Aldhelm and Old St Peter's, Rome

Abstract Aldhelm of Malmesbury was one of the most prolific and influential scholars of early Anglo-Saxon England. His contemporary fame rested partly on the fact that he had been a pilgrim to Rome. This article presents new evidence for Aldhelm's literary debt to the epigraphy of early Christian Rome. Two ninth-century manuscripts from Reims contain an anthology of six epigrams which derive largely from verse inscriptions in Old St Peter's. Aldhelm quoted two of these, de Petro and de Andrea, almost verbatim in his Carmina Ecclesiastica. It is likely that Aldhelm knew these verses from first-hand observation rather than via the pages of a manuscript sylloge.

joanna story abstract Aldhelm of Malmesbury was one of the most prolifi c and infl uential scholars of early Anglo-Saxon England. His contemporary fame rested partly on the fact that he had been a pilgrim to Rome. This article presents new evidence for Aldhelm's literary debt to the epigraphy of early Christian Rome. Two ninth-century manuscripts from Reims contain an anthology of six epigrams which derive largely from verse inscriptions in Old St Peter's. Aldhelm quoted two of these, de Petro and de Andrea, almost verbatim in his Carmina Ecclesiastica. It is likely that Aldhelm knew these verses from fi rst-hand observation rather than via the pages of a manuscript sylloge.
It is well known that Aldhelm went to Rome. This we know from a contemporary (but undated) letter addressed to him by an anonymous, Irish correspondent who wished to borrow a book from his collection. 1 The letter-writer referred to Aldhelm's widespread renown as a scholar of Greek and Latin, and stated that his reputation was made all the more potent because, he said, 'you have been a visitor to Rome' (quia tu Romae aduena fuisti). Tales of a pilgrimage to the Apostolic See feature prominently in the later accounts of Aldhelm's life as told by Faricius of Arrezo (d. 1117) and William of Malmesbury (c. 1125). 2 Faricius thought that Aldhelm had composed the fi rst of his Carmina Ecclesiastica (In basilica sanctorum Petri et Pauli) while abroad 3 and William preserved a redacted copy of the privilege of Pope Sergius I, claimed (in an earlier vernacular version) to have been secured by Aldhelm for two of his monasteries, as well as an anecdote that Aldhelm had brought a large and ornately carved altar top back to England from Rome. 4 Despite the corrupt transmission of the papal bull for Malmesbury, the pontifi cate of Sergius (687-701) has traditionally been used to provide an approximate date for Aldhelm's visit to Rome, thereby providing one of the few fi xed points of his career. Michael Lapidge has recently argued that Aldhelm's journey was occasioned by the pilgrimage of his kinsman, King Ceadwalla of Wessex, in 688, and that Aldhelm himself may have been responsible for the transmission back to Anglo-Saxon England of the texts of Ceadwalla's epitaph (d. 689) and that of Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604), whence they were subsequently incorporated by Bede into his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum. 5 Ceadwalla died in Rome on 20 April 689 in albis (that is, while still in his baptismal robes) and, as a consequence, was buried at St Peter's. A formal twentyfour-line epitaph with a prose dating-clause was erected over his tomb. 6 If Lapidge's hypothesis is correct, we can place Aldhelm at Old St Peter's in 689 noting down the verses of inscriptions that commemorated an English king and the pope considered to be the 'apostle of the English'. Important evidence to connect Aldhelm with the city of Rome is indicated by his knowledge of Latin verses (tituli) that were inscribed on buildings and monuments in Rome. He certainly knew many that had been composed by 3  It is generally assumed that Aldhelm knew verses such as these through manuscript collections (syllogae) of Latin tituli that circulated in Francia from the later seventh century and, it is thought, also in England at around the same time, although this assumption is made largely on the basis of Aldhelm's use of several texts that are in the early collections and because copies of his works are found alongside early copies of some syllogae. 9 Certainly, a substantial number of Roman epigraphic tituli were known in England by the time that Bede, Cuthbert of Canterbury and Milred of Worcester, among others, began to compose similar verses for their own English churches. 