Papers by Sophie Sawicka-Sykes
Anglo-Saxon England, Dec 1, 2019
The Historia translationis S. Augustini (1098 × 1100), composed by Goscelin of Saint-Bertin as pa... more The Historia translationis S. Augustini (1098 × 1100), composed by Goscelin of Saint-Bertin as part of a hagiographical cycle for St Augustine’s Abbey, contains several previously overlooked allusions to St Dunstan’s vision of heavenly virgins. I argue that Goscelin drew upon the Dunstan legend to justify Abbot Scotland’s renovation work on St Augustine’s between 1072 and 1087. The article first of all considers how the oratory of the Anglo-Saxon abbey was presented as a locus of divine praise in the first known hagiography of Dunstan. I then show how Dunstan’s eleventh-century hagiographers at Christ Church cathedral responded to the original vision by crafting competing narratives of heavenly choirs. Finally, an analysis of the Historia translationis reveals how Goscelin reappropriated the legend, depicting the oratory, and the crypt that came to replace it, as the abode of celestial spirits whose praise echoed the community’s liturgical devotions.
Abstract:While Ancrene Wisse (Guide for Anchoresses) has prompted discussions on the prohibition ... more Abstract:While Ancrene Wisse (Guide for Anchoresses) has prompted discussions on the prohibition of touch in anchoritic devotional culture, the critical focus on the didactic literature of the high Middle Ages has left little room for exploring how anchorites used touch to initiate or heighten spiritual experience. This article attempts to address this imbalance through a close reading of Goscelin of Saint-Bertin’s Miracles of St. Edmund (ca. 1100). The text offers an insight into Seitha, a female recluse living in close proximity to the community of monks at Bury St. Edmunds in the 1090s, and her physical contact with St. Edmund’s secondary relics. Sawicka-Sykes argues that while the monks of Bury are punished for their audacious handling of the saint’s incorrupt remains, Seitha is granted privileged access to the saint’s clothing on account of her anchoritic virtues of purity, humility, and servitude.
This thesis tracks ideas about choirs of angels and righteous souls from their early manifestatio... more This thesis tracks ideas about choirs of angels and righteous souls from their early manifestations in the Bible and late antique texts through to their ramifications in Anglo-Saxon and early Anglo-Norman England (up to 1116). It does so by tracing changes in topoi, commonplaces that form part of the fabric of visions, hagiographical narratives and ascetic guidance literature. Unlike previous studies that have examined topoi, the thesis both thoroughly scrutinises developments in commonplaces and situates them within their wider religious and cultural contexts. This PhD thesis could not have been written without the generous funding provided by the University of East Anglia between 2011 and 2014. My first thank you therefore goes to Karen Smyth, who recommended me for the Dean of Students PhD Scholarship and the committee members who granted the award. An equally important thank you is due to Tom Licence, whose insightful and compassionate supervision made my experience at UEA so intellectually fulfilling. Karen Smyth, my secondary supervisor, has helped me to find my scholarly voice and kept me in touch with literary debate. I would also like to thank my examiners, Nicholas Vincent and Rosalind Love, for bringing their experience to bear on my work. Many other staff members and colleagues at the University of East Anglia of past and present times have added to this thesis through their conversations and comradeship. In particular, I thank Julie Barrau and Rebecca Pinner for their constructive comments on my early work, and Liam Draycott, who granted me access to his library. I am much obliged to a number of researchers for their input. Gudrun Warren was the first to listen to my ideas about angels in the medieval period, and Richard Sowerby's expert knowledge in this subject saved me from wandering into error. I have had some very engaging conversations with Tekla Bude, Rowan Williams, Henry Parkes, Jesse Billett and Christopher Page, each of whom helped to shape this thesis by sharing their ideas on sacred song in the Middle Ages. The musical expertise of Susan Rankin and Calvin Bower also proved extremely useful. Arabella Milbank kindly invited me to speak at the Medieval Reading Group in Cambridge, at which I received some valuable feedback on a paper that became
Anglo-Saxon England
The Historia translationis S. Augustini (1098 × 1100), composed by Goscelin of Saint-Bertin as pa... more The Historia translationis S. Augustini (1098 × 1100), composed by Goscelin of Saint-Bertin as part of a hagiographical cycle for St Augustine’s Abbey, contains several previously overlooked allusions to St Dunstan’s vision of heavenly virgins. I argue that Goscelin drew upon the Dunstan legend to justify Abbot Scotland’s renovation work on St Augustine’s between 1072 and 1087. The article first of all considers how the oratory of the Anglo-Saxon abbey was presented as a locus of divine praise in the first known hagiography of Dunstan. I then show how Dunstan’s eleventh-century hagiographers at Christ Church cathedral responded to the original vision by crafting competing narratives of heavenly choirs. Finally, an analysis of the Historia translationis reveals how Goscelin reappropriated the legend, depicting the oratory, and the crypt that came to replace it, as the abode of celestial spirits whose praise echoed the community’s liturgical devotions.
