Universitätsdrucke Göttingen Andreas Lemke The Old English Translation of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum in its Historical and Cultural Context 2015 Göttinger Schriften zur Englischen Philologie Band 8 Andreas Lemke The Old English Translation of Bede ’ s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum in its Historical and Cultural Context This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. erschienen in der Reihe der Universitätsdrucke im Universitätsverlag Göttingen 2015 Andreas Lemke The Old English Translation of Bede ’ s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum in its Historical and Cultural Context Göttinger Schriften zur Englischen Philologie, Band 8 Universitätsverlag Göttingen 2015 Bibliographische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliographie; detaillierte bibliographische Daten sind im Internet über <http://dnb.ddb.de> abrufbar. Gefördert durch Mittel der Graduiertenschule für Geisteswissenschaften Göttingen Address of the Author Andreas Lemke E-Mail: Lemke1@gmx.net This work is protected by German Intellectual Property Right Law. It is also available as an Open Access version through the publisher’s homepage and the Göttingen University Catalogue (GUK) at the Göttingen State and University Library (http://www.sub.uni-goettingen.de). The conditions of the license terms of the online version apply. Satz und Layout: Frauke Reitemeier Umschlaggestaltung: Petra Lepschy © 2015 Universitätsverlag Göttingen http://univerlag.uni-goettingen.de ISBN: 978-3-86395-189-4 ISSN: 1868-3878 Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude to all who have supported me along this tedi- ous, exhausting and stony way. First, I want to thank my supervisors Prof. Winfried Rudolf and Prof. Thomas Honegger, who guided me through the process and gave me invaluable advice and moral support, without which I would not have successfully completed my task. I would also like to thank Prof. Michael Lapidge, Prof. Simon Keynes and the late Prof. Mechthild Gretsch, who supervised my thesis in its initial stage. Special thanks go to my colleagues and academic friends on both sides of the Atlantic, who were willing to give me feedback on particular chapters and aspects of my dissertation and always had an open ear for my troubles, especially Dr. Janna Müller, Dr. Dirk Schultze, Dr. Peter Darby, Dr. Johanna Kramer and Prof. Sharon Rowley. Prof. Gernot Wieland and Dr. Greg Waite also deserve thanks. The Graduiertenschule für Geisteswissenschaften Göttingen (GSGG), the Universitäts- bund Göttingen and the Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst (DAAD) also had their share, as their stipends enabled me to present my thoughts on the topic on various international conferences and receive important feedback and establish my aca- demic network. I would further like to thank the GSGG as their stipend made the publication of this thesis possible. My students also deserve my gratitude as teaching them was the highlight of my day after long hours at my desk brooding over my opus magnum . Those classes reminded me what was really essential about this job: never stop thinking. Next come my friends. Their moral support, their pep-talks and their ability to distract me when I once more had hit rock-bottom helped me through this four- and-a-half years. Finally, I would like to thank the most important people in my life: First and foremost my family. They equipped me with everything I needed to make it in this world. I cannot say how much you mean to me. I would not be writing these lines without you. I thank God that he decided that my mother’s time had not yet come so that she can be an angel on earth as she has always been. I would also like to thank the Elliehausens, who welcomed me with open hearts, supported me and have become my family as well. But the person whom I owe eternal gratitude is my fiancée Saskia. You’ve been my rock in stormy sea, the calm breeze when the gales of my mind kept troubling me. You helped me to find my inner peace and that is more than I had ever expected of life. I love you – that is all I can say. Table of Contents Acknowledgements........................................................................................................ 5 List of Abbreviations................................................................................................... 11 I. Introduction and Methodology..................................................................................... 15 Why Translate Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum ? .................................. 17 ‘Hwilum word be worde, hwilum andgite of angite’: Anglo-Saxon Translation in Theory and Practice................................................... 23 A Brief History of Translation................................................................................... 30 From Rome to the Fathers..................................................................................... 31 Alfred and the Rise of English............................................................................... 34 Translating the OEHE : Theoretical Considerations .............................................. 39 The HE and the OEHE : Text-theoretical Considerations ................................... 