Selim 20.indb

Carla María Thomas, SELIM 20 (2013–2014): 167–198ISSN: 1132–631X

ORM’S VERNACULAR LATINITY 1

Abstract: This article argues that Homily 3 on the Annunciation in the Ormulum presents
an image of the stella maris epithet for the Virgin Mary in the English vernacular in a way
diff erent fr om its native predecessor, the Old English Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. In bringing
this piece of liturgical material to the laity for the fi rst time, Orm was not only drawing on
Latin content fr om multiple Continental sources—thus creating a composite text without
a clear exemplar—but he was also elevating his vernacular composition by adapting it to
the Latin septenary. Thus, Orm’s use of the stella maris, or “sæsterrne,” demonstrates his
participation in the dissemination of Marian devotional material to the laity as well as in
the attempt to elevate English through Latin form and content, which represents a larger
movement in the period. Keywords: Ormulum, sæsterrne, stella maris, septenary, Virgin
Mary.

Resumen: Este artículo postula que la Homilía 3 sobre la Anunciación en el Ormulum
presenta una imagen del epíteto stella maris para la Virgen María en inglés de un modo
diferente al de su predecesor nativo, el Evangelio del pseudo-Mateo en inglés antiguo.
Al presentar por vez primera este material litúrgico al público laico, Orm no solo estaba
recopilando contenidos latinos a partir de múltiples fuentes continentales —creando de este
modo un texto compuesto sin un ejemplar claro—sino que también estaba elevando su
composición en vernáculo al adaptarlo al septenario latino. Así, el uso que Orm hace de stella
maris, o “sæsterrne,” demuestra su participación en la diseminación de material devocional
mariano al público laico, así como en el intento de elevar el inglés a través de formas y
contenidos latinos, lo que representa un movimiento mayor en el periodo. Palabras clave:
Ormulum, sæsterrne, stella maris, septenario, Virgen María.

1 Introduction

Although most scholarship on the ORMULUM has focused on the language and orthography of Orm’s
collection of metrical homilies, Homily 3 displays

innovative treatment of Marian devotional material and reveals

1 I am grateful for the support of and feedback fr om Haruko Momma and Mo
Pareles in the early stages of this article and especially to my reviewers, whose
comments were exceedingly helpful. Finally, I am thankful to Dr. Bruce Barker-
Benfi eld at the Bodleian Library for giving me access to MS Junius 1 in 2012 and
2014.

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the move of such material out of the liturgy and into vernacular
preaching in twelft h-century England.2 The Ormulum is a late
twelft h-century collection of verse homilies organized around the
life of Christ and written in fi ft een-syllable septenary verse, which
includes seven metrical feet and one unstressed fi nal syllable per line.
The author Orm was a regular canon writing fr om approximately
1160 until 1180 in southern Lincolnshire, possibly associated with
Bourne Abbey, which was an Arrouaisian reform of the order of
St. Augustine and founded in 1138 by Norman Augustinians who
were brought to England aft er the Conquest (Parkes 1983; Worley
2003: 23). This paper argues that the Ormulum was participating
in the dissemination of liturgical material through vernacular
preaching texts in twelft h-century England with the specifi c
example of the “sæsterrne” (“sea-star”) epithet for the Virgin
Mary. Furthermore, I maintain that this practice is emblematic
of a larger movement in the twelft h century, for which I draw
upon Emily Thornbury’s recent work on the late Anglo-Saxon
poetic tradition. She argues that late Anglo-Saxon poets brought
“Latinate high culture” to the English laity by making it seem
like it derived fr om a Latin source (Thornbury 2014: 235). In
the case of the Ormulum, the content most certainly comes fr om
Latin sources, but so does its verse form, which strengthens the
connection between Orm’s vernacular English preaching to its
Latinity.

2 For an extensive bibliography of Ormulum research, I direct the reader to Nils-
Lennart Johannesson’s website www2.english.su.se/nǉ /orrmproj/orrmulum_site.
html. The publication of the critical edition in the late nineteenth century by
Robert Holt, with notes and glossary by Robert Meadows White, instigated the
early philological work on the collection. The works of G. Sarrazin, Emanuel
Menthel, Moritz Trautman, Sigurd Holm, and Heinrich Matthes were essential
in understanding the language, verse, and sources of the verse homilies, and recent
work, especially by Nils-Lennart Johannesson and Stephen Morrison, has aided
scholars in moving beyond its philology.

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2 The Latin tradition of the STELLA MARIS
Stephen Morrison posits that Orm looked south of England for
source material, most likely fr om works associated with northern
French schools, such as those at Tours, Chartres, Rheims, and
Clairvaux (2002: 266). In his examination of textual evidence,
however, Morrison concludes that the correspondences between
the Ormulum and the Glossa ordinaria, as well as between the
Ormulum and the Enarrationes in Matthaeum, are only partial,
which suggests that “a hitherto unidentifi ed text, sharing much in
common with both” may be the source of the composite exemplar
for the Ormulum (2002: 266). This suggestion discredits Orm’s
own compositional ability, and it seems more likely that Orm was
a well-read canon who drew more fr om memory than fr om any
singular exemplar.3 Before I discuss the Continental works that
infl uenced Orm’s use of the stella maris (“star of the sea”) epithet
in the vernacular, I will fi rst show where the tradition originated:
fr om the authoritative writings of Sts. Jerome, Isidore of Seville,
and Bede.

Scholars once considered the etymology of Mary as the stella
maris a mistranslation in Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae fr om
Jerome’s Quaestiones hebraicae in libro Geneseos (Graef 1963: 162–
163; Pelikan 1978: 162; 1996: 94). Here, Jerome uses the phrase
stilla maris, which means “drop of the sea,” and Winfr ied Rudolf
writes that this defi nition was infl uenced by I Kings 18.41–45
(2011).4 It was generally accepted that Isidore mistranslated the
phrase when he wrote in “De reliquis in Evangelio nominibus”
(Book VII.x.1, ed. Lindsay): “Maria inluminatrix, sive stella
maris. Genuit enim lumen mundi. Sermone autem Syro Maria

3 See Johannesson (2007b, especially 132) for another discussion on Orm’s use of
more than one source to develop an intricate metaphor in his homilies.
4 The passage fr om I Kings concerns a small cloud that rises fr om the sea, which
promises rain aft er a long draught.

