Grendel and the Penitentials

Abstract

This essay argues that early insular penitential literature provides a necessary framework for understanding the treatment of intra-familial violence in Beowulf. Scholars have long recognized that the inability to deal with kin-slaying is a fundamental failure of the imagined cultural world of the poem: revenge satisfies the demand for justice and compensation settles a feud, but neither can be exacted from members of one's own kin-group. But while the heroic model of compensation and retribution offers no solution for such cases, the religious model of the penitential canons does. In the view of monastic canonists, kin-killing can be catalogued, atoned for and forgiven like any other sin. The penitential canons on this topic provide a new analogue for Grendel's murderous rage and a key to understanding his character, and underscore the ultimate failure of the heroic world of the poem.