In his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in 731, Bede (d. 735) describes the conversion of the South Saxons as follows:
Wilfrid taught them the faith and administered the baptism of salvation. . . . So the bishop, with the king's consent and indeed to his great joy, cleansed his ealdormen and his gesiths in the holy fount of baptism; the priests Eappa and Padda, Burghelm, and Eddi baptized the rest of the common people . . .Footnote 1
Although this story underlines the importance of baptism as the moment of transition from paganism to Christianity, it tells us very little about the rite itself. In this regard it is typical: many narrative sources from early Anglo-Saxon England make reference to baptisms, few indicate how baptisms were conducted.Footnote 2 This article highlights one particular aspect of the Anglo-Saxon baptismal rite which is here (and elsewhere) passed over in silence but which nevertheless carries significant theological weight: in what language was the rite performed?
Studies of the development of the medieval rite of baptism have tended to overlook this question, quietly assuming Latin as the universal liturgical language of the early medieval West.Footnote 3 Yet Anna Maria Luiselli Fadda has underlined the importance of a shared language of communication to the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, and argued convincingly that the vernacular played a vital role in the dissemination of Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England.Footnote 4 Others have recently shown that, even among educated religious, Latin need not have always been the language of communication.Footnote 5 Helen Foxhall Forbes writes that ‘[t]he majority of the [Anglo-Saxon baptismal] liturgy itself took place in Latin’, but leaves open the question of what parts, if any, may have taken place in another language.Footnote 6 And although Joseph Lynch suggests that parts of the baptismal rite may have been spoken in the vernacular, he does not further explore that suggestion or its implications.Footnote 7
This article argues that the vernacular was used in the rite of baptism in the early Anglo-Saxon Church. In addition to presenting the admittedly scarce and often indirect evidence that (parts of) the baptismal liturgy were translated from Latin into Old English, it examines the cultural, theological and institutional contexts in which translation made sense. It further suggests that in seeking the balance between acculturation and catholicity, vernacular baptism demonstrates how the Anglo-Saxon Church navigated the tension between asserting the local and universal aspects of its identity.
That the vernacular may have been used at baptism is suggested by the practical difficulties of using Latin, the language in which the baptismal rite would have been received from the Roman missionaries who brought Christianity to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, at a time when many Anglo-Saxons would have been unable to speak or understand it.Footnote 8 Although some scholars have suggested that the descendants of the Romano-British may have continued to use Latin well into the Anglo-Saxon period, there must also have been native speakers of Old English who never learned another language, or never learned it well.Footnote 9 Bede certainly treats fluency in Latin as something exceptional when he notes that it was only under the tutelage of Theodore and Hadrian that some Anglo-Saxon clergy had come to ‘know Latin . . . just as well as their native tongue’.Footnote 10
Explaining the duties of pastors towards their flocks in a letter of 734, Bede writes that preachers and priests should ‘zealously preach in each hamlet the word of God and offer the heavenly mysteries and above all perform the sacrament of baptism’. The laity should learn the faith as expressed in the Lord's Prayer, the Creed and the gospel. ‘[A]s for the unlearned, that is, who know their own language only, make these learn the texts in their own tongue . . . I have frequently offered translations of both the Creed and the Lord's Prayer into English to many unlearned priests.’Footnote 11 Although Bede's comments here say nothing about the language of baptism, they do make some things clear: first, baptism was considered a key element of pastoral ministry; second, most lay people and many priests did not speak or understand Latin; third, Bede approved of, even actively encouraged, the translation of religious or liturgical texts into Old English for the benefit of those who could not otherwise understand. All this suggests that Bede may have been