Words, Deeds, and the Construction of Power in Ælfric’s “Life of Saint Agnes”

Words, Deeds, and the Construction of Power in Ælfric’s “Life of Saint Agnes”

The Benedictine Revival of the late tenth century resulted in the height of prose text production in Old English, and it is to this period of revival that the abbot Ælfric of Eynsham belongs. Ælfric compiled two volumes of homilies between 985 and 995, and a third volume, titled Lives of Saints in Skeat’s edition, between the years 990 and 1002 (Treharne 116, 130). In his Latin introduction to Lives of Saints, Ælfric writes that while he included lives of saints who had been commemorated in English parish churches in the first two volumes, he dedicated the third to saints whose feast days were kept in English monasteries (2). In his Lives of Saints, however, Ælfric translated more than written testimonies to the holiness of saints. The social and historical contexts of the events Ælfric relates in his “Life of Saint Agnes,” for example, illuminate how the text is more than simply a story celebrating a saint’s memory. In addition to the distribution of active and passive voice verbs and constructions using the modal verbs “dorste” and “mihte,” the balance of directive speech acts between Agnes and Simpronius creates an equality of power between social unequals through which Ælfric’s text becomes a translation, not only of a story celebrating the memory of an early Roman saint, but also of a discourse on the relationship between spiritual and secular power.

To use Foucault’s modes of objectification as a template for approaching this text (208), the circumstances of Agnes’ encounter with Simpronius—her trial, condemnation, and execution—constitute the “dividing practices” through which Agnes is labeled a criminal and thus isolated and separated from Roman society. In the text, Simpronius “mid swiðlicum gehlyde hét hí gefeccan hám to his dóm-setle” (“with a loud voice bade fetch her home to his judgment-seat,” 81-82). Following attempts to influence her through flatteries and threats, he commands that Agnes be led to a brothel and stripped naked (141-43). After the crowd of Romans demands her execution, Simpronius’ deputy Aspasius attempts to have Agnes burned and orders her put to death by sword (216-22, 243-44). These events form the framework of Agnes’ trial and martyrdom, by which she is isolated from the pagan Roman society of Simpronius, his son, his deputy Aspasius, and the crowd of Romans (207-10, 174-180, 241-42). The Romans expect this process of isolation to eliminate the resistance that Agnes represents to their world, either by forcing her to surrender to the gods of Rome and the attentions of Simpronius’ son or by removing her altogether through her execution.

In addition to the trial and execution that divide Agnes from the world in which she lives, her position in the Roman society—as well as Simpronius’—form a significant element in what becomes, for Foucault, the second mode of objectification, what he would call “scientific classification” (208)—in this case, the social classifications that determine the power relationships between two figures who, in their Roman world, are social unequals. Ælfric identifies Agnes as “sum æðel-boren mæden…binnan rome byrig…on ðam þritteoþðan geara” (“a noble maiden…in the city of Rome…in her thirteenth year,” 6-10), and her principal opponent Simpronius as “ge-set ofer ða burh to heah-gerefan, and wæs hæðen-gilda” (“who was set over the city [to rule] as prefect, and who was an idolator,” 15-16). Agnes’ identity as a twelve-year-old Roman girl of noble birth and her judge’s identity as Roman prefect give clues to the social classifications that determine what the reader should expect of their behavior.

Both exist in a social structure that was created and maintained to reflect the empire’s and the Emperor’s power over their subjects and against neighboring sovereignties (Garnsey and Saller 117). As such, Agnes’ and Simpronius’ relationship to each other follows and strengthens those Roman conventions of power and authority that validate the Emperor’s own power and authority. Three factors commonly determined a Roman’s position in society: the social hierarchy itself, family relationships, and relationships between patrons and their clients that extended beyond family and social structure (Garnsey and Saller 148). The “Life of Saint Agnes” does not completely define Agnes’ and Simpronius’ positions in Roman society in terms of all three of these factors, but by identifying Simpronius as prefect over the city and Agnes as a twelve-year-old girl, the text gives enough information to suggest the power and authority that Simpronius should hold over Agnes.

