contemporary of Alfred but since the
two Latin vitae agree with the Old English Life in placing Neots period at
Glastonbury in the time of Dunstan and Athelwold, despite the anachronism,
this would seem to be a feature of the original legend on which all three texts
61
62

63

So Lapidge, Annals, ed. Dumville and Lapidge, p. cxvii.

If the change from thelwold to lfheah, reected in MS B of Vita I, is not just a coincidence, it may reect not so much an independent attempt at correction as an alteration to a
name known from an alternative, and perhaps earlier, vita.
See Wulfstan of Winchester, Vita Sancti Athelwoldi, ed. M. Lapidge and M. Winterbottom
(Oxford, 1991), chs. 8 and 14, and p. 12, n. 1.

206

The Old English Life of St Neot

draw.64 Nor should such misrepresentations of chronology necessarily suggest
that the authors were all writing at some great distance of time when events
were long forgotten, as Plummer and Stevenson suggested. The radical inconsistencies over the date of Dunstans birth between the late-tenth-century life
of St Dunstan and the contemporary lives of St Athelwold show how quickly
discrepancies could develop. If the Life is referring to lfheah the Bald, it has
implications for the date of composition. For an author writing any time after
the 1020s, a reference to the holy bishop St lfheah would inevitably have
implied lfheah of Canterbury. If he meant lfheah the Bald he was probably
writing in the 1020s or earlier.
All told the earlier view seems right, that the Old English Life was not
dependent on either of the earliest Latin vitae extant, I or II, but was an adaptation of some earlier lost vita which was in some respects closer to the original
legend and its Cornish roots. That earlier vita was itself presumably written in
the late tenth century or the early eleventh, given its apparent claim that Neot
was acquainted early in his life with Dunstan, Athelwold and lfheah, since
Dunstan died in 988 and Athelwold in 984 and it seems more likely that the
vita in this form was written in the decades after their death, when their vitae
were being written, than during their lifetime when they would have been able
to repudiate this ction.
The Burial and Translation of the Saint
The Old English Life reports that at his death Neot was buried in the church
that he himself had established in Cornwall, and that seven years later his
bones were taken up and buried with honour in another place (stowe), near the
altar. The phrase on ore stowe is vague and could in principle be interpreted
as meaning translation to another church, but probably refers to reburial in a
place of greater honour in the same church, since that is what Vita I describes,
with the same reference to reburial after seven years and location near the
altar. The phrase on ore stowe is used with reference to a similar translation
within the original church by lfric in his homily on St Furseus: And his lic
wear bebyrged mid micelre arwurnysse. and eft ymbe feower gear ansund
64

Lapidges suggestion (Annals, ed. Dumville and Lapidge, p. xcv, n. 59, developing one by
Cyril Hart) that lfheah is a corruption of thelheah, referring to the bishop of Sherborne
from 871, whose diocese would at the time have included Glastonbury, has an attraction, but
this would still be somewhat late for the Alfredian story, and it would be hard to explain how
all three lives came to link Neot independently with names connected to the 940s. By the
eleventh century Glastonbury was in the diocese of Wells. There was another lfheah who
was bishop of Wells at some time in the period 92337 and he may conceivably have been
the original referent for the Life or its source. But hagiographers of the tenth and eleventh
centuries were often cavalier in their treatment of history, especially perhaps at Glastonbury,
and we should not expect accuracy in these matters.

207

Malcolm Godden
buton gewemmedlicere brosnunge. on ore stowe bebyriged.65 He is here following the Vita Fursei which describes the saints body being moved after
four years from a place near the altar to a newly constructed tomb on the
eastern side of the altar.66 In both cases the point of the story is of course
that it allows the testimony of the incorrupt body without requiring a move
to another church.67
Vita I similarly reports that Neot was buried in his own church, apparently
the one belonging to the monastery that he had built earlier on the site of his
hermitage in Cornwall, and that seven years after his death the church was
extended and his body was taken up and moved to the north side of the altar in
that same church.68 In a lengthy further section, however, it reports that much
later the body was secretly removed by its custodian and taken to a wholly new
site in the north, near Bedford and Huntingdon evidently Eynesbury or the
modern St Neots. Other accounts, from the twelfth century, claim that the
body was moved again, to Crowland, apparently early in the eleventh century,
though Eynesbury/St Neots still claimed to have the body in 1080, when
Anselm conrmed its presence there and removed part of it to Bec.69 Vita II
however has nothing on these later translations of the body, and insists that
God continued to work miracles to the glory of the saint at the original church
in Cornwall up to the time of writing: Sed et mira et magnica per abbatem
Neotum et confessorem prcipuum ibidem usque hodie divina operatur
potentia ad ejusdem gloriam atque venerationem.70
The Old English Life says nothing about any subsequent translation but
leaves its readers or listeners to understand that the body of the saint still rests
in Cornwall. This raises the question whether the Life could have been written
before the removal of the body from Cornwall to Eynesbury (or, to put it more
circumspectly, before the church at Eynesbury successfully asserted its claims
to have acquired the body), and hence before the Latin Vita I was written, with
65
66
67

68

69
70

CH II, ed. Godden, XX, lines 2646, and his body was buried with great honour, and four
years afterwards it was buried again in another place, whole without any deling corruption.
Acta Sanctorum, Jan. II. 41.
If on the other hand it does mean reburial in another church that was distinct from Neots
own foundation, that might be compatible with Assers report that Neot now lay in St
Guerirs church.
That at least seems to be the sense of the Latin text (which, as Lapidge says, is always difficult
and at times impenetrable (Annals, ed. Dumville and Lapidge, p.lxxvi)). Lapidge so interprets
it at p. xcii but in his initial summary p. lxxvi refers to reburial in a newly built church. Vita II
more clearly states that the original church was extended and the saint reburied near the altar,
though it does not specify the number of years after his death when this happened.
See Lapidge, Annals, ed. Dumville and Lapidge, p. lxxxix.
Vita II, AS, 46, But the divine power performs wonderful and splendid miracles through
the abbot and confessor Neot in that same place up until the present day, to his glory and
veneration.

