How Tradition Works

A Meme-Based Cultural Poetics of the Anglo-Saxon Tenth Century

Michael D.C. Drout

How Tradition Works examines the ways traditions are created, constituted, modified and recognized. Expanding and revising "memetic" theory, the book analyses the culture of the tenth-century English Benedictine Reform. How Tradition Works shows how this flowering of culture can be traced to the reliance by Anglo-Saxon monks upon unchanging written rules, the Rule of St. Benedict and the Regularis Concordia.

The book also examines the corpus of Old English wills, the Old English Rule of Chrodegang, and the 'wisdom poems' of the Exeter Book. This interdisciplinary study is valuable for specialists in evolutionary theory and memetics, Anglo-Saxon studies, and scholars interested in Oral Tradition Theory.

How Tradition Works provides researchers with new methodological tools as well as showing how these tools can work to untangle the intricacies of cultural change and stasis.

 


(ISBN-10: 0-86698-350-3, ISBN-13: 978-0-86698-350-1 / MR 306 / $47, £38)

 

published by

Arizona Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies

Arizona Center for Medieval Studies, Tempe, AZ

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Errata

Other Books by the author:

.... ................................................

Beowulf and the Critics ......................Tolkien Studies I................Tolkien Studies 2...................Tolkien Studies 3.

 

 

Abstract:

Tradition shapes every facet of cultural production and change, but there exists no effectively descriptive theory of tradition that explains how traditions are created, constituted, modified and recognized. This book remedies this lack by showing how traditions are created and how they persist. Traditions are replicating entities that use human minds to copy themselves. They therefore can be studied using Darwinian theory, and in this book I have applied these methods (often called "memetics," the study of "memes," developed by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Susan Blackmore) to the study of a sophisticated culture: the revival of learning and literature in England in the tenth century known as the Benedictine Reform.

While other authors have used Darwinian theory to examine hypothetical Pleistocene hunter-gatherer societies or elements of popular culture, How Tradition Works applies, tests, extends and revises meme-theory by engaging with the complexities of history and culture. In the book I show how the flowering of culture in the tenth century can be traced to the reliance by Anglo-Saxon monks upon unchanging written rules (the Rule of St Benedict and the Regularis Concordia) which provided a level of stability (tradition) upon which the monks were able to build a new English culture. The different ways traditions replicate and mutate are illustrated by Benedictine ideas and styles escaping from the restricted environments of the monasteries and spreading, like an epidemic, through the wider culture. Meme theory here not only explains how such a small minority were able to exert vast influence, but it uncovers previously hidden links between seemingly disparate texts and cultural practices.

Valuable for specialists in evolutionary theory and memetics, Anglo-Saxon studies, and scholars interested in Oral Traditional Theory, How Tradition Works provides researchers with new methodological tools as well as showing how these tools can work to untangle the intricacies of cultural change and stasis.

 

 

PROSPECTUS

 

1. Audience and Distinctiveness

This monograph has the potential to reach and influence an audience of significant size. It is to my knowledge the first book to investigate the intersection of evolutionary theory and the detailed historical and literary study of a specific culture. Other books apply evolutionary epistemology to hypothetical hunter-gatherer societies in the Pleistocene or examine pop-culture phenomena. How Tradition Works is thus of general interest to humanities researchers in literature and cultural studies because it addresses one of the fundamental problems for the study of culture: how traditions are created and maintained, and how they shape societies and literatures. Furthermore, because How Tradition Works uses concepts and methodologies borrowed from evolutionary biology, the work should be of interests to researchers working on this topic, particularly investigators in the emerging field of "evolutionary epistemology" (for example, the interdisciplinary Epistemology Group led by John Ziman). Readers interested in the intersections of evolutionary theory and cultural theory who have been drawn to this field from the work of Susan Blackmore, Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett would also find much of value in How Tradition Works. Scholars working in the field of Oral Traditional Theory will also be interested in the methodologies and conclusions, because I show how some of the techniques of Oral Theory may be usefully applied to texts that are not oral-derived. Finally, the book makes a significant technical contribution to Anglo-Saxon history and literary studies. While it is more specialized and scholarly than, say, Stephen Pinker’s How the Mind Works or E. O. Wilson’s Consilience, How Tradition Works may draw on the upper end of the audience for these (and similar) popularizations of evolutionary theory.

 

2. Author’s Credentials

My training and technical research for the past ten years has focused on the problems of tradition, inheritance and the reproduction of culture. My dissertation, which was directed by Allen J. Frantzen, was on the topic, and my earlier graduate work in Oral Theory was supervised by John Miles Foley. I have numerous and significant publications on Anglo-Saxon literature, children’s literature, and the uses of medieval traditions in 20th-century literature. I recently completed editing Beowulf and the Critics, a previously unknown book of Beowulf criticism from which J.R.R. Tolkien drew his celebrated 1936 British Academy lecture: the edition will be published in the summer of 2002 by Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies. The Tolkien Estate gave me permission to edit this manuscript, and I am working with the Estate to edit and publish Tolkien’s translation of Beowulf and his unpublished commentaries on the poem.

