Bjork/Obermeier: Date, Provenance, Author, Audiences page

The poem seems to reflect yet a third period of transition, the shift from an Anglo Saxon to an Anglo Scandinavian ethos in the tenth century. Wilhelm G. Busse and R. Holtei (1981) noted this fact when they applied text pragmatics and reception theory to the poem to demonstrate that it operates within "a dynamic text tradition" that adapts itself to "changing social and political conditions" (277 [see also Busse 1987]). Not intending to date the "time of composition of Beowulf" (286) by this method, they did date the manuscript version of the poem to the reign of Ethelred (978 1016), chiefly because of the presence in it of the problem of loyal behavior to one's lord. Roberta Frank (1982a) found a peculiar synthesis of religious and heroic idealism in the poem that was current only in the tenth century and tentatively suggested that period for when the poem was composed. Similarly, John D. Niles (1983) argued that the poet's ambiguous depiction of the Danes, both flattering and unflattering, "reflects interests and attitudes that would have been prevalent among the aristocratic Englishmen in the early or middle years of the tenth century, but not earlier" (111). He subsequently elaborated that idea, offering "seven good reasons for locating Beowulf in the period of nation building that followed the ninth century Viking invasions" (1993a, 95). Besides the depiction of the Danes, he points to the Scylding connection with the West Saxon pseudo-genealogies, the affinity of the language of the poem with that of known tenth-century works, the presence of virtuous pagans, the evidence of Old Norse analogues, probable English allusions (Hengest, Offa, Wiglaf), and the role of the Geats (a tribe apparently confused with both the Getae and the Jutes during this period) (1993a, 95 101). While the evidence that Niles and others have assembled does seem to favor a tenth century date for the manuscript version of the poem, cultural studies, like their predecessors, remain inconclusive.

The third historical approach to date and provenance promises the most specificity of all such methods of dating but is the least dependable. Six scholars, beginning with John Earle in 1892, have read the poem as historical allegory. Because of the mention in lines 1931 62 of Offa, the legendary late fourth century Angle, Earle (lxxxiii c) tried to read the narrative as a complex allusion to events during the reign of Offa of Mercia (757 96). He equated Thryth and Eomer in the poem, for example, with Offa's queen Cynethryth and son Ecgferth in history. Similarly, in 1920 Liebermann thought the poem may allude to Cuthburg's marriage to a foreign prince, then her divorce and return home (275). In 1921 22, placing the [p. 23] poem in the reign of Aldfrith of Northumbria (685 705), Albert Cook theorized that Aldfrith is concealed beneath the name Offa. In 1936, because of Wiglaf's presence in the poem, Alois Brandl dated it to the reign of Wiglaf of Mercia (827 38), rooted out numerous references to Mercian history (e.g., Heremod represents Penda [ca. 632 551]), and placed the poem in the same class of Tendenzdichtung (politically-motivated writing) as Spenser's Faerie Queene and Swift's Gulliver's Travels (168). In 1943, George Bond, too, linked the poem with the history of Mercia (e.g., Heremod represents Ceolwulf [821 231]), arguing that the first half allegorizes the reign of Beornwulf (823 26), the second that of Wiglaf. Finally, in 1986, sensing allusions to the reign of Athelstan (924 39), including hints in Beowulf of Edward the Elder (899 924), Zacharias P. Thundy placed the poem firmly in Wessex between the years 924 and 931.

The flaw in the historical allegorical approach to Beowulf should be manifest from the range of places (Mercia, Northumbria, Wessex) and dates (seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries) its proponents have established by its use. We simply do not have enough information about the poem's specific historical context in the first place, and the poem is not constructed in such a consistently symbolic way in the second, to substantiate a single allegorical reading. Although the first problem may someday be solved, the second will persist, so such interpretations remain primarily conjectural (see Whitelock 1949, 76 79).