10 It has also long been recognized that the impulse to collect the texts of epigraphic tituli from early Christian Rome was catalysed in part by the growth in the traffi c of pilgrims to Rome during the mid-seventh century, Franks and Anglo-Saxons prominent among them. 11 De Rossi thought that the period around the pontifi cate of Honorius I (625-38) was especially important in the development of Rome as a pilgrim centre, arguing that some of the earliest syllogae and itineraries of the city were put together c. 640 and that these were made for the religious 'tourists'. 12 The chronological basis of de Rossi's thesis was challenged by Silvagni who argued instead that our extant collections are fragmentary refl ections of one sylloge (perhaps two) made in the mid-to late seventh century by a scholar with Anglo-Saxon connections who had come to Rome. 13 Although the textual basis of Silvagni's analysis has not been widely accepted, his suggestion that an Anglo-Saxon might have been responsible for collecting texts of inscriptions while on pilgrimage to Rome has taken root. Orchard has argued that Aldhelm himself could have been responsible for just such an enterprise, and that this would account for his use of known Roman tituli within his own compositions. 14 In this respect, Orchard has been supported by Lapidge, who regards Aldhelm as 'a plausible agent of transmission' of the texts of epigraphic tituli, rather than just the user of collections made by other northern pilgrims to the holy city. 15 an epigraphic anthology for old st peter's Two mid-ninth-century manuscripts from Reims, now in Paris, provide some substantial new evidence for Aldhelm's literary debt to the epigraphic heritage of Rome and Old St Peter's in particular. Both books have been heavily glossed, refl ecting intensive use and refl ection on the texts they contain. The earlier of the two manuscripts (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 9347) dates in large part probably to the second quarter of the ninth century. It contains early ex libris marks showing that it belonged to the monastery of St Remigius at Reims. 16 It is a handsome book of high quality. Measuring c. 365 × 250 mm (with a writing space of 295 × 205 mm) it was copied in a two-column format by two or three scribes using a bold minuscule script with good uncial capitals for the headings of many poems. The second book (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 2773) is slightly later, s. ix 2 , and was -on the basis of its textual fi liations as well as its script -also made at Reims, probably during the rule of Archbishop Hincmar (845-82) (see Plate I). 17 The script is like that used by scribes who worked on books made for Reims in the latter half of the ninth century; particularly characteristic is the long shallow head stroke to the letter s. 18 It bears comparison with that of a named Reims scribe, Ausoldus, who wrote 13 Silvagni, ICVR n.s. 1 (Rome, 1922), xxv-xxvii. 14 Orchard, Poetic Art, pp. 211-12. 15 Lapidge, 'Career of Aldhelm', p. 60. 16  three quires in a copy of the commentary In epistolas pauli by Hraban Maur, which was given to Reims, according to ex dono inscriptions, by Archbishop Hincmar. 19 These two Reims manuscripts now in Paris are large-scale anthologies of the early Christian poetry that constituted the core of the Carolingian 'school canon'. They have a number of items in common, and these are closely related textually (likely sharing an exemplar if not copied one from another). The ninth-century scriptorium at Reims was particularly active in the production of volumes of poetry that set Carolingian compositions alongside the older works of classical and early Christian poets, and these two manuscripts exemplify the centrality of Reims in the collection and transmission of late antique and Carolingian-era poetry. 20 Works common to both manuscripts are Prosper's Epigrammata ex sententiis S. Augustini followed by a group of short poems that include a coherent set of six epigrams that are associated with Old St Peter's (discussed below), Arator's De actibus apostolorum, and the verse Liber medicinalis of Quintus Serenus. The earlier book also contains the Carmen paschale of Caelius Sedulius, and the poetic rendering of the four gospel texts by Juvencus, as well as a rare copy, on 39r, of Alcuin's epitaph for A set of six short epigrams, fi ve of which can be linked directly to the basilica of St Peter's in the Vatican, is common to both these manuscripts. 23 Internal evidence suggests that the series was collected in the early ninth century. The fi rst two poems in the group are each six lines long, and are entitled De Andrea and De Petro respectively. Aldhelm quoted both epigrams, a full twelve lines, as the opening and closing lines of the fi rst and third poems in the fourth of his Carmina Ecclesiastica, 'On the Altars of the Twelve Apostles'. 