Translation Style, Lexical Systems, Dialect Vocabulary, and the Manuscript Transmission of the Old English Bede

IntroductionAs it survives in the extant manuscripts, the Old English translation of Bede's Historia ecclesiastica (OEB) displays a mixture of Anglian and West Saxon spellings and morphological forms. Furthermore, Anglian dialect words appear, and are admixed with corresponding common Old English (cOE) or West Saxon synonyms.1 Two kinds of explanation for this dialect heterogeneity have been proposed. One is that the work was composed in Anglian or, more specifically, Mercian dialect (probably in the late ninth century), and that subsequendy it was West-Saxonized progressively by copyists who were themselves West Saxon, or trained in the West Saxon writing systems dominant in England in the tenth and eleventh centuries.2 The second is that the work involved dialect admixture from the outset, because (so it was thought) it was the product of collaboration between Mercian and West Saxon scholars at King Alfred's court.3 Although the former explanation has been generally preferred, some recent studies of dialect admixture and 'dialect accommodation'4 in texts emanating from Alfred's programme of scholarly activity, or transmitted as a result of it, invite reconsideration of the problem, and the question of whether the work began its life as a purely Mercian text or as a mixed one deserves to be revisited.5One aspect of dialect in the OEB that has not been explored is the way that some Anglian dialect words appear in systematic distribution with cOE synonyms within particular semantic fields. This phenomenon arises out of the writer's distinctive method of close translation, and the deliberate strategies of lexical and stylistic control that he exercised. In this article I focus upon selected examples, including the vocabulary of death and dying, as a case study of how understanding of the dialect vocabulary of the OEB and its putative Mercian archetype can be extended. By comparing sets of synonyms - including dialectwords like leoran 'to go, depart, die' - with the Latin terms that they translate, I seek to demonstrate that the lexical systems identifiable within the text have important implications for reconstructing the hypothetical archetype, and also for understanding the varied ways in which West Saxon scribes undertook modifications of the text. I believe that the evidence reinforces the probability that the archetype was originally written in Mercian dialect. Furthermore, my analysis indicates how and why the oldest manuscript (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Tanner io) can be confirmed as the 'best' upon which to base a critical edition because of its more faithful conservation of Mercian dialect vocabulary, even though it was probably copied within the sphere of West Saxon influence.Date and origin of the translationThere has been general if cautious agreement that King Alfred probably commissioned the OEB as part of his programme of educational reform involving the translation of those books which were 'niedbeoearfosta ... eallum monnum to wiotonne' ('most necessary for all people to know'), as he put it in his prefatory letter attached to the Pastoral Care (CP).6 A single leaf (London, BL, Cotton MS Domitian ix, fol. 11) containing three brief extracts from the text, and datable to the beginning of the tenth century, provides the earliest physical evidence for the existence of the text, and limited internal evidence only points to the same date.7 Firm evidence for the production of the OEB a decade or two earlier as a part of Alfred's programme is lacking. At the end of the tenth century AElfric claimed that Alfred himself translated Bede, and William of Malmesbury assumed the same in the twelfth century.8 Nevertheless, modern scholarship established early that Alfred's personal authorship was improbable on stylistic and linguistic grounds.9 The text differs markedly from his acknowledged works, CP, Boethius, Soliloquies, and Prose Psalms of the Paris Psalter}0 This does not rule out some kind of Alfredian connection, and indeed, both in translation style and in its Mercian dialect features the OEB resembles the translation of Gregory's Dialogues (GD), which Alfred commissioned Bishop Waerferth of Worcester to undertake. …