The Scriptorium Of Wearmouth Jarrow

Very fine collection of essays a rich feast of scholarship with many discoveries and new interpretations of greatest value for Anglo-Saxon history.' SPECULUM St Cuthbert is known to many as the the saintly bishop of Holy Island inthe 7th century, but he was also a figure of great political and territorial power. The book is divided into four sections, each dealing with different aspects of Cuthbert and his milieu. Among the topics investigated are the early Livesof the Saint, two by Bede himself, and his cult; Lindisfarne, its scriptorium and of course the famous Gospels; the sumptuous treasures gathered round the coffin, such as a portable altar and elaborately-worked silks, many of which are still preserved at Durham; and St Cuthbert's community at Chester-le-Street and Durham. Contributors: J. CAMPBELL, CLARE STANCLIFFE, MICHAEL HERITY, BENEDICTA WARD SLG, MICHAEL LAPIDGE, WALTER BERSCHIN, ALAN THACKER, DEIRDRE O'SULLIVAN, CHRISTOPHER D. VEREY, MICHELLE P. BROWN, JANET BACKHOUSE, R. BRUCE-MITFORD, DIBHI CRINN, NANCY NETZER, ROSEMARY CRAMP, RICHARD N. BAILEY, J.M. CRONYN, C.V. HORIE, R.I. PAGE, JOHN HIGGITT, ELIZABETH COASTWORTH, HERO GRANGER-TAYLOR, CLARE HIGGINS, ANNA MUTHESIUS, ERIC CAMBRIDGE, GERALD BONNER, LUISELLA SIMPSON, DAVID ROLLASON, DAVID HALL, A.J. PIPER, VICTORIA TUDOR

Art historian Meyer Schapiro defined style as "the constant form—and sometimes the constant elements, qualities, and expression—in the art of an individual or group." Today, style is frequently overlooked as a critical tool, with our interest instead resting with the personal, the ephemeral, and the fragmentary. Anglo-Saxon Styles demonstrates just how vital style remains in a methodological and theoretical prism, regardless of the object, individual, fragment, or process studied. Contributors from a variety of disciplines—including literature, art history, manuscript studies, philology, and more— consider the definitions and implications of style in Anglo-Saxon culture and in contemporary scholarship. They demonstrate that the idea of style as a "constant form" has its limitations, and that style is in fact the ordering of form, both verbal and visual. Anglo-Saxon texts and images carry meanings and express agendas, presenting us with paradoxes and riddles that require us to keep questioning the meanings of style.

A fully documented history of Ireland and the Irish from the fifth to the ninth centuries.

Medieval art is wordy; inscriptions and poems, commentaries and chronicles accompany and adorn it. The Art of Words presents a series of detective stories by a renowned explorer of medieval philological evidence who here examines the thought and objects of the Venerable Bede and Theodulf of Orleans. What physical objects did Bede have in mind, for example, when writing about the paintings of his monastic churches? How did he conceive of the division of biblical books into chapters? Why was the famous Libri Carolini made for Charlemagne never published? Indeed what did it mean in the Middle Ages to publish something? Pursuing the story of Bede's calendar shows how Valentine's Day began with a reference to birds. To unravel the meaning of the image of Ezra in the Codex Amiatinus the author then demonstrates the importance of knowing the books that Bede knew and wrote. The final topic is the celebrated Apse mosaic of Germigny-des-Prés, how it was saved from destruction and how Theodulf's words explain what we see. Words matter and, in these studies Paul Meyvaert constantly delights the reader with careful excavations of that place in medieval art and thought where images and words connect and collide.

Hannah Matis examines how a biblical text was read by the most important figures within the ninth-century Carolingian Reform to think about the nature of Christ and the church.

Social identity is a concept od increasing importance in the social sciences. Here, the concept is applied to the often atheoretical realm of medieval studies. Each contributor focuses on a particular topic of early medieval identity - ethnicity, national identity, social location, subjectivity/personhood, political organization, kiship, the body, gender, age, proximity/regionality, memory and ideological systems. The result is a pioneering vision of medieval social identity and a challenge to some of the received general wisdoms about this period.

As the major writer and thinker of the Anglo-Saxon period, the Venerable Bede is a key figure in the study of the literature and thought of this time. This Companion, written by an international team of specialists, is a key introductory guide to Bede, his writings, and his world. The first part of the volume focuses on Bede's cultural and intellectual milieu, covering his life, the secular-political contexts of his day, the foundations of the Latin learning he inherited and sought to perpetuate, the ecclesiastical and monastic setting of early Northumbria, and the foundation of his home institution, Wearmouth-Jarrow. The book then considers Bede's writing in detail, treating his educational, exegetical and historical works. Concluding with a detailed assessment of Bede's influence and reception from the time of his death up to the modern age, the Companion enables the reader to view Bede's writings within a wider cultural context.