Monks, Marriage, and Manuscripts: Matthew Parker's Manipulation (?) of Ælfric of Eynsham

by AARON J KLEIST

Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury under Elizabeth I, and charged with preserving what he could of the works scattered by Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries, Matthew Parker was far more than a mere collector of books. His firm belief in the importance of historic English texts led him to become, among other things, one of the first serious scholars of Old English. Parker had a clear reason for this study: he sought to justify the theological positions of the new English Church by means of historical precedent, showing that in departing from Rome the Church was actually remaining true to traditional English belief. One of the central figures Parker found to substantiate his views was perhaps the most prolific and erudite writer of tenth-century England, Ælfric of Eynsham—a man whose views Parker simultaneously respected, used, distrusted, and denied. Though Parker was aware that Ælfric's position on certain matters was diametrically opposed to his own, and though he even acknowledged such differences in print, Parker cited Ælfric as an authority in a way both scrupulously accurate and strikingly out of context. On few issues may this practice be seen more clearly than in Parker's treatment of priestly marriage.