Frithegod
Frithegod,
Life
Frithegod was probably a native of France, as his name is obviously not Anglo-Saxon, and was probably an attempt to Anglicize the Frankish name Fredegaud.[1] He may have originated near La Chaise-Dieu in Aquitaine, as he seems to have returned there late in his life, but this is just a theory with no solid proof.[4] We do not know when he entered the clergy, or when he was ordained a deacon, just the fact that he held that office.[1]
It is not clear when he met Oda. It may have been in 936, when Oda visited France.[1] He went to Canterbury after meeting Oda, where he served Oda as one of the teachers of Oda's nephew Oswald of Worcester. He also wrote poems while at Canterbury.[1]
After Oda's death in 958 Frithegod probably returned to the continent and went to the canonry of Brioude in Auvergne.[1]
Writings
Breviloquium
Frithegod is generally known for his
The Breviloquium is 1400 lines and its meaning is not always clear, even when compared to the Life of St Wilfrid which was its basis. The poem adds nothing new to historian's knowledge of Wilfrid, and in Lapidge's view its sole purpose was to "demonstrate [Frithegod's] poetic skill which, in the mid-tenth century, was unparalleled elsewhere in England".[1] Another reason for having both a verse and a prose life of a particular saint is given by the medieval scholar Alcuin, where he said that prose lives were meant to be read aloud to a monastic community, but that verses were to be used by individual monks for meditation and study.[8] The Breviloquium contains a number of neologisms and Greek words, the rarity of some of which imply that Frithegod had some knowledge of the Greek language.[1] The Breviloquium was influenced by Biblical hermeneutics, a type of study of biblical texts.[9] The medieval scholar Eadmer, who used the poem on Wilfrid in his own works, said that the original poem was too full of Greek words to be read very often.[10]
A modern edition of the Breviloquium was published in 1950 with another edition appearing in the Biblioheca hagiographica latina series as number 8891.
A prose preface to the Breviloquium exists, written in much the same dense style. It is claimed to have been written by Oda, although Lapidge suggests that it is possible that Frithegod wrote the preface also and ascribed it to his patron.[12]
Other works
Frithegod wrote a number of other works, not all of which survive to the present day. A 16th-century antiquary,
The two poems are both contained in a manuscript now in the
Footnotes
Citations
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Lapidge "Frithegod" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
- ^ a b c Sharpe Handlist p. 117
- ^ Sharpe Handlist p. 118
- ^ Beech "England and Aquitaine" Anglo-Saxon England pp. 95–96
- ^ Lapidge "Frankish Scholar" Anglo-Saxon England p. 46
- ^ Lapidge "Hermeneutic Style" Anglo-Saxon England p. 78
- ^ Graham "Intellectual Influence of English Monasticism" Transactions of the Royal Historical Society pp. 24–25
- ^ Lapidge "Saintly Life" Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature p. 267
- ^ McGowan "Introduction" Companion to Anglo-Saxon Literature p. 37
- ^ Hayward "St Wilfrid of Ripon" Northern History p. 12
- ^ Gameson "Anglo-Saxon scribes and scriptoria" Cambridge History of the Book in Britain p. 100
- ^ a b c Gretsch Intellectual Foundations pp. 371–372
- ^ Lapidge "Frankish Scholar" Anglo-Saxon England p. 53
- ^ Lapidge "Frankish Scholar" Anglo-Saxon England p. 55
- ^ Love "Frithegod of Canterbury's Maundy Thursday Hymn" Anglo-Saxon England pp. 222–225
References
- Beech, George (1990). "England and Aquitaine in the Century before the Norman Conquest". Anglo-Saxon England. 19 (19): 81–101. S2CID 162576059.
- Gameson, Richard (2012). "Anglo-Saxon scribes and scriptoria". In Gameson, Richard (ed.). The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain: Volume I c. 400–1100. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 94–120. ISBN 978-0-521-58345-9.
- JSTOR 3678137.
- Gretsch, Mechthild (2004) [1999]. The Intellectual Foundations of the English Benedictine Reform (Electronic ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-511-48329-5.
- Hayward, Paul A. (March 2012). "St Wilfrid of Ripon and the Northern Church in Anglo-Norman Historiography". Northern History. 49 (1): 11–35. S2CID 159532181.
- S2CID 161444797.
- S2CID 162109808.
- required)
- ISBN 978-0-521-19332-0.
- Love, Rosalind C. (2005). "Frithegod of Canterbury's Maundy Thursday Hymn". Anglo-Saxon England. 34: 219–236. S2CID 162771182.
- McGowan, Joseph P. (2008). "An Introduction to the Corpus of Anglo-Latin Literature". In Pulsiano, Phillip; Treharne, Elaine (eds.). A Companion to Anglo-Saxon Literature. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 11–49. ISBN 978-1-4051-7609-5.
- ISBN 2-503-50575-9.