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The Irish Computus Einsidlensis (CE) of c. 700 contains a reference to a certain Theodore. This article makes the case that this Theodore should be identified with Theodore of Tarsus, archbishop of Canterbury from 668/9 to his death, 690, on the basis of comparison not only with other contemporary Latin versions of the same argumentum , but also Byzantine computi. The passage under discussion represents the only known computistical tract that can with confidence be ascribed to the famous Canterbury school under Theodore and Hadrian. From the evidence provided, it appears that Theodore learnt this algorithm while studying in the Byzantine Empire and introduced it through his teaching to his Canterbury audience; his Irish students brought it to Ireland, from where it got popularised on the Continent through Willibrord. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The total hidage of land in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the Hwicce at its greatest extent appears to have been halved at an unknown date between the eighth century and the late eleventh. The article examines the relatively small number of surviving original texts of charters and leases which relate to land both in that kingdom and in all other parts of the kingdom of the Mercians into which it was at length subsumed. With other apparent instances of major hidage reductions having been found thereby elsewhere in the latter area, the article then argues that they were all effected either by the West Saxon kings of England in the course of the tenth century or, arguably more likely (even though the evidence is meagre), at a much earlier date by Mercian kings following the piecemeal enlargement of their kingdom by the absorption of formerly independent neighbouring polities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recorded corpus of Agnus Dei pennies made or found in England has been augmented by three further specimens. The first two (below, [1] and [2]) are imitations of the type, probably minted in Scandinavia but uncovered in England. The third (below, [3]) is a specimen of the original English issue, representing a previously unrecorded mint-place (Dorchester, in Dorset). The new coins are presented in turn, showing how each in its own way refines important aspects of the wider understanding of the Agnus Dei coinage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A runic text that has, as far as I know, attracted little attention lurks at the bottom right-hand corner of Tabella III of part 3 of Hickes's Thesaurus. It has thirteen graphs, labelled ' e Cod. Cottoniano, Otho C. 5.p. 41‘. The graphs are the Anglo-Saxon runes:Transliterated: ‗conslruieius‘, followed by what appears to be the bindrune ‘, that is, the late additional rune calc bound with ur. The sigel-Tune ‘s’ is a comparatively rare form found occasionally in manuscripts, on coins and in inscriptions. The other runes are common English types. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The buildings and lands of Abbotsbury abbey in Dorset were acquired by Sir Giles Strangways soon after the dissolution of the abbey in 1539, various records pertaining to the abbey's estates seem to have passed into Sir Giles' possession at about the same time. Among these records was a cartulary, which is known to have belonged to Sir Giles' descendant, Sir John Strangways, in the seventeenth century, but which is said to have been destroyed when parliamentary forces set fire to Sir John's house at Abbotsbury during the Civil War. It is possible, however, to reconstruct something of the nature and contents of the lost cartulary from the writings of certain seventeenth-century antiquaries, and in the process to recover parts of the texts of six Anglo-Saxon charters whose existence has not previously been recorded. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The editorial history of Old English poetry has known two extremes in its attitude to the transmitted manuscript readings. Whereas Franciscus Junius in his Caedmonis Monachi Paraphrasis Poetic a Genesios ac Praecipuarum Sacrae Paginae Historiarum, abhinc annos M.LXX. Anglo-Saxonice Conscripta & nunc Primum Edita (Amsterdam, 1655) aimed essentially at reflecting the readings of Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 11, and was by and large successful in transcribing what the manuscript offered, by the middle of the nineteenth century at the latest an entirely different approach had become predominant. By then it had become clear that our manuscripts are by no means authors' originals; in the course of transmission numerous errors have crept into them. Since it was undeniable that in the copying process errors had occurred it was considered imperative to try to restore the original versions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The nineteenth biennial meeting of the Society took as its general theme 'Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Saxonists in the Southwest'. The conference was attended by 121 registrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines a contradiction in Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica between Bede's own claims and the implications of the list of bishops in the conciliar document produced at the Synod of Hertford, concerning the date of Bisi's consecration. Modern reconstructions of East Anglian