24 He changed his source only slightly, altering the setting of the original titulus, De Petro, from a porticus to an apse (see below). These two poems are not known from any other sylloge; they are unique to these two Reims books. Ehwald noted the existence of both manuscripts in the footnotes of his edition to CE IV, and refered his readers to de Rossi's edition, but did not mention the fact that the verses found therein were part of a coherent group of tituli that focused on the basilica of St Peter, nor did he comment on de Rossi's observation that the lines were known to Aldhelm. 25 Since one of the two Reims manuscripts also contains a copy of Aldhelm's Enigmata, it would be natural to assume from Ehwald's brief note that these two books also preserved fragments of Aldhelm's Carmina Ecclesiastica. 26 26 Schaller and Könsgen assumed that Aldhelm was the author of both these poems, despite noting that de Rossi had edited them and thus tacitly acknowledging that they also had an earlier, Roman, epigraphic context: Initia, nos. 758 and 11958.
of Old St Peter and its monuments (especially on the oratories in the southern side of the building) and this observation, as well as Aldhelm's editorial alteration of a single word, strongly suggests that the two Reims manuscripts preserve the text of the original tituli that had served as Aldhelm's source, and not vice versa. Internal evidence suggests that the set of six tituli was brought together in this form in the early ninth century (805 × 815). The last three poems are Carolingian. The sixth (and longest) of the set is the forty-line epitaph for Pope Hadrian I, composed by Alcuin in Charlemagne's name shortly after Hadrian's death in 795. It is notable that the Reims manuscripts do not attribute Hadrian's epitaph to Alcuin; his authorship is not important in the context of this anthology, which instead has a topographical focus on the basilica of St Peter. 27 Hadrian had been buried in an oratory deep within the basilica, against the western wall of the southern transept, not far from the confessio of St Peter. Early references make it clear that Alcuin's verses were inscribed on a marble slab that was erected close to the pope's tomb. The fi fth poem in the series is a four-line epigram that refers to a gift of precious metal for an altar dedicated to St Martin, the soldier-saint of Tours. The poem has been rendered anonymous, with the replacement of the donor's name by the pronoun ille in the third line (ille humilis praesul ); de Rossi argued that it refers to a gift from Fredegis, Alcuin's successor at Tours, to an altar for St Martin at Old St Peter's. 28 Fredegis's donation is mentioned in the Liber pontifi calis, in reference to an altar for St Martin which was in the narthex that joined the rotunda of Sant'Andrea to that of S. Petronilla, located immediately south of the southern exedra that abutted the transept of the basilica. The exact date of Fredegis's donation is not known, although it should certainly be considered a gift made during his abbacy at Tours (804-33 845. The inclusion of an epigram for Aureus and Justinus within a collection of epigraphic verses set in Rome was a means of imparting a sense of romanitas to the remains of these northern martyrs at a time when corporeal relics from Rome were highly desired but impossible to obtain. In the late eighth and early ninth century the papacy enforced an embargo on the export of such relics from Rome; it was not until 829 when Einhard illicitly removed the bodies of SS. Marcellinus and Peter from Rome that the trade in corporeal relics to monasteries in the north resumed in earnest. 31 The fi rst three epigrams in the series, including the two used by Aldhelm, are from an earlier era. All three were thought by de Rossi to have been composed by or for Pope Symmachus I (498-514) in the context of his radical new programme of construction of oratories at St Peter's in the early sixth century. Symmachus aimed to recreate at St Peter's the liturgical setting of the Lateran basilica, which was at that time under the control of Lawrence, his rival for the papal throne. 32 In doing so Symmachus began to introduce the relics and associated cults of a great many other saints into the domain that had previously been the preserve of Peter alone. In particular he focused on two zones, the area around the baptistery in the northern exedra, and the new 'basilica' dedicated to St Andrew in the easternmost of the two late imperial rotundas that lay to the south of the church.