(d) Literary history has also been employed to date Beowulf but mostly to place the poem in relation to other poems, which are themselves difficult to date. Klaeber (1910) embellished Sarrazin's argument (1886b, 1892) that the poem follows Genesis A and in his edition placed the poem between "the so called Cædmonian group in the neighborhood of 700" and Cynewulf in the late eighth century (1950a, cxiii). In 1940, theorizing that Beowulf may be the first secular Germanic and Old English epic, Hertha Marquardt placed it after the Cædmonian poems with Exodus, as a Christian/heroic hybrid, in between (153 54). And, as we have already seen, in 1981 Peter Clemoes and Colin Chase focused on the transitional literary nature of the poem and placed it in the late eighth and ninth centuries respectively. Roberta Frank, however, compared the laments at the end of Beowulf with the Old Norse memorial eulogy (1982b, 3) and concluded that the similarities suggest an Anglo Saxon/Scandinavian interaction and origin for the poem in the late ninth or tenth century (13).

(e) Manuscript studies for dating Beowulf focus on the content of the Nowell Codex (the unique manuscript containing the poem), the relation of that manuscript to others, and the codex's physical features. In 1957, comparing the monsters in Beowulf with those in The Wonders of the East, another of the five texts in the Nowell Codex, Robert Reynolds argued that both were composed in the late ninth or tenth centuries. In a complex 1982 study, Michael Lapidge showed direct and indirect connections among Beowulf, Aldhelm's Wessex, and the Liber Monstrorum, an English text mentioning Hygelac as a Geat, not a Dane as he is referred [p. 24] to in Continental sources, and datable to ca. 650 750. While not arguing for a specific date and place of composition, Lapidge concluded that the evidence he assembled "points to the south rather than the north of England, and suggests that a context for the poem's conception and especially its transmission can be discovered in and in the vicinity of pre Conquest Malmesbury" (190). In 1981, Angus Cameron, Ashley Crandell Amos, and Gregory Waite tentatively compared the language of Beowulf with other Old English texts in order "to place the manuscript and possibly the text in the context of the surviving Old English literary and linguistic remains" (36). They found that the spelling system of the poem is matched closely by remaining texts in the same manuscript but not by others; that spellings in the poem show close affinity to those in Exodus and Daniel; that the vocabulary shows affinity to Andreas and Judith (36), and that "the mixed spellings in Beowulf are not necessarily to be explained by a long or complicated textual transmission, but may represent copying conventions or tolerances in a number of late tenth century scriptoria" (37). They did not try to specify a date for the poem.

Also in 1981, returning to Levin Schücking's premise (1905, 11, 66) that "Beowulf's Return" had been composed and inserted by the final author as a connecting link between the Grendel part and the Dragon fight, Kevin Kiernan (1981a, 252 54) posited two poets for the poem with the second being the final redactor of the whole. Kiernan also returned to Conybeare's belief that the poem was probably written down during the reign of Cnut (15 23), but he made the radical assertion that the poem and the eleventh century manuscript are contemporaneous (22). This point of view has occasioned   to say the least   lively debate. Scholars have attacked Kiernan's linguistic and codicological arguments (e.g., Amos 1982; Clement 1984; Newton 1993, 7 9) and have questioned the paleographical evidence placing the manuscript in the reign of Cnut (e.g., Dumville 1988; Gerritsen 1989). The latter ignore Neil Ker's point that Anglo Saxon script from ca. 990 to 1040 is impossible to date closely (1968, 45 46). Although most would currently probably agree that the manuscript has little to tell us about the date of the poem (Fulk 1982, 357), the issue is far from settled (Kiernan 1983).

(f) Genealogies provide a sixth kind of evidence that scholars have called into play in an effort to date Beowulf and establish its provenance. Klaeber (1950a, 254 55) reprinted the relevant genealogical lists, the West Saxon containing references to Beo, Scyld Scefing, Scef, and Heremod in the poem; the Mercian to Garmund, Offa, and Eomer; the Kentish to Folcwalda and Finn. No one has used the Kentish genealogy so far, but scholars such as Earle (1892, lxxxvi ff.) and Whitelock (1951, 63) have regarded the parallels between the Mercian genealogy and the Offa episode in Beowulf as evidence of Mercian provenance, the reference being seen as a way to flatter King Offa of Mercia (757 96). Such claims, however, are speculative at best.

