scholarly journals Units of Account in Gold and Silver in Seventh-Century England:Scillingas, SceattasandPæningas

2010 ◽  
Vol 90 ◽  
pp. 153-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Hines
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Precise Meaning ◽  
Bimetallic System ◽  
English Law ◽  
Compensation Payments

AbstractThe seventh-century vernacular laws from the kingdoms of Kent and Wessex specify fines or compensation payments using units of account that have given us familiar terms in the numismatics of this period:scillingas(shillings),sceattasandpæningas(pennies). In light of the use of cognate words in Gothic and Old High German, and the comparative values given in the Old English law-codes themselves and in the fifth-century Theodosian Code, it is suggested that these represent a regular and durable bimetallic system correlating values in gold and silver. This proposition is examined further against the evidence of weighing-sets from sixth- and early seventh-century Anglo-Saxon graves, and it is argued that the results give greater and more precise meaning to the use of gold and silver in Early Anglo-Saxon artefacts, such as the great gold buckle from Mound 1 at Sutton Hoo, Suffolk.

Cuthswith, seventh-century abbess of Inkberrow, near Worcester, and the Würzburg manuscript of Jerome on Ecclesiastes

1976 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Sims-Williams
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Main Interest ◽  
History Of ◽  
Recent Edition ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The fifth-century Italian manuscript of Jerome's Commentary on Ecclesiastes, Würzburg, Universitätsbibliothek, M. p. th. q. 2, which M. Adriaen takes as the base of his recent edition, is interesting to English scholars on various counts. On ir it bears a very early Old English inscription, in Anglo-Saxon majuscule which Lowe and Bischoff date c. 700:Cuthsuuithae. boec.thaerae abbatissan.(‘a book of Cuthswith the abbess’). In all probability this was written in England itself rather than at an Anglo-Saxon centre on the continent, in view of the chronology of the English missions. The commentary is in ‘a beautiful bold uncial of the oldest type’, but six leaves of the manuscript's original 114 (fols. 10, 13, 63, 68, 81 and 82) were replaced by leaves of a thicker parchment, in England according to Lowe and Bischoff. It is not known why this was necessary, nor where the text was taken from. Lowe dates the writing of these later leaves to the seventh century. He observes that they were ‘written, if one may judge from the syllable-by-syllable copying, by a scribe for whom Latin was an alien tongue and who was not completely sure of his uncial characters’. D. H. Wright remarks that their example of an English scribe ‘doing his unequal best to reproduce the unfamiliar letter forms’ is not a very helpful illustration of the relationship of English uncial to Italian models, ‘for the script he writes has no style of its own, and therefore no future’. The main interest of the manuscript in the history of English uncial is as an illustration of foreign models which were available; it is, in Lowe's words, ‘the oldest extant uncial manuscript that was at hand to serve as a model in an English scriptorium’.

The Old English Name of the S-Rune and “Sun” in Germanic

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas P. A. Simms
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Medieval Manuscripts ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Loan Word

The name of the Old Englishs-rune,sigil, as found in various medieval manuscripts, is puzzling, as it is the only Anglo-Saxon rune name that is etymologically a loan word. This article examines the variant spelling <sygil> found only in MSCodex Vindobonensis795, arguing that the spelling with <y> is a scribal interpolation. In addressing how an Old High German-speaking scribe might have come to make such an interpolation it is argued that the wordsugilfound in Continentalrunica abecedariaought to be considered an Old High German lexeme relevant to this discussion. A novel etymology for words for ‘sun’ in Germanic is presented, particularly for forms derived from thel-stem variants of the Proto-Indo-European heteroclite.

