Exeter Book

The Exeter Book is generally acknowledged to be one of the great works of the English Benedictine revival of the tenth century; the precise dates that it was written and compiled are unknown, although proposed dates range from 960 to 990.{{refn|}} This period saw a rise in monastic activity and productivity under the renewed influence of Benedictine principles and standards. At the opening of the period, Dunstan's importance to the Church and to the English kingdom was established, culminating in his appointment to the Archbishopric at Canterbury under Edgar of England and leading to the monastic reformation by which this era was characterised. Dunstan died in 988, and by the period's close, England under Æthelred faced an increasingly determined Scandinavian incursion, to which it would eventually succumb.

The Exeter Book's heritage becomes traceable from the death of Leofric, bishop of Exeter, in 1072.{{cite book |last=Förster |first=Max |chapter=The Donations of Leofric to Exeter |title=The Exeter Book of Old English Poetry |editor=Chambers, Forster and Flower|year=1933}} Among the possessions which he bequeathed in his will to the then-impoverished monastery at Exeter (the precursor to the later cathedral) is one famously described as i mycel Englisc boc be gehwilcum þingum on leoð-wisan geworht: "one large English book on various subjects, composed in verse form".{{Cite book |last=Alexander |first=Michael |title=The First Poems in English |publisher=Penguin Books |year=2008 |isbn=9780140433784 |location=London |page=xvii |language=en |chapter=Introduction}} This book has been widely identified by scholars as the Exeter Codex.{{refn|}}

However Leofric's bequest was made at least three generations after the book was written, and it has generally been assumed that it had originated elsewhere. According to Patrick Conner, the original scribe who wrote the text probably did not write it as a single volume, but rather three separate manuscript booklets which were later compiled into the Exeter Book codex.{{cite book |last=Conner |first=Patrick W. |editor-last1=Richards |editor-first1=Mary P. |title=Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: Basic Readings |date=2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-75890-7 |pages=301–302 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R3RACwAAQBAJ&pg=PA301 |chapter=The Structure of the Exeter Book Codex}} There are a number of missing gatherings and pages. Some marginalia were added to the manuscript by the antiquarians Laurence Nowell in the sixteenth century and George Hickes in the seventeenth.{{cite book | editor-first= Bernard J. | editor-last= Muir | editor-link= Bernard J. Muir | year= 2000 | title= The Exeter anthology of Old English poetry: an edition of Exeter Dean and Chapter MS 3501 | edition=2nd | publisher= University of Exeter Press | location= Exeter | isbn= 0-85989-630-7 |pages=15–16}}

Aside from eight leaves added to the codex after it was written, the Exeter Book consists entirely of poetry. However, unlike the Junius manuscript, which is dedicated to biblically inspired works, the Exeter Book is noted for the unmatched diversity of genres among its contents, as well as their generally high level of poetic quality.{{cite web |last1=Conner |first1=Patrick W. |title=The Exeter Book |url=https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195396584/obo-9780195396584-0094.xml |website=Oxford Bibliographies Online |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/OBO/9780195396584-0094 |date=2019}}

The poems give a sense of the intellectual sophistication of Anglo-Saxon literary culture. They include numerous saints’ lives, gnomic verses, and wisdom poems, in addition to almost a hundred riddles, numerous smaller heroic poems, and a quantity of elegiac verse. The moving elegies and enigmatic riddles are the most famous of the Exeter Book texts. The elegies primarily explore the themes of alienation, loss, the passage of time, desolation, and death, and deal with subjects including the sorrows of exile, the ruination of the past, and the long separation of lovers. Through them we encounter lonely seafarers, banished wanderers, and mournful lovers. The riddles, by contrast, explore the fabric of the world through the prism of the everyday. (See the sections on 'Riddles' and 'Elegies' below.) The Exeter manuscript is also important because it contains two poems signed by the poet Cynewulf, who is one of only twelve Old English poets known to us by name.

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, "the arrangement of the poems appears to be haphazard, and the book is believed to be copied from an earlier collection".{{Britannica|198020}} However, whether (or the extent to which) the Exeter Book is a deliberately crafted anthology of related poems or a miscellany of unrelated poems is a matter of debate, as some degree of order has been found in the organisation of its contents.

