And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil
- Matthew, 6:13
Yesterday I read a
piece on the 7th-century saint Guthlac on one of my favourite blogs,
where I was made aware of the illuminated life of the saint found in
MS. Harley Roll Y.6.
The oldest part of this manuscript is known as the Guthlac Roll, and
it is illuminated with 18 small roundels containing scenes from the
saints life. The MS. is of South-East English provenance and dates to
the last quarter of the 12th century, or possibly the first quarter
of the 13th century. The illuminations are beautifully rendered in
vibrant lines, and I was struck by one in particular - roundel 6 -
which depicts Guthlac fighting his demon tormentors who are armed
with knotted whips. Aside from the lively facial expressions of the
demons and the pleading gestures of Guthlac, there was one aspect in
particular that caught my eye, namely how very similar this scene is
to the 15th- and 16th-century portrayals of the temptations of St.
Anthony.
Roundel 6 - Guthlac tormented by demons (courtesy of British Library)
Guthlac was a hermit
saint born in 674 to the royal dynasty of Mercia, son of Penwalh and
Tette. From he was fifteen to he was twenty-four he led a band of
warriors, most likely fighting and plundering the Welsh, but also
other Anglo-Saxons. After years of robbery, he was converted to
Christianity and received the tonsure at the double monastery of
Repton, under the aegis of Abbess Ælfthryth. After two years at
Repton he moved into the fens of East Anglia in the year 700, where
he settled on the island of Crowland and remained there for the last
fifteen years of his life. Guthlac's life was recorded c.740 by a
monk called Felix, and although this proximity in time lifts Guthlac
above the muddy waters of myth, his biography is nonetheless so
formulaic that it is hard to separate facts from legend. However, the
most interesting aspect of this biography is that among its
hagiographic models is the life of St. Anthony (251-356), written by
Athanasius of Alexandria (c.296-373) and known in 7th-century England
through the translation into Latin by Evaristus. The hagiography
depicts Anthony's struggle against demons, and this feature gained
immense popularity in medieval art. Felix included it in his Life of
Guthlac, and wrote about demons who would one night be filthy humans
speaking British (as opposed to the native English of Guthlac) and
another night appear as terrible beasts. This became a trope of
hermit hagiography, and seeing as both Guthlac and Anthony were
hermit saints, it is very easy to understand why Felix drew on this
particular hagiography for his life of Guthlac.
It appears, however,
that it was not only Felix's hagiography that drew on existing models
associated with Anthony. The iconographic continuity suggested by the
similarities of roundel 6 and painters like Matthias Grünewald and
Hieronimus Bosch, hints at a trope connected with Anthony - or at
least hermit saints - which was cultivated in art throughout the
Middle Ages, and this in turn means that the illuminator of the
Guthlac Roll most likely drew on an existing repository pertaining to
the tribulations of St. Anthony.
Mid-15th century engraving by Martin Schongauer
.jpg)
Late-15th century painting by Michelangelo, based on Schongauer
Matthias Grünewald, c.1515, picture taken from this website
Niklas Manuel Deutsch, c.1520
As we see, the
similarities are striking. However, due to the lack of the evidence -
for instance, I know of now such depictions in the late 13th or 14th
centuries - I cannot be too adamant when suggesting an iconographic
continuity. It may of course be the case that the renaissance arists
and the Guthlac illuminator drew from a common source which was
revived in the 15th century, but this can not be asserted either way.
It should also be noted, that while both Anthony and Guthlac are
depicted being assaulted by demons, only Guthlac - at least to my
knowledge - is allowed to subdue his adversary in the end.
Roundel 8 - Guthlac chastises a demon (courtesy of British Library)
Literature
Farmer, David, Oxford Dictionary of Saints
Mayr-Harting, Henry
‘Guthlac [St Guthlac] (674–715)’, Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
Zuffi, Stefano (ed.), Angels and demons in art
This is a very interesting post! There's a useful article by George Henderson ('The Imagery of St Guthlac of Crowland' in 'England in the Thirteenth-Century', ed. W.M. Ormrod (Woodbridge, 1985)) which talks about the differences between the iconography of the Guthlac Roll and Felix's Vita - for instance, the scourge with which Guthlac drives off the demons, given to him by St Bartholomew, doesn't appear in the early hagiograpy but features prominently in various later depictions of Guthlac, including the seal of the Abbot of Crowland. Do you know whether it's common for hermits to fight off demons with such weapons?
SvarSlettThank you, and thanks for your reading tip! I first became aware of Guthlac while studying the 14th-century Lytlyngton Missal of Westminster, where I noticed that he shared several liturgical items with Edward the Confessor, and I would really like to read more about him. Thanks again!
SlettUnfortunately I know very little about hermit saints. My area of expertise (though I wouldn't call myself an expert) is royal saints and they are a different lot altogether, despite the mutual embrace of humility and - especially in the case of Edward the Confessor - the Pauline disdain for worldly things. Consequently, I don't know whether other hermit saints also took up arms, as it were, against their tormentors. I thought victory in these cases generally were achieved through endurance rather than active opposition, but it would be very interesting to do a broad comparative study of hermit saint iconography.