open to using the vernacular in the baptismal rite. The canons of the council of Clofesho (747) make the connection between vernacular instruction and baptism more explicit. Among the requirements for priests is that they must learn to translate and explain the words used in the mass and at baptism.Footnote 12 The canon that immediately follows indicates that those who bring children to be baptized are to be taught those parts of the baptismal liturgy in which they play an active role: the renunciation of the devil and the confession of faith.Footnote 13 Here we have a clear indication that translation and explanation, obviously also in the vernacular, are taking place in the broader baptismal context.Footnote 14
In addition to guidelines aimed at the priests providing pastoral care, we have evidence of the laity's desire to receive pastoral care in their own language. According to Bede, linguistic ability was an important consideration in King Egbert of Kent's selection of Wigheard (d. 664×667) for the episcopal see of Canterbury:
Egbert was eager to have him consecrated . . . reckoning that, if he had a bishop of his own race and language, he and his people would be able to enter all the more deeply into the teachings and mysteries of their faith, since they would receive them at the hands of someone of their own kin and [tribe] and hear them not through an interpreter but in their own native tongue.Footnote 15
Wigheard's ability to communicate the verbi fidei and mysteria in his native English was a valuable skill that set him apart from earlier bishops of Canterbury, who had until recently all been Roman (although his immediate predecessor was a West Saxon). In this context, surely the ‘words’ and ‘mysteries’ which the Kentish hoped to receive in their native language represent the dual pastoral tasks of preaching and administering the sacraments, including baptism.Footnote 16
What might a vernacular baptismal rite have been like? Unfortunately, we have no liturgical texts for the baptismal rite in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms before the tenth century.Footnote 17 However, we do have a text which arguably derives from an English exemplar, but one which due to its continental provenance has not been given due consideration as evidence for English practice: the so-called Old Saxon or Utrecht baptismal promise.Footnote 18 The language of the words to be spoken is Old Saxon; directions are given in Latin. The candidate is asked forsàchistu diabolae? (‘do you renounce the devil?’) and prompted to respond (et respondeat): ec forsacho diabolae (‘I renounce the devil’). In the same way the candidate renounces all diobolgeldae (‘pagan sacrifices’) and ‘all the devil's works and words; Thunar and Woden and Saxnot and all the demons that are their companions’ before making confession of faith in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.Footnote 19
Although the language of this promise is Old Saxon, the text has long been recognized to show Old English influences, leading scholars to posit an Old English, possibly Northumbrian, exemplar for the extant text.Footnote 20 There are also strong historical arguments for associating the document and the collection in which it is found with the Anglo-Saxon missions to the continent, either that of the Northumbrian Willibrord (d. 739) and his circle to Frisia and later Saxony, with its base in Utrecht, or that of the West Saxon Wynfrith, later Boniface (d. 754), to Hesse and Thuringia.Footnote 21 This text therefore shows us that the vernacular was being used by Anglo-Saxon priests in the baptismal liturgy – certainly abroad, and, if the Old Saxon version was indeed derived from an Old English one, probably also at home, whence the now-lost exemplar came. Even without the linguistic evidence, it seems plausible that the idea of a translated baptismal rite could have originated in England, to which the missionaries often looked for their liturgical inspiration.Footnote 22 If nothing else, the baptismal promise shows that early eighth-century Anglo-Saxon clergy did not object to using the vernacular in the baptismal rite, but considered it perfectly acceptable and indeed preferable when called for by the circumstances. These circumstances may have been quite similar in some parts of England to the areas on the continent where Anglo-Saxon missionaries worked: among a largely unlatinate population, recently and perhaps incompletely Christianized, being served by a relatively small number of clergy, who may themselves not have been particularly familiar or comfortable with the Latin tongue.