Peritia, 2010
up in the immediate problems of his times. Nicholas's middle-class origin is one ongoing theme de... more up in the immediate problems of his times. Nicholas's middle-class origin is one ongoing theme developed here. His acquaintance with, friendship with, or intellectual influence from other contemporaries as his fame widened is another theme. The dominant theme, however, is Meuthen's emphasis on how Nicholas's fame spread despite his numerous failures. Cusanus experienced defeat quite often: from his arguing the claim of Ulrich von Manderscheid to the see of Trier, through his papal legation's attempt to reform the German clergy and his reign as prince-bishop of Brixen, to his attempt to reform the Roman curia. Nicholas's efforts in both intellectual and practical realms impacted and impressed his contemporaries and inform Meuthen's largely admiring approach. The author is less successful at explaining reasons for Nicholas's many defeats, given his fame. A few pages after describing Cusanus as a negotiator admired for his mediation in many cases, Meuthen states that Cusanus lacked the ability to understand motivations in other people. Meuthen leaves to the judgment of a higher power how a caring pastor could remain trapped by rigidity and the use of violence. Characteristics such as pride in position and stubbornness in command are awkwardly balanced by simplicity and humility in manner of life. Meuthen's "sketch" approach relieves him of the need to wrestle his way to clear conclusions. Perhaps, though, no single scholar's opinion could possibly reconcile the contradictions within Cusanus and his era. The translators have succeeded in keeping the flavor of Meuthen's lively and interpretive tone. Whether for the interested reader, undergraduate students, or a curious scholar, the Sketch offers an entertaining and informative picture of the fifteenth century and of one of its most important participants.
Demons and Illness from Antiquity to the Early-Modern Period, 2017
This thesis tracks ideas about choirs of angels and righteous souls from their early manifestatio... more This thesis tracks ideas about choirs of angels and righteous souls from their early manifestations in the Bible and late antique texts through to their ramifications in Anglo-Saxon and early Anglo-Norman England (up to 1116). It does so by tracing changes in topoi, commonplaces that form part of the fabric of visions, hagiographical narratives and ascetic guidance literature. Unlike previous studies that have examined topoi, the thesis both thoroughly scrutinises developments in commonplaces and situates them within their wider religious and cultural contexts. It therefore shows how topoi intersect with, and construct, ideas about salvation and eschatological reward. The argument also contributes to the field of angel studies and to discussions on heavenly song by examining nuances in the depiction of angelic worship and its perception in the early Middle Ages. Of all the chapters in the thesis, the first is the broadest in focus: it poses the question of what it meant for spiritua...