While I do not have formal training in evolutionary biology, I have followed research in this field for the past seven years and was able to spend a research leave in the spring of 2001 reviewing the most recent scholarship. I have also had the benefit of informal guidance by biologists John Kricher (author of The Neotropical Companion) and Betsey Dexter Dyer (author of Tracing the History of Eukaryotic Cells) at Wheaton College.

I have also written a textbook for Old English (King Alfred’s Grammar) and devised a companion computerized teaching aid, both of which are being used not only at my home institution but at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

 

3. Production

The completed book should require 275-300 pages (in manuscript it is 351 pages in 12-point Palatino, 1.5 spacing). There are 12 tables, 5 black and white graphs, and 3 black and white maps. The tables were generated in Microsoft Word, and the graphs and maps are .jpgs and thus easily portable. The maps are Photoshop documents and easily modified. Tables, graphs and maps were created by the author.

 

4. Schedule

The book is complete and the manuscript is exceptionally "clean" as it has been vetted by a number of scholars. All that remains to be done is the indexing and the development of "front matter" (Acknowledgments, etc.) which would take very little time once a contract is drawn up (and indexing should wait for the galleys). I revise quickly and, if necessary, could prevail upon certain eminent scholars (Foley and Frantzen, among others) to write an introductory note.

 

 

OUTLINE

How Tradition Works

A Descriptive Cultural Poetics of the Anglo-Saxon Tenth Century

Edited by Michael D.C. Drout

Chapter 1: How Tradition Works

Traditions are composed of elements: a recognitio component, which triggers that tradition given certain antecedent conditions, an actio component, which is the traditional behavior itself, and a justificatio component, which explains why the behavior is being enacted. Traditions are conjoined meme-plexes of this sort which have as their justificatio the "Universal Tradition Meme": ‘because we have always done so.’ This meme can evolve into unconscious imperative status, but even an unconsciously held justificatio can always revert to the UTM. In order to replicate, traditions must have a sufficiently good "word/world fit;" they must not contradict the existing world view and the physical world constraints of the individuals by whom they are trying to replicate. The three-fold structure of traditions, and the complexities of competition, mutation and word/world fit explain human culture as a rich ecosystem of competing traditional memes. This chapter is an extension of current memetic theory, which does not yet explicitly discuss traditions.

Chapter 2: Why Memes?

Meme theory has been scathingly criticized by some famous scholars (among them Stephen Jay Gould). In this chapter I show why these objections are misguided, illustrating why the most common critiques of memetics (low copying-fidelity, Lamarkian inheritance, and vertical vs. horizontal transmission distinctions) are incorrect. This chapter is a significant contribution to meme theory not only as applied to traditions, but in general.

Chapter 3: The English Benedictine Reform: A Concise Summary

For readers who are not experts in tenth-century history, this brief chapter explains the historical and cultural background of the time. It is, to my knowledge, the only concise general survey of tenth-century English history and culture.

Chapter 4: The Rule of St Benedict, The Regularis Concordia and the Memetic Basis of Reform Culture

The Rule of St Benedict is a self-replicating document that organizes and programs the behavior of monks in a monastery. In this chapter I show how the Rule programs its own copying and dissemination, how its practice creates a kind of memetic "hygiene" that prevents its modification, and how its reconceptualization of time as eternal and cyclic works to restructure the beliefs and perceptions of those who follow its prescriptions. I then discuss the ways that the Regularis Concordia, one of the prime documents of the reform, more closely adapted the Rules prescriptions to the specific conditions of the tenth century; I also discuss how the translation of the Rule into Old English from Latin facilitated cultural change. The repetition and stability created by these two rules was the engine powering the cultural revolution of the tenth century: the stable, self-replicating structure created by the rules out-competed other, more flexible, forms of behavior.

Chapter 5: Anglo-Saxon Wills and the Inheritance of Tradition

The Anglo-Saxon wills demonstrate the ways the Benedictine reform ideology spread beyond the monastery and into the secular culture. Statistical analysis of the use of various phrases and ideas associated with the reform shows that the ideals of the reformers had penetrated the minds of people who were completely secular and would never take monastic vows. The desires of these individual were reshaped by the cultural power of the reform, which arose from the repetition engendered by the Rule of St Benedict). The wills show hybridization and memetic ecosystem invasion.

Chapter 6: Repetition, Pattern Recognition, Tradition and Style

This chapter is my contribution to Oral Traditional Theory. In it I show how the insights of Oral Theory may be reconceptualized in memetic terms and how the process of traditional anaphora (wherein the first part of a pattern triggers the memory of the remainder of the pattern) is used by memes to replicate themselves.

