Anglo-Saxon England is the only publication which consistently embraces all the main aspects of study of Anglo-Saxon history and culture - linguistic, literary, textual, palaeographic, religious, intellectual, historical, archaeological and artistic - and which promotes the more unusual interests - in music or medicine or education, for example. Articles in volume 32 include: On argumentation in Old English philology, with particular reference to the editing and dating of Beowulf; Knowledge of the writings of John Cassian in early Anglo-Saxon England; The earliest manuscript of Bede's metrical Vita S. Cudbercti; An Anglo-Saxon runic coin and its adventures in Sweden; The sources of the Old English Martyrology; The Old English Benedictine Rule: Writing for women and men; The trick of the runes in The Husband's Message; A late Saxon inscribed pendant from Norfolk; Illustrations of damnation in late Anglo-Saxon manuscripts; The use of writs in the eleventh century; Bibliography for 2002.

Byrhtferth of Ramsey was one of the most learned scholars of late Anglo-Saxon England, and his two saints' Lives-of Oswald, a powerful bishop of Worcester and York in the tenth century (d. 992), and Ecgwine, the seventh-century founder of Evesham-are among the most important historical sources for our understanding of late Anglo-Saxon England.
The Life of St Oswald is the longest surviving work of Anglo-Saxon hagiography, and it is the principal source for much of our knowledge of tenth-century England, especially the monastic reform movement, the role of King Edgar, the murder of Edward king and Martyr, and the so-called "anti-monastic reaction" (of which he is the unique witness). Much less is known about St Ecgwine, both by us and by Byrhtferth, but Byrhtferth's writing has exceptional value once again for the light it throws on tenth-century monasticism and the role of King Edgar in this process.
Both Lives have been printed only once before, in the nineteenth century, in editions which are riddled with errors and which have misled scholarship for over a century. Neither work has ever been translated into English. The present edition includes facing-page translations, which will make these works accessible to a scholarly audience for the first time. Byrhtferth's Latin is unusually idiosyncratic and difficult, and was frequently misunderstood by the scribe who copied the unique manuscript in which the Lives are preserved. The texts are also accompanied by extensive notes, which explain the historical implications and the often impenetrable Latin. One of the principal features of the new edition is that corruption in the transmitted text has been emended where necessary, based on knowledge of Byrhtferth's Latin style (analyzed, for example, in the EETS edition of Byrhtferth's Enchiridion, ed. Lapidge and Baker in 1994).
A new edition of Byrhtferth's two saints' Lives has been long awaited, and will be indispensable to the study of Anglo-Saxon history and literature; the texts also throw considerable new light on the archaeology of Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical sites such as York, Worcester, Ramsey and Evesham.

This Companion has been thoroughly revised to take account of recent scholarship and to provide a clear and accessible introduction for those encountering Old English literature for the first time. Including seventeen essays by distinguished scholars, this new edition provides a discussion of the literature of the period 600 to 1066 in the context of how Anglo-Saxon society functioned. New chapters cover topics including preaching and teaching, Beowulf and literacy, and a further five chapters have been revised and updated, including those on the Old English language, perceptions of eternity and Anglo-Saxon learning. An additional concluding chapter on Old English after 1066 offers an overview of the study and cultural influences of Old English literature to the present day. Finally, the further reading list has been overhauled to incorporate the most up-to-date scholarship in the field and the latest electronic resources for students.

Essays investigating the writings attributed to Columbanus, influential 0c founder of Luxeuil and Bobbio. Columbanus (d.615), the Irish monk and founder of such important centres as Luxeuil and Bobbio, was one of the most influential figures in early medieval Europe. His fiery personality led him into conflict with Gallic bishops andRoman popes, and he defended his position on such matters as monastic discipline in a substantial corpus of Latin writings marked by burning conviction and rhetorical skill. However, the polish of his style has raised questions about the nature of his early training in Ireland and even about the authenticity of the writings which have come down to us under his name. The studies in this volume attempt to address these questions: by treating each of the individual writings comprehensively, and drawing on recently-developed techniques of stylistic analysis new light is shed on Columbanus and his early education in Ireland. More importantly, doubts over the authenticity of certain writings attributed to Columbanus are here authoritatively resolved, so putting the study of this cardinal figure on a sound basis.Professor MICHAEL LAPIDGE teaches in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, Universityof Cambridge. Contributors: DONALD BULLOUGH, NEIL WRIGHT, CLARE STANCLIFFE, JANE STEVENSON, T.M. CHARLES-EDWARDS, DIETER SCHALLER, MICHAEL LAPIDGE, DAIBHI O CROININ

