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The Politics of Succession in "Beowulf" and Anglo-Saxon England

This is an essay about change and the perception of change. There can have been few more fraught moments for Anglo-Saxon kingdoms than the transitions fol lowing the end of one rule and the establishing of the next; yet since a variety of traditions must have been used both to guide and to explain the outcomes, the historical record as a whole suggests a gradual evolution in the rules governing succession rather than a sharp break or a series of disruptions. This essay argues that Beowulf provides a different perspective on the issue because the poet iden tifies a cause, the arrival of Christianity in England, for a significant change and explores the strengths and weaknesses of what he perceives to be two opposing views, the older Germanic assumptions about eligibility for the throne and the newer Christian ideals. While I have begun to show that his concern with this topic can be found throughout he work,1 it seems appropriate that it may perhaps be seen most clearly in Beowulf's most obviously transitional section, fitt 31 (lines 2144-2220),2 a section in which Beowulf appears to become a Geatish king not once but twice. This fitt plays a pivotal role in the work, concluding as it does the main char acter's exploits among the Danes and beginning the events that will lead to the end of his fifty-year reign over the Geats. Indeed, it is not only the fitt structure of the poem as a whole but also its own structure that suggests the poet joins the material for some purpose: it opens with Beowulf passing the treasure he has received from the Danish king Hrothgar to the Geatish king Hygelac and con cludes with the theft of treasure from the dragon, whom he will die fighting and with whose hoard he will be buried. Yet some of its material seems genuinely puzzling, an impression increased by the damage to folio 179r on which the fitt