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domina nuncupatur; et pulchre; quia Dominum genuit.”5 More
recent scholarship has suggested that Jerome was the originator
of the phrase in his commentary on Matthew in his Liber de
Nominibus Hebraicis (Clayton 1990: 249–250; Gambero 2005:
69): “Mariam plerique aestimant interpretari, illuminant me
isti, uel illuminatrix, uel Smyrna maris, sed mihi nequaquam
uidetur. Melius autem est, ut dicamus sonare eam stellam
maris, siue amarum mare: sciendumque quod Maria, sermone
Syro domina nuncepatur” (1852: 841–842).6 We can see that the
more likely origin of Isidore’s etymology was fr om this passage
in which Jerome specifi cally uses the phrase “stellam maris”.
Furthermore, we can compare Jerome’s “sermone Syro domina
nuncepatur” with Isidore’s “Sermone autem Syro Maria domina
nuncupatur,” which appears to be taken nearly verbatim fr om
Jerome.

Following Jerome’s and Isidore’s leads, the most infl uential
contributions to the literary development of Mary as the stella
maris in early medieval England are found in Bede’s commentary
on Luke, the Ave maris stella hymn, and other religious writings
by Continental commentators. Bede interprets Mary’s name in
a similar fashion to Jerome and Isidore in his commentary on
Luke: “Maria autem Hebraice stella maris Syriace uero domina
uocatur et merito quia et totius mundi dominum et lucem saeculis
meruit generare perennem” (1852b: 325).7 The epithet of stella

5 “Mary the illuminator, and star of the sea. She brought forth, indeed, the light
of the world. In the Syrian language, however, Mary is called ‘lady’ and ‘beauty’
because she brought forth the Lord.”
6 “And very many determine that Mary is interpreted ‘these illuminate me’ or
‘she who enlightens’ or ‘myrrh of the sea,’ but it does not seem thus to me at
all. It is better, however, that we say she means ‘star of the sea,’ or ‘bitter sea:’
and that it ought to be known that Mary is called ‘lady’ in the Syrian language.”
7 “Mary, however, in Hebrew is called the ‘star of the sea,’ and in Syriac, indeed,
‘lady’ and deservedly because she deserved to produce the lord of all the world and
the enduring light for this life.”

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maris was considered one of the prerogatives or merits of Mary,
and Bede continues this tradition in a homily for the feast of the
Annunciation, as mentioned above: “Nec praetereundem quod
beata Dei genetrix meritis praecipuis etiam nominee testimonium
reddit. Interpretatur enim stella maris” (1852a: 10).8 Interestingly,
Bede is the fi rst, based on the evidence that I have found, to
expound on the importance of this interpretation of Mary by
bringing in further reference to the nautical metaphor: “Et ipsa
quasi sidus eximium inter fl uctus saeculi labentis gratia priuilegii
specialis refulsit” (1852a: 10).9

The second major development in the stella maris metaphor is
found in the ninth-century Latin hymn Ave maris stella, which
survives on folio 1v in the St. Gallen, Stift sbibliothek, Codices
Sangallenses MS 95 and reads:10

Aue maris stella dei mater alma atque
semper uirgo felix celi porta.
Sumens illud aue gabrihelis ore funda nos
in pace mutans nomen eue.
Solue uincla reis profer lumen cecis mala
nostra pelle bona cuncta posce.
Monstra te esse matrem sumat per te precem
qui pro nobis natus tulit esse tuus.
Uirgo singularis inter omnes mitis nos culpis
solutos mites fac et castos.
Vitam presta puram iter para tutum
ut uidentes Jesus semper conletemur

8 “And we must not pass over the fact that the blessed mother of God gave
testimony by her special merits and also by her name. She is interpreted as the
‘star of the sea.’ ”
9 “And she herself, just as an extraordinary constellation among the waves
of the slipping world, shone brightly on account of her special esteem and
privilege.”
10 The following text was transcribed fr om images of the original MS, available
at www.e-codices.unifr .ch.

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Sit laus deo patri summon Christo decus spiritui sancto
honor tribus unus. Amen.11

Notice that as the star of the sea, Mary must “profer lumen cecis”
and grant “iter para tutum.” That is, the “vitam […] puram” for
which the prayer asks is the safe journey through the transitory
world back to paradise. Eventually making its way into the liturgy,
Ave maris stella became “one of the most popular Marian songs
of all Christendom” (Gambero 2005: 69). Hrabanus Maurus was
penning his own works containing the stella maris around the
same time as the hymn was composed, and the hymn and patristic
etymologies inspired later Continental theologians, like Fulbert of
Chartres and Bernard of Clairvaux.12

Instead of the more elaborate depictions of Mary as the sea-
star that arise in the eleventh and twelft h centuries, Maurus’s
commentary on Matthew is reminiscent of Bede’s brief
amplifi cation. Here, Maurus discusses the genealogy of Jesus, the
division of people into three tribes, and the betrothal of Mary
(1852a: 744). He begins, as we have seen previously with Jerome
and Isidore: “Maria quoque interpretatur Stella maris, sive amarum

11 The text above is my transcription with abbreviations expanded and italicized:
“Hail the star of the sea, kind mother of God, and eternal virgin, happy gate to
heaven. Receiving that Ave fr om the mouth of Gabriel, establish is us in peace,
changing the name of Eve. Release the band of the bound, bring forth the light of
heaven, banish our evil, call upon all good. Show yourself to be Mother, through
you may he receive prayer, who was born for us, to be yours. O, unique virgin,
meek among all, fr ee us fr om our sins, make us meek and undefi led. Grant a pure
life, a safe journey, so that seeing Jesus, may we always rejoice. Praise be to God
the Father, to the highest Christ glory, to the Holy Spirit honor, three in one.
Amen.”
12 Paschasius Radbertus, an author who was also widely read in early medieval
England, used the stella maris epithet in his ninth-century writings as well,
but Orm does not seem to have drawn fr om Radbertus for this content. For
Radbertus’s use of the stella maris, see his Expositio in Euangelium Matthaei
(1852).

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mare, et hoc nomen apte competit matri Salvatoris.”13 In Homily
CLXIII, Maurus revisits the Virgin Mary as the stella maris and
elaborates further on the reason for her title: the sea is “amarum”
(“bitter”)—thus implying that the sea represents earthly life and all
its troubles—but Mary as the star “dulcis est nautis” (“is a pleasure
for sailors”) because: “mos est ut stella viros ad portum adducat; sic
Maria in mundo ubi natus est Christus, qui omnes ad vitam ducit
dum sequantur illum, illuminatrix et domina dicitur, quae venum
lumen et Dominum nobis peperi” (1852b: 464).14 Luigi Gambero
explains that illuminatrix or inluminatrix, which he translates as
“light-bringer,” made the biggest impression on Christians in
Maurus’s time.