Simpronius’ identity as prefect over Rome defines him in an official capacity, in relation to the legal and political structures of the city that ultimately identify him with the Emperor. As prefect of the city, Simpronius fills a position that existed in some form as early as the Roman kingdom. In his Annals, Tacitus writes that Romulus appointed Denter Romulius to execute the responsibilities of government in his absence (201). In the days of the Republic, the consuls reduced such officials to a more ceremonial function, while Augustus restored the office of prefect to a position of administering to the legal and political needs of the city (201-202). As prefect of the city and the emperor’s delegate to administer justice in Rome, Simpronius represents a social and political order in which Garnsey and Saller write that “putting everyone in his proper place was a visual affirmation of the dominance of the imperial social structure, and one calculated to impress the bulk of the population of the empire” (117). In exercising the authority to enforce laws that Agnes is judged guilty of violating in the “Life of Saint Agnes,” Simpronius embodies the political and legal power of the Roman Empire.

Agnes’ social position in “The Life of Saint Agnes” is determined not by any official function by her sex and age; namely, that she is a twelve-year-old girl. As such, she is identified in her world only as her father’s daughter. According to the ideals of imperial Roman society, she falls under her father’s power (patria potestas) along with her mother, her siblings, and any children her brothers might have (Garnsey and Saller 127). Although the “Life of Saint Agnes” explicitly states her noble birth, that status depends on her relationship with her father, without whom she has no social position. Her identity is wholly determined by that relationship, while Simpronius’ official capacity as prefect over the city determines his identity, and thus the “Life of Saint Agnes” presents Agnes as having significantly less political and social power than Simpronius.

In her words and actions in the text, however, Agnes exercises as much if not more power than Simpronius, a process through which she asserts her own identity as more than a criminal or a young Roman girl and becomes a subject against her society’s efforts to make an object of her, in what for Foucault would be the third mode of objectification, the “way a human being turns him- or herself into a subject” (208). The balance of power between Agnes and Simpronius in the text frustrates expectations of the Roman social order in favor of Christian values, articulated by such writers as Saint Augustine of Hippo and Saint Benedict of Nursia. In The City of God, Augustine writes that “we must ascribe to the true God alone the power to grant kingdoms and empires” (215). God, and not the Emperor, is for Augustine the source of not only spiritual but also even of earthly power. Benedict commanded a preference for spiritual over earthly power in his Rule: “Your way of acting should be different from the world’s way; the love of Christ must come before all else” (12). The preference for Christ over the secular world of which Augustine and Benedict write present a radical overthrow of the pagan Roman order under which Simpronius would normally be expected to exercise social and political superiority to Agnes. The spoken words and actions attributed to Simpronius and Agnes in the “Life of Saint Agnes” reflect concepts of secular and spiritual power that come from the Christian context within which Ælfric writes.

Ælfric’s translation reveals a distribution of modal constructions (specifically, the verbs “ne dorste” and “ne mihte”, “dared not” and “could not”), as well as a use of active and passive voice verb phrases of which Agnes and Simpronius are the subjects. These verb phrases violate Agnes’ identity as Simpronius’ social inferior; at the very least, they cast her as Simpronius’ social equal, giving her power that does not come from the Emperor as does Simpronius’ power. Three modal verb phrases appear in Ælfric’s “Life of Saint Agnes” in clauses of which Agnes or Simpronius are the subject, and an additional two of which Simpronius’ deputy Aspasius is the subject. All of these phrases indicate actions of which their subjects are incapable, as they are negated with the adverb “ne” (“not”). At the beginning of her confrontation with the prefect, Agnes “ni mihte beon bepæht þurh ænige lyffetunge fram hire leofan drihtne“ (“could not be allured by any flattery from her beloved Lord,” 85). Rendered in passive voice, the phrase “ni mihte beon bepæht” indicates an action that could not be performed on Agnes, rather than one that Agnes herself could not perform, and so comments less on Agnes’ abilities than on Simpronius’ inabilities. After the saint restores his son to life later in the text, Simpronius loses both the power to carry out the laws of Rome which demand Agnes’ execution and the power to save her from the pagan crowd that insists on her execution. The two modal phrases “ne dorste…naht ongean þa hæðen-gyldan” (“durst do nothing against the heathen,” 211) and “ne mihte þæt mæden ahreddan” (“could not save the maiden,” 214) near the end of the prefect’s interaction with Agnes refer to actions that Simpronius could not perform himself, as Ælfric writes these in active voice. In all three of these cases, the use of modal verb phrases underscores Simpronius’ loss of power, to persuade Agnes through flattery and then through threats, and to save her after she had saved his son. After realizing his inability either to protect the girl or to carry out the sentence against her, Simpronius delegates Aspasius to dispatch her, and the two modal phrases of which Aspasius is the subject suggest an inability to act on his part. Before he finally orders the sentence carried out “mid cwealm-bærum swurde” (“with death-bearing sword,” 244), Aspasius “ne mihte wið-cwæðan þam cwealm-bærum folce” (“could not oppose the blood-thirsty people,”217) and “ne mihte…þa micclan ceaste acuman” (“could not withstand the great tumult,” 243). In the realm of modal verb phrases, even Aspasius could not help Simpronius assert his authority, nor, by extension, the Emperor’s.

