An Endless Winter : Seasons and the Anglo-Saxon Conscious
The Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry
“I advise everyone who is able and has many wagons to make his way to that same wood where I cut these posts, and gather more for himself and load up his wagons with fine timbers, so that he may weave many elegant walls, and establish many a noble house, and build a fine homestead and there dwell in happiness and peace both summer and winter.”
- Alfred the Great
While the seasons continue to mark moments in our lives, they lack the gravity they once held in Anglo-Saxon England. The Anglo-Saxons, swept up in the whims of the weather, were connected to nature in a way we are not. The seasons defined the cycle of their lives: when to farm, when to harvest, when to celebrate and when to suffer.
Much of what we know about the age of the Anglo-Saxons comes from a few key sources. The Anglo-Saxon historian Bede, for example, wrote De temporum ratione (“The Reckoning of Time”) which provides much of what we know about the medieval year. Although Bede’s knowledge regarding the structure of the year often appears to be speculation, there is great fun in considering his interpretation of the names of months: February, “Solmōnaþ,” translates to “month of cakes,” May is “þrimilcemōnaþ” because “cattle were milked three times a day” and August is “Weodmonað” or “month of weeds.”
The Anglo-Saxons believed, like many of their Catholic counterparts on the continent, that studying the world around them would bring them closer to God. Particular attention to the ocean, land, and seasons would reveal profound truths about the nature of the universe. The world described by Anglo-Saxons is a direct attempt to understand these divine truths, laid out in a poetic verse and prose that speaks to our common humanity.
“It has always been my delight to learn or to teach or to write.” - Bede, Historia ecclesiastica
This understanding of the world was fundamentally shaped by the Anglo-Saxons’ unique religious syncretism of Christianity and paganism. When Christianity was introduced to Britain, Pope Gregory encouraged missionaries to allow certain aspects of paganism to remain active in Anglo-Saxon life, believing that this would make the conversion process easier to implement. It appears that much of this conversion was readily accepted. Bede reports how an Anglo-Saxon counselor to the King once suggested:
“This life of men appears for a brief moment; what went before, or what will come after, we do not know at all. If, therefore, this new teaching offers something more certain, it seems worthy to be followed.”
It was almost as if their lives had been wrapped in a continual winter; the Anglo-Saxons saw Christianity as an opportunity to bring the light of knowledge to their uncertainty about the universe.
To understand both this religious conversion and how it was expressed in the Anglo-Saxon conscious, we must recall the unique fears that shaped the world of the early Middle Ages. Life was quite literally defined by the seasons; people regularly feared the pain of hunger, the darkness and chill of winter, and the invasions that inevitably came with spring.
With all of these difficulties in mind, it is understandable why it was common practice to refer to one’s age by how many winters one had lived in the world — how many years had you survived through the dangers of winter?
Poetic Musings : “From winter into winter”
Perhaps the most obvious difference between our relationship with the seasons and that of the Anglo-Saxons is seen in winter. Winter posed great challenges; with it came frost, snow, ice, hunger, and darkness. It overpowered humans, and all they could do was wait. As Eleanor Parker describes in Winters in the World, much of the imagery of winter is that of it “imprisoning or chaining” the earth: “As earth is trapped by winter, so are human beings.”
“The Wanderer,” a poem found in the 10th c. Exeter Book, is my favorite depiction of the Anglo-Saxon winter. The poem describes a warrior roaming the earth after losing his home and family. He is facing winter — both the literal winter and a metaphorical darkness and dearth — alone. He describes:
“… I buried my lord / in the darkness of the earth, and from there / journeyed, winter-sorrowful, over the binding waves …”
Perhaps more disturbing, “The Wanderer” describes a world that has been plummeted into a continual winter: darkness has spread across the land, death and devastation reign, and all that has once brought joy has been reduced to rubble. He laments:
“The wise hero must perceive how terrible it will be / when all this world’s wealth lies waste, / as now in various places throughout this earth / walls stand blown by the wind, / covered with frost, buildings now-swept. / The halls decay, the ruler lies / deprived of all joys, the troop all dead … / Thus the Creator of men destroyed this dwelling place, / until, deprived of its citizens’ revelry, / the ancient work of giants stood empty.”
Surrounded by the ruins of Roman occupation, Anglo-Saxons were clearly contemplative of the rise and fall of civilizations. They had a profound sense of the cyclical nature of time: though life may now be pleasant, a day will arrive when we too will become merely the ruins of civilization. Despite this dark prophecy, the wanderer urges us to accept these sufferings, as they will also provide great personal growth:
“and so a man cannot grow wise before he has had / his share of winters in the world.”
The Anglo-Saxons’ relationship with the world is best expressed in their poetry; it reveals their fears, values, hopes, and history. Because winter, like many seasons, brought such dramatic changes to the daily lives of Anglo-Saxons, it is only natural that they would attempt to understand these transformations by seeing parallels in their own lives.
“The Wanderer” remains relevant across the centuries. It was, for example, a large inspiration for Tolkien in writing The Lord of the Rings. In fact, Tolkien used many themes of and references to Anglo-Saxon poetry in his sweeping saga. This is likely because much of Anglo-Saxon poetry still speaks to very real human emotions, as we may have once underwent similar challenges, just as our ancestors did many years ago.
The full text of “The Wanderer” can be found at the Old English Poetry Project.
This article was inspired by my reading of Winters in the World: A Journey Through the Anglo-Saxon Year by Eleanor Parker.
Below are recommended books that are mentioned in the post or provide great additional insight into the topic.
