Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 2992
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Wallace , Patricia.
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: Queenship and Knowledge in the Second English "Ordo" and the Old English "Christ I" [Thirtieth International Congress on Medieval Studies, the Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University, May 4-7, 1995. Thirtieth Symposium on the Sources of Anglo- Saxon Culture, co- sponsered by the Institute and CEMERS, Binghamton University. Session 200].
  • Source: Old English Newsletter 28, 3 (Spring 1995):
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Conference Paper Abstract
  • Subject (See Also): Christ I, Old English Poem Literature- Verse Mary, Virgin, Saint Queens
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: British Isles
  • Century: General
  • Primary Evidence:
  • Illustrations:
  • Table:
  • Abstract: This paper discusses the close correspondence between the performative role of the queen specified in the Second English "ordo" and the ideology of queenship as found in the Old English "Christ I." In contrast with the "ordo"'s positioning the king as a central authority above the Christian body, the prayer over the queen's ring demands that she go beyond the populace of the converted to invite the "barbarae gentes" into "agnitionem ueritatis." She is charged with going into another realm to lead non-Christians into an understanding of God, specifically a "knowledge of truth." The figure of the Virgin Mary in "Christ I," a poem notorious for its problematic structure, presides over such a transformation of the foreign or uninitiated. In fact, it is this process of leading the ignorant into an understanding of divine truth that governs the structure of the poem. Moreover, as a central figure in what is most likely the opening poem of the Exeter Book, the image of Mary extends beyond the confines of "Christ I." She is an essential gateway onto a rich collection of poetry that seems to have an epistemological project of its own [Reproduced by permission of Robert Schicler, the “Abstracts of Papers in Anglo-Saxon Studies” editor, and the editors of the “Old English Newsletter.”].
  • Related Resources:
  • Author's Affiliation: Florida International University
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 1995.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 00301973