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You are here: English 401 > Lessons > Lesson 6 > Introduction to Ælfric's Colloquy

Ælfric's Colloquy: a Brief Introduction

Ælfric "the grammarian" was abbot first of Cernel (Cerne Abbas) and then of Eynsham, and lived approximately 955 - 1010. He was a prolific author in Latin and Old English; his Old English homilies and saints' lives are among the most admired prose works of the period.

The Colloquy is a humbler production. Ælfric wrote it in Latin as a dialogue for young monks and novices to practice that language, which they had to learn to take part in the life of the abbey. Some time later another teacher added a gloss to one manuscript between the lines of the Latin, and it is that Old English crib which we're reading in this course.

While it is by no means exactly known what classroom use would have been made of the Colloquy, it is probable that the pupils would learn the individual speeches, perhaps taking the part of one or other of the characters; the presence of the gloss suggests that they would also be responsible for translation into Old English of the Latin text.

The Colloquy has a loose dramatic structure. The fiction of the first part (up to 120) is that the members of the class are practitioners of the different occupations of Anglo-Saxon village and town life: a plowman, a hunter, a merchant, a leathercraftsperson, and so on, who are interrogated by the teacher on the nature and (later) worth of their work. In a second, framing part (121 to the end) the boys are asked about their life as young members of the monastic community.

Humble as it is as a literary production, the Colloquy is a valued and much cited historical document because of the glimpses it gives us of daily life in Anglo-Saxon England. Because of the elite place of literacy during the period, we have little in the form of text (as opposed to archaeological evidence, now becoming a very impressive source of knowledge) from which we can glean much information about the lives of the common people, especially, and although the Colloquy itself springs from a monastic environment which may itself constitute a kind of information-filter, it does at least paint a picture of life among the less eminent members of society.

It is somehow fitting to use this text, designed for language instruction about a thousand years ago, to learn Old English. Presumably Ælfric set the dialogue among plowmen and fishermen to appeal to his boys' familiar lived experience and arouse their interest; paradoxically, the text arouses our interest by opening a window onto what is for us a foreign and distant world.


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Contact: Murray McGillivray at mmcgilli@acs.ucalgary.ca or the Listserv at mailto:eg401-m@acs.ucalgary.ca