Anglo-Saxon England (No. 20)

This book illustrates some of the exciting paths of enquiry being explored in many different fields of Anglo-Saxon studies – archaeology, legal history, palaeography, Old English syntax and poetic, Latin learning with its many reflexes in Old English prose literature, and others. In all these fields it is clear that fresh perspectives may be achieved by examining even well-known objects and texts in the light of modern approaches and scholarship. Several studies concentrate on aspects of early Anglo-Saxon civilization: the settlement at Mucking, Essex; the iconography of the famous gold coin struck in the name of Bishop Liudhard; the early Anglo-Saxon law on adultery; and a reconstruction of an early Anglo-Saxon copy of the Heptateuch. The usual comprehensive bibliography of the previous year’s publications in all branches of Anglo-Saxon studies rounds off the book, with a five-year index to volumes 16–20 (previous indexes being in volumes 5, 10 and 15).

List of illustrations; 1. Settlement mobility and the ‘Middle Saxon Shift’: rural settlements and settlement patterns in Anglo-Saxon England H. F. Hamerow; 2. Adultery in early Anglo-Saxon society Theodore John Rivers; 3. The Liudhard medalet Martin Werner; 4. The Werden ‘Heptateuch’ B. C. Barker-Benfield; 5. The uncarpentered world of Old English poetry Earl R. Anderson; 6. The use of modal verbs in complex sentences: some developments in the Old English period Hiroshi Ogawa; 7. Anonymous polyphony and The Wanderer\'s textuality Carol Braun Pasternack; 8. The geographic list of Solomon and Saturn II Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe; 9. Latin learning at Winchester in the early eleventh century: the evidence of the Lambeth Psalter Patrick P. O’Neill; 10. Poetic language and the Paris Psalter: the decay of the Old English tradition M. S. Griffith; 11. A new Latin source for the Old English ‘Three Utterances’ exemplum Mary F. Wack and Charles D. Wright; 12. Wulfstan’s De Antichristo in a twelfth-century Worcester manuscript J. E. Cross; 13. A pair of inscribed Anglo-Saxon hooked tags from the Rome (Forum) 1883 hoard James Graham Campbell, Elisabeth Okasha and Michael Metcalf; 14. Bibliography for 1990 Carl T. Berkhout, Martin Biddle, Mark Blackburn, Sarah Foot, Alexander Rumble and Simon Keynes; Index to volumes 16–20.