This book reveals the interrelationship of text and picture in the only surviving illustrated Anglo-Saxon poetic manuscript. It locates the manuscript within the broader cultural contexts in which it was produced and read, and documents the way in which it was transformed by poets, artists, and modern scholars and editors from a collection of biblical poetry to a national historical narrative.

This is a clear and accessible account of early Germanic alliterative verse that explains how such verse was treated by the Beowulf poet. There are differences of poetic style between Beowulf and the otherwise similar verse of ancient Scandinavia and continental Europe. Such distinctions have intrigued scholars for over a century, but Russom is the first to provide a systematic explanation of Old English, Old Norse, Old Saxon and Old High German alliterative meters. Russom's results should interest scholars of Old English and related Germanic languages, as well as linguists and those...

This book is a study of the theology of the Trinity as expressed in the literature and art of the late Anglo-Saxon period. It examines the meaning of the representations of the Trinity in tenth- and eleventh-century English manuscripts and their relationship both to Anglo-Saxon theology and to earlier debates about the legitimacy of representations of the divine. The book's unifying theme is that of the image. It will be of interest to art historians, theologians and literary scholars alike.

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, namely The Gospel of Nichodemus and The Avenging of the Saviour. In collaboration with four other scholars, Professor Cross explores the implications of this discovery, at present unique in the field of Anglo-Saxon studies. Here for the first time parallel editions of the relevant Latin and Old English texts are given, together with modern English translations.

This book offers an imaginative new way of understanding the relationship between syntax and meter in Old English verse. It challenges the view that Old English poetry is composed in loose syntax to compensate for the strict requirements of prosody, such as meter and alliteration. The author proposes a "prosodical" syntax to replace the syntactic laws of Hans Kuhn through its greater accuracy and wider range of application. She formulates three concise rules that apply to the entire Old English poetic corpus.

This book explores ideas of community and of the relationship of individuals to communities widely evident in Old English poetry. It pays particular attention to the context in which major poetic manuscripts of the late Anglo-Saxon period were received, a time when concerns about community appear to have been of special urgency. The book identifies key features of the audience or readership of Old English poetry in this period, and relates the interests of these groups of people to themes reflected in the poetic texts.

This book examines descriptions of the natural world in a wide range of Old English poetry. Jennifer Neville describes the physical conditions experienced by the Anglo-Saxons and argues that the poetic descriptions were not a reflection of these conditions but a literary device used by Anglo-Saxons to define more important issues, such as the state of humanity, the creation and maintenance of society, the power of individuals, the relationship between God and creation, and the power of writing to control information.

This book provides a study and critical edition of the corpus of hymns sung by monks and canons in their services in England before the Norman Conquest. An eleventh-century Latin manuscript known as the Durham Hymnal, with its accompanying Old English interlinear gloss, makes up the core of the edition. An introduction and commentary include descriptions of relevant extant manuscripts and discussions of sources, liturgical use and music, as well as the phonology and vocabulary of the Old English gloss. A translation of the Latin text is provided.

Though best known today for his Old English homilies, the Anglo-Saxon scholar AElfric also composed, in a "letter" to his fellow monks, a set of Latin liturgical instructions that offer a rare glimpse of what ordinary monks were expected to know and do. This book contains a new edition of the Latin text with a critical apparatus, and the only complete English translation. Commentary and substantial introductory chapters establish the letter's exceptional importance for our understanding of late Anglo-Saxon monasticism and liturgy.