Infl uential though Maurus may have been, Fulbert of Chartres
and Bernard of Clairvaux proved to have even greater signifi cance
for medieval Marian devotion. Fulbert of Chartres, who spent
much of his time in Rome and Rheims, wrote sermons on
the nativity and the purifi cation of Mary that were especially
important to the progression of Marian doctrine (Gambero 2005:
81). Margot Fassler writes that Fulbert’s famous sermon Approbate
consuetudinis on the nativity of Mary “is a striking break with
many past Marian liturgical texts in the West and yet fi rmly
rooted in the devotional mentality of the Peace Movement, which
emphasized the mirculous [sic], intervening powers of the saints”
(2000: 417).15 Fulbert made his greatest contribution to the Marian
cult as the bishop of Chartres, whose patron saint was the Virgin
Mary and whose relic, her birthing chemise, was destroyed in

13 “Mary, also, is understood as the ‘star of the sea,’ or ‘bitter sea,’ and this name
fi ttingly matches the mother of the Saviour.”
14 “It is the custom that a star leads men to a port; so Mary, in the world where
Christ was born, who leads all towards life provided that they follow, is called
‘illuminator’ and ‘lady,’ who brought forth the true light and the Lord to us.”
15 For more information on the Peace Movement, see Head & Landes (1992) and
Head (1999).

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the fi re of 1020 (2000: 403, 405). He participated in the growing
stella maris tradition through his liturgical writings, and the fi re
of 1020 seemed to only heighten his need to empower both the
saint and his cathedral. The Peace Movement encouraged the
kind of liturgical expansion in the years preceding and following
the turn of the millenium that the Marian apocrypha eǌ oyed in
the eleventh century and especially the twelft h century (2000:
399).16 According to Fassler, Fulbert specifi cally strove to eradicate
doubts regarding apocryphal stories of Mary in order to integrate
them into the liturgy, especially her nativity—the feast of which
he sought to “magnify ” (2000: 405).

In Approbate consuetudinis, which is the fi rst manuscript evidence
of the Nativity apocryphon (Biggs 2007: 25), Fulbert refers to the
Annunciation scene in the Nativity in which an angel appears to
Joachim and Anna to announce Mary’s birth and what she will be
named: “sed divina dispensatio nomen accepit, ita ut ipsa quoque
vocabuli sui fi gura magnum quiddam innueret: interpretatur
enim maris stella” (1852: 321–322).17 The Old Testament prophecy
in Isaiah 7:14—“propter hoc dabit Dominus ipse vobis signum
ecce virgo concipiet et pariet fi lium et vocabitis nomen eius

16 Fassler explains that, in the tenth and eleventh centuries, “new pieces for the
Mass and, to an even greater degree, for the Divine Offi ce” were being created in
large numbers.
17 “But she received the name by divine direction, so that the form itself of her
name signifi ed sometime great: certainly it means the ‘star of the sea.’ ” Notice the
fi nal phrase is the same as the one Bede uses in his homily, which indicates that
Fulbert likely used Bede as one source for his own sermon on Mary. Fulbert was
working fr om the Libellus de nativitate Sanctae Mariae, the source of which was
the apocryphal Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, which I will discuss below, and it is
signifi cant because “the compiler of the Libellus sought to legitimatize the legends
found in Pseudo-Matthew and to streamline the materials it contained, focusing
it more intensely upon the Virgin” (Fassler 2000: 402). Thus, the compiler’s goal
mirrored Fulbert’s own intentions.

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Emmanuhel”18—lent itself to claims of prophetic fulfi llment in the
canonical Gospels, as well as in the New Testament apocrypha.19
Biblical prophecies drawn fr om the Hebrew Scriptures were
well known when the earliest of the Marian apocrypha were
being written in the second century; hence the invention of the
apocryphal proclamation of Mary’s birth and name in her Nativity,
which relates to the events of the Gospels, fi nds validation through
prophetic precedent (Clayton 1998: 7).

Shortly aft er discussing the divine plan of Mary’s name, Fulbert
intensifi es the meaning of her name by elaborating on the iter para
tutum of the Ave maris stella:

Nautis quippe mare transeuntibus, notare opus est stellam
hanc, longe a summo coeli cardine coruscantem, et ex respectu
illius aestimare atque dirigere cursum suum, ut portum
destinatum apprehendere possint. Simili modo, fr atres,
oportet universos Christicolas, inter fl uctus hujus saeculi
remigantes, attendere maris stellam hanc, id est Mariam, quae
supremo rerum cardini Deo proxima est, et respectu exempli
ejus cursum vitae dirigere. (322)20

As noted above, Bede appears to be the fi rst to elaborate on the
metaphor by alluding to the “waves of the slipping world,” and
Fulbert, clearly familiar with Bede’s work, expands on the theme

18 “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold a virgin will conceive
and bear a son and his name will be called Emmanuel.”
19 Fulbert includes most of Isaiah 7:14 verbatim in his Approbate consuetudinis
though not all of it. He adapts the fi rst part and then uses ecce […] Emmanuhel
verbatim.
20 “For sailors, certainly, crossing the sea, it is necessary to distinguish this star,
twinkling fr om afar at the highest point in the heavens, and to appraise and direct
its course out of respect for that, so that they may be able to lay hold of the chosen
port. In a similar way, brothers, it is proper for all worshippers of Christ, rowing
among the waves of this world, to turn toward this star of the sea; it is Mary, who
is nearest to God, the highest point in the universe, and to direct the course of
their life through consideration of her example.”

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in a similar fashion. For the fi rst time, we see the beginning of
the full potential of the meaning behind the stella maris metaphor.
Theologians do not liken Mary to a shining celestial entity merely
because she is perpetually pure, thus radiating a bright, blinding
light, even if that may be how the idea began. Rather, most
important to Fulbert and later theologians was the guidance and
protection Mary provides by way of the perfect example. Christians
must look to Mary’s shining example of purity and faith in order
to navigate the storms of earthly temptation; she alone can lead the
faithful Christian to heaven’s gates. Therefore, not only does Mary
emerge as the “star of the sea” and the “gate of heaven,” but she also
becomes the mediator, or “mediatrix,” between humans and God.
In the twelft h century, Bernard of Clairvaux takes this elaboration
to a new level by rendering what has now become familiar Marian
devotional material in striking and seemingly new ways.

Born in 1090 in Bourgogne, Bernard was admitted to the
Cîteaux monastery, which was the nexus of the Cistercian order,
in 1112, and the order went through a vast expansion throughout
Europe primarily because of his involvement (Gambero 2005: 131).
Bernard went on to found a monastery at Clairvaux, which he
dedicated to Mary as was the custom of the Cistercian order, and
he served as abbot for thirty-eight years until he died in 1153 (2005:
131). Although Bernard does not write extensively on Mary in his
numerous works, his contribution to her devotional writing is
found in the beauty with which he writes about her. Chrysogonus
Waddell writes, “Bernard’s genius was not that [of ] an initiator or
innovator, but of a witness to tradition,” and even though Bernard
was infl uenced by traditional works, he rendered them so beautifully
that “it seemed as though his hearers and readers were discovering
them for the fi rst time” (Clairvaux 1993: vxiii). Homily II on the
Gospel of Luke, which extols the virtues of Mary and elaborates
on her role in human redemption, contains a beautiful elaboration
of the stella maris in the last section, but Bernard takes his time
getting there. As Waddell explains, we see how the traditions of

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Marian etymology and biblical prophecy play into Bernard’s praise
of the Virgin as the stella maris.

