Maxims in Aldred’s Marginalia to the Lindisfarne Gospels

Much of the commentary on Aldred’s glosses to the Lindisfarne Gospels quite rightly focuses on his language and on the way he translates the Latin text. His gloss is mostly literal and tied to the Latin words and syntax on the page before him. But he adds comments in the margins, and these are the focus of the discussion here. This paper draws attention particularly to the cluster of additional material occurring in the context of the Beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, and the longer annotation in Matthew 10. The marginalia are in the form of maxims and are deliberately shaped for literary and rhetorical effect. It is suggested that Aldred was concerned with monastic reform, and that he appreciated wisdom literature. So he took the opportunity offered by the gospel text to elaborate particularly relevant passages for his Church and community in the authoritative style of maxims in order to enforce the teaching. This is a literary intervention in an essentially practical work.


Introduction
The glosses and marginalia in the justly famous Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero D.iv) are, so far as the hand is concerned, the product of one man.¹He identifies himself in the colophon (f.259r) as "Aldred p[re]sb[yte]r indignus & misserrim[us]" 'Aldred, unworthy and most miserable priest', a rhetorical flourish of humility which he goes some way to adjusting in 1 This is at least the generally accepted view at the present time, and reflects the view of Ker (1957: 216), who identified the glossator of both the Durham Collectar and Lindisfarne as Aldred, though in the latter "the writing varies much in appearance, except in the first gospel".Ross et al. (1960) confirmed this view.However, there have been other perspectives: Waing (Stevenson and Waring 1854-1865: IV, xlvi) states, "Two scribes have been employed on our Gospels; the first portion was written by some person deputed by Aldred, and probably under his dictation; the second hand in red ink, which we know to be Aldred's autograph, is distinguished […] by certain orthographical peculiarities"; and Skeat (1871-1887: III, ix-x) concludes that Aldred's remark in the colophon relating to the glossing of John "for hine seolfne" 'for himself' suggests that "the glosses to this gospel are in his own handwriting, whilst those to the other gospels (in a different hand) were merely made under his superintendence".This view is no longer widely accepted.
the rest of the colophon, where he gives more of his biography and, according to Nees, at least, aligns himself with, and identifies himself as a second John, Evangelist and writer of the fourth Gospel (Nees 2003).Apart from information in the colophon and the glossing in the Lindisfarne manuscript, and a further colophon and glossing in Aldred's hand in the Durham Collectar (Durham Cathedral Library,MS A.iv.19) and Latin glossing in a manuscript of Bede's commentary on the Proverbs of Solomon (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 819), we know relatively little about Aldred.The consensus is that he joined the Cuthbertine community at Chester-le-Street sometime after 950 and became prior in 970, and that between the two dates he completed the work on the Gospels.
Aldred's glosses tell us a good deal about his Latin learning and the range of vernacular linguistic material and interpretative strategies he had at his command.In addition to the glosses, however, there are seventy-one distinct marginal annotations in the Lindisfarne manuscript according to Boyd's study (1975a).Boyd concerns himself primarily with exploring the theology and sources of Aldred's commentary, and this augments our knowledge of the kind of works Aldred knew.The glosses are functional: once Aldred had set himself (or had been commissioned) to the task of a continuous literal gloss on the Gospels, he could not properly miss passages out.Sometimes he shows remarkable lexical range in his glossing, sometimes he makes mistakes (Ross 1932a); but the glossing is thorough.By contrast, the marginalia are optional and occasional, and reveal Aldred's reading, his habits of interpretation, and his understanding of the needs of his community.The marginalia, in other words, are different from the glosses in that they might give us a novel perspective on the man and his concerns.
They are not all uniform however.The marginalia before and after the Beatitudes are clearly informative.Matthew 1.18 reads, "abiathar ðe aldormon waes in ðaem tid in hierusalem.forebiscob […]" 'Abiathar the leader (?) was at that time High Priest in Jerusalem' (Boyd 1975a: 9 no.5; Boyd's translation); and Matthew 6.24, "mamon.þ[ae]t is gidsunges hlaferd ðe diowl […]" 'Mammon's; that is, the lord of avarice, the devil' (Boyd 1975a: 15 no.11; Boyd's translation).There is essential information in these additions, which contrasts with the slight adjustments that characterize the marginalia on the Beatitudes (Boyd 1975a: 10-14 nos.6-10), which will be the major focus of discussion below.For various reasons, I do not believe Aldred's main concern in the marginalia relating to the Beatitudes is with theology, not least because the additions here have less theological content than those elsewhere, and are hortatory rather than informative: Ker (1957: 215) remarks that "[t]he glossator sometimes places a less literal rendering of the text in the margin".They, like the additions on simony and the role of the bishop (Boyd 1975a: 23-24 nos. 16-17), relate more intimately to the concerns of Aldred himself and his vision of the community.This paper will argue that Aldred's additions to the manuscripts show him to have two discernible concerns: first, with wisdom and second, with applying that wisdom to his community by relevant and pointed teaching.It will show that these two preoccupations come together in the maxims he uses in the marginalia.The first part of the paper explores Aldred's context and establishes his interest in wisdom and use of maxims; the second part discusses the maxims in the marginalia themselves and shows how they indicate Aldred's preoccupations.

