bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Money, power and morality in late Anglo-Saxon England
Authors: Godden M. R.
Published: September 2008

England was a wealthy country at the end of the Anglo-Saxon period, as P. H. Sawyer has reminded us; wealthy enough to tempt the Vikings to repeated raids and to pay them enormous sums in tribute while still maintaining a prosperous economy. It was also, increasingly, a country whose wealth was expressed in terms of money rather than other kinds of assets. There was an enormous volume of silver coinage in circulation, continually renewed and replaced by a veritable army of moneyers. Rents, taxes and fines were defined in monetary terms and apparently paid in that form, even by the peasantry. In land charters the traditional rhetoric asserting that grants are being made from affection, loyalty, reward for service or piety remains, but increasingly frequent references to sums of money suggest that a market in the buying and selling of land was developing. Archaeological evidence points to a steady shift away from such traditional manifestations of wealth as rings and ornamented swords and towards the expression of wealth in coinage. The growth of an urban society of artisans and traders within the largely defensive structures of the burhs initiated by King Alfred presumably played its part in these developments. All this was a stage in the gradual movement from a society in which wealth had been manifested in land and military equipment, granted to individuals in recognition of service and often held for one lifetime only, to one in which wealth was expressed in terms of money and acquired as a permanent possession through commercial activities; but the effect seems to have been particularly marked in the tenth and eleventh centuries.
England and Aquitaine in the century before the Norman Conquest
Authors: Beech George
Published: September 2008

A commonplace among English historians today is the importance of English ties with Aquitaine during the later Middle Ages. For some three centuries, historical events came to link the destinies of these two countries and peoples who otherwise differed strikingly in economy, language and culture in general, with lasting consequences for both. It has long been taken for granted by both English and French historians that this association came about abruptly in the 1150s as a result of the ascent to the English throne of Henry of Anjou who, through his marriage to Eleanor, heiress of the duchy of Aquitaine, became the sovereign of that enormous territorial principality. Till the present no one has suspected that any significant ties existed between the Anglo-Saxons and Aquitanians prior to that time. To be sure, the Anglo-Saxons had been in contact with the late Carolingian kings in the tenth century and with the Normans in the eleventh, but those were purely northern French phenomena. So too were the important Anglo-Saxon relations with the monks of Fleury-sur-Loire in the later tenth and early eleventh centuries, but these were not known to have had any repercussions in Aquitaine far to the south.
Archbishop Sigeric's journey to Rome in 990
Authors: Ortenberg Veronica
Published: September 2008

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Archbishop Sigeric of Canterbury went to Rome in 990, to fetch hispallium. Sigeric, formerly a monk of Glastonbury and then abbot of St Augustine's, Canterbury, had been consecrated bishop of Ramsbury in 985, and became archbishop of Canterbury at the end of 989 or at the beginning of 990, on the death of Archbishop Æthelgar. During the journey, or more likely, once he had returned to England, he committed to writing a diary covering his journey and his stay in Rome. This year, the 1000th anniversary of Sigeric's visit to the ‘city of St Peter’, as medieval travellers called Rome, seems a suitable time to undertake a new examination of the considerable devotional and artistic impact of the Roman pilgrimage on the cultural and spiritual life of the late Anglo-Saxon Church.
Adultery in early Anglo-Saxon society: Æthelberht 31 in comparison with continental Germanic law
Authors: Rivers Theodore John
Published: September 2008

As in other societies, adultery was a punishable offence among the Germanic peoples. Although it is a topic which has commanded considerable attention, it has been given attention not so much because it deals with family law and its significance to social history, as because it concerns the treatment of women. But closely related to the question of women, of course, is that of how men view each other. Even as early as Tacitus, evidence exists that Germanic women were treated with respect, and were subject to the protection ormundiumof male relatives. Although exaggerated, the account in theGermaniagives us some understanding of the role of Germanic women in respect of betrothal, marriage and family life. But it also leaves us with questions to which we most likely will never find answers.
The Liudhard medalet
Authors: Werner Martin
Published: September 2008

Although it is a precious and rare material testament to the introduction of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England, the Liudhard medalet (pl. I) has received surprisingly little scholarly attention. It is scarcely known to art historians. The aim of this paper is to draw attention to the emblem on the reverse of the issue, and to offer an hypothesis on its meaning. Discovered ‘some years’ before 1844 with other gold coins – looped for suspension as if for a necklace of medalets – and jewellery in or near the churchyard of St Martin's, Canterbury, and published in 1845, the medalet recently has been convincingly assigned to a group of grave goods deposited c. 580–90. Besides the coin in question, the group included an Italian tremissis of Justin II, a Germanic tremissis of unsure origin, a Merovingian solidus struck by Leudulf at Ivegio vico and two tremisses from southern France, the first from Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges, the second from Agen. Today these objects are in Liverpool, and Philip Grierson has persuasively argued for the inclusion of a Merovingian tremissis in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, as once forming part of the deposit. Most likely all the coins of the Canterbury group were issued during the second half of the sixth century.
The uncarpentered world of Old English poetry
Authors: Anderson Earl R.
Published: September 2008