Before he elaborates on the meaning of Mary’s name as the star
of the sea, in sixteen sections Bernard gives a creative summation
of what had become central elements of Marian doctrine by this
time, such as Mary’s perpetual virginity, a reference to prophecy
in Numbers 24:17—“orietur stella ex Iacob” (“A star will rise out
of Jacob”)—and Mary as guiding intermediary. Finally, in the
seventeenth and fi nal section of his homily, the abbot begins with a
verse fr om Luke 1:27, “et nomen virginis Maria” (“And the virgin’s
name was Mary”), and then proceeds, fi rst, with her perpetual
purity relative to the nature of a star:

Loquamur pauca et super hoc nomine, quod interpretatum
maris stella dicitur, et matri Virgini valde convenienter aptatur.
Ipsa namque aptissime sideri comparator; quia, sicut sine sui
corruptione sidus suum emittit radium, sic absque sui laesione
virgo parturit fi lium. (1852: 70)21

Aft er the direct reference to the rising star prophecy, Bernard
fi nally delves into the meaning and elaboration of the stella maris as
a guide for the metaphorical seafarers of life:

O quisquis te intelligis in hujus saeculi profl uvio magis inter
procellas et tempestates fl uctuare, quam per terram ambulare;
ne avertas oculos a fulgore hujus sideris, si non vis obrui
procellis. Si insurgant venti tentationum, si incurras scopulos
tribulationum, respice stellam, voca Mariam. (1852: 70)22

21 “Let us say a little about this name, which is said to mean the ‘star of the sea,’
and for the Virgin mother it is very appropriate. For she is most fi ttingly compared
to a star; because, just as a star sends out its ray without its own corruption, thus
without iǌ uring her own virginity she brought forth her son.”
22 “O whoever you are who feel you are more likely to be tossed among storms
and tempests in the fl owing waters of this world, than to walk along the earth;
do not avert your eyes fr om the brightness of this star, if you do not wish to be
overwhelmed by the storms. If the winds of temptations rise up, if you run into
the rocks of tribulations, look to the star, call Mary.”

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This passage begins Bernard’s exhortation to the audience that they
should look to Mary whenever they are in need, and the infl uence
of Bede is clear when Bernard mentions the saeculi profl uvio, which
he then links to the temptation of the deadly sins.

3 Making English Latinate
Having discussed the Latin sources of the stella maris above, I
turn now to the ways in which vernacular English writing in the
twelft h century sought to introduce an appearance of Latinity to its
reader-audience. In Becoming a Poet in Anglo-Saxon England, Emily
Thornbury resists the institutionalized belief that Old English
poetry suff ered a “decay” fr om the tenth century onward. Instead,
she argues that late Old English poetry may be considered, more
usefully, a new form of Old English verse that actually represents
“the apotheosis of Old English verse, not its downfall” (2014: 224).
Dubbed the Southern mode because of its origin and surviving
manuscripts being localized to the south of England—though some
also extend to the West Midlands—this new form purposefully
diverged fr om the classical Old English poetic style while heavily
relying upon Latin sources to create new vernacular texts that
“functioned not as commentaries or retellings, but as simulacra”
(2014: 224). Not all texts in the Southern mode take their material
directly fr om a Latin source; however, “the essential criterion is
that a poem sound as if it might have a Latin original” (2014: 225).
Furthermore, and most pertinent to my purposes, Thornbury
argues that the true “power” of this form of composition was in
its ability to transcend the boundaries of the religious institution
to reach the laity:

[…] by giving laypeople the chance to feel that they were
directly experiencing Latin texts, the authors of such poems
could also help build ties beyond cloister and cathedral walls.
It is even possible that some authors in the Southern mode
were themselves laypeople who wanted to participate in
Latinate high culture: even a poet with “small Latin” or none

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could create verse that sounded as if it had a Latin antecedent.
(2014: 235–236)

One example is the Old English Judgment Day II, which is
a translation, more or less, of Bede’s De die iudicii. As I will
demonstrate below, Orm was working fr om Continental Latin
sources to create a vernacular version of the stella maris for his lay
audience. To this, I would also argue that the very meter in which
Orm chooses to write—the fi ft een-syllable septenary with seven
feet and an unstressed fi nal syllable—is also an attempt to present
an English text in such a way as to elevate it through a meter based
on a Latin model.

The fi rst scholar to publicly recognize that the Ormulum was
written in verse rather than prose, which is how George Hickes
(1705: 88) and Humfr ey Wanley (1705: 63) produced excerpts of
it in their scholarship, was Thomas Tyrwhitt in 1775 (repr. 1845:
206–208).23 Jakob Schipper (1895: 186–189) was the fi rst to identify
the type of meter used in both the Ormulum and Poema Morale as
the septenary, and the debate of its exact categorization and origins
has been ongoing.24 Nevertheless, scholars have long recognized
that Orm uses a fi ft een-syllable line that consists of seven metrical
feet and ends with an unstressed, and therefore fi ft eenth, syllable.
His lines are unrhymed, unlike the contemporaneous Poema
Morale, and he does not appear concerned with maintaining the
native Old English tradition of alliteration, which the author of the

23 I would like to thank one of my reviewers who pointed out that Jan van Vliet
(d. 1666) was really the fi rst to identify the verse form of the Ormulum in his
notebook (London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 783), but his fi ndings were never
published. Thus, the fi rst published recognition of Orm’s use of verse is Tyrwhitt’s
essay.
24 For a debate on the origins of the septenary in English, see Trautmann (1882:
111–130), Menthel (1885: 49–86), and Solopova (1996: 423–439). For an argument
against the appropriation of the term “septenary” for English verse, see the entry
for “Septenarius” in Preminger et al. (1993: 1145), which, unfortunately, off ers no
alternative.

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contemporaneous poem “The Grave” attempts. Occassionally, Orm
will utilize alliteration briefl y for rhetorical and mnemonic eff ect,
but it is not a key element of his verse.