Aldred and the community at Chester-le-Street
The information we have about Aldred, though meagre, is remarkably interesting.According to the Lindisfarne Gospels colophon, he paid eight ores of silver for his induction to the priesthood and to the community and this apparently links to his denunciation of simony in one of the marginalia in the Gospels (Matthew 10.8;Boyd 1975a: 24-31 no. 18;Brown 2003: 98-99; and see further below).²Another marginal note on the same page, f. 45r, comments on a bishop's responsibility not to delay consecration of a newly arrived priest.It is suggested that the plain statement in the colophon relates to Aldred's own experience, and in the addition to the Gospel text he was outlining the precepts that he felt were not followed in his case (Boyd 1975a: 26-28).If this is true, it indicates that the Church in Northumbria around the middle of the tenth century was in some particulars not in a good state.³ 2 The long-running question as to whether the colophon is trustworthy relates principally to the details given by Aldred concerning the original makers of the book, not especially to Aldred's claims about himself.Gameson sees the rationale given by Aldred for the book's creation as "purely spiritual and altruistic" (2001b: 47), intended to "elevate a whole foundation spiritually" (2001b: 57); and while these comments relate to the original creation of the volume by Eadfrith, AEthelwald and Billfrith, they might also reflect the intentions of Aldred himself.3 A recent article (Newton et al. 2013) proposes a new interpretation of the colophon and, in particular, OE ora.It is suggested that ora should be rendered 'border', and might refer to the kind of decorative border that appears around the text in some pages of the MacRegol Gospels.A significant difficulty with this interpretation (apart from the fact that these borders are no longer present in the Lindisfarne manuscript, and cannot be demonstrated ever to have been present) is that ora does not securely mean 'border'.The word occurs predominantly in southern placenames where it means 'bank';elsewhere, as Gelling and Cole (2000: 203) remark, "[t]here appear to be two literary occurrences [...].One of these is poetic: a cuckoo is heard calling from a grove on hlithes oran.This can fairly be translated 'on the edge of the slope', though a more specific sense for hlith [Gelling and Cole's emphasis] can be deduced from place-names.The second is a translation of a Latin phrase, in oram vestimenti eius, by on oran his hraegles: this may indicate The community of St. Cuthbert at Chester-le-Street to which Aldred made such notable contributions had certainly declined from its original monastic purity at Lindisfarne before the Viking attacks and settlements of the ninth and early tenth centuries.It was predominantly clerical early in the second half of the tenth century.The main evidence for any continuing monastic observance during the years at Chester-le-Street derives from Symeon of Durham (Rollason 2000: 102-105), who makes reference to those, qui inter eos ab etate infantili in habitu clericali fuerant nutriti atque eruditi, quocunque sancti patris corpus ferebatur secuti sunt, moremque sibi a monachis doctoribus traditum in officiis -dumtaxat diurne uel nocturne laudis -semper seruarunt.Vnde tota nepotum suorum successio magis secundum instituta monachorum quam clericorum consuetudinem canendi horas [...] 'who had been brought up and educated among the monks from childhood, albeit in the habit of clerks, followed the body of the holy father wherever it was carried, and they always preserved the custom -which had been handed down to them by their teachers the monks -of singing the day and night offices.As a result all their descendants who succeeded them [...] followed their fathers in the custom of singing the hours according to the regimen of the monks rather than that of the clerks'.
There is some discussion about these claims: Rollason (1992: 185-186) refers to the idea that the community and its bishops were anything other than lay clerks, except for Bishop Eadred, as "implausible and surely propagandist".And in the nature of the case it is difficult (for modern scholars, at least -Symeon might have had reliable sources) to generalize accurately about the circumstances and observance of the community for the period 883-995 (Bonner 1989).Karen Jolly suggests that some of Aldred's additions to the Durham Collectar, Durham Cathedral Library, MS A.iv.19, indicate that "a small group of monks may have conducted services exclusive to the body of St. Cuthbert, which would account for the collects for the saint that Aldred copied into Quire XI" (2012: 208).But these additions might be in hopes of revitalizing monastic life rather than of continuing it; as Jolly also notes, "the vast majority of the rest of the office materials could have been used by both secular and monastic clergy, separately or together" (2012: 208).Alicia Corréa (1992: 76-80) by contrast takes the view that the manuscript was probably "a commonplace book" (1992: 76), and that "it may well be that the original portion ... was never used, directly or indirectly, in the office liturgy at Chester-le-Street" (1992: 80).
that OE ora meant something like 'hem', but the choice of word may be an echoing of the Latin rather than common usage".See further Roberts's response in this volume.
Michelle Brown (2003: 101), working from the Caroline features of Aldred's handwriting, characteristic of the monastic reform movement of the second half of the tenth century, suggests, It may be that Aldred was 'planted' specifically in his native region as part of an attempt to address such issues of reform in one of the most powerful houses in the north, in which case he may even have been 'sponsored' by one of the great tenth-century reformers, such as Dunstan [...], Aethelwold [...] or Oswald, or [...] encouraged by contact with one of the West Saxon royal visitations of the north from Athelstan's time onwards.
Aldred's visit to Wessex in 970 with Bishop AElfsige, recorded in the former's colophon in the Durham Collectar, reinforces the notion that he had contacts with the reform movement, though it might not have been to the reforming council that produced the Regularis concordia that he was going (Bonner 1989: 394-395;Jolly 2012: 10-11); and his concerns to educate and promote literacy, to expand the liturgical resources available, and to correct abuses, evident in the glosses and additions to manuscripts belonging to Cuthbert's community at Chester-le-Street, reflect many of the preoccupations of the Benedictine Reform movement.⁴Much more cannot be said with certainty, but that there was some need for reform in the Church and Cuthbert's community in northern Northumbria, and that Aldred had both connections with the reform movement and a concern for reform himself, is evident.