Cultural archaism is often thought of as a natural concomitant of oral tradition, and by extension, of a literature that is influenced by oral tradition. In the case of Old English poetry, archaism might include residual pagan religious beliefs and practices, such as the funeral rites inBeowulfor the use of runes for sortilege, and certain outmoded aspects of social organization such as the idea of a state dependent upon thecomitatusfor military security. An example often cited is the adaptation of heroic terminology and detail to Christian topics. The compositional method in Cædmon's ‘Hymn’, for instance, is regarded by many scholars as an adaptation of panegyric epithets to the praise of God, although N. F. Blake has noted that heroic epithets in the poem could have derived their inspiration from the psalms. InThe Dream of the Rood, the image of Christ mounting the Cross as a warrior leaping to battle has been regarded variously as evidence of an artistic limitation imposed by oral tradition, or as a learned metaphor pointing to the divine and human nature of Christ and to the crucifixion as a conflict between Christ and the devil. The martyrdom of the apostles is represented as military conflict in Cynewulf'sFates of the Apostles, Christ and his apostles as king andcomitatusin Cynewulf'sAscension, and temptation by devils as a military attack inGuthlac A; these illustrate a point made by A.B. Lord concerning the nature of conservatism in oral tradition: ‘tradition is not a thing of the past but a living and dynamic process which began in the past [and] flourishes in the present’.
The use of modal verbs in complex sentences: some developments in the Old English period
Authors: Ogawa Hiroshi
Published: September 2008

In his oft-quoted study of indirect discourse (dependent statements, dependent desires and dependent questions) in Old English, J.H. Gorrell concludes the section on ‘the use of the auxiliaries’ by observing in his statistics an increasing frequency of their use in the period, which he relates to the loss of distinctive subjunctive inflexions:

The conclusions to be drawn from these statistics are very evident … RegardingCP., Or., Boe., andBedeas representatives of Alfredian prose andAH., Boe.[sic],W., andBH. as types of the language of the later period, the above statistics show that the relative proportion of the subjunctive to the auxiliary forms in the former period is as 3 to 1, while at the time of Ælfric the proportion is as 2 to 1. This postulates, therefore, a growing tendency in the language to make use of the auxiliary constructions, and this tendency was fostered by the gradual breaking-down of the old subjunctive forms, until in course of time the periphrastic constructions almost entirely replaced the inflectional forms.
Anonymous polyphony andThe Wanderer's textuality
Authors: Pasternack Carol Braun
Published: September 2008

Old English manuscript poetry, including the text that we now callThe Wanderer, remains close to its oral roots in its reliance on audible structures and traditional expressions, in its fluid relationship to other compositions and in its anonymity. It is not oral, however, and its existence in a manuscript is more than a physical fact. This change in medium has begun to affect the poetry's semiotics. Having lost the social context of oral performance, the poet attempts to provide a viewpoint in other ways. But this manuscript presentation does not share all the workings of a modern printed composition.
The blood of Abel and the branches of sin:Genesis A, Maxims Iand Aldhelm'sCarmen de uirginitate
Authors: Wright Charles D.
Published: September 2008

The Old EnglishGenesis A, in a moralizing expansion of the biblical narrative, describes how sin sprouted and spread in evil branches from the blood of the murdered Abel:

Critical discussion of this passage has reflected a basic disagreement about the presence of allegory in the poem. Bernard F. Huppé finds three levels of meaning in the passage:

Literally, the descendants of Cain, born after his sins, are a progeny of affliction, because they perished in the Flood. Symbolically, they are children of affliction because they dwell in the City of Babylon, of which Cain is the spiritual founder. In its moral significance Cain's sin represents the earthly beginning of all mortal, Babylonian sin …
The originality of the Old English gloss of the Vespasian Psalter and its relation to the gloss of the Junius Psalter
Authors: Pulsiano Phillip
Published: September 2008

In a brief discussion of the Vespasian Psalter in 1898, Albert S. Cook offered a statement that set the tone for subsequent debate about the relationship between the Old English gloss of the Vespasian Psalter (A = London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian A. i) and that of the junius Psalter (B = Oxford, Bodleian Library, junius 27): ‘It seems not improbable that it [i.e. the gloss to the Vespasian Psalter] is the original from which all later Old English glosses on the Psalms have been derived, undergoing in the process such modifications as were due to the language of the particular dialect or epoch.’ With regard to the Junius gloss specifically, Cook printed the text of Psalm XCIX [C] from the Vespasian Psalter, which he collated with the Junius, Cambridge (C = Cambridge, University Library, Ff. 1.23), Regius (D = London, British Library, Royal 2. B.V), and Eadwine (E = Cambridge, Trinity College R. 17.1) psalters; he concluded that ‘B stands nearest to A, but is carelessly written, and changes Anglian peculiarities in the direction of West Saxon (in to on, all to eall, &c.) while retaining, in general, a comparatively early and Anglian cast (weotað, scep, leswe, &c.)’. Although Otto Heinzel, writing in 1926, disagreed with Cook's assertion that the Vespasian gloss was the source from which all other psalters ultimately derived their glosses, he reiterated, after a fashion, the idea that the Junius gloss is related to that of the Vespasian Psalter, although, like Cook, he did not argue for a direct relationship between these two works. In Heinzel's stemma, from the Urtext*0 derive *α, which stands as the model for B, and *β, which in turn stands as the model for both A and C. The stemma, in its full form, taking the Dtype (Regius Psalter) tradition into account, has justly been termed ‘fanciful’ by Kenneth Sisam. The relationship between the glosses in these two psalters formed the subject of an extended study by Uno Lindelöf published in 1901.
Traditions concerning Jamnes and Mambres in Anglo-Saxon England
Authors: Biggs Frederick M. , Hall Thomas N.
Published: September 2008

