This book suggests that the Old English epic Beowulf was composed in the winter of 826-7 as a requiem for King Beornwulf of Mercia on behalf of Wiglaf, the ealdorman who succeeded him. The place of composition is given as the minster of Breedon on the Hill in Leicestershire and the poet is named as the abbot, Eanmund. As well as pinpointing the poem's place and date of composition, Richard North raises some old questions relating to the poet's influences from Vergil and from living Danes. Norse analogues are discussed in order to identify how the poet changed his heroic sources while three...

Richard North offers a complete revision of our view of Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian paganism and mythology in the pre-Viking and Viking age. He discusses the pre-Christian gods of Bede's history of the Anglo-Saxon conversion with reference to a god known as Ingui. Using expert knowledge of comparative literary material from Old Norse-Icelandic and other Old Germanic languages, North reconstructs the slender Old English evidence in an imaginative and original treatment of poems such as "Deor" and "The Dream of the Rood."

Richard North offers a complete revision of our view of Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian paganism and mythology in the pre-Viking and Viking age. He discusses the pre-Christian gods of Bede's history of the Anglo-Saxon conversion with reference to a god known as Ingui. Using expert knowledge of comparative literary material from Old Norse-Icelandic and other Old Germanic languages, North reconstructs the slender Old English evidence in an imaginative and original treatment of poems such as "Deor" and "The Dream of the Rood."

This is a general study of the development of higher education in Europe from antiquity until the end of the Middle Ages. It shows how the slender traditions of ancient learning, kept alive in the monastic and cathedral schools, were enriched by an enormous influx of knowledge from the Islamic world and how in consequence the schools developed into universities. Special attention is paid to early intellectual history and the scientific disciplines, and to the everyday life of the students and their teachers.

This is a general study of the development of higher education in Europe from antiquity until the end of the Middle Ages. It shows how the slender traditions of ancient learning, kept alive in the monastic and cathedral schools, were enriched by an enormous influx of knowledge from the Islamic world and how in consequence the schools developed into universities. Special attention is paid to early intellectual history and the scientific disciplines, and to the everyday life of the students and their teachers.