During the past generation, Byrhtferth of Ramsey (c. 970 - c. 1020) has emerged as one of the principal authors of late Anglo-Saxon England, whose writings - in both Latin and Old English - are among the most important sources for our understanding of early English history. This work, the Historia regum, is transmitted anonymously in the single manuscript which preserves it; but Byrhtferth's idiosyncratic and individual Latin style allows certain identification of Byrhtferth as its author. The work is in four parts, and treats the history of the major Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (Kent, Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex) during the period 560 to 887. The Latin text is accompanied by facing-page English translation, and provided with extensive annotation intended to explain the many references to historical events (many of them unrecorded elsewhere) in the text. The Introduction treats the sources on which Byrhtferth drew in compiling this work, and provides full analysis of Byrhtferth's idiosyncratic Latin style. The edition is intended to be a companion volume to Byrhtferth of Ramsey: the Lives of St Oswald and St Ecgwine, published as an Oxford Medieval Text edition in 2009.

Byrhtferth of Ramsey's Historia Regum (Oxford Medieval Texts)

Literature & Fiction

Lapidge, Michael

History & Criticism

Oxford University Press

St Swithun was an obscure 9th-century bishop of Winchester who became a popular and important English saint with a cult widespread throughout Europe. This volume presents new and full editions of the texts which illuminate his cult. The unprecedented wealth of this volume sheds new light not only on St Swithun himself, but also on the times during which his cult was at the height of its popularity.

The Cult of St Swithun (Winchester Studies)

History

Europe

The Roman Martyrs contains translations of forty Latin passiones of saints who were martyred in Rome or its near environs, during the period before the "peace of the Church" (c. 312). Some of the Roman martyrs are universally known-SS. Agnes, Sebastian or Laurence, for example-but others are scarcely recognized outside the ecclesiastical landscape of Rome itself. Each of the translated passiones is accompanied by an individual introduction and commentary; the translations are preceded by an Introduction which describes the principal features of this little-known genre of Christian literature, and are followed by five Appendices which present translated texts which are essential for understanding the cult of Roman martyrs. This volume offers the first collection of the Roman passiones martyrum translated into a modern language. They were mostly composed during the period 425-675, by anonymous authors who were presumably clerics of the Roman churches or cemeteries which housed the martyrs' remains. It is clear that they were composed in response to the explosion of pilgrim traffic to martyrial shrines from the late fourth century onwards, at a time when authentic records (protocols) of their trials and executions had long since vanished, and the authors of the passiones were obliged to imagine the circumstances in which martyrs were tried and executed. The passiones are works of fiction; and because they abound in ludicrous errors of chronology, they have been largely ignored by historians of the early Church. Although they cannot be used as evidence for the original martyrdoms, they nevertheless allow a fascinating glimpse of the concerns which animated Christians during the period in question: for example, the preservation of virginity, or the ever-present threat posed by pagan practices. As certain aspects of Roman life will have changed little between the second century and the fifth, the passiones shed valuable light on many aspects of Roman society, not least the nature of a trial before an urban prefect, and the horrendous tortures which were a central feature of such trials. The passiones are an indispensable resource for understanding the topography of late antique Rome and its environs, as they characteristically contain detailed reference to the places where the martyrs were tried, executed, and buried.

The Roman Martyrs: Introduction, Translations, and Commentary (Oxford Early Christian Studies)

Religion & Spirituality

The Anglo-Saxon Library

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 is provided with 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.

British & Irish

The Early Lives of St Dunstan contains new editions, with translation and extensive commentary, of the two earliest Lives of St Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury (960-88) and one of the principal figures of the tenth-century English church. The two Lives were composed in the early eleventh century (within a few years of Dunstan's death in 988), and provide eye-witness accounts of some of the most important events in the archbishop's long and troubled life. Neither of them has been translated before; the provision of translations and commentary facilitates a new understanding of this cardinal figure of the pre-Conquest English church. Neither Life has been edited since the nineteenth century; the editions in the present book are based on a wholly new interpretation of the manuscript evidence for the two works, so that the text which is presented here is radically different from the text currently in use (that of William Stubbs, published in 1874); furthermore, the excruciatingly difficult Latin of the author of the earliest Life, who names himself only as B., has hindered historians from acquiring a proper understanding of Dunstan's life and achievements. The new translation, in combination with detailed philological and historical notes, allows scholarly access to the work for the very first time, and allows a fresh assessment of many aspects of tenth-century English history.