Reddatur Parentibus: The Vengeance of the Family in Cnut's Homicide Legislation

2002 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Jurasinski
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
British Library ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Corpus Christi ◽  
The Family ◽  
Ultimate Outcome ◽  
English Law ◽  
One Year

TheAnglo-Saxon Chroniclestates that during his 1018 meeting in Oxford with the leading English ecclesiastical and lay authorities, roughly one year after his accession to the throne in England, Cnut agreed to uphold “the laws of Edgar” during his reign. The ultimate outcome of this and subsequent meetings is the code issued at Winchester in 1020, referred to by editorial convention as I and II Cnut. This code contains, respectively, the religious and secular laws of England promulgated under Cnut. The code is contained in four manuscripts in Old English. The earliest are British Library, Cotton Nero A.i and Cambridge, Corpus Christi College (CCCC) 201, both dated to the mid-eleventh century; the latest, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College (CCCC) 383 and British Library, Harley 55, belong to the early twelfth century. Cnut's code reappears in three twelfth-century Norman Latin tracts intended to acquaint French authorities with English law, theInstituta Cnuti, Consiliatio Cnuti, andQuadripartitus. TheLeges Henrici Primi, prepared by the same author as theQuadripartitus, also draws heavily on Cnut's legislation.

Anglo-Saxon Law and Scots Law

2009 ◽  
Vol 88 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Wormald
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Social Organisation ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Constitutional Development ◽  
Comparable Level ◽  
English Law ◽  
The Way

Patrick Wormald used legal material buried deep in volume i of the Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland to argue for a comparatively maximalist view of early Scottish royal government. The paper compares this Scottish legal material to two Old English codes to show that there existed in Scotland structures of social organisation similar to that in Anglo-Saxon England and a comparable level of royal control over crime by the early eleventh century. The model of a strong judicial regime in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom, put forward fully by Wormald in volume i of The Making of English Law, suggests that the kingdom of the Scots could have been inspired by (or followed a parallel trajectory to) its Anglo-Saxon neighbour in its government's assumption of rights of amendment previously controlled by kin-groups. English influence on Scottish legal and constitutional development can therefore be seen in the tenth and eleventh centuries as much as it can in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The paper also suggests methods of examining the legal material in volume i of the Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland and effectively clears the way for further study of this neglected corpus of evidence.

scholarly journals VENACULAR POETS IN BEDE AND MUIRCHÚ A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF EARLY INSULAR CULTURAL HISTORIES

Traditio ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 71 ◽  
pp. 33-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
COLIN A. IRELAND
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Social Rank ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Professional Status ◽  
Formal Training ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Prose Narratives ◽  
The Church

This comparative study examines the treatment of named vernacular poets from the Gaelic and Anglo-Saxon worlds in the subsequent literary cultural histories of their traditions. Both societies developed sophisticated bilingual intellectual cultures. After a brief survey of historical poets and anonymous secular texts from both vernacular literatures, this essay examines two accounts that involve vernacular poets from Latin texts written by clerics. Muirchú maccu Machtheni wrote Vita Sancti Patricii (ca. 690) and briefly mentioned the presence of the poets Dubthach maccu Lugair and Fiacc Finn Sléibte at the pagan court of Lóegaire mac Néill in Tara in the fifth century. Bede devoted a full chapter of his Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (ca. 731) to the poet Cædmon at the monastery of Whitby sometime in the second half of the seventh century. The presence of these three vernacular poets in the works of two clerics suggests their perceived potential contributions to the Church. But their treatment in later cultural history differs markedly between the self-referential Gaelic world and more reticent Anglo-Saxons. In the Gaelic tradition Dubthach and Fiacc are recorded in law tracts, hagiography, martyrologies, genealogies, prose narratives, and poems. In the Anglo-Saxon tradition Cædmon does not exist outside of Bede's account. It is suggested that the legally recognized social rank, formal training, and professional status of poets in Gaelic society helps explain the discrepancy in subsequent cultural acknowledgement.

The Abbey of St. Gall

2020 ◽  
pp. 804-812
Author(s):  
Anna A. Grotans
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Lake Constance ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Old High German ◽  
German Studies ◽  
Music School ◽  
History Of

This chapter surveys the history of the Abbey of St. Gall, on the shores of Lake Constance, from its founding in the seventh century by Gallus to its cultural highpoints from the Carolingian period through the eleventh century. The library’s great treasures, including manuscripts of the fourth or fifth century, the famous Irish books, important Middle High German texts, are mentioned, and the as is the dispersal of St. Gall books at various periods. The ninth- and tenth-century St. Gall school is discussed, as are the Old High German studies of the monks, the music school, and some of the abbeys important writers (Notker, Ekkehard, Walahfrid).

