Unfulfilled promise: the rubrics of the Old English prose Genesis

1999 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 111-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin C. Withers
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Formulaic Language ◽  
English Prose ◽  
The People ◽  
Sacred History

The Old English prose Genesis contains a series of innovative rubrics, unparalleled in the Vulgate tradition, which divide the story of Genesis into a series of holy biographies of the patriarchs Noah, Abraham and Joseph. These rubrics, added to the text in the eleventh century, use formulaic language derived from contemporary documents such as Anglo-Saxon wills and thereby regulate how Genesis was to be read and interpreted by an aristocratic layman or novice monk. The rubrics blend ancient Hebrew narratives, stories of the saints and the legal conventions familiar to the reader in order to portray ‘sacred history’ as an unbroken, legally sanctioned inheritance. They emphasize the Covenant of God with Abraham and the people of Israel and assure the contemporary reader that he too will inherit an unfulfilled promise manifested in God's covenant with the patriarchs.

The Taunton Fragment: a new text from Anglo-Saxon England

2004 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 145-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mechthild Gretsch
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Somerset County ◽  
English Prose ◽  
Linguistic Evidence ◽  
English Translations ◽  
First Time

The Taunton Fragment (now Taunton, Somerset, Somerset County Record Office, DD/SAS C/1193/77) consists of four leaves containing portions of brief expositions or homilies on the pericopes for four successive Sundays after Pentecost. In the Fragment, brief passages in Latin regularly alternate with the Old English translations of these passages. The manuscript to which the four leaves once belonged was written probably at some point around or after the middle of the eleventh century in an unknown (presumably minor) centre in Anglo-Saxon England. Until recently, the existence of the Taunton leaves had escaped the notice of Anglo-Saxonists; the texts which they contain are printed here for the first time. It will be obvious that eight pages, half of which are in Old English prose, add in no negligible way to the corpus of Old English. Through analysis of the texts in the second part of this article, I hope to show that their contribution to our knowledge of various kinds of literary activity in Anglo-Saxon England is significant indeed, and that the linguistic evidence they present has no parallel elsewhere in the corpus of Old English.

The origin of Standard Old English and Æthelwold's school at Winchester

1972 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 63-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helmut Gneuss
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
English Poetry ◽  
Negative Evidence ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The People ◽  
Historical Factors ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Of Greece

‘In literary culture’, Sir James Murray has said, ‘the Normans were about as far behind the people whom they conquered as the Romans were when they made themselves masters of Greece.’ Indeed when the Normans set foot on English soil Anglo-Saxon England was in possession not only of a remarkable literature but also of a highly developed written standard language, known and used in all regions of the country. Most of our Old English manuscripts were written in the late tenth century and in the eleventh in a form of English – although not always quite pure – which the grammarians call late West Saxon. This form of the language is by no means just a dialect, any more than its literature is merely the literary product of a dialect. This fact is first brought home to us when we examine the negative evidence – the rareness before the end of the tenth century of texts in dialects other than West Saxon and their almost complete absence after this time, a state of affairs for which various explanations might be found, historical factors among others. Considerably more important, however, is a positive criterion: texts in this late West Saxon were written and read in other parts of the country too, in Kent (Canterbury), in Mercia (Worcester) and indeed even in Northumbria (York). Moreover, texts which had originally been written in Anglian were transcribed into late West Saxon, as was a large part of Old English poetry. There can be no doubt: in our Old English texts of the eleventh century we are dealing with a standard literary language which, although based on a dialectal foundation, had extended its domain beyond the borders of this dialect.

scholarly journals The northern world of the Anglo-Saxon mappa mundi

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 275-305
Author(s):  
Helen Appleton
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
British Library ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The Mediterranean

AbstractThe Anglo-Saxon mappa mundi, sometimes known as the Cotton map or Cottoniana, is found on folio 56v of London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius B. v, which dates from the first half of the eleventh century. This unique survivor from the period presents a detailed image of the inhabited world, centred on the Mediterranean. The map’s distinctive cartography, with its emphasis on islands, seas and urban spaces, reflects an Insular, West Saxon geographic imagination. As Evelyn Edson has observed, the mappa mundi appears to be copy of an earlier, larger map. This article argues that the mappa mundi’s focus on urban space, translatio imperii and Scandinavia is reminiscent of the Old English Orosius, and that it originates from a similar milieu. The mappa mundi’s northern perspective, together with its obvious dependence on and emulation of Carolingian cartography, suggest that its lost exemplar originated in the assertive England of the earlier tenth century.

Lost in translation: omission of episodes in some Old English prose saints' legends

1997 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 187-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Gordon Whatley
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
English Prose ◽  
English Verse ◽  
Cultural Interest ◽  
Lost In Translation

The following article explores one way of using Latin sources to increase our understanding and appreciation of the surviving corpus of vernacular prose hagiography in Anglo-Saxon England. Although the saints' legends in prose make up a significant portion of the Old English literary remains, they have been relatively neglected in comparison with the saints' legends in Old English verse, such asAndreas, Guthlac AandGuthlac B, and Cynewulf'sElene. As the standard bibliographies reveal well enough, the prose texts have been studied mainly from the perspectives of language, stylistics, codicology and basicQuellenforschung, and much less than the verse texts for their literary, historical or broadly cultural interest. This is particularly true of the twenty-nine anonymous legends, some of which are not readily accessible in printed versions, and most of which need re-editing. But even the hagiographic writings of Ælfric, which are better known, have been read only occasionally for their narrative contentperse. Primary emphasis has fallen instead on Ælfric's considerable stylistic and prosodic achievements. Moreover, the two most recent monographs on Ælfric's intellectual and doctrinal concerns hardly touch on his saints' legends.

Lists of saints' resting-places in Anglo-Saxon England

1978 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 61-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. W. Rollason
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
British Library ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Scholarly Edition ◽  
Corpus Christi ◽  
Topographical Feature ◽  
Usual Formula

Secgan be þam Godes sanctum þe on Engla lande ærost reston is the title of a short document in Old English which is extant in two manuscripts, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 201, pp. 149–51, and London, British Library, Stowe 944, 34v–39r. These manuscripts are dated to the middle and the first half of the eleventh century respectively on the evidence of their script. A third copy was once in London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius D. xvii but was destroyed in the fire of 1731. The only scholarly edition is that of Felix Liebermann. The document mentions the resting-places of eighty-nine saints: all but one of these places are in England and all but ten of the saints were active in England. The usual formula is of the type, ‘Ðonne resteð sanctus Congarus confessor on Cungresbirig’ (37b), but in many cases the place is further defined by reference to some topographical feature, most often a river, as, for example, ‘Ðonne resteð sanctus Iohannes biscop on þare stowe Beferlic, neah þare ea Hul’ (5a).

scholarly journals The Ely memoranda and the economy of the late Anglo-Saxon fenland

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 333-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rory Naismith
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Record Keeping ◽  
Material Resources

AbstractConsisting of six short Old English texts written in the early eleventh century, the Ely memoranda illustrate how a major and recently refounded Benedictine abbey managed its landed endowment. Two of the memoranda relate to generous help provided by Ely to Thorney, and four concern Ely's own lands. The collection as a whole reveals much about interaction between monasteries, monastic perspectives on material resources and investment in them, the economy of eastern England, and the context of record-keeping. This article offers a new edition and translation of the texts, and surveys the contribution the memoranda make to understanding of cultural and economic history.

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.

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