Aldred and wisdom
One of the less obvious things about Aldred that might be noted is his concern with wisdom.In the Lindisfarne Gospels colophon on f. 259r, following his account of glossing the Gospels, Matthew "for God and St Cuthbert", Mark "for the bishop", Luke "for the community", and John "for himself", he writes: There is a distinct echo in the third doublet here ("uisdom snyttro") of Solomon's prayer on his accession to the throne of Israel after the death of David.Solomon prays to God in his dream, Da mihi sapientiam et intelligentiam 'Give me wisdom and knowledge' (II Paralipomenon 1.10),⁶ and in response God twice promises to give him sapientiam et scientiam 'wisdom and knowledge' (II Paralipomenon 1.11, 12), the same things that Aldred prays for.Aldred consistently translates L scientia with OE wisdom (LkGl (Li) 1.77, 11.52), and sapientia with OE snyt(t)ro (MtGl (Li) 12.42, 13.54; MkGl (Li) 6.2; LkGl (Li) 2. 40, 2.47, 2.52, 6.11, 7.35, 11.31, 11.49, 21.15)In addition to this, it is notable that while Aldred glosses in English two of the books that might have been used in the liturgical life of the community, namely the Gospels and the Collectar, when he might have had unfettered choice he annotated in Latin Bede's commentary on the Proverbs of Solomon, which is a collection of wisdom sayings attributed to the Old Testament exemplar of wisdom.Solomon also appears in a text on the "Ecclesiastical Grades" in the encyclopedic material copied by Aldred into the folios at the end of the Durham Collectar (at the top of f. 87r; Jolly 2012: 347).Jolly observes that the associations of these rather curious texts are with the "glossaries, colloquies, and pedagogical dialogues derived from older encyclopedic works by Isidore of Seville, Raban Maur, Amalarius of Metz, Alcuin, and Bede [...] or in the popular insular versions of the Dialogue of Solomon and Saturn" (2012: 172).In particular, closest of all the analogues to the text De octo pondera de quibus factus est Adam 'The eight pounds from which Adam was created' on ff.86r-87v of the Collectar is that in the later Old English Prose Solomon and Saturn, as noted in Brown (1969: 51) and Jolly (2012: 172 n. 80, 342).Here we have a wisdom text associated with Solomon.Aldred's work shows a remarkable interest in the Old Testament model of the wise man, Solomon, and in wisdom literature more generally.

Aldred and maxims
It has not before been noticed that some of Aldred's marginalia are expressed in the traditional Anglo-Saxon form of wisdom sayings, maxims.These include the annotations to the Beatitudes of Matthew chapter 5 (numbered 6-10 by Boyd 1975a), and also the passage on simony in Matthew 10.8 (numbered 17 by Boyd 1975a).Before I analyze the maxims in the margins of the Gospels, I will briefly discuss the form and style of maxims.

Maxims: form and style
Scholars have variously commented on the characteristics of maxims.Early studies attempted to categorize maxims into types (Chadwick andChadwick 1932-1940: I, 377-403), but this was widely found to fail on the grounds of inconsistency (Cavill 1999: 42-43).A series of articles considered the characteristic "gnomic" verbs used in maxims, sceal and bið: Greenfield and Evert (1975) in their article on the Old English poem Maxims II noted that no single sense could consistently be applied to either of the verbs even in that one poem; Nelson (1981) took the question further, but came to a similar conclusion.Recent book-length studies which range more widely over the wisdom mode, and editions of wisdom texts, have included Shippey (1976), Poems of Wisdom and Learning in Old English; Cross and Hill (1982), The Prose Solomon and Saturn and Adrian and Ritheus; Howe (1985), The Old English Catalogue Poems; Hansen (1988), The Solomon Complex;Larrington (1993), A Store of Common Sense; Cavill (1999), Maxims in Old English Poetry;and Anlezark (2009), The Old English Dialogues of Solomon and Saturn, among others.All of these to some extent attempt to characterize the forms and properties of maxims and wisdom literature and reinstate them as important in enabling us to have a better understanding of medieval worldviews.
Hansen's summary of wisdom in Beowulf (1988: 57) is helpful in isolating characteristic features of maxims (or "gnomes", as she refers to them): It has long been thought that many of the two dozen or so gnomic sayings in Beowulf come from a traditional Old English gnome-hoard with numerous analogues in Old English, Old Norse, Old Welsh, and Old Irish, and all of the gnomic passages are readily identifiable by those formal and thematic characteristics which, in accord with what we know from other extant works, conventionally signal the gnomic mode.Even though Hansen is referring to Beowulf, it will be immediately apparent that this description applies to those of Aldred's marginalia I have isolated.Those on the Beatitudes (Boyd's 6-10) consistently use the bið verb form and often the se þe construction in the plural (biðon and ða (ðe)): "eadge biðon ða ðaerfe[ndo], eadge biðon ða ðe hyncgrað ðyrstas soðfaestnisse" 'blessed are the poor, blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness', and so on.These also consistently use the adjective headword eadig 'blessed', which has twelve verse parallels in maxims from the Old English Metrical Psalms, four from other, secular, verse, and innumerable parallels in glossed and translated Psalters (Cavill 1999: 91-94).These expressions also employ the binaries of "here and now versus there and then" and "this without that".The maxim at Matthew 10.8 (Boyd 1975a: 24-31 no.17) uses the verb sceal, and in outlining the bishop's duty, conforms to the "trade rules" type of maxim: once again, this has numerous parallels in the works of AElfric, Old English laws and the tract Gerefa, as well as Old English verse (Cavill 1999: 14-17).

Maxims in clusters
There is a tendency for maxims to accrete in collections, either because of some thematic or verbal linking, or because they are perceived as fundamentally similar to each other, in style or (presumably educative) purpose.A string of poems in the Exeter Book of Old English poetry follows related themes referred to in the titles, like the Gifts and Fortunes of Men, or the poem Maxims I in three parts which cover a vast range of human experiences and observation, not all very obviously related to each other (Krapp and Dobbie 1936;Muir 1994).The Durham Proverbs (Arngart 1981) and the Old English Dicts of Cato (Cox 1972) similarly unite disparate proverbial ideas under the form and style of maxims (among other features).