The Materiality of Middle English Anchoritic Devotion
Abstract:While Ancrene Wisse (Guide for Anchoresses) has prompted discussions on the prohibition ... more Abstract:While Ancrene Wisse (Guide for Anchoresses) has prompted discussions on the prohibition of touch in anchoritic devotional culture, the critical focus on the didactic literature of the high Middle Ages has left little room for exploring how anchorites used touch to initiate or heighten spiritual experience. This article attempts to address this imbalance through a close reading of Goscelin of Saint-Bertin’s Miracles of St. Edmund (ca. 1100). The text offers an insight into Seitha, a female recluse living in close proximity to the community of monks at Bury St. Edmunds in the 1090s, and her physical contact with St. Edmund’s secondary relics. Sawicka-Sykes argues that while the monks of Bury are punished for their audacious handling of the saint’s incorrupt remains, Seitha is granted privileged access to the saint’s clothing on account of her anchoritic virtues of purity, humility, and servitude.
Medieval Anchorites in their Communities ed. C.Gunn and L. Herbert McAvoy (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2017)
Demons and Illness from Antiquity to the Early-Modern Period ed. S. Bhayro and C. Rider (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2017)
Book Reviews by Sophie Sawicka-Sykes
Marginalia 12 (2009-10), 2010
Talks by Sophie Sawicka-Sykes
‘[I]n past times, many were accustomed to flee from a monastery into some kind of solitary space ... more ‘[I]n past times, many were accustomed to flee from a monastery into some kind of solitary space so that they might be free to contemplate spiritual song. Now no one is like that: they all love the comfort of men, and for this reason, without doubt, they miss the visitation of angels.’
Richard Rolle, Melos amoris, chapter 47
According to the fourteenth-century hermit, Richard Rolle, the devout worshipper had to escape the clamour of human society before s/he could receive the song of angels into his or her heart. While Rolle’s Latin works have attracted substantial attention from literary critics on account of their florid fixation on spiritual song or canor, there has been little attempt to place Rolle’s experience of heavenly harmony in its historical context. Who were the ‘many’ that fled into the wilderness to contemplate the song of angels? And how did their encounters with heavenly creatures differ from the transformative effects of Rolle’s canor?
This paper begins with a brief exploration of the belief that the further one retreats from humanity, the more one is frequented by angels – an idea that can be found in late antique sources including Sulpicius Severus’ late fourth-century Dialogi and the Collationes of John Cassian (written c. 420). It then traces how this belief filtered into Anglo-Saxon material, informing the portrayal of Æthelwald, the hermit of Farne Island, in Bede’s metrical Vita Sancti Cuthberti (705 x 716). The bulk of the paper considers the relationship between solitude and the ability to hear and participate in angelic song in texts from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, including Honorius Augustodunensis’ Sigillum Sanctae Mariae (c. 1100) and miracles of the virgin, and the vita of Godric of Finchale by Reginald of Durham (written early 1170s). Although the paper is limited to a discussion of a few case studies, it invites us to question what, if anything, makes a hermit’s experience of angelic song distinctive.
'So many of the miracles associated with the tombs of the saints are miracles that made visible t... more 'So many of the miracles associated with the tombs of the saints are miracles that made visible the invisible refreshment of the saints; they are the early-Christian imagery of Paradise in action.' In The Cult of Saints, Peter Brown argues that holy relics were considered to be a physical manifestation of the powers and pleasures of a soul dwelling in the celestial regions. Yet, in devoting his attentions to the function of these 'invisible companions' as patrons within earthly communities, Brown neglects to discuss how the rituals surrounding relics dissolved the barrier between earthly worshippers and the wider supernal community. In this paper, I ask how liturgical elements of saints' cults were thought to invoke the presence of a saint and his or her celestial companions. My investigation focuses on two late eleventh-century texts by Goscelin of St-Bertin, the translationes of Saint Augustine and Saint Mildrith, which commemorated and celebrated the translation of these figures into newly built eastern end of St Augustine's abbey in 1091.