The Early Lives of St Dunstan (Oxford Medieval Texts)

Winterbottom, Michael

Widely acknowledged as the essential reference work for this period, this volume brings together more than 700 articles written by 150 top scholars that cover the people, places, activities, and creations of the Anglo-Saxons. <ul>
<li>The only reference work to cover the history, archaeology, arts, architecture, literatures, and languages of England from the Roman withdrawal to the Norman Conquest (c.450 – 1066 AD)</li> <li>Includes over 700 alphabetical entries written by 150 top scholars covering the people, places, activities, and creations of the Anglo-Saxons</li> <li>Updated and expanded with 40 brand-new entries and a new appendix detailing "English Archbishops and Bishops, c.450-1066"</li> <li>Accompanied by maps, line drawings, photos, a table of "English Rulers, c.450-1066," and a headword index to facilitate searching</li> <li>An essential reference tool, both for specialists in the field, and for students looking for a thorough grounding in key topics of the period</li> </ul>

The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England

Blair, John

Keynes, Simon

Scragg, Donald

Wiley/Blackwell

This volume explores many fundamental questions regarding Anglo-Saxon history. Among those considered is the question of did the earliest English prose really divide into a Mercian tradition and a separate West Saxon one? What is the full roll-call of extant texts containing late Old English 'Winchester' words? How far was Anglo-Saxon medicine hocus-pocus and how far the fruit of deliberate experimentation? How much Greek vocabulary was known in Anglo-Saxon England, and how was it known and how used? How did Anglo-Saxon land law work in practice? Advances in scholarship, application of modern scientific knowledge of a type not normally available, fresh directions of thought, original analysis, stricter criteria and additions to the stock of primary evidence all characterize this book. The usual comprehensive bibliography of the previous year's publications in all branches of Anglo-Saxon studies rounds off the book.

Anglo-Saxon England (Anglo-Saxon England, Series Number 17)

Cambridge University Press

Anglo-Saxon England: Volume 17 (Anglo-Saxon England, Series Number 17)

Aldhelm was the first Latin poet of Europe who was not a native speaker of Latin. The ingenuity and originality which he brought to the task of composing Latin poetry ensured that his poems would be widely read everywhere, but they were studied especially in England during the early medieval period. Aldhelm's poetic corpus includes the Carmina Ecclesiastica, a series of dedicatory poems which contain a wealth of detail about early Anglo-Saxon churches; the Carmen de Virginitate, a verse counterpart to his earlier prose De Virginitate, but which includes an extensive passage describing an allegorical battle of the vices and virtues; a collection of 100 riddles or Enigmata, which are an imaginative investigation of the structure of the natural world; and a brief rhythmical poem describing the effects of a mighty storm in southwest England. In each of the poetic genres he essayed, Aldhelm found a host of later imitators, and it is not an exaggeration to say that he was the most influential Latin poet whose works were studied in Anglo-Saxon England; indeed, many surviving Old English poems are simple translations or adaptations of Latin poems by Aldhelm. The translations are presented here with an introduction outlining what is known of Aldhelm's life and writings, and an appendix by NEIL WRIGHT contains a translation of Aldhelm's De Metris/, a technical treatise on the composition of Latin verse.

Aldhelm: The Poetic Works

Rosier, James L.

World

D.S.Brewer

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Books by Lapidge, Michael

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Byrhtferth of Ramsey's Historia Regum (Oxford Medieval Texts)

The Cult of St Swithun (Winchester Studies)

The Roman Martyrs: Introduction, Translations, and Commentary (Oxford Early Christian Studies)

The Anglo-Saxon Library

The Anglo-Saxon Library

The Early Lives of St Dunstan (Oxford Medieval Texts)

The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England

Anglo-Saxon England (Anglo-Saxon England, Series Number 17)

Anglo-Saxon England: Volume 17 (Anglo-Saxon England, Series Number 17)

Aldhelm: The Poetic Works