One striking example of an ad hoc collection of wisdom material, containing generalizations in the form of maxims from both Latin and Old English, is in the hand of Archbishop Wulfstan, a near-contemporary of Aldred, in Copenhagen, Kongelige Bibliotek, MS Gl. kgl.sam.1595, f. 66v (Cross and Tunberg 1993; Cavill 2012).On a space following a copy of one of Wulfstan's homilies, he wrote a series of sentences: "AElc man behofað gastlices fosters" 'Everyone needs spiritual sustenance' is linked through signes de renvoi to the thematically related but linguistically distinct verse from Matthew 4.4, Non in sola pane.uiuit homo.sed in omni uerbo quod procedit de ore dei 'Not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God';⁹ other expressions of similar type were also written in, apparently at different times (Ker 1971: 320).In a rather similar fashion, Aldred's wisdom literature additions (the Adam dialogue, lists and encyclopedic material mentioned above) to the Durham Collectar fill the vacant folios at the end of that manuscript.In a very similar fashion to Wulfstan's additions to the Copenhagen manuscript, Aldred's marginalia relating to the Beatitudes in the Lindisfarne Gospels are clearly linked to the biblical text, but they also extrapolate from it, and are all collected in the right-hand margin of the single folio, 34r.They are clearly clustered in this location.

Maxims: rhetorical effect
Overall, on the basis of these distinguishable formulaic, stylistc and even palaeographical or codicological features, there is clear and sufficient reason to believe that Aldred was consciously invoking the maxim form and presenting his maxims in a way that would be recognisable as characteristic of wisdom literature.The Sermon on the Mount itself is a wisdom discourse and the Beatitudes here have the same basic linguistic features in Greek and Latin as they do in Old English.But maxims in Old English are used for particular effects and for specific purposes in both secular and religious texts.An ambiguous feature is that they are habitually expressed in present-tense verbs, which makes it difficult to know whether they have present or future sense; and of course part of the purpose in people using maxims is often to blur that temporal distinction.Aldred exploits this feature in his augmented version of the Beatitudes.Maxims are expressed in general terms about specific types of person or creature, so they have the appearance of observable fact even if, in some cases, it is doubtful the phenomenon could have been observed.For example, dragons inhabiting burial mounds were well-known in Germanic stories, noted in place-names¹⁰ and categorized in a maxim in Max II 26b-27a, "draca sceal on hlaewe / frod fraetwum wlonc" 'a dragon belongs in a mound, old and proud of its treasures'; but dragons may not have been empirically observed exhibiting this behaviour.
For the most part, maxims invoke the predictable or desirable behaviour of people, and the properties of classes of animals or things.They have the authority of the truism, the obvious, or an implied consensus view of life.In Old English poetry, in particular, they articulate a distinctive worldview, one that insists, for example, that shame is a fate worse than death, or that it is better to avenge than to mourn.So when in Beowulf Wiglaf says "Deað bið sella / eorla gehwylcum þonne edwitlif" 'death is better for every warrior than a life of shame' (Beo 2890b-2891a), it would be clear to those listening (in the imagined world of the text) that this was not his own idea, a merely personal ideal, but one of the bases on which his society functioned.It is what everybody believed, even if in a moment of crisis some might fail to react in the appropriate way.The truth of the maxim is tested but not negated by those who run away in Beowulf: they cease to be eorlas 'warriors' in the sense articulated in the formula.There is an implied "We all know that ..." about maxims: they are what Michael Polanyi calls "fiduciary acts" (1958: 28).So maxims frame an ideal or an aspiration or a conception which is real for the person articulating the expression and believed to be real by the audience addressed in the immediate context.
Maxims have this effect because of their formulaic generality of expression.As with the maxims collected by Wulfstan mentioned above, these kinds of wisdom expressions can be used in homilies and for exhortation, but in their formal structure and generalization of expression they are not directly didactic or "homiletic" in the negative sense that critics often use.They engage the imagination and invite listeners and readers to envision an ordered and meaningful universe where phenomena and roles are predictable and properly hierarchical; and by describing and promoting -even promising -this kind of ideal, they invite an audience to imagine an alternative to the present.They create a sense of community by implicitly articulating what everyone believes.And they persuade by using traditional and proverbial forms of expression without the intrusion of directly personal assertion.¹¹Maxims, then, have a rhetoric which is at once imaginative, memorable and powerful, whether in verse or prose.

The Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount
Aldred would, of course, have recognized the Latin Beatitudes themselves as wisdom literature.The structure that the Beatitudes take is well-evidenced not only in Old Germanic and Old Celtic languages, as well as in Hebrew literature, 11 Wulfstan exploits the duality of personal and impersonal address consistently: he uses all kinds of formulas to reinforce his personal voice, e.g."soð is þaet ic secge" 'it is true what I say', followed almost immediately by the impersonal maxim "Se gefaerð gesaellice þe godcundre lare.oftost gehyreð geornlicost gymeð" 'He travels well who most often and most earnestly hears and attends to religious teaching' (see further Cavill 2012).
particularly the Psalms, as has already been noted, but also in biblical Greek and Latin tradition.The commentary in Barton and Muddiman (2001: 853)

observes:
The form, 'blessed' (makarios) + subject + 'that' (hoti) clause, is attested elsewhere (cf.Gen 30:13; Tob 13:16), as are the eschatological orientation (cf.Dan 12:12; 1 Enoch 58:2-3), the grouping together of several beatitudes (cf.As a thoughtful biblical scholar, Aldred was sensitive to the purpose and context of the original Beatitudes.The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) is recognized by scholars as a wisdom discourse, a unit with themes running through its various sections (Barton and Muddiman 2001: 852).The Matthean discourse of the Sermon on the Mount collects together stories, exempla and direct instruction in pithy form, as well as the Beatitudes.There is a parallel block of teaching in Luke 6.17-6.49,sometimes known as the Sermon on the Plain.The Beatitudes of Matthew 5 are expressed in the generalized form of maxims, "blessed are the poor, the merciful" and others.The parallel Lucan expressions are addressed directly and specifically to the audience, "blessed are [you] poor for yours is the kingdom of God", rather than characterizing types of people generally and impersonally as is diagnostic for maxims.Though there is a good deal of overlap between the Beatitudes of Matthew 5 and those of Luke 6, there are fewer in Luke, and indeed the teaching is structured around a stark contrast with the woes that follow, "woe to you who are rich" and others, in Luke 6.24-6.26.
