AELFRIC. — English theologian and scholar, born around 955, died ca. 1020. Abbot of Eynsham and the greatest prose writer of the Anglo-Saxon literature of his age, he succeeded in spreading and bringing the truth of Christian religion and morality to the humblest levels of the population, employing the agile and lucid vernacular of the time in many of his works, both doctrinal and narrative, as well as in works of devotional instruction.
The Homeliae Catholicae (989–95), which the author drew and compiled chiefly from the « Homilies » of St. Gregory and from the works of the early Fathers of the Church, were in fact written in Anglo-Saxon with Latin prefaces. Although not original in content, they substantially reflect Western theological thought. Some of them, such as the sermon on the Eucharist, gave rise at the time of the Reformation to heated controversies, essentially anti-historical, because they were founded on the anachronistic tendency to attribute to the spirit of Christian edification of the 10th century the polemical intentions of the Protestant age. In reality, A. did not intend to combat the doctrine of the Real Presence or the dogma of transubstantiation. There also remain by A. the Passiones Sanctorum (996–97), a series of Lives of the saints (notable among them those of the ss. Osvaldo, Swithone, Edmondo), composed in alliterative rhythms rich in poetic cadences that were highly popular among the common people, to whom A. particularly wished to address himself.
Among his other works, mention should be made of an Anglo-Saxon Paraphrase of the first seven books of the Bible (not entirely by A.); and a treatise De Vetere et de Novo Testamento, based on the Augustinian De doctrina christiana. From the linguistic point of view, A.’s example demonstrates that Anglo-Saxon prose was acquiring a certain degree of refinement when its development was interrupted by the Norman Conquest.