Anglo-Saxon England (No. 24)

Our knowledge of Anglo-Saxon England depends wholly on the precise and detailed study of the texts that have come down to us from pre-Conquest times. The present book contains pioneering studies of some of these sources which have been neglected or misunderstood. A comprehensive study of a group of lavish gospelbooks written under the patronage of a late Anglo-Saxon countess, Judith of Flanders (sometime wife of the Earl Tostig who was killed at Stamford Bridge in 1066) shows the importance of these artefacts and provides fresh understanding of the transmission of the gospels in late eleventh-century England. Close analysis of the Libellus Æthelwoldi, a neglected Latin translation of a late tenth-century documentary record of the estates acquired by the redoubtable Bishop Æthelwold for Ely Abbey, throws significant light on the operations of the laws of land tenure in the late tenth century. These and other more traditional lines of enquiry are the focus of this book. 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. An Anglo-Saxon mass for St Willibrord and its later liturgical uses Nicholas Orchard; 2. Some difficulties in Beowulf, lines 874–902: Sigemund reconsidered M. S. Griffith; 3. The Metrical Epilogue to the Alfredian Pastoral Care: a postscript from Junius Peter J. Lucas; 4. Sociolinguistic aspects of Old English colour lexemes C. P. Biggam; 5. The interchangeability of Old English verbal prefixes Michiko Ogura; 6. The Regularis Concordia and its Old English gloss Lucia Kornexl; 7. Law and litigation in the Libellus Æthelwoldi episcopi Alan Kennedy; 8. A unique Old English formula for excommunication from Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 303 E. M. Treharne; 9. The Anglo-Saxons and the Christianization of Scandinavia Lesley Abrams; 10. The Anglo-Saxon gospelbooks of Judith, countess of Flanders: their text, make-up and function Patrick McGurk and Jane Rosenthal; 11. Bibliography for 1994 Lesley J. Abrams, Carl T. Berkhout, Mark Blackburn, Sarah Foot, Alexander Rumble and Simon Keynes.