Although Old English poetry takes up the contrast of blessing and woe as exhibited in Luke's Gospel in several paired maxims (wa-wel in Beo 183b-189 and Pr 13b-20; eadig-earm in Max I 37; see Cavill 1999: 82-105), the Lucan Beatitudes are not maxims.A distinction is implicitly recognized by Aldred in his additions to the Lindisfarne manuscript because he expands the Matthean maxims with marginal commentary while leaving the Lucan expressions without.Some sort of distinction is made in Eadfrith's Latin text, too: while both sets of Beatitudes are picked out with alternating green and yellow infilling of the bowl of the initial b, the initials of the Beatitudes in Matthew (ff.34r and 34v) are significantly larger than those of Luke (f.154r); and all the initials b in Matthew are picked out with dots outlining the letter, while only the two green-bowled bs of Luke (beati pauperes and beati qui nunc fletis) are.The cluster of marginal additions in Matthew is also unusual: this page (f.34r) contains the densest collection of marginalia in the entire manuscript.This indicates that the Beatitudes in Matthew were of immediate interest to Aldred, that he wanted to use them in some way, not merely to gloss them, and that they appealed to him as the Lucan ones did not.Aldred was, however, aware of the similarity in the Gospel passages, and his marginal maxims bring the Matthew and Luke passages to bear on each other and act as commentary on both.
The Beatitudes in Matthew presuppose a counter-cultural community living by different rules from those that apply in ordinary circumstances: The first half of each beatitude depicts the community's present; the second half foretells the community's future; and the juxtaposition of the two radically different situations permits the trials of everyday life to be muted by contemplation of the world to come.This hardly excludes the implicit moral demand [...].But Matthew's beatitudes are not formally imperatives.Like the eschatological blessings in 13:16 and Rev 19:9 and 22:14, they offer hope and indeed function as a practical theodicy.Although there is no explanation of evil, the imagination, through contemplation of God's future, engenders hope and makes the present tolerable (Barton and Muddiman 2001: 853).
The point that the Beatitudes are not imperatives is important: they ask people to identify themselves with the eschatological community, the Kingdom of God.Aldred's marginalia show that he understood and appreciated the rhetoric of the Beatitudes, but also that he had something to add for the benefit of his own community.

Analysis of Aldred's maxims
It has been assumed so far that the marginal additions in the Lindisfarne Gospels in Aldred's hand are, in fact, Aldred's own.There is little evidence to prove or disprove this, but no clear source has yet been found for the marginalia as a whole, nor indeed for the glosses.Owun's and Farman's glosses to the MacRegol (Rushworth) Gospels (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Auct.D.2.19) might rely on Aldred's work or a common source (Brown 2003: 96;Jolly 2012: 164; and Kotake, this volume), but they do not exhibit the marginalia, even though it is thought the scribes worked closely with the Lindisfarne manuscript, and Aldred himself might have used the MacRegol Gospels in his turn too (Ross 1981, Kotake 2012).¹²This suggests either that the marginalia were not present in the Lindisfarne manuscript (or any common source) at the time of the collaboration (that is, they might have been added later), or that Owun and Farman ignored them.Either way, this evidence would seem to suggest that the marginalia were Aldred's additions and 12 Ross (1981: 11) remarks that "There is at least one case where he [Owun] has incorporated a Lindisfarne marginal gloss into his text: treé heard (margin .i. gelíc ficbeame) 'arborem sicomorum' / treo heord onlic ficbeome L 19, 4." The expansion is on f. 186v of Lindisfarne, and is not properly a marginale, being written at the end of the left-hand column largely under ascendit.
probably his own ideas, not integral to the enterprise on which the glossators were focused.
I propose to examine the maxims in Aldred's marginalia firstly on the Beatitudes and then on the role of the bishop to see what they tell us about the situations Aldred was addressing.For each Beatitude passage, I give first the Latin text, then the gloss followed by my translation of the Old English, then the marginale read from the high-definition manuscript photographs,¹³ with Boyd's (1975a) translation of the marginal Old English.
( 'blessed are the poor, that is unwealthy or sinless men, for they shall possess God's [...]' The most obvious thing about this marginale is that it realigns the textual gloss by omitting spiritu.The marginal comment focuses on what we might call real, physical poverty in addition to the spiritual poverty of the original.The "ðorfendo" here might indeed be, as Boyd (1975a: 10) suggests, "generally pious people who are not wealthy because they care more for obeying God's will than for amassing wealth" in a biblical context, but that much would be clear from the gloss itself.
The expansion in the marginale of "ðorfendo" 'poor, needy' with "unspoedge ł unsinnige" 'indigent and/or innocent' makes explicit the two dimensions of physical poverty and spiritual innocence which would be of particular relevance to a community like that at Chester-le-Street.¹⁴The community had great property and some political influence, but it is not clear that it was properly monastic.Indeed if Aldred had to pay for his admission to the community as the colophon seems to suggest, he might well have seen this as an indication of neither physical nor spiritual poverty, in which case this marginale has particular point.This focus on real poverty is characteristic of the Lucan parallel to this Beatitude, Luke 6.20, which has no direct reference to spiritual poverty, omitting spiritu, as does Aldred's addition to Matthew: Luke 6.20 L Beati pauperes quia uestrum est regnum dei LkGl (Li) 6.20 eadgo ða ðorfendo forðon iuer is ric godes Trans.(gloss) 'blessed are the poor for yours is the kingdom of God' What the recent high-definition photographs of the manuscript show is that the last word of the Matthean marginale has disappeared into the binding of the manuscript, as does the -a of "hlifgiendr-" in the marginale to Matthew 5.5.The descender of a letter is clearly visible after "godes", and a short word has been lost.The descender is compatible with that of Aldred's r or s, and from the context, the missing word is overwhelmingly likely to be "ric".¹⁵Thus the Matthean passage is not "unfinished" as Boyd believed (1975a: 10), but rather assimilated to the Luke passage: "f[or]ðon hia agan godes r[ic]" 'for they shall possess God's kingdom' in Matthew, "forðon iuer is ric godes" 'for yours is God's kingdom' in Luke.
