Anglo Saxon England Volume 25

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

Fresh perspectives on the English clergy, their books, and the wider Anglo-Saxon church.

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 figures largely in this book. One of the most intriguing of the Old English riddles is explained convincingly. The influence of Aldhelm's Latin poetry on Old English verse is also convincingly demonstrated. The usual comprehensive bibliography of the previous year's publications rounds off the book; and a full index of the contents of volumes 1-25 is provided, with a separate index to volumes 21-25. (Previous indexes have appeared in volumes 5, 10, 15 and 20.)

An examination of the linguistic and cultural construction of one of the texts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

Interrogations of materiality and geography, narrative framework and boundaries, and the ways these scholarly pursuits ripple out into the wider cultural sphere. Early medieval England as seen through the lens of comparative and interconnected histories is the subject of this volume. Drawn from a range of disciplines, its chapters examine artistic, archaeological, literary, and historical artifacts, converging around the idea that the period may not only define itself, but is often defined from other perspectives, specifically here by modern scholarship. The first part considers the transmission of material culture across borders, while querying the possibilities and limits of comparative and transnational approaches, taking in the spread of bread wheat, the collapse of the art-historical "decorative" and "functional", and the unknowns about daily life in an early medieval English hall. The volume then moves on to reimagine the permeable boundaries of early medieval England, with perspectives from the Baltic, Byzantium, and the Islamic world, including an examination of Vercelli Homily VII (from John Chrysostom's Greek Homily XXIX), Hārūn ibn Yaḥyā's Arabic descriptions of Barṭīniyah ("Britain"), and an consideration of the Old English Orosius. The final chapters address the construction of and responses to "Anglo-Saxon" narratives, past and present: they look at early medieval England within a Eurasian perspective, the historical origins of racialized Anglo-Saxonism(s), and views from Oceania, comparing Hiberno-Saxon and Anglican Melanesian missions, as well as contemporary reactions to exhibitions of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and Pacific Island cultures. Contributors: Debby Banham, Britton Elliott Brooks, Caitlin Green, Jane Hawkes, John Hines, Karen Louise Jolly, Kazutomo Karasawa, Carol Neuman de Vegvar, John D. Niles, Michael W. Scott, Jonathan Wilcox

Valuable new insights into the multi-layered and multi-directional relationship of law, literature, and social regulation in pre-Conquest English society. Pre-Conquest English law was among the most sophisticated in early medieval Europe. Composed largely in the vernacular, it played a crucial role in the evolution of early English identity and exercised a formative influence on the development of the Common Law. However, recent scholarship has also revealed the significant influence of these legal documents and ideas on other cultural domains, both modern and pre-modern. This collection explores the richness of pre-Conquest legal writing by looking beyond its traditional codified form. Drawing on methodologies ranging from traditional philology to legal and literary theory, and from a diverse selection of contributors offering a broad spectrum of disciplines, specialities and perspectives, the essays examine the intersection between traditional juridical texts - from law codes and charters to treatises and religious regulation - and a wide range of literary genres, including hagiography and heroic poetry. In doing so, they demonstrate that the boundary that has traditionally separated "law" from other modes of thought and writing is far more porous than hitherto realized. Overall, the volume yields valuable new insights into the multi-layered and multi-directional relationship of law, literature, and social regulation in pre-Conquest English society.

An exploration of how Æthelwold and those he influenced deployed the promotion of saints to implement religious reform.