body of quotable passages there is in these books outside the Breviary and Missal and what a very small proportion of them is in the ritual at all. In Isaiah, for example, more frequently quoted than any other book of the Old Testament exclusive of Psalms both in the ritual and in the poem, 30 of the 66 chapters are missing from the service books. In the four weeks of Advent called reading of the prophet Isaiah in the Breviary, 39 chapters of the 66 are omitted. In the first week, only 72 of the 153 verses of 7 chapters are read. Likewise, the Hebrews, falling for reading in the Breviary during the sixth week after Epiphany, has 4 of 13 chapters omitted and 73 verses omitted from the 9 chapters read.

Of 21 Vulgate quotations from Job and the wisdom books, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Ecclesiasticus, only 9 are found in the Breviary and Missal, the variation here being largely caused by Proverbs, only 1 of the 9 quotations from which is in the ritual. We may explain this broader use of Proverbs easily by the fact that the book is the greatest storehouse of quotable maxims in the Bible and that, therefore, the poet was less dependent upon the parts of it which he had used most in his services. We may add the further observation that of the five chapters in Proverbs, in each of which there are two or more references in Piers Plowman, all are quoted either in part or as a whole in the service books. If we, then, do not count Proverbs in this group, the proportion stands 12 to 9.

The hardest discrepancy to explain is that not one of the 4 quotations from Deuteronomy is found in the service books, though parts of 4 different chapters are given. It seems that our author just happens here to be better acquainted with the part of the book not contained in the lessons. Or perhaps the service books which he used contained different readings from Deuteronomy.

Counting Deuteronomy and Proverbs and excluding the Psalms and the Gospels, we find in the Breviary and Missal approximately two-thirds of the Vulgate quotations of Piers Plowman. The possibility is that, could we actually examine the service books the author used with the Proprium Sanctorum 29 of each, we should find the fraction considerably greater.

In general, an examination of the use of Vulgate quotations in

20 A study of the dates of the institution of special offices and masses for saints with reference to the proportion of scriptural quotations in the

the poem, apart from what support it incidentally provides for unity of authorship, confirms the author's own evidence that he belonged to the clerical profession.30

The effect of such a study as this is to impress one neither with the extent of the author's learning nor with the orginality 31 of his genius but with the simplicity of his piety, which is without a trace of prejudice or bigotry. Piers is his brother as the plowman is the brother of Chaucer's "persoun." 33 He does not belong to "thise grete clerkes that canne many bokis," 34 than whom no class of people are "rather yravisshed from the rigte beleve," 35 but he wrote for and apparently sympathized with and served the "pore peple as ploughmen and pastours of bestis" 36 who could "percen with a paternoster the paleis of hevene." 37

Goucher College.

poem taken from the saints' festivals established before its composition to those quotations common to saints' festivals established since its composition, might yield interesting results.

30 The poet's knowledge of parts of the Breviary besides the scripture readings is shown in his use of quotations from seven of its hymns. A comparative examination of the author's quotations from the fathers of the Church and of the hagiological portions of the Breviary would perhaps be fruitful in evidence.

31 Mr. G. R. Owst, in an article entitled "The 'Angel' and the 'Goliardeys' of Langland's Prologue," in the Modern Language Review for July 1925, presents the poem as "the fine product of medieval preaching" and traces a particular indebtedness in the Prologue to the pulpit eloquence of Thomas Brunton, Bishop of Rochester, whom our gentle clerk, living in his little house in Cornhill near St. Paul's, appears to have made one of his spiritual heroes.

3a He warns against the folly of trusting to learning rather than to the Christian virtues for salvation (B, XIII, 133, 201; C, XVI, 180). He writes that Christ did not commend learning in choosing simple folk rather than learned men as his disciples (A, XI, 286; B, X, 442; C, XII, 276, XXI, 408.

THE HOME OF THE HELIAND-A NON-LINGUISTIC

APPROACH

BY E. C. METZENTHIN

INTRODUCTORY REVIEW

This is the third of a series of articles on three outstanding problems connected with the Old Saxon epic, the Heliand, which have, in spite of more than a century's unceasing work and strenuous efforts on the part of the Germanists, withstood all attempts of solution.

1. In my treatise on the first problem, the so-called home problem, I stressed the necessity of a sharp distinction between the home of the poet and that of his addressees, because the lack of this distinction has frequently obscured the whole issue.2

I endeavored to prove, on the basis not of linguistics but of the realia in the Heliand, and of the historical situation at the time of its composition (between 820 and 850), that the epic was written mainly for the use of clerics, particularly of missionaries who were at work, or preparing for work, in Northern or Low Germany, under the patronage of Emperor Louis the Pious, whose cherished ambition was to win to a sincere adoption of the Christian religion the hearts of the Saxons subjugated by Karl the Great and, more or less, converted to the official religion of the conqueror. Thus, the probable home of the addressees was found to be along the coast of the North Sea, from Holland eastward over Friesland, Oldenburg, Bremen, Hamburg and up to, possibly including in part, Denmark.

In the contribution to the discussion of the second problem, concerning the personality of the unknown writer of the "Heliand,"

1 Journal of English and Germanic Philology, XXI (1922), 191-228 and 457-506, under the heading, "Die Heimat der Adressaten."

'Now it seems to be even more opportune to stress the necessity of distinguishing between the home of the original manuscript and the homes of its various copies, and to warn against the use of conclusions drawn from linguistic characteristics of copies of copies of the original Heliand, for the localization of the poet.

