When the famous Anglo-Saxon scholar AElfric wrote the first grammar in a European vernacular, he used as his direct source the Excerptiones de Prisciano excerpts from major curriculum authors of the medieval schools, including Donatus, Isidore and Priscian himself . The tenth-century text, probably of English origin, most probably compiled by AElfric, is an ambitious compendium of grammatical lore, and it is, with the exception of AElfric's own Grammar, arguably the most sophisticated Latin-learning text of the Anglo-Saxon age. Edited here for the first time, the Excerptiones appear with all...

Critical editions of the Old English poem Judgement Day II, its Latin source, Bede's poem De die iudicii, and the homily in Oxford, Bodleian, Hatton 113, which is based on the vernacular poem, are offered in this volume: Judgement Day IIis thus presented in its manuscript context, highlighting its links with the poems found there, and casting new light on its interpretation. The editions are accompanied with translations, a commentary on points of linguistic and literary interest, and a glossary. The introduction includes detailed descriptions of the manuscripts in which the works appear; the...

De temporibus anni, a concise handbook of calendar and computus, astronomy and natural science, dates from the late tenth century. It seems to have circulated anonymously, but analysis of its language and content shows it to be by AElfric, one of the most prolific and widely-studied authors of Anglo-Saxon England. Unlike the earlier works of Bede and Isidore, it is written in the vernacular (despite its Latin title), possibly the earliest such work in a vernacular language in western Europe. This new edition incorporates the fruits of modern research into the scientific and religious...

The dialogues of Solomon and Saturn, found in MSS Corpus Christi College Cambridge 422 and 41, are some of the most complex Old English texts to survive. The first two dialogues, in verse and prose, present the pagan god Saturn in human form interrogating King Solomon about the mysterious powers of the Pater Noster, while in a second poem the two discuss in enigmatic terms a range of topics, from the power of books to the limits of free will. This new edition - the first to appear for some 150 years - presents a parallel text and translation, accompanied by notes and commentary. The volume...

Winner of the Beatrice White Prize, 2013. Medieval prognostic texts - a survival from the classical world - are the ancestors of modern almanacs; a means of predicting future events, they offer guidance on matters of everyday life, such as illness, childbirth, weather, agriculture, and the interpretation of dreams. They give fascinating insights into monastic life, medicine, pastoral care, the transformations of classical learning in the middle ages, and the complex interconnections between orthodox religion, popular belief, science and magic. This volume provides the first full critical...

The late tenth-century Old English Metrical Calendar (traditionally known as Menologium) summarises, in the characteristic heroic diction and traditional metre of Old English poetry, the major course of the Anglo-Saxon liturgical year. It sets out, in a methodical structure based on the basic temporal framework of the solar/natural year, the locations of the major feasts widely observed in late Anglo-Saxon England. Such a work could have been a practical timepiece for reading the dates of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, for which it serves as a kind of prologue in the manuscript. The clearly...