208

The Old English Life of St Neot

its lengthy account of the translation. The church at Eynesbury seems to have
been founded between 975 and 98471 but there is no reference to the relics
of Neot at the time and the earliest evidence for its possession of the body
seems to be the testimony of the Old English tract on the resting-places of the
saints, Secgan, which was completed some time between 1013 and 1031.72 The
twelfth-century reports by William of Malmesbury and Orderic Vitalis that the
body had subsequently been moved again for safe-keeping, from Eynesbury
to Crowland, in what would appear to be the early decades of the eleventh
century, might suggest that the body had come to Eynesbury some time earlier
than that. But the testimony is late, and untrustworthy, since Eynesbury continued to claim possession of the body up to 1080 and beyond, and there is
no reason to suppose that the later writers had accurate information about
the date of the translation to Eynesbury.73 We might then conclude that the
Old English Life was written between the promulgation of Wulfstans Sermo
ad Anglos in 101474 and the latest possible date for the translation of Neot to
Eynesbury (or Eynesbury making good its claim to have the body) in 1031. It
is however also possible that the author wrote after the supposed translation
of the body but thought it unimportant or untrue, or indeed knew nothing of
it (and hence, again, that Vita I was not his source). Since Vita II was evidently
written or at least revised after the Conquest but has nothing on the translation
to Eynesbury or Crowland, and implies that the body remained at St Neot in
Cornwall, it may well be that the claims of Eynesbury and Crowland were not
universally acknowledged even after 1031.75
71
72

73

74

75

Lapidge, Annals, ed. Dumville and Lapidge, pp. lxxxviiviii.

D. W. Rollason, Lists of Saints Resting-places in Anglo-Saxon England, ASE 7 (1978),
6193. The earliest possible date for the list, in its extant form, is indicated by the inclusion
of St Florentius at Peterborough, since twelfth-century sources, including the Peterborough
Chronicle, date the translation of his body there from Normandy to 1013; the latest possible
date is 1031 when the earlier of the two copies was apparently made.
On the various traditions see Doble, S. Neot, Richards, Medieval Hagiography and Lapidge,
Annals. Some modern accounts assume that the body was restored to Eynesbury from
Crowland before 1080 but that is perhaps to take these stories too literally. For another
instance of competing claims to possession of the body of the same English saint in this
period, one might cite the rival claims of Ripon and Canterbury to the body of St Wilfrid in
the later tenth century (see Byrhtferth of Ramsey, The Lives of St Oswald and St Ecgwine, ed. M.
Lapidge (Oxford, 2009), p. 170).
Or perhaps a decade or so earlier if we accept Whitelocks suggestion that the debt was not
necessarily to the Sermo ad Anglos itelf (and the other sermons with parallels) but to a lost
sermon by Wulfstan using similar phrasing.
Richards (Medieval Hagiography, p. 268) notes that the festival of the translation to the East
Anglian St Neots seems to have been observed only by that church. On the supposed evidence of a variant reading in Assers Life for the translation of the saint, see below, Appendix,
pp.2224.

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Malcolm Godden
The Purpose of the Life
The Old English Life was evidently composed for use on St Neots festival, in
honour of the saint, as its opening address indicates, but its failure to mention
the later translation of the body indicates that it cannot have been written for
a commemoration at Eynesbury. Doble, followed by Richards, suggested that
it may have been composed at Crowland, citing as evidence the reference to
Neot praying incessantly day and night in the manner of St Bartholomew, since
the apostle was particularly celebrated at Crowland and plays an important part
in the legend of its patron saint and founder, St Guthlac: he wolde on dig
gelomen his cneowe gebegen, and eac swylce on niht to an lmihtigen Gode,
swa se halge apostel Sanctus Bartholomeus dyde, hund sien on niht and eall
swa oft on dg.76 But the reference to praying a hundred times a day and again
at night seems to have been something of a devotional commonplace, going
back to the Latin Passio Bartholomei, and the example of the apostle is cited by
both Walahfrid Strabo and Petrus Cantor in such contexts.77 Again, the failure
to mention any connection between Neots body and Crowland suggests the
latter was not the place of composition or intended delivery.78 Nor can it have
been written for delivery at the original Cornish church either, however, since
it explains so carefully where that church is (ten miles from Petrocstow, at a
place called Neotestoc).
Vernacular saints lives apparently served two rather different purposes
in late Anglo-Saxon England. lfric distinguishes between the saints whose
festivals are observed by the laity, who are covered in his Catholic Homilies,
and the (much larger number of) saints whose festivals are observed only by
the monks, some of whom are covered in his Lives of Saints collection.79
For the former he wrote mainly homiletic pieces apparently addressed to
76

77

78

79

Early English Homilies, ed. Warner, p. 129, lines 2932, he would bend his knees repeatedly
during the day, and also at night, to the Almighty God, as the holy apostle St Bartholomew
did, a hundred times at night and just as often in the day. See Doble, S. Neot, p. 14, n. 1;
Richards, Medieval Hagiography, p. 263.
Passio Bartholomei (ed. B. Mombritius, Sanctuarium seu Vitae Sanctorum, 2 vols., 2nd ed. (Paris,
1910) I, 1404), p. 141, lines 910: Centies exis genibus per diem, centies per noctem orat
dominum; Walahfrid Strabo, Libellus de exordiis et incrementis quarundam in observationibus ecclesiasticis rerum, ed. A. Boretius and V. Krause (MGH, Leges, Capitularia regum Francorum, 2,
18907): de Bartholomeo etiam legitur apostolo, quod centies in die, centies in nocte exerit genu; Petrus Cantor, Summa quae dicitur Uerbum adbreuiatum, ed. M. Boutry, CCCM 196
(Turnhout, 2004): Beatus similiter Bartholomeus centies in die et centies in nocte orando
genua ectebat ad Deum. The topos also occurs in vitae of St Oswald and St Patrick.
Richards (Medieval Hagiography, p. 263) also notes several parallels between the Life and
Felixs Vita Guthlaci in support of the attribution to Crowland, but since these nearly all apply
to the account of Neot in Latin vitae as well they must indicate inuence on the foundation
legend, not specically on the Old English Life.
lfrics Lives, ed. Skeat, Praefatio.

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The Old English Life of St Neot

the laity, while for the latter he wrote mainly longer narrative pieces apparently intended for reading. Many of the anonymous Old English saints lives
deal with saints of the latter type Guthlac, Chad, Mary of Egypt, Margaret,
Seven Sleepers, Eustace, Euphrosyne, Machutus, Pantaleon. These too seem
to be mainly reading-pieces not designed for preaching or specically linked
to the church festival, and perhaps therefore intended for reading within
monastic (or other clerical) communities. Neot too is a saint not observed by
the laity but commemorated (at least in the eleventh century) at places like
Exeter, Winchester and Sherborne.80 The text however is clearly designed
as a sermon for delivery on the saints day. It begins in the characteristic
manner of Old English sermons and concludes with a homiletic peroration
on the troubles of the times. Nothing in its address or its content suggests
it was intended for monks. Vernacular saints lives were written for monks in
this period, but this particular one seems very much designed for the laity. It
lacks much of the emphasis on monastic and ascetic practice that dominates
Vita I, and emphasizes instead the angelic instruction to preach to all men
despite Neots supposed pursuit of the eremitic life.81 His virtues are those
relevant to all.82 We should perhaps then imagine an occasion when a monastic or minster church with an interest in Neot (such as Sherborne or Exeter
or Glastonbury but not Crowland or Eynesbury) held a celebration at which
the laity were expected.83 The most prominent location in the Life apart from
Neotestoc is Glastonbury where the saint is ordained and develops his ascetic
reputation and from which he visits Rome seven times (and the legend of
Neot takes a prominent place in the medieval account of Glastonburys
history).84 That may just mean that Glastonbury had an inuence on the
original development of the legend of Neot, or that it was the most plausible
monastic setting for a saint of Alfreds time, given Assers assertion that there
were no proper monasteries in Wessex until Alfred founded two. But it is
striking that whereas Vita I has to explain what and where Glastonbury was
(there was in those times a famous monastery in the English part of Britain
called Urbs Glstinge) the Old English Life assumes familiarity on the part
of the listener. If the Life was originally written for delivery in a place, or
places, such as Glastonbury or Sherborne or Crediton in the West Country,
80
81
82
83
84