An engaging and accessible introduction to the writings and intellectual development of the Venerable Bede (d.735), this book (originally published in 1970) is available again for the enjoyment of all those interested in the early medieval world. With an updated preface and supplementary bibliography by Michael Lapidge, the book is based almost entirely on primary sources, particularly Bede's own writings. The book surveys the fragmented state of Britain after the Anglo-Saxon conquests, tracing the - sometimes faltering - rebirth of Christianity from the time of St. Augustine through to the glories of the golden age of Northumbria in the eighth century. What was Bede's contribution to the growth of scholarship? Why is his famous Ecclesiastical History of the English Church and People still so highly regarded? How did Bede see his own age? What traditions most influenced him? Peter Hunter Blair answers all these questions, assessing Bede sympatheticaly in all the fields in which he was active, as teacher, orthographer, moral philospher, grammarian, theologian, natural scientist and, above all, as our first modern historian.

Glossaries are one of the most important sources for our knowledge of early medieval schools, for they provide an accurate records of what texts were studied and how they were understood. But they are also very difficult to access: countless glossaries lie unpublished in manuscript, the relations between them are unknown, and their origins are obscure. The most important contribution to solving these problems was made by Wallace Martin Lindsay (1858-1937), one of the greatest classical scholars ever produced in the British Isles, who in a pioneering series of articles identified the principal glossaries and clarified their relationships; he subsequently oversaw their publication in Glossaria Latina. So comprehensive was Lindsay's work that the subject virtually stood still for half a century; but recent advances in paleography and Insular Latin studies have drawn scholarly attention to glossaries once again. Any future work on glossaries must be based on Lindsay's pioneering articles; to facilitate such work, these articles have been provided with comprehensive indices of the Latin lemmata and sources of the glossaries, together with an account of recent work on medieval glossaries.

The field of Hiberno-Latin literature, a term coined to describe the Latin literature written in Ireland, or by Irishmen abroad, between 400 and 1500, was first defined by the late Mario Esposito. His work, too, revealed its vast extent and range, so enabling a significantly better understanding of the importance of Irish scholarship in the cultural history of the Western Middle Ages. This volume concentrates on Hiberno-Latin authors, and on texts composed in Ireland; a second collection of Esposito's articles contains studies on Irish learning and texts written on the Continent. The great strength of his research is that it is founded on unparalleled knowledge of the manuscripts - many of which, indeed, no longer survive. The articles, now provided with extensive indexes to facilitate their consultation, therefore form the essential basis and guide for any further enquiry into the authors dealt with or their works.

Translation with notes of Aldhelm's famous treatise on virginity, and his less well-known letters. Aldhelm, born c.640 in Wessex, and becoming abbot of Malmesbury and later bishop of Sherborne, was the first English man of letters; up to 1100, his prose writings were the most widely read of any Latin literature produced in Anglo-Saxon England. His surviving prose works include a long treatise De virginitate, and a number of letters; these in particular are an important source of knowledge concerning Anglo-Saxon England. The treatise, a lengthy exhortation on virtue addressed to nuns at Barking Abbey, is a fascinating series of exempla drawn from the prodigious range of Aldhelm's knowledge of patristic literature, and tailored to the expectations of a seventh-century Anglo-Saxon female audience. Because of the extreme difficulty of his Latin, however, Aldhelm's prose works have rarely been read, and have never been adequately appreciated - which this translation seeks to remedy. It is accompanied with an introduction outlining Aldhelm's central importance to Anglo-Saxon literary culture; a critical biography which throws new light on what has previously been assumed about him; and an essay establishing an accurate canon and chronology of his writings.

Latin translation, uncorrupted by the chronological dislocation which has affected every other text. Edition of an important witness to the development of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, preserving in Latin translation a text uncorrupted by the major chronological dislocation which has affected every other text of the work. Includes the earliest surviving Life of St Neot, one of the compiler's sources.

Originally published in 1985, fourteen leading specialists in the field of Anglo-Saxon studies contributed to this substantial collection of essays in honour of Peter Clemoes, founder of Anglo-Saxon England, who had recently retired as Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon in the University of Cambridge. The book is divided into two complementary parts. The first looks at the background to Anglo-Saxon learning, in particular at the composition of monastic and private libraries and the nature of the individual works available in them. The second examines the contents and sources of individual texts and reviews the problems of interpretation and transmission these pose for scholars. Many of these essays deal with complex and difficult materials like manuscripts and liturgical sources that are fundamental to the interpretation of Old English literature and to Anglo-Saxon culture in general.