40 The Social Logic of the Text...................................................................................... 44 Structure of the Thesis ................................................................................................ 46 II. The OEHE : The Material Evidence........................................................................... 49 The Manuscripts of the OEHE ................................................................................. 49 Textual Criticism and the Problem of the Table of Contents .............................. 50 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Tanner, 10 ............................................................... 62 Codicology ................................................................................................................ 63 Scribes and Script..................................................................................................... 64 Decoration ................................................................................................................ 66 Language.................................................................................................................... 69 London, British Library, MS Cotton Domitian A.IX, fol. 11r ............................. 72 Physical Description, Origin and Date................................................................. 73 Phonology, Orthography, Lexicology................................................................... 75 The Content.............................................................................................................. 79 The Reception of the Manuscripts............................................................................ 89 MS T (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Tanner 10) .............................................. 90 MS C (London, British Library, MS Cotton Otho B.XI) .................................. 92 MS O (Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 279B)............................................ 93 8 MS B (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 41) ...........................................93 MS Ca (Cambridge, University Library, MS Kk. 3.18).......................................95 III. The Intellectual and Political Landscape of Ninth-Century England..................97 IV. Author and Authority ................................................................................................113 King Alfred and the Authorship of the OEHE ....................................................114 Defining the Medieval Author .................................................................................116 From Author to Authority........................................................................................120 Author and Authority in the OEHE .......................................................................121 The Metrical Envoi in CCCC MS 41 ......................................................................135 The Authority of the OEHE as Source Text ........................................................140 V. Translating the Historia Ecclesiastica ............................................................................155 Translation Techniques in the OEHE ....................................................................155 The Editorial Agenda of the Translator .............................................................157 The Style of Translation........................................................................................162 The Latinity of the OEHE ’s Translator .............................................................167 The Synonym Pairs in the OEHE .......................................................................190 The Influence of Rhetoric ....................................................................................197 The Audience..............................................................................................................205 Latin Passages in the OEHE ................................................................................210 Tracing the Audience of the OEHE : a Tentative Summary...........................223 VI. The Scratched Glosses in British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius C.II .................225 Origin and Date..........................................................................................................227 Glossing Techniques .................................................................................................231 The Scratched Glosses and the OEHE ..................................................................237 The Ink Glosses in British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius C.II ............................247 VII. The Two Bedes: Differences and Similarities between the OEHE and its Latin Source ....................................................................................................251 The Role of Rome......................................................................................................251 The Roman Legacy ................................................................................................252 The Sack of Rome and the Declining Power of Rome ...................................270 Conclusion ..............................................................................................................277 