The matter of Englaland: the story of Offa of Angel, and the narrative world of Widsith

Contrary to conventional scholarly belief, the Old English poem Widsith (composed c. 700) is not just a collection of lists of the names of kings and tribes but a poem based on a narrative with two main components. One concerns the personal experiences of the poem’s speaker, the poet Wīdsīþ and his mission to take a princess to be married to the Gothic king Eormenrīc (of notoriously savage temper). But this is contained within a wider historical, geographic and political scenario, encompassing Jutland and northern Germany – not entirely as in historical reality, but as it was imagined to be before the Germanic migration to Britain. Although unhistorical and anachronistic, the political and dynastic world understood by the Widsith poet (and his audience) was large, populous and complex. Despite the detailed work of scholars such as Chadwick, Chambers and Malone, no study, I argue, has ever considered Widsith as expressive of both a coherent narrative and as part of a concretely-realised world. No other study, either, has properly identified the importance – to the poet Wīdsīþ and his world – of the heroic saga of Offa of Angel. I examine the very disparate texts containing Offa’s story to attempt – for the first time – a holistic reconstruction of the likely shape of his tale, as it may have been known in England up to the thirteenth century. I argue that the story of Wīdsīþ the poet has been made a part of the greater story of Offa, which itself was a part of the story, greater still, of the origins of England following the conquest of Continental Angel by the Danes. This is a story which I identify as a foundational legend of the Anglians in England, and hence of England itself – “the Matter of Englaland”.
In order to undertake this analysis, I have made a close study of the meanings of the names of characters and places. To do this I have developed new methodologies with respect to naming traditions in Old English heroic texts, which are set out in Part I of the thesis.