mah002.fm


© The English Association PAGE 1 OF 36
DOI: 10.1093/ywes/mah002

II

Old English

STACY S. KLEIN AND MARY SWAN

This chapter has ten sections: 1. Bibliography; 2. Manuscript Studies, Palaeography,
and Facsimiles; 3. Social, Cultural, and Intellectual Background; 4. Literature:
General; 5. The Exeter Book; 6. The Poems of the Vercelli Book; 7. The Junius
Manuscript; 8. The Beowulf Manuscript; 9. Other Poems; 10. Prose. Sections 1, 2,
and 3 are by Mary Swan; section 4 is by Mary Swan and Stacy Klein; sections 5 to
9 are by Stacy Klein; section 10 is by Mary Swan with additional material by Stacy
Klein.

1. Bibliography

The Old English Newsletter 33:ii[2000] was published in 2002, and contains the
Year’s Work in Old English Studies [1998]. Volume 35:iii[Spring 2002] includes
news of conferences and publications. The seventeenth progress report of the Fontes
Anglo-Saxonici project (OENews 35:iii[2002] 8–9) is contributed by Peter Jackson,
and the third annual report on the Anglo-Saxon Plant Name Survey by C.P. Biggam
(OENews 35:iii[2002] 10–11). This volume also contains Abstracts of Papers in
Anglo-Saxon Studies. Volume 35:iv[Summer 2002] contains the Old English
Bibliography for 2001 and the Research in Progress listings. Volume 36:i[Fall 2002]
includes notes on forthcoming conferences, news of publications, and reports on the
Dictionary of Old English and the Friends of the DOE fundraising campaign. Martin
K. Foys contributes his annual article on digital resources: ‘Circolwyrde 2002: New
Electronic Resources for Anglo-Saxon Studies’ (OENews 36:i[2002] 11–16),
Malcolm Godden and Rohini Jayatilaka report on ‘The Fontes Anglo-Saxonici
Database: The Stand-Alone Version’ (OENews 36:i[2002] 17–23), and Matthew Z.
Heintzelman describes ‘English Resources at the Hill Monastic Library’ (OENews
36:i[2002] 24–31).

ASE 31[2001] 275–368 contains the bibliography for 2001.



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2. Manuscript Studies, Palaeography, and Facsimiles

Two major additions to the range of facsimiles of illuminated manuscripts from
Anglo-Saxon England are published. The second volume of Richard Gameson’s
magnificently produced The Codex Aureus: An Eighth-Century Gospel Book is
published this year [2002]. This is the last volume to be published in the Early
English Manuscripts in Facsimile series, which has played a vital part in enabling
and encouraging Anglo-Saxonists to pay attention to the physical detail of
manuscripts. In this second volume of the Codex Aureus facsimile, Gameson
supplies notes on details of the physical fabric of the manuscript, and follows these
with the facsimile of the gospels of Mark, Luke, and John. Andrew Prescott provides
a