The concepts of the anchorite's cell as an antechamber to heaven, and of the anchoritic life as o... more The concepts of the anchorite's cell as an antechamber to heaven, and of the anchoritic life as one formulation of the vita angelica, have been examined in Tom Licence's 2011 study, Hermits and Recluses in English Society, 950-1200. Yet literary criticism, investigating how the anchoritic discourse constructs, and was constructed by, wider social and religious contexts, has focused more on how the solitary could never fully be written out of the world, rather than on how they were written into the next. This paper examines the notion of 'membership' of the society of heaven; in particular, I will pursue the question, how was the anchorite's place in the heavenly community expressed in anchoritic literature? I will argue that the anchorite's position amongst the blessed multitudes was presented according to two main models of 'celestial conscription'.
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Papers by Sophie Sawicka-Sykes
Book Reviews by Sophie Sawicka-Sykes
Talks by Sophie Sawicka-Sykes
Richard Rolle, Melos amoris, chapter 47
According to the fourteenth-century hermit, Richard Rolle, the devout worshipper had to escape the clamour of human society before s/he could receive the song of angels into his or her heart. While Rolle’s Latin works have attracted substantial attention from literary critics on account of their florid fixation on spiritual song or canor, there has been little attempt to place Rolle’s experience of heavenly harmony in its historical context. Who were the ‘many’ that fled into the wilderness to contemplate the song of angels? And how did their encounters with heavenly creatures differ from the transformative effects of Rolle’s canor?
This paper begins with a brief exploration of the belief that the further one retreats from humanity, the more one is frequented by angels – an idea that can be found in late antique sources including Sulpicius Severus’ late fourth-century Dialogi and the Collationes of John Cassian (written c. 420). It then traces how this belief filtered into Anglo-Saxon material, informing the portrayal of Æthelwald, the hermit of Farne Island, in Bede’s metrical Vita Sancti Cuthberti (705 x 716). The bulk of the paper considers the relationship between solitude and the ability to hear and participate in angelic song in texts from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, including Honorius Augustodunensis’ Sigillum Sanctae Mariae (c. 1100) and miracles of the virgin, and the vita of Godric of Finchale by Reginald of Durham (written early 1170s). Although the paper is limited to a discussion of a few case studies, it invites us to question what, if anything, makes a hermit’s experience of angelic song distinctive.
Richard Rolle, Melos amoris, chapter 47
According to the fourteenth-century hermit, Richard Rolle, the devout worshipper had to escape the clamour of human society before s/he could receive the song of angels into his or her heart. While Rolle’s Latin works have attracted substantial attention from literary critics on account of their florid fixation on spiritual song or canor, there has been little attempt to place Rolle’s experience of heavenly harmony in its historical context. Who were the ‘many’ that fled into the wilderness to contemplate the song of angels? And how did their encounters with heavenly creatures differ from the transformative effects of Rolle’s canor?
This paper begins with a brief exploration of the belief that the further one retreats from humanity, the more one is frequented by angels – an idea that can be found in late antique sources including Sulpicius Severus’ late fourth-century Dialogi and the Collationes of John Cassian (written c. 420). It then traces how this belief filtered into Anglo-Saxon material, informing the portrayal of Æthelwald, the hermit of Farne Island, in Bede’s metrical Vita Sancti Cuthberti (705 x 716). The bulk of the paper considers the relationship between solitude and the ability to hear and participate in angelic song in texts from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, including Honorius Augustodunensis’ Sigillum Sanctae Mariae (c. 1100) and miracles of the virgin, and the vita of Godric of Finchale by Reginald of Durham (written early 1170s). Although the paper is limited to a discussion of a few case studies, it invites us to question what, if anything, makes a hermit’s experience of angelic song distinctive.
The course asks participants to consider the question, 'How were saints "made" in the Anglo-Saxon period?'. The course is structured around a series of case studies set in their wider historical, literary and theological contexts.
Course outline:
Wk 1: Roman Britannia | St Alban the protomartyr
Wk 2: The Gregorian conversion mission | St Augustine
Wk 3: Bishops | St Wilfrid
Wk 4: Abbesses | St Athelthryth
Wk 5: Anchorites | St Cuthbert
Wk 6: Royal martyrs | St Edmund
Wk 7: Reflections on the changing face of sainthood