Anglo-Saxon England

This volume looks at the charters of mid tenth-century English kings, an important primary source of our knowledge of Anglo-Saxon England.

Michael Lapidge (Edited by), Malcolm Godden (Edited by), Simon Keynes (Edited by)

9780521038485, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 11 October 2007

352 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.529 kg

One of the most important primary sources for our knowledge of Anglo-Saxon England is the charters and manuscripts which survive from the period before 1066. In the present book, two complementary essays treat the charters of mid tenth-century English kings, bringing previously unknown documents to light, establishing the circumstances in which they were produced, and demonstrating that changes in practice in the royal chancery had far-reaching effect on all aspects of Anglo-Saxon script and book production. The question of the medieval representation of women is illuminated by a study of the difficulties which a well-known monastic author, Ælfric, faced in characterizing an Old Testament heroine who used her body to achieve her ends, while a number of traditional assumptions about the property rights of divorced women in England are freshly challenged by close philological analysis of surviving law-codes. The usual comprehensive bibliography of the previous year's publications in all branches of Anglo-Saxon studies rounds off the book.

List of illustrations
1. Record of the sixth conference of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists, at Wadham College, University of Oxford, 1–7 August 1993
2. A background to Augustine's mission to Anglo-Saxon England Rob Meens
3. The early Kentish 'divorce laws': a reconsideration of Æthelberht, chs. 79 and 80 Carole A. Hough
4. The pattern of Old English burh in early Lindsey Barrie Cox
5. The language of the 'Fonthill Letter' Mechthild Gretsch
6. The `Three Orders' of society in Anglo-Saxon England Timothy E. Powell
7. English Square minuscule script: the mid-century phases David N. Dumville
8. The 'Dunstan B' charters Simon Keynes
9. Dry-point glosses to Aldhelm's De laudibus virginitatis in Beinecke 401 Philip G. Rusche
10. Ælfric's Judith: manipulative or manipulated? Mary Clayton
11. Old Latin interventions in the Old English Heptateuch Richard Marsden
12. More pre-Conquest manuscripts from Glastonbury Abbey James P. Carley
13. An eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon missal fragment Nicholas Orchard
14. Bibliography for 1993 Lesley J. Abrams, Carl T. Berkhout, Mark Blackburn, Sarah Foot, Alexander Rumble and Simon Keynes.

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