In the dramatic confrontation between Moses and Pharaoh that preceded the Israelites' departure from Egypt, Pharaoh's magicians played a prominent role: they turned their rods into serpents, if only to have them devoured by Moses's serpent, and then matched the first two plagues brought down on the Egyptians before failing to perform the third (Ex. VII. 11–VIII. 19). Although not named here or elsewhere in the Old Testament, they were identified in II Timothy III.8 as ' ιανν⋯ς and ιαμβρ⋯ς (the Latin forms are usually ‘Iannes’ or ‘Iamnes’ and ‘Mambres’) in a remark that suggests that a considerable tradition had already arisen concerning them: ‘Now just as jannes and Mambres resisted Moses, so these also resist the truth, men corrupted in mind, reprobate concerning the faith.’ Two fragmentary Greek papyri (Pap. Vindob. G 29456 verso, in the Nationalbibliothek, Vienna; and Pap. XVI, in the Chester Beatty Library and Gallery of Oriental Art, Dublin), dated to the third and fourth centuries respectively, confirm the existence of at least one early apocryphon about the brothers. The problem of interpreting these fragments, however, is complicated by a bewildering array of references to the two in various languages, which results from both the importance of Exodus to Jews and Christians, and the connection of the brothers to magic. Albert Pietersma and R. Theodore Lutz note that ‘the precise relationship between the loose traditions and the written composition’ is ‘not yet entirely clear’.
The author of the Fonthill Letter
Authors: Boynton Mark , Reynolds Susan
Published: September 2008

The Fonthill letter has recently been described as ‘one of the most interesting of the corpus of documents which illustrate the working of the Anglo-Saxon law’. It tells a story that is too complicated to summarize here, but the text is now readily accessible alongside a translation and wide-ranging commentary. For present purposes it may be sufficient to say that the letter was written to King Edward the Elder of Wessex (899–924) by the godfather of a troublesome character called Helmstan. The first and longest section of the letter begins with an allusion to Helmstan's theft of a belt and ends with his surrender to his godfather of five hides of land at Fonthill (Wiltshire). Helmstan gave up this land in return for his godfather's support in an oath that Helmstan had to take to defend his title to it against a third party. His godfather promised that Helmstan could continue to occupy the property for his lifetime, provided that he behaved himself. He thus held it under what was in effect a life-læn or lease. All this happened in the reign of King Alfred, some years before the letter was written. The story was told to Alfred's son and successor after the author had exchanged the Fonthill land with the bishop of Winchester and wanted the king to confirm the arrangement. The account is written in the first person but the godfather's name is not given. J. M. Kemble, however, took it that the author of the letter was a man called Ordlaf who is mentioned, in the third person, in the second section of the letter.
The advent of poetry: Christ I
Authors: Irving Edward B.
Published: September 2008

Two masterpieces stand out of the mass of Anglo-Saxon religious poetry: The Dream of the Rood and the sequence of liturgical lyrics in the Exeter Book variously known as Christ I, the Advent Lyrics or simply Advent. The two works are similar in focus and technique as well as in quality. Both express the mystery of Incarnation in terms of a riddle: how can it be that Deus and Homo make their impossible contact? What terms can make this meeting graspable by the imagination? Both give eloquent voice to human suffering and human hope, and seem to recognize that it is only through appealing to these feelings that theology can come to life for us by being experienced.
The origin of the Exeter Book of Old English poetry
Authors: Gameson Richard
Published: September 2008

Exeter, Cathedral Library, 3501, fols. 8–130, the celebrated Exeter Book of Old English Poetry, preserves approximately one-sixth of the surviving corpus of Old English verse, and its importance for the study of pre-Conquest vernacular literature can hardly be exaggerated. It is physically a handsome codex, and is of large dimensions for one written in the vernacular:c.320 × 220 mm, with a written area ofc.240 × 160 mm (see pl. III). In contrast to many coeval English manuscripts, particularly those in the vernacular, there is documentary evidence for the Exeter Book's pre-Conquest provenance. Assuming it is identical with the ‘i mycel Englisc boc be gehwilcum þingum on leoðwisum geworht’ (‘one large English book about various things written in verse’) in the inventory of lands, ornaments and books that Leofric, bishop of Crediton then Exeter, had acquired for the latter foundation, then it has been at Exeter since the third quarter of the eleventh century. This, however, is at least three generations after the book was written, and it has generally been assumed that it originated else where. Identifying the scriptorium where the Exeter Book was made is clearly a matter of the greatest interest and importance. A recent, admirably thorough monograph has put forward a thought-provoking case for seeing Exeter itself as the centre responsible, and has proceeded to draw a range of literary and historical conclusions from this. The comprehensive new critical edition of the manuscript has favoured the thesis, and it has been echoed elsewhere. If correct, this is extremely valuable and exciting – but is it correct? The matter is of sufficient importance to merit further scrutiny.
Exeter Book Riddle 57 (55) – a double solution?
Authors: Meaney Audrey L.
Published: September 2008

