Anglo-Saxon England (No. 2)

Place-names, charters, coins and manuscripts are among the forms of evidence studied in this second volume. The topics range from the course of English settlement in the south-east to the power and influence of a leading aristocratic family in the tenth century and the possible presence of Jews in England in the eleventh. An important liturgical manuscript, the Bosworth Psalter, is more securely localized; the exemplars of the Vercelli Book and its probable area of origin are clarified. Several motifs in Old English literature are elucidated, and the influence of Christian doctrine on the poetry is considered in a survey of scholarly opinion and in a lively discussion on Beowulf. Bede’s achievements as a scholar and teacher are examined 1300 years after his birth. The bibliography, noting all contributions to Anglo-Saxon studies in 1972, continues the annual series begun in volume 1.

List of illustrations; Preface; 1. Place-names from hām, distinguished from hamm names, in relation to the settlement of Kent, Surrey and Sussex John McN. Dodgson; 2. The beginning of the year in England, c. 500–900 Kenneth Harrison; 3. Bede and medieval civilization Gerald Bonner; 4. An interim revision of episcopal dates for the province of Canterbury, 850–950: part II Mary Anne O’Donovan; 5. Athelstan ‘Half King’ and his family Cyril Hart; 6. Some Irish evidence for the date of the Crux coins of Æthelred II Michael Dolley; 7. The round, cap-shaped hats depicted on Jews in BM Cotton Claudius B. iv Ruth Mellinkoff; 8. A rediscovered medieval inscribed ring Elisabeth Okasha; 9. The origin of the Bosworth Psalter P. M. Korhammer; 10. The compilation of the Vercelli Book D. G. Scragg; 11. Portents and events at Christ’s birth: comments on Vercelli V and VI and the Old English Martyrology J. E. Cross; 12. An Old English penitential motif M. R. Godden; 13. The cross as Christ’s weapon: the influence of heroic literary tradition on The Dream of the Rood Michael D. Cherniss; 14. The thematic significance of enta geweorc and related imagery in The Wanderer P. J. Frankis; 15. The influence of Christian doctrine and exegesis on Old English poetry: an estimate of the current state of scholarship Phillip B. Rollinson; 16. Allegorical, typological or neither? Three short papers on the allegorical approach to Beowulf and a discussion; 17. Bibliography for 1972 Martin Biddle, Alan Brown, T. J. Brown, Peter A. Clayton and Peter Hunter Blair.