The Early Lives of St Dunstan contains new editions, with translation and extensive commentary, of the two earliest Lives of St Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury (960-88) and one of the principal figures of the tenth-century English church. The two Lives were composed in the early eleventh century (within a few years of Dunstan's death in 988), and provide eye-witness accounts of some of the most important events in the archbishop's long and troubled life. Neither of them has been translated before; the provision of translations and commentary facilitates a new understanding of this cardinal figure of the pre-Conquest English church. Neither Life has been edited since the nineteenth century; the editions in the present book are based on a wholly new interpretation of the manuscript evidence for the two works, so that the text which is presented here is radically different from the text currently in use (that of William Stubbs, published in 1874); furthermore, the excruciatingly difficult Latin of the author of the earliest Life, who names himself only as B., has hindered historians from acquiring a proper understanding of Dunstan's life and achievements. The new translation, in combination with detailed philological and historical notes, allows scholarly access to the work for the very first time, and allows a fresh assessment of many aspects of tenth-century English history.

Four very different kinds of Anglo-Saxon thinking are clarified in this volume: traditions, learned and oral, about the settlement of the country, study of foreign-language grammar, interest in exotic jewels as reflections of the glory of God, and a mainly rational attitude to medicine. Publication of no less than three discoveries augments our corpus of manuscript evidence. The nature of Old English poetry is illuminated, and a useful summary of the editorial treatment of textual problems in Beowulf is provided. A re-examination of the accounts of the settlement in Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle yields insights into the processes of Anglo-Saxon learned historiography and oral tradition. A thorough-going analysis of an under-studied major work, Bald's Leechbook, demonstrates that the compiler, perhaps in King Alfred's reign, translated selections from a wide range of Latin texts in composing a well-organized treatise directed against the diseases prevalent in his time. The usual comprehensive bibliography of the previous year's publications in all branches of Anglo-Saxon studies rounds off the book.

Among the diverse topics covered in this volume is a pioneer account of a unique group of Anglo-Saxon embroideries preserved on the continent and the publication of a previously unknown charter. Themes illuminated are as varied as the status of women, early urban history, the nature of medical collections, the standing of Marian feasts and the function of musical notation. The study of Old English poetry is advanced textually, codicologically, culturally, linguistically and critically. Innovation and established practice go hand-in-hand: a record of the first conference of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists and versions of six papers read at conference are included. The usual comprehensive bibliography of the previous year's publications in all branches of Anglo-Saxon studies rounds off the book.

Was Old English metre really based on stress and rhythm? Do we really know that a particular glossed manuscript of a Latin curriculum author was used in an Anglo-Saxon classroom and, if so, how? How were disputes about bookland dealt with? What happened to the last male representative of the West Saxon royal line after the Norman Conquest? And what are the implications of the Taylors' great work on Anglo-Saxon architecture for related studies? These are among the challenging questions taken up in this book. The publication of findings concerning a striking sculptured stone unearthed at Repton and an interpretation of a panel on the Ruthwell Cross bring us close to some distinctive Anglo-Saxon ways of thinking. So do two source studies of vernacular prose, a demonstration of Aldhelm's interest in how a name is related to its referent, and a searching enquiry into early Anglo-Saxon kingship. Textual criticism and phonology are put to good use too. The usual comprehensive bibliography of the previous year's publications in all branches of Anglo-Saxon studies rounds off the book.

Areas of study pursued in this book include a revealing grammatical document from eighth-century Northumbria; renewed excavations at Sutton Hoo are reported; the existence of an unnoticed late Old English prose version of parts of Gregory's Dialogues is pointed out. Fresh thinking is directed to topics as interesting and diverse as a design on the Sutton Hoo purse lid; the origin of a little-considered English decorated manuscript containing lives of saints now in Paris; the enigmatic poem Wulf and Eadwacer; word order as an element on Old English poetic style; surviving traces of the teaching which Theodore and Hadrian delivered in England; the career of a Latin text much studied in English schools for its difficult vocabulary; the political aspects of relic cults during the last century and a half of Anglo-Saxon monarchy; and the organization of the invading armies led by Swein Forkbeard and Cnut. The usual comprehensive bibliography of the previous year's publications in all branches of Anglo-Saxon studies rounds off the book; there is also a comprehensive index to volumes 11-15.

