First published in 1998, this volume brings together some of the best recent work on the period before and after the Norman Conquest and makes an irresistible case for a number of fundamental revisions in our understanding of the culture of Anglo-Saxon and Norman England. Combining the use of novel techniques such as digital image processing with the best current practice in textual and iconographic study, this volume broadens the scope and applicability of manuscript studies, showing, for example, the falsity of prevailing notions of the vitality and status of the native English tongue after the Conquest. The essays combine to make a coherent and persuasive demonstration of the benefits of not remaining bound to the physical artifact but rather connecting codicology with practical and theoretical applications within manuscript studies and other historical disciplines.

First published in 1998, this volume brings together some of the best recent work on the period before and after the Norman Conquest and makes an irresistible case for a number of fundamental revisions in our understanding of the culture of Anglo-Saxon and Norman England. Combining the use of novel techniques such as digital image processing with the best current practice in textual and iconographic study, this volume broadens the scope and applicability of manuscript studies, showing, for example, the falsity of prevailing notions of the vitality and status of the native English tongue after the Conquest. The essays combine to make a coherent and persuasive demonstration of the benefits of not remaining bound to the physical artifact but rather connecting codicology with practical and theoretical applications within manuscript studies and other historical disciplines.

This collection of essays, first published in 2000, aims to redefine the limits of Old English scholarship by studying some of the recent reworkings of texts composed earlier in the Anglo-Saxon period and their implications for the development of literary production across time. The essays in the volume constitute recent work on a wide range of texts, including homilies, saints' lives, psalters and biblical material; some focus on individual manuscripts incorporating palaeographic and orthographic studies; others use modern critical theory to examine later Old English texts; and all highlight the need to redefine our attitude to late recopying. The volume engages with important issues, including the nature of textual transmission and recomposition and its relationship to late Old English reader-response; attitudes to earlier material as evidenced in its recopying and adaptation; and the character of surviving manuscripts and what these tell us about the twelfth-century scribes and scriptoria, reading and readers.

This innovative collection of essays aims to redefine the limits of Old English scholarship by studying some of the latest reworkings of texts composed earlier in the Anglo-Saxon period and their implications for the development of literary production across time. The essays in the volume constitute new work on a wide range of texts, including homilies, saints' lives, psalters and biblical material; some focus on individual manuscripts incorporating paleographic and orthographic studies; others use modern critical theory to examine later Old English texts; and all highlight the need to redefine our attitude to late recopying. The volume engages with important issues, including the nature of textual transmission and recomposition and its relationship to late Old English reader response.