Anonymous (monk of Wenlock)
This chapter presents a survey of both Latin and Old English visions of heaven and hell in Anglo-Saxon England from Boniface to Aelfric. The Anglo-Saxons were not content with reading about visions of foreigners, such as the Vita Fursei, the Visio Pauli, or pope Gregory’s Dialogi, but were eager to find native Anglo-Saxons who experienced visions themselves. With the account of the monk of Wenlock, Boniface presents the first native Anglo-Saxon’s vision, but the desire to Anglicise visions becomes most apparent in Bede who first – and incorrectly – transposes the vision of the Irishman Fursey to England, and then narrates the vision of the native Anglo-Saxon Dryhthelm. Aelfric silently corrects this ‘pious fraud’, but by his time Anglo-Saxons such as the monk of Wenlock, Dryhthelm, Guthlac, and Merchdeof had already experienced visions, and England had therefore joined the other nations in meriting this special grace.
- Ailithir of ClonmacnoiseAnonymous ... Gaulish informant for LucianAnonymous ... matron who laughed at massAnonymous ... Whitby author of Vita sancti Gregorii
- Anonymous ... monk of Wenlock Anonymous ... scribe in RIA D iv 2Anonymous ... scribe of Llyfr TegAnonymous ... scribe of RIA MS 23 N 10 (pp. 131-142)Anonymous ... scribe of TCD MS 1336/6.2Anonymous ... servant