The two main changes Aldred made in his commentary, omitting the word spiritu and using "godes r[ic]" instead of "ric heofna" (the more characteristic Matthean idiom), show that Aldred wanted to align the Beatitudes in Matthew and Luke, to focus on fundamentally similar ideas:¹⁶ real and present physical poverty, as well as spiritual poverty and innocence.Thus his purpose might have been to encourage his community to believe that they would indeed possess the kingdom of God if they kept to, or adopted, a fully monastic vocation.A story related in the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto (Johnson South 2002: 52) and Symeon of Durham (Rollason 2000: 122-126) shows that they might have had a hand in making Guthred king,¹⁷ they might have influenced his policies and benefited from his generosity in their early years at Chester-le-Street -and indeed that of Kings AEthelstan, Edmund and Eadred somewhat later -but Aldred's additions remind them that the real kingdom, the Kingdom of God, is promised to the poor and humble.Aldred adds "hlifgiendr[a]"¹⁸ 'of the living' to the original text here about the meek possessing the earth.Boyd explains how the Fathers interpreted the Old Testament expression "the land of the living" as having an eschatological dimension.Boyd quotes Pseudo-Chrysostom (1975a: 11), This earth […], as long as it is in its present state, is the land of the dead, because it is subject to vanity; when on the other hand, it shall be freed from the slavery of corruption into the glorious freedom of the sons of God it becomes the land of the living, that the immortal may inherit an immortal country.
However, in the context established by the previous marginale, it seems possible that this one might have immediate reference to Aldred's audience and community.Here the land of the living might well be the here and now, as it customarily is in the Psalms (Boyd 1975a: 12); and this is where the collocation of lifigend and eorðe mainly occurs in Old English.The Seafarer (Gordon 1979), lines 65b-66a, speaks of "þis deade lif / laene on londe" 'this dead life, ephemeral on land', echoing the Pseudo-Chrysostom passage, but contrasting the 'dead life' with the joys of the Lord to be sought in the dedicated life of voluntary exile and pilgrimage.The expression in Old English usage is less eschatological than might appear from the comments of theological writers.Aldred might, then, have understood the Beatitude as teaching that the meek will possess the land of the living both in the earthly life as well as in the eschatological future.This focus might be thought to be reinforced by the addition of nunc in the main text of the next Beatitude, beati qui lugunt [nunc] quoniam ipsi consolabuntur 'blessed are they that mourn [now]; for they shall be comforted', which explicitly contrasts the present and the future.The word nunc is added after lugunt to the original text in lighter ink, in slightly smaller half-uncials to match the main Latin text.¹⁹The idea of the Beatitude is expressed slightly differently (and with the deictic nunc) in Luke 6.21: Beati qui nunc fletis quia ridebitis 'Blessed are ye that weep now; for you shall laugh'.The two perspectives, difficulty now (represented by mourning) and consolation to come (future, but not necessarily eschatological) may be carried through from the previous Beatitude.Aldred glosses the text, but does not add anything to it.
The next Beatitude is more clearly eschatological.The marginal comment reorders the elements and adds only in "ece lif" 'in eternal life' to the ideas.'blessed are those who thirst and hunger after righteousness for they will be filled in eternal life' In the Latin the tenses are perfectly clear, but in Old English they are not, so this addition serves to contextually disambiguate the meaning.In this Beatitude Aldred wishes to make clear that the hunger and thirst is spiritual in nature and the feasting likewise will be spiritual in nature.He wishes to avoid the confusion that might arise in hearers from the Lucan Beatitude, which omits all reference to righteousness.In Luke 6.21, the physical deprivation of hunger and thirst has physical recompense: "eadgo ðaðe nu gehyncres f[or]ðon gie biðon gehriorded" 'blessed are those who hunger now for they will be feasted'.Aldred not only adds "in ece life" 'in eternal life' but also omits the specifically physical metaphor of feasting (in both glosses: Matthew "geriorded", Luke "gehriorded"), thus focusing on the spiritual message here, and quite possibly reinforcing the necessity of fasting.Aldred does not wish his audience to be distracted from the point by the thought of food; the marginal comment focuses resolutely on the spiritual interpretation, and the desire and quest for righteousness which can only be met and fulfilled in eternal life.
Egerton MS 609), the Codex Epternachensis (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, MS Lat.9389), the Lichfield Gospels and the MacRegol Gospels; all are dated between the seventh and ninth centuries.The addition was made in the Lindisfarne manuscript before Aldred (or less likely, by Aldred), since he glosses it, as does Farman, and the reading is standard in the West Saxon Gospels (Skeat 1881-1887: IV, 44; Liuzza 1994: I, 8).
'blessed are the eager for peace, those who keep themselves without any quarrel or strife[:] they are called sons of God' The final marginal comment on the Beatitudes brings the message home.In the biblical text, the peaceable will be called sons of God.In Aldred's addition, the peace that is sought is focused on the community.The change from the "biðon" 'will be' of the interlinear gloss to the "sint" 'are' of the margin is marked.The noun (ge)flit 'dispute' and the related verb are used by Aldred to gloss terms for contention, noise and disagreement (MtGl (Li) 5.40, 12.19, 27.24; LkGl (Li) 22.24; JnGl (Li) 9.16, 10.19), particularly in the context of communities.²¹The role of the community is to live in peace and to keep peace among themselves and so merit the name filii dei 'sons of God' in the present.And, as he did at the beginning of the marginal commentary on the Beatitudes, Aldred brings the focus back onto the here-and-now of the community.He started with their real poverty and ends with their real peaceableness, refusing to keep these spiritual and eschatological as they are in Matthew's text and making them defining characteristics of the community as it is or should be.Boyd (1975a: 24-31) has explored the context and background to this passage (and the marginale towards the head of the right column on the same page, f. 45r), and how it relates to the colophon in helpful detail: In the colophon he [Aldred] emphasizes that he is worthy in learning and in habits, for he had glossed Matthew for God and St Cuthbert, Mark for the bishop, Luke for members of the community -which showed concentration and persistence as well as devoted scholarship (1975: 26).
