Words, deeds, and the combat decision in Old English heroic literature

Abstract

Old English heroic literature frequently deals with the tension surrounding a combat decision, or the decision to enter into avoidable, mortal combat. The combat decision figures prominently in the poems Beowulf, the Battle of Maldon, and in the entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle known as "AD 755" or "Cynewulf and Cyneheard." Old English scholars such as Rosemary Woolf and John M. Hill have noted that the tensions in these poems are not resolved by simple reference to a monolithic "Anglo-Saxon Warrior Code" alleged to stretch from the descriptions in the Germania by Tacitus to the end of Anglo-Saxon control of England in 1066. Hill in particular has noted that the comitatus relationship between lord and retainer is depicted with often-overlooked differences in remaining Old English texts, particularly concerning the concept of suicidal loyalty to the lord in situations involving a combat decision. This thesis examines the motivating factors involved in the combat decision, beginning with a close reading of Tacitus and examining the lord-retainer bond as it impacts the combat decision in different stages of the prevailing concept of loyalty and the understanding of the heroic code. Paying particular attention to oaths and boasting, where words and deeds are explicitly linked, reveals that the relationship between declaration and action, sign and signification, is critical to the decision to enter into avoidable mortal combat. Close inspection of the form of the heroic boast, and examples in Beowulf and Maldon, suggest that the most significant contributing factor in the combat decision is the individual's concept of personal identity, bound up in the epistemological question of the "weight" of an individual's words and declarations.