Simpronius is the subject of twenty-three active voice verb phrases (including the modal phrases above which indicate actions that the prefect could not perform), while Agnes is the subject of nineteen active voice phrases before Simpronius’ departure from the action and four afterwards, including two referring to appearances to her parents and to Constantine’s daughter Constantia after her martyrdom. Through this distribution of active voice phrases, Ælfric portrays Agnes with as much power to determine her own course of action as Simpronius, if not more. In the passive voice category, the prefect “wearð þa gesæd þæt heo fram cild-hade sona cristen wære” (“it was then told him that she had been a Christian,” 78), and Agnes “swa mid dry-cræfte afylled þæt heo crist tealde hire to bryd-guman” (“so filled with delusion that she accounted Christ as being her bridegroom,” 79-80) and “ni mihte beon bepæht þurh ænige lyffetunge” (“could not be allured by any flattery,” 85-86). The phrase “swa mid dry-cræfte afylled” refers only to an allegation against Agnes that she is filled with delusion, which the subsequent action in the text reveals not to be the case. The second passive voice phrase of which Agnes is the subject has already been examined in the discussion of modal verbs as revealing Simpronius’ inability to act upon her. Ælfric’s use of active and passive voice verb phrases counters the demands of Agnes’ and Simpronius’ social context in articulating a social and authoritative equality between a Roman prefect whose authority derives from the Emperor and a twelve-year-old girl whom society would define as her father’s daughter before marriage and her husband’s wife after.

In addition to the distribution of modal phrases and verbs rendered in passive and active voice relating to Agnes’ and Simpronius’ actions, Ælfric’s translation of the “Life of Saint Agnes” reveals how the saint’s and the prefect’s words, and especially the commands they make, upset the objectification of Agnes that her trial and execution, as well as their roles in Roman society, would suggest. Ælfric ascribes four commands to Simpronius and three to Aspasius in reported speech, with the verb “hét” (“commanded, bade”), while he makes no indirect citations to Agnes giving commands in this way. The prefect and his deputy direct these seven commands to servants and to the crowd of Roman pagans who witness Agnes’ trial, and not to the saint herself, although she is the direct object of four of the actions commanded. Through the use of directive speech acts which Ælfric attributes both to Agnes and to Simpronius in direct discourse, however, the saint decisively establishes an authority equal to the prefect’s. The theory of speech acts that originated with John Austin and John Searle facilitates the analysis of spoken language as that language performs a variety of actions. One of five categories of speech acts in Searle’s classification, directive speech acts, often commands and requests, implies a position of power on the speaker’s part. Ælfric’s text ascribes four directives to Simpronius, and eight to Agnes.

