The title Seasons for Fasting refers to an incomplete Old English homiletic poem, which deals primarily with the observance of fasts

Fasting

Fasting is primarily the act of willingly abstaining from some or all food, drink, or both, for a period of time. An absolute fast is normally defined as abstinence from all food and liquid for a defined period, usually a single day , or several days. Other fasts may be only partially restrictive,...

 on the appropriate dates of the liturgical calendar, but which also attacks the misbehaviour of lax priests. Counting 229 lines, it is the longest Old English poem written in regular stanzas. The piece appears to have been composed by a clergyman and directed at a lay audience, addressed as folces manna in line 212, whom he perhaps believed to have been potentially misguided.

Witnesses

The original manuscript, MS Otho B XI, was largely destroyed in the Cotton

Cotton library

The Cotton or Cottonian library was collected privately by Sir Robert Bruce Cotton M.P. , an antiquarian and bibliophile, and was the basis of the British Library...

 fire of 1731 and Seasons for Fasting was among the losses. Fortunately, the antiquarian Laurence Nowell

Laurence Nowell

Two sixteenth-century English cousins, one an antiquarian and the other a churchman, were named Laurence Nowell. Their biographies have been confused since the seventeenth century.-Antiquarian:Laurence Nowell Two sixteenth-century English cousins, one an antiquarian and the other a churchman, were...

 had made a transcript in 1562, which was recovered by Robin Flower

Robin Flower

Robin Ernest William Flower was an English poet and scholar, a Celticist, Anglo-Saxonist and translator from the Irish language. He is commonly known in Ireland as "Bláithín" . He married Ida Mary Streeter.-Life:...

 in 1934 and which is now contained in MS Add. 43703 (London, British Library

British Library

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

). Moreover, eight lines of the poem were transcribed by Abraham Whelock. Nowell's transcript has the poem on ff. 257-60v, where it breaks off suddenly, and continues on ff. 261r-64v with Old English remedies and leechdoms

Lacnunga

The Lacnunga is a collection of miscellaneous Anglo-Saxon medical texts and prayers, written mainly in Old English and Latin. It is found, following other medical texts, in London, British Library Manuscript Harley 585, a codex probably compiled in England in the late tenth or early eleventh century...

 and on f. 265-67 with a further transcription of the Laws of Æthelstan. When Humfrey Wanley

Humfrey Wanley

Humfrey Wanley was a librarian, palaeographer and scholar of Old English, employed by manuscript collectors such as Robert and Edward Harley. He was the first keeper of the Harlein Library, now the Harleian Collection.-Life:...

inspected the manuscript in 1705 for his catalogue, the poem had become the last item.

External links

• Poem read by Michael D. C. Drout, Anglo-Saxon Aloud.