Conclusion
This chapter has demonstrated how ninth- and tenth-century English prose authors took by turns conservative and free approaches to psalm translation depending on the needs of their respective audiences. The glossed psalters provide a window onto the world of the monastic scriptorium, in which scribes carefully studied and weighed up the meaning of each individual word of the Latin Psalter. In these interlinear translations, the Old English text is normally subservient to the Latin, largely replicating its word order, with no further guide to interpretation save the wording of the gloss itself. Such word-for-word, formal-equivalence translations were probably made by and for monastic readers as an aid to prayer and as a tool for the acquisition of the Latin language. By contrast, in the
Prose Psalms the vernacular ‘displaces the source text’ to the extent that lay readers could also access the meaning of the Psalter without needing to learn Latin at all.
1 I borrow these terms from Robert Stanton, ‘The (M)other Tongue: Translation Theory and Old English’, in Translation Theory and Practice in the Middle Ages, ed. Jeanette Beer (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997), pp. 33–46, at 39; cited in O’Neill, King Alfred’s Prose Translation of the First Fifty Psalms, p. 46 n. 5. In both of these approaches we can observe a willingness to use the vernacular to make the Bible accessible and meaningful to a specific group of readers in whatever form was most practical. None of the biblical translations analysed in this chapter betray any concern with the status of English in relation to the ‘three sacred languages’, Hebrew, Greek and Latin.
2 On familiarity with the idea of the three sacred languages in this period, see above, p. 4.In Steiner’s terminology, the initial decision to translate the Psalms into English corresponds to the first stage of translation: ‘affirmation’.
3 For Steiner’s theory of translation, see above, p. xiii. For the monks and nuns engaged in glossing the Psalms, this decision was determined by the centrality of the Psalter in the Divine Office; for the lay elite from the late ninth century onwards, the Psalms were probably among those ‘books most necessary for all people to know’ which Alfred and his scholars selected for translation. The two principal approaches to translating the Psalms considered above begin to diverge when considered in the light of Steiner’s second stage: ‘aggression’ (or ‘plundering’). Whereas the glosses attempt to convey the meaning of every individual word of the Latin psalter for monks and nuns who required a complete translation, the
Prose Psalms are much more selective in plundering the source, resulting in a version of the psalter that would better serve the needs of lay readers. Further variance occurs during Steiner’s third stage: the process of ‘incorporation’, or adaptation into the target language. The glosses achieve this via a foreignising, word-for-word formal-equivalence approach which guides monastic readers to the meaning of the Latin text, whereas the
Prose Psalms thoroughly domesticate the Romanum psalter into flowing Old English prose suitable for readers unskilled in Latin. It is at Steiner’s fourth stage of translation, ‘compensation’, that the most significant differences in approach become evident: while the glossed psalters offer no significant compensatory measures save for the occasional double gloss, the
Prose Psalms compensate for the cultural gap between the source text and its English lay readership in a number of ways, including rearranging the syntax and providing explanatory passages. Short Introductions also explain the historical and spiritual context of each psalm and guide the reader in its interpretation, while stylistic flourishes such as the use of doublets, parallelism and alliteration make the text more readable and memorable. While the glosses bring the monastic reader to the Latin psalter, the
Prose Psalms thus bring the words of David, Hezekiah and Christ to English lay readers who cannot access them in Latin. The
Prose Psalms thus provide important evidence for the growing need for translations of Scripture among lay readers in the wake of Alfred’s educational reforms. In striking contrast to the conservative, scholarly approach of the glossators, the author of the
Prose Psalms had no hesitation in freely altering not only the syntax but the wording of his Latin source to convey the meaning of the Bible to readers who did not otherwise have the educational tools to unlock its complexities.
The next chapter will highlight the remarkable freedom which the author of the Mosaic Prologue to Alfred’s law code (the
Domboc) exercised in adapting the laws of the Old and New Testament for lay readers.