his time and the king’s brother. When the judge died,
the people of the city expressed their gratitude by
burying him with a crown, robe, and scepter.
Bishop Erkenwald then presses him for details about
his perfectly preserved body and clothes. He wonders
aloud if the man has been embalmed, but the talking
corpse explains that God alone is responsible for his
uncorrupted state. Erkenwald then asks about the
man’s soul. The body groans and concedes that despite
his unusual postmortem appearance, his soul suffers in
Hell. Although God allowed the man’s body and
clothes to sustain a perfected material state because of
his righteousness in life, the judge lived before Christ
and so was denied baptism and fi nal salvation after
death. Erkenwald is moved to tears by the man’s plight
and prays aloud, wishing God would provide an
opportunity for him to baptize the “virtuous heathen.”
As the bishop bows over the body in sympathy, a tear
falls on the dead man’s face. Suddenly the body sighs
with happiness and explains that the prayer and tears
have baptized him as a Christian and that his soul has
just ascended to Heaven. The body has just enough
time to thank and bless Erkenwald before his corpse
blackens and crumbles to dust. The assembled give
thanks to God, and the poem ends with the local
church bells all ringing in harmony.
St. Erkenwald does not fi t into a single stylistic cate-
gory. The story is too focused on a single event to fully
function as a HAGIOGRAPHY, but it does mimic the genre.
The poem also displays many of the attributes of a leg-
end. The author probably drew his inspiration from
assorted versions of the Trajan legend, some of which
date from as far back as the eighth century. These tales
all recount the same basic story, in which the soul of
the just, non-Christian Roman emperor Trajan is saved
after death by the prayers of Pope Gregory the Great.
The Trajan story gained popularity in the 14th cen-
tury, and versions from this period are most famously
present in the works of Dante Alighieri and WILLIAM
LANGLAND.
St. Erkenwald is written in alliterative verse. This
poetic form is characteristic of works that belong to the
ALLITERATIVE REVIVAL movement of the late 14th and
early 15th centuries. St. Erkenwald is composed in a
dialect common to the Northwest Midlands at a time
when the alliterative verse form was closely identifi ed
with this area. The dialect in which the poem is written
has fueled speculation about the identity of its
unknown author. One signifi cant theory names the
GAWAIN-POET as the author of St. Erkenwald. Based on
marginal notations (glosses), anagrams, and ACROSTICs
in some of the poems that appear to spell out a sur-
name, some critics have attempted to attribute author-
ship of all fi ve poems to a poet whose last name was
some variation of “Massey.” However, this attribution
has never been conclusively proven. Other theories
attempt to link the poet to the court of Richard II or
infer clerical training.
The poem’s meaning is also contested. Some critics
read St. Erkenwald as an affi rmation of the necessity of
ecclesiastical intercession in personal salvation. Even
though the non-Christian judge was extraordinarily
virtuous while he was alive, he lived before Christ and
so was never baptized as a Christian. The righteous
actions of the dead man while he was alive on earth
prove insuffi cient to save him from the damnation of
Hell after death. Bishop Erkenwald represents the
power and authority of the church, and it is his tear
that ultimately baptizes the body and saves the man’s
soul. Thus, Erkenwald (representing the Catholic
Church) is the poem’s central protagonist. Other crit-
ics however, deemphasize the role of the bishop and
focus on the good works of the judge. They suggest
that he is largely responsible for his own salvation,
since his just actions are directly responsible for his
miraculous preservation. Despite the difference in crit-
ical opinion, most agree that St. Erkenwald is admirable
for its dramatic narration.
See also ALLITERATION.
FURTHER READING
Peterson, Clifford. Saint Erkenwald. Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 1977.
Whatley, Gordon. “Heathens and Saints: St. Erkenwald
in its Legendary Context.” Speculum 61, no. 2 (1986):
330–363.
Anne SaloSTRAMBOTTO An early verse form found in
Italian poems, primarily in Tuscan and Sicilian works,
strambotto is considered one of the forerunners of the426 STRAMBOTTO