To offer a solution to Riddle 57 must seem to many like a fool rushing swiftly in where others have swallowed gnats – and raindrops, hailstones, thunderclouds, musical notes, bees and more. Yet for a long time I have been convinced that everyone else had got it wrong, and that the answer could only be ‘swifts’. On further investigation, it turned out that some scholars, indeed, had had the same idea – it was Moritz Trautmann's final solution, and Cyril Brett thought of swifts but rejected them in favour of starlings – and that it was only (as it were) half-right. However, it still seems worthwhile attempting to demonstrate that, at least on the literal level, swifts are the only possible answer. I shall therefore dissect Riddle 57, discussing the identity of its subject under four headings: appearance, locomotion, habitat and call. Though initially ignoring the riddle's last half-line, I shall not forget it.
An Old English fragment from Westminster Abbey
Authors: Page R. I.
Published: September 2008

Westminster Abbey Muniment 67209 is a strip of parchment sliced from an Old English manuscript, perhaps to be dated to the first half of the eleventh century (pl. IXaandb). It has top and bottom margins preserved, possibly in full, but no part of either side margin. The height of the fragment is 268mm, with top margin measuring 32mm (recto)/34mm (verso) and bottom 46mm (recto)/45mm (verso). Thus the height of the text block isc. 190mm. The strip is unevenly cut, so its width varies, top, 38mm, bottom 42mm, minimum 31mm.
The Book of Durrow and the question of programme
Authors: Werner Martin
Published: September 2008

In a recent study of the iconographic character of the cross-carpet page (lv) opening the Book of Durrow (Dublin, Trinity College A. 4. 5 (57)), I suggested that the miniature and its facing evangelist symbols page (2r) were intended to call to mind images of adjacentloca sanctaof the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem – the relic of the True Cross exhibited on the altar of Golgotha church for the sombre Good FridayAdoratio crucisand the monumental cross on Golgotha Hill, the site of the Crucifixion. These and other references I claimed for Adomnán, the scholarly abbot of the Columban foundation of Iona, who, very likely, sponsored the creation of the gospelbook between 682 and 686. Besides the opening miniatures just cited, the codex contains separate evangelist symbol pages, elaborately decorated incipits, small ornamental initials and five carpet pages. Given the great and unusual weight which the Durrow introductory sequence places on the iconographic explication of the Easter theme, an examination of the possibility that other of the decorated pages in the manuscript develop or reiterate Easter associations seems warranted.
On the date, provenance and relationship of the ‘Solomon and Saturn’ dialogues
Authors: O'Neill Patrick P.
Published: September 2008

Although recently the object of renewed scholarly interest, the ‘Solomon and Saturn’ dialogues remain among the most enigmatic of Old English works. To some extent the problem resides in their strange subject-matter and hyperbolic style, exemplified by grotesque personifications of the letters of thePater noster, endless enumerations of its extraordinary attributes, and the esoteric, Middle-Eastern background attributed to the speakers Solomon and Saturn. But hardly less daunting are the textual difficulties posed by the primary surviving manuscript, and the manner in which modern editors have handled them. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 422 is composite, the first two quires of which (pp. 1–26), dating from the mid-tenth century, contain the Old English. Within these two quires the sequence of texts is as follows: a poetic dialogue of 169 lines on thePater noster(pp. 1–6); followed without a break by a prose dialogue on the same subject, ending abruptly at the end of p. 12 (coinciding with the loss of a leaf); and another poetic dialogue of 335 lines on various aspects of time, nature, good and evil, also ending abruptly, at the end of p. 26. Yet in the editions of Menner and Dobbie the arrangement of texts is altogether different: the prose section is removed and labelled a separate work; and the verse is divided into two discrete poems. The effect, almost inevitably, has been to create a perception of three independent, even unrelated, works.
The origin and development of the Anglo-SaxonPsychomachiaillustrations
Authors: Wieland Gernot R.
Published: September 2008

The reception in Anglo-Saxon England of Prudentius'sPsychomachiahas been well studied. In an earlier article I concentrated on the textual tradition and touched only briefly on the important aspect ofPsychomachiaillustrations in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts; in the present article I treat the illustrations more fully.Psychomachiaillustrations have been studied previously, most thoroughly by Stettiner and Woodruff, and they are also referred to by Katzenellenbogen and Norman. None of these examinations is completely satisfactory as far as the Anglo-Saxon illustrations are concerned. Both Stettiner and Woodruff examine all, that is both continental and Anglo-Saxon, illustratedPsychomachiamanuscripts, and their primary aim is to establish stemmata and to determine generic relationships between the various manuscripts. Of necessity this procedure leads away from a scrupulous examination of individual manuscripts and their illustrations. In other words, by being concerned more with the generic similarities of the illustrations, Stettiner and Woodruff pay less attention to the differences (though they do not ignore them altogether). Moreover, they concentrate on the illustrated manuscripts and neglected the evidence which non-illustrated manuscripts can provide. Katzenellenbogen and Norman, in turn, are interested in thePsychomachiaand its illustrations exerted on the sculpture and painting of later centuries, and only briefly refer to the Anglo-SaxonPsychomachiaIllustrations thus still remains a necessity.
‘Evil Tongues’: a previously unedited Old English sermon
Authors: David  , McDougall Ian
Published: September 2008

