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CIEDMON

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Originally appearing in Volume V04, Page 936 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CIEDMON , the earliest See also:

English See also:Christian poet. His See also:story, and even his very name, are known to us only from Bxda (Hist. Eccl. iv. 24). He was, according to Bxda (see See also:BEDE), a herdsman, who received a divine See also:call to See also:poetry by means of a See also:dream. One See also:night, having quitted a festive See also:company because, from want of skill, he could not comply with the demand made of each See also:guest in turn to sing to the See also:harp, he sought his See also:bed and See also:fell asleep. He dreamed that there appeared to him a stranger, who addressed him by his name, and commanded him to sing of " the beginning of created things." He pleaded inability, but the stranger insisted, and he was compelled to obey. He found himself uttering " verses which he had never heard." Of Cxdmon's See also:song B eda gives a See also:prose See also:paraphrase, which may be literally rendered as follows:—" Now must we praise the author of the heavenly See also:kingdom, the Creator's See also:power and counsel, the deeds of the See also:Father of See also:glory: how He, the eternal See also:God, was the author of all marvels— He, who first gave to the sons of men the See also:heaven for a roof, and then, Almighty See also:Guardian of mankind, created the See also:earth." Bxda explains that his version represents the sense only, not the arrangement of the words, because no poetry, however excellent, can be rendered into another See also:language, without the loss of its beauty of expression. When Cxdmon awoke he remembered the verses that he had sung and added to them others. He related his dream to the See also:farm See also:bailiff under whom he worked, and was conducted by him to the neighbouring monastery at Streanxshalch (now called See also:Whitby). The See also:abbess Hild and her monks recognized that the illiterate herdsman had received a See also:gift from heaven, and, in See also:order to test his See also:powers, proposed to him that he should try to render into See also:verse a portion of sacred See also:history which they explained to him. Onthe following See also:morning he returned having fulfilled his task.

At the See also:

request of the abbess he became an inmate of the monastery. Throughout the See also:remainder of his See also:life his more learned brethren from See also:time to time expounded to him the events of Scripture history and the doctrines of the faith, and all that he heard from them he reproduced in beautiful poetry. " He sang of the creation of the See also:world, of the origin of mankind and of all the history of See also:Genesis, of the See also:exodus of See also:Israel from See also:Egypt and their entrance into the Promised See also:Land, of many other incidents of Scripture history, of the See also:Lord's incarnation, See also:passion, resurrection and See also:ascension, of the coming of the See also:Holy See also:Ghost and the teaching of the apostles. He also made many songs of the terrors of the coming See also:judgment, of the horrors of See also:hell and the sweetness of heaven; and of the mercies and the judgments of God." All his poetry was on sacred themes, and its unvarying aim was to turn men from See also:sin to righteousness and the love of God. Although many amongst the Angles had, following his example, essayed to compose religious poetry, none of them, in Bxda's See also:opinion, had approached the excellence of Cxdmon's songs. Bxda's See also:account of C edmon's deathbed has often been quoted, and is of singular beauty. It is commonly stated that he died in 68o, in the same See also:year as the abbess Hild, but for this there is no authority. All that we know of his date is that his dream took See also:place during the See also:period (658–68o) in which Hild was abbess of Streanxshalch, and that he must have died some considerable time before Bxda finished his history in 731. The hymn said to have been composed by Cxdmon in his dream is extant in its See also:original language. A copy of it, in the poet's own Northumbrian See also:dialect, and in a See also:handwriting of the 8th See also:century, appears on a See also:blank See also:page of the See also:Moore MS. of Bxda's History; and five other. Latin See also:MSS. of Bxda have the poem (but transliterated into a more See also:southern dialect) as a marginal See also:note. In the old English version of Bxda, ascribed to See also:King See also:Alfred, and certainly made by his command if not by himself, it is given in the See also:text.

Probably the Latin MS. used by the translator was one that contained this addition. It was formerly maintained by some scholars that the extant Old English verses are not Baeda's original, but a See also:

mere retranslation from his Latin prose version. The See also:argument was that they correspond too closely with the Latin; Bxda's words, " hic est sensus, non autem ordo ipse verborum," being taken to mean that he had given, not a literal See also:translation, but only a See also:free paraphrase. But the See also:form of the sentences in Bwda's prose shows a See also:close adherence to the parallelistic structure of Old English verse, and the alliterating words in the poem are in nearly every See also:case the most obvious and almost the inevitable equivalents of those used by Bxda. The See also:sentence quoted above 1 can therefore have been meant only as an See also:apology for the See also:absence of those poetic See also:graces that necessarily disappear in See also:translations into another See also:tongue. Even on the See also:assumption that the existing verses are a retranslation, it would still be certain that they differ very slightly from what the original must have been. It is of course possible to hold that the story of the dream is pure fiction, and that the lines which Bxda translated were not Cxdmon's at all. But there is really nothing to justify this extreme of See also:scepticism. As the hymn is said to have been Cxdmon's first See also:essay in verse, its lack of poetic merit is rather an argument for its genuineness than against it. Whether Bxda's narrative be See also:historical or not—and it involves nothing either miraculous or essentially improbable—there is no See also:reason to doubt that the nine lines of the Moore MS. are Cxdmon's See also:composition. This poor fragment is all that can with confidence be affirmed to remain of the voluminous See also:works of the See also:man whom Baeda regarded as the greatest of See also:vernacular religious poets. It is true that for two centuries and a See also:half a considerable See also:body of verse has been currently known by his name; but among See also:modern scholars the use of the customary designation is merely a See also:matter of convenience, and does not imply any belief in the correctness of the attribution.

The so-called Cxdmon poems are contained 1 It is a significant fact that the Alfredian version, instead of translating this sentence, introduces the verses with the words, " This is the order of the words." in a MS. written about A.D. 1000, which was given in 1651 by See also:

Archbishop Ussher to the famous See also:scholar See also:Francis See also:Junius, and is now in the Bodleian library. They consist of paraphrases of parts of Genesis, Exodus and See also:Daniel, and three See also:separate poems, the first on the See also:lamentations of the fallen angels, the second on the " Harrowing of Hell," the resurrection, ascension and second coming of See also:Christ, and the third (a mere fragment) on the temptation. The subjects correspond so well with those of Cmdmon's poetry as described by Baeda that it is not surprising that Junius, in his edition, published in 1655, unhesitatingly attributed the poems to him. The ascription was rejected in 1684 by G. See also:Hickes, whose See also:chief argument, based on the See also:character of the language, is now known to be fallacious, as most of the poetry that has come down to us in the See also:West Saxon dialect is certainly of Northumbrian origin. Since, however, we learn from Bmda that already in his time Cmdmon had had many imitators, the abstract See also:probability is rather unfavourable than otherwise to the assumption that a collection of poems contained in a See also:late loth century MS. contains any of his See also:work. Modern See also:criticism has shown conclusively that the , poetry of the " Cedmon MS." cannot be all by one author. Some portions of it are plainly the work of a scholar who wrote with his Latin See also:Bible before him. It is possible that some of the See also:rest may be the composition of the Northumbrian herdsman; but in the absence of any authenticated example of the poet's work to serve as a basis of comparison, the See also:internal See also:evidence can afford no ground for an affirmative conclusion. On the other See also:hand, the mere unlikeness of any particular passage to the nine lines of the Hymn is obviously no reason for denying that it may have been by the same author. The Genesis contains a See also:long passage (ii.

235-851) on the fall of the angels and the temptation of our first parents, which differs markedly in See also:

style and See also:metre from the rest. This passage, which begins in the See also:middle of a sentence (two leaves of the MS. having been lost) is one of the finest in all Old English poetry. In 1877 See also:Professor E. Sievers argued, on linguistic grounds, that it was a translation, with some original insertions, from a lost poem in Old Saxon, probably by the author of the See also:Heliand. Sievers's conclusions were brilliantly confirmed in 1894 by the See also:discovery in the Vatican library of a MS. containing 62 lines of the Heliand and three fragments of an old Saxon poem on the story of Genesis. The first of these fragments includes the original of 28 lines of the interpolated passage of the Old English Genesis. The Old Saxon Biblical poetry belongs to the middle of the 9th century; the Old English translation of a portion of it is consequently later than this. As the Genesis begins with a See also:line identical in meaning, though not in wording, with the opening of Cmdmon's Hymn, we may perhaps infer that the writer knew and used Cmdmon's genuine poems. Some of the more poetical passages may possibly See also:echo Cmdmon's expressions; but when, after treating of the creation of the angels and the revolt of See also:Lucifer, the paraphrast comes to the Biblical See also:part of the story, he follows the sacred text with servile fidelity, omitting no detail, however prosaic. The ages of the antediluvian patriarchs, for instance, are accurately rendered into verse. In all probability the Genesis is of Northumbrian origin. The names assigned to the wives of See also:Noah and his three sons (Phercoba, O11a, 011iva, 011ivani 1) have been traced to an Irish source, and this fact seems to point to the See also:influence of the Irish missionaries in See also:Northumbria.

