Columbanus’s De mundi transitu in Early Medieval England: A New Source for an Old English Homily (Irvine VII) in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 343

These Latin-Old English proverbs, added to the Royal Psalter by an eleventhcentury hand, express a theme that is central to many Old English poems and homilies: transience.2 To express the fleeting nature of the world, poets and homilists had a large repertoire of motifs at their disposal.3 In addition to the well-known and frequently discussed ubi sunt passages,4 these motifs included ruined cities,5 exhortations of the dead to the living,6 and the

elderly body in decline.7 Sources and analogues for these elegiac motifs have been traced in various traditions, ranging from Germanic oral tradition to early Christian Latin poetry, patristic writing and Old Welsh poetic lamentations. 8 A text that has often been associated with the Old English elegies, in particular, is the Hiberno-Latin poem De mundi transitu by the Irish missionary Columbanus of Bobbio (d. 616). Ida Gordon, for instance, linked Columbanus's poem to The Seafarer, arguing that the two poems have a number of ideas concerning transience in common, including the daily passing of this world and the brevity of earthly possessions.9 R. F. Leslie stresses a close connection between De mundi transitu and The Wanderer, noting the similarity between Columbanus's opening lines and lines 62b-63 of the Old English poem:10 Mundus iste transibit Cottidie decrescit11 Swa þes middangeard ealra dogra gehwam dreoseð ond fealleþ.12 Leslie's identification of Columbanus as "the one who is most akin to the Old English poets of The Wanderer and The Seafarer" prompted Michael Allen and Daniel Calder to include De mundi transitu in their foundational collection of sources and analogues of Old English poetry.13 Since then, however, the connection between this Hiberno-Latin poem and the Old English elegiac corpus has not received much attention.14 In fact, scholars have so far 7 Thijs Porck, Old Age in Early Medieval England: A Cultural History, Anglo-Saxon Studies 33 (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2019), pp. 81-104. 8 See, e.g., the overview in Anne L. Klinck, The Old English Elegies: A Critical Edition and Genre Study (Montreal & Kingston, 1992), pp. 230-43. 9 The Seafarer, ed. I. L. Gordon, Methuen's Old English Library (London, 1960), pp. 22-23. 10 The Wanderer, ed. R. F. Leslie (Manchester, 1966), p. 29. 11 Columbanus, De mundi transitu, ed. and trans. G. S. M. Walker, Sancti Columbani Opera (Dublin, 1957), lines 1-2. "This world shall pass, daily it declines." All subsequent quotations and translations are taken from this edition. In a few places, I have made slight adjustments to Walker's translation; these are put between square brackets. 12 The Wanderer, ed. Klinck, Old English Elegies, lines 62b-63. "Thus this world declines and falls each and every day." 13 The Wanderer, ed. Leslie, p. 29; Sources and Analogues of Old English Poetry: The Major Latin Texts in Translation, trans. Michael J. B. Allen and Daniel G. Calder (Cambridge, 1976), pp. 135-36. 14 E.g., Columbanus is not mentioned in the overview of sources and analogues in Klinck,Old English Elegies, been unable to establish whether Columbanus's poem actually circulated in early medieval England.15 This paper, for the first time, calls attention to an Old English paraphrase of over sixty lines of Columbanus's De mundi transitu in the anonymous Old English composite homily Irvine VII in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 343. The discovery of this source reveals a number of scribal corruptions in the extant versions of both texts and demonstrates that Columbanus's poem was indeed known in early medieval England. Below, the homily in question is first introduced, followed by a description of De mundi transitu. In the last part of the paper, the two relevant passages of the two texts are analysed.