Richards, Medieval Hagiography, p. 261, citing English Kalendars before A.D. 1100, ed. F.
Wormald, HBS LXXII (London, 1934), pp. 39, 81, 193.
Early English Homilies, ed. Warner, p. 130, line 21ff.
Ibid., p. 130, line 15.
See M. Clayton, Homiliaries and Preaching in Anglo-Saxon England, Peritia 4 (1985),
20742, on texts written for such occasions.
The Chronicle of Glastonbury Abbey: an Edition, Translation and Study of John of Glastonburys Cronica
sive antiquitates Glastoniensis ecclesie, ed. J. P. Carley (Woodbridge, 1985).

211

Malcolm Godden
that might explain the ignorance of, or lack of interest in, the claims of St
Neots in the east to possess the body. But clearly a copy had made its way to
Canterbury or Rochester by the early twelfth century, and it was presumably
in use there.85 The author himself evidently came from a centre where a good
range of Old English writing was available, including the work of lfric and
Wulfstan.
the legend of king al f r ed
Much the most important aspect of the Life of Neot is arguably its account
of King Alfred, which takes up about a quarter of the text. When the king
visits the saint for the needs of his soul, Neot rebukes him for his wickedness
and urges him to do penance by visiting Rome and taking gifts to the pope.86
Even though Alfred does this and obeys all Neots orders, the saint goes on
to prophesy the future Danish attacks when the king will be driven from his
kingdom and his people scattered, but promises to protect him if he thinks
of Neot at his hour of greatest need. When the Danes do attack, after Neots
death, the Old English Life turns Alfred into a decidedly unheroic, not to say
cowardly, gure.87 It reports that the heathen king Guthrum with his erce
army rst of all attacked the eastern part of the Saxon land (eastdle Sexlandes),
killing, routing and capturing its people, and when Alfred heard of this he took
fright and ed, abandoning his troops and generals and all his people, and his
treasure, to save his life.
Com a Gurum, se hene king, mid his wlreowen here rest on eastdle
Sexlandes, and r feala manne ofsloh. Sume eac eames cepten, and sume on hand
eodan. a lfred king, e we r embe spcon, t ofaxode, t se here swa stilic
85
86

87

Neots feast day was observed at Christ Church Canterbury in the twelfth century (Richards
Medieval Hagiography, p. 261).
What precisely Alfreds crimes were and why he merited the Danish attacks as punishment
is not indicated here or in the Latin Vita I, but it is elaborated in the chronicle known as
the Annals of St Neots, which reports that when Alfred was still young some of his subjects
came to him begging for help with the necessities of life, but he turned them down and God
decided to punish him in this life so that he need not be punished in the next life (Annals,
ed. Dumville and Lapidge, p. 77). The annals are dated to the twelfth century by Dumville
(Annals, ed. Dumville and Lapidge, p. lxv) but to around 1000 by Hart (The East Anglian
Chronicle, JMH 7 (1981), 24982, at 280) and around 102035 by Smyth (King Alfred the
Great, p. 164); Lapidge (Annals, ed. Dumville and Lapidge, pp. cxviiixix) thinks that the
chronicle is here adapting Vita I but Dumville (ibid. pp. lviii, lxiv) thinks there was an intermediate source.
Treharnes assertion that the Life presents Alfred as the redeeming monarch ... an English
leader who is penitent, pious, heroic, educated, and the ideal of Christian leadership (my italics)
is bafflingly at odds with the text (Periodization and Categorization, p. 265). Keynes and
Lapidge (Alfred the Great, p.198) and Smyth (King Alfred the Great, p. 327) more accurately note
that the Old English Life presents Alfred as a deserter.

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The Old English Life of St Neot

ws, and swa neh Englelande, he sone forfyrht eames cepte, and his cmpen ealle
forlet, and his hertogen, and eall his eode, madmes and madmfaten, and his life
gebearh.88

The reference to Sexland is, as Mary Richards says, puzzling.89 The dictionaries cite this one instance as meaning England, but there is no other evidence
for such a sense and its normal meaning, in the Chronicle and in Middle
English, is Saxony, understood as a territory on the Continent.90 The reference
to Guthrum being so close to England rather than in England suggests that
that is what the author means here too. There is nothing similar in Vita I, where
Guthrum is said to invade Brittannie Anglice insulam (the English part of the
island of Britain?).91 If the author really means Saxony, he (or his source) was
perhaps inuenced by, or embroidering on, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles reference to the vikings invading Saxony and being opposed by the Saxons and
Frisians in 885, seven years after Guthrums attack on Wessex. Alternatively,
it is perhaps just conceivable that by Sexland and England he means two
different parts of Anglo-Saxon territory and that the eastern part of Sexland
is meant to designate a distinct part of the country from Alfreds kingdom. In
either case, but especially in the former, Alfred is made to appear an unheroic
gure and a poor king, as he abandons his army, his people and his treasure to
save himself, before the Danes have even reached his own territory. (We might
contrast Abbo and lfrics presentation of King Edmund, refusing to take
ight before the viking onslaught even when his army has been destroyed.)92
88

89
90

91

92

Early English Homilies, ed. Warner, p. 132, lines 1824, Then Guthrum the heathen King with
his cruel army came rst of all into the eastern part of Saxony, and killed many people there.
Some also took ight and some submitted to him. When King Alfred, whom we mentioned
before, heard that the viking army was so strong and so close to England, he immediately took
ight in fear and abandoned all his troops and his generals and all his people, his treasures and
his treasure chests, and saved his life.
Richards, An Edition, p. 74.
J. Bosworth and T. N. Toller, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (Oxford, 1898); T. N. Toller,
Supplement (Oxford, 1972), with Revised and Enlarged Addenda by A. Campbell (Oxford, 1972),
and J. R. Clark Hall, A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D.
Merritt (Cambridge, 1960), s.v. Seaxland; The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle MS C, ed. K. OBrien
OKeeffe, The AS Chronicle: a Collaborative Edition, ed. D. Dumville and S. Keynes 5
(Cambridge, 2001), s.a. 1054; The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle MS E, ed. S. Irvine, The AS Chronicle:
a Collaborative Edition, ed. D. Dumville and S. Keynes 7 (Cambridge, 2004), s.a. 1106, 1127,
1129; Middle English Dictionary, ed. H. Kurath, S. M. Kuhn, et al. (Ann Arbor, 1952 ), s.v. Saxe.
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Asser and subsequent historians, the army of Guthrum
had moved to Wessex from the neighbourhood of Cambridge. If the Old English Life was
using a source which described the vikings as rst occupying the territory of the East Saxons
and then attacking the land of the western Angles as Vita II calls Wessex (occidentales
Anglicos attentavit invadere, 49), that might explain the Old English authors account.
Three Lives of English Saints, ed. M. Winterbottom (Toronto, 1972), p. 75; lfrics Lives, ed.
Skeat, XXXII, esp. lines 6480.