While other Middle English (both early and late) poems contain
unstable verse lines, Orm’s use of the strict fi ft een-syllable line
regularly produces an iambic meter so that it would not be entirely
inaccurate to refer to his verse as iambic heptameter:

As this line demonstrates, Orm adds an unstressed syllable aft er
the fi nal stressed syllable in the seventh foot, which renders the
fi nal metrical foot incomplete. Furthermore, due to the clear
structure of the verse line—four feet with a strong ending in
the fi rst half-line and three feet and extra syllable with a weak
ending in the second half-line—on the one hand, one may argue
for a traditional page layout with intented half-lines, as printed in
Holt’s edition:

Nu, broþerr Wallterr, broþerr min
Afft err þe fl æshess kinde;
⁊ broþerr min i Crisstenndom
Þurrh fulluhht ⁊ þurrh trowwþe; (D1–4)26

On the other hand, one may argue for a page layout with long
lines and a visible caesura, as I do in my transcription of the same
lines:

25 All excerpts fr om the Ormulum in this article come fr om my edited
transcriptions, and all translations are my own. Line numbers follow the
numbering in Holt’s edition (D = Dedication; no letter is used to designate the
Homily lines) since it is the only complete edition currently available. However,
I have expanded all abbreviations and Tironian notae in italics, silently inserted
superscript letters, and left out Orm’s accents. “Now, Brother Walter, my brother
according to the nature of the fl esh.”
26 “Now, Brother Walter, my brother according to the nature of the fl esh and my
brother in Christendom through baptism and through belief.”

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Nu broþerr wallterr. broþerr min. Afft err þe fl æshess kinde.
Annd broþerr min i crisstenndom. þurrh fulluhht. annd þurrh trowwþe.27

The only aid that the manuscript provides is punctuation between
each half-line, which I have maintained in the transcription above
although, as the fi rst line above indicates, Orm also sometimes
uses punctuation syntactically. The layout, therefore, appears to
be subject to traditional editorial policies, or, rather, to personal
aesthetic preferences.

Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century editorial practice generally
published the septenary verse of the Ormulum in alternating half-
lines, which is the case with Tyrwhitt, Holt, and Henry Sweet
(1884: 47–78). However, Edwin Guest published his second volume
of A History of English Rhythms in 1838 with extracts of the Ormulum
in long lines (208, 210–216). Like Guest, Joseph Hall published
his excerpt in long lines wih a caesura in his Selections fr om Early
Middle English (1920: 112–117). More recently, editors like J. A. W.
Bennett and G. V. Smithers (1966) and Elaine Treharne (2009)
have maintained the tradition of the half-line layout. In the history
of publishing Early Middle English texts with the fi ft een-syllable
line, it appears that only Poema Morale, The Passion of our Lord,
and The Woman of Samaria have been consistently printed in the
long lines. This is likely based on lineation within the manuscripts
even though one of the earliest manuscripts of Poema Morale is
laid out like prose in the same way that Orm writes out his verse
while another later Poema Morale manuscript lays out the poem in
half-lines so that its rhyming couplets appear in every other line.28
The layout of the Ormulum’s septenary verse, therefore, has fallen

27 The visible caesura that I use is a personal editorial choice, though unnecessary,
since other Early Middle English poems are usually published in an unbroken
long line, as I will demonstrate below.
28 For the poem laid out as prose, see London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 487,
and for the poem laid out in alternating half lines, see Oxford, Bodleian Library,
MS Digby 4.

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to either tradition or personal preference, not metrical necessity.
Elizabeth Solopova has eff ectively demonstrated that the format of
an edition cannot be determined by meter since the structure of the
Ormulum warrants an editorial layout in both the half-lines and the
long lines (1996: 436).

As for the origin of Orm’s septenary line, Schipper suggests that
Orm was infl uenced by the Latin iambic catalectic tetrameter, also
known as the septenarius, because of the extra syllable at the end of
the verse in the Ormulum (1895: 186). The example he provides—“O
crux, fr utex salvifi cus, / vivo fonte rigatus”—comes fr om the Planctus
Bonaventurae of the thirteenth century. Signifi cantly, Schipper has
written two tetrametric lines, which, alone, typically contain four
metrical feet, to demonstrate how every second line is catalectic.
That is, the line is incomplete and ends with only half a foot. When
the two lines are combined into a long line, we suddenly fi nd a verse
form very similar to that found in the Ormulum: fi ft een syllables,
seven feet, and an additional unstressed syllable.

While Schipper’s argument is appealing, Solopova maintains a
direct correlation between this specifi c form of Latin meter and
Orm’s verse is not necessarily accurate. She reminds us that the
fi ft een-syllable catalectic tetrameter was not written in iambic meter
at the time of Orm’s composition (1996: 428). Rather, it was usually
written as the trochaic tetrameter catalectic, and Orm’s meter more
closely resembles the “native tradition” found in Poema Morale,
The Woman of Samaria, and A Good Orison of Our Lady (1996:
428). This tradition refers to the native four-beat verse, which may
have contributed to the eight-syllable half-lines that emerge in
the Early Middle English period. The native tradition, however,
is not explicit in these poems for two reasons. First, the Ormulum
predates these three poems but his meter is more regular, and,
second, one cannot fi nd one clear evolutionary track easily fr om
Old English to Early Middle English verse. I argue, however, that
the iambic septenary line must be a natural result of lengthening
the Old English metrical line while also drawing infl uence fr om

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Latin models. Trochaic or not, English poets certainly were familiar
with the iambic septenary in the twelft h and thirteenth centuries.29
In fact, a cursory search of the poetry collected in Richard Morris’s
editions reveals that the three pieces of verse listed above are not
the only ones that use the fi ft een-syllable line.

Morris’s editions of Early Middle English literature, which
he identifi es as Old English, are crucial to the study of this body
of work, and in some cases, his editions remain the only ones
in existence, such as his editions of the Lambeth Homilies and
Trinity Homilies—the manuscripts of which both contain a copy
of Poema Morale fr om the end of the twelft h century.30 In his
Old English Miscellany (1872), there are at least four more potential
texts that use the same meter: The Passion of Our Lord, The Duty
of Christians, The Eleven Pains of Hell, and An Orison of our Lady.
The last three poems have perhaps escaped notice because of their
lineation into short rhyming verse. The stanzas of The Duty of
Christians are arranged in octets with an abababab rhyme scheme:

Þeo soþe luue a-mong vs beo.
wyþ-vten euch endynge.
And crist vs lete wel i-þeo.
and yue vs his blessynge.
And yeue vs þat we moten fl eo.
euer sunegynge.
And þene feond and al his gleo.
and al his twyelinge. (141, ll. 1–8)31

29 The iamb may be a natural evolution fr om Old English B-type verse—one of
the most common forms—in which each half-line contains two occurrences of one
or more unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable: x / x /. Unfortunately,
there is no room in this article to elaborate further now.
30 For the Lambeth Homilies (London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 487), see
Morris (1867), and for the Trinity Homilies (Cambridge, Trinity College, MS B.
14. 52), see Morris (1873).
31 “The true love among us is without each ending, and may Christ allow us to do
well and give us his blessing, and grant us that we may fl ee fr om ever sinning and
the fi end and all his mockery and all his deceit.”