Irvine Homily VII in Bodley 343
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 343 is a mid-twelfth-century manuscript, containing a large collection of homilies and homiletic pieces in Latin and Old English.16 The greater majority of the Latin portion of the manuscript has recently been identified as the Carolingian Homiliary of Angers,17 while most of the manuscript's Old English items are works by AElfric. Bodley 343 also features nine anonymous homilies, of which three are unique to this manuscript. While the language of the manuscript has been updated to the transitional English of the mid-twelfth century, these unique anonymous items are considered to date to the late tenth century.18 The last of these three unique anonymous homilies is central to this paper. This composite homily has been edited twice, as Belfour XII "A Message from the Tomb" in 1909 and as Irvine VII "The Transience of Earthly Delights" in 1993.19 Donald Scragg and Susan Irvine both describe the homily as consisting of two separate parts.20 The first part (lines 1-93) ends with a typical concluding formula: "and heo mid him and mid his halȝan libbaeþ, and rixaeð a on eccenesse" (lines 92-93; and they will live with him and with his saints, and rule forever in eternity). This closing formula in the middle of Irvine VII makes the homily come across as disjointed. Indeed, as Irvine notes, "[t]he compiler has apparently yoked together two extracts from already existing homilies without even attempting to create any logical link between them."21 The second part of the homily (lines 94-167) derives from an anonymous homily known as Vercelli X, versions of which are preserved in various other, earlier manuscripts. Be that as it may, the part of Irvine VII that overlaps with Vercelli X is independent from other extant versions of this homily and, despite the later date of its manuscript, it could ultimately stem from an exemplar closer to its original.22 The first part of Irvine VII also derives from an earlier English composition. This is confirmed by Hans Schabram's analysis of the homily's vocabulary. Primarily interested in the homily's use of words for pride, Schabram calls attention to the occurrence of the tautological pairings "on oferhydo […] on ofermetto" (lines 11-12) and "þa modiȝaen ⁊ þa oferhudiȝen" (lines 71-72). The original must have had words related to the Anglian word oferhygd (pride) and later West Saxon scribal influence prompted the introduction of the West Saxon alternatives based on OE mōd. Schabram also calls attention to other Anglian traces, including the use of OE gewinn in the sense of "labour" (lines 85 and 90) and the Anglian form "morþer" (line 88; murder) rather than West Saxon morþ.23 As such, Schabram holds that Irvine VII stems from an earlier Anglian original, which was copied by a West Saxon scribe, before it was entered into Bodley 343.
James Cross accurately described Irvine VII as "a patchwork of borrowings stressing the transitoriness of earthly things and the need to prepare for death 19 Belfour ,Irvine, Section (a) paves the way for the themes dealt with in sections (b) and (c). The audience is first asked to consider the transience of wealth and pride whenever they look upon the graves of rich people. If the deceased were able to speak, the homilist holds, they would remind anyone that death is inevitable: " 'Iu ic waes swylc þu nu eart, and ȝyt þu iwurðaest swulc ic nu eom' " (lines 14-15; I used to be like you are now, and yet you will become as I am now). Following this memento mori, the homilist launches into a description of Doomsday. Having outlined the fates of the righteous and the damned, the homilist concludes: Þenne is us mucel neod, leofe men, þaet we Godes bodu ȝeorne healden and earniaen þaet we moten mid heofenwarae lifes brucen, and þaet we ne weorþaen aweorpen on þa deopestae helles grunde.27 In section (c), the homilist returns to the initial themes of mortality and transience. First, the inevitability of death is repeated, along with a contrast between secular wealth, which is temporary, and punishment in the afterlife, which is eternal. Next, the human body is compared to withering plants so as to suggest Irvine ,VH, Lines 63-65. "There is a great need, then, dear people, that we eagerly observe God's commandments and earn that we are allowed to enjoy life with those who live in heaven, and that we are not thrown into the deepest pit of hell." that, rather than loving one's fragile youth, one should be devoted to Christ's countenance and strive to earn a place in heaven. Section (c) ends with a description of the joys of heaven, possibly marking the end of the text in a previous version, before it was prefixed to the passage from Vercelli X. Although no occasion for Irvine VII is specified in Bodley 343, this homily has been associated with Rogationtide, given its themes of death, transience and Doomsday.28 The opening lines of the homily, which entreat the audience to consider the transience of wealth as they pass by the tombs of rich men, also fit well with a Rogationtide homily. During these gangdagas (walking days) preceding Ascension Thursday, the community would make daily boundary walks, during which many a tomb would have been encountered.29

