Anglo-Saxon England (No. 4)

The materials studied in this volume extend from small pieces of evidence made to reveal Frankish influence on the beginnings of Bath Abbey to a post-Conquest gradual recognized as unique testimony to the pre-Conquest music of Christ Church, Canterbury. An arcane style of Latin poetry much in vogue in tenth-century England is given a full account; likewise an eleventh-century Canterbury copy of a large anthology of Latin poetry for classroom use is properly described. A discussion of the aesthetic principles governing the use of colour in Anglo-Saxon manuscript illumination raises artistic questions not usually considered separately. The corpus of known Anglo-Saxon moneyers is further rectified; late Anglo-Saxon metal-work is surveyed; two decades of post-Stenton debate about the Viking settlements are reviewed; a system of standardizing short titles for Old English texts is presented and there is the usual bibliography of the previous year’s corpus of Anglo-Saxon studies.

List of illustrations; 1. Continental influence at Bath monastery in the seventh century Patrick Sims-Williams; 2. Linguistic facts and the interpretation of Old English poetry Bruce Mitchell; 3. The garments that honour the cross in The Dream of the Rood James Smith; 4. Figural narrative in Cynewulf\'s Juliana Joseph Wittig; 5. Old English composite homilies from Winchester M. R. Godden; 6. The hermeneutic style in tenth-century Anglo-Latin literature Michael Lapidge; 7. A Canterbury classbook of the mid-eleventh century (the ‘Cambridge Songs\' manuscript) A. G. Rigg and G. R. Wieland; 8. An unknown English Benedictine gradual of the eleventh century K. D. Hartzell; 9. Some aesthetic principles in the use of colour in Anglo-Saxon art J. J. G. Alexander; 10. Corrections to Hildebrand\'s corpus of Anglo-Saxon moneyers: from Cnut to Edward the Confessor Veronica Smart; 11. Late Anglo-Saxon metal-work: an assessment David A. Hinton; 12. The Vikings in England: a review Gillian Fellows Jensen; 13. Short titles of Old English texts Bruce Mitchell, Christopher Ball and Angus Cameron; 14. Bibliography for 1974 Martin Biddle, Alan Brown, T. J. Brown, Peter A. Clayton and Peter Hunter Blair.