More of Aelfric's Other Women: Melantia, Eutychia, and Aphrodosia

Several scholars in recent years have sought to discern Ælfric’s attitude toward women by analyzing his treatment of the six major female saints whose passiones Ælfric translated: Eugenia, Agnes, Agatha, Lucia, Æthelthryth, and Cecilia.  The degree to which we may be able to measure Ælfric’s attitude, however, depends not just on his treatment of the major female saints in Lives of Saints, but also on his treatment of the female supporting characters.  These other women, who appear for a brief time and then exit in the continuing flow of the narrative, might be dealt with more freely than the saints in whose legends they appear.  In addition, they represent a wide variety of characters: good, bad, noble, common, widows, wives, and mothers.  Because these women are not the focus of attention, Ælfric’s treatment of them in his translations may provide just as much insight into his attitudes about women as his treatment of the major female saints.  In an earlier paper presented in Kalamazoo I began to explore this topic by looking at Ælfric’s depiction of an unnamed wife and also of the saintly wife, Zoe.  In the paper I am proposing for SEMA’a conference, I continue to explore Ælfric’s treatment of minor female characters by examining his portrayal of three women, Melantia, Eutychia, and Aphrodosia, and comparing Ælfric’s depiction to the portrayal of these women in the Latin exemplars in order to determine how and to what extent Ælfric shapes the account of these women differently from the Latin authors.