Alexander Callander Murray (1981), Michael Lapidge (1982), and Audrey L. Meaney (1989) all focused on the West Saxon genealogies. Murray pointed out that [p. 25] they were composed after the Viking invasions³ and correspondingly display an unmistakable interest in blending Anglo Saxon and Scandinavian traditions. The prologue to Beowulf seems clearly to be a Viking age genealogy that can be dated to the late ninth century (105), and so, therefore, can the poem. Lapidge, not trying to establish date, did use genealogies to argue for a possible provenance (Wessex) since Alfred extends his pedigree to include Scyld, Scef, Heremod, and Beow, thus indicating that a poem resembling Beowulf may have been known to him (187). And, after a complex analysis of the West Saxon genealogy of Æthelwulf dated 855, Meaney stated that "Scyld Scefing and his arrival from overseas cannot have become part of the prologue of Beowulf before 858, and almost certainly not before Alfred's reign" (21). That analysis, coupled with evidence from burial customs and hagiography, caused Meaney to assign the composition of the prologue to the years 924 55, during the reign of Athelstan (37). Finally, in trying to establish an early East Anglian provenance for Beowulf, Sam Newton (1993) examined both Mercian and West Saxon genealogies. He concluded that the reference to Offa in the Mercian example and Beowulf does not point exclusively to Mercia as a source for the poem's northern preoccupations and that the differences between West Saxon examples and Beowulf suggest that the poem was not influenced by them (chapter 3).

Genealogies, like much of the other evidence for dating examined thus far, prove mercurial. They seem to substantiate dates in the eighth through the tenth centuries as well as a provenance in Mercia, Wessex, or East Anglia.

(g) Finally the language of Beowulf has occupied scholars in their effort to place and date the poem. We know more, in fact, about dialect than date. Predominantly West Saxon (mostly late) with an admixture of mainly Northumbrian and Mercian elements, the poet's language also shows signs of Kentish influence. This blend naturally causes some difficulty for anyone seeking to define a specific place of composition, but most scholars have supposed the poem was originally composed in an Anglian dialect. The phonological evidence usually cited to support this conclusion is actually unreliable. For example, spellings like "waldend" (for late West Saxon wealdend, "ruler") indicate not Anglian provenance but conformity to the koine in which nearly all Old English poetry is preserved (Tupper 1911, 248 49; Sisam 1953, 119 39). Fulk has argued, however, that a large body of Anglian morphological features, generally missing from poetry known to come from the south and otherwise conforming to the poetic koine, is found in Beowulf and other poems usually thought to be Anglian. Examples are the use of hafo in addition to southern hæbbe (have); sægon in addition to Southern sawon (saw); fore in addition to southern for; the use of the accusative as well as dative case after the preposition mid; of sæ as a masculine noun; fæger with a long first syllable; and of accusative pronouns like mec, þec, and usic (Fulk 1992, 309 25). In addition, some Anglian vocabulary shows the same distribution, for example oferhygd (pride, arrogance) for southern ofermod (Schabram 1965b, 123 29), in for southern on, [p. 26] and nymþe or nemne for the conjunction butan (Jordan 1906, 46 48). Evidence for identifying the dialect of origin is thus sparse and should be viewed with caution. What there is of it does suggest "Anglian" provenance, but being more precise than that is difficult. Recent scholarship, however, favors the Midlands rather than the north (reversing a historical trend), with Newton (1993) arguing specifically for East Anglia.

Isolating date by linguistic means is another matter entirely. In their extensive review of the issue in 1981, in fact, Cameron, Amos, and Waite observed that "from our current understanding of the language of Beowulf we could not call any date in the Old English period impossible" (37). Scholars have nevertheless employed various tests to try to fix the date, relative or "absolute."

The syntactic and phonological metrical tests for relative dating include the following: "Lichtenheld's test" of the weak adjective and definite article, the regular absence of the latter in Beowulf perhaps indicating an early date (Chase 1981a, 4; also Amos 1981, 110 24); the presence, as evidenced by metrical considerations, of earlier, uncontracted, dissyllabic instead of later, contracted, monosyllabic forms of words; the presence of "earlier long vs. later (analogical) short diphthongs in the case of the loss of antevocalic h after r (or l)"; and the presence or absence of parasiting (addition of an inorganic vowel to 1, m, n, or r in later West Germanic, rendering an original monosyllable disyllabic) (Klaeber 1950a, cviii). In 1981, Thomas Cable applied a purely metrical test to the poem by calculating the combined percentages of Sievers's types C, D, and E verses in the poem and compared the percentages with those in other Old English poems.⁴ Cable concluded that there is a decrease in the use of these verse types as the Old English period progresses (80), placed Beowulf in a middle group of poems (e.g., Daniel, Exodus, Elene), and found that it could have been composed in the ninth century (82). All these tests clearly fail to fix Beowulf in time, but philologists are in fairly consistent agreement that the phonological metrical tests at least do seem to place it in an early "Cædmonian" group of poems (e.g., Klaeber 1950a, cix; Fulk 1992, 348 5 1).

