The Saws of Saint Bede survives in two versions in two manuscripts. It has no title in Jesus 29, but its scribal rubric in the second copy is Þe Sawe of Seint Bede Prest. That name is found in the important trilingual miscellany Oxford, BodL, MS Digby 86 (Worcestershire, ca. 1280), fol. 127va, a volume that also preserves copies of Doomsday, Death, and The Eleven Pains of Hell (arts. 13, 14, 28). A saw is a “saying,” and the medieval title marks this poem as belonging to the vernacular genre of proverb collections attributed to a famous sage, such as Hending (CHMS, 3:220–37, 334–37) and The Proverbs of Alfred (art. 24). The Venerable Bede (672–735) was a revered English saint, religious scholar, and monkish author of An Ecclesiastical History of England, whose authority is cited elsewhere in Jesus 29 (Ten Abuses (art. 15), line 13).

Previously edited just once each, the two versions’ existence under different titles has muddied awareness and recognition of a vigorous poem of moral warning, enlivened by clever estates satire and a scene of God’s examination of souls on Judgment Day. Early editors named the Jesus copy Sinners Beware! (Morris in 1872), and the Digby one The Sayings of St. Bede (Frederick J. Furnivall in 1901). The later Digby copy is somewhat longer (373 lines compared to 354), lacks four stanzas found in Jesus 29, and possesses seven new ones. The fifty-five stanzas that agree are largely in the same order. Hence, the two copies are near-identical versions of the same poem. Although NIMEV and DIMEV list Sinners Beware! and Saws separately, Cameron Louis names them as one work, The Saws of Saint Bede (MWME, 9:3041). I give this context in order to explain my decision to name the Jesus 29 poem according to its traditional, and medieval, Digby title. Although the Venerable Bede is never named in Saws, his reputation for sagacity does crop up in Jesus 29: see Ten Abuses (art. 15), line 13. Like the oft-mentioned King Alfred, Bede represents proverbial wisdom and moral rectitude welling from a reservoir of ancient, native authority.

The poem opens with a long prayer that invokes the Trinity (Holy Ghost, Christ, and Creator) to protect us from the Devil (lines 1–24). Then the speaker urges that “makie we us clene and skere [pure]” before we die so that we may dwell with angels (lines 25–30). Although no tongue may express hell, it is nonetheless described in brief strokes (lines 25–72), comparable to the fuller description found in Poema Morale (art. 3). To avoid hell, we must repent, forsake sin, and confess. The Seven Sins are then loosely enumerated (line 73–90) before the speaker turns to the uncertain fates faced by all. He now enumerates different estates, inserting apt details that match living occupations to each practitioner’s eventual doom (lines 91–180). The estates include rich and poor, monks and priests, knights and lawyers, merchants and bondsmen, fine ladies and nuns. Unfortunately, the poet says, we may not know when we will die (lines 181–92). He contrasts the equally dire fates of the doomed soul and body: one travels to pain; the other rots all alone. We come in weeping and naked, and so do we leave (lines 193–216). We must therefore subdue sin with prayer and alms, but, sadly, some fail to confess out of shame. Later, however, it will be worse: each sinner will go to the pains of hell and then be judged, so confess now (lines 216–58). When Doomsday comes, God will speak directly to each side, calling out the Seven Works of Mercy (lines 259–324). The damned souls will curse their bodies, and the “clene,” saved souls (who passed God’s test of mercy) will feel no compassion for the punished ones (lines 331–42). In the end, the poet affirms that virtuous souls will dwell with angels (lines 343–54).

The Jesus 29 scribe copied the tail-rhyme stanzas of The Saws of Saint Bede in an unusually graphic way, spreading each stanza across two columns, a-rhymes on the left, b-rhymes on the right. Red tie-lines connect each aab grouping, and a colored initial letter marks off each 6-line stanza. Daniel Wakelin points to the layout of Saws as an example of how early Middle English scribes experimented with ways to present new verse forms on the page, probably with a strong sense that rhymes and meters were designed for being recited aloud and heard (Designing English, pp. 138–39). According to Pearsall, the tail-rhyme form of Saws was derived from Latin models (Old and Middle English Poetry, p. 97). No other poem in Jesus 29 is composed in tail-rhyme verse, and no other poem has such a strikingly inventive layout on the page. The text of Saws is presented in this edition with deep indentations for the b-rhyme lines, which encourages the kind of reading with measured pauses that the scribe’s dramatic graphic layout requires.

The version of Saws in MS Digby 86 may be viewed digitally at https://medieval.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/catalog/manuscript_4426(Opens in a new tab or window).

[Fols. 175r–178v. NIMEV 3607, 1229. DIMEV 5698, 2042. Louis, MWME, 9:3041–42, 3399 [373]. Quire: 3. Meter: 354 lines in fifty-nine 6-line stanzas, rhyming aa3b2–3aa3b2–3. Layout: Two columns, with a-lines in the left column, b-lines in the right column. The b-lines are connected to the a-line couplets by red tie-lines. Each stanza is headed with a colored initial, alternating in red or blue. Most lines have end punctuation. Edition from MS Jesus 29: Morris, pp. 72–83. One other MS: Oxford, BodL, MS Digby 86, fols. 127v–130r (Furnivall, ed., The Minor Poems of the Vernon MS., Part II, pp. 765–76).]