Table of Contents 9 Mission and Conversion ...........................................................................................278 The Didacticism of the OEHE : an Alfredian connection?.............................289 The OEHE as a Manual for ‘Preaching to the Pagans’? .................................297 Conclusion ..............................................................................................................307 The Role of the Britons ............................................................................................308 Anglo-Saxons, Britons and Salvation History ...................................................309 The Overture: the Descriptio Britanniae .................................................................313 Romano-British History........................................................................................315 The Pelagian Heresy ..............................................................................................329 Britons and Irish: Two Sides of the Same Coin................................................335 ‘Augustine’s Oak’ and British Sentiments..........................................................338 Cædwallon ...............................................................................................................342 The Marginalized Britons .....................................................................................345 A Concluding Note on the Britons.....................................................................351 Re-inventing the gens Anglorum ? Identity and the Angelcynn ................................356 Bede’s gens Anglorum and Early Medieval Identity.............................................357 The Kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons and ‘English’ Identity ............................360 Defining Angelcynn ..................................................................................................362 Traces of Bede in the Literature of King Alfred’s Court ................................370 VIII. Conclusion – (Re-)Assessing the OEHE ............................................................383 IX. Bibliography ................................................................................................................389 a) Primary Sources .....................................................................................................389 b) Secondary Literature .............................................................................................393 c) Online Resources...................................................................................................410 d) Dictionaries ............................................................................................................411 Appendices .................................................................................................................413 „Göttinger Schriften zur Englischen Philologie“: Zum Konzept der Reihe....415 List of Abbreviations ASC The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: a Collaborative Edition , ed. D.N. Dumville, S. Keynes and S. Taylor (Cambridge, 1983-). ALL Anglo-Latin Literature , ed. M. Lapidge, 2 vols. (London, 1993- 1996). BEASE The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England , ed. M. Lapidge et al. (Oxford, 2001). BS Biblia sacra : iuxta Vulgatam versionem: adiuvantibus B. Fischer ... rec. et brevi apparatu critico instruxit Robertus Weber , ed. R. Gryson and R. Weber, 5th ed., 2 vols. (Stuttgart, 2007). Budny Insular, Anglo-Saxon, and Early Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art at Corpus Christi Collge, Cambridge: An Illustrated Catalogue , ed. M. Budny, 2 vols. (Kalamazoo, 1997). BT An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Based on the Manuscript Collections of Joseph Bosworth With rev. and enl. Addenda by Alistair Campbell , ed. T.N. Toller, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1972-73). CASL A Companion to Anglo-Saxon Literature , ed. P. Pulsiano and E. Treharne (Oxford, 2001). CCB The Cambridge Companion to Bede , ed. S. DeGregorio (Cam- bridge, 2010). CCSL Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina (Turnhout, 1954-) C-H A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary , ed. J.R. Clark-Hall, 4th ed. (Cambridge, 1960). C&M Beda Venerabilis, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, ed . and trans. B. Colgrave and R.A.B. Mynors, Bede’s Ecclesiastical His- tory of the English People (Oxford, 1969). CSEL Corpus Scriptorum et Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (Wien, 1866-) 12 DOE Dictionary of Old English: A-G , Dictionary of Old English Pro- ject, University of Toronto. Online. DOEC Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus , Dictionary of Old English Project, University of Toronto. Online. EHD English Historical Documents, vol. I: c. 500-1042 , ed. D. White- lock, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1979). FAS Fontes Anglo-Saxonici , Fontes Anglo-Saxonici Project, Univer- sity of Oxford. Online. GHW Georges ausführliches Handwörterbuch: Lateinisch-Deutsch , ed. H. Georges, 11th ed., 2 vols. (Hannover, 1962). Gneuss Gneuss, H., Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: a List of Manu- scripts