Ælfric’s use of directives articulates the notions of power at play in the “Life of Saint Agnes.” Obviously the prefect Simpronius is in a position of power to issue commands. But he makes only four directive speech acts in this text. Agnes fulfills the command articulated in only one of the four directives that Simpronius addresses to her. When his son is struck dead in the brothel, Simpronius challenges Agnes to revive him through prayer: “þin saga bið ge-swutelod gif þu þone sylfan encgel bitst” (“Thy saying will be manifested if thou wilt pray the self-same angel,” 193). Agnes’ prayers successfully effect the prefect’s son’s restoration, after which the youth shouts praises to God and the crowd accuses Agnes of witchcraft (198-210). Because she obeys only one command that the prefect addresses to her in the text, and specifically that command that leads to a manifestation of Christ’s power, Ælfric demonstrates that Agnes’ power—which comes from God—is greater than Simpronius’—which comes from the Emperor.

Agnes makes eight directive speech acts in the text, twice as many as Simpronius. Agnes addresses only four of the directive speech acts to Simpronius that Ælfric attributes to her; she makes directives also to the prefect’s son, to her parents, and to Constantia, while one of the directives addressed to Simpronius is spoken also to the crowd of pagans who accompany the prefect’s son into the brothel. Three of the commands Agnes addresses to Simpronius cannot be fulfilled according to her beliefs. While he interrogates her and attempts to make her yield to paganism through threats of violence from the Roman gods, the saint responds “Læt þine godas geyrsian gif hi aht magon,” (“Let thy gods be angry if they can do aught,” 113) “Læt hi sylfe beodan þæt we us to him gebiddan,” (“let themselves command us to worship them,” 114) and “gif þu þis dón ne miht drece us loca hu þu wille” (“if thou canst not accomplish this, afflict us, lo! how thou wilt,” 115). Agnes’ words come less as a request for action than as an insinuation of the Roman gods’ impotence. Earlier in the text, at the point of Agnes’ first encounter with Simpronius’ son, Ælfric does not specifically state that the prefect’s son carries out the action to which her first spoken words refer, “Gewít ðu fram me synne ontendnys” (“Depart thou from me, thou fuel of sin,” 25), but Simpronius’ son immediately becomes angry and sick after Agnes rejects his overtures (63-66), so her words have the ability to affect his physical and mental state. In the brothel, after the prefect challenges Agnes to revive his son, she issues the command “Gað eow nu þeah ealle út . þæt ic mé ana gebidde.” (“Go ye now therefore all out, that I may pray alone,” 198), and the crowd immediately departs. The three remaining directives that Ælfric attributes to Agnes occur not only after Simpronius has left her in the hands of his deputy, but indeed after her martyrdom. When Agnes appears to her parents in the company of virgins, she advises her mother and father “Warniað þæt ge ne wepon me swa swa deade, ac blyssiað mid me,” (“Beware that ye weep not for me as if dead, but rejoice with me,” 255, 256). Ælfric then reports that the vision was “widely spread abroad” (260). Later, Agnes appears to Constantia in a vision, and advises her: “Ongin anrædlice ðu æðele constantia and gelyf ðæt se hælend þe ge-hælen mæge” (“Begin resolutely, thou noble Constantia, and believe that the Saviour has power to heal thee,” 274-75). Ælfric suggests through her ability to make commands even after death, and after Simpronius had been rendered unable to act, that her power is significantly greater than his, and by extension that God’s power is greater than the Emperor’s.

The author of Ælfric’s Latin source places Agnes and Simpronius in the pagan Roman social context in a text reflecting Christian notions of power and authority. Ælfric produced his translation of the text, not in the Roman social context within which Agnes and Simpronius lived, but in that of Anglo-Saxon England, which had been influenced by tenets of the Christian faith since as early as the conversion of Æthelberht of Kent in 597. The use of modal verb phrases, the balance of active and passive voice verbs, and the distribution of directive speech acts accomplish more than merely providing written testimony to the miracles that demonstrate a saint’s holiness. By incorporating a sermon on Christian notions of secular and spiritual power into his Lives of Saints through the “Life of Saint Agnes,” Ælfric demonstrates the capacity of saints’ lives to provide a forum for articulating a Christian worldview in addition to justifying the cult of saints and encouraging audiences to emulate the devotion and holiness for which these men and women have been venerated.

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