Byrhtferth's Enchiridion

Byrhtferth's Enchiridion
Author: Byrhtferth
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 480
Release: 1995
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780197224168

Byrhtferth of Ramsey was one of the outstanding scholars of the late Anglo-Saxon Church, the pupil of Abbo of Fleury, probably the most learned man in the Europe of his day. From Abbo, Byrhtferth learned the intricacies of medieval date-reckoning (computus), as well as familiarity with the syllabus of the quadrivium (astronomy, arithmetic, harmony, geometry). The Enchiridion, completed in 1011, is a handbook designed to explain the complexities of computus to young monks in his charge, but Byrhtferth disgresses widely in discussions of metrics and rhetoric, as well as his scientific intersts. As such, it is a work in the forefront of Anglo-Saxon scholarship. This edition of the Enchiridion supersedes that of S. J. Crawford, published for the Society in 1929 as vol. 177 of the Original Series. The new edition contains a full introduction, describing the nature of Byrhtferth's schooling at Ramsey. The text is presented with a facing translation, and is followed by a detailed commentary. The edition also includes the text of Byrhtferth's Latin treatise on computus, which has never been printed before. The Latin text is the model for the Enchiridion, which cannot be understood without reference to it.

Anglo-Saxon England: Volume 25

Anglo-Saxon England: Volume 25
Author: Michael Lapidge
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 374
Release: 1997-02-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521571470

This volume brings to light material evidence to further our knowledge of Anglo-Saxon England.

Byrhtferth of Ramsey

Byrhtferth of Ramsey
Author: Byrhtferth
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 468
Release: 2009
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0199550786

Byrhtferth of Ramsey was one of the most learned scholars of late Anglo-Saxon England, and his two saints' Lives-of Oswald, a powerful bishop of Worcester and York in the tenth century (d. 992), and Ecgwine, the seventh-century founder of Evesham-are among the most important historical sources for our understanding of late Anglo-Saxon England. The Life of St Oswald is the longest surviving work of Anglo-Saxon hagiography, and it is the principal source for much of our knowledge of tenth-century England, especially the monastic reform movement, the role of King Edgar, the murder of Edward king and Martyr, and the so-called 'anti-monastic reaction' (of which he is the unique witness). Much less is known about St Ecgwine, both by us and by Byrhtferth, but Byrhtferth's writing has exceptional value once again for the light it throws on tenth-century monasticism and the role of King Edgar in this process. Both Lives have been printed only once before, in the nineteenth century, in editions which are riddled with errors and which have misled scholarship for over a century. Neither work has ever been translated into English. The present edition includes facing-page translations, which will make these works accessible to a scholarly audience for the first time. Byrhtferth's Latin is unusually idiosyncratic and difficult, and was frequently misunderstood by the scribe who copied the unique manuscript in which the Lives are preserved. The texts are also accompanied by extensive notes, which explain the historical implications and the often impenetrable Latin. One of the principal features of the new edition is that corruption in the transmitted text has been emended where necessary, based on knowledge of Byrhtferth's Latin style (analysed, for example, in the EETS edition of Byrhtferth's Enchiridion, ed. Lapidge and Baker in 1994). A new edition of Byrhtferth's two saints' Lives has been long awaited, and will be indispensable to the study of Anglo-Saxon history and literature; the texts also throw considerable new light on the archaeology of Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical sites such as York, Worcester, Ramsey and Evesham.

Latinity and Identity in Anglo-Saxon Literature

Latinity and Identity in Anglo-Saxon Literature
Author: Rebecca Stephenson
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2016-09-23
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1442625678

For the Anglo-Saxons, Latin was a language of choice that revealed a multitude of beliefs and desires about themselves as subjects, believers, scholars, and artists. In this groundbreaking collection, ten leading scholars explore the intersections between identity and Latin language and literature in Anglo-Saxon England. Ranging from the works of the Venerable Bede and St Boniface in the eighth century to Osbern’s account of eleventh-century Canterbury, Latinity and Identity in Anglo-Saxon Literature offers new insights into the Anglo-Saxons’ ideas about literary form, monasticism, language, and national identity. Latin prose, poetry, and musical styles are reconsidered, as is the relationship between Latin and Old English. Monastic identity, intertwined as it was with the learning of Latin and reformation of the self, is also an important theme. By offering fresh perspectives on texts both famous and neglected, Latinity and Identity will transform readers’ views of Anglo-Latin literature.

Materializing Englishness in Early Medieval Texts

Materializing Englishness in Early Medieval Texts
Author:
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2022-06-16
Genre: English literature
ISBN: 0198757573

The aim of this book is to restore to the story of Englishness the lively material interactions between words, bodies, plants, stones, metals, and soil, among other things, that would have characterized it for the early medieval English themselves. In particular, each chapter demonstrates howa productive collapse, or fusion, between place and history happens not only in the intellectual realm, in ideas, but is also a material concern, becoming enfleshed in encounters between early medieval bodies and a host of material entities. Through readings of texts in a wide variety of genresincluding hagiography, heroic poetry, and medical and historical works, the book argues that Englishness during this period is an embodied identity emergent at the frontier of material and textual interactions that serve productively to occlude history, religion, and geography. The early medievalEnglish body thus results from the rich encounter between the lived environment--climate, soil, landscape features, plants--and the textual-discursive realm that both determines what that environment means and is also itself determined by the material constraints of everyday life.