Columbanus's De mundi transitu
The Irish monk and scholar Columbanus (d. 616) is an important figure in the history of early Christianity in Ireland and the Continent. After having spent most of his life in Bangor Abbey, he travelled to the continent as a missionary. He founded various monasteries in Francia and Italy, most notably the abbey of Bobbio in present-day Italy. In addition to a set of monastic rules and a penitential, Columbanus also wrote a number of sermons (the Instructiones) and letters. While still in Ireland, Columbanus had also composed "many other works suitable for singing," according to his biographer Jonas of Bobbio.30 While various poems have been attributed to Columbanus, the authenticity of this poetic corpus has been a matter of debate. However, a strong case has been made for his authorship of De mundi transitu. that the greater majority of the vocabulary of De mundi transitu recurs elsewhere in the prose texts ascribed to Columbanus. Howlett also points out that lines 25-26 form an anagram of "Columba loquitur clanculo ridet benguirr" (Columba speaks secretly, Bangor smiles), which suggests the poem was written before Columbanus left Bangor for the Continent around the year 590 AD.33 An early modern annotation in the only extant manuscript that features the full text of De mundi transitu also attributes the poem to Columbanus.34 Columbanus's De mundi transitu is a short but highly wrought poem, written in a style that is typical for Hiberno-Latin poets of the early Middle Ages.35 It consists of 120 heptasyllabic lines, divided into thirty stanzas of four lines each. In addition to rhyme, which occasionally extends to three syllables, the poem also features alliteration. Furthermore, Howlett has shown that Columbanus used various rhyme schemes, chiasmus, and the golden section to structure his poem. Howlett further calls attention to the work's calendrical features: seven syllables for every day in the week; four lines per stanza for every week in a month; thirty stanzas for every day of a month; 120 lines, ten for every month; and 365 words for every day of the year.36 The topic of De mundi transitu is the transience of earthly delights. Its first twelve lines establish that the world is fleeting and that death is inevitable. In the following seven stanzas, Columbanus muses on the futility of gaining wealth rather than bestowing it upon Christ. Next, in the eleventh stanza of the poem, he admonishes an unidentified reader to abandon this practice: Cogitare conuenit Te haec cuncta, amice Absit tibi amare Huius formulam uitae.37 In the following sixteen lines, Columbanus compares human beauty to sun-scorched grass, concluding that Christ's face is to be loved more than "flos carnis fragilis" (line 60; the fragile flower of flesh). The seven following 33 David Howlett, "Two Works of Saint Columban," Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 28. In addition to the Bible, Columbanus also appears to have made use of the late fifth-century text commonly referred to as Pseudo-Basil's De admonitio ad filium spiritualem (Admonition to a Spiritual Son). This short spiritual text was once attributed to Basil of Caesarea, but is now believed to be a work by Abbot 38 In addition, Walker, Sancti Columbani Opera, p. lvi, claims there are reminiscences of Ovid and Ausonius in this poem, but Smit, Studies, pp. 217-18, has demonstrated that the similarities that Walker points out are rather commonplace expressions. 39 Columbanus, De mundi transitu, lines 45-52. "Lo, all flesh is grass, burning though green, and like as the flower of grass is all its glory; At sunrise is scorched the grass, and the flower fades; so is all youth when manhood has failed." The relevant Vulgate texts, with the Douay-Rheims translation, are: "omnis caro faenum et omnis gloria eius quasi flos agri" (Isa. 40:6; All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field) and "dives autem in humilitate sua quoniam sicut flos faeni transibit. exortus est enim sol cum ardore et arefecit faenum et flos eius decidit et decor vultus eius deperiit ita et dives in itineribus suis marcescet" (James 1:10-11; And the rich, in his being low: because as the flower of the grass shall he pass away. For the sun rose with a burning heat and parched the grass: and the flower thereof fell off, and the beauty of the shape thereof perished. So also shall the rich man fade away in his ways).  (451), fols. 159r-60v. The text was first published in 1604 AD by Melchior Goldast, who collated the Zurich manuscript with another manuscript from St Gall, which has since been lost.47 Both manuscripts appear to have been affected by some measure of scribal corruption.48 The most dramatic consequence of the poem's faulty transmission is the loss of line 106. Instead of providing a full seven-syllable line here, eye-skip has led a scribe to repeat a part of line 102, instead.49 As a result, extant editions of the poem either leave line 106 empty or fill in a heptasyllabic line of their own.50 The attribution of this entire passage to Augustine is based on the fact that the material that surrounds the quotation from Columbanus, though not the quotation itself, indeed comes from works of Augustine.52 The discovery of this quotation is significant. For one, the text in Scottus's Collectaneum provides a number of alternative readings, such as "beata familia quae in astris habitat" (blessed family which dwells among the stars) for the Zurich manuscript's "beata familia, quae in altis habitat" (blessed family which dwells on high) (lines 93-94). More crucially, Scottus appears to have preserved the lost line 106 of De mundi transitu: The line "regis summi sita est" in Scottus's Collectaneum may well have been part of Columbanus's original poem: it has seven syllables and a trisyllabic rhyme with line 108 "Nulla vox audita est."55 Moreover, the reconstructed lines "ubi aula regia / regis summi sita est" (lines 105-6; where the royal hall of the highest king is located) more or less correspond to the Old English phrase "ac þaer is þaes hestaen kynges kynerice" (line 90; but there is the kingdom of the highest king) in Irvine VII, which also uses passages of De mundi transitu that were not copied in Scottus's Collectaneum. In other words, Scottus's Collectaneum and Irvine VII, as two independent witnesses, allow for the reconstruction of the missing line of Columbanus's De mundi transitu. As a result, this poem by one of Ireland's earliest Latin poets is once again complete.