written or owned in England up to 1100 (Tempe, AZ, 2001). HEGA Beda Venerabilis, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum , ed. M. Lapidge, Storia Degli Inglesi ( Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglo- rum ), transl. P. Chiesa, 2 vols. (Milan 2008-2010). Hogg Hogg, R.M., A Grammar of Old English , 2 vols. (Oxford, 1992-), vol. I: Phonology JL Jarrow Lecture (Jarrow on Tyne, 1958-). Ker Ker, N.R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Ox- ford, 1957) K&L Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and other contempo- rary Sources , ed. S. Keynes and M. Lapidge (London, 1983). Liebermann Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen , ed. F. Liebermann, 3 vols. (Halle a.d.S., 1898-1916). MG Mittellateinisches Glossar , ed. E. Habel und F. Gröbel, 2nd ed. (Paderborn, 1989). NCMH The New Cambridge Medieval History , ed. D. Abulafia et al. , 7 vols. (Cambridge, 1995-). Abbreviations 13 OEB The Old English Version of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People , ed. T. Miller, 4 vols., EETS os 95, 96, 110, 111 (Lon- don, 1890-1898; repr. in two parts 1959). OEG Campbell, A., Old English Grammar (Oxford, 1964). OEPC King Alfred’s West Saxon Version of Gregory’s Pastoral Care , ed. H. Sweet, 2 vols., EETS os 45, 50 (London, 1871). Plummer Venerabilis Baedae Opera Historica , ed. C. Plummer, 2 vols. (Ox- ford, 1896). PONS PONS Wörterbuch für Schule und Studium: Latein-Deutsch , rev. ed. (Stuttgart, 2003). Rowley Rowley, S. The Old English Version of Bede’s Historia Ecclesias- tica (Cambridge, 2011). SB Brunner, K., Altenglische Grammatik. Nach der angelsächsischen Grammatik von Eduard Sievers , 3rd rev. ed. (Tübingen, 1965). VÆ Asserius, De Rebus Gestis Ælfredi , ed. W.H. Stevenson, Asser’s Life of King Alfred together with the Annals of Saint Neots erroneously ascribed to Asser. With Article on recent Work on Asser’s Life of Al- fred by Dorothy Whitelock (Oxford, 1959). I. Introduction and Methodology Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum ( HE ), written c. 731, enjoyed a great popularity among the Anglo-Saxons and Carolingians and was one of the most popular texts in medieval Europe. 1 This is underscored by the fact that Anglo- Saxon writers revered it as source from the ninth to the eleventh centuries. 2 Its importance can be further gauged by the number of Old English texts which drew upon the HE 3 In addition to these sources stands the (more or less) full-blown 1 See J. Westgard, “Bede in the Carolingian Age and Beyond”, CCB , pp. 201-15; S. Rowley, “Bede in Later Anglo-Saxon England”, CCB , pp. 216-28; G.H. Brown, A Companion to Bede (Wood- bridge, 2010), pp. 117-34. Westgard lists 164 copies of the HE that were copied from the eighth to the fifteenth century throughout Europe (“Caroligian Age”, p. 210, table 1). 2 The FAS records 723 hits for the HE as source text; http://fontes.english.ox.ac.uk <accessed: 01/10/2014>. 3 The ninth-century OE Martyrology (Augustine of Canterbury, Columba of Iona, Oswald of Northumbria, Aidan, Fursey, Alban, Cedd, Æthelburh, Æthelthryth, Higebald, Hild of Whitby, John of Beverly, the Hewalds, Germanus), ed. G. Kotzor, Das altenglische Martyrologium , 2 vols. (München, 1981); cf. M. Lapidge, “Acca of Hexham and the Origin of the Old English Marty- rology”, Analecta Bollandiana 123 (205), 29–78; the ninth-century Chad Homily , ed. R. Vleeskru- yer, The Life of St. Chad: an Old English Homily (Amsterdam, 1953); the ninth-century OE Boethius , ed. M. Godden and S. Irvine, The Old English Boethius: an Edition of the Old English Versions of Boethius’ “De Consolatione Philosophiae” , 2 vols. (Oxford, 2009); Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies (1.11, 2.1, 2.9, 2.10, 2.21, supplementary homily 19), ed. P. Clemoes, Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies. Series 1: Text , EETS ss 17 (Oxford, 1997); Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies. Series 2: Text , ed. M. Godden, EETS ss 5 (Oxford, 1979); Homilies of Ælfric : a Supplementary Collection; being Twenty-One Full Homilies of His Middle and Later Career, for the Most Part not Previously Edited ; with some Shorter Pieces, Mainly Passages Added to the Second and Third Series / ed. from all the Known Manuscripts with Introd., Notes, Latin Sources and a Glossary , ed. J.C. Pope, EETS os 259, 260, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1967-68); Ælfric’s Lives of Saints (Oswald, Alban, Æthelthryth), ed. W.W. Skeat, Ælfric’s Lives of Saints: being a Set of Sermons on Saints’ Days Formerly Observed by the English Church. Ed. from Ms. Julius E. VII in the Cottonian Col- lection, with Various Readings from other Ms , EETS os 76, 82, 94, 114, 4 vols. (London, 1890-1900; ed. as two volumes); the eleventh-century Vision of Leofric , ed. P. Stokes, “The Vision of Leofric: Manuscript, Text and Context”, RES 63 (2012), 529-50; the mid-eleventh century OE Life of Paulinus , ed. K. Sisam, “An Old English Translation of a Letter from Wynfrith to Eadburga”, in 16 translation of Bede’s work, the Old English Historia Ecclesiastica ( OEHE ). 