Anglo-Saxon England (No. 29)

The editorial policy of Anglo-Saxon England has been to encourage an interdisciplinary approach to the study of all aspects of Anglo-Saxon culture. This approach is pursued in exemplary fashion by many of the essays in this volume. Fresh light is thrown on the dating and form of Cynewulf’s poem The Fates of the Apostles through a comprehensive study of the historical martyrologies of the Carolingian period on which Cynewulf is presumed to have drawn. The literary form of Ælfric’s Preface to his translation of Genesis is illustrated through a wide-ranging study of the rhetorical genre of preface-writing in the early Middle Ages (the genre which subsequently was known as the ars dictaminis), and the problems which Ælfric faced and solved in composing a Life of St Æthelthryth are illustrated through detailed comparison of the sources which he utilized. 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 ninth conference of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists, at the University of Notre Dame, 8–12 August, 1999; 2. The archetype of Beowulf Michael Lapidge; 3. Genesis A and the Anglo-Saxon ‘migration myth’ Paul Battles; 4. Did Cynewulf use a martyrology? Reconsidering the sources of The Fates of the Apostles John M. McCulloh; 5. The Junius Psalter gloss: its historical and cultural context Mechthild Gretsch; 6. Anglicized word order in the Old English continuous interlinear glosses in London, British Library, Royal 2. A. XX Joseph Crowley; 7. The ‘robed Christ’ in pre-Conquest sculptures of the Crucifixion Elizabeth Coatsworth; 8. Æthelweard’s Chronicon and Old English poetry Angelika Lutz; 9. Ælfric’s Preface to Genesis: genre, rhetoric and the origins of the ars dictaminis Mark Griffith; 10. Ælfric and the purpose of Christian marriage: a reconsideration of the Life of Æthelthryth, lines 120–30 Peter Jackson; 11. Cnut and Lotharingia: two notes Michael Hare; 12. Francis Junius (1591–1677): copyist or editor? Kees Dekker; 13. Bibliography for 1999 Debby Banham, Carl T. Berkhout, Carole P. Biggam, Mark Blackburn, Carole Hough, Simon Keynes and Teresa Webber.