Boyd shows the personal nature of this passage, but he does not notice its rhetoric or precise contemporary context.The marginale begins in the top margin, which demonstrates that Aldred intended to make a long comment from the beginning.The passage itself begins with reporting the dominical saying to the apostles, and applying it to bishops, the successors to the apostles; he also adds "the standard requirement of western canon law" (Boyd 1975a: 31) for the bishops to teach, examine and judge the physical suitability of candidates for the priesthood.He then concludes with the maxim, summarizing what the role of any bishop is in relation to ordinands: to test, teach and ordain promptly.The passage goes from instruction, to application, to summarizing statement of accepted fact; from Scripture, to canon law, to maxim.These are equally authoritative statements, but enforce the anti-simoniac message in different ways.²²While Aldred most likely thought of himself in the category of someone who had "aer geleornade" 'learnt beforehand', the maxim is impersonal.It provides a way for Aldred to instruct the bishop in his duties without presumption.The maxim allows Aldred to imply that it has always and everywhere been the duty of a bishop to test and teach and admit swiftly to the priesthood.A simoniac bishop 22 Somewhat later, Wulfstan uses the same technique in his homilies and notes (Cavill 2012), and even uses some of the same vocabulary, georne especially.The rhetoric of the context is important here, but one might observe the curious maxim in St Petersburg, Public Library, MS Lat.O.v.XVI.I, f. 15r, "A scael gelaered smið swa he gelicost maeg be bisne wyrcan butan he bet cunne" 'the learned smith must always follow his exemplar as closely as possible, unless he knows better' (Ker 1976: 127 item 145;Cavill 1999: 16-17), which has no obvious context, but shows how a scribe might want to preserve a wisdom saying because of its intrinsic value.Note too the condition clause with "butan", where a single exception is allowed to the general rule, and Aldred's condition clause with "buta".might feel uncomfortable reading the annotation, but could not refute the ideas.²³There is evidence of just such a bishop in the mid-940s at Chester-le-Street.²⁴ Symeon of Durham in his Libellus de exordio, ii.19, tells of Bishop Seaxhelm who was expelled by St. Cuthbert for avarice: Cum enim a uia predecessorum suorum aberrans, populum ipsius sancti et eos qui in ecclesia seruiebant, auaritia succensus affligeret, exterritus a sancto per somnium iussus est quantotius abscedere.
'When, turning aside from the ways of his predecessors and consumed with avarice, he had brought ruin to the people of the saint and those who served in his church, he was terrified by the saint in a dream and ordered to depart summarily' (Rollason 2000: 140-141).
Since Seaxhelm was unwilling to leave the bishopric, the saint threatened him with punishment and finally death in successive dreams.When he began to grow ill as the saint had threatened, he fled to York and there recovered.While simony is not specified as the particular form that Seaxhelm's avarice took, this passage records that Seaxhelm departed from "the ways of his predecessors", and suggests that the scandal was remembered in the community.²⁵It is tempting to imagine that Aldred's payment mentioned in the colophon might have been part of the scandal, and the dates are not irreconcilable, but this is speculation.²⁶23 This passage goes some way to casting doubt on the reinterpretation of the colophon proposed by Newton et al. They (2013: 122) argue that in the colophon "Aldred's words are focused upon the manuscript, its creation and what he has done to enhance the book", and thus the traditional interpretation that Aldred paid money to be admitted to the community is a "gratuitous factoid" that is "an offence against the colophon's integrity".But there is a dual focus in the colophon: the manuscript and Aldred himself; and the marginale at Matthew 10.8 shows the glossator to be passionately concerned about simony in a way that might, under unsympathetic eyes, be thought to be an offence against the integrity of the Gospel text.But Aldred carefully and deliberately put the comment in; he intended the message to be taken seriously.24 The precise dates of Seaxhelm's episcopacy are unknown (Rollason 2000: 141 n. 110), but this story is told before the death of King Edmund is recorded (dated in the text 948, rectius 946).Simon Keynes (2014: 565) places Seaxhelm's brief episcopacy between the accessions of Uhtred "?942" and Ealdred "before 946".25 Bernard Meehan (1998: 129) suggests that Seaxhelm is the simoniac referred to by Symeon of Durham in the Libellus i. 2 and iii.18, but Rollason (2000: 22 n. 12, 195 n. 69, and see also iii.9) notes that the references here are to Eadred, c. 1040, not Seaxhelm.26 Newton et al. (2013: 122) argue that mention of simony in the colophon "constitutes an offence against the colophon's integrity" on the basis that it was a "moral solecism".But if Aldred's payment of money and part-payment by glossing was part of the scandal, then Aldred could hardly avoid referring to it, not because "simony was so common in the church in Aldred's day" (as Newton et al. 2013: 122 suppose defenders of this interpretation to be arguing), but because for Symeon, at least, it was rare.Such a reference would chime with the marginale to Matthew 10.8 Aldred's marginale is nevertheless clearly part of the process by which Scripture and wisdom were brought to bear on the contemporary troubles and difficulties of the community and Church.

Aldred's purpose
An obvious question to ask is what Aldred's purpose was in adding these marginal comments.Boyd's general approach is to suggest that Aldred was trying to elucidate the Beatitudes by summarizing ideas from the Fathers.Clearly Aldred does that on occasion, but there are two main reasons why I think that is not his primary purpose here.The first reason is that of all the passages in the Gospels, the Beatitudes are probably the least obscure.These passages need little explanation, and are perennially at the heart of the monastic and Christian counter-culture.And the second reason is that the marginalia actually use predominantly the wording and structure of the original Latin and the interlinear gloss.The adjustments made are small (though significant), and very much less like commentary than they are exposition: they make clear the relevance of the teaching to the community and the Church, applying these generalizations powerfully in a form they would recognize as doubly authoritative, being both biblical and in the form of maxims.While Aldred's marginale on the role of the bishop is more clearly commentary, it too uses Scripture and maxim to enforce the point.
