Violence, Performance, and Pedagogy in Ælfric Bata's Colloquies

Abstract

Ælfric Bata's raucous and violent Colloquies have been seen either as the historical witness to an unreformed monastery or as the work of a rogue grammar teacher. This essay begins by comparing certain unorthodox passages to their sources in the Colloquia e libro De raris fabulis retractata so as to demonstrate Bata's conscious pedagogic strategy of composing tense and disturbing dialogue. Performance theory provides a way of conceptualizing the experience of children learning Latin using dialogues replete with discussions of fear and violence, and contemporary studies of drama in education illuminate the powerful role of performance in learning. On this basis I argue that Bata's students would have learned self and mutual discipline by reciting or enacting the colloquies. However, as the collection progresses, Bata also demonstrates the uncontrollable nature of violence introduced into the classroom. Ultimately, the deliberately ambiguous Colloquies function as a workshop in which young students would have been able to play with and test potential monastic identities.