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Malcolm Godden
The point is underlined by Neots earlier prophecy which draws a parallel
with the Biblical verse when the shepherd is put to ight and killed, then the
sheep will all be scattered. The verse, Matthew XXVI.31, has only percutiam
pastorem, I will strike the shepherd, and the Old English authors addition
of aemed, put to ight, clearly refers to Alfreds later ight and the subsequent
scattering of his army.93
The Life goes on to describe Alfred, apparently alone, skulking along the
roads and hiding among hedges and woods until he reaches Athelney, where
he seeks shelter from a swineherd and quickly learns to obey the orders of his
aggressive wife. Eventually Neot appears to him in a vision, promising that
if he trusts in Gods power Alfred will return to his kingdom, his scattered
army will regroup and Neot will go before them, dispersing his enemies and
converting their king to the faith. This all happened as he said, reports the
Life, without giving the details or reporting any ghting. Guthrum came to
Alfred to make peace and seek baptism, and then returned with his army to
his own country.
This account of Alfreds experiences loosely parallels the very much longer
one in Vita I, but the Latin text has a much more positive picture of the king
and gives him a more substantial military role. Indeed, it positively makes a
point of excusing his ight: Guthrum has penetrated his kingdom, destroyed
his army, driving some of the forces out of the country, and located his current
place of refuge before Alfred decides to take ight to shelter in Athelney, and
await a change of fortune. After sinking to the depths at the swineherds hut
he collects some forces and renews the conict with the Danes, until Neot
appears in a vision and promises victory. Alfred rouses his troops, urges them
on with promises of Neots support, and plunges into the fray, before the
Danes eventually ee. Vita IIs account is generally similar.
All three accounts were evidently drawing on the legend of Alfreds ight
to the marshes which had acquired mythic proportions by the end of the tenth
century. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says only that the viking army made a sudden
attack on Chippenham early in January 878, occupied Wessex and subdued
most of the population, while Alfred with a small force moved with difficulty
through the woods and the safe places (or strongholds) in the moors, and then
in late March built a fortress at Athelney as a base for attacking the vikings, with
the support of the forces of Somerset.94 Within three months of the Danish
attack he had reassembled his army and heavily defeated the viking forces and
apparently recovered his position. There is nothing to suggest that the king was
93
94

Early English Homilies, ed. Warner, p. 131, line 34.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle MS A, ed. J. Bately, The AS Chronicle: a Collaborative Edition, ed.
D. Dumville and S. Keynes 3 (Cambridge, 1986), s.a. 878.

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The Old English Life of St Neot

in ight, or isolated, or without military forces and other resources. But Asser
develops the story and builds up the kings desperate circumstances, recording that after the viking attack he led a troubled life with just a few nobles and
some thegns (or servants) among the woods and marshes of Somerset, in great
hardship; he survived only by raiding the vikings and the English who had
submitted to them (presumably for food and other supplies).95 thelweard
similarly records that Alfred was in greater straits than was betting and that
he continued ghting the vikings with the support of the Somerset forces and
no other help except for the servants who had royal maintenance.96
A further elaboration involved the intervention and miraculous assistance
of St Cuthbert. This story is given in the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, which
reports that the Danes invaded southern England and killed all of the royal
line except Alfred, who hid in the Glastonbury marshes for three years, in
great poverty.97 At length, when he had almost nothing left, St Cuthbert
appeared to him in a vision and promised to help him defeat the Danes, advising him to sound his horn in the morning, summon his troops and lead them
into battle against the Danes. Alfred follows his instructions and achieves
victory. A similar story, not apparently dependent on the Historia, appears
later in William of Malmesbury, who locates the vision at Athelney, and in
twelfth-century Durham sources.98 There is also a brief reference to it in the
late-tenth-century Historia attributed to Byrhtferth of Ramsey, embedded in
the later Historia Regum compiled by Simeon of Durham: Elfred uero rex his
diebus magnas sustinuit tribulationes et inquietam uitam agebat. Rex Elfredus
apto confortatus oraculo per Sanctum Cuthbertum, contra Danos pugnauit,
et quo ipse sanctus iusserat tempore et loco, uictoria positus est, semperque
deinceps hostibus terribilis et inuincibilis erat, sanctumque Cuthbertum precipue honori habuerat.99 Quite when this legend developed is uncertain. The
Historia de Sancto Cuthberto is thought to have originated in the tenth century
95
96

97
98
99

Assers Life, ed. Stevenson, ch. 525.

Chronicon thelweardi, ed. A. Campbell (London, 1962), pp. 423. Asser and thelweard also
agree in reporting that the viking army wintered in Wessex, which is more than the Chronicle
actually says (indeed, it indicates that the army spent the rst half of the winter in Mercia).
Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, ed. T. J. South (Cambridge, 2002).
William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum, ed. R. A. B. Mynors, R. M. Thomson and M.
Winterbottom, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1998) I, ii.121; South, Historia, p. 90.
Byrhtferths Northumbrian Chronicle: an Edition and Translation of the Old English and Latin Annals,
ed. C. Hart (Lewiston, 2006), p. 214, King Alfred at this time suffered great tribulation, and
led an anxious life. Encouraged by St Cuthbert in a tting prophecy, Alfred fought against
the Danes, and obtained the victory at the time and place which the saint had ordered; and
was always afterwards terrible and invincible to his enemies, and held St. Cuthbert in especial honour. The statement that the battle was fought at the time and place specied by the
saint aligns the story with the version in the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto rather than Williams
version.

