Aldhelm, born c.640 in Wessex, and becoming abbot of Malmesbury and later bishop of Sherborne, was the first English man of letters; up to 1100, his prose writings were the most widely read of any Latin literature produced in Anglo-Saxon England. His surviving prose works include a long treatise De virginitate, and a number of letters; these in particular are an important source of knowledge concerning Anglo-Saxon England. The treatise, a lengthy exhortation on virtue addressed to nuns at Barking Abbey, is a fascinating series of exempla drawn from the prodigious range of Aldhelm's knowledge...

Anglo-Saxon prose and poetry is, without question, the major literary achievement of the early Middle Ages (c. 700-1100). In no other vernacular language does such a vast store of verbal treasures exist for so extended a period of time. For twenty years the definitive guide to that literature has been Stanley B. Greenfield's 1965 Critical History of Old English Literature. Now this classic has been extensively revised and updated to make it more valuable than ever to both the student and scholar.

Aldhelm was the first Latin poet of Europe who was not a native speaker of Latin. The ingenuity and originality which he brought to the task of composing Latin poetry ensured that his poems would be widely read everywhere, but they were studied especially in England during the early medieval period. Aldhelm's poetic corpus includes the Carmina Ecclesiastica, a series of dedicatory poems which contain a wealth of detail about early Anglo-Saxon churches; the Carmen de Virginitate, a verse counterpart to his earlier prose De Virginitate, but which includes an extensive passage describing an...

Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury (668SH90), shaped the English Church into a structure it has retained for a millennium. Yet until recently he has remained a shadowy figure, whose early career in the Near East and at Rome has been unknown. In this book, which builds on the 1994 publication of previously unprinted Biblical commentaries from Theodore's Canterbury school, internationally distinguished scholars provide a fresh account of the career and writings of a unique personality who brought to Anglo-Saxon England the cultural heritage of Syria, Byzantium and Rome.

This work provides as complete a list as possible of Latin texts written during the early Middle Ages on Celtic territory or by Celts abroad. Each entry adverts to MSS (where appropriate), printed editions, notices in other standard repertories, and bibliographies of secondary literature. The book is an ancillary volume to the Royal Irish Academy's -Dictionary of Medieval Latin from Celtic Sources- project, whose main publications are detailed at http: //journals.eecs.qub.ac.uk/DMLCS.

Originally published in 1985, fourteen leading specialists in the field of Anglo-Saxon studies contributed to this substantial collection of essays in honour of Peter Clemoes, founder of Anglo-Saxon England, who had recently retired as Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon in the University of Cambridge. The book is divided into two complementary parts. The first looks at the background to Anglo-Saxon learning, in particular at the composition of monastic and private libraries and the nature of the individual works available in them. The second examines the contents and sources of...

The World of Bede is an engaging and accessible introduction to the writings and intellectual development of the venerable Bede (d. 735), first historian of the English and one of the greatest scholars of the Middle Ages. Originally published in 1970 and out of print for many years, the book remains a minor classic of historical writing, now made available again for the enjoyment of all those interested in the early medieval world. A new preface and supplementary bibliography by Michael Lapidge have brought the book up to date.

This volume makes important contributions to our stock of primary manuscript evidence: it recovers parts of six previously unrecorded charters and analyses two sets of fragments, each unique in its own way two leaves of Old Testament text written in Mercia or Canterbury early in the ninth century and six leaves of a missal written at Worcester in the mid-eleventh century. Significant issues in both ecclesiastical and secular history are tackled too the location of Lindsey, the fate of Rutland during the Scandinavian invasions and settlements, and the state of our knowledge of the archaeology...

Material evidence brought to light in this book includes a niello disc from Limpsfield Grange (Surrey) and two fragments of a composite Old English homily discovered in Westminster Abbey. Many previously accepted scholarly positions are reassessed and challenged. A comprehensive assessment of the palaeography of the Exeter Book situates it in the context of late tenth-century book production, and shows that there are no grounds for thinking that the manuscript originated in Exeter itself and that its origin must as yet remain unknown. As always, the interpretation of Old English poetry...