Other tests for relative dating focus on the poem's vocabulary. Rönning (1883), for example, pointed to the use of the word "gigantas," a loan word probably from the Latin Bible, as evidence for an eighth century date (89). Ritchie Girvan (1935) reached a similar conclusion, stating that the poem is "later than Cædmon, not earlier, that is, than about 670" (25). Whitelock (1951, 5) and Amos (1981) basically agreed, the latter noting that although this and other "ecclesiastical Latin loan words do not allow precise dating ... they do provide a useful terminus a quo" (142 43). Kiernan focused on the words "here" and "fyrd," synonyms for "army," arguing that the first has positive connotations in the poem while the second does not. Since in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle the situation is the opposite, with here referring negatively to the invading Danish forces, fyrd positively to the English, such a reversal could occur only in the reign of Cnut (1981a, 21 22). Phillip Pulsiano and Joseph McGowan (1990), however, reexamined the evidence for [p. 27] Kiernan's claim and found that it was "not consistent and unambiguous under scrutiny" (12).

Likewise undermining Kiernan's and others' claim of a late date for the poem is the apparent absence in it of Scandinavian loan words and the presence of distinctly English spellings for Scandinavian names. Klaeber noted the first (1950a, cxvii), as did Frank, who, however, pointed out that a lack of "demonstrable Scandinavianisms ... does not rule out a late date of composition," taking The Battle of Brunanburh from ca. 937, with just one loan word, as her example (1981, 123).⁵ She went on in an intricate argument to explore the possibility that the poet's "interest in and knowledge of things Scandinavian was the result of the Danish settlements in England" and the subsequent influence of skaldic verse (124). Though the hypothesis is a compelling one, the evidence for it is inconclusive. "Some words could be cognate, and an occasional Norsism (lofgeornost? bencðelu?) could be borrowed from the spoken Norse language rather than skaldic practice" (Andersson 1983, 296). Fulk found a Viking age date unlikely because proper names in the poem do not reflect Scandinavian influence (1982, 343 44). Whether a Scandinavian presence would necessarily affect native onomastic traditions, however, is still a matter of dispute.

The linguistic tests for what is traditionally termed "absolute dating" are few. Lorenz Morsbach was the first to propose one in 1906, when he dated the poem to shortly after 700 by arguing that apocope of u (loss of final u after long root syllables) and loss of postconsonantal h before vowels did not occur until after that date. Since the poem will not scan correctly if one substitutes the earlier word forms for those in the manuscript, the poem has to have been composed after the phonological changes took place. Morsbach's conclusions about the dates of the sound changes and consequently the date of Beowulf, however, have been demonstrated to be unreliable (e.g., Amos 1981, 18 39; Fulk 1992, 369 ff.). Similarly, some scholars (e.g., Holthausen, cited in Klaeber 1950a, cix n. 7) suggested a date prior to 750 because of the presence of "wundini" (1382), an archaic instrumental "generally thought to be not later than circa 750" (Wrenn 1953, 27). The manuscript evidence for the word is equivocal, however (the word may actually be "wundum," "wundnum," "wundmi," "wundnu": see Stanley 1981a, 208; Kiernan 1981a, 31 ff.; Bammesberger 1990), and the word may represent either scribal error or stylistic choice (Klaeber 1950a, cx).

The most recent, meticulously argued, and seemingly reliable test for (relatively) absolute dating is by R. D. Fulk in 1992. Applying "Kaluza's law" to Beowulf (a "law" that states that early long inflectional endings differed metrically from short ones whereas later long and short endings had equal metrical value), he found that the poem is unique in its observance of that law (164). The evidence we have for the provenance of the poem, Fulk argued, suggests Mercia or Northumbria and favors Mercia. Therefore, since the distinction between long and short endings was being lost in the mid eighth century in Mercia and in the mid ninth in [p. 28] Northumbria, Fulk maintained that Beowulf was most probably composed before 725 if Mercian in origin or before 825 if Northumbrian. It can even date from as early as ca. 685, "though such an early date is considerably less probable" (390).

