Aefric's First Series of Catholic Homilies

Preaching in the Language of the People

At the end of the tenth century, English monasticism underwent a profound reform. Monasteries were expected to follow the Rule of Saint Benedict more rigorously, the clergy were to receive better education, and Christian teaching was to be conveyed reliably. It was in this environment that Ælfric began composing his Catholic Homilies. His aim was to provide theologically sound sermons in accessible Old English.

Ælfric had received a thorough education at Winchester and came to the Benedictine monastery of Cerne around 987. It was probably there that he created the collection of forty homilies for the full liturgical year. They were intended to enable priests to explain the message of the Latin Bible and the Church Fathers in the language of their congregations.

Forty Homilies for the Liturgical Year

The texts accompany Sundays, major feast days, and the commemorations of saints. They explain passages from the Gospels, recount the lives of saints, discuss the Trinity, angels, and the Resurrection, and offer moral instruction. Ælfric drew on Latin authorities such as Augustine, Jerome, Gregory the Great, and Bede, transforming their teachings into clearly structured sermons in Old English.

His concern was not merely clarity, but also doctrinal accuracy. Ælfric lamented that erroneous or legendary ideas were being transmitted as truth in English books. His homilies were intended to counter such misconceptions and to unite Christian teaching with linguistic clarity and careful use of sources.

The Earliest Known Copy

The manuscript was probably created in the first half of the 990s at the monastery of Cerne, in close proximity to Ælfric. It preserves the earliest known copy of the homilies and a version of the text that predates the later, more widely circulated forms. Prefaces found in subsequent copies are still absent, while deleted passages reveal earlier stages in the development of individual sermons.

The codex is therefore not merely an early textual witness, but possibly an editorial and working copy from Ælfric’s immediate circle. It allows the development of the work to be traced from an early transcription through corrections and deletions to formulations that were later revised.

More Than a Thousand Traces of Revision

The main text was entered by three scribes and was intensively revised soon after its creation by at least four different hands. Around 1,000 minor corrections and additions are distributed throughout the manuscript. They range from individual letters and words to changes in syntax, vocabulary, and meaning.

Particularly fascinating is the possibility that one of the correcting hands belonged to Ælfric himself. A definitive attribution cannot be made, but comparisons of the handwriting and the manuscript’s proximity to its place of composition make this conceivable. In hardly any other manuscript can the direct revision of a major Old English text be observed so vividly.

Modest Decoration, Exceptional Importance

The decoration is deliberately restrained. Red initials once structured the text, although oxidation has caused some of them to turn grey. Later readers added glosses, while small drawings of a bird and an animal-shaped ornament were inserted in the eleventh or twelfth century. These traces show that the manuscript was read and used over several generations.

Its importance lies not in lavish illumination, but in its unique closeness to the author and to the creation of the work. As the earliest known copy, a witness to intensive editorial revision, and a possible bearer of corrections in Ælfric’s own hand, it is an exceptional document of Anglo-Saxon literary and intellectual history.