The “Kundeste Englisse Man”: The Englishing of St. Wulfstan of Worcester in the South English Legendary

Abstract

In this essay, “The ‘Kundeste Englisse Man’: The Englishing of St. Wulfstan of Worcester in theSouth English Legendary”, I discuss the literary transmission of the Life (or Vita) of St. Wulfstan, the last surviving Anglo-Saxon bishop after the Norman Conquest, exploring how that vita changes through time. I argue that Wulfstan's status as native hero grows, and his evolving vitae reveal new incidents of English heroism as the idea of Englishness itself takes root among the Norman conquerors. In theSouth English Legendary, a vast thirteenth-century Middle English compendium of saints' lives, Wulfstan becomes “þe kundeste Englisse man“—that is, the most native or natural of Englishmen—and the emergence of “Englishness” as a sign of heroism is a signal moment in the Anglo-Normans' transformation to Englishmen themselves. Ultimately, Wulfstan's archetypal Englishness rhetorically advances the Anglo-Norman transition away from a continental identity and towards Anglicization, paving the way for later conceptions of “Englishness” to emerge.