Unfortunately, linguistic evidence obviously joins all other kinds of evidence in not fully substantiating a specific date of composition. Evidence suggesting Anglian provenance also suggests a time of composition between 685 and 825, but this does not rule out a later date. Advocates of a late Beowulf, however, must contend with the apparent absence of Scandinavian loan words in the poem, the presence of exclusively English forms of personal names, and "Kaluza's law."

Early speculation on who wrote Beowulf was straightforward. Grundtvig, for example, concluded that since the poem was written after the death of Hygelac (ca. 521) and probably during a period of great learning in England, the age of Bede was the most likely time and a companion of Cædmon in Northumbria or Aldhelm in Wessex the most likely candidate (Schrøder 1875, 1 4; H. Chadwick [1912] and Cook [1921 22] make the same suggestion). The simplicity of such reasoning was demolished, however, when Liedertheorie (ballad theory) came into vogue. Not really a theory of authorship but of composition, it distinguishes various layers of authorial or scribal contribution to the poem as it separates blocks of pagan lays from Christian matter in the interstices. The theory had obvious ramifications for pinpointing who wrote Beowulf: almost everybody did.⁶

Modifications of the ballad theory, however, moved toward compromise and brought a single poet back into play, albeit at the end of a long process. In 1870, for example, Artur Köhler affirmed the composite nature of the poem but also asserted that "the Anglo Saxon epic in its final form was without doubt fashioned by a single gifted poet" (1870b, 305). And between 1886 and 1897, striving to mediate between the ballad theorists and the advocates of unity and single authorship, Gregor Sarrazin (1886b, 545) argued that an Anglo Saxon poet (interpolator B) translated and reworked a Danish original (a point refuted by Eduard Sievers in 1886 on linguistic grounds). Sarrazin identified the Danish author as the skald Starkathr, whom he placed around 700 at Lejre, the Danish court of King Ingeld (1888, 107), and made the bold claim that Cynewulf was both the translator of Beowulf and later the interpolator of moralizing passages (1886b, 543 44), an assertion refuted by Cook (1925c). On the basis of elaborate linguistic and metrical arguments, Sarrazin placed the time of composition of Beowulf between Christ A and B, and Elene and Andreas (1892, 415).

Other scholars, rejecting the ballad theory altogether, mostly on aesthetic grounds, continually maintained that Beowulf is both unified and the work of one author, a majority view by early 1900 that remains in force today. Grein (1862), Schrøder (1875), T. Arnold (1876), Schemann (1882), Rönning (1883), Fahlbeck (1884), Morsbach (1906), H. Chadwick (1907), Brandl (1908a, b), Smithson [p. 29] (1910), Schücking (1917), Chambers (1921), Klaeber (1922a), and Tolkien (1936), for instance, all believed that the poem is the work of one man. While some scholars favoring individual authorship have not gone so far as to name the poet, they have tried to individualize him. Klaeber viewed the poet "as a man connected in some way with the Anglian court, a royal chaplain or abbot of noble birth or, it may be, a monk friend of his, who possessed an actual knowledge of court life and addressed himself to an aristocratic, in fact a royal audience." Such a person would be acquainted with Germanic, Scandinavian, and Old English verse, "a man of notable taste and culture and informed with a spirit of broad minded Christianity" (1950a, cxix). Paull F. Baum similarly suggested that the poet was a "serious and gifted poet, steeped in the older pagan tradition from the continent" (1963, 365). And several scholars have speculated about whether the poet was a cleric or a layperson. Those adhering to theories of multiple authorship tend to favor a number of pagan lay singers and a final Christian redactor. Those advocating single authorship tend to see a unified work by a Christian author   whether a monk or a layperson   working with partially pre Christian sources.

Rönning (1883), Wormald (1978), Schrader (1980), Dumville (1981), Lapidge (1982), and Cassidy (1982) all argued that the nature of the poem and its historical and cultural context indicate a cleric as author. Rönning asserted that the poem must have been authored "pen in hand" (89). Since opportunities for writing did not exist in the lay world, and since there are religious elements in the poem, the evidence "points toward the cloister" as place of origin and a monk as author (89). Wormald reasoned that since there was no independent lay epic and the poet shows evidence of a Christian Latin education, he must have been "at the fringes of clerical society" (44), while Schrader, also regarding the evidence of classical learning in Beowulf as proof that the author had to be a cleric, probably in the age of Bede, felt that he was undoubtedly a monk (56).