Early Medieval Poetry

2019 ◽  
pp. 147-176
Author(s):  
Derek Attridge
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Old English ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Oral Poetry ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Medieval Poetry ◽  
The Middle Ages

This, the first of four chapters on the Middle Ages, explores the rise of vernacular verse from the fifth to eleventh centuries. There is a little surviving evidence for oral poetry in the vernacular languages prior to the fifth century, and the first written example comes from the beginning of that century. The story of Caedmon’s inspired poetry is examined, as is Bede’s ‘death song’ and other evidence for poetic activity in England in the seventh and eighth centuries. Several Old High German poems of the ninth century are considered, as well as Alfred the Great’s interest in poetry. Beowulf, dated somewhere between the late seventh and the eleventh century, includes scenes of poetic performance and may be itself an example of the kind of poem it depicts in performance. Also discussed are the Old English poems Deor and Widsith and the Viking and Viking-influenced poems of the tenth century.

Æthelwold's translation of theRegula Sancti Benedictiand its Latin exemplar

1974 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 125-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mechthild Gretsch
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
English Language ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
English Word ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Language And Literature ◽  
Benedictine Reform ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

St Benedict wrote his Rule for monastic communities in the first half of the sixth century. It must have reached England in the course of the seventh century and was translated into Old English prose by Æthelwold, bishop of Winchester, in about 970 at the request of King Edgar and Qeen Ælfthryth. Æhelwold was one of the leaders of the tenth-century Benedictine reform in England and his translation of the Rule is among his major contributions to the reform movement. Moreover the Old English Rule holds a key position in the history of the development of Old English language and literature. Manuscripts of the text must have been numerous from the tenth century to the twelfth century and even the thirteenth. Scholars like William of Malmesbury, Lawrence Nowell, John Jocelyn and Francis Junius took an interest in the Old English Rule, but, except for a chapter printed from BM Cotton Faustina A.x by Thomas Wright in 1842, the text was not easily accessible until Arnold Schröer published his edition in 1885, followed in 1888 by his introduction discussing date and authorship, the relationship between the manuscripts and some linguistic points. Comparatively little work seems to have been done on the Old English Rule since then except for Rohr's Bonn Dissertation of 1912 and Professor Gneuss's supplement to the 1964 reprint of Schröer's edition. Rohr, in an investigation of the phonology and the inflexional morphology of the manuscripts of the Old English Rule, was able to show that the language of all of them is basically late West Saxon, while Gneuss gave a survey of what is known about the Old English Rule and the Latin Rule in Anglo-Saxon England; he also pointed out the difficulties involved in an attempt to identify or reconstruct the Latin exemplar which Æthelwold used. In this article I shall consider four topics which seem to me essential for our understanding of the Old English Rule: the question of Æthelwold's exemplar; the relationship between the manuscripts of the Old English Rule; Æthelwold's aims and techniques in his translation; and the vocabulary of the Old English Rule, with special reference to recent research in Old English word geography.

Secular Monograms, Social Status, and Authority in the Late Roman World and Early Byzantium

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ildar Garipzanov
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Imperial Authority ◽  
Christian Culture ◽  
Noble Identity ◽  
Late Roman

This chapter examines the use of monograms as graphic signs of imperial authority in the late Roman and early Byzantine empire, from its appropriation on imperial coinage in the mid-fifth century to its employment in other material media in the following centuries. It also overviews the use of monograms by imperial officials and aristocrats as visible signs of social power and noble identity on mass-produced objects, dress accessories, and luxury items. The concluding section discusses a new social function for late antique monograms as visible tokens of a new Christian paideia and of elevated social status, related to ennobling calligraphic skills. This transformation of monograms into an attribute of visual Christian culture became especially apparent in sixth-century Byzantium, with the cruciform monograms appearing in the second quarter of the sixth century and becoming a default monogrammatic form from the seventh century onwards.

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