ANGLO SAXON POETRY - CYNEWULF

mægða weolman

Of Cynewulf we know little beyond the fact that the dialect he employs places him as a native of Merica, the West-Midland of England of the early ninth century, and that he was probably conversant with Latin, since not only the contents, but also the grammar, structure and even sometimes the syntax of his poems all show a marked similarity to Latin originals (Opland 1980:157).
  The other poets who wrote about religious themes at the time were probably equally conversant with this language.

Just as dulia constituted an element of the tenets of the Anglo-Saxon's Christian belief, so too did hyperdulia play a key role in his religion.
  Once again, Marian poetry of the period appears to have been written for the edification of the Christian in an attempt to demonstrate the heights to which the individual may rise when he or she conforms his or her will to the will of God.

This is illustrated in the three Christ poems: Christ I - the Advent Lyrics, Christ II - The Ascension and Christ III - The Judgement.
  Although some scholars ascribe the authorship of the entire trilogy to Cynewulf, only the second text bears his Runic signature.

A study by Claes Schaar (Calder 1979:45), which determined that the literature on the Cynewulf canon lacked "systematic comparison and . . . real analysis" has led to a limiting of the Cynewulf canon to the signed poems.

Extracts from the Christ and Doomsday or Judgement Day poems, which jointly account for some 2 300 lines of the known surviving Anglo-Saxon poems, give an indication of the attitude of the Anglo-Saxon Christian towards the Blessed Virgin.

Cynewulf's reference to Mary in Christ II - The Ascension is as striking as it is brief:

                                                                          . . . se Ælmihtga

ãcenned wearð            þurh clænne hãd,

sippan he Marian,        mægða weolman,

mærre meowlan,           mundheals geceas-

               (443-6)

                         ... the Almighty

was born                 out of a state of chastity

after he (chose the

protection of) Mary      the flower of virgins,

the glorious virgin      [protection chose]

Or, as Bradley translates it: "after he had chosen the sanctuary of Mary/ the flower of maidens/ the illustrious Virgin" (445-446).

Here, by failing to distinguish Christ, the Son of God, who was in fact conceived in Mary through the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, but rather including him in the collective term used to denote the Trinity,  se Ælmihtga  (443) [the Almighty], Cynewulf achieves the effect of suggesting that the three persons of the One Godhead were undivided and at one in the choice of the woman who bore the Messiah.

In describing Mary as mægða weolman (445) [the flower of maidens], he establishes that, though she was but a simple girl among all other girls, she achieved so bountiful a flowering of her potential that it raised her above all other women.
  By juxtaposing the term mærre meowlan (446) [of the glorious Virgin] with mægða weolman, Cynewulf emphasises the contrast implicit in the elevation of a simple girl to a woman of majesty once God's choice of a mother for his Son fell upon Mary.

The Christians of Cynewulf's era appear to have regarded God's choice of Mary as His vessel to bear the Messiah as so exalted a mark of distinction that they considered it to be an act of reverence to God to honour the Blessed Virgin likewise, and believed that therefore, far from diminishing God's greatness, their praise of God's favored ones actually represented an endeavor on their part to enhance God's glory.

Cynewulf Christ translated by Charles W Kennedy
http://www.yorku.ca/inpar/Christ_Kennedy.pdf

Full text of 'The Christ of Cynewulf: A Poem in Three Parts'
http://archive.org/stream/christcynewulf00cyneuoft/christcynewulf00cyneuoft.txt