The several compilers of Bald's Leechbook

2004 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 51-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Scott Nokes
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Medical Knowledge ◽  
British Library ◽  
Christian Religion ◽  
Critical History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Medical Learning ◽  
King Alfred

The critical history of the Old English charms is replete with examples of scholars claiming that the charms are pagan remnants with a thread-bare Christian garment covering ancient pre-Christian rituals. Other scholars, more interested in combing the charms for magical elements, have viewed them as even more primitive than a pre-Christian religion and have instead treated them as Germanic magic. The first two of three texts found in London, British Library, Royal 12. D. XVII, more commonly known as Bald's Leechbook, certainly do not fit this description. In this manuscript, we find medical referencebooks produced by a team of compilers, perhaps as part of the intellectual renaissance sponsored by King Alfred. Evidence in the manuscript also suggests that the Anglo-Saxons had considerable access to Latin sources of medical learning and also had a well-developed native medical knowledge.

The Anglian collection of royal genealogies and regnal lists

1976 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 23-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
David N. Dumville
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
British Library ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Corpus Christi ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

This collection of Old English royal records is found in four manuscripts: London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian B. vi; London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius B. v, vol. 1; Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 183; and Rochester, Cathedral Library, A. 3. 5. The present paper aims both to provide an accurate, accessible edition of the texts in the first three of these manuscripts and to discuss the development of the collection from its origin to the stages represented by the extant versions. We owe to Kenneth Sisam most of our knowledge of the history of the Anglo-Saxon genealogies. Although his closely argued discussion remains the basis for any approach to these sources, it lacks the essential aid to comprehension, the texts themselves. It is perhaps this omission, as much as the difficulty of the subject and the undoubted accuracy of many of his conclusions, that has occasioned the neglect from which the texts have suffered in recent years.

A Critical History of Old English Literature

1966 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 361
Author(s):  
Francis Lee Utley ◽  
Stanley B. Greenfield
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Old English Literature ◽  
Critical History ◽  
History Of

scholarly journals Modern, yet “full of forms, figures, shapes, objects”

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Michael Andrew Albright
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Critical History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Love's Labour's Lost ◽  
False Premise

With over four hundred years separating today’s millennials from Shakespeare’s plays, it is little wonder that students and teachers have pegged Elizabethan English as difficult—if not impossible—to understand. Generally, the motivation for students who seek such resources or for teachers who furnish them comes from a shared assumption that Shakespeare’s language is indecipherable to today’s audiences—or, just too difficult to grasp. There are even some students (and, teachers) who operate under the false premise that Shakespeare’s plays are composed in Old English, a language that thrived centuries prior to Shakespeare’s earliest works. To make visible the troubling implications of so-called “modern” or “contemporary” translations of Shakespeare’s works, I will look to Shakespeare’s most academic play, Love’s Labour’s Lost, to propose how today’s students are complicit in dismissing Shakespeare for his words as much as audiences of Shakespeare’s time laughed away Holofernes. In addition to surveying a critical history of supplementary resources designed to ease the burden of Shakespeare’s language, an analysis of Holofernes’ stage presence will offer a natural opportunity to explore what happens if we willingly replace Shakespeare’s English for English that is perceived as easier—or, according to some outlets, even truer. This article sets out to complicate the facility and pervasiveness of such contemporary translations by calling attention to the language lessons Holofernes teaches through his folly, revealing that such work is, “not generous, not gentle, not humble” (Love’s Labour’s V.ii.617). 

A New Critical History of Old English Literature

1988 ◽  
Vol 83 (3) ◽  
pp. 660
Author(s):  
John C. Pope ◽  
Stanley B. Greenfield ◽  
Daniel G. Calder
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Old English Literature ◽  
Critical History ◽  
History Of

The Latin and the Old English Versions of St Augustine’s Prayer in his Soliloquia: A Study and a Rhetorical Synopsis

2019 ◽  
Vol 137 (4) ◽  
pp. 561-611
Author(s):  
Hans Sauer
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Old English ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Textual Criticism ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
British Library ◽  
Latin Text ◽  
Short Text ◽  
Entire Text ◽  
King Alfred

Abstract A special kind of a short text that is embedded in a larger text is the prayer near the beginning of St Augustine’s Soliloquia, which serves as a kind of introduction to the ensuing dialogue. The relatively independent nature of this prayer was recognized early on, and in addition to its transmission in the manuscripts of the Soliloquia it has also been transmitted as an independent prayer. Something similar happened to the Old English translation. There is a full translation of the entire text, traditionally ascribed to King Alfred (and his learned helpers), but preserved only in a much later manuscript (London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius A.xv); however, a shortened version of the prayer was included in a collection of brief penitential texts in an earlier manuscript (London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius A.iii). In the present article I look at the structure of the Latin prayer and at its Old English translation, especially the relation of the two manuscript versions and their value for textual criticism and the reconstruction of the original version, their relation to the Latin source, and the rhetoric of the Latin prayer and its Old English translation, including a brief discussion of the binomials used. The Appendix provides a synoptic version of the Latin text and the two manuscript versions of the Old English translation, highlighting their rhetorical structure, something that to my knowledge has never been done for the Old English translation.

A New Critical History of Old English Literature

1988 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 286
Author(s):  
E. G. Stanley ◽  
Stanley B. Greenfield ◽  
Daniel G. Calder
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Old English Literature ◽  
Critical History ◽  
History Of
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