In his account of the contents of the second volume of London, British Library, Cotton Otho C. i, Kenneth Sisam drew attention to an unpublished sermon on the sins of the tongue to which he gave the title Evil Tongues. The sermon is written in the same hand as the two texts which precede it in the manuscript – an Old English version of St Jerome's Vita Malchi monachi captivi (henceforth Malchus) and a translation of a letter by Boniface (Wynfrith) on an anonymous priest's vision of the next world (henceforth Wynfrith's Letter) Sisam was unable to identify a source for the Evil Tongues sermon, but close parallels for most of the Old English text are found in anther work by Jerome, the exposition of Ps. CXIX in his Tractatus in Psalmos.
King Alfred's ships: text and context
Authors: Swanton M. J.
Published: September 2008

TheAnglo-Saxon Chronicle'swell-known reference to King Alfred's plan for a new design of war-ships is problematic both in general and in detail. In the account of the year 897 (recte896), we are told how, after the raids made along the coast of Wessex by Danish gangs based in East Anglia and Northumbria, and in particular with raiding-vessels (OEœscas, ONaskar) which they had built ‘many years before’, Alfred ordered ships of a new type to be constructed to meet the Danish menace. In the near-contemporary Winchester manuscript (A) the critical passage reads:

Þa het Ælfred cyng timbran langscipu ongen ða æscas. Þa wæron fulneah tu swa lange swa Þa oðru. Sume hæfdon lx ara, sume ma. Þa wæron ægðer ge swiftran ge unwealtran ge eac hieran Þonne pa oðru; næron nawðer ne on fresisc gescæpene ne on denisc, bute swa him selfum ðuhte Þæt hie nytwyrðoste beon meahten.
What use are the Thorkelin transcripts of Beowulf?
Authors: Gerritsen Johan
Published: September 2008

The Thorkelin transcripts of Beowulf (Copenhagen, Royal Library, N.K.S. 512 and 513 4°) are useful for a number of purposes. Two of these involve Beowulf itself: they offer a number of readings lost from its unique manuscript (London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius A. xv) and they afford an insight into the genesis of its first printed edition (Thorkelin's) published, after many vicissitudes, in Copenhagen in 1815. For reasons that will become clear, these purposes should be kept well apart. The present study, accordingly, will concern itself with the first of them only, and will investigate the contribution made by the two transcripts to our knowledge of the manuscript as it was at two points of time in 1787 (more than half a century after the fire of 1731) when the two transcripts purport to have been made. With respect to the second transcript, Thorkelin B, for the most part a line-for-line and page-for-page copy written by Thorkelin himself in his English copperplate hand, this date has been queried, but no satisfactory evidence has been produced and it is not evident where any can now be found. As the dates appear, however, to have been recorded at least a quarter-century after the event, they need not necessarily be trusted wholly in either case. It is certain that in adding the date 1787 to another transcript Thorkelin was a year out; it may thus merely represent a memory of an intensive spell of copying. We shall see below that the first transcript, Thorkelin A, made by an amanuensis in an imitation of the manuscript's Insular script, suggests that there may not have been so very much time between it and Thorkelin B.
Unfulfilled promise: the rubrics of the Old English prose Genesis
Authors: Withers Benjamin C.
Published: September 2008

The Old English prose Genesis contains a series of innovative rubrics, unparalleled in the Vulgate tradition, which divide the story of Genesis into a series of holy biographies of the patriarchs Noah, Abraham and Joseph. These rubrics, added to the text in the eleventh century, use formulaic language derived from contemporary documents such as Anglo-Saxon wills and thereby regulate how Genesis was to be read and interpreted by an aristocratic layman or novice monk. The rubrics blend ancient Hebrew narratives, stories of the saints and the legal conventions familiar to the reader in order to portray ‘sacred history’ as an unbroken, legally sanctioned inheritance. They emphasize the Covenant of God with Abraham and the people of Israel and assure the contemporary reader that he too will inherit an unfulfilled promise manifested in God's covenant with the patriarchs.
The Office of the Trinity in the Crowland Psalter (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce 296)
Authors: Raw Barbara C.
Published: September 2008

