‘He is to freonde god’: Wealth and Avarice in Cynewulf’s Juliana

Abstract

Abstract This article explores the motif of wealth and avarice in the Old English Juliana. It examines the changes that Cynewulf brings to his Latin source, specifically to the portrayal of Juliana’s pagan antagonists. They are depicted as rich and greedy men, indicated by Heliseus’s hoarded wealth and by Affricanus’s mention of the financial obligations that a marriage between his daughter and Heliseus would create. Various relevant historical and theological contexts that the poem mobilizes are discussed, as they shed light on issues of wealth and its proper uses. This article argues that the pagans’ avarice is central to the poem’s design and it offers new readings of Juliana as a poem that speaks to the duties of those in power, to the contingent nature of earthly rule, and to the perils of wealth.