The Authorship of the ‘Northern Homily Cycle’: The Liturgical Affiliation of the Sunday Gospel Pericopes as a Test

Abstract

In the north of England, as the thirteenth century was drawing to a close, an enterprising and pastorally zealous cleric was engaged in the composition of the most extensive preaching codex in the English language since Aelfric's Catholic Homilies. The text now known as the Northern Homily Cycle (hereafter NHC) was left untitled by an anonymous author who wrote in his native dialect and was well versed in the lore of the north country. He used a rhymed octosyllabic line throughout. His plan encompassed a free rendering of the Gospel pericope for the particular Sunday (the homilies are chiefly dominical), a complementary exegesis drawn from the Fathers, and an exemplum, reflecting a shrewd sense of his audience and the fashion of the time. In these exempla he revealed a catholic taste by selecting stories of saints and monks, stories from antiquity and the east, pieces of local Northumbrian folklore, legends of the Virgin, accounts of miraculous beasts, risqu6 fables, and child-like pious tales.