SOURCE: “Aelfric the Catechist,” in De Ore Domini: Preacher and Word in the Middle Ages, Medieval Institute Publications, 1989, pp. 61-74.

In the following excerpt, Green examines Ælfric's pre-Lenten and Lenten sermons, praising his organization, sensitivity to his audience, and use of common speech.

Aelfric's homilies left a record of Christian education during the tenth and eleventh centuries that outdistances the efforts of anyone else for centuries on either side of his life.¹ In order that a congregation might listen to a homily twice monthly, he wrote a homily for approximately every second Sunday in a two-year cycle. To teach gospel truth or evangelical doctrine is the chief concern and motive force behind all of Aelfric's preaching and the chief explanation for its strong catechetical character. Aelfric's educational, catechetical goals and his orthodoxy are signalled strongly by his returning literally hundreds of times to the word lare (teaching); to...