Mutual Custodianship in the Landscapes of Guðlac A

Guðlac A details the eponymous saint’s relationships with the holy landscape surrounding his hermitage and its other-than-human inhabitants. The poem suggests that the work of Guðlac’s sainthood is sustained devotion to the Earth community. As an exemplum of Old English ecotheological living, Guðlac’s legend offers a challenge to the concept of environmental “stewardship” of the Earth community in favor of a model of mutual custodianship calls for sustained and deliberate devotion to the created world for its own sake and as a manifestation of the Creator’s love and glory. It also suggests that sustained engagement with the natural world even in the face of environmental crisis or collapse will be rewarded, in this life or the next.

Introduction: Early Medieval Earth Consciousness

The existential threat of environmental collapse loomed large in the early medieval English imagination. In particular, the work of Wulfstan, Archbishop of York and Ælfric of Eynsham pointed to the imminence of the apocalypse. Wulfstan explicitly attributed environmental collapse to human sin, while Ælfric urged the faithful to look hopefully to the post-apocalyptic establishment of a new Earth. The broad audience and didactic intent of these prolific and well-connected theologians makes their work a useful representation of English theology at the turn of the millennium. Similarly, the 10th-century manuscript called the Exeter Book—the largest, most diverse extant collection of Old English poetry, including religious lyrics, obscene riddles, and elegies—may serve as a representative of the contemporaneous poetic corpus.

Trauma and Apocalypse in the Eco-elegies

The Wanderer and The Ruin are productively read as eco-elegies: explorations of changing relationships within the Earth community. The Wanderer offers its audience an exemplary portrait of natural depression, a human pattern of exile, emotional trauma, and acceptance which relies on identification with the Earth community as a way of healing. The poem affirms the idea that other-than-human elements of Earth community can actively improve the mental state of their human neighbors and reconcile apocalyptic loss. The Ruin contrasts this apocalyptic imagery with an imagined future where the Earth community responds to, but ultimately outlasts, the destruction of human societies. These eco-elegies encourage audiences to consider the long view of Christian history, pacifying anxieties about human relationships with other-than-human.

Old English Ecotheology

The work of Ælfric and Wulfstan, produced in the shadow of the first millennium, in many ways anticipates the modern field of ecotheology, born in the years preceding the second. Like their modern counterparts, Ælfric and Wulfstan affirmed the interconnectedness of human and other-than-human beings as members of an increasingly fragile Earth community. They affirmed the intrinsic worth of the other-than-human, and the ability of the Earth community to cry against injustice and resist human domination. Crucially, Ælfric and Wulfstan also explicitly condemn humanity’s failure to be faithful custodians of creation. Reading the medieval texts against the modern demonstrates the existence of an Old English ecotheology which anticipates many of the questions raised by the current climate crisis.

The Web of Creation in Wisdom Poems

Active engagement with the mysteries of creation was an important goal of Old English wisdom poetry; these poems require audience understanding of the interconnectedness of the Earth community. Exploring kinship connections between human and other-than-human beings, they anticipate modern ideas about the importance of exchange within ecosystems. The Order of the World encourages active engagement with the other-than-human as a means of praising the Creator. Maxims I, in turn, serves as an example of one such poetic attempt, imagining a world in which non-human forces act in familiar, rather than entirely threatening, ways. The Order of the World and Maxims I suggests that early medieval English thinkers understood and affirmed the interconnectedness of the Earth community.

Identity, Affirmation, and Resistance in the Exeter Riddle Collection

The Exeter riddle collection imagines voices for the Earth community. The bird riddles (6 and 7) exploit similarities between human and avian behaviors to affirm the intrinsic worth of the Earth community even when it makes humans uncomfortable. The horn riddles (12 and 76) give voice to other-than-human beings celebrating their participation in heroic culture: these riddles imagine that animal-objects find pleasure and purpose in their “work”, despite removal from their natural state. However, the wood-weapon riddles (3, 51, and 71) reveal an awareness that conscription into human service is not always in the best interest of the other-than-human. These thematic clusters suggest an interest in the inherent worth, active voice, and purpose of the non-human natural world.

Coda: Old English Ecotheology

The descriptor “medieval” is often used disparagingly to suggest a lack of scientific awareness or curiosity. However, the poetry of the Exeter Book reflects a specific Old English ecotheology, which anticipates by nearly a millennium the modern environmental movement. Indeed, there are lessons to be learned from these Old English ecotheologians. The poetry of the Exeter Book suggests modern earth consciousness and activism can be facilitated by acknowledging the interconnectedness of human and other-than-human beings on Earth; rejecting binaries which see humanity as distinct from (and superior to) nature in favor of a worldview which sees humanity as a part of nature; and finally, recognizing that, environmental crises are an opportunity to grow our relationships with the Earth community.