episcopal chronology rely on Bede's account. The article opens by considering Bede's concern to identify episcopal consecrators, which led to the contradiction. The implications of the Synod of Hertford are then explored for dating East Anglia's bishops and the consequent impact this has upon interpreting East Anglia's royal chronology and the evangelization of the kingdom. This further exposes Bede's motives for writing his history and how he constructed his narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hessisches Staatsarchiv Marburg Hr 2,19 is a recently described fragment of the abridged version of Cassiodorus's Expositio psalmorum , as found in Durham, Cathedral Library, MS. B II. 30. In the past, it has been debated whether the abridged commentary ever existed in more than one copy, the focus being on the relationship between the fragment Landesbibliothek Düsseldorf K16:Z03/01 and Durham MS. B II. 30. This note argues that Hr 2,19 provides evidence that at least three or perhaps four copies existed. An appendix provides a transcription, images of the fragment, commentary on variants, and corrections made in Hr 2,19 and the Durham manuscript. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has long been accepted that royal households in the pre-Viking period subsisted on annual renders of food, sometimes termed feorm, from the free peasantry. This model of royal support is historiographically fundamental, in the sense that it is built into the foundations of much current thinking not just on the economics of kingship, but on its origins, and on the process of 'manorialization'. This article argues that the texts which are conventionally read as references to these general-purpose food supplies are in fact concerned with feasts. This is apparent when we scrutinize both the content of food lists – which are so dominated by animal protein as to be inconsistent with the stable isotope evidence for elite diet examined in our companion article – and the contexts of documentary references to feorm and (in Latin) pastus. The article concludes with a review of the potentially far-reaching implications of this finding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Connections between Andreas and Beowulf have been the subject of much scholarly discussion. This article contributes to this discussion by arguing that the account of the Mermedonians' discovery of and response to the loss of their prisoners in Andreas fitt X, which corresponds to chapters 22–3 of the poet's putative Latin source, has been deliberately recast in ways intended to recall the account in fitt II of Beowulf of Grendel's first attack on Heorot and the reactions of the Danish community. The connection argued for here is based not on verbal correspondences, but on embedded structural and thematic parallels. The Andreas-poet emerges as a careful and sophisticated reader, notable for their specifically literate and textual engagement with Beowulf. This observation has implications not only for our appreciation of the Andreas-poet's art, but also for the transmission of Beowulf and for our understanding of Old English poetic practices more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The metrical sections of the Old English Boethius have traditionally been regarded as little more than mechanical versifications of the relevant portions of the entirely prose version. This article, however, argues that The Metres of Boethius present an ambitious psychological discourse. The adaptations made during the versification process allow the poet to expand upon the prose source and place greater emphasis on the care of the inner mind. The model of the mind in the Metres owes much to the tradition of vernacular poetry, in which the mind is a separate, wilful part of the self, in need of restraint. Yet the Metres are also indebted to the tradition of their ultimate Latin source, in which the mind has the ability and, indeed, the responsibility, to monitor its own inner depths. This article demonstrates that the Metres-poet engages with both traditions, crafting a strikingly original model of the mind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a new appraisal of the Scandinavian evidence relating to Beow – a figure who surfaces in a range of Anglo-Saxon sources as a member of the famous Scylding dynasty. The well-known appearances of Beow in Old Norse genealogical material and in the composition known as Kálfsvísa are first reviewed, along with their evolving status in the critical history of Beowulf. New evidence is then adduced from the text known as Bjarkarímur, which attests to a more extensive Scandinavian tradition surrounding Beow than has previously been acknowledged. The expanded dossier of Old Norse evidence pertaining to Beow allows, in turn, for reflections on the development of traditions surrounding this figure in Anglo-Saxon England, and the manner of their transmission to Scandinavia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Viking invasions and settlements left substantial legacies in late Anglo-Saxon England, attested in legal texts as a division between areas under Dena lage and those under Ængla lage. But how legal practice in Scandinavian-settled England functioned and differed from Anglo-Saxon law remains unclear. III Æthelred, the 'Wantage Code', provides critical evidence for legal customs being practised in the Danelaw at the close of the