This volume offers fundamental evidence and discussion illuminating a wide range of important subjects: possible influence of Cicero on Bede's attitude to rhetoric; the probability that Theodore and Hadrian brought a glossary from Italy to England; the traditional concept of the narrator in Old English poetry; the nationality of the author of the Old English poem Genesis B; the conceptions of history controlling the Old English Orosius; the establishment of Square minuscule as the standard English script of the tenth century; criteria for distinguishing between Anglo-Saxon script written in England and script written by Anglo-Saxons on the continent; the grounds for claiming that certain surviving pre-Conquest manuscripts were once at Glastonbury; the extent of the circulation of Prudentius's Psychomachia in Anglo-Saxon England; the regional distribution of names of different origins among the moneyers of the Anglo-Danish era. Early and late periods and north and south thus find a place in this searching treatment of intellectual, cultural and settlement issues. The usual comprehensive bibliography rounds off the book.

This volume explores many fundamental questions regarding Anglo-Saxon history. Among those considered is the question of did the earliest English prose really divide into a Mercian tradition and a separate West Saxon one? What is the full roll-call of extant texts containing late Old English 'Winchester' words? How far was Anglo-Saxon medicine hocus-pocus and how far the fruit of deliberate experimentation? How much Greek vocabulary was known in Anglo-Saxon England, and how was it known and how used? How did Anglo-Saxon land law work in practice? Advances in scholarship, application of modern scientific knowledge of a type not normally available, fresh directions of thought, original analysis, stricter criteria and additions to the stock of primary evidence all characterize this book. The usual comprehensive bibliography of the previous year's publications in all branches of Anglo-Saxon studies rounds off the book.

This volume makes important contributions to our stock of primary manuscript evidence: it recovers parts of six previously unrecorded charters and analyses two sets of fragments, each unique in its own way - two leaves of Old Testament text written in Mercia or Canterbury early in the ninth century and six leaves of a missal written at Worcester in the mid-eleventh century. Significant issues in both ecclesiastical and secular history are tackled too - the location of Lindsey, the fate of Rutland during the Scandinavian invasions and settlements, and the state of our knowledge of the archaeology of the Five Boroughs of Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, Stamford and Lincoln. Vernacular literature receives its fair share of attention as well: the relationship between author and audience is examined in the cases of a biblical poem and of the prose homiliary which is still least well understood among the principle ones extant. The usual comprehensive bibliography of the previous year's publications in all branches of Anglo-Saxon studies rounds off the book.

The principal emphasis of this book is the relationship between England and its neighbours in the pre-Conquest period. It brings together fresh information of England's place in the early medieval world, with essays concentrating on finance and trade, travel, learning and education. A detailed analysis of the Old English vocabulary for money and wealth shows different usage over two centuries reflects a developing awareness, particularly on the part of AElfric, of the relationship between wealth and power. Medical recipes in Bald's Leechbook, which stipulate the use of exotic spices from Arabia, have stimulated a fascinating essay on how these ingredients may have made their way from Arabia and the Mediterranean to England. Other essays in this wide-ranging book examine the Old English Rune Poem in the context of its two later Scandinavian analogues; the use in England of Jerome's Hebracium translation of the psalter; and the study in English schools of the difficult verse of Abbo of Saint-Germain-des-Pres. The usual comprehensive bibliography of the previous year's publications in all branches of Anglo-Saxon studies rounds off the book.

This book illustrates some of the exciting paths of enquiry being explored in many different fields of Anglo-Saxon studies - archaeology, legal history, palaeography, Old English syntax and poetic, Latin learning with its many reflexes in Old English prose literature, and others. In all these fields it is clear that fresh perspectives may be achieved by examining even well-known objects and texts in the light of modern approaches and scholarship. Several studies concentrate on aspects of early Anglo-Saxon civilization: the settlement at Mucking, Essex; the iconography of the famous gold coin struck in the name of Bishop Liudhard; the early Anglo-Saxon law on adultery; and a reconstruction of an early Anglo-Saxon copy of the Heptateuch. The usual comprehensive bibliography of the previous year's publications in all branches of Anglo-Saxon studies rounds off the book, with a five-year index to volumes 16-20 (previous indexes being in volumes 5, 10 and 15).

