Humor, Horror, and Violence in Ælfric of Eynsham's <i>Passion of Saint Vincent</i>

This article examines how humor and horror function dynamically in Ælfric of Eynsham's Old English Passion of Saint Vincent. Through a consideration of Ælfric's form and style, and by comparison with his Latin source, this article argues that these affective responses were intentionally cultivated by Ælfric as mechanisms to communicate violence against holy bodies, as well as to offer a space for the audience to contemplate their own embodied selves in Christian time. In doing so, this article not only offers a fresh literary reading of this understudied text, but also explores the ontological and epistemological difficulties of interpreting the extreme violence of martyrdom. It further suggests that prose hagiography could participate in discussions on epistemological concerns more typically associated with Old English verse.As St. Laurence is being tortured on a gridiron, he famously turns to his tormentors and says: “Ecce, miser, assasti tibi partem unam; regira aliam et manduca” (Look, wretch, you have roasted one part: turn again to the other side and eat).1 The explicit nature of the violence narrated in accounts of the early Christian martyrs prompts mixed responses from audiences today: horror, delight, and bewilderment all come to mind. Although the relationship between humor and the horror of violence is familiar to audiences of modern film, when encountering Laurence's famous retort for the first time, modern audiences often find such playfulness surprising. The admixture of levity with violence is not expected in a religious text, still less in an early medieval religious text. Yet the interplay of humor and horror in relation to extreme violence has long been recognized as an important and frequently employed rhetorical device in the Latin Lives of early martyrs and in their early English translations.2 Despite being often-acknowledged, however, humor, and especially rhetorical horror, remain understudied aspects of hagiographical violence.3 Focusing on Ælfric of Eynsham's Old English Passion of Saint Vincent, this article demonstrates how humor and horror function dynamically as sincere and significant mechanisms for communicating violence against holy bodies, and for offering a space for the audience to contemplate their own embodied selves in Christian time.How, then, did audiences of early medieval England react to the presentation of violence in the lives of the early martyrs?4 The question of audience response is easy to dismiss as being unanswerable, or as easily answered: as variable as our own.5 Unlike a modern audience first encountering such texts, a learned medieval listener or reader might have raised a smile at Laurence's quip not because of any perceived incongruity, but rather because Laurence's disregard for his earthly body triumphantly—and entertainingly—confirms the Christian worldview of the supremacy of the spirit over the body, just as it ridicules his antagonist's opposing view.6 Humor in this instance, at least in part, derives from the pleasant congruity of this confirmation.7 Not all early martyr lives contain such quips or humor at moments of violence, of course. Ælfric's homily on the Nativity of Saint Clement the Martyr, included with the Passion of Saint Laurence in the First Series of his Catholic Homilies, offers us a glimpse of at least one contemporary medieval reaction to the suffering of the martyrs. Here, Ælfric scolds the stuntan8 (stupid) talk of hwonlice gelyfede men (men of slight faith) for questioning “hwi se Ælmihtiga god æfre geþafian wolde þæt þa hæðenan his halgan mid gehwylcum tintregum acwellan moston” (why the Almighty God always desires that heathens must destroy his saints with various torments).9 His choice of words (hwonlice gelyfede men) may suggest a lay or ill-educated clerical audience.10 The implication of his reprimand is clear: questioning God's methods in turn brings a person's faith into question. That Ælfric felt it necessary to address such concerns clearly suggests that some medieval lay audiences (and possibly clergy) struggled to reconcile the violence unleashed on these holy bodies with the omnipotence of God.11 Indeed, the ontological and epistemological demands that martyr accounts make on an audience have gone largely undiscussed in scholarship which has tended to focus more on their potential for titillation, voyeurism, sadism, and the potent models of agency these narratives contain.12A more auspicious question than audience response is, then, how did Ælfric encourage a holistic interpretation of the violence of Vincent's martyrdom from his audience? Gordon E. Whatley and James W. Earl have addressed Ælfric's strategies to carefully cultivate particular perceptions of the violence that royal and soldier saints wielded or withheld; and Shari Horner, Claire Lees, and Renée Trilling (among others) have expounded Ælfric's handling of the literal and figurative interpretative possibilities of violence inflicted martyr This article on such by offering the first of the interplay between humor and as a it that Ælfric of how rhetorical to of and that he to and of In doing so, this article how humor to a of the of how is in early English martyr the and rhetorical of the interplay between humor and horror Ælfric to the difficulties in such a and of the body in the suggest that this as in Vincent, to contemporary medieval the of of God's and to concerns the in Christian this article offers a fresh literary reading of a text, it also brings prose and into with other by this reading on how with the of It suggests that prose hagiography could participate in discussions on epistemological concerns more typically associated with has literary to violence against bodies in has not the of as violence against and humor the form of quips or is in any the often nature of early martyr has been to address the rhetorical function of horror