215

Malcolm Godden
but has eleventh-century additions.100 The reference in Byrhtferths Historia
would appear to be evidence for tenth-century circulation but may be a
twelfth-century interpolation.101 Neither thelweard in his Chronicle nor
lfric in his homily on St Cuthbert at the end of the tenth century refers to
it, though lfric does mention Alfred as an example of an English king who
achieved victories through divine help.102 But there is much current support
for the view that the story of Alfreds exile in the marshes and the legend of
Cuthberts vision and assistance developed in some form in the rst half of
the tenth century in association with the appropriation of the Cuthbert cult by
Alfreds grandson, King Athelstan.103
As a model or precedent for its story of Cuthbert and Alfred, the Historia de
Sancto Cuthberto cites the appearance of St Peter to the future king Edwin when
he too was an exile, promising him the crown and urging his conversion. This
seems to be a version of the stories told by Bede and the anonymous Whitby
Life of Gregory, and it may well have been an inuence on the development of
the Cuthbert story.104 Another probable inuence is Felixs life of St Guthlac.
There the future King of Mercia, Aethelbald, is in exile and on the run, and
comes to see the hermit saint Guthlac in his fenland retreat when at his lowest
depths, and the saint prophesies that he will gain his throne with the help
of God, thanks to Guthlacs prayers. Later, on hearing of Guthlacs death,
Aethelbald comes to his grave and prays and weeps and Guthlac then appears
to him in a vision and promises that he will achieve power in a years time.
The exile asks for a sign that the vision is authentic and Guthlac says that in
the morning food will appear from an unexpected source. And in the morning
some men arrive with some unexpected food at the landing stage. Aethelbald
then becomes King and still reigns at the time of writing.105 Similarly, in
100

101
102
103

104

105

See esp. L. Simpson, The King Alfred/St Cuthbert Episode in the Historia de Sancto
Cuthberto: its Signicance for Mid-Tenth-Century English History, St. Cuthbert, his Cult and
his Community to AD 1200, ed. G. Bonner, D. Rollason and C. Stancliffe (Woodbridge, 1989),
pp. 397412; D. Rollason, St Cuthbert and Wessex, ibid. pp. 41324.
Hart (Byrhtferths Northumbrian Chronicle) suggests at p. c that it is an interpolation but at p. 215
that it is original; South, Historia, 91.
The Old English Heptateuch and lfrics Libellus de Veteri Testamento et Novo, I, ed. R. Marsden,
EETS os 330 (Oxford, 2008), 200.
South, Historia, pp. 905; A. Thacker, Dynastic Monasteries and Family Cults: Edward
the Elders Sainted Kindred, Edward the Elder 899924, ed. N. J. Higham and D. H. Hill
(London, 2001), pp. 23047; Rollason, St Cuthbert; Simpson, The King Alfred/St
Cuthbert Episode.
Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford,
1969), 2.12; Colgrave, The Earliest Life, ch. 16. The fact that the Life of St Neot borrows a
sentence from the Old English Bedes account of that vision perhaps suggests no more than
another mind seeing the same parallels.
Felixs Life of Saint Guthlac, ed. B. Colgrave (Cambridge, 1985), chs. 49, 52.

216

The Old English Life of St Neot

William of Malmesburys account of Cuthberts help for Alfred, the saint offers
as a sign of the authenticity of his prophecy an assurance that food will appear
unexpectedly soon after, and accordingly Alfreds men arrive with a huge and
unusual catch of sh.
The story of Neots visionary appearance to King Alfred in the marshes
leading to his victory over Guthrum and restoration to power closely resembles
this legend of St Cuthbert, as has often been noted.106 The match is particularly
close with Williams version, where the vision is similarly located at Athelney
(the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto version is at Glastonbury) and set in the context
of Guthrums subsequent defeat and submission. The originator of the Neot
legend which lies behind the Old English Life and the two Latin vitae would
seem to have adapted the Cuthbert story, or a West Saxon tradition of that
nature, to suit St Neot.107 He no doubt took his cue for associating Neot with
Alfred from Assers account of Alfred visiting the church in Cornwall where
Neot was subsequently buried and being miraculously cured there, with its
implication that Neot was a contemporary and perhaps a patron of Alfred
unless Assers account is taken to imply the existence of a fuller connection beween Alfred and St Neot which was known to Asser and the original
Neot author but for which we have no other evidence. But in the process he
emphasized still further the depths to which the king had sunk. Whereas in the
other accounts of Alfreds ight to the marshes he still has some companions,
including his wife or mother in the Cuthbert version, here he takes ight alone
and is forced to take refuge with a swineherd who fails to recognize the king.108
And whereas in the Cuthbert legend he is reduced to poverty and saved by a
miraculous catch of sh through the help of the saint, in the Neot version he
is reduced to watching the cakes hungrily in the swineherds hovel. The swineherds wife complains that Alfred is a great eater and tells him angrily to help
out by turning cakes in the oven.109
There is moreover nothing in any of the accounts involving Cuthbert that
would suggest Alfred was a sinner and tyrant, or that his fall from power
was due to his own failings, or of course that he had dealings with the saint

106
107
108

109

Lapidge, Annals, ed. Dumville and Lapidge, p. cv; Smyth, King Alfred the Great, p. 342; South,
Historia, pp. 905.
Lapidge, ibid., suggests that there were oral traditions about King Alfreds visions which were
adapted by the Neot author.
It is hard not to see a parallel here with the passage in the Old English Boethius which imagines a powerful king being stripped of his retinue, his power and his robes and being revealed
as no better than his followers. The Old English Boethius, ed. Godden and Irvine, I, B 37.
The story also appears in the early printed version of Assers life, but seems to be a
sixteenth-century interpolation taken from the Annals of St Neots.

217

Malcolm Godden
during the latters lifetime.110 Those seem to be developments associated with
the transfer of the story to Neot. In adapting the story the Neot author was
no doubt, like all other hagiographers of the period, drawing on other saints
legends for ideas and incidents. One likely inuence, as Mary Richards has
argued, is again Felixs Life of St Guthlac.111 The Felix story and the Neot
legend agree in having the saint foretell future power and success to the exile
while still alive, and then conrming it later in a post-mortem vision. Felix has
nothing however to suggest the picture of Alfred as a tyrant and the cause of
his own fall. A striking parallel, and likely model, for this element is Gregory
the Greats account of St Benedicts dealings with the Gothic king Totilla,
in book 2 of his Dialogues, an extremely well known text that would have
been particularly familiar to Benedictine monks. In book 2 of the Dialogues,
Totilla hears of Benedicts gifts of prophecy and sends a retainer to test him.
He discovers that the reports are true and approaches Benedict himself and
falls down on the ground before him. Benedict raises him up, rebukes him
for his crimes and foretells his future he will enter Rome, cross the sea and
die in the tenth year. The king is terried, asks for a blessing and departs, and
Benedicts prophecy eventually becomes true.112 Similarly, according to Vita
I, King Alfred heard of the fame of Neot and enquired whether the things
reported of him were true. He learnt that they were and soon approached the
saint with devotion, lying on the ground before him and begging for his blessing in the ancient manner. Neot blessed him, welcomed him as his kinsman,
rebuked him for his wicked actions and taught him what belonged to Christian
kingship. Alfred then, having received a further blessing, returned to his men
in fear. At a subsequent meeting with Neot, the saint rebuked him again for his
wickedness, warned of future punishment, foretold the loss of his kingdom at
the hands of pagan invaders and urged him to send emissaries to Rome. The
actual wording of the two texts is mostly different, but there are some similarities. Cf Vita I: de suis nequissimis actionibus increpauit .... Tanta, inquit
rex ab aduersantibus infortunia pateris; atqui tam multa adhuc patieris.113
with Gregory: de suis actibus increpauit ... dicens: Multa mala facis, multa
fecisti.114
110
111
112
113
114

