THE GOSPEL OF NICODEMUS IN ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

The apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus greatly influenced literature throughout Europe. The second part, the Harrowing of Hell, narrates Christ's descent into hell to free the souls of the dead from Satan's bondage, an event which especially captured the imagination of medieval Christendom. The first chapter of this dissertation traces both the development of the theological concept of Christ's descent, and its appearance in the popular tradition of pseudepigrapha and apocrypha, which together brought forth the Gospel of Nicodemus. The second chapter discusses the origin and date of the Gospel of Nicodemus and describes several of the earliest manuscripts of the Latin text from the British Isles. The third chapter examines Old English and Anglo-Latin works concerned with the harrowing of hell, and their relationship to the Gospel of Nicodemus. Some of these works are based immediately on the Gospel of Nicodemus, some draw on other known works which in turn draw on the Gospel, some are ultimately based on the Gospel, and some are simply drawing on the Church's general traditions about the harrowing. The fourth chapter briefly examines texts about the harrowing in other languages spoken in the medieval British Isles: Welsh, Cornish, Irish, and Norse. Following this last chapter two appendices present minimally edited texts of the two Latin recensions known in England, from twelfth- and thirteenth-century manuscripts.