Durham (poem)
Durham is often considered to be a rare Old English example of the genre of encomium urbis, or urban eulogy, and has also been described as elegiac poetry, a riddle and an occasional poem.
[5][6][10][15] By the time the new cathedral building was sufficiently advanced, William of Saint-Calais had died and the "notorious" Ranulph Flambard had succeeded him as bishop.
[18] The first part gives a brief general introduction to the unnamed city and its locale: Is ðeos burch breome geond Breotenrice, steppa gestaðolad, stanas ymbutan wundrum gewæxen.
Weor ymbeornad, ea yðum stronge, and ðer inne wunað feola fisca kyn on floda gemonge.
And ðær gewexen is wudafæstern micel; wuniad in ðem wycum wilda deor monige, in deope dalum deora ungerim.
[nb 4] This part of the text shows similarities to two earlier works in Latin, Bede's Ecclesiastical History, where the description relates to the whole of England, and Alcuin's poem praising York, De pontificibus et sanctis Ecclesiae Eboracensis.
[4][28][32][33] These lines are followed by a longer description of the relics to be found there: Is in ðere byri eac bearnum gecyðed ðe arfesta eadig Cudberch and ðes clene cyninges heafud, Osuualdes, Engle leo, and Aidan biscop, Eadberch and Eadfrið, æðele geferes.
Is ðer inne midd heom Æðelwold biscop and breoma bocera Beda, and Boisil abbot, ðe clene Cudberte on gecheðe lerde lustum, and he his lara wel genom.
The second part opens by saying that everyone knows that the city also contains Cuthbert, the head of King Oswald – described as the "lion of England" – and Bishop Aidan, with his companions Eadberht and Eadfrith.
The poem's account of the relics closely parallels that given in Capitula de Miraculis et Translationibus Sancti Cuthberti, preserving the order in which the saints are listed.
[2][18][4][38] In 1705, George Hickes published a copy made by G. Nicolson from London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius D. xx, a 12th-century manuscript, which was lost in a 1731 house fire.
[4][20] Christopher Abram notes that only the stone-built cities of York, Bath and Durham have inspired British examples of the encomium urbis.
On the assumption that Durham does originate from c. 1104–9, one or two generations after the Conquest, it has been described by Dobbie, Fred C. Robinson, Nicholas Howe, Joseph Grossi and others as the last surviving work to be composed in Old English traditional alliterative verse.
[nb 8] R. D. Fulk and Seth Lerer each distinguish Durham from typical transitional or early Middle English poems, such as The Grave and The Owl and the Nightingale.
[4] Early 20th-century scholars tended to be dismissive; Schlauch calls it "little more than a class-room assignment,"[18] and Charles Leslie Wrenn writes that "though unexpectedly well written technically in the traditional style, it lacks poetic merit of any other kind".
[28] Kendall writes that the poem exhibits "unexpected exuberance and wit", and states that "its concentration of wordplay" has "no parallel in the surviving body of Old English poetry.
"[56] Lerer describes the poem as "supple" with "commanding use of interlace and ring structure, together with its own elaborate word plays, puns and final macaronic lines".
[20] Peter D. Evan writes that "The poet enriches his work with complex word-play, revealing his skill as a writer and his careful choice of words.
"[46] Scholars continue to differ on the poem's descriptive qualities; Howe calls the portrayal of Durham's location "vivid",[32] while Blurton considers it to be "so general as to describe absolutely nothing.
"[57] O'Donnell has argued that the poem's depiction of relics and animate nature aligns it with eleventh-century writing at Durham and expresses a sophisticated understanding of the relationship between people and place.
[4] Kendall, Grossi and others have focused on how the poem bolsters Durham's prestige as a site for pilgrimage, particularly by underlining its title to the remains of such a well-respected figure as Bede.