It can hardly be a coincidence that of all the elements of the baptismal liturgy, it is the renunciation of the devil and profession of faith that exist in a vernacular translation. This reflects an ancient tradition in which the interrogation formed the heart of the baptismal liturgy, and the threefold immersion of the candidate was interspersed with the threefold confession of belief in Father, Son and Holy Spirit.Footnote 23 In this tradition, intelligibility was not just a practical but also a theological concern: baptism could only be administered if the baptizand understood and believed.Footnote 24 Old English is used sparingly in liturgical and other formal texts from Anglo-Saxon England, but it does occur ‘in circumstances in which it is critical that [the person addressed] understands what is happening’.Footnote 25 Examples of such circumstances in late Anglo-Saxon England included trials, excommunications and coronations.Footnote 26 The evidence of the baptismal promise, and other indirect references such as those discussed above, suggests that in the early Anglo-Saxon Church the baptismal interrogation was among those instances when it was thought critical that the words exchanged should be fully understood. That understanding was ensured by translating the renunciation of the devil and profession of faith into the vernacular.Footnote 27
Translation aided understanding not only by allowing the participants to understand the specific words spoken and thus the content of the promises made, but also to comprehend the structure and nature of the rite as a whole. Andreas Wagner, taking the Germanic oath of fealty as an analogue, has argued that in early medieval Germany, baptism would have been understood as a Herrschaftswechsel (‘change of lordship’) and the baptismal promise as a declarative speech-act that transformed the baptismal candidate through the transfer of allegiance from the devil to Christ.Footnote 28 There is evidence that the Anglo-Saxons, too, thought of baptism as a change in allegiance. For instance, Bede remarked that the baptized were ‘changed from sons of the devil into sons of God’.Footnote 29 The words spoken at baptism may well have been viewed as operating in the same way as legal oaths, for in Anglo-Saxon England the boundaries between liturgy and legal procedures were often not clearly defined.Footnote 30 Certainly in the early Anglo-Saxon church it seems likely that the new rite of baptism would have been understood by analogy to existing local customs, like the oath of fealty sworn by a man to his lord.Footnote 31 The similarities between these procedures would have been underscored by the use of the same language for both.
Baptism was, however, not only a sign of the faith commitment made by the candidate, but also of the grace poured out by God. The first aspect had been emphasized in the early Church and continued to be emphasized in missionary contexts in the early Middle Ages, while the second aspect became more prominent where Christianity was the established religion.Footnote 32 With the shift in focus from the action of the candidate to the action of God came a new preoccupation with form, and quickly the validity of the baptism came to hinge on the correct use of the Trinitarian formula: ‘I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’.Footnote 33 Boniface was so perturbed to encounter individuals who had been, on account of the priest's deficient Latin, baptized ‘in the name of the fatherland and the daughter and the Holy Spirit’ that he ordered their rebaptism.Footnote 34 But a generation earlier Bede had adopted a more flexible attitude: he argued that, while baptism in the name of the Trinity was the norm, the sacrament could be administered by naming only one Person of the Trinity, for to express faith in one was to express faith in all.Footnote 35 The shift in emphasis from the confession of the baptizand (or his or her representatives) to the correct use of the Trinitarian formula thus seems still to have been in process during this period.
The new emphasis on form undermined the motivation for translation of the baptismal rite into the vernacular: no longer was the rite to be understood as analogous to a legal oath, nor were the understanding and faith of the baptizand a primary concern. Indeed, the new stress on correct formula potentially restricted the possibility of translation. Would baptisms conducted in another language be valid? Boniface apparently voiced just such a concern to Pope Gregory III (731–41), inquiring what to do about ‘those who were baptized according to the varieties and the inflections of the heathen dialects’.Footnote 36 Boniface's original letter is lost, and the exact nature of his concern is not clear from Gregory's response. The latter makes clear, however, that any concerns Boniface may have had about the theological status of ‘heathen’ vernaculars were unfounded: those who were baptized in the name of the Trinity, regardless of the language, were to be confirmed in the usual manner.Footnote 37
Pope Gregory's comments underline the point that Latin was not considered a sacred language. In Anglo-Saxon England, the influence of Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury (d. 690), originally from the Greek East, would have challenged the theological importance of Latin by exposing his students to another, and older, language of Christian worship and thought.Footnote 38 Anglo-Saxon theologians greatly respected the three languages used in the study of Scripture, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, but did not object to translation of biblical texts.Footnote 39 Bede's commentary on Acts made clear that he believed there was room within the Church for all languages: this was the message of the events of Pentecost.Footnote 40 Indeed, ‘there was a sacrality in the use of the individual language of each people’, and this emphatically included Old English.Footnote 41
Nevertheless, Latin had become the language of the study of the Scriptures in the medieval West, and so bound together the speakers of different languages.Footnote 42 In baptism, the candidate was understood to be entering into the Church universal, and to clergy desiring to emphasize the Church's catholicity it may have seemed appropriate to baptize in the language shared by all the Christian West. Latin was also the language of the Roman Church, and to Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastics, Rome stood for apostolicity and orthodoxy, making unity with Rome paramount.Footnote 43 The desire for Romanitas is reflected throughout the canons of Clofesho, which insist again and again that things be done ‘after the model of the Roman church’.Footnote 44 Using Latin, even though unnecessary from a theological perspective, could be attractive if it was thought to lend the ritual, the priest and the Church as institution the legitimacy and credibility that came from being associated with the Roman Church.