in these texts, has been and the of This article first the of violence and horror in martyr lives and how and humor in early medieval the how Ælfric employed humor in Vincent, how humor and horror to the violence of for and as a of with epistemological It is first however, to Vincent's in Ælfric's as important for this a for an early is an in in the early and with his is by the to of or to to his earthly he is and his and martyrdom. Despite this is of an in Ælfric's It is more than his other with the a focus on the body, more than Ælfric's other martyr lives (and in to his is also an in of Although with his Lives of it is not that Ælfric as of this a of to the is by has that as a homily rather than a reading which as the Passion and an on The which this article in a with other and the (and also in argues that the homily and by the at This on Ælfric his with a lay audience in which is the for Old English prose hagiography not for by the to the in suggests that Ælfric may in have a audience in when this into it is that Ælfric of the of a mixed and and the Latin Ælfric's is Ælfric his of long some of the and to and this of and it is that Ælfric's has not literary Yet as from Ælfric's by his first it a not the that the a of Ælfric's rhetorical in on how he various in one in of audiences and and lay our of Ælfric as a more of the various and of hagiography in early medieval of the violence and inflicted martyr have and from modern and medieval The of of violence and a to such is to to the audience the of in this a tortured body in a of when a the violence in these is to as an of Christian and The to violence, in turn the of the offers the a to the nature of the and of their faith in and to the audience and the these that the as The to for their by that God or the of these of violence to (and the holy In the of Vincent, Ælfric the to martyrdom the of and se and se þæt mid þa the and the holy to the the of their with the of their faith in the the is not on and on to the into the of the is to Vincent's of his to against on he on his he þæt against in this and against in his and he that is a of Ælfric's prose style, in to and the of and such not only Vincent's for his it the relationship between suffering and the of faith by that and necessary to the of the faith and by God's literal of to the the to extreme rather than their faith a Christian audience to their own for the of their This into an reading of violence and that the in this or in the a of these various of the body, Shari of the tortured body as a for interpretation is in the of and explores how the body of the martyr to the literal text, and how their bodies literal must in to and the on bodies and the relationship in medieval between the of a and the the tortured body as a for also for bodies, with as the the body of the martyr the potential for and literal of that violence is necessary to this or of any of violence in then, is the at the of these lives by bodies of martyrs of in that not to the body at may and to have been of such and of violence, of the might such only on the or intentionally responses of from lay and in the of and well by in relation to violence against response to of (and not from is, of often as this to how horror as a rhetorical device is an important in how Ælfric this affective response to the violence of martyrdom for his a horror response as an in which is with and The of horror, the of such and is the an of or of our that and to as but which as with the and our own and into and the horror of the The of a and body horror and because it is and and in response to the extreme violence narrated in martyrdom accounts as a it is also a response to the The horror of the tortured body the of their own bodies as which in Christian and to an to to but which and Ælfric this affective response to with and of a to the of into the of by the martyr as of horror the nature of this In this it is important that the horror between and audience is to a of the of the nature of their but not to some of which in turn the of violence to the and to with the tortured body as being as a on to to any of horror in response to violence into a of that is, a of mixed with for God's This is the and and by the in this violence against bodies to a reader or Yet horror in response to violence may to a as in Ælfric's Nativity of Saint a questioning and on the body, which to the of or reading martyrdom That Ælfric's hwonlice gelyfede men the of martyrdom to the epistemological of martyr accounts and to the for rhetorical and to of a than humor as or it in to this rhetorical and carefully humor dynamically with horror to the between and necessary for a holistic interpretation of Vincent's is for Ælfric to (and his affective responses between humor and the between these responses the between and that with the between and by from our and humor, it to the of humor, have been to Old English in an to this and on the and of these is the of this how these with narratives to of the of the over the body in the Christian worldview the of in In an of the of humor that the of which may in the of and to the mechanisms that humor from rather than with the more or by or with the smile rather than with to this more for and moments of literary humor from or that may to in and rhetorical narratives such as has been as a perceived or and or as the of between or that at first is into the of martyr is a of the in Christian a and the he also on such as the of the God's on martyr were of such and suffering at the of their a space when by God rather than as a of the The of such however, not on own Indeed, may that such in hagiography were to rather than Yet an of these us to how humor in these the and of to argues for the of he a of an that in or an that to which this in his for a to it must or in part, with and these which the is must The and martyrdom of the could as being with in for the is to their faith in to their and to to for the is a to he and not the of the