(ca. 960–1023)
Wulfstan was an important scholar, statesman, and prelate of the early 11th century. A Benedictine monk, he was the product of the great Benedictine Revival of learning that had been promulgated by St. Dunstan, St. Athelstan, and especially Wulfstan’s friend AELFRIC. Nothing is known of his early life, but Wulfstan was made bishop of London from 996 until 1002, when he became archbishop of York and bishop of Worcester. The dual appointment was probably granted because, with the Danes ravaging the northern part of England, it was only by having the see ofWorcester that Wulfstan could have enough income to maintain his see at York. He held the joint appointment until 1016, when he dropped the Worcester Bishopric. From 1008 onward, he acted as an adviser to King Ethelred II (often called “the Unready,” though the OLD ENGLISH epithet unroed actually means “illadvised” or “foolish”). Later he also advised the Danish king Cnut. Embroiled in the affairs of state, Wulfstan still had time to write a number of sermons as well as legal codes. His Institutes of Polity is admired as the first treatise on political theory in English, but Wulfstan is best remembered for the fiery sermon Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, produced, like all his sermons, under the pseudonym Wulf (wolf). Born sometime in the late 10th century,Wulfstan lived during a period of instability and turmoil. Beginning in the 990s, Viking raids devastated the country. Some time after Christmas 1013, the hapless Saxon king Ethelred was forced into exile in Normandy, allowing the Danish king Svein Forkbeard to take the English throne. Though Svein died the following year, allowing Ethelred to regain the crown, Ethelred himself died in 1016, upon which Svein’s son Cnut became king of England.As adviser to Cnut,Wulfstan is often credited with influencing the Dane to reign as a Christian king and to maintain the virtues of Anglo-Saxon civilization.Wulfstan continued to play an important role in English politics and jurisprudence during the reign of the Danish king until his death in York on May 23, 1023.At his request he was buried at the monastery at Ely. Much of Wulfstan’s literary effort is related to his work as a jurist under both Ethelred and Cnut. He drew up the so-called Canons of Edgar (concerned with ecclesiastical law and reform), and drafted a legal code for Ethelred as well as laws for King Cnut. The Institutes of Polity was not only the most admired Anglo-Saxon legal tract, but also is a document discussing the proper relationship between church and state, making it the first text to deal with political theory in Old English. But Wulfstan’s most revered contributions to Old English literature have been his sermons. Dozens of sermons are attributed to Wulfstan in manuscript, though scholars doubt the attribution in most cases. At least five, perhaps 20, are definitely from his hand. Of these, several deal with the impending Judgment Day, a theme common to sermons of his time (the close of the first millennium of the Christian era).Wulfstan’s most famous sermon, the Sermo Lupi ad Anglos (Sermon of Wolf to the English), was delivered in the dark year of 1014, when Ethelred had fled the country and the Danes were taking over the kingdom, a kingdom full of social disorder and anxiety. In impassioned, sometimes alliterative language,Wulfstan sees the Viking invasions as chastisement for the sins of the English people, and appeals to all classes of England to repent and reform before the coming day of judgment, which the Danish atrocities merely foreshadow. It is one of the most powerful sermons of the Anglo-Saxon period.
Bibliography
■ Berthurum, Dorothy, ed. The Homilies of Wulfstan. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957.
■ Fowler, Roger, ed. Canons of Edgar. London: Oxford University Press for the Early English Text Society, 1972.
■ Gatch,Milton McCormick. Preaching and Theology in Anglo-Saxon England: Aelfric and Wulfstan. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977.
■ Whitelock, Dorothy, ed. Sermo Lupi ad Anglos. 3rd ed. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1966.
Encyclopedia of medieval literature. 2013.