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 But they are also very difficult to access: countless glossaries lie unpublished in manuscript, the relations between them are unknown, and their origins are obscure.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.

Translations from the Latin of the ingenious works of Aldelm, first English man of letters. Introduction, bibliography and notes to the texts included. Aldhelm was the first Latin poet of Europe who was not a native speaker of Latin. The ingenuity and originality which he brought to the task of composing Latin poetry ensured that his poems would be widely read everywhere, but they were studied especially in England during the early medieval period. Aldhelm's poetic corpus includes the Carmina Ecclesiastica, a series of dedicatory poems which contain a wealth of detail about early Anglo-Saxon churches; the Carmen de Virginitate, a verse counterpart to his earlier prose De Virginitate, but which includes an extensive passage describing an allegorical battle of the vices and virtues; a collection of 100 riddles or Enigmata, which are an imaginative investigation of the structure of the natural world; and a brief rhythmical poem describing the effects of a mighty storm in southwest England. In each of the poetic genres he essayed, Aldhelm found a host of later imitators, and it is not an exaggeration to say that he was the most influential Latin poet whose works were studied in Anglo-Saxon England; indeed, many surviving Old English poems are simple translations or adaptations of Latin poems by Aldhelm. The translations are presented here with an introduction outlining what is known of Aldhelm's life and writings, and an appendix by NEIL WRIGHT contains a translation of Aldhelm's De Metris, a technical treatise on the composition of Latin verse.

[This] exemplary interdisciplinary approach to Aethelwold and his impart on the cultural, religious and political life of southern England in his own day is to be applauded. JOURNAL OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY AEthelwold's life and his political and ecclesiastical importance in the 10th-century reformation receive thorough scholarly scrutiny in this appraisal of his life and work. The studies include a comparison of AEthelwold's career with that of other European monastic reformers; a study of AEthelwold's foundation at Abingdon; and of his involvement with the political crises of the 10th century. AEthelwold's skills as a scholar are assessed through surviving Latin and Old Englist texts, and as a teacher from the writings of his pupils. The scholarly work of his foundations is highlighted by a detailed study of the text of the Benedictional of St AEthelwold; other essays look at themusic and sculpture performed and produced at AEthelwold's foundations. Contributors: PATRICK WORMALD, ALAN THACKER, BARBARA YORKE, MICHAEL LAPIDGE, ANDREW PRESCOTT, MARY BERRY, ELIZABETH COATSWORTH

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

Most of these litanies, taken from nearly fifty manuscripts written or owned in Anglo-Saxon England, have never previously been printed. The texts of the litanies provide an indispensable resource for scholars seeking to understand the spirituality of Anglo-Saxon England, to localise the manuscript in which the litanies are contained, and to trace the development and diffusion of eary medieval saints' cults. The volume is accompanied by comprehensive indices of all the saints named in the litanies here printed, and of all the liturgical forms of prayer which they contain. It also includes an extensive introduction which traces the origin and development of this particular form of prayer in Anglo-Saxon England.MICHAEL LAPIDGEis Professor of Anglo-Saxon, University of Cambridge.

Gildas's 'De Excidio Britanniae' is the prime source of our knowledge of post-Roman Britain, but because it is such an isolated text, for which we have no obvious historical, geographical or cultural background, it is a work which raises more questions than answers. Much effort has been expended on extracting historical facts from 'De excidio', but Gildas did not set out to write history as we understand it. The common approach of the contributors to this volume is to look at tha author and his text on their own terms, for themselves rather than for the items of evidence which we can get out of them. Who was Gildas, and what was his position in society? What was his intellectual background - what he had learnt of Latin and Christian culture through his education, and what did he know of British language and literary traditions? What audience was he adressing? All these questions can be given some kind of answer by a close study of the text of the 'De excidio'. But there is also important evidence from Continental sources on early fifth-centyry Britain, and from Irish sources on Gildas's own repuation and career. This is a volume which no student of post-Roman Britain can afford to ignore; it does not attempt to present clear-cut conclusions or optimistic certainties, but establishes a basis on which further research can be carried out.

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.

This comprehensive collection includes Asser’s Life of Alfred, extracts from The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and Alfred’s own writings, laws, and will.

It is red-letter day in Anglo-Saxon studies when a previously unknown Old English text comes to light. In 2002, as the result of some outstanding scholarly detective work, a fragmentary homiliary, containing exegetical homilies for the Sundays after Pentecost, came to light in the Somerset County Records Office in Taunton. The manuscript apparently dates from the middle years of the eleventh century; but questions of when and where and by whom the homiliary was composed can only be answered by close philological study of the Old English text itself. The present volume of Anglo-Saxon England contains a printed edition of this interesting text, and detailed philological analysis leads to the extraordinary hypothesis that the text may have been composed by someone whose native language was not English, and who was apparently unfamiliar with the mainstream of English homiletic composition, best illustrated in the work of AElfric. The usual comprehensive bibliography of the previous year's publications in all branches of Anglo-Saxon studies rounds off the book.

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.

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.)

Although his historical and exegetical works are better known, Bede's small corpus of Latin poetry was widely read and imitated throughout the Middle Ages. Yet in spite of its importance as a keystone in medieval Latin literature, there has not previously been an attempt to collect and edit this corpus of verse in light of all the surviving manuscript evidence. Bede's Latin Poetry is the first edition of his poetic corpus based on all surviving manuscripts. It includes new editions of his two major poems, the 'Verses on Judgement Day' (Versus de die iudicii) and the metrical 'Life of St Cuthbert' (Vita metrica S. Cudbercti), and also includes reconstructions of his two other poetic collections - a book of epigrams and a book of hymns - which were not preserved intact during the Middle Ages and which have had to be assembled from various disparate sources. The editions of all these works are provided with translations and detailed notes, revealing Bede's debts to earlier poets, and illustrating his remarkable skill in understanding the intricacies of Latin verse composition. A series of appendices discuss and print many other poems which have been erroneously attributed to Bede by earlier editors, and include the first edition of a hitherto unknown early draft of his metrical 'Life of St Cuthbert'.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The cardinal role of Anglo-Saxon libraries in the transmission of classical and patristic literature to the later middle ages has long been recognized, for these libraries sustained the researches of those English scholars whose writings determined the curriculum of medieval schools: Aldhelm, Bede, and Alcuin, to name only the best known. Yet this is the first full-length account of the nature and holdings of Anglo-Saxon libraries from the sixth century to the eleventh.
The early chapters discuss libraries in antiquity, notably at Alexandria and republican and imperial Rome, and also the Christian libraries of late antiquity which supplied books to Anglo-Saxon England. Because Anglo-Saxon libraries themselves have almost completely vanished, three classes of evidence need to be combined in order to form a detailed impression of their holdings: surviving inventories, surviving manuscripts, and citations of classical and patristic works by Anglo-Saxon authors themselves.
After setting out the problems entailed in using such evidence, the book provides appendices containing editions of all surviving Anglo-Saxon inventories, lists of all Anglo-Saxon manuscripts exported to continental libraries during the eighth century and then all manuscripts re-imported into England in the tenth, as well as a catalogue of all citations of classical and patristic literature by Anglo-Saxon authors.
A comprehensive index, arranged alphabetically by author, combines these various classes of evidence so that the reader can see at a glance what books were known where and by whom in Anglo-Saxon England. The book thus provides, within a single volume, a vast amount of information on the books andlearning of the schools which determined the course of medieval literary culture.

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.