William of Malmesbury (Gesta Regum, I, ii.121) suggests that the viking raids are punishment
for the sins of the English generally.
Richards, Medieval Hagiography, pp. 2634.
Grgoire le Grand, Dialogues, ed. A. de Vog and P. Antin, Sources chrtiennes, 251, 260, 265
(Paris, 197880) II, xivxv.
Annals, ed. Dumville and Lapidge, 9, He rebuked him for his wicked actions ... Such great
misfortunes, king, you suffer from your enemies, and as many you will yet suffer.
Dialogues, de Vog and Antin, II, xv, he rebuked him for his actions ... saying, you do
much evil, you have done much evil.

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The Old English Life of St Neot

A particularly striking parallel is the reference to Alfred doubting the saints
powers: this is without context in the Neot story and taken no further but is a
more important part of the story involving Benedict.115
If the two Latin vitae are a fair guide to the nature of this earlier lost legend
of Neot, then the author of the Old English Life further accentuated the
negative aspect of the kings portrait, underlining his cowardice and his complete lack of military capacity and general passivity in the face of the Danes,
and rather ignored the savagery of the vikings. The negative aspect is hard to
parallel in the period. Byrhtferth and the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto present
Alfred in wholly positive terms, as do lfric and thelweard. As noted above,
Stevenson argued that the Life had to have been written after the eleventh
century since no earlier English writer would have depicted King Alfred as a
tyrant, but that argument is undermined by the fact that Vita I gives the same
view of the king and is now thought to have been written in the middle of
the eleventh century or earlier, and in an Anglo-Saxon context. The notion
that a negative view of the king was more likely after 1066, at least in writings designed for English speakers (whatever the views of Normans), might
be doubted, especially given the growing reputation of Alfred as a gure of
wisdom in the post-Conquest period.116 And the idea of Alfred as the national
hero of whom no Anglo-Saxon would speak ill is perhaps more of a Victorian
picture than an Anglo-Saxon one. Anglo-Saxon texts are just as likely to speak
of Edgar or Athelstan as the great kings of the late Anglo-Saxon period, and
it is worth noting (as others have pointed out)117 that later Anglo-Saxon kings
carried the same name as Alfreds predecessor, thelred, and his successor,
Edward, but none of them was called Alfred. The only royal Alfred was the
youngest and ill-fated son of thelred the Unready. And one might argue that
if the Life is, as appears, an early eleventh-century composition from the time
of Cnut and his sons, then a text which blames the collapse of Wessex on the
iniquities of the English king and sees the vikings as the instruments of divine
punishment, and says nothing about the viking slaughter of the English or
115

116

117

The biblical account of Nebuchadnezzar, another king driven from power into exile and
misery because of his own misdeeds, no doubt had inuence too, and the story of St
Ambroses rebuke to the Emperor Theodosius may also have been a model; it is retold in
this period for instance by lfric (Homilies of lfric: a Supplementary Collection, ed. J. C. Pope,
EETS os 259, 260 (London, 196768) II, xxvi.
There was a tradition in post-Conquest ecclesiastical circles that Alfred had appropriated
monastic estates, for which he is criticised in the twelfth-century Abingdon Chronicle, but
that is a different story; see e.g. R. Fleming, Monastic Lands and Englands Defence in the
Viking Age, EHR 100 (1985), 24665.
B. Yorke, Alfredism: the Use and Abuse of King Alfreds Reputation in Later Centuries,
Alfred the Great: Papers from the Eleventh-Centenary Conferences (Aldershot, 2003), ed. T. Reuter,
pp. 36180, at p. 362.

219

Malcolm Godden
their own subsequent defeat, would t rather easily into that period. Its view of
Alfred would be entirely consonant with the view of thelred voiced by some
texts in this period.
What Alfred was celebrated for in the late Anglo-Saxon period was not so
much his salvation of England as his supposed learning and his writing of
books. The Latin vitae have nothing to say on this subject, but it is an important
feature of the last phase of the story in the Old English Life. After the defeat
and conversion of Guthrum and the restoration of the king to his throne, the
Life records that Alfreds kingdom then ourished, his fame as a man well
instructed in religious writings spread, so that he surpassed the bishops and
clerics, and that he wrote many books: a weox lfredes cynerice, and his
word wide sprang, t he on godcunden gewriten wel gelred ws, swa t
he ofereah biscopes and mssepreostes and hehdiacones, and cristendom wel
eah on an gode time. Eac is to wytene, t se king lfred manega bec urh
Godes gast gedyhte.118 The Life is evidently here building on another aspect
of the Alfredian legend that had developed in the course of the tenth century.
That Alfred was well instructed in religious writings is a story that apparently
starts in the kings own lifetime with Assers account of the king recruiting a
whole team of scholars, including Asser himself, to teach him, and it continues
with the accounts of the king in the chronicles of thelweard and Byrhtferth
at the end of the tenth century. But Asser says nothing about Alfred writing
books. This tradition no doubt takes its origins from the claims in the prefaces
to the Pastoral Care that the king had personally translated the whole of that
work into English, with a little help from his friends.119 That is picked up in
the early tenth century by the prefaces to the Old English Boethius, which claim
that he both translated the whole Latin text and turned parts of it into verse.120
Then in the late tenth century there is lfrics story that Alfred had translated
books of gospel teaching into English, as well as Bedes Historia ecclesiastica, and
thelweards Chronicle, which ends its account of Alfred by describing him
as a learned man steeped in godly writings beyond all other things who had
translated an unknown number of books from Latin into English, including
the book of Boethius.121 Byrhtferth has a similarly inated expression in his
118

119
120
121

Early English Homilies, ed. Warner, p. 133, lines 1822, Then Alfreds kingdom prospered
and his fame spread far, that he was learned in godly writings, so that he surpassed bishops
and priests and deacons, and Christianity ourished in that good time. Moreover, King
Alfred composed many books through Gods spirit.
King Alfreds West-Saxon Version of Gregorys Pastoral Care, ed. H. Sweet, EETS os 45, 50
(London, 18712; repr. 1988), pp. 39.
The Old English Boethius: an Edition of the Old English Versions of Boethiuss De consolatione
Philosophiae, ed. M. Godden and S. Irvine, 2 vols. (Oxford, 2009) II, 239, B Preface.
CHI, ed. Clemoes, p. 174; CHII, ed. Godden, IX, lines 68; Chronicon thelweardi, ed.
Campbell, p. 51.