he at the he audience familiar with the that he not this also for the of such on of the with that early English humor in the between and of also as the body of the in which the of the body as a to the and as audience when he the relationship between suffering and faith at the of this and þa se wolde and þa þa halgan þa us a by the the against the faith of and against Christian because the to the faith with the and the more martyrs the more the which the saints the because faith of the just God may but always just as of form and to the of this the relationship between suffering and and the that to not faith in The or of words and an with to this the (and of the to all a of the Christian this of the is by the and between and also Vincent's with the The nature of these to the of the text, interpretation of it as rather than The audience is of Vincent's for and is, of the of martyr for the of humor, has been may typically at the antagonist's when an audience is by the of the and and when with the reading the to of such a the and that is necessary for a humor in being of the the audience is of their own interpretative and from being however, the body of the is and is a that the audience may their own bodies with that of the and to or the between and necessary for in other horror an audience to with their bodies rather than at a has such a of affective may the affective in in Vincent, horror may a reading of martyrdom. Humor and horror must in and reading of of how Ælfric employed these but opposing affective responses to encourage a holistic interpretation of violence on one audience their embodied selves in Christian and of and on the other the of The the the audience is into Vincent's and Vincent's between of and the Christian is by the into a not often in Ælfric's martyr and in a in and of that þæt þa such he that turn from God's faith) when the saints and again of to þæt mid and mid that from the and from their by to of how the of martyrdom the early of an reading of martyrdom because it is with a the audience to the Christian this the on the audience is of an of that the or the of faith in a of their of to this incongruity, the audience is to with the Christian reading of martyrdom. The of this to reading in humor at as is the of this of in the not to the in the Latin text, such a the of not in the to the and of expected by and the of his from being and the saints from and and with from which their and to Ælfric to with the possibilities of Vincent's as and further in this text. Not only he for a but the this of words a or also to the of and Despite the saints of and he it is of as he lives of the of Ælfric this and this when he as the of is further by of to the from to Ælfric again us into his mid þæt to with more that not easily The on the and of this that to he and the saints the the saints to more to an with the own desires for suffering to a the saints to and their from is his to this further humor at his This is by his which must have an audience as þa mid and (and he the how to well with and þæt not that he for the only literal must have The and that his own their an audience to against literal more the the of it the of the Christian faith against and of God's might the early into of his at his all the more to the of Vincent's the of reading martyrdom to In a address to with the þa men mid God this long the and with of the which God with the in such is to as the rather than an Vincent's own this address Vincent's as a of between and a of the between God and the he þæt he he he on he that when tortured than he because he and he only this the that suffering faith but it also clearly to the or which the to audience familiar with martyr lives that this is a Vincent's the of that with a of is as a to of in his (and as it is a to Christian reaction to this is þa he not he to His of their is the is by his of as a a to God's and the an audience that the of Vincent's for humor in their reading of the that for an audience that with at his to his of violence in the to from such to the of Vincent's to the tormentors the is in a literal when to further from that he his In must have been an for the that with his to his halgan þæt own with tortured the that the In with his of the Latin more Ælfric this is clearly to The the of men to his the spirit of in the to the of on for on you on the which because of as you on reaction to Vincent's on as he to his tormentors in a to to more to which function to audience to the of this þæt he his that he might Vincent's a by only as His their because on þæt in their that could the martyr Not only and his men by the of their a learned audience may have recognized that also as not their when he offers an for the þa not the the and and function to make Vincent's in which he and to his Humor in this from the of a between the for not only but also by his and his interpretation of martyrdom to in turn and his humor to a martyrdom by the audience at a affective Yet also incongruity, between the and the Ælfric with such an of a to in the to further the in this Vincent's that the more he Vincent, the more he This to his men to on in and with the of on which to Humor may in the that not but by being a may further as in the this Vincent's may have a further to as with Laurence's quip at the of this this of is only to his the is to in the the that and by not by the This reading is further when to destroy Vincent's body more God's over all a when he not when responses this to Vincent's and must have an just as and a of Christian Humor in the has an to the audience from the interpretation and a of as a necessary to the of faith over to the of God and his and to the the body or that the of the body is necessary to such This with that of the desires to destroy Vincent's body in to destroy any associated with of humor at the of a response to Vincent's the of Vincent's body that of his own men a affective from to and of the of The not the horror in this but horror is in