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It becomes clear that we have a replication of not only the fi ft een-
syllable line reproduced in alternating four-feet and three-feet
hemistichs, but also the iambic meter. Therefore, instead of the
octet, we may write the poem in quatrains of long lines with the
fi rst half-lines rhyming internally at the caesura and the second
half-lines rhyming at the end of each line:

Þeo soþe luue a-mong vs beo. wyþ-vten euch endynge.
And crist vs lete wel i-þeo. and yue vs his blessynge.
And yeue vs þat we moten fl eo. euer sunegynge.
And þene feond and al his gleo. and al his twyelinge.

Interestingly, even though Orm does not make much use of rhyme,
he does occasionally utilize it in the same way that he sometimes
uses alliteration to emphasize a particular piece of exegesis or
didacticism.

The following couplet appears twice in what is typically referred
to as the Dedication of the Ormulum:

Wiþþ ære shollde lisstenn itt. Wiþþ herrte shollde itt trowwenn.
Wiþþ tunge shollde spellenn itt. Wiþþ dede shollde itt follᵹhenn.
(D133–136; D309–312)

In the fi rst appearance of these lines, Orm is explaining why he wants
all English people to have access to the Gospel: they should hear
it, believe it, preach it, and follow it. He has based his masterpiece
on doubling and repetition but also upon the idea of the number
four: there are four Gospels and Gospel writers, and Orm likens the
four books to the “quaþþrigan” (80) or quadriga, a four-wheeled
chariot, of Amminadab, who is one of Christ’s distant ancestors
according to the Hebrew Scriptures and the Gospels of Luke and
Matthew.32 It follows, then, that Orm decided to reiterate these

32 For more on the quadriga in the Ormulum, see Johannesson (2007a).

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lines aft er explaining the rationale behind his quadriga fr amework
and metaphor because of its group of four hortatives.

Thus, the Ormulum anticipates a much more widespread use
of the fi ft een-syllable iambic line than scholars have previously
thought, and with the English iambic septenary appearing in the
Ormulum fi rst and then remaining in use through the thirteenth
century, it seems reasonable to claim that the lengthening of
the Old English metrical line adapted well to the Latin meter.
Orm’s meter, however, is only one characteristic of the Latinity
of his collection of homilies. The other major contribution to the
seeming Latin nature of his work lies in the treatment of his source
material to produce a vernacular English version of the stella maris.

4 Early English translations of the STELLA MARIS
Orm’s use of the “sæsterrne” for Mary is only the second occurrence
of the stella maris epithet in the English vernacular. The fi rst
occurrence exists in three manuscripts of the same text, the Old
English translation of the apocryphal Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew:
Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Hatton 114; Cambridge, Corpus
Christi College, MS 367, Part II; and Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS
Bodley 343. The source of the Old English text is the Latin Gospel of
Pseudo-Matthew, which is a reworking of the Latin Proteuangelium
Iacobi. The Proteuangelium was the foundation for a great amount
of the Marian apocrypha and eventually led to the series of Marian
feasts (Clayton 1998: 8). Additionally, it supplies the fi rst account
of the birth and childhood of Mary, which made its way into the
vernacular translation of the Latin Pseudo-Matthew. The Latin text
that was likely the source of the Old English Pseudo-Matthew is
extant in Cambridge, Pembroke College, MS 25 and can be placed
in Bury St. Edmunds by 1154 (1998: 129). Although the manuscript
dates to the eleventh century, the collection of texts must have been
available no later than the tenth century in England because Old
English homilies in the Vercelli Book, the Old English Martyrology,
and other vernacular compilations draw on its contents (1998: 130).

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The earliest evidence of any reference to Marian apocryphal
material in Anglo-Saxon England is the Irish monk Adamnan’s
account of Arculf ’s visit to Mary’s tomb in Jerusalem in De locis
sanctis, written in Latin in the late seventh century (Clayton 1998:
101). The Old English Martyrology was composed in the mid ninth
century, and The Benedictional of St. Æthelwold dates to the late
tenth century, both of which make use of the apocryphal material
(1998: 107–108). Unlike his teacher Æthelwold and many other
contemporaries, Ælfr ic chose not to use apocryphal texts in his
preaching, a choice which was likely based on his desire not to
perpetuate the supposed heresy (Clayton 1990: 244). A note titled
De Maria that was added to the end of the homily for the Sixteenth
Sunday aft er Pentecost in the second series of his Catholic Homilies
reads:

Hwæt wylle we secgan ymbe Marian gebyrd-tide, buton þæt
heo wæs gestryned þurh fæder and ðurh moder swa swa oðre
men, and wæs on ðam dæge acenned þe we cweðað sexta idus
Septembris? Hire fæder hatte Ioachim, and hire moder Anna,
eawfæste men on ðære ealdan æ; ac we nellað be ðam na
swiðor awritan, þy-læs ðe we on ænigum gedwylde befeallon.
(Godden 1979: 78)33

Ælfr ic was, however, anomalous in this period for his prolifi c
writing and popularity as much as he was for his orthodoxy: his
writings are the only extant forms of resistance to apocryphal texts
(Clayton 1998: 111). Unfortunately, his admonitions do not seem to
have had much eff ect on his reader-audience. As my discussion of
Fulbert above demonstrates, the Marian nativity apocrypha found
its way into liturgical texts, and the creation of two new feasts in

33 “What will we say about the birthday of Mary except that she was begotten by
father and by mother just as other people, and was born on the day that we call
the eighth of September? Her father was called Joachim, and her mother Anna,
pious people in the old law, but we will not write more about them, lest we fall
into any error.”

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England, which was the fi rst in the West to celebrate such feasts,
provides further evidence for this liturgical addition (1998: 114).34

The earliest manuscript of the Old English Pseudo-Matthew,
which does not translate the Latin text in full because the Latin
only partially survived into the eleventh century, dates to the end
of the eleventh century (MS Hatton 114), and it translates the
surviving chapters I through XII and adds a prologue and epilogue.
The narrative contains the Nativity of Mary because it is a homily
for the feast of her birth and childhood, but the contents extend
past the parameters for her feast as the homily continues into the
Annunciation and her pregnancy. Clayton takes the continuation of
the homily into the Annunciation as evidence that the composition
of the homily was not necessarily based on the demands of the
feast (1998: 136–137). Furthermore, the addition of a prologue with
a discussion of Mary as the “sæsteorra,” which does not exist in
the Latin text, and the continued narration of her life past the
Annunciation may suggest that the scribe was more focused on the
devotion to the Virgin than the particular theme of the feast. The
“sæsteorra” passage reads:

Sæsteorra heo is ᵹecweden, forðan þe se steorra on niht
ᵹecyþeð scypliðendum mannum, hwyder bið east and west,
hwyder suð and norð. Swa þonne wearð þurh ða halᵹan
fæmnan Sancta Marian ᵹecyþed se rihte siðfæt to ðam ecan life
þam ðe lanᵹe ær sæton on þeostrum and on deaþes scuan and
on þam unstillum yðum þære sæ þises middaneardes. (Assman
1889: 117–118)35

34 Clayton explains that Winchester began the feast of the conception of Mary
around 1030, masses for which are found in the New Minster Missal, Le Havre,
Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 330 (mid-eleventh century) and in the Leofr ic
Missal, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 579 (c. 1066).
35 “She is called star of the sea because the star of the sea at night makes known
to seafaring men where are east and west, south and north. In the same way, was
through the holy virgin, Saint Mary made known the right path to eternal life to
those who long before sat in darkness and in the shadow of death and upon the
restless waves of the sea of this middle-earth.”