Columbanus's De mundi transitu as a Source of Irvine Homily VII
Finding sources has long been a valued method when it comes to studying Old English homilies. The identification of a source provides information that may be used to establish matters of textual criticism and to gain an insight into the methods of homilists, and it allows for the reconstruction of the intellectual milieu in which these homilists operated.56 After establishing the parameters for identifying Columbanus's De mundi transitu as a source for Irvine VII, the remainder of this paper features an analysis of the corresponding passages.
In order to identify a source conclusively, relative chronology needs to be considered, as well as the question of whether the source could have been available to the borrower. For the use of Columbanus's De mundi transitu in Irvine VII, the relative dates of the two texts are unproblematic: the proposed late sixth-century Latin source certainly predates the Old English homily in Bodley 343, which may have been based on a tenth-century exemplar. While no Anglo-Saxon manuscripts of De mundi transitu survive, the poem may have become available in England via the monastery of St Gall. This monastery had 55 An alternative explanation, that Scottus copied a version of the text that is similar to the one preserved in the Zurich manuscript, noticed the error and supplied the missing line himself is less likely, since such emendations are not strictly necessary in a collection that probably functioned as a notebook.

Irvine VII, lines 65-69
For þam þe we iseoð þis laene lif mid fraecednesse and mid mycele earfoðnesse ifulled, and ylce daeȝ þis lif wonaeð and wursaeð; and na lifiende mon ne þurhwune(ð) on þisse weorlde, ne nan eft to lafe ne wurð.61 Without knowledge of the Latin source, Irvine has suggested that the problematic phrase "ne nan eft to lafe ne wurð" in Irvine VII could be corrected by changing "lafe" into "life,"62 rendering the translation 'and no one becomes 57 For the ties to early medieval England, see, e.g., J. alive again'-what is dead stays dead. The emendation of "to lafe" to "to life" seems supported by the Latin "vivus" (alive) in "Nullus vivus remansit."63 Irvine VII's rendition of the next four lines of De mundi transitu are suggestive of scribal corruption in the Latin text:

Irvine VII, lines 69-70
Al moncyn is ilice on þas weorld icenned, þeah heore lif beo syððaen unilic; and heo aeft on ende alle ȝewitaeð.65 The sense of the Old English text here appears superior to that of the Latin: every human starts and ends life in the same manner, even though they lead different lives. The Latin poem's notion that the whole human race leads a "simili vita" (a similar life) strikes as odd. Perhaps "de simili" is a scribal corruption of the ablative form of dissimilis (unlike, dissimilar), "dissimili." Alternatively, the Old English homilist caught on to the unlikely notion that all people lead similar lives and decided to correct the sense of the Latin source.
The next four lines in Columbanus's De mundi transitu, which outline the inevitability of death, correspond with the Old English in overall sense and phrasing:

Irvine VII, lines 70-72