The main part of Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce 296, consists of a psalter (9r–105v), together with the usual accompaniments of calendar (1r–6v), tables (7r–8r), canticles (105v–116v), litany (117r–119v) and prayers (119v–127v). The main part of the manuscript, written by a single scribe, ends halfway down 127v, in the centre of a gathering of six folios. The lower part of 127v and the remaining three folios are taken up by an Office of the Trinity, written by a different scribe. The manuscript is attributed to Crowland on the basis of entries in the calendar and litany. Guthlac's name is entered in capitals in the litany, as are those of SS Mary and Peter; more importantly, Guthlac, like Peter, is invoked twice, a distinction accorded to no other saint in the Douce manuscript. The entries in the calendar include the translation of St Guthlac on 30 August, and a feast of his sister, St Pega, on 8 January, in addition to the usual feast of St Guthlac on 11 April; Pega also occurs, uniquely, in the litany of the Douce manuscript. The Psalter had probably left Crowland by 1091 when most of the monastery, including its library and service books, was destroyed by fire. By the early twelfth century it was in the possession of the Cluniac priory of St Paneras, Lewes, when theobitsof Lanzo, prior of St Pancras (ob. 1 April 1107), Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury (ob. 21 April 1109) and Hugh, abbot of Cluny (ob. 29 April 1109) were entered on 2v. It is possible that the book was in female hands between leaving Crowland and arriving at Lewes, since the prayers at Lauds in the Office of the Trinity contain feminine forms.
The cult of King Alfred the Great
Authors: Keynes Simon
Published: September 2008

King Alfred the Great has long been regarded as the archetypal symbol of the nation's perception of itself. Beset throughout his reign with the reality or threat of Viking invasions, Alfred battled fiercely and suffered heroically in leading his people to their eventual victory; at the same time he promoted the causes of religion and learning, and by the example of his government upheld truth, justice and the Anglo-Saxon way. Moreover, although himself fundamentally English (with West Saxon parents and a Mercian wife), he stood for a combination of political interests which made it easier to pass him off as prototypically British. Certainly he has done well, over the years, from the processes which turn history into legend. It may have taken a while for the cult to get going; but once up and running, the bandwagon could not be stopped. My purpose in reviewing the development of the cult of King Alfred is to explore the variety of factors which in their different ways contributed to the process from the ninth century to the present day, and to show how Alfredophilia, and latterly Alfredomania, found expression not only in religious, legal, political and historical writing, but also in much else besides. The overdy ‘literary’ manifestations of the cult of King Alfred, in poetry, drama, music, and prose, are not unfamiliar; yet they must be taken in connection with manifestations of the cult of King Alfred in sculpture, painting, engraving, and book-illustration, and all placed in whatever contexts may be appropriate, if we are to understand how the image of the king was formed and then transmitted to the next generation.
Genesis Aand the Anglo-Saxon ‘migration myth’
Authors: Battles Paul
Published: September 2008

In his study ofMigration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon England, Nicholas Howe has argued that the Anglo-Saxons regarded the ancestral migration from the Continent as ‘the founding and defining event of their culture’. He suggests that theadventus Saxonumgave the Germanic tribes in England a shared identity, and proved central to their historical, cultural and even theological self-definition. Howe investigates what he calls the Anglo-Saxon ‘migration myth’, which links the Germanic tribal migration to England with the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt, both being transmarine journeys from a land of spiritual bondage to one of spiritual salvation.Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon Englandtraces the development of this concept from Bede'sHistoria ecclesiasticato Wulfstan'sSermo Lupi, and discusses its function in the writings of Alcuin and Boniface, as well as in Old English poetry. Howe's elegant analysis succeeds in demonstrating the pervasiveness of migration as a cultural myth, that is, a story that endures in a people's memory because it speaks powerfully to their collective imagination.
The ‘robed Christ’ in pre-Conquest sculptures of the Crucifixion
Authors: Coatsworth Elizabeth
Published: September 2008

In the nineteenth century, John Romilly Allen confidently claimed that the iconography of the Crucifixion with the robed or ‘fully draped’ Christ was a phenomenon of Celtic art, found in Scotland, Ireland and Wales, distinguishable from the ‘Saxon’ type in which Christ wore a loin-cloth. Other features of the Saxon type were the presence of the sun and moon above the arms of the cross, instead of angels as in Ireland; and the figures of the Virgin and St John at the foot of the cross, without the spear- and sponge-bearers, the latter pair appearing only exceptionally at Alnmouth, Northumberland; Aycliffe, County Durham; and Bradbourne, Derbyshire. Clearly two different versions were identified in this analysis, but no attempt was made to clarify the chronological relationship between the examples cited, and only the geographical distribution of a small number of examples was considered. Romilly Allen's confidence in distinguishing ‘Celt’ from ‘Saxon’ on the basis of art styles, even for the pre-Viking period, is not always shared today, as the continuing discussion of the origins of several important manuscripts shows. The terms ‘Insular’ and ‘Hiberno-Saxon’ used to describe much of the art from the sixth century to the eighth underline die perceived difficulties.
Æthelweard'sChroniconand Old English poetry
Authors: Lutz Angelika
Published: September 2008

