This book examines the impact of environmental crises on early medieval English theology and poetry. Like their modern counterparts, theologians at the turn of the first millennium understood the interconnectedness of the Earth community, and affirmed the independent subjectivity of other-than-humans. The author argues for the existence of a specific Old English ecotheology, and demonstrates the influence of that theology on contemporaneous poetry. Taking the Exeter Book as a microcosm of the poetic corpus, she explores the impact of early medieval apocalypticism and environmental anxiety on Old English wisdom poems, riddles, elegies, and saints’ lives.

Courtney Catherine Barajas is Assistant Professor of English and Director of Medieval and Modern Studies at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington. She was born deep in the heart of Texas, and carries it with her. When she isn’t teaching, reading, or writing, you can find her skiing, hiking, or tending to her growing collection of cacti and houseplants.

Introduction: Early Medieval Earth Consciousness

Ælfric, Wulfstan, and the Exeter Book

Chapter Summaries

Chapter I: Old English Ecotheology

Medieval and Modern Ecotheology

Conclusions

Chapter II: The Web of Creation in Wisdom Poems

Gnome(ish) Wisdom in Old English Poetry

“The Web of Mysteries”: Poetic Entanglement in The Order of the World

Mapping Kinship Connections in Maxims I

Conclusions

Chapter III: Identity, Affirmation, and Resistance in the Exeter Riddle Collection

Ambiguous Interpretation in the Exeter Riddle Collection

Birds’-Eye View: Riddle 6 and Riddle 7

Heroic Horns and Wounded Wood: Riddles of Transformation

Conclusions

Chapter IV: Trauma and Apocalypse in the Eco-Elegies

Environmental Trauma and Natural Depression in The Wanderer

Apocalypse / Now: The Ruin

Conclusions

Chapter V: Mutual Custodianship in the Landscapes of Gu.lac A

Home, Alone: Gu.lac in the Wilderness

Lessons in Early Medieval English Environmentalism

Conclusions

Coda: Old English Ecotheology

Bibliography

Index