We might imagine two related intentions in this set of annotations, then.The first is that Aldred was adding notes for a sermon or series of sermons on the Beatitudes, adding ideas to focus the minds of his audience on the relevance of the teaching to people in their situation.He wanted those who had voluntarily entered clerical life to think at least of the monastic vow of poverty, and to look forward to the kingdom of God, and to thirst and hunger for righteousness, and to seek God with constant focus without wavering or contention.He certainly opposed simony and delay in ordination and saw this as contrary to the teaching here discussed.Moreover, it would bring together themes in the colophon, which when read differently has a different kind of integrity.Aldred's reference to himself as indignus et misserrimus 'unworthy and wretched' was perhaps not a flourish of humility, and the situation also required reference to his good parentage in the colophon.Reference to the payment, and obliquely to the possible scandal, redounds to the glory of St. Cuthbert, who resolved the issue by dismissing Seaxhelm.And the idea that the payment of work and money, while gaining Aldred's admission to the community, was not ultimately for that purpose but for his admission to heaven, is consistent with Aldred's perspectives on the beatitudes discussed above.On this reading, the colophon might be thought to deal sensitively with a difficult issue.
of the Bible and to the bishop's calling.But he also had ambitions for the community in the world.He wanted them to be a community of the blessed who possessed the land of the living, who lived in peace, and were known as sons of God.Committed to pages of the community's treasured Gospel book, Aldred's work became part of the teaching resources of the community, and his ideas might well have been picked up and used time and time again as teachers in the community read the book and its marginalia.
A second intention of these annotations might have been to present Aldred's vision and aspirations.The gloss shows his learning and general understanding of Latin and biblical theology.The marginal additions augment that with comments on matters of urgency and relevance that preoccupied Aldred.His comments on hypocrites in the addendum to Matthew 7.6 show much the same concern as his comments on Matthew 5.8 above.In these marginal additions his vision is for the growing power, prosperity, purity and impact of his community and Church in syncretistic and fractious times, but such effectiveness could not be gained by underhand means, only by returning to Gospel teaching and monastic devotion.If the glossing of the manuscript was "part of the payment for joining" the community (Jolly 2012: 39), and his additional payments of eight ores of silver for induction and four ores additionally as a gift, then Aldred took the opportunity of making it clear that he did not approve of such payments in general, and that he personally had not failed in generosity, giving much more than was required.
I do not believe that these marginalia are detached and merely annotatory.They are selective, omitting two of the Beatitudes,²⁷ and making the others a minicatalogue fitting a pattern of dual focus on the physical and present as well as the spiritual and future.They use the form and style of the maxim (and indeed other structuring devices such as "buta" with a clause of condition) to assert powerfully the worldview that Aldred believed should shape his community and Church.They are persuasive and rhetorical, outlining the two worlds in which the community lived, the here-and-now and the eternal world of God's kingdom.If the community and the Church heeded the teaching of the Beatitudes and Aldred's insights in the margins, they would cease to be marginal and would be blessed and prosper.

Conclusion
There can be little doubt that Aldred's project of glossing the Lindisfarne Gospels was one to which he committed himself wholeheartedly.The glossing, colophon and marginalia together reveal a great deal about the man, his commitment, his preoccupations and his learning.This discussion has shown that he had a profound concern with wisdom, seeing himself as a successor to Solomon in the colophon, using the traditional forms of Anglo-Saxon wisdom literature, maxims, in the marginalia, and augmenting by means of the marginalia the most important wisdom discourse of Christianity, the Sermon on the Mount.
In previous discussion of the marginalia, the theological and patristic teaching they contain has been carefully outlined (Boyd 1975a).This article has suggested that Aldred had a less abstract and more practical purpose in writing the marginalia.He was a reformer himself, and very likely was associated in some way with the Benedictine Reform of Edgar's reign.He lived in difficult times and there is some evidence that there were or had been abuses in the community of St. Cuthbert at Chester-le-Street and in the diocese of which it was a part.His purpose in the marginalia analyzed above was to assert biblical teaching and apply it to the community forcefully through maxims, addressing contemporary and perennial issues.It was natural for him to use, as part of his rhetoric, a recognizable wisdom form, the maxim, to present his teaching.This enabled him to draw lessons from the Gospel text and apply them to his community without presenting the ideas as idiosyncratic and personal but rather as obvious truth.The use of an impersonal mode of address nevertheless shows what was of deepest importance to Aldred: the well-being of his Church and community.
Formally the sayings in Beowulf depend on a conventional gnomic vocabulary and syntax: the specialized use of the verb forms sceal, bið and maeg, organizing experience into what is and what ought to be; [...] and the se þe or se þaem construction, used to invoke the unspecified and representative indi-vidual.[...] Underlying the gnomic world view in Beowulf is the centrality of difference -as in grammar, the existence of binary pairs -to the construction of a moral universe [...].
The remaining marginal maxim occurs at Matthew 10.8, prompted by gratis accipistis gratis date 'freely have you received; freely give': (6) Matthew 10.8 Margin cueð to ðaem apostolum.bisceopumaeft[er] him f[or]ðmest.unbohtge hád fengon unboht ł unceap buta eghuelcum worðe seallás ðaem ðe sie wyrðe ł worð bið in lare in ðaewu[m] in claennisse in cystum : in lichoma haelo f[or]ðon bisc[op] scael cunnege leornege ðone preost georne buta aer geleornade Trans.'He said to the apostles and bishops foremost after him.You received orders gratis; give (them) gratis without any price to those who are worthy in learning and in habits and in purity and in virtues and in health of body.For the bishop must test and teach the priest eagerly, unless he has learnt beforehand'.