None of the poems is given a title in the manuscript, and there is often no obvious indicator of where one text ends and the next begins, other than a plain initial. Consequently, the titles given to the poems in the Exeter Book are those that editors have established over the years, and very often a given poem will be known by several titles. The following is one listing of poems found in the book (titles may vary depending on source):

{{cite book |last=Shippey |first=Tom |translator-last=Williamson |translator-first=Craig |title=The Complete Old English Poems |date=2017 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-9321-0 |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=yZkFDgAAQBAJ&pg=PR10 x]-xi, [https://books.google.com/books?id=yZkFDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA300 299-302]}}

{{cite book |last1=Treharne |first1=Elaine |last2=Pulsiano |first2=Phillip |title=A Companion to Anglo-Saxon Literature |date=2017 |publisher=Wiley Blackwell |isbn=9781405165303 |pages=1–10 |url=http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/content/BPL_Images/Content_store/Sample_Chapter/0631209042/pulsiano.pdf |chapter=An Introduction to the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Vernacular Literature |doi=10.1002/9781405165303.ch1}}

Based on Muir’s (1994) counting:

• {{cite web |title=The Complete Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Poetry |url=https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/ascp/ |website=Sacred-texts.com}}
• {{cite web |title=The Exeter Book |url=http://people.ucalgary.ca/~mmcgilli/OEPoetry/exeter.html |website=people.ucalgary.ca |publisher=University of Calgary}}

{{Div col|colwidth=15em}}

• Christ I, II, III
• Guthlac A and B
• Azarias
• The Phoenix
• Juliana
• The Wanderer
• The Gifts of Men
• Precepts
• The Seafarer
• Vainglory
• Widsith
• The Fortunes of Men
• Maxims I
• The Order of the World
• The Rhyming Poem
• The Panther
• The Whale
• The Partridge
• Soul and Body II
• Deor
• Wulf and Eadwacer
• Riddles 1-57/59
• The Wife's Lament
• The Judgment Day I
• Resignation
• The Descent into Hell
• Alms-Giving
• Pharaoh
• The Lord’s Prayer I
• Homiletic Fragment II
• Riddle 28b / 30b
• Riddle 58 / 60
• The Husband's Message
• The Ruin
• Riddles 59-91 / 61-95

{{div col end}}

{{main|Exeter Book Riddles}}

Among the other texts in the Exeter Book, there are over ninety riddles, written in the conventional alliterative style of Old English poetry. Their topics, which range from the religious to the mundane, are represented in an oblique and elliptical manner, challenging the reader to deduce what they are about. Some of the riddles are double entendres, setting out entirely innocent subject matter in language filled with bawdy connotations, such as Riddle 25 below.

Two Exeter Book riddles are presented below, with Modern English translations alongside the Old English originals. Proposed answers to the riddles are included below the text.

{{Verse translation|lang=ang|

Ic eom wunderlicu wiht · wifum on hyhte

neahbuendum nyt; · nægum sceþþe

burgsittendra nymthe · bonan anum.

Staþol min is steapheah · stonde ic on bedde

neoðan ruh nathwær. · Neþeð hwilum

ful cyrtenu · ceorles dohtor

modwlonc meowle · þæt heo on mec gripe

ræseð mec on reodne · reafath min heafod

fegeð mec on fæsten. · Feleþ sona

mines gemotes · seo þe mec nearwað

wif wundenlocc. · Wæt bið þæt eage.

|

I am a wondrous creature for women in expectation,

a service for neighbours. I harm none of the citizens

except my slayer alone.

My stem is erect, I stand up in bed,

hairy somewhere down below. A very comely

peasant's daughter, dares sometimes,

proud maiden, that she grips at me,

attacks me in my redness, plunders my head,

confines me in a stronghold, feels my

encounter directly,

woman with braided hair. Wet be that eye.

|attr2= Riddle 25 {{harv|Marsden|2015}}

}}

:Answer: an onion

{{Verse translation|lang=ang|

Mec feonda sum · feore besnyþede,

woruldstrenga binom, · wætte siþþan,

dyfde on wætre, · dyde eft þonan,

sette on sunnan · þær ic swiþe beleas

herum þam þe ic hæfde. · Heard mec siþþan

snað seaxses ecg, · sindrum begrunden;

fingras feoldan, · ond mec fugles wyn

geond speddropum · spyrede geneahhe,

ofer brunne brerd, · beamtelge swealg,

streames dæle, · stop eft on mec,

siþade sweartlast. · Mec siþþan wrah

hæleð hleobordum, · hyde beþenede,

gierede mec mid golde; · forþon me gliwedon

wrætlic weorc smiþa, · wire bifongen.