The author of theChronicon Æthelweardiis commonly identified with the ealdor-man of the western shires who signed charters from 973–98 and played an important political role particularly in King Æthelred's England. Ealdorman Æthelweard is also known as the patron of Abbot Ælfric, as the addressee of Ælfric's famous preface to his translation of Genesis and of his Old English preface to hisLives of Saints; that is, we know him as a person who took great interest in religious texts written in or translated into the vernacular. TheChroniconwas written in Latin, although it was mainly based on theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle. The reason for his choice of language may be determined from the prologue to hisChronicon, from which it becomes clear that he wrote it for his kinswoman Mathilda (949–1011), abbess of Essen, whose grandmother Eadgyth, daughter of King Edward the Elder, had been married to Emperor Otto I. We may assume that Mathilda's native tongue was Old Saxon, a variety of Low German that was closely related to West Saxon English.
Ælfric and the purpose of Christian marriage: a reconsideration of theLife of Æthelthryth, lines 120–30
Authors: Jackson Peter
Published: September 2008

The career and cult of St Æthelthryth, the seventh-century Northumbrian queen who retained her virginity throughout two marriages in order to follow her vocation as a nun, has always been known to any reader of Bede'sHistoria ecclesiastica, but has become an especially popular subject for a remarkable range of research and interpretation in the past ten or fifteen years, among editors, historians of sainthood, historians of marriage, feminist literary critics and even novelists.
Cnut and Lotharingia: two notes
Authors: Hare Michael
Published: September 2008

Recent research has focused attention on the ‘Lotharingian connection’, that is to say the close links between the English and German churches in the middle of the eleventh century. Its best known manifestation is the presence of a significant number of German (mainly Lotharingian) clerics at the English royal court. This phenomenon seems to have its origin in the reign of Cnut (1016–35), and the purpose of this paper is to shed light on two aspects of Cnut's contacts with Lotharingia. First, an explanation is advanced for Cnut's baptismal name, Lambert. Secondly, attention is drawn to a hagiographical source which provides evidence for a visit by Cnut to Cologne.
The tradition of penitentials in Anglo-Saxon England
Authors: Frantzen Allen J.
Published: September 2008

Anglo-Saxonists have often referred to a ‘penitential tradition’ in Old English literature, the poetry in particular, without establishing a connection between that tradition and the administrative sources on which it rested. Especially in the later Anglo-Saxon period, the time of Ælfric and Wulfstan, the literature pertaining to penance was extensive. It included handbooks of penance or ‘penitentials’, homilies about penitential practice and liturgical texts of various kinds, among them instructions for confessors, prayers for penitents and rites of public penance. Whether this material should be called ‘literature’ is an open question, but certainly its relevance to penitential themes in Old English poetry needs to be examined. Before we can grasp the significance of the ‘penitential tradition’ for either the literary or the social history of Anglo-Saxon England, it would seem necessary to understand better than we now do the sources and affiliations of the legislative texts, the penitentials in particular, which governed the practice of penance.
A supplement to Hand-List of Anglo-Saxon Non-Runic Inscriptions
Authors: Okasha Elisabeth
Published: September 2008

This supplement brings up to date my Hand-List of Anglo-Saxon Non-Runic Inscriptions (Cambridge, 1971). It contains twenty-six entries, being all the Anglo-Saxon non-runic inscriptions which have come to my notice since the publication of the Hand-List. The entries are followed by the Bibliography. This gives in full the references quoted in abbreviated form throughout the supplement unless they have already appeared in the General Bibliography of the Hand-List. The Bibliography is followed by Addenda to the Hand-List which give additional information about several of the Hand-List inscriptions. A list of Corrigenda to the Hand-List follows and the supplement concludes with Addenda to the Bibliographies of the Hand-List entries, bringing them up to date.
The Sutton Hoo whetstone sceptre: a study in iconography and cultural milieu
Authors: Enright Michael J.
Published: September 2008

The discovery of the early-seventh-century Sutton Hoo ship burial in 1939 and the examination and analysis of the ship's contents in the years following have provided archaeologists and historians with a number of fascinating artifacts which remain the subject of great interest and debate. One of these objects in particular has aroused both admiration and puzzlement, namely the whetstone sceptre. In form the sceptre is an ornate, four-sided, stone bar 22.8 ins. long. Though made from the material commonly used to sharpen knives and swords there is no sign that it was ever used for that purpose, the very gentle smoothing of its sharp edges being such as would result from normal handling. And, again, symbolically important as it would have been in its character as a whetstone, it is too elaborate and too cumbersome ever to have been used as one. The stone bar is 2 ins. wide in the middle, narrows slightly towards the ends and terminates in two roughly spherical knobs. Each of these knobs has a stubby conical projection, and the lower and longer knob is tipped with a small bronze saucer secured to it by a cage of thin bronze ribs and several strands of wire. This is the bottom of the sceptre and it is possible to visualize the saucer resting on the thigh or kneecap of a seated king.
The sources of medical knowledge in Anglo-Saxon England
Authors: Cameron M. L.
Published: September 2008

Early English medicine, including that of Anglo-Saxon England, has been frequently described as a backwater in which superstition flourished until the mainstream of more rational and advanced Salernitan practices flowed into the country in late medieval times. This view has been strongly countered by C. H. Talbot, who has shown, convincingly I think, that works usually attributed to Salernitan writers were in use in England at least as early as they were at Salerno, and that, far from being backward, English medicine in Anglo-Saxon times may have been in the forefront of contemporary practice.
Linguistic facts and the interpretation of Old English poetry
Authors: Mitchell Bruce
Published: September 2008