Ne nan swa longe her on weorlde ne leofaeð, þaet eft þe deaþ hine ne ȝenime, and þa modiȝaen and þa oferhudiȝen deaþes gneornung gripð.67 63 Arguably, the clause "ne nan eft to lafe ne wurð" could be translated as something like "nor will one become as a remnant afterwards, i.e. nor will anyone remain after"; in which case there is no need to explain "lafe" as an error for "life," since the implication would be that there will be no surviving living persons. I owe this suggestion to the anonymous reviewer. 64 "The whole human race uses a like origin, and after a common life falls by an equal ending." 65 "All mankind is born alike into this world, although their life will be unlike afterwards; and again they all depart in the end." 66 "For those who postpone life death creeps on unsure, all the proud wanderers sorrow of death seizes." 67 "No one lives so long here on the world that death does not take him then, and the grief of death grabs the proud ones and the overconfident ones." With respect to Schabram's analysis of the words for pride in Irvine VII, it is interesting to note that the tautological word pair "þa modiȝaen and þa oferhudiȝen" here renders a single Latin phrase "superbos vagos." As such, it is indeed possible that the West Saxon "modiȝaen" was added to clarify the Anglian "oferhudiȝen" in the course of this text's transmission, as Schabram has suggested.68 The next two stanzas of Columbanus's De mundi transitu deal with the impermanence of earthly possessions. The Old English follows the Latin closely:

Irvine VII, lines 72-77
And þaet heo her for Godes lufe syllen nolden heorae sawle to haelpe, heo hit raedlice forlaeteð, and oðre þerto foð, þa heo for Criste hit letaen nolden, þa hwile þe heo lifedon. Ac þenne þe deaþ cymaeð, þenne sceolen heo forlaeten heorae aehtae heorae unðancaes, and heo his þenne nan þing nabbaeð.70 The sentence structure in the Old English is somewhat obscure and Irvine explains that "[t]he direct object of syllen (73) is þaet (72) meaning 'that which' . This is picked up by the pronoun hit in 73 and 74, and by the partitive genitive his in 76. Its meaning is made explicit in heorae aehtae (76)."71 Irvine's interpretation of the Old English is confirmed by the Latin source text; in fact, the Old English word order "þaet heo her for Godes lufe syllen nolden" may well show the influence of Latin "quod pro Christo largiri nolunt." 68 Cf. Schabram,Superbia, "What to bestow for Christ they will not, all misers lose out of season; after them others gather. Living but little themselves, they scarce venture to give to God; to death they leave their all, they keep nothing of themselves." 70 "And that which they did not want to give here for God's love to help their soul, they shall leave it soon, and others succeed thereto, since they did not want to give it up for Christ, during the time that they lived. But when death comes, they must leave their possessions against their will, and they will then have nothing of this." 71 Irvine, p. 203; Irvine's explanation of the structure of this sentence is likely a reaction to Belfour's incorrect insertion of a direct object "(their life)" in the translation of this passage: "And because they here would not give (their life) for the love of God to help their soul they shall soon lose it, and the others shall obtain it, since they would not give it up for Christ's sake while they were living." (cf. Belfour, p. 129).