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The Old English Life of St Neot

Historia: the peace-loving king was elevated above all the kings of the earth by
his teachers doctrine and erudition.122 Closer still is the comment by Geffrei
Gaimar, Estoire des Engleis, of the early twelfth century, when recording Alfreds
death: There was no cleric more learned than he, because he had been educated from an early age.123 The story of Alfred the author was then continued
by William of Malmesbury, who provided a list of the kings supposed writings
though William is rather dismissive of Alfreds learning.124 The Life is in this
respect thoroughly in tune with the Alfred legend of the time.
c onc lus ion
What emerges from this study of the Old English Life of St Neot and its
context, then, is a picture of Alfred not as the resourceful and commanding
gure of the Alfredian chronicle but as a king overwhelmed by his enemies
and reduced to the uttermost depths of exile, poverty, solitude and scorn in
the Somerset fens, and then being saved and restored to his throne by the
intervention of a powerful saint and the help of God. And in the view of the
Neot legend at least this fall was due to his own injustices as king and his
cowardice in the face of the enemy. The accounts of Neot evidently exploit
the gure of King Alfred to enhance their picture of an English saint who had
the courage and virtue to rebuke powerful tyrants and the posthumous power
and inuence to help them recover power and achieve fame when they were
struck down for their sins and learnt to repent. In doing so they drew on the
legend of St Cuthbert and no doubt on the stories of other kings and saints, as
well as other traditions about Alfred. But the willingness of an English author,
writing for an English-speaking lay audience early in the eleventh century and
steeped in the traditions of Old English prose texts, to develop out of these
materials such a negative, indeed rather comic, picture of Alfred, as a failed
and unheroic king, driven from his kingdom because of his own crimes and his
cowardice, reduced to the lowest depths, harrassed by a swineherds harridan
wife, and eventually restored to power by the saint, is a striking testimony to
what was possible in late Anglo-Saxon England. For one Anglo-Saxon writer at
least, King Alfred the Great was not a hero but a salutary example of the way
in which overbearing kings could be brought to the uttermost depths and still
be redeemed by a powerful English saint.
As for the Old English Life of St Neot itself, it emerges as one of the livelier and more imaginative of Old English saints lives, with its story of the fox
stealing the saints sandal and Alfred being scolded by the swineherds wife,
122
123
124

Byrhtferths Northumbrian Chronicle, ed. Hart, p. 226.

Geffrei Gaimar, Estoire des Engleis, ed. and trans. I. Short (Oxford, 2009), pp. 1889.
William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum, I, ii.123.

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Malcolm Godden
as well as being an important witness to late Anglo-Saxon ideas about Alfred
and about Cornwall. It was probably composed not in the twelfth century but
early in the eleventh (that is, probably 1015 1030), by an author who was
extremely well-read in the works of lfric and Wulfstan and other Old English
prose and verse writings and working within a well-established tradition of
vernacular prose hagiography, for delivery as a sermon to lay or mixed audiences on the saints festival, possibly in a monastic setting. He was not using
any of the extant Latin vitae but adapting an unrecorded earlier vita, probably in
Latin, in which the stories of the saints Glastonbury origins and his dealings
with King Alfred had already been added to an originally Cornish legend, but
in which some of the later inventions, such as Neot being a kinsman of King
Alfred, had not yet developed. The evident differences from the extant Latin
lives, which probably draw independently on the same lost vita, suggest that it
was a rather inventive adaptation of that earlier lost life.

ap p endix
the text of assers chapter 74 and the supposed marginal note
on neots translation
In his Life and Times of Alfred the Great of 1902, Charles Plummer raised a problem about
the text of Assers reference to St Neot:
In the description of Alfreds visit to the Cornish shrine, already alluded to, the following
sentence occurs: Cum ... ad quandam ecclesiam ... diuertisset, in qua S. Gueryr requiescit,
et nunc etiam S. Neotus ibidem pausat, subleuatus est (erat enim sedulus sanctorum locorum
uisitator, ... ) diu in oratione prostratus ... Domini misericordiam deprecabatur, etc. Here the
words subleuatus est can by no possibility be construed, either with what goes before, or with
what follows.125

He ingeniously concluded that the phrase subleuatus est originated as a marginal

comment in an early manuscript and had been erroneously incorporated into the text
in the Cotton manuscript of c. 1000 (itself destroyed in the re of 1731) on which all
subsequent editions depend; the phrase meant he has been taken up, he suggested,
and had been added to that early manuscript in reference to the recent removal of
Neots body from the original tomb in the Cornish church in, as Plummer thought,
974.
Plummer was using an edition of Assers Life which ultimately depended on the
version printed by Matthew Parker in 1594. He was apparently unaware that the phrase
does not occur in the sixteenth-century transcript of the Cotton manuscript, preserved
in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 100, which instead has suatim utens, acting as
125

Plummer, Life and Times, p. 29.

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was his wont. Stevensons edition of Asser, published two years later, followed the
reading of that transcript: Sed quodam tempore, divino nutu, antea, cum Cornubiam
venandi causa adiret, et ad quandam ecclesiam orandi causa divertisset, in qua Sanctus
Gueriir requiescit, et nunc etiam Sanctus Niot ibidem pausat, suatim utens erat enim
sedulus sanctorum locorum visitator ... 126 He noted, however, the reading sublevatus
est in Parkers edition, and asked, in an apparent echo of Plummer (though without
attribution), Was this falsication of the text derived from a marginal note, which
Parker regarded as a gloss upon, or correction of, suatim utens? As it stands in the
text this interpolation is unintelligible.127 (Given the text available to Stevenson, the
phrase was of course not an interpolation as Plummer had thought but a substitution.)
Keynes and Lapidge similarly suggest a marginal note in the Cotton manuscript, commenting: The words sublevatus est (he has been taken up) were apparently added in
the Cotton manuscript near the reference to St Neot, presumably by someone in the
eleventh century or thereafter who felt it necessary to draw attention to the fact that
the saints remains were no longer in Cornwall.128
What Stevenson failed to point out, however, was that the phrase suatim utens occurs
three times in his text of Assers Life but each time it is unique to the Corpus transcript,
and the Parkerian version, together with the British Library transcript and subsequent
editions, has different words each time, substituting sua ipsius in chapter 56 and advocatos
in chapter 106. The phrase suatim utens seems to be original, since it appears in the adaptation of ch. 56 in the Annals of St Neots, but was an unusual and unfamiliar expression
(suatim is an archaic word much favoured by Anglo-Latin writers).129 To suppose that
in all three places there happened to be a marginal note near by in the Cotton manuscript which Parker misinterpreted as a correction would surely be absurd. Presumably
Parker or his associate found the phrase suatim utens meaningless and replaced it with
something that made sense, assuming a corruption. In both ch 56 and ch 106 of the
Parker version the substituted words make good sense though not the sense that Asser
intended. The same has surely happened at ch. 74. In fact the words sublevatus est make
perfectly reasonable sense despite the objections of Plummer and Stevenson, and
have nothing to do with disinterring bodies. If the sentence is allowed to nish with
these words, as it does in Parkers edition and the BL transcript, it reads: Sed quodam
tempore diuino nutu antea cum Cornubiam venandi causa adiret; et ad quandam ecclesiam orandi causa divertisset; in qua Sanctus Gueriir requiescit; et nunc etiam Sanctus
Neotus ibidem pausat, subleuatus est.130 The phrase evidently refers to Alfred and his
illness, not Neot and his translation, and the sense is: At a certain time previously, by
divine providence, when he went to Cornwall to hunt and turned aside to a certain
church where St Guerir rested, and now St Neot lies there too, he was relieved (from

