Our knowledge of Anglo-Saxon England depends wholly on the precise and detailed study of the texts that have come down to us from pre-Conquest times. The present book contains pioneering studies of some of these sources which have been neglected or misunderstood. A comprehensive study of a group of lavish gospelbooks written under the patronage of a late Anglo-Saxon countess, Judith of Flanders (sometime wife of the Earl Tostig who was killed at Stamford Bridge in 1066) shows the importance of these artefacts and provides fresh understanding of the transmission of the gospels in late...

The Encomium Emmae Reginae is, as its title suggests, a political tract in praise of Queen Emma, daughter of Duke Richard I of Normandy, wife of King Ethelred the Unready from 1002 to 1016, and wife of the Danish conqueror King Cnut from 1017 to 1035. It is an important primary source that transports us into the heart of eleventh-century politics. This edition contains a new introduction that places the Encomium in the historical context in which it was written, and traces the career of Emma, a woman who was twice queen and who sought to preserve her position of power as queen-mother.

This book is concerned with the pictorial language of gesture revealed in Anglo-Saxon art, and its debt to classical Rome. The late Reginald Dodwell, an eminent art historian, notes a striking similarity of both form and meaning between Anglo-Saxon gestures and those in illustrated manuscripts of the plays of Terence, which, he argues, reflect actual Roman stage conventions. The extensively illustrated volume illuminates our understanding of the vigor of late Anglo-Saxon art and its ability to absorb and transpose continental influence.

Describes the early conversion to Christianity of the pagan peoples of an area stretching from Stratford-upon-Avon to Offa's Dyke.

How did the Anglo-Saxons conceptualise the interim between death and Doomsday? In Paradise, Death and Doomsday in Anglo-Saxon Literature, Dr. Kabir presents the first investigation into the Anglo-Saxon belief in the "interim paradise" or paradise as a temporary abode for good souls following death and pending the final decisions of Doomsday. She determines the origins of this distinctive sense of paradise within early Christian polemics, establishes its Anglo-Saxon development as a site of contestation and compromise, and argues for its post-Conquest transformation into the doctrine of...

Anglo-Saxon England consistently embraces all the main aspects of study of Anglo-Saxon history and culture. Articles in volume 32 include: On argumentation in Old English philology, with particular reference to the editing and dating of Beowulf; The earliest manuscript of Bede's metrical; 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; Illustrations of damnation in late Anglo-Saxon manuscripts; The use of writs in the eleventh century; Bibliography for 2002.

Katherine Scarfe Beckett is concerned with representations of the Islamic world in Anglo-Saxon England. Using a variety of literary, historical and archaeological evidence, Beckett argues that the first perceptions of Arabs, Ismaelites and Saracens were derived from Christian exegesis. These perceptions preconditioned Western expressions of hostility and superiority towards peoples of the Islamic world, and these received ideas prevailed over actual experience.

This third edition of Peter Hunter Blair's classic account of Anglo-Saxon history includes a completely new introduction written by Simon Keynes. The first two chapters survey Anglo-Saxon England: its wars and invasions, people and kings. The remaining chapters cover specific aspects of its culture: Church, government, economy and literary achievement. Blair uses illustrations and a wide range of sources--documents, archaeological evidence and place names--to depict the period realistically. (Keynes has also prepared a thoroughly updated bibliography.) Second Edition Hb (1977): 0-521-21650-8...

Ideas about Anglo-Saxon history and the importance of combining skills from many disciplines are at the centre of this volume.

The literature of Anglo-Saxon England is unique among contemporary European literatures in that it features a vast amount of saints' lives in the vernacular. This study analyzes the most important author Aelfric's lives of five important saints in the light of their cults in Anglo-Saxon England, providing the reader fascinating glimpses of 'Aelfric at work'. He adapts the cults and rewrites the received Latin hagiography so that each of their lives conveys a distinct message to the contemporary political elite as well as to a lay audience at large.