Who (What) Lies in the Tomb in the Middle English St. Erkenwald?

Abstract:This article makes the case for an Anglo-Saxon cultural identity for the nameless man in the tomb in the Middle English St. Erkenwald on textual, hagiographic, historical, art historical, and literary grounds. The poem’s historical proem, akin to similar prologues in Middle English lives of pre-Conquest saints, evokes the negative stereotype of the primitive Saxon heathen popular in the post-Conquest era, which the remainder of the poem dispels. The incorrupt corpse and garments, in the guise of a king, signal two abiding markers of Anglo-Saxon sanctity that distinguish it from post-Conquest hagiography, while the body’s social role as a judge announces a primary arena of continuing authority of early English culture. The material culture of the tomb and robes bespeaks Anglo-Saxon design and the social and economic networks that facilitated these artforms. When revived, the body expresses an Anglo-Saxon worldview in terms of time, historical orientation, poetic sensibility, codes of reciprocity, spirituality, and life after death. The poem portrays a golden age of early English society and proposes its acceptance in the contemporary world of the poem.