126
127
128
129
130

Assers Life, ed. Stevenson, ch. 74.

Ibid. p. 298, n. 1.
Keynes and Lapidge, Alfred the Great, p. 255, with a reference to Plummer.
Wulfstan of Winchester, The Life of St thelwold, ed. M. Lapidge and M. Winterbottom, OMT
(Oxford, 1991), p. 24, n. 2.
lfredi Regis res gestae (London: Printed by John Day, 1574).

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Malcolm Godden
the disease and anxiety which had been afflicting him). There was no marginal note
- except by Parker himself perhaps - and no reference to the translation of St Neot.
alfreds flight from chippenham
The notion that when the vikings seized Chippenham in January 878 Alfred himself
was there celebrating Christmas, was taken totally by surprise and only narrowly
escaped capture, is a well-established part of modern popular tradition. It also appears
in some very recent scholarly and authoritative accounts of the period. The entry on
Alfred in the Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England in 1999 reports that at the
beginning of 878 Alfred narrowly escaped capture in a surprise attack on his residence
at Chippenham. He ed to the Somerset marshes.131 The biography of the king in the
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, written by Patrick Wormald, reported it as fact
and extended the story with a picture of viking scheming: But almost at once Guthrum
(using knowledge of the church calendar that was one viking asset) nearly captured
Alfred in twelfth night carousal at Chippenham.132 Alfred Smyth expands considerably on the tradition, remarking that it is clear that in the winter of 8778, Alfred
followed Guthrum north and settled down to celebrate Christmas at Chippenham.
He goes on to suggest that the kings purpose was to shadow the Viking army, but
concludes it was none the less unwise of Alfred to have spent Christmas seemingly in
a state of unreadiness on what had now become an exposed frontier of his kingdom.133
Keynes and Lapidge more cautiously note it as a possibility: It is possible that the two
Viking armies were operating in collusion with one another, and that their intention
had been to capture King Alfred, who may himself have been celebrating Christmas
at Chippenham (an important royal estate).134 No one however gives a source for this
story, and indeed it is hard to nd one: there is no hint in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
or Asser or thelweard or Byrhtferth or William of Malmesbury or John of Worcester
or Henry of Huntingdon. The present-day historians whom I have consulted tell me
it is an inference from the record in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, but it is difficult to
see anything in the annal that it could be inferred from. The Chronicle says nothing
of Alfreds presence in or near Chippenham but records him at Exeter late in 877 and
next in Somerset early in 878, so there is nothing to suggest that he had been further
north to Chippenham in the meantime. Nothing can be inferred from its reference to
131

132

133
134

The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. M. Lapidge, J. Blair, S. Keynes and D.
Scragg (Oxford, 1999), pp. 278, at p. 27. The entry was written by Barbara Yorke, who
also refers to Alfreds ight from Chippenham in Edward as theling, Edward the Elder
899924, ed. N. J. Higham and D. H. Hill (London, 2001), pp. 2539, at p. 35.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. H. C. G. Matthew and B. Harrison, 60 vols.
(Oxford, 2004), vol. I [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/183]. Wormald makes a
similar point in an earlier account, in J. Campbell, E. John and P. Wormald, The Anglo-Saxons
(Harmondsworth, 1991), p. 132.
Smyth, King Alfred the Great, p. 72.
Keynes and Lapidge, Alfred the Great, p. 21.

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the vikings stealing to Chippenham (bestl ) since it uses the same word of the viking
entry into Wareham in 876 and of several other movements by the viking armies, and
by others including the Irish pilgrims of 892. The earliest reference to the story that I
have been able to nd is a speculative deduction in a note on the annal in Plummers
1899 revision of Earles edition of the Chronicle: It is clear from Alfreds will, notes
Prof. Earle, that Alfred had a ham at Chippenham; and we also nd Edward there
.... . It looks as if the Danes had tried to capture Alfred in his winter home.135 Nothing
similar appears in Earles own published edition, so it would seem that this was a personal communication, or a reference to some other work by Earle, or derived from
Earles papers.
The deduction is of course untenable. Chippenham was just one of many royal
estates mentioned in Alfreds will, and there is no evidence that he spent Christmas at
any of them, at any time. Nor, as Smyth notes, would it have been remotely sensible
to spend Christmas carousing in Chippenham without an army, with the viking army
apparently poised in Gloucester. The story was presumably produced by Plummer in
order to help explain why Alfred his hero-king apparently made so little resistance
to the vikings and allowed them to overrun his kingdom while he took refuge in the
Somerset marshes with only a small troop.136 There is perhaps a trace here of the inuence of the Latin Vitae of St Neot which report that Guthrum learnt from fugitives
where the king was wintering, but they do not mention Chippenham or suggest that
Guthrum tried to capture the king in his winter quarters. In any case Plummer is very
dismissive of the notion that the Vitae had any historical value, so he should not have
given them credence on this topic. The story appears to be a modern myth.137
135
136

137

Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, a Revised Text, ed. C. Plummer on the basis of an edition by
J. Earle, 2 vols. (Oxford, 189299) II, 92.
There was perhaps too a topical relevance for Plummer in 1899, since he subsequently drew
a parallel with the supposedly deceptive or dishonourable tactics of the South African Boers
in their ongoing wars with the British: It looks as if the Danes, with Boer slimness, had
tried to surprise Alfred in his winter home (Plummer, Life and Times, p. 59). Slimness was
contemporary slang for craftiness, much used at the time in reference to the Boers.
Grateful thanks are due to Mary Clayton, Rohini Jayatilaka and Simon Keynes for their
helpful discussions of this article.

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