Key Figures in Medieval Europe

Key Figures in Medieval Europe
Author: Richard K. Emmerson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 780
Release: 2013-10-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 1136775188

From emperors and queens to artists and world travelers, from popes and scholars to saints and heretics, Key Figures in Medieval Europe brings together in one volume the most important people who lived in medieval Europe between 500 and 1500. Gathered from the biographical entries from the on-going series, the Routledge Encyclopedias of the Middle Ages, these A-Z biographical entries discuss the lives of over 575 individuals who have had a historical impact in such areas as politics, religion, or the arts. Individuals from places such as medieval England, France, Germany, Iberia, Italy, and Scandinavia are included as well as those from the Jewish and Islamic worlds. A thematic outline is included that lists people not only by categories, but also by regions. For a full list of entries, contributors, and more, visit the Routledge Encyclopedias of the Middle Ages website.

The Anglo-Saxon Library

The Anglo-Saxon Library
Author: Michael Lapidge
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 423
Release: 2006-01-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 0191533017

The cardinal role of Anglo-Saxon libraries in the transmission of classical and patristic literature to the later middle ages has long been recognized, for these libraries sustained the researches of those English scholars whose writings determined the curriculum of medieval schools: Aldhelm, Bede, and Alcuin, to name only the best known. Yet this is the first full-length account of the nature and holdings of Anglo-Saxon libraries from the sixth century to the eleventh. The early chapters discuss libraries in antiquity, notably at Alexandria and republican and imperial Rome, and also the Christian libraries of late antiquity which supplied books to Anglo-Saxon England. Because Anglo-Saxon libraries themselves have almost completely vanished, three classes of evidence need to be combined in order to form a detailed impression of their holdings: surviving inventories, surviving manuscripts, and citations of classical and patristic works by Anglo-Saxon authors themselves. After setting out the problems entailed in using such evidence, the book provides appendices containing editions of all surviving Anglo-Saxon inventories, lists of all Anglo-Saxon manuscripts exported to continental libraries during the eighth century and then all manuscripts re-imported into England in the tenth, as well as a catalogue of all citations of classical and patristic literature by Anglo-Saxon authors. A comprehensive index, arranged alphabetically by author, combines these various classes of evidence so that the reader can see at a glance what books were known where and by whom in Anglo-Saxon England. The book thus provides, within a single volume, a vast amount of information on the books and learning of the schools which determined the course of medieval literary culture.

St. Oswald of Worcester

St. Oswald of Worcester
Author: Nicholas Brooks
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 384
Release: 1996-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0718500032

St Oswald was the youngest of the three great monastic reformers of tenth-century England whose work transformed English religious, intellectual and political life. Certainly a more attractive, and perhaps a more effective, figure than either St Dunstan or St AEthelwold, Oswald's impact upon his cathedrals at Worcester and York and upon his West Midland and East Anglian monasteries was radical and lasting. In this volume the researches of a team of leading scholars throw new light on St Oswald's background, career, influence and cult and on the society that he helped to shape. His cathedral at Worcester and his monastery at Ramsey were among the richest and best documented Anglo-Saxon churches. The volume therefore provides a window on to the realities of tenth-century English politics, religion and economics in the light of contemporary developments on the continent.

Heaven and Earth in Anglo-Saxon England

Heaven and Earth in Anglo-Saxon England
Author: Helen Foxhall Forbes
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 462
Release: 2016-04-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317123069

Christian theology and religious belief were crucially important to Anglo-Saxon society, and are manifest in the surviving textual, visual and material evidence. This is the first full-length study investigating how Christian theology and religious beliefs permeated society and underpinned social values in early medieval England. The influence of the early medieval Church as an institution is widely acknowledged, but Christian theology itself is generally considered to have been accessible only to a small educated elite. This book shows that theology had a much greater and more significant impact than has been recognised. An examination of theology in its social context, and how it was bound up with local authorities and powers, reveals a much more subtle interpretation of secular processes, and shows how theological debate affected the ways that religious and lay individuals lived and died. This was not a one-way flow, however: this book also examines how social and cultural practices and interests affected the development of theology in Anglo-Saxon England, and how ’popular’ belief interacted with literary and academic traditions. Through case-studies, this book explores how theological debate and discussion affected the personal perspectives of Christian Anglo-Saxons, including where possible those who could not read. In all of these, it is clear that theology was not detached from society or from the experiences of lay people, but formed an essential constituent part.

Anglo-Saxon England: Volume 36

Anglo-Saxon England: Volume 36
Author: Malcolm Godden
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2008-03-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521883436

Anglo-Saxon England is the only publication which consistently embraces all the main aspects of study of Anglo-Saxon history and culture - linguistic, literary, textual, palaeographic, religious, intellectual, historical, archaeological and artistic - and which promotes the more unusual interests - in music or medicine or education, for example. Articles in volume 36 include: The tabernacula of Gregory the Great and the conversion of Anglo-Saxon England by Flora Spiegel; The career of Aldhelm by Michael Lapidge; The name 'Merovingian' and the dating of Beowulf by Walter Goffart; An abbot, an archbishop and the Viking raids of 1006-7 and 1009-12 by Simon Keynes; and Demonstrative behaviour and political communication in later Anglo-Saxon England by Julia Barrow.