The third epigram in the series relates to the area of the baptistery where Symmachus had dedicated three oratories: to the Holy Cross; John the Baptist; and John the Evangelist. 33 It is a confl ation of two epigrams; a distich for the baptistery itself followed by the fi rst three lines of a six-line poem to John the Baptist. 34 Aldhelm did not use this epigram (perhaps because John was not an apostle and thus did not feature in his programme of twelve apostolic altars).
De Rossi argued that the fi rst epigram, De Andrea, was a titulus associated with an altar created as part of Symmachus's dedication of the easternmost of the two late antique imperial rotundas set on the southern fl ank of the Vatican hill to the apostle Andrew, brother of Peter. Within the rotunda he created a constellation of oratories dedicated to martyrs who represented the centres of Lawrence's power, including the city of Constantinople, which hitherto had been the focus of the cult of Andrew. In this way Symmachus was able not only to set up St Peter's as a rival cathedral to the Lateran, but also to appropriate the cachet of 'foreign' cults for his own political ends.
The rotunda of Sant'Andrea stood hard up against the obelisk from the circus of Nero that was believed to have been the site of St Peter's martyrdom. The titulus celebrates Andrew's martyrdom as well as his blood relationship with Peter -a point reinforced by the situation of the rotunda between the obelisk and the basilica that contained Peter's relics.

De Andrea
Aldhelm De Rossi thought that the second inscription in the set, De Petro, had probably also been made for a location in the vicinity of Sant'Andrea and could have referred to the entranceway of Sant'Andrea itself, although this is not certain since Symmachus also improved the atrium of the main basilica and the titulus could have been placed there or on a long colonnade that defi ned the approach to St Peter's from the Tiber and which was later known as the porticus S. Petri. 37 It may be signifi cant for understanding the collection of these texts in the early ninth century that Pope Leo III (796-816) is known to have repaired the steps leading up to Sant'Andrea. 38 Nevertheless, this titulus was evidently intended for a porticus or entrance, since it plays on the iconography of St Peter as the keeper of the keys and the ianitor of Heaven.

De Petro
Aldhelm: CE IV. These verses were quoted by Aldhelm in CE IV.1.1-4 and 34-36. In the fi rst line of his carmen, however, he changed the location of the verses from the porticus of the original to an apse, despite the fact that porticus fi ts better with the sense of the poem with its many allusions to gateways, keys, and doorkeepers.
