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Vita Haroldi

TheVita Haroldi(English: Life of Harold) is an anonymous Latin work, written around the year 1205, which claims to relate the life of kingHarold Godwinson.It asserts that Harold was not killed at theBattle of Hastingsbut survived for many years, first journeying on the continent of Europe and then living as a hermit in various parts of England and Wales. It survives in only one manuscript, copied inWaltham Abbey,and it may have been composed there. Harold was certainly a patron of Waltham Abbey and was in all likelihood buried there.[1]

The opening page of theVita Haroldiin its sole surviving manuscript, British LibraryHarleyMS 3776

Synopsis

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In the Prologue, the writer accepts from his ecclesiastical sponsors the commission to write about Harold, a devotee, like them, of theHoly Cross.TheVitaproper begins with some account of Harold's father,Earl Godwin,in particular detailing a mission to Denmark in which he escapes a treacherous attempt to kill him and marries the King of Denmark's sister. It then moves on to Harold and his Welsh wars, in the course of which he contracts a paralytic illness which baffles doctors. He is miraculously healed by the Holy Cross of Waltham, gratefully builds a new church there to house it, and endows it with many treasures. It is later refounded byHenry II.Harold is raised by God to the throne of England anddefeats Norwegian invaders,but is struck down by his Norman enemies. The writer of theVitanames his authority for much of the foregoing as Sebricht, a former servant of Harold who subsequently became a most holy pilgrim and hermit.

Harold is left for dead by the Normans, but is healed by aSaracenwoman inWinchesteras he lies concealed there for two years. He then visitsSaxonyand Denmark, but finds no help for his cause. Seeing at last that God has turned against him, he adopts a life of humility and devotion and becomes a pilgrim, just as he had in former days, before he ascended the throne, made a perilous pilgrimage to Rome. The writer praises Harold's piety, then discusses the oath Harold swore to support William of Normandy's claim to the English throne. Some condemn him as a perjurer, citing the fact that God stripped the oak under which he swore the oath of all its bark. Others, including the writer, justify his perjury on the grounds that his oath was given under duress and that complying with it would have been disastrous for the English people. God, the writer argues at length, showed his approval of Harold's decision by this same miracle, by giving him victory over the Norwegians, and by another miracle in which the figure of Christ on the Holy Cross bowed to him.

Returning home after many years abroad, Harold adopts the name of Christian, becomes a hermit in a cave nearDoverand lives there for ten years. Then he journeys to Wales and lives incognito there, tormented by the brutal natives but returning good for evil until he has won them over. In his old age he moves to a hermitage atSt John's Church in Chester,still concealing his identity.

Here the writer breaks off to consider other accounts of Harold's end, censuringWilliam of Malmesburyfor writing that he had died at the Battle of Hastings, but commendingAelred of Rievaulxfor allowing the possibility that he survived it. Waltham Abbey's claim that Harold was buried there is mistaken, another body on the battlefield at Hastings having been misidentified as Harold's. This fact was confirmed by Harold's brother,Gyrth,when he met the Abbot of Waltham during the reign of Henry II. The writer takes issue with his source, a hermit, as to the motives of Harold's actions, before quoting at length that hermit's account of Harold's life after the Battle of Hastings, which recapitulates the events summarised above.

The writer ends with a brief account of Harold's last days, during which he reveals his real identity to his confessor and at last dies.

Manuscript

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TheVita Haroldisurvives in a single manuscript,British LibraryHarleyMS 3776, which was copied some time between 1345 and c. 1370[2]by a scribe apparently little acquainted with Latin. TheVitaforms the first article in this manuscript, being followed immediately by theDe Inventione Crucis de Waltham[On the Finding of the Cross of Waltham] and then by several other works, some relating to Waltham Abbey and its Holy Cross.[3]

The manuscript was kept at Waltham Abbey until its dissolution in 1540. It then came into the hands of theDukes of Norfolk,being kept by them atNaworth Castle.[4]In 1720 it was in the possession of the antiquary and heraldJohn Warburton,and was sold by him then toHumfrey Wanley,librarian toRobert Harley, Earl of Oxford,whose collection was later sold to theBritish Museum.[5]

Date and authorship

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TheVita Haroldiis believed to have been written around the year 1205.[6]The name of its author is not known. It has been surmised that he was a canon at Waltham Abbey;[7]or, since it contradicts that abbey's claim to have the grave of Harold, a canon who had been expelled from it;[8]or perhaps someone associated withChesterrather than Waltham.[9]A suggestion that he was the hagiographerJocelyn of Furnesshas not found favour.[10]

Themes and genre

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TheVita Haroldihas since the 19th century been dismissed by historians as a mere romance,[11]and indeed it does have features in common with thechivalric romancesof the time, dealing as it does with the adventures of a swashbuckling warrior favoured by God.[12][2]But it also has all of the typical characteristics of asaint's lifeapart from a list of his miracles and a specified burial site. His life is shown as being Christlike in that he endures injury and humiliation from lesser people and transcends these sufferings to reach final redemption.[13]

Analogues

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The whole of theVita Haroldi’s account of its hero's life after Hastings is universally agreed to be fictional,[14]but it was not all invented by theVita’s author. Medieval legends of English and British kings surviving their supposed deaths are not uncommon,Edward II,Richard II,and of courseKing Arthurbeing examples.[15]In Harold's case, two 12th-century works, Aelred of Rievaulx'sLife of St Edward(c. 1163) andGerald of Wales'sJourney Through Wales(1191), report rumours of his survival, Gerald specifying that he is supposed to have ended as an anchorite in Chester. After theVita Haroldiwas written similar stories appeared in the works ofGervase of Tilbury,Ralph of Coggeshall(who reports that Harold was still alive in 1189!),Ranulf Higden,John Brompton,andHenry Knighton.It is also referred to in at least two Icelandic works,Játvarðar SagaandHemings þáttr Áslákssonar[no].[16][17]

