In the course of this work Professor Cross presents the discovery of the actual manuscript source for the Old English versions of two biblical apocrypha, The Gospel of Nichodemus and The Avenging of the Saviour. Together with four other scholars, Professor Cross explores the implications of this discovery, in the field of Anglo-Saxon studies. Here, parallel editions of the relevant Latin and Old English texts are given, together with modern English translations, and detailed discussion outlines the background to the Latin texts, and to the manuscript which contains them. The assembled material provides an insight not only into the transmission of two apocryphal texts, but also into the mind of the single Anglo-Saxon translator who, it is argued, struggled in his own idiosyncratic fashion to make two badly spelt and incomplete Latin originals his own.

The collection opens with Gneuss's Rawlinson Center lecture, delivered just a few months prior to the Handlist's publication. The lecture is followed by essays by Donald Scragg and Thomas N. Hall that examine the scribes, contents, circumstances of production, and intended uses of selected manuscripts from the late Anglo-Saxon period. Four essays follow, by Kees Dekker, Rebecca Brackmann, Aaron J Kleist, and Rolf H. Bremmer Jr., investigating the fates of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts at the hands of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century antiquaries. The resulting collection addresses the concerns of Anglo-Saxon manuscript studies today, which have been given new energy by the publication of the Handlist.

In the course of this book Professor Cross presents the discovery of the actual manuscript source for the Old English versions of two biblical apocrypha, The Gospel of Nichodemus and The Avenging of the Saviour. In collaboration with four other scholars, Professor Cross explores the implications of this discovery. Here, parallel editions of the relevant Latin and Old English texts are given, together with modern English translations, and detailed discussion outlines the background to the Latin texts, and to the manuscript which contains them. The assembled material provides an insight not simply into the transmission of two apocryphal texts, but also into the mind of the single Anglo-Saxon translator who, it is argued, struggled in his own idiosyncratic fashion to make two badly spelt and incomplete Latin originals his own.