The vitality of Anglo-Saxon studies is reflected in the continuing acquisition of fresh knowledge and perspectives gained from the combination of disparate but complementary skills and disciplines. Evidence presented in this book reveals unsuspected aspects of the influence of Aldhelm's Latin poetry in early medieval Spain. The many non-runic inscriptions which have been discovered since 1980 are catalogued and analysed. Comprehensive analysis of a little-understood Latin source of the Old English medical treatise known as Bald's Leechbook throws light not only on the English text but also, surprisingly, on the transmissional history of the Latin source. The decoration of an important manuscript from the early tenth century, the Tanner Bede, is set in the context of tenth-century developments in manuscript illumination, and the analysis of the Regularis concordia from an architectural point of view permits fresh understanding of the layout of monastic churches in the later Anglo-Saxon period. The usual comprehensive bibliography of the previous year's publications in all branches of Anglo-Saxon studies rounds off the book.

That Alcuin addressed to the monks of Lindisfarne the question, 'What has Ingeld to do with Christ?', is a much repeated dogma in Old English studies; but in this book close examination of the letter in question shows that it was addressed not to Lindisfarne nor to a monastic community, but to a bishop in Mercia. That 'Ultan the scribe' was responsible for some of the most lavishly illuminated Anglo-Saxon manuscripts is shown to be another untenable dogma. Fresh perspectives from interdisciplinary study: the 'beasts-of-battle' typescenes which are characteristic of Old English poetry are studied in the wider context of other European literatures. The nasty Viking habit of murdering hostages by throwing bones at them (as happened to St AElfeah) is illuminated by a wide-ranging study of analogues in Scandinavian literatures. Characteristic features of Aldhelm's enigmata are elucidated by the study of Byzantine riddles, thereby revealing a link between England and the Greek orient. The usual comprehensive bibliography of the previous year's publications rounds off the book.

One of the most important primary sources for our knowledge of Anglo-Saxon England is the charters and manuscripts which survive from the period before 1066. In the present book, two complementary essays treat the charters of mid tenth-century English kings, bringing previously unknown documents to light, establishing the circumstances in which they were produced, and demonstrating that changes in practice in the royal chancery had far-reaching effect on all aspects of Anglo-Saxon script and book production. The question of the medieval representation of women is illuminated by a study of the difficulties which a well-known monastic author, AElfric, faced in characterizing an Old Testament heroine who used her body to achieve her ends, while a number of traditional assumptions about the property rights of divorced women in England are freshly challenged by close philological analysis of surviving law-codes. The usual comprehensive bibliography of the previous year's publications in all branches of Anglo-Saxon studies rounds off the book.

Our knowledge of Anglo-Saxon England depends wholly on the precise and detailed study of the texts that have come down to us from pre-Conquest times. The present book contains pioneering studies of some of these sources which have been neglected or misunderstood. A comprehensive study of a group of lavish gospelbooks written under the patronage of a late Anglo-Saxon countess, Judith of Flanders (sometime wife of the Earl Tostig who was killed at Stamford Bridge in 1066) shows the importance of these artefacts and provides fresh understanding of the transmission of the gospels in late eleventh-century England. Close analysis of the Libellus AEthelwoldi, a neglected Latin translation of a late tenth-century documentary record of the estates acquired by the redoubtable Bishop AEthelwold for Ely Abbey, throws significant light on the operations of the laws of land tenure in the late tenth century. These and other more traditional lines of enquiry are the focus of this book. The usual comprehensive bibliography of the previous year's publications in all branches of Anglo-Saxon studies rounds off the book.

Material evidence brought to light in this book includes a niello disc from Limpsfield Grange (Surrey) and two fragments of a composite Old English homily discovered in Westminster Abbey. Many previously accepted scholarly positions are reassessed and challenged. A comprehensive assessment of the palaeography of the Exeter Book situates it in the context of late tenth-century book production, and shows that there are no grounds for thinking that the manuscript originated in Exeter itself and that its origin must as yet remain unknown. As always, the interpretation of Old English poetry figures largely in this book. One of the most intriguing of the Old English riddles is explained convincingly. The influence of Aldhelm's Latin poetry on Old English verse is also convincingly demonstrated. The usual comprehensive bibliography of the previous year's publications rounds off the book; and a full index of the contents of volumes 1 25 is provided, with a separate index to volumes 21 25. (Previous indexes have appeared in volumes 5, 10, 15 and 20.)