This editorial change is a clear indication that Aldhelm was using a pre-existing epigram as a source for his own carmen. It might also imply that he did, in fact, have a real rather than an imaginary location in mind for his own verses, envisaging them set out around the base of an apse. It is conventionally thought that Aldhelm composed this carmen not for inscription in a real Anglo-Saxon church but as a set of epigraphic verses for an idealized basilica in which he imagined twelve altars dedicated one to each of the apostles. 41 And yet he had used just this theme in the third of his Carmina, to describe what was, apparently, a real church dedicated to St Mary. There, in CE III.40-1, he referred to the lofty new church built by Bugga where 'holy altars gleam in twelve-fold dedication'; here, however, Bugga 'dedicates the apse to the Virgin'. 42 This poem was certainly composed after April 689, because in lines 17-32 Aldhelm refers to the death of Ceadwalla in Rome, and (as Lapidge has noted) 'the wording of the epitaph is refl ected in the diction of [the poem]'. 43 According to a later eighth-century itinerary of the basilica, Old St Peter's also had an oratory 'to the twelve apostles' located somewhere in the south transept. 44 The second line of the De Petro epigram, 'Claviger aetherius qui portam pandit in aethram', became a particular favourite with Aldhelm. He reused it often: in CE I.6; in the Epistola ad Acircium; in the prose De uirginitate c. LV; in the Epistola ad Geruntium. 45 It has been argued previously that Aldhelm created this line by confl ating two hexameters from Arator's De actibus apostolorum (I.899 and I.1076), a work composed in 544 and contained in both of the Reims manuscripts discussed above. 46 Furthermore, it seems that a six-line section of Arator's work (I.1070-6), including the line 'Claudit iter bellis qui portam pandit in astris' was extracted and inscribed on a wall at S. Pietro in Vincoli in Rome. 47 However, if de Rossi is right in ascribing the complete line and its companion verses De Petro to the period of Symmachus's remodelling of the oratories of Old St Peter's c. 500 it seems that Aldhelm derived it complete, direct from the titulus, and that it was Arator who had quoted it piecemeal.
It is probably signifi cant that in his Epistola ad Geruntium, the Epistola ad Acircium, and in the prose De uirginitate Aldhelm ascribes the line to an anonymous poet (ut poeta); he used exactly the same expression to introduce the line from a mid-fi fth-century dedicatory inscription at S. Maria Maggiore in his De pedum regulis. The same expression is used to introduce another line twice quoted by Aldhelm that also reads just like a verse from an inscribed titulus in an architectural setting; Petrus apostolicae qui culmina praesidet arcis ('Peter, who presides over the heights of the apostolic citadel'). 48 The double meaning of culmina ('heights / keystones') aff ords the line a literal architectural context as well as a metaphorical allusion to Rome. Although this line does not occur outside Aldhelm's writing, we can be certain that we have but a fragment of the total number of tituli (and syllogae) that were once visible in Rome, so this need be no bar to identifying it as a quotation from a lost inscription.
The multiple appearance of the line 'Claviger aetherius . . .' in several of Aldhelm's works has implications for the dating of those works, and for our understanding of how and when Aldhelm learned the verses of these two Roman tituli. If, following Lapidge, we believe that the CE were 'inspired by Aldhelm's experience of engraved tituli in Roman churches' and that Aldhelm's key journey was made in the late 680s, we are obliged to date the CE, the Epistola ad Geruntium, the prose De uirginitate and the Epistola ad Acircium (including the Enigmata and the De pedum regulis that reference the tituli of popes Damasus and Sergius III) to the period after his visit to Rome. But of these, the Epistola ad Acircium (and its attendant texts) and the prose De uirginitate are usually thought to have been composed before Aldhelm became an abbot (682 × 686-706), and thus some time before his projected pilgrimage to Rome with Ceadwalla in 688-9. 49 There are two possible ways to reconcile the incongruities of the dating evidence, such as it is: fi rstly, that Aldhelm interpolated the line 'Claviger aetherius . . .' into pre-existing texts (it is always used by him as an interjection); or secondly, that Aldhelm, like many of his clerical contemporaries, went to Rome more than once.
Alternatively, we would need to suppose that Aldhelm knew these tituli from Old St Peter's through a sylloge now lost. As noted above, the Symmachan verses beginning Petrus porticum and Andreas hic sanctus are unique to the two Reims manuscripts. There they form part of a coherent anthology of tituli that has a topographical focus on St Peter's basilica (especially the oratories of its southern side) and it seems that the anthology as it exists in these manuscripts was collected in the early ninth century. Without this anthology, we would have no reason to suppose that Aldhelm's fourth Carmen Ecclesiasticum was anything other than his own work. As it stands, this new evidence suggests that he could write a fair pastiche of early sixth-century Roman epigraphic verse 48