In their admirable edition ofThe WandererDunning and Bliss give the meaning ‘as when’ forswain line 43b

pinceð him on mode pæt he his mondryhten

clyppe ond cysse, ond on cneo lecge

honda ond heafod, swa he hwilum ær

in geardagum giefstolas breac (41–4)

and defend their gloss in the following words: ‘Here literary considerations must outweigh linguistic arguments.’ And in his latest book, Stanley B. Greenfield approves: ‘Thus Bliss–Dunning…can properly say that though usage ofswameaning “as when” here “would be unique”, but [sic] “literary considerations must outweigh linguistic arguments”.’ I do not approve. I would say that Dunning and Bliss have let literary considerations outweigh not linguisticarguments, but linguisticfacts. Hence my title.
The garments that honour the cross in The Dream of the Rood
Authors: Smith James
Published: September 2008

In lines 14b–15a of The Dream of the Rood the cross is said to be honoured by a garment, or garments (wædum geweorðode) and in a 21b–2a it is said to change (wendan) because of or along with or with respect to these garments. What they might be is a question which has racked many brains. The usual opinion at the present day is that they are some kind of cloth trappings. Cook, for instance, was reminded of a streamer which, he said, formed part of the labarum (but in so saying he was misled either by memory or by mistranslation, for the only cloth which the labarum comprised might, from its size and shape, more properly be called an apron). Ebert proposed silk cords or tassels. Others prefer the veil or pall with which the cross is shrouded on Good Friday, to be dramatically revealed on Easter Sunday. The weakness of all such explanations is that their proponents feel bound not to leave the spot without discovering an explanation: they scrupulously refrain, that is, from looking either backwards or forwards, with the result that, as the reference fails to explain itself, they are compelled to look outside the poem. They fail to take into account repeated references within the poem itself to coverings that, however unexpected and however diverse their materials, all agree in performing, to a greater or lesser degree, the principal office of a garment, that of enveloping the cross: in line 5b it is described as leohte bewunden, ‘suffused, or wrapped round, with light’ and in 16a, and again in 23b and 77, gold is said to ‘clothe’ it (gyrwan), the verb signifying, as it may, more than a sporadic embellishment. Nor is it to be overlooked that the first reference to the cross's wæde is in the immediate context of its glory: it is wuldres treow (14b) that is so clothed.
An unknown English Benedictine gradual of the eleventh century
Authors: Hartzell K. D.
Published: September 2008

The most famous manuscripts with music of the early Middle Ages in England are the Winchester ‘Tropers’ at Oxford and Cambridge. More has been written about them than about all the lesser known sources put together, and it is right that this should have been so, for the troper at Cambridge preserves one of the oldest repertories of polyphonic music while the other, the so-called ‘Æthelred troper’, has provided generations of scholars with the task of establishing its relationship to the other manuscript. This activity has resulted in a high degree of clarification, but the Winchester ‘Tropers’ are not the whole of early English medieval music – even though a study of their combined trope repertories would be a welcome contribution – and we must begin to turn our attention to other sources of the period.
Some aesthetic principles in the use of colour in Anglo-Saxon art
Authors: Alexander J. J. G.
Published: September 2008

In a paper in Anglo-Saxon England 3 N. F. Barley has drawn attention to the richness of Anglo-Saxon colour vocabulary, which, he suggests, emphasized the light–dark axis of colour perception to a greater degree than does our own, in which hue is differentiated and then qualified adjectivally, pale, dark, etc. It is interesting to examine actual Anglo-Saxon artifacts with his observations in mind. The main sources for our knowledge of the Anglo-Saxons' use of colour are the illuminated manuscripts of which the earliest surviving are of the seventh century. We have only one small fragment of wall-painting, the recently discovered mural at Winchester datable to c. 900. There is a considerable amount of metal-work and jewellery, of which the Sutton Hoo find, a seventh-century burial hoard, is the most spectacular, and there are some embroideries of the early tenth century found in the tomb of St Cuthbert, now at Durham. There are also literary descriptions of works of art, especially church furnishings. The paucity of surviving material and the lack of descriptions of identifiable objects are obvious disadvantages. In addition there has to be considered the extent to which the use of colour changed and developed over the period c. 650–1050. In this paper some examples of manuscript illumination will be discussed.
Bibliography for 1974
Authors: Biddle Martin , Brown Alan , Brown T.j , Clayton Peter A. , Blair Peter Hunter
Published: September 2008

This bibliography is meant to include all books, articles and significant reviews published in any branch of Anglo-Saxon studies during 1974. It excludes reprints unless they contain new material. It will be continued annually. Addenda to the previous bibliographies are included at the appropriate places; one that concerns a book or article is preceded by an asterisk and specifies the year of publication. A.B. has been mainly responsible for sections 2, 3 and 4, T.J.B. for section 5, P.H.B. for section 6, P.A.C. for section 7 and M.B. for section 8. Peter Clemoes has been coordinating editor.