Judith as Spiritual Warrior: Female Models of Monastic Masculinity in Ælfric’s Judith and Byrhtferth’s Enchiridion

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article identifies a passage in Byrhtferth’s Enchiridion as referencing monastic discussions of Judith based on Aldhelm’s Carmen de virginitate and Prudentius’s Psychomachia. In this passage, Byrhtferth imagines himself as Judith leading an army of virgins against the forces of lechery. The context of Byrhtferth’s identification with Judith has many resonances with Ælfric’s translation of Judith, which Ælfric explains allegorically as spiritual warfare in the epilogue to the homily. The article suggests that one audience of Ælfric’s Judith would have been monks, who may have identified with her leading the army of virginity just as Byrhtferth did. By associating monasticism with Judith, as a virago, fighting in an invisible battle against spiritual adversaries, Byrhtferth, Ælfric, and their fellow monks are able to reclaim masculinity lost by their proscription from battle during the Viking invasion of the late tenth and early eleventh-century.