the Vincent's as his body to as other than a In this Ælfric a rhetorical the Vincent's tortured of this not by It is to the at þa of on þa and mid mid his his his æfre to his þæt þa mid his mid into his þæt on his on þa þæt se his on to the and again on the and men and with and to his body with with his his faith in the of his to his that against and the with and to his and his that of his body at all that not by their his all over his earthly body and his also and his in the is between to the of a the more between to also from the which the to the as well as the the of the is not in the and the of the and from to to an so, that Ælfric particular to the of this and to the as well as a of horror at Vincent's any from the rhetorical is with the The nature of the a with the the of Vincent's with his of to Vincent's in the just the with the of Ælfric's rhetorical in more and more on the body than in Ælfric's other martyr That Ælfric a to this in the for and also Vincent's quip at the of this Ælfric at to the violence in Vincent, and in this the audience is to the horror of Vincent's tortured the of words to body or that This of a tortured body horror not only because of the of the but because our own body as of the our In other Vincent's and body and that or as well as Ælfric his audience to the interpreting by doing with the the or of Vincent's of the of this and is to any of that in the audience is to of violence of affective of any of the of In doing so, the audience is to in the of that on a to that of that may have and to focus on the nature of God's demonstrates again an (and and Ælfric this not only Vincent's it brings the own bodies into to the of their own bodies and to of their own selves Christian time. the audience that their bodies to in to the to This reading is by Ælfric's of martyrdom in the from Saint and his for mid and on on mid on for þæt þæt þa on mid must how were for were with and in the or in the or with with as a were and for the that to at at or to our that in might in with the holy Vincent, Ælfric not to the and the but in his between humor and horror he in with such of in this it is to how Ælfric humor and horror to a holistic interpretation of the violence of the not the humor it and a reading of and to a the of interpretation in this a of the of this Vincent's as by may have also to the he mid he all of this with Vincent's which in the an to rather than and Vincent's the audience of his and the and horror us to again and with his In this interplay between humor and horror, Ælfric his audience with an and the of how this may have for a mixed and how this to the ontological and epistemological difficulties of article has how humor and horror in Ælfric's Passion of Saint dynamically to and the audience of God but also on the own in the The between these affective to the affective for a holistic interpretation of the violence of the between these is more than on Ælfric's with the Latin such a he (and often the rhetorical of the Latin when for he early of to the horror of Vincent's and he his own for and Ælfric's with the potential for humor in the first of this audiences to remain at a which to (and the that the in his literal interpretation of This in turn prompts the audience to the of the violence of martyrdom and of the of the Christian of and The potential for humor in this an and focus on the tortured Despite the for violence to a martyr and to an audience the Christian that the over the the (and literal of the tortured body a in this text. than the humor, this affective not only to the of Vincent's and by the of but also turns the as to question their own bodies, and selves in Christian affective responses by the interplay between humor and horror further to Ælfric's as a to to an affective with his his the affective have to this and in the of the audience long the been is a of that and that and rather than that and violence, and especially for less of the less and the responses that this to may have to cultivate a of as have an of their own bodies in the and the and to for by doing the in this and to the of nature and to the of medieval more the between a humor and a horror response (and also a of or as our interpretation of Vincent's tortured body between literal and in with our affective Ælfric the and or by the interplay between humor and horror to as it not only to encourage an reading of the one which to the difficulties of such a That is to the between these affective and the or this may the epistemological and ontological demands of martyr and of the or nature of interpretation more The and to such a suggests a to address the and and associated with a mixed and lay a lay the at a this function to a holistic interpretation of violence, to focus their on the might of the to of Vincent's over prompts and a audience may have this the the between affective may have on the of how this the and demands of this may to of God's of God and of in the to by that the reading of in this article us to the in with contemporary medieval in particular the the of of God's and of more often associated with (and than prose has how of in relation to the of interpretation and with in Old English in particular the and Renée in of the of how and to and methods for and the of and In other the for affective which in turn a reader to their concerns and methods of to also in Ælfric's of the between humor and horror, this offers in a and faith in His is Through of form and Ælfric the rhetorical of humor and horror to not only a and holistic of the but an of literal and and of the epistemological difficulties difficulties in of the Old English that is that and the perceived humor or is a and to the of how narratives and as well as for how and were in these to is not only but into the of martyr to St. Laurence and his to turn over and his this quip not just offer from the horror of violence, or a of over the rather it is a and of with one of the that martyr lives us the body and not