 

Chapter 7: The Interplay of Traditions: Style and the Old English Translation of the Enlarged Rule of Chrodegang

The Old English translation of the Enlarged Rule of Chrodegang illustrates the ways the Benedictine Reform memes could hybridize with already existing cultural practices. The style of the translation is a blend of pre- and post-reform styles, but the specifics of this mixing shows the ways that memes are copied and revised when they change environments. My analysis of the figures of repetition in the translation also suggest that it was written in the earlier part of the tenth century at Glastonbury and that the translator was connected directly with the Benedictine reform.

Chapter 8: The Exeter Book Wisdom Poems and the Benedictine Reform

The so-called "wisdom poems" of the Exeter Book can be seen as an attempt to understand the secular world through the eyes of Benedictine monks. The wisdom poems show a hybridization at the level of ideas rather than at the level of style, and they are made much less enigmatic when we consider them in memetic terms. Most significantly, we can see that the poems, rather than merely storehouses of traditional wisdom, illustrate that ways that Anglo-Saxon poetry evolved when put to the service of an active, synthesizing impulse, an impulse which came from the Benedictine reform’s cultural background. There is an addendum to the chapter, Chapter 9: The Vocabulary of the Wisdom Poems and the Chrodegang Translation, in which I discuss the verbal links between the Exeter Book wisdom poems and the Chrodegang translation and explain what these links show about the spread of Benedictine reform ideas in the tenth century.

Chapter 10: Conclusions

The processes of inheritance, differential replication and transmission that can create complex life-forms can also create complex cultures. Memetic theory extends the evolutionary theory to culture without the drawbacks of heavy-handed, gene-centric approaches. It also provides the outlines for a materialist theory of culture that can be extended to other time periods and phenomena. Finally, the theory provides a needed new direction for a contemporary culture theory that seems to have exhausted is original radical energies.

 

 

How Tradition Works

A Descriptive Cultural Poetics of the Anglo-Saxon Tenth Century

Michael D. C. Drout

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1: How Tradition Works

Memes and Culture

The Memetic Building Blocks and Internal Structure of Tradition

The Expansion of Traditions

Self-Referentiality and Stasis

Interpretation, Error-Correction and Recursion

Fecundity, 'Seeds' and Memetic Hygiene

A Cultural Poetics Based on Memetics

Chapter 2: Why Memes?

Vertical versus Horizontal Transmission.

Darwinian versus Lamarckian Evolution

The Contributions of Individuals

Copying Fidelity

What Memes are Made of, and Where They 'Live'

The Benefits of Memetics in a Theory of Tradition

Chapter 3: The English Benedictine Reform: a concise summary

From Roman Britain to Viking Raids

King Alfred and the Rebuilding of Anglo-Saxon Culture

Æthelstan's Glorious Years

The Rise of Dunstan and Æthelwold

Edgar's Reign and the Height of the Reform

Æthelred, the Decay of Anglo-Saxon Power and the End of the Reform

Chapter 4: The Rule of St Benedict, The Regularis Concordia and the Memetic Basis of Reform Culture

The Rule of St Benedict and Memetic Stability

The Spread of the Rule of St Benedict

Stability and Memetic Hygiene

The Rule Reconceptualizes Time as Eternally Cyclical

Filling in Gaps: Regularis Concordia

Exhortations, Expectations and the Shaping of Personalities

Monastic Success and the Spread of Memes

Chapter 5: Anglo-Saxon Wills and the Inheritance of Tradition

Anglo-Saxon Wills As Evidence

The Desires of Testators and Correlation with the Reform Years

Wills and the Benedictine Reform

Appendix 1: List of the wills used in this study

Chapter 6: Repetition, Pattern Recognition, Tradition and Style

Chapter 7: The Interplay of Traditions: Style and the Old English Translation of the Enlarged Rule of Chrodegang

The Old English translation of the enlarged version of Chrodegang's Regula Canonicorum

Content and Organization

'Hermeneutic Style' and the Reform

Figures of Repetition: Alliteration

Figures of Repetition: Polyptoton and Derived Polyptoton

Figures of Repetition: Paronomasia

Figures of Repetition: The Use of Creasnyss

Distribution of Figures of Repetition

Some Conclusions

Chapter 8: The Exeter Book Wisdom Poems and the Benedictine Reform

The Exeter Book Wisdom Poems: Relationships and Manuscript Context

From Proverbs to Poetry: How Wisdom Poems Work

The Gifts of Men and the Unspoken Hierarchy

The Monastic Father beyond the Walls: Precepts

The Means of Correct Training: The Fortunes of Men and Maxims I (45b-49)

Chapter 9: Addendum: The Vocabulary of the Wisdom Poems and the Chrodegang Translation

Chapter 10: Conclusions

Works Cited