Similarities have been detected between theVita Haroldiand works in which Harold does not figure. One Latin version ofÓláfs saga Tryggvasonargives an account of the supposed life of its hero,Olaf Tryggvason,after theBattle of Svolderwhich has many points of resemblance with theVita,but it is not clear whether the saga's author,Oddr Snorrason,drew on theVitaor on traditional lore which could perhaps also have influenced theVita.[18]One episode in theVitatells how Harold's father, Godwin, is sent by kingCanuteto Denmark bearing messages which, when Godwin reads themen route,prove to be instructions to their Danish addressees to kill him; Godwin rewrites them to the effect that he should be welcomed and given the king's sister in marriage, and this ruse succeeds. There are very similar stories to this one in the early 13th-century DanishchronicleofSaxo Grammaticus(and in Shakespeare'sHamlet,which drew on Saxo), inHemings þáttr Áslákssonar,and in a number of Classical and Eastern sources.[19]There are more general parallels with the Middle English poemSir Orfeo,which also deals with a king's prolonged exile in his own former kingdom after a dreadful personal loss.[20]Also with the Anglo-Norman romances ofGui de Warewic,the story of an English warrior who becomes first a pilgrim and then a hermit, andBoeve de Haumtone,which features a Saracen woman aiding another English knight.[12]Among English hagiographies,Reginald of Durham'sVita et miracula Sancti GodriciandJohn of Ford'sVita Wulfrici anchoretae Haselbergiaehave been singled out as showing particular similarities to theVita Haroldi.All three concentrate not so much on the moment of conversion as on the progressive deepening of religious conviction; they also all feature the wearing of armour for penitential reasons.[21]

TheVita Haroldiwas the inspiration for at least one modern work of literature,Rudyard Kipling's tale "The Tree of Justice", collected in hisRewards and Fairies(1910). Harold, a supposedly "witless man" constantly on pilgrimage in England, is discovered byHenry I's jester,Rahere,and brought before the king. He dies at the moment his identity is recognised and his royal status honoured by king and courtiers.[22]

Editions

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  • Michel, Francisque(1836).Chroniques anglo-normandes. Recueil d'extraits et d'écrits relatifs à l'histoire de Normandie et d'Angleterre pendant les XIeet XIIesiècles.Rouen: Édouard Frère. pp. 143–222.

Translations

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Citations

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  1. ^Evans 2007,p. 162.
  2. ^abHudson 2016.
  3. ^Birch 1885,pp. v–ix.
  4. ^Bell 2024,p. 2.
  5. ^Millar, Eric George (May 1933)."A Manuscript from Waltham Abbey in the Harleian Collection".The British Museum Quarterly.7(4): 112–113.doi:10.2307/4421478.JSTOR4421478.
  6. ^Mason 2004,p. 202.
  7. ^Evans 2007,p. 42.
  8. ^Birch 1885,pp. xi–xii.
  9. ^Matthews 2005,pp. 70–73.
  10. ^Birkett, Helen (2010).The Saints' Lives of Jocelin of Furness: Hagiography, Patronage and Ecclesiastical Politics.Woodbridge: Boydell Press. pp. 3–4.ISBN9781903153338.Retrieved18 April2024.
  11. ^Birch 1885,p. xi.
  12. ^abAshe 2012,p. 76.
  13. ^Matthews 2005,pp. 65–67.
  14. ^Foys, Martin (2016)."Redacting Harold Godwinson: TheVita Haroldiand William of Malmesbury ".In Hyer, Maren Clegg; Frederick, Jill (eds.).Textiles, Text, Intertext: Essays in Honour of Gale R. Owen-Crocker.Woodbridge: The Boydell Press. p. 240.ISBN9781783270736.Retrieved18 April2024.
  15. ^Bell 2024,p. 1.
  16. ^Freeman, Edward A.(1869).The History of the Norman Conquest of England, Its Causes and Its Results. Volume III: The Reign of Harold and the Interregnum.Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 758–759.Retrieved19 April2024.
  17. ^Mason 2004,pp. 201–202.
  18. ^Ghosh, Shami(2011).Kings' Sagas and Norwegian History: Problems and Perspectives.Leiden: Brill. pp. 127–128.ISBN9789004209893.Retrieved20 April2024.
  19. ^Bell 2024,pp. 1–3.
  20. ^Battles, Dominique (2013).Cultural Difference and Material Culture in Middle English Romance: Normans and Saxons.Routledge Studies in Medieval Literature and Culture, 3. Abingdon: Routledge. pp. 145–148.ISBN9780415877985.Retrieved20 April2024.
  21. ^Ashe, Laura(April 2011). "Mutatio Dexterae Excelsi:Narratives of Transformation After the Conquest ".The Journal of English and Germanic Philology.110(2): 162–164.doi:10.5406/jenglgermphil.110.2.0141.
  22. ^Barber, Richard(2004)."R. Allen Brown Memorial Lecture: The Norman Conquest and the Media".Anglo-Norman Studies.26:18–19.ISBN978-1-84383-072-6.ISSN0954-9927.Retrieved20 April2024.

References

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