Coupled with the Anglo-Saxon Church's association with Rome was a dissociation from the churches of the Britons. If Rome signified catholicity and orthodoxy, the Britons stood under permanent suspicion of heretical and schismatic tendencies.Footnote 45 They also used a different baptismal rite from the Romans, one which from the Roman – and Anglo-Saxon – perspective was deficient.Footnote 46 The difference between the two rites became enshrined in the Old English word for baptism, fullwiht, which derives from a root meaning ‘complete hallowing’ and contrasts the rite received by the Anglo-Saxon Church from Rome with the ‘incomplete’ version performed by the British.Footnote 47 The term captures something of what must have been a widespread controversy about baptismal validity in conversion-age England. Adhering strictly to the Roman baptismal rite may thus have been one way for the English Church to distinguish itself from the British Church and distance itself from any perceived insularity. In addition to being an institutional identity-marker, baptismal completeness was a pastoral concern. The possibility that the baptism offered was lacking in some respect may have occupied not only theologians but also laypeople concerned about the fates of their friends and relatives.Footnote 48 Emphasizing the fullness of the Roman rite could have helped to assuage such concerns, at the same time leveraging them to bolster the position of Rome and discredit the British tradition.Footnote 49
Although the Anglo-Saxons liked to think of themselves as allies and perhaps even heirs of Rome, they were also aware of their distinctive identity as the ‘church of the English’.Footnote 50 One of the things that bound these ‘English’ together was a shared mother tongue, and this could be used for spiritual as well as secular matters. I have noted already that Bede translated the Lord's Prayer and the creed into Old English; Bede's pupil Cuthbert tells us that Bede was engaged at the end of his life with translating the Gospel of John, and that he composed or recited a vernacular verse about his approaching death.Footnote 51 Later generations would compose Old English heroic verse on themes inspired by scriptural and apocryphal texts. Cramer reads one such poem, which narrates the adventures of the apostle Andrew, as ‘baptism put into a vernacular story, and so made accessible in both language and form’.Footnote 52 Such literary efforts testify to the ongoing project of the Anglo-Saxon Church to integrate the texts, teachings and practices inherited from the early Church into its own context. They also show that direct translation of the liturgy was not the only way that the rite of baptism might be reinterpreted for an Anglo-Saxon audience.
In later Anglo-Saxon England, clergy came to rely on general Christian (vernacular) education to ensure understanding of the baptismal rite, rather than translation of the liturgy.Footnote 53 In earlier times, however, the situation was different. In the context of a semi-Christianized Anglo-Saxon landscape, the necessity of helping both priest and people understand what was transpiring in the waters of baptism – both practically and theologically desirable – encouraged the translation of the baptismal rite into Old English. Using the vernacular in the liturgy of baptism would have emphasized the conversion aspect of baptism; evoking associations with vernacular traditions of oath-taking, it would have placed the baptismal candidate's faith and commitment in the foreground, while the aspects of baptism that are done to and for the baptizand were correspondingly de-emphasized. Accordingly, this approach would have been most attractive in a context where adults were converting to Christianity and being baptized by choice: throughout the seventh century and perhaps the early eighth in some places.Footnote 54 The urge to translate would have ebbed as more and more people came to have a general knowledge of what baptism entailed, infant baptism became the norm and the emphasis in baptismal theology came to lie increasingly on form rather than faith.
The questions surrounding the language of baptism thus mirror broader concerns within the newly formed Church of the English, searching for balance between making the faith accessible and ensuring its correctness and completeness. The Anglo-Saxon translation (and later non-translation) of the baptismal rite sheds light on how the Anglo-Saxon Church sought to carve out an identity for itself between the local and the universal. It also illustrates changes in early medieval baptismal theology and how these were bound up with changing cultural contexts. Even though Latin won out in the end, what evidence we have for the baptismal rite in early Anglo-Saxon England shows that we should not assume that it was always self-evident to the Anglo-Saxons that the business of Christian initiation should be conducted in Latin: the vernacular could, given the right circumstances, be a viable and attractive option.