4 This vernacular rendering by an anonymous translator (or translators) 5 was without a doubt a demanding and time-consuming endeavor. It required on a basic level advanced skill, if not mastery, in both Medieval Latin and Old English. On a more sophisticated level it required the interpretative capability to grasp the meaning of Bede’s Latin original without challenging its author(ity) while at the same time rendering it into Old English, a medium so different on various levels from the Latin in which the HE was written. The translation had to transpose a text im- printed with the cultural forces of eighth-century Northumbria into the historical and cultural context of an Anglo-Saxon society considerably removed in time (and space?) from Bede. 6 In addition to the linguistic level and cultural transformation, a vernacular Old English rendering of a work such as the HE triggers more gen- eral questions concerning medieval translation. Should a translation be aimed primarily at readers who do not understand the original and does it, therefore, serve purely practical ends? Although this is an undeniable aspect of translation it does not sufficiently explain its general nature. If we regard a translation as faithful if not slavish rendition of a text in order to make the original intelligible, this de- prives us of the cultural and intellectual forces that shape any translation and bars our view as to its purpose and inherent power. Consequently, the questions of why the HE was translated into the English vernacular and which historical and cultural forces shaped this translation process will be addressed in this thesis. his Studies in the History of Old English Literature (Oxford, 1953), pp. 199-224, at pp. 212-23; and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , whose early annals up to 731 draw on the HE 4 The present thesis follows Sharon Rowley’s use of OEHE (‘Old English Historia Ecclesiastica ’) as it is more clear-cut than ‘Old English Bede’. As far as I know she is the first person to use this acronym consistently; cf. Rowley, passim 5 For the sake of convenience all references to ‘the translator’ or ‘the glossator’ have been made with the masculine personal pronoun rather than a mixed tag (‘he or she’). 6 The corpus of literature on Bede, his times and his works is too vast to be covered in detail here. The following selection is perhaps indispensible when treating the subject: A.H. Thomp- son, ed., Bede: His Life, Times and Writing (Oxford, 1935); G. Bonner, ed., Famulus Christi: Essays in Commemoration of the Thirteenth Centenary of the Birth of the Venerable Bede (London, 1976); P. Hunter Blair, The World of Bede , 2nd rev. ed. (1990); G.H. Brown, A Companion to Bede (Woodbridge, 2010); S. DeGregorio, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Bede (Cambridge, 2011). Apart from edi- tions and translations of his works there are numerous monographs and essays on certain as- pects of Bede’s work of which P. Darby, Bede and the End of Time (Farnham, 2012) is the most recent. This small selection does in no way give credit to the plethora of materials in Bede stud- ies but presents a useful beginning point for further study. Introduction and Methodology 17 Why Translate Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum? What triggered the HE to be translated? The earliest manuscripts of the OEHE have been dated on paleographical grounds to the period c. 890x930. 7 Conse- quently, it happened to be associated with the famous translation program of King Alfred of Wessex (871-899). 8 The main reason why this putative connection to Alfred is so appealing is the king’s famous lament on the dismal state of learning and literacy and the poor level of Latin in England in the Preface to the Old Eng- lish Pastoral Care ( OEPC ). Apparently, the Anglo-Saxons were no longer able to understand Latin texts and therefore unable to access the intellectual and intrinsic religious worth therein. 9 Given the output of an allegedly impressive think-tank that gathered at Alfred’s court at the end of the ninth century it seems reasonable to assume that the OEHE was also produced in this setting, or at least is difficult to imagine in a contemporary context independent of the Alfredian program. Claims for the OEHE to stem from an earlier Mercian school of translation, mainly based on the Mercian dialect admixture in the earliest manuscripts, have been convincingly refuted. 10 7 Cf. Rowley, pp. 15-25, for an excellent overview. 8 For King Alfred’s translation program see J. Bately, “Old English Prose Before and During the Reign of Alfred”, ASE 17 (1988), pp. 93–138; idem , “The Literary Prose of King Alfred’s Reign: Translation or Transformation?”, in Basic Readings in Old English Prose , ed. P.E. Szarmach (New York and London, 2000), pp. 3–28; idem , “The Alfredian Canon Revisited: One Hundred Years on”, in Alfred the Great: Papers from the Eleventh-Centenary Conferences , ed. T. Reuter (Aldershot, 2003), pp. 107–20; D. Whitelock, “The Prose of Alfred’s Reign”, in “The Prose of Alfred’s Reign”, in Continuations and Beginnings: Studies in Old English Literature , ed. E.G. Stanley (London, 1966), pp. 67-103; K&L, passim 9 Cf. OEPC , pp. 2-9; translation K&L, pp. 124-26. 10 It has been suggested that the translation of the HE should be dated to the middle of the ninth- century rather than the end of the century and that the Mercian element in spelling and lexicon has led to the assumption that the OEHE was the product of a Mercian center, possibly in the West Midlands; see H. Schabram, Superbia: Studien zum altenglischen Wortschatz , 2 vols. (München, 1965), I, 46-50; and F. Wenisch, Spezifisch anglisches Wortgut in den nordhumbrischen Interlinearglossie- rungen des Lukasevangeliums (Heidelberg, 1979) , pp. 46-47. Greg Waite remarked that a date of the composition earlier than Alfred’s reign was “dependent upon more positive proof of a Mercian tradition of vernacular writing in the ninth century.” (“The Vocabulary of the Old English Ver- sion of Bede’s Historica Ecclesiastica”, unpubl. PhD thesis (Toronto, 1985), pp. 57-58). Bately however, convincingly refutes linguistic arguments in favor of such a tradition, put forward by its most prominent proponent Vleeskruyer (“Old English Prose”, pp. 104-113). Drawing on Waite’s lexical analysis of the OEHE she concludes that the translator had not used more ar- chaic word forms than Werferth had done, who died in 915 (p.114); cf. also C. Sisam’s com- ments in her “Review of Vleeskruyer 1953”, RES ns 6 (1955), 302-303, at p. 302; cf. OEB , I.1, lix for a supposed Lichfield origin. For the claim of a Mercian school of translation, see Vleesk- ruyer, Life of St. Chad , pp. 38-71. For its refutation see inter alia Bately, “Old English Prose”, pp. 93-118; J. Roberts, “On the Development of an Old English Literary Tradition”, Inaugural Lec- ture from the Department of English, King’s College London (London, 1998), p. 13 (citing Si- 18 Due to the literary testimony of Ælfric, William of Malmesbury or Henry of Huntingdon and the (self-)promotion of the West Saxon King as translator in the Preface to the OEPC and the OE Boethius, the OEHE had long been viewed as translated by Alfred himself. 11 Alfred’s authorship has now been convincingly ruled out, as indeed the whole concept of the translation program and the king’s agency as translator have recently been a matter of debate between Malcolm God- den and Janet Bately. 12 Based on the relative stylistic coherence of the translation, the vernacular version of Bede’s HE – or at least the ‘body’, disregarding the pref- ace and the chapter headings – is now being regarded as the work of one anony- mous (possibly Mercian?) translator. 13 Although there is no convincing proof to uphold King Alfred’s authorship, the alleged connection between the OEHE and his translation program remains the crucial question. The work has been deemed to be commissioned by Alfred but undertaken by a translator of the same school as the one responsible for the translation of the OE Dialogues , which is assigned to Werferth, then the bishop of Worcester. 14 In recent years, contributions by George Molyneaux and Sharon Rowley have questioned any direct link to the Alfredian program. Molyneaux regards the translation as a primarily religious and edifying work of Christian instruction but left the issue of any Alfredian connota- tions open, neither assigning it to nor completely detaching it from the translation sam, Old English Literature , p. 31); and M. Gretsch, “The Junius Psalter Gloss: Its Historical and Cultural Context.” ASE 29 (2001), 85-121, at p. 105 n. 79. 11 For details, see chapter ‘Author and Authority in the OEHE ’ infra . The title of Jacob Schipper’s edition König Alfreds Übersetzung von Bedas Kirchengeschichte , 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1897-99) is a prime ex- ample of a tradition which accredited the West Saxon king with the authorship of the OEHE This view was persistently entertained by Sherman Kuhn until the 1970s (“Synonyms in the Old English Bede”, JEPG 46.2 (1947), 168–76 and “The Authorship of the Old English Bede Revis- ited”, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 73 (1972), 172–80). 12 Whitelock’s landmark essay “The Old English Bede”, Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture, PBA 48 (1962), 57-90, convincingly questioned the Alfredian authorship. For the controversy between Malcolm Godden and Janet Bately on King Alfred’s translation program, see M. God- den, “Did King Alfred Write Anything?”, Medium Ævum 76.1 (2007), 1–23; Godden and Irvine, Old English Boethius , and J. Bately, “Did King Alfred Actually Translate Anything? The Integrity of the Alfredian Canon Revisited”, Medium Ævum 78.2 (2009), 189–215. 13 Cf. Whitelock, “Old English Bede”. Whitelock argues elsewhere for at least two different trans- lators, who were in charge of the running text and the chapter headings, respectively (“The List of Chapter-Headings in the Old English Bede”, in Old English Studies in Honour of John C. Pope , ed. R. B. Burlin, E. B. Irving und J. C. Pope (Toronto, 1974), pp. 263–84). I was notified by Prof. Rudolf that Greg Waite in a talk given at the ISAS conference in Dublin 2013 had co- gently argued for a third translator who translated the preface to the OEHE . Unfortunately, the publication process of this thesis prevented me from discussing the matter with Prof. Waite and therefore cannot be addressed here. 14 See Whitelock, “Old English Bede”, pp. 75-77; and S. Potter, “On the Relation of the Old English Bede to Werferth’s Gregory and to Alfred’s Translation”, in Memoires de la Societe Royale des Sciences de Boheme: Classe des Lettres (1931), 1–76, at pp. 5-55. Potter’s analyses show that there are still remarkable differences despite striking similarities that make a joint authorship for both works very unlikely.