Porck
The next stanza of Columbanus's poem is translated almost ad litteram in the Old English homily:

Irvine VII, lines 77-78
Ylce daeȝ þis andwearde lif wonaeð þe we lufiaeð, ac þa pine ne woniaeð þam monnum þe heom nu aefter earniaeð.73 The word "pine" in the Old English text merits a comment here. The first instances of the word pīn meaning "pain, torment" in English are all found in twelfth-century manuscripts; as such, Irvine has suggested that the word, which is used three times in this homily (ll. 55, 77, 157) probably represents a Middle English gloss to the Old English wīte "pain, torment."74 While this is possible, it is noteworthy that the use of the word "pine" in this passage may reflect the Latin "poena," which is also the origin of the word in English. If so, the history of the word may stretch back to the pre-AElfrician Anglian original of this part of the homily in Bodley 343.
Lines 25-40 of De mundi transitu, which outline how sinners are unaware of the torments being prepared for them in hell, are not included in Irvine VII. Since the composer of this composite homily had expanded on the horrors of hell in the section preceding the rendition of Columbanus's poem, the lines may have been considered too repetitive.
Instead, the homily moves on to a reflection on the frailty of the human body, again following Columbanus in comparing the human body to a plant withered in the sun's heat: 72 "Daily declines the present life they love; unfailing remains the penalty they prepare for themselves." 73 "Every day this present life which we love diminishes, but the torments do not diminish for the people who are now earning them for afterwards." 74 Irvine, p. 203.

Columbanus, De mundi transitu, lines 41-56
Cogitare convenit Te haec cuncta, amice. Absit tibi amare Huius formulam vitae. The Old English is an abbreviation of the Latin in that the images of grass and flowers are replaced by the simple "blowende wurten" (blooming plants). Irvine found a close analogue to this passage in Blickling V:

Irvine VII, lines 79-83
We witon þaet Crist sylfa cwaeþ þurh his sylfes muþ, 'þonne ge geseoþ growende & blowende ealle eorþan waestmas, & þa swetan stencas gestincað þara wudu-wyrta, þa sona eft adrugiaþ & forþgewitaþ for þaes sumores haeton' . Swa þonne gelice bið þaere menniscan gecynde þaes 75 "It is fitting that you think of all these things, my friend. Far be it from you to love the pattern of this life. Lo, all flesh is grass, burning though green, and like as the flower of grass is all its glory; At sunrise is scorched the grass, and the flower fades; so is all youth when manhood has failed. The beauty of men shall vanish in old age. All former comeliness is wiped away with grief." 76 "Let us then, dear men, remember all these things and consider that the human body is like blossoming plants, which dry up and wither because of the sun's heat. So, too, do a person's youth and fairness. When old age seizes on him with ill health, all fairness of youth goes away and withers."
The next seven stanzas of Columbanus's poem, which warn the reader about the dangers of women, drinking and lust, are not incorporated in the Old English homily. Since these stanzas feature a rather negative depiction of women, the omission may indicate that this homily catered to a mixed, lay audience. Indeed, if this homily was intended for Rogationtide, as has been 77 BH, pp. 57-59. "We know that Christ himself said, through his own mouth: 'When you see all the earth's fruits growing and blooming, and smell the sweet odours of the plants, then immediately afterwards they shall dry up and wither away because of the summer's heat.' So, it (the fruit) is like the nature of a man's body, when youth first blooms and is fairest, then quickly beauty fades and turns to old age, and afterwards he is troubled by pain and by various ailments and infirmities. And the whole body loathes to perform those youthful lusts that he loved so earnestly before, and which were sweet to him to perform." Cf. Irvine,p. 191. 78 Porck, Old Age in Early Medieval England, "The radiance of Christ's face, lovely before all things, is more to be desired than the frail flower of flesh." 80 "But Christ's countenance is to be loved over all other things, much more than the youth of the body." suggested, the homily would likely address a wide audience, consisting of both men and women.81 When the Old English homily takes up Columbanus's De mundi transitu again, it is to remind the audience to focus on heaven: Comparison with the Latin source makes clear that the Old English "habbaeþ" (have) is likely a corrupted form of "hebbaeþ" (lift)-the audience is asked to lift their heart from earthly matters so as to gain the heavenly kingdom. The Old English homily has retained a number of Columbanus's unique celestial features, such as "Ubi senex non gemat, / Neque infans vagiat" (lines 95-96; cf. "þaer eald ne graneð, ne child ne scraemeð") and "Ubi nemo moritur / Quia nemo nascitur" (lines 103-4; cf. "ne þaer nan ne swaeltaeð, for þam ðe þaer ne byð nan acenned"). These idiosyncratic features are supplemented by more commonplace descriptions of the joys of heaven, such as the presence of eternal happiness, and the absence of weeping, grinding of teeth, murder, evil, pain and sorrow. Hildegard Tristram has shown that such enumerations of celestial joys, in both positive and negative form, are frequently found in Old English homilies.84 Blickling VIII features a typical example of the pattern that shows some similarity to the description of heaven in Irvine VII: Þaer biþ a ece gefea buton unrotnesse, & geogoþ buton yldo. Ne biþ þaer sar ne gewinn, ne naenig uneþnes, ne sorg ne wop, ne hungor, ne þurst, ne ece yfel. Ne þaer mon his feond findeð, ne his freond forlaeteþ.85 As such, whilst incorporating Columbanus's idiosyncratic De mundi transitu into Irvine VII, the homilist occasionally fell back on homiletic clichés.
A similar strategy was followed in the adaptation of the last lines of Columbanus's poem, which describe the rejoicing of the faithful when they are allowed to see God in heaven. The Old English follows the sense of these last stanzas, but in an abbreviated form: die there because no one is born there; there is no pain, or sorrow, or longing or conflict of evil desire." 84 Hildegard L. C. Tristram, "Stock Descriptions of Heaven and Hell in Old English Prose and Poetry," NM 79 (1978), 102-13. 85 BH, pp. 103-5. "There is eternal joy without sadness and youth without old age. There is no grief or labour, or any uneasiness, or sorrow, or weeping, or hunger, or thirst, or eternal evil. There no man finds his enemy or abandons his friend."

Conclusion
In composing an Old English homily on the fleeting nature of earthly joys, an anonymous homilist turned to the Hiberno-Latin poem De mundi transitu. This homilist clearly understood the poem's contents and recognized its relevance for the theme of his homily. While his adaptation stays close to the sense of his source, nothing of Columbanus's highly complex form and structure appears to have been retained in the Old English text. Instead, the poem has been transformed into relatively unembellished prose and occasionally mixed with homiletic commonplaces. In a foundational article on source criticism, Charles Wright described the research into the sources of Old English homilies as ultimately "unfinished business."89 Indeed, the identification of Columbanus's De mundi transitu as a source for an anonymous Old English composite homily in Bodley 343 raises more questions than have been answered in this paper. Aside from the matters of textual criticism dealt with above, scholars may wish to investigate the exact manner of how the Latin poem was transposed into Old English and how the treatment of this source compares to how this homily's other sources were transformed in the process of composition. For the study of the Hiberno-Latin source text, its use in an Old English homily also triggers various questions, such as how it became available in early medieval England and whether its manuscript transmission may be suggestive of earlier homiletic application. Moreover, in light of the poem's noted similarities to the Old English elegies, Columbanus's De mundi transitu as a potential analogue of these Old English poems may deserve more than a passing mention.