Dumville continued this basic line of reasoning, arguing that Irish monasticism could have been favorably disposed to heroic literature and that Beowulf was either written or composed orally in a monastic setting or oral material was thoroughly changed in writing at that time by a Christian poet (146). Thus the author must have been a cleric, and the work must have been transmitted through the scriptorium, since, as Rönning pointed out previously, no other means of book production are known in Anglo Saxon England (157, 156). Shifting the poem's provenance to Wessex ca. 700, Lapidge inferred that "a many faceted scholar such as Aldhelm could have assisted at [Beowulf 's] composition" (157). Finally Cassidy considered the poet a careful crafter of words who practices the complex art of tectonic composition (9). He must therefore have been an extremely learned churchman whose monastic, unappreciative audience indulged his literary effort while he was alive (11).

The paltry evidence about who wrote Beowulf thus seems to suggest that a cleric is responsible. Not all scholars have accepted the conclusion, however. Work [p. 30] on traditional oral composition by Parry and Lord helped advance the argument that the Beowulf poet was a singer of tales, an argument supported by Magoun (1953, 1958, 1963), Lord (1960), Storms (1974), Niles (1993c, 1993b), Irving (1989), and Foley (1990). Creed (1966b) makes the logical and necessary connection between the theory of oral composition and the extant epic in written form. He postulated a single singer of Beowulf, whose oral composition was recorded by a scribe (138). In 1983 and 1993, Niles elaborated Creed's idea by focusing on the performance of the epic, which could have been recorded on behalf of an aristocratic patron and thus could have become the basis for further dissemination either orally or scriptorally (1983, 112 13; 1993c). In 1991, Kendall opted to combine the lay and monastic theories of the author. He posited an "aristocratic" youth associated with a court and steeped in oral composition traditions who later entered a monastery, where he wrote down the oral literature he had heard and practiced previously (2   4).

Merely individualizing the Beowulf poet is difficult enough, so few scholars besides Sarrazin have actually tried to name him. In his 1892 allegorical interpretation, Earle claimed that Archbishop Hygeberht of Lichfield, closely tied to Offa, wrote the poem (xcviii). In 1971, categorizing the language of Beowulf as Old Phalian, which he said is still evident in Low German today, Wilhelm Tegethoff argued that the poem is the work of Adalbert of Bremen, the largely unappreciated eleventh century German cleric whose praises are sung by church historian Adam of Bremen (i). And two authors in 1986, the second much more confidently than the first, ventured possible names. Noting the common reference to Offa in "Widsith" and Beowulf, Schneider suggested that the poet "may be identical" with Widsith (189). In his allegorical interpretation of the poem, Thundy assigned authorship to Wulfgar, a loyal retainer of King Athelstan named in a land grant charter "at Ham in Wiltshire on November 12, 931 " (114).

One last possibility concerning authorship is that the Beowulf poet was a woman. Baum (1963) suggested that a learned abbess inspired by Hild of Whitby (Cædmon's abbess) or Hild herself may have written the poem, but his notion was advanced as an example of hypotheses that "do no harm if they are not taken too seriously" (359). Baum's did none apparently, since it was never mentioned again. In 1990, however, Fred C. Robinson revisited the possibility of female authorship of Old English poetry and took the idea quite earnestly. Referring to the "hints at possible [female] involvement in [Old English] versifying," the documented evidence of Christian Latin women poets, and the substantiated activity of women poets in the rest of the Germanic world, Robinson argued that "there is reason to believe that women may have played as much of a role in Anglo Saxon literary production as they have in the later periods of English literature" (62 63). This involvement would include, of course, Beowulf.

Provocative as it may be, complicated as it is, frustrating as it has always been, the search for the identity of the Beowulf poet seems largely futile, and what Thorkelin sagely observed in 1815 obtains today: "one might as well roll the rock [p. 31] of Sisyphus" as try to identify "our unnamed, unwept poet" (Thorkelin 1815b). Specifying what type of poet the author was, on the other hand (e.g., a singer of tales or a literate author, either layperson or cleric), remains an important, if elusive, enterprise.