Studies in Philology, XXI (1924), 502-539, under the heading, "The Heliand, a New Approach."

in particular the question whether he was a cleric or a layman, I attempted to find first the cause, or causes, for the unsatisfactory and contradictory results of previous research in regard to the poet's personality and to arrive at a reasonably safe ground for the statement that the poem could not have been written by a layman or uneducated person. The investigation was based mainly upon a detailed study of the poet's deviations (omissions, alterations, additions) from his sources: the Bible, Tatian and commentaries of Rhaban, Beda, and Alcuin. It is strange indeed how tenaciously many a Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur and numerous monographs on the Heliand cling, under the bane of tradition, to the impossible theory of a layman's writing the Heliand. This harmful tradition has its basis only in the Praefatio, the authenticity of which I attacked in my first article on "The Home of the Addressees." 4

But there are signs of hope that students of the Heliand are on the way to free themselves from the orthodox overestimation of the Praefatio, which finds its latest and most powerful advocate in the venerable scholar, Eduard Sievers, in his own Beitraege zur Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache und Literatur," who even asserts that Hraban himself is the author of the Praefatio. Such a sign of hope is to be seen in the most recent treatise on Der dichter des Heliand im verhaeltnis zu seinen quellen, where another German scholar, C. A. Weber, qualifies the character of the Praefatio as unsicher. It is highly gratifying to find in Weber's scholarly contribution to this problem of the personality of the poet, a contribution which deserves the most careful study of all

• Journal of English and Germanic Philology, XXI, 191-217: “Ueberblicken wir noch einmal den etwas langen Weg unserer Untersuchung ueber die Praefatio, so koennen wir unser Urteil dahin zusammenfassen:

"Trotz aller Versuche hat sich bisher eine Beziehung der Praefatio auf unsern Heliand nicht beweisen lassen. Insbesondere erscheint die Zuverlaessigkeit der Praefatio in ihren Angaben ueber den Zweck des Heliand sowie ueber die Persoenlichkeit seines Dichters bei tieferem Eindringen immer zweifelhafter. Deshalb muessen wir auch bei unserer Frage nach der Heimat der Adressaten des Heliand auf die Praefatio als Erkenntnisquelle in allen ihren Teilen verzichten."

Vol. 50, 3 (January, 1927), pp. 416-429: Hraban."

"Heliand, Tatian und

Z. f. d. A., LXIV, 1 and 2 (May, 1927), pp. 2, 1. 10).

lovers of the Heliand, an appreciation of the principles on which the "New Approach" is built." Weber calls the attempt to explain the deviations a "an sich begruessenswerten ausblick in die karolingische zeitgeschichte "8 and shows a sympathetic understanding of my aim to get " aus den abweichungen von Tatian anhaltspuncte fuer die theologische und politische umwelt des dichters."

As this present treatise is partly based upon the outcome of the argument in "A New Approach," I repeat here that all the evidence brought out therein seems to me to indicate unmistakably two facts: first, that only a clergyman having gained in his practical Seelsorge a pastoral understanding of the human heart 10 and, through his theological training, a discriminating insight into the Holy Scriptures, would be able and willing to retell the story of

7

* Ibid., p. 2, 1. 26-29: eine anregende ergaenzung zu Lauterburg bietet Metzenthin (Studies in Philology 21 (1924), 502-39), der aus den abweichungen von Tatian anhaltspuncte fuer die theologische und politische umwelt des dichters zu gewinnen sucht; pp. 9, 1. 18-21: Das zuruecktreten Josephs in und von fitte 10 ab ist auffaellig und von M. (aao. p. 519-20) eingehend eroertert worden. Joseph war die entscheidend handelnde figur in der vorhergehnden fitte, hier gruppiert sich alles um die mutter; pp. 24, 1. 9-16: Man hat bei der in frage stehnden fitte einen von quellen besonders unabhaengigen, rein persoenliche empfindungen des dichters widergebenden passus zu sehen geglaubt: so Rueckert und neuerdings wider M. ('outspoken antisemitism,' p. 503). die feststellung einer judenfeindlichen haltung wuerde uns die verlockende moeglichkeit geben, den dichter einer bestimmten theologengruppe einzureihen und eine engere datierungsmoeglichkeit (823-28) vorzunehmen; pp. 35, 1. 26-30: M. (s. 538) deutet die unterdrueckung des letzteren wie auch aller koenigsgleichnisse als ruecksichtsnahme auf den kaiserlichen hof. es duerfte jedoch zu weit gehn, aus einer summierung des vom dichter verschwiegenen derart weittragende schluesse ex silentio zu ziehen; pp. 41, 1. 27-33: weit ueber diesen an die dichtung gebundenen deutungsversuch hinaus greift Metzenthins geistreiche vermutung, die wahl dieses im mittelalter meist gemiedenen stoffes sei ein stiller gruss des dichters an die befehdete kaiserin Judith. dieser an sich begruessenswerte ausblick in die karolingische zeitgeschichte gewinnt indessen von der quellenforschung aus keine weitere stuetze.

Cf. Ibid., p. 41, 1. 31-32.

Cf. Ibid., p. 2, 1. 27-29.

10 Cf. Weber, p. 55, 1. 24-26: es zeugt von allerhoechstem geschick und seelsorgerisch feinstem pyychologischen verstaendnis, wie hier dem widerstrebenden hoerer die zustimmung zum kreuzestode des Gottessohnes abgerungen wird.