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The tradition of commenting on Mary ’s name, especially its
significance as the stella maris, originates with the early Latin
commentators, as I have shown, and while several Continental
writers contribute to the overall corpus, the Old English
Pseudo-Matthew author is closer to the Insular Latin writings
of Bede.

Bede’s homily for the feast of the Annunciation of the Virgin
Mary refers to the temporal world as “fl uctus saeculi labentis”
(“waves of the slipping world”), and the Old English prologue
mentions “þam unstillum yðum sæ þises middaneardes” (1852a:
10). The idea that the North Star represents Mary is perhaps
even more strongly evoked in the Old English prologue with
the “scypliðendum mannum” seeking the star at night and the
reference to the cardinal directions: “hwyder bið east and west,
hwyder suð and norð.” Although the North Star is implied in the
“sæsterrne” passage of the Ormulum, the reference is less obvious
than the prologue of the Pseudo-Matthew—not to mention Orm
neglects to refer to waves entirely—which suggests that Orm’s
homily derives fr om the Continental Latin texts rather than Bede
and other Insular Latin texts.

What is most signifi cant about the Old English Pseudo-
Matthew is the fact that two of the three manuscripts date
to the middle and second half of the twelft h century, like
the Ormulum. Because few people read the Ormulum beyond
its introductory material (i.e., the Dedication, Preface, and
Introduction in Holt’s edition), scholars have overlooked Orm’s
participation in Marian devotion through his vernacular use of
the stella maris epithet.36 J. A. W. Bennett mentions Orm’s use
of the Norse form “sæsteorrne” in reference to Mary only as
an example of his “wholly native” language, and he uses this
example to emphasize the mixture of English and Scandinavian

36 See, for example, Rubin (2009); Clayton (1998); and especially Clayton (1990:
249–252).

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languages that arose fr om the Danelaw (1990: 33). Except for
Bennett’s minor comment, no other discussion of Orm’s use of
the “sæsterrne” exists presently.

The epithet arises when Orm relates the Annunciation in
Homily 3. In this homily on Luke 1:26, the beginning of which
is lacking due to two missing folios,37 Orm adds an etymological
passage about the Virgin’s name:

Annd ure dere laff diᵹ wass; þurrh drihhtin nemmnedd Marᵹe.
Forr þatt tatt name shollde wel; bitacnenn hire sellþe.
Forr hire name tacneþþ uss; sæsterrne onn ennglissh spæche.
Annd ᵹho beþ æfr e. annd wass. annd iss; sæsterne38 inn haliᵹ bisne.
Forr all swa summ þe steressmann. aᵹᵹ lokeþþ till ane sterrne.
þatt stannt aᵹᵹ stille uppo þe lifft . annd swiþe brihhte shineþþ.
Forr þatt he wile follᵹhenn aᵹᵹ. þatt illke sterrness lade.
Swa þatt he muᵹhe lendenn rihht. to lande wiþþ hiss wille;
All swa birrþ all crisstene follc. till sannte Marᵹe lokenn.
Þatt stannt wiþþ hire sune i stall. þær heᵹhesst iss inn heff ne.
Annd iwhillc an crisstene mann. ðatt ᵹerneþþ afft err blisse;
Birrþ stanndenn inn afft err hiss mihht. to follᵹhenn hire bisne.
Swa þatt he muᵹhe lendenn rihht. afft err hiss aᵹhen wille.
Vpp inntill hefennriches ærd; to brukenn eche blisse.
(2,131–2,146)39

37 In the Holt edition, the missing bifolium is identifi ed by the columns (45–52),
but it would have been located between folios 22 and 23 at the break between the
two quires.
38 Orm forgot to add a superscript ⟨r⟩ here.
39 “And our dear lady was called Mary by the Lord because that name should
well signify her blessing, for her name signifi es for us the sea-star in the English
language, and she ever will be, and was, and is the sea-star in holy example. Just
as the steersman always looks to a star, which always stands still up in the sky
and shines so brightly, because he wishes to follow always that same star’s way, so
that he is able to proceed correctly to land by his will. So it behooves all Christian
folk to look to Saint Mary, who stands with her son in place where it is highest
in heaven.”

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In this passage, Orm is introducing his audience to Mary for the
fi rst time, which prompts him to elaborate on the meaning of her
name based on the tradition of the etymologies by Jerome and
Isidore. Signifi cantly, her name was not chosen arbitrarily, but
rather, the “Drihhtin” called her thus because her name should
“bitacnenn” the dual blessing she embodies. First, she is blessed:
she is chosen by God to be the vessel for the Son of God because
of her mental and physical purity and religious devotion. Second,
she creates a blessing: by giving birth to Jesus, she literally produces
the possibility of redemption and salvation for humanity. Thus, she
is the “sæsterrne inn haliᵹ bisne” through her purity and steadfast
faith in God, and, as the “sæsterrne,” she serves as a spiritual guide
for those who are still earth-bound and in danger of losing eternal
salvation. Orm explains that, just as a steersman follows a star to
fi nd his bearings at sea, so too “all crisstene follc” should look to
Mary to fi nd their way across the perilous sea of life. In Old and
Early Middle English homiletic literature, Christ is oft en referred
to as the brightest of all stars, eternally shining because he is truth
and salvation, and Orm ties the new vernacular tradition of Mary
as the star of the sea to this older authoritative tradition of Christ
as a star. But Mary does not simply reside in heaven: she “stannt
wiþþ hire sune i stall. þær heᵹhesst iss inn heff ne.” Similar to
her depiction as regina, Orm depicts Mary as equal in status and
nobility to Jesus because of her role in human salvation.

