Anglo-Saxon England

This volume offers fundamental evidence and discussion illuminating a wide range of important subjects in Anglo-Saxon history.

Peter Clemoes (Edited by), Simon Keynes (Edited by), Michael Lapidge (Edited by)

9780521038409, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 11 October 2007

376 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.557 kg

This volume offers fundamental evidence and discussion illuminating a wide range of important subjects: possible influence of Cicero on Bede's attitude to rhetoric; the probability that Theodore and Hadrian brought a glossary from Italy to England; the traditional concept of the narrator in Old English poetry; the nationality of the author of the Old English poem Genesis B; the conceptions of history controlling the Old English Orosius; the establishment of Square minuscule as the standard English script of the tenth century; criteria for distinguishing between Anglo-Saxon script written in England and script written by Anglo-Saxons on the continent; the grounds for claiming that certain surviving pre-Conquest manuscripts were once at Glastonbury; the extent of the circulation of Prudentius's Psychomachia in Anglo-Saxon England; the regional distribution of names of different origins among the moneyers of the Anglo-Danish era. Early and late periods and north and south thus find a place in this searching treatment of intellectual, cultural and settlement issues. The usual comprehensive bibliography rounds off the book.

List of illustrations
1. Bede and Cicero Roger Ray
2. Early Anglo-Saxon glossaries and the school of Canterbury J. D. Pheifer
3. The traditional narrator and the `I heard' formulas in Old English poetry Ward Parks
4. The metre of Genesis B David J. G. Lewis
5. Adaptation and anweald in the Old English Orosius William A. Kretzschmar Jr
6. English Square minuscule script: the background and earliest phases David N. Dumville
7. An Anglo-Saxon fragment of Justinus's Epitome Julia Crick
8. Two pre-Conquest manuscripts from Glastonbury Abbey James P. Carley
9. The Anglo-Saxon manuscripts of Prudentius's Psychomachia Gernot R. Wieland
10. Moneyers of the late Anglo-Saxon coinage: the Danish dynasty 1017–42 Veronica J. Smart
11. Bibliography for 1986 Carl T. Berkhout, Martin Biddle, Mark Blackburn, C. R. E. Coutts, David N. Dumville, Sarah Foot and Simon Keynes.

Subject Areas: Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500 [HBLC], British & Irish history [HBJD1]