The Exodus is a See also:

fine poem, strangely unlike anything else in OId English literature. It is full of See also:martial spirit, yet makes no use of the phrases of the See also:heathen epic, which See also:Cynewulf and other Christian poets were accustomed to See also:borrow freely, often with little appropriateness. The condensation of the style and the See also:peculiar vocabulary make the Exodus somewhat obscure in many places. It is probably of southern origin, and can hardly be supposed to be even an See also:imitation of Cmdmon. The Daniel is often unjustly depreciated. It is not a See also:great 2 See also:Stephens read the inscription on the See also:top-See also:stone as Cadmon See also:nice 1 The invention of these names was perhaps suggested by Pericope faulepo, which he rendered " Cadmon made me." But these words Oollae et Oolibae, which may have been a current See also:title for the 23rd are mere See also:jargon, not belonging to any known or possible Old English See also:chapter of See also:Ezekiel. dialect. poem but the narration is lucid and interesting. The author has borrowed some 7o lines from the beginning of a poetical rendering of the See also:Prayer of Azarias and the Song of the Three See also:Children, of which there is a copy in the See also:Exeter See also:Book. The borrowed portion ends with verse 3 of the canticle, the remainder of which follows in a version for the most part See also:independent, though containing here and there a line from Azarias. Except in inserting the prayer and the Benedicite, the paraphrast draws only from the canonical part of the book of Daniel. The poem is obviously the work of a scholar, though the Bible is the only source used. The three other poems, designated as " Book II " in the Junius MS., are characterized by considerable imaginative power and vigour of expression, but they show an absence of See also:literary culture and are somewhat rambling, full of repetitions and generally lacking in finish.

They abound in passages of fervid religious exhortation. On the whole, both their merits and their defects are such as we should expect to find iii the work of the poet celebrated by Baeda, and it seems possible, though hardly more than possible, that we have in these pieces a comparatively little altered specimen of Cmdmon's compositions. Of poems not included in the Junius MS., the Dream of the See also:

Rood (see CYNEWULF) is the only one that has with any plausibility been ascribed to Cadmon. It was affirmed by Professor G. Stephens that the Ruthwell See also:Cross, on which a portion of the poem is inscribed in See also:runes, See also:bore on its top-stone the name " Cadmon "; 2 but, according to Professor W. Vietor, the traces of runes that are still visible exclude all possibility of this See also:reading. The poem is certainly Northumbrian and earlier than the date of Cynewulf. It would be impossible to prove that Cmdmon was not the author, though the See also:production of such a work by the herdsman of Streanmshalch would certainly deserve to See also:rank among the miracles of See also:genius. Certain similarities between passages in See also:Paradise Lost and parts of the translation from Old Saxon interpolated in the Old English Genesis have given occasion to the See also:suggestion that some scholar may have talked to See also:Milton about the poetry published by Junius in 1655, and that the poet may thus have gained some hints which he used in his great work. The See also:parallels, however, though very interesting, are only such as might be expected to occur between two poets of kindred genius working on what was essentially the same body of traditional material. The name Ceedmon (in the MSS. of the Old English version of Bmda written Cedmon, Ceadmann) is not explicable by means of Old English; the statement that it means " boatman " is founded on the corrupt See also:gloss liburnam, ced, where ced is an editorial misreading for ceol. It is most probably the See also:British Cadman, intermediate between the Old See also:Celtic Catumanus and the modern Welsh Cadfan.

Possibly the poet may have been of British descent, though the inference is not certain, as British names may sometimes have been given to English children. The name Caedwalla or Ceadwalla was See also:

borne by a British king mentioned by Bmda and by a king of the West See also:Saxons. The initial See also:element Caed—or Cead (probably adopted from British names in which it represents catu, See also:war) appears combined with an Old English terminal element in the name Caedbaed (cp., however, the Irish name Cathbad), and hypocoristic forms of names containing it were borne by the English See also:saints Ceadda (commonly known as St See also:Chad) and his See also:brother Cedd, called Ceadwealla in one MS. of the Old English See also:Martyrology. A Cadmon witnesses a See also:Buckinghamshire See also:charter of about A.D. 948. The older See also:editions of the so-called " Cndmon's Paraphrase " by F. Junius (1655); B. See also:Thorpe (1832), with an English translation; K. W. See also:Bouterwek (1851–1854); C. W. M.

Grein in his Bibliothek der angelsdchsischen Poesie (1857) are superseded, so far as the text is concerned, by R. Wi lker's re-edition of See also:

Grain's Bibliothek, Bd. ii. (1895). This work contains also the texts of the Hymn and the Dream of the Rood. The pictorial illustrations of the Junius MS. were published in 1833 by See also:Sir H. See also:Ellis. (H.

End of Article: CIEDMON

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