The notion of Mary as the queen of heaven is not new to the
twelft h century, but the way that vernacular English literature depicts
her as royalty seems to change. For instance, Orm regards her as the
“allre shafft e cwen” (2,159, “queen of all creation”). The Anglo-Saxon
Dream of the Rood contains an early poetic example in vernacular
English literature that contains slightly diff erent praise for Mary:

Hwæt, me þa geweorðode wuldres ealdor
ofer holmwudu, heofonrices weard!
Swylce swa he his modor eac, Marian sylfe,
ælmihtig god for ealle menn

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geweorðode ofer eall wifa cynn.
(Krapp 1932: ll. 90–94)40

Furthermore, in De assumptione beatae Mariae in the fi rst series
of the Catholic Homilies, Ælfr ic refers to Mary as the “ealles
middangeardes cwene” (Clemoes 1997: 430, “queen of all of middle-
earth”). There appears, then, to be an evolving trend to expand
Mary’s worth in the English vernacular. First, The Dream of the
Rood poet makes her the worthiest of all women, and then Ælfr ic
raises her to the status of “queen of all of the world,” which is the
realm that resides between heaven and hell (i.e., this world). Finally,
Orm considers her the queen of all creation, which transcends all
the spheres of existence, just as “weop eal gesceaft ” (55, “all creation
wept”) for the death of Jesus on the Cross in The Dream of the Rood.
The shift fr om the earlier valuation of Mary ranking above all “wifa
cynn” to a monarch ruling over all “middangeard” to, ultimately,
ruler over all “shafft e” is signifi cant because it parallels the entry of
the stella maris epithet into the English vernacular.

One of the other key diff erences between the use of the Marian
epithet in the Old English prologue to the Pseudo-Matthew and
in the Ormulum is the fact that the former precedes Marian
apocrypha on Mary’s nativity and childhood while the latter occurs
in narration of a canonical Gospel teaching. Orm resolutely avoids
apocryphal material in his homilies, like his predecessor Ælfr ic,
so his “sæsterrne” appears where one would expect to fi nd it in
the Gospels: in the Annunciation scene when we fi rst encounter
Mary. As the several etymologies for names in the Ormulum
indicate, whenever a new name arose in discussion, Orm provided
an explanation for it. Therefore, following an orthodoxy similar to
Ælfr ic’s and his own Augustinian inclinations towards etymological
exposition, Orm’s only concession to popular taste was to include

40 “Lo, then the lord of glory honored me above the trees on the hill, protector
of the kingdom of heaven! Just as he, Almightly God, also honored his mother,
Mary herself, over all womankind for all people.”

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a brief note on the stella maris epithet for Mary in his homily on
the Annunciation.41 The side eff ect, however, was that Orm was
bringing Marian material, which had entered the Latin liturgy
prior to the twelft h century, to the English laity for the fi rst time.

5 Conclusions
The sources that Orm used in the creation of his impressive
collection are constantly under scholarly debate and include the
Glossa ordinaria; the pseudo-Anselm Enarrationes in Matthaeum;
the homilies and commentaries of Bede and Hrabanus Maurus;
the homilies of Wulfstan and Ælfr ic; Fulbert of Chartres’s homily
on Mary’s nativity; and other recently developed material fr om the
early twelft h century, such as the work of Bernard of Clairvaux. His
use of “brihhte shineþþ” is reminiscent of Bede’s and subsequent
writers’ use of “refulsit,” just as his statement that the lost sailor
can “lendenn rihht to lande” by following “þatt illke sterrnes lade”
seems to echo the hymn’s “iter para tutum” and Maurus’s “stellam
viros ad portum adducat.” Moreover, Bernard’s refr ain of “respice
stellam, voca Mariam” is echoed in Orm’s “birrþ all Crisstene follc
till Sannte Marᵹe lokenn.” Fulbert’s treatment of the stella maris,
though, seems to resonate the most in the Ormulum’s passage.
Orm’s fi nal line of the “sæsterrne” passage reads: “Þatt stannt wiþþ
hire sune i stall. þær heᵹhesst iss inn heff ne.” Fulbert refers to the
“summo coeli cardine” and then explicitly writes: “id est Mariam,
quae supremo rerum cardini Deo proxima est.” Finally, Fulbert
is the only writer to refer to the Virgin Mary as an “example” by
using “exempli” in his stella maris passage, and Orm specifi cally
uses the word “bisne” to point to Mary as a perpetual holy example
embodied by the fi gure of the sea-star.

41 Bede refers to Mary as the stella maris in his homily for the feast of the
Annunciation, as mentioned above. Thus, if Orm took anything fr om Bede
regarding his “sæsterrne,” it may be the context in which he used the epithet.

193 SELIM 20 (2013–2014)

Orm’s vernacular Latinity

Based on the evidence, it would appear that Orm valued
Fulbert’s writings above others, even his English predecessors. As
I have shown, Morrison’s assertions are credible, especially when
considered alongside Orm’s Marian devotion and the similarities
between his stella maris section and those of writers in or near
France. What is most signifi cant is the change of context for the
material in the Ormulum, which may anticipate the expanded use
and wider application of this particular Marian imagery later. For
Orm, the meaning of Mary’s name as the “sæsterrne” is crucial to
the narration and explication of the Annunciation. As my survey
of Latin sources indicates, Orm elaborates on the epithet in a way
similar to the texts of major Continental Latin writers, and his
use of the stella maris motif seems unrelated to the one found in
the Old English Pseudo-Matthew. The “unstillum yðum” in the
Old English Pseudo-Matthew is evocative of Bede’s fl uctus saeculi
labentis, and this implies that the composer of the Old English
prologue to the Pseudo-Matthew relied on Insular Latin sources
to a greater extent than Orm did. These two earliest vernacular
English versions of the stella maris epithet, then, are unconnected;
however, the fact that two of the three manuscripts of the Old
English Pseudo-Matthew date fr om the twelft h century, like the
Ormulum, indicates the growing popularity of the stella maris
metaphor in English in this period.

It is not necessary to prove with historical evidence the
connections that may have existed between Bourne and Normandy,
between Orm and the Cistercian order’s practice of strong
devotion to Mary, and between Orm and the early Latin tradition
of etymologies although such proof would be welcome. Orm’s
treatment of his material alone provides enough evidence of a
connection to the Continent. Although the Old English Pseudo-
Matthew is written in the vernacular as well, the composer of the
prologue to the Marian apocryphon upheld the native style of
Old English prose and relied on Insular source material. Orm was
shaped by his Anglo-Norman environment and by his desire to

Carla María Thomas

194SELIM 20 (2013–2014)

bring Latin high culture, which he had the privilege to access, to
the English laity for whom he wrote his homilies. As a result, the
relation of the Virgin Mary as the “sæsterrne” in the Ormulum
appears less native to England and more comfortable in the Latin
works of the Continent, both in substance and in poetic form.

Carla María Thomas
New York University

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•

Received 08 Oct 2014; accepted 18 Dec 2014