tenth century. An investigation into the code's peace protections re-examines the argument for occurrences of communal liability in England before the Normans. Wantage's restrictions on access to law and the need to 'buy law' suggest a departure from English conceptions of rights. Provisions on proof in legal cases, including a 'jury' of thegns, denote alternative measures of the truth. These analyses depict a Danelaw legal culture that reflects viking army origins, a Scandinavian preference for informal dispute-settlement ('love') and the concerns of a landholding Anglo-Scandinavian elite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The established view of the Viking-Age Northumbrian Church has never been substantiated with verifiably contemporary evidence but is an inheritance from one strand of 'historical research' produced in post-Conquest England. Originating c. 1100, the strand we have come to associate with Symeon of Durham places the relics and see of Cuthbert at Chester-le-Street from the 880s until a move to Durham in the 990s. By contrast, other guidance, including Viking-Age material, can be read to suggest that Cuthbert was at Norham on the river Tweed and did not come to Durham or even Wearside until after 1013. Further, our earliest guidance indicates that the four-see Northumbrian episcopate still lay intact until at least the time of Æthelstan (r. 924–39). The article ends by seeking to understand the origins of the diocese of Durham and its historical relationship with both Chester-le-Street and Norham in a later context than hitherto sought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Historia translationis S. Augustini (1098 × 1100), composed by Goscelin of Saint-Bertin as part of a hagiographical cycle for St Augustine's Abbey, contains several previously overlooked allusions to St Dunstan's vision of heavenly virgins. I argue that Goscelin drew upon the Dunstan legend to justify Abbot Scotland's renovation work on St Augustine's between 1072 and 1087. The article first of all considers how the oratory of the Anglo-Saxon abbey was presented as a locus of divine praise in the first known hagiography of Dunstan. I then show how Dunstan's eleventh-century hagiographers at Christ Church cathedral responded to the original vision by crafting competing narratives of heavenly choirs. Finally, an analysis of the Historia translationis reveals how Goscelin reappropriated the legend, depicting the oratory, and the crypt that came to replace it, as the abode of celestial spirits whose praise echoed the community's liturgical devotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

London, British Library, Add. 56488, fols. i, 1–5, is a fragment from a monastic breviary of the first half of the eleventh century, probably made at or for Muchelney Abbey (Somerset). It is here argued on palaeographical, musical and liturgical grounds that this breviary represents a liturgical tradition separate from that of Æthelwold's network of reformed houses, which imitated the northern French monastery of Corbie. The fragment's liturgy is based instead on a local 'secular' (non-monastic) liturgical tradition that has been minimally supplemented and rearranged to agree with the requirements of the Regula S. Benedicti. The scribe apparently compiled the breviary from several separate exemplars (a collectar, a bible, a homiliary, and what seems to have been a 'secular' antiphoner), which may indicate that the liturgy at Muchelney was 'Benedictinized' much later than might have been assumed. The same secular tradition seems to be preserved, beneath subsequent layers of modification, in a thirteenth-century Muchelney breviary (London, British Library, Add. 43405–6) and a fifteenth-century ordinal of St Mary's Abbey, York (Cambridge, St John's College D. 27). These later sources, while not representing the Benedictine liturgy of the lost 'old books of Glastonbury' under Dunstan (as suggested by McLachlan and Tolhurst), are valuable potential witnesses to the otherwise largely unattested Office liturgy used in English minsters before the 'Benedictine Reform' of the tenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the recent increase in attention given to Archbishop Wulfstan and his writings, the so-called 'Laws of Edward and Guthrum' – a lawcode forged by the archbishop in the opening years of the eleventh century – has received little analysis since Dorothy Whitelock's 1941 study established the churchman as its true author. My article seeks to fill this gap firstly by expanding on Whitelock's article. I show that many more of the text's clauses function as antecedents to Wulfstan's later legislation than those she identified in her important article. Second, I argue that §10 of the code, a clause not repeated in the archbishop's later legislation, surely still held legal authority given Wulfstan's prescriptions for non-lethal punishment in some cases. Finally, I posit that Wulfstan's attribution of the code to Alfred, seen in its opening, reflects the archbishop's value of him as a king worth emulating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During Cnut's two decades on the throne, his English court was the most vibrant centre in the North for the production and performance of skaldic praise poetry. Icelandic poets composing for earlier Anglo-Saxon kings had focused on the predictive power of royal 'speaking' names: for example, Æthelstan ('Noble-Rock') and Æthelred ('Noble-Counsel'). The name Cnut presented problems, vulnerable as it was to cross-linguistic gaffes and embarrassing associations. This article reviews the difficulties faced by Cnut's skalds when referring in verse to their patron and the solutions they devised. Similar techniques were used when naming other figures in the king's vicinity. The article concludes with a look at two cruces in an anonymous praise poem celebrating Cnut's victory in battle in 1016/17 against the English. Both onomastic allusions — to a famed local hero and a female onlooker — seem to poke fun at the 'colonial' pronunciation of Danish names in Anglo-Scandinavian England. Norse court poetry was nothing if not a combative game. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article assesses the rhetorical uses of the main kinds of non-functional alliteration that are attested in Old English poetry, and gives complete lists of their incidence in all of the poems. Two main general types are isolated. Supererogatory alliteration does not depart from the known alliterative rules, and is deployed ornamentally with some freedom by at least some of the poets. Five sub-types are examined in turn: double alliteration in the a-verse, consonant cluster alliteration, alliteration which is continued across lines, patterned alternation of alliteration across lines, and enjambed alliteration (where the last stress of a line initiates the alliteration of the next). Secondly, licentious alliteration draws a line's final stress into alliteration in its own line. Four sub-types are considered: crossed, postponed, and transverse alliteration, and double alliteration in the b-verse. Whilst crossed alliteration appears quite freely, the primary alliteration of a line on the final stress is shown to be avoided almost completely. Most of the unusual uses of extra alliteration congregate in non-traditional or late poetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1891, Germain Morin identified a set of brief, anonymous Latin sermons that he controversially attributed to Alcuin's Anglo-Saxon pupil named 'Witto' or 'Wizo' in Old English, 'Candidus' in Latin. The texts in question are of considerable interest but have remained unprinted and thus scarcely known. The present article offers an edition of them, based on all the known manuscripts, as well as a translation and commentary. An introductory discussion reviews the state of scholarship on Candidus's career and writings, then examines in detail the content and sources of the four texts, the evidence supporting their attribution to Candidus, and some points of comparison between the items here edited and other Latin sermons produced at Carolingian centres in the early ninth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the first fruits of a long-term project which aims to identify all the landholders named in Domesday Book, and to build up a picture of English landed society before and after the Norman conquest. The first part describes the project's methods and illustrates them with a selection of short profiles of individuals whose careers add distinctive colour to the emerging picture. The second offers firstly an analysis of the social distribution of landed wealth in England in 1066 and 1086, quantifying the numbers of landholders in different groups defined by the amount of the land assigned to them in Domesday. We then turn to a spatial analysis of landed society, using maps to illustrate the geographical distribution of landholding. In doing so, we offer fresh perspectives on the transformation of English landed society in the aftermath of conquest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the uses of Latin and Old English in the charters of Worcester cathedral, which represents one of the largest and most linguistically interesting of the surviving Anglo-Saxon archives. Specifically focused on the period encompassing the episcopates of Wærferth and Oswald (c. 870 to 992), this survey examines a time of intense administrative activity at Worcester, contemporaneous with significant transformations in the political and cultural life of Anglo-Saxon England more generally. In doing so, this article argues that when writing in either Latin or the vernacular, charter draftsmen responded to a number of variables; language choice did not simply reflect varying levels of literacy. Furthermore, the frequent cases of code-switching found in tenth-century Worcester documents mark this community out as exceptional, suggesting that attitudes towards the interaction between the two languages could vary considerably between institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An abiding concern for scholars of the presence of music in Anglo-Saxon England is whether parochial witnesses can reflect a more comprehensive reality. This article discusses a hitherto undiscovered source of information pertinent to this topic. Its conclusions are not as precise as one would want, due to the source's fragmentary nature, but they help us address music in a wider world nevertheless. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reassesses the Second English Coronation Ordo in the light of its relationship to Carolingian sources. The dependence of the Ordo on a distinctive West Frankish source, here termed the Leiden Ordo , has many implications, since the Leiden Ordo seems likely to have been composed for the anointing of Charles the Straightforward by Fulk of Rheims in January 893. This finding provides a probable context for the importing of West Frankish ordines in King Alfred's dealings with Rheims. It also strengthens the case for placing the Second Ordo in the mid- or late 890s, rather than early in Athelstan's reign. Anointing practices were directly implicated in the 'crisis of authority' affecting the Carolingian world in the late ninth century. The new understanding of the Second Ordo adds a further dimension to King Alfred's efforts to promote the 'kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons', and has wider implications for the development of royal ordines in western Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the connections between Asser's Life of King Alfred and the tenthcentury Welsh poem Armes Prydein Vawr. It studies the use of the place-name Santwic 'Sandwich' in Armes Prydein , and presents evidence that this form derives from a written source. An investigation of the sources containing this place-name before the late tenth century raises the distinct possibility that Asser's Life was the source drawn upon by the Welsh poet. Examination of the context in which Sandwich occurs in Asser and Armes Prydein highlights striking similarities in usage, strengthening the argument for a connection between the two texts. Further correspondences between these works are noted before discussing the potential implications of this new finding for our understanding of Asser (and his reception) and Armes Prydein more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, which builds on an older publication of the author's, argues on the basis of nautical, linguistic and logical evidence that some widely accepted opinions on the meaning of the Old English words in the title cannot be upheld any further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lichfield Cathedral had a scriptorium and library in the early eleventh century. As a non-monastic establishment run by bishops and secular canons, Lichfield was not dissolved during the Reformation and undoubtedly kept some of its books. In 1563, Laurence Nowell, Dean of Lichfield Cathedral, subscribed the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, the main tenets of the Anglican Church. That year, someone wrote Laurence Nowell and the momentous date 1563 on the first page of the codex. The damage to the beginning and end of the codex suggests that a Reformer, deeming them unsuitable on religious grounds, excised the surviving texts from their original contexts. For a Reformer, the Life of St Christopher supported the Papist superstition of invoking and venerating saints, while Judith unduly showcased a non-canonical story from the Apocrypha. In this light, the Reformers unintentionally saved Beowulf and the rest of the Nowell Codex because they disapproved of them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bede frequently used dating formulas to frame his narrative. In some cases these simply reflect the wording of his sources, whether he states that he is quoting from them or not. More often, however, the types of phrasing he uses reflect conscious construction on his part. Such formulas drew attention to key people and passages in the work and so assisted in the achievement of Bede's authorial intentions in the Historia ecclesiastica. These phrases also imitated and developed previous exemplars from earlier historiography thus enabling Bede to situate and validate his work within the genre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have typically characterized Warsaw, Biblioteka Narodowa, I. 3311, an unlocalized Anglo-Saxon gospel lectionary of the late tenth or early eleventh century, as a book intended for use in private devotional reading. Despite this, a study of the contents of the book indicates that it was used liturgically, possibly by an individual priest or a small clerical community. This article offers a reappraisal of the manuscript and its use based on the complementary pattern of gospel readings that is evident in the two sections of the book and the presence of previously unnoticed musical notation. It is argued that the volume was in fact used in the celebration of mass and should be added to the corpus of Anglo-Saxon liturgical books. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The first scholars interested in Anglo-Saxon had to learn it by direct contact with original sources. Work on a dictionary preceded that on a grammar, notably through the efforts of John Joscelyn, Archbishop Parker's Latin Secretary. Like Parker, Sir Henry Spelman (1563/4–1641) found that many of his sources for early English history were in Anglo-Saxon. Consequently he encouraged the study of Old English by establishing a Lectureship in Anglo-Saxon at Cambridge University and worked closely with its first (and only) holder, Abraham Wheelock. Together with Wheelock's pupil, William Retchford, and possibly drawing on some earlier work by Joscelyn (since lost), these scholars attempted to formulate the rudiments of Anglo-Saxon grammar. This pioneering work, basically a parts-of-speech grammar, survives in three versions, two of them incomplete. In this article I discuss the contents and methodology used and present for the first time an edited text of the first modern Old English grammar. It was a remarkable achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Consisting of six short Old English texts written in the early eleventh century, the Ely memoranda illustrate how a major and recently refounded Benedictine abbey managed its landed endowment. Two of the memoranda relate to generous help provided by Ely to Thorney, and four concern Ely's own lands. The collection as a whole reveals much about interaction between monasteries, monastic perspectives on material resources and investment in them, the economy of eastern England, and the context of record-keeping. This article offers a new edition and translation of the texts, and surveys the contribution the memoranda make to understanding of cultural and economic history. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Scholarship is divided over whether there existed a tradition of recreational hunting in Anglo-Saxon England, in addition to pragmatic forms of venery, and the extent to which it was altered by the Normans after the Conquest. However, hunting scholarship has hitherto neglected the detailed account of a recreational royal deer hunt in the Vita S. Dvnstani. By analysing this account, which describes a hunt resembling a typically ‘Norman’ chasse par force de chiens, I reassess the evidence for the nature of hunting in laws, charters, and the archaeological record. I posit that the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy hunted in a similar manner to the Normans, and that hunting was a socially inscribed pursuit, legally restricted to the ruling classes long before 1066. This argument supports the definition of the disputed charter term haga (‘enclosure’) in certain instances as an Anglo-Saxon hunting park. Finally, I suggest the existence of a specialized Anglo-Saxon hunting dog developed specifically to hunt large quarry in the ‘Norman’ manner. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Critics have long wondered about the setting and intent of the Old English translation of Boethius's De consolatione philosophiae, first into prose and then into prosimetrum. This article situates the dual translation within the broader context of ninth- and tenth-century literary culture, challenging the received view of the two versions as separate projects and arguing instead that the Old English Boethius was conceived and received as a vernacular opus geminatum, or ‘twinned work’. While the opus geminatum and the prosimetrum are generally thought to maintain distinct generic identities, this case study allows for a more capacious understanding of both modes, which I demonstrate were inescapably linked in Anglo-Saxon circles – and which were shaped by a broader aesthetic of prose-verse mixture. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines new evidence and arguments relating to the political, strategic and historical context of the Burghal Hidage document and the burhs which it lists. This evidence can be best interpreted by reference to the thesis that the Burghal Hidage was a near-contemporary record of a complete system of burhs which gave King Alfred political and strategic control of the full extent of the West Saxon kingdom on both sides of the river Thames at a particular period. The burhs are seen as the instruments through which the submission of the populations of their associated territories to the king's lordship was consolidated. As such, their formation as a system is uniquely appropriate to the political and strategic circumstances obtaining in the late 870s. A possible context for the document is suggested as being the surviving ‘boundary’ section of a longer ‘charter of submission’, issued by King Alfred in the context of the affirmation of his re-established hegemony of the Kingdom of the West Saxons in the period 878–9. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A careful consideration of a ‘scribble’ in English in the margin of a page of Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby 63, a ninth-century Latin manuscript, yields a number of important conclusions: that the English material is homiletic, that it was written before the Latin, that the manuscript is certainly of Northumbrian origin and the English shows traces of Northumbrian dialect, and that therefore at least one vernacular homily in Old English was available for copying in Northumbria in the ninth century. It also adds to the evidence that a group of homilies in the Vercelli Book were drawn from an early and a non-West Saxon source-book. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An Anglo-Saxon gold and garnet cloisonné pectoral cross from a seventh-century bed burial at Trumpington, Cambridgeshire is the fifth such example to be found. Details of the contextual associations of the five crosses are used to argue that these artifacts, and other high status cross-shaped pendants, were overt Christian symbols, strongly associated with high status female burials of the later seventh century. That one of the five examples was associated with the burial of St Cuthbert is highlighted as an anomaly, and could indicate that the Cuthbert Cross may have been a gift, rather than a personal possession of the saint. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 121, a manuscript written in Worcester in the early years of the episcopate of St Wulfstan (1062–95), contains a unique, untitled, anonymous text which has previously been interpreted as a Lenten homily. This article argues that this text is not a homily, but must be understood in the context of the penitential material surrounding it in Junius 121, for which it was probably specifically composed. The text has not attracted much attention, but it is an important early and vernacular witness to the developing tradition of affective writing which became prominent during the latter part of the eleventh century. In addition, the text itself and its placing in its manuscript context reveal the careful, deliberate decisions which Junius 121's compiler made about his material: by reusing earlier texts alongside newly composed English material, he provided practical pastoral and penitential materials for use in late-eleventh-century Worcester. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The importance of warfare in Anglo-Saxon England is widely accepted, but the processes by which armies were put in the field are only partially understood, with most discussion focusing on the economic logistics rather than the spatial practicalities of mobilization. Yet such a system underpinned recorded military actions and must have evolved in response to changing military organization in the late Anglo-Saxon period. Through an assessment of documentary references to sites of muster, and by using a multidisciplinary landscape-focused approach, this article examines possible traces of that system – especially those preserved in place-names – and relates them to later Anglo-Saxon administrative geography. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Exeter Book Riddles are anonymous, and the generally formulaic character of all Old English verse discourages attempts to establish unity or diversity of authorship for them; but correlations between the sequence of Riddles in the manuscript and the recurrence from poem to poem of aspects of form, content (including solutions), presentation and style sometimes suggest common authorship for particular runs of texts, or reveal shaping episodes in the collection's transmission. Investigation along these lines throws up clear differences between the two main blocks of Riddles (1–59 and 61–95), and evidence emerges that the composition of many (at least) of Riddles 61–95 was influenced by a reading of Riddles 1–59. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Lexical and stylistic features indicate that the Preface to the Old English Bede was composed by a writer different from the anonymous Mercian who translated the body of the text. The Preface, therefore, cannot be taken to reveal aspects of the original translator's aims or attitude to the text. Recently discovered collations of the burnt manuscript London, British Library, Cotton Otho B. xi, made by John Smith prior to the 1731 fire, provide further insight, indicating that a copy of the West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List was attached to the Preface by the mid-tenth century. Thus the origins of the Preface may lie in an Alfredian or post-Alfredian initiative to disseminate the translation at some time later than its actual creation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Bede's Historia ecclesiastica allows the historian to reconstruct a sporadic narrative of relations between Penda of Mercia and Oswiu of Bernicia in the years leading up to the battle of the Winwæd. This article re-evaluates Bede's presentation of these interactions, with a focus on narrative structure and various geographical and chronological points of interest, and also taking account of Welsh and Irish sources. In light of this discussion, an alternative reconstruction of events before and after the battle of Winwæd is proposed; this derives primarily from a suggested re-reading of a passage in Historia ecclesiastica iii. 24, where Bede addresses Oswiu's post-war settlement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the evidence for books associated with kings in Anglo-Saxon England, making the case for the ninth century as the key period of change. A wide variety of books were probably present in the household of later Anglo-Saxon kings. There was a degree of connection between the gift of books by kings and practices of ownership. The donation of gospel-books to favoured churches played a distinctive role, emphasizing the king's position in ecclesiastical leadership. In a number of cases, gospel-books associated with kings subsequently acted as a repository for documents, entered in blank spaces or additional leaves by scribes at the recipient church. Certain aspects of this practice strengthen the case for identifying two late Anglo-Saxon gospel-books as royal gifts. Books given by kings had a numinous quality arising from their royal associations. The possible strategies underpinning the dissemination of this ‘royal’ culture are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There is a persistent view that Old English texts were mostly written to be read or heard by people with no knowledge of Latin, or little understanding of it, especially the laity. This is not surprising because it is what the texts themselves tend to say. In this article I argue that these statements about audience reflect two rhetorical devices and should not be understood literally. This has implications for our understanding of the reasons why writers chose to use Old English and their attitudes towards translation of various kinds into the vernacular. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]