Nu þa gereno · ond se reada telg

ond þa wuldorgesteald · wide mære

dryhtfolca helm— · nales dol wite.

Gif min bearn wera · brucan willað,

hy beoð þy gesundran · ond þy sigefæstran,

heortum þy hwætran · ond þy hygebliþran,

ferþe þy frodran, · habbaþ freonda þy ma,

swæsra ond gesibbra, · soþra ond godra,

tilra ond getreowra, · þa hyra tyr ond ead

estum ycað · ond hy arstafum

lissum bilecgað · ond hi lufan fæþmum

fæste clyppað. · Frige hwæt ic hatte,

niþum to nytte. · Nama min is mære,

hæleþum gifre · ond halig sylf.

|

Some fiend robbed me from life,

deprived me of worldly strengths, wetted next,

dipped in water, took out again,

set in the sun, deprived violently

of the hair that I had, · after, the hard

knife's edge cut me, ground from impurities,

fingers folded and a bird's

delight spread useful drops over me,

swallowed tree-ink over the ruddy rim,

portion of liquid, stepped on me again,

travelled with black track. After, a man clad

me with protective boards, covered with hide,

adorned me with gold. Forthwith adorned me

in ornamental works of smiths, encased with wire

Now the trappings and the red dye

and the wondrous setting widely make known

the helm of the lord's folk, never again guard fools.

If children of men want to use me

they will be by that the safer and the more sure of victory

the bolder in heart and the happier in mind,

in spirit the wiser. They will have friends the more

dearer and closer, righteous and more virtuous,

more good and more loyal, those whose glory and happiness

will gladly increase, and them with benefits and kindnesses,

and they of love will clasp tightly with embraces.

Ask what I am called as a service to people.

My name is famous,

bountiful to men and my self holy.

|attr2= Riddle 26 {{harv|Marsden|2015}}

}}

:Answer: a Bible

The Exeter Book contains the Old English poems known as the "elegies": "The Wanderer" (fol. 76b - fol. 78a); "The Seafarer" (fol. 81b - fol. 83a); "The Riming Poem" fol. 94a - fol. 95b); "Deor" (fol. 100a - fol. 100b), "Wulf and Eadwacer" (fol. 100b - fol. 101a); "The Wife's Lament" (fol. 115a - fol. 115b); "The Husband's Message" (fol. 123a - 123b); and "The Ruin" (fol. 123b - fol. 124b).

The term "elegy" can be confusing due to its application to a diverse range of poems and poetic genres from different cultures and time periods. For example, the Oxford English Dictionary defines elegy (in the poetic sense) as a poem either composed in the elegiac metre of Greek and Roman lyric poets, expressing "personal sentiments on a range of subjects, including epigrams, laments, [and] love", or "a poem in another language based on or influenced by this"{{Citation |title=elegy, n. |url=https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/60350 |work=OED Online |publisher=Oxford University Press |language=en-GB |access-date=2022-03-20}} – hence, from this latter definition, the application of the term "elegy" to the Old English poems, which are not elegiac in their metre. More broadly, the term "elegy" has also been widened by some to include "any serious meditative poem",{{cite book |title=The Broadview Anthology of British Literature |date=2011 |publisher=Broadview Press |isbn=9781554810482 |edition=Second |pages=51}} a definition which would include the Exeter Book elegies. Providing a synthesis of the strictly metrical definition and the broader definition based on subject matter, Anne Klinck argues in The Old English Elegies that "genre should be conceived [...] as a grouping of literary works based, theoretically, upon both outer form (specific meter or structure) and also upon inner form (attitude, tone, purpose – more crudely, subject and audience)".{{cite book |last=Klinck |first=Anne L. |author-link=Anne Klinck |title=The Old English Elegies |publisher=McGill-Queen's Press |year=1992 |page=224}}

Included here are facsimiles, editions, and translations that include a significant proportion of texts from the Exeter Book.

• {{cite book

|author=Chambers, R W

|author2=Förster, Max

|author3=Flower, Robin

|year=1933

|title=The Exeter Book of Old English Poetry

|location=London

|publisher=P. Lund, Humphries

|oclc=154109449 }}

• [https://theexeterbook.exeter.ac.uk/ Online facsimile]

• {{cite book

| editor-last= Krapp

| editor-first=George Philip

| editor2-last=Dobbie

| editor2-first=Elliot Van Kirk

| editor-link=George Philip Krapp

| editor2-link=Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie

| year= 1936

| title= The Exeter Book

| series= The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records

| volume= III

| publisher= Columbia University Press

| isbn= 0-231-08767-5

|location= New York }}

• {{cite book

| editor-first= Bernard J.

| editor-last= Muir

| editor-link= Bernard J. Muir

| year= 2000

| title= The Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry: An Edition of Exeter Dean and Chapter MS 3501

| edition=2nd

| publisher= University of Exeter Press

| location= Exeter

| isbn= 0-85989-630-7 }}

• {{cite book

| last=Thorpe

| first=Benjamin

| author-link=Benjamin Thorpe

| year= 1842

| title= Codex Exoniensis: A Collection of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, from a Manuscript in the Library of the Dean and Chapter of Exeter

| publisher= The Society of Antiquaries of London

| location= London

| url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924013337617

| oclc= 562461120}}

• {{cite book

|author1=Matto, Michael |author2=Delanty, Greg

| year= 2011

| title= The Word Exchange

| publisher= W. W. Norton & Co

| isbn= 978-0393342413

|location= New York }} Anthology of Old English poetry, featuring many of the texts from the Exeter Book.

• Gollancz, Israel (1894). The Exeter book.Mackie, W. S. (William Souter)., Gollancz, I., Mackie, W. S. (William Souter)., Gollancz, I. (18951934). [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006054079/Home The Exeter book]: an anthology of Anglo-Saxon poetry presented to Exeter Cathedral by Loefric, first bishop of Exeter (1050-1071), and still in possession of the dean and chapter. London: Pub. for the Early English Text Society, by K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. Early English Text Society, Original series, Volume 104, 194.
• Foys, Martin et al. (ed.) (2019) [https://oepoetryfacsimile.org/?document=11128 Old English Poetry in Facsimile Project], Madison: Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture, University of Wisconsin-Madison; edition with digital images of poems' manuscript pages, and translations.

• {{cite book

| first= Kevin

| last= Crossley-Holland

| author-link= Kevin Crossley-Holland

| year= 1982

| title= The Anglo-Saxon World

| publisher= Oxford University Press

| location= Oxford

| isbn= 978-0-19-953871-3}} Anthology of Old English poetry and prose, featuring poems from the Exeter Book.

• {{cite book

| first= Kevin

| last= Crossley-Holland

| year= 2008

| title= The Exeter Book Riddles

| publisher= Enitharmon Press

| location= London

| isbn= 978-1-904634-46-1 }} Contains riddles only.

• Williamson, Craig, (2017) The Complete Old English Poems. University of Pennsylvania Press. {{ISBN|9780812248470}}.

• Anglo-Saxon literature
• Old English language

{{reflist|30em}}

;Bibliography

{{refbegin}}

• {{citation |last=Williamson |first=Craig |title=The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book |publisher=The University of North Carolina Press |location=Chapel Hill |year=1977 |pages=3–28 |isbn=0-8078-1272-2}}
• {{citation| last = Marsden| first = Richard|isbn =9781107295209 | doi =10.1017/CBO9781107295209 | year =2015 | title = The Cambridge Old English Reader|edition=2nd }}

{{Refend}}

• [https://theexeterbook.exeter.ac.uk/ The Exeter Book] — digitisation
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20040607073404/http://www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/library/oe/exeter.html The Exeter Book] — transcription
• [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/britannia/anglo-saxon/flowers/enigmata.html James Grout: Exeter Book of Riddles, part of the Encyclopædia Romana]
• {{librivox book | title=Exeter_Book | author=Anonymous}}

{{Old English poetry|state=autocollapse}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:10th-century books

Category:Old English poetry

Category:History of Exeter

Category:Riddles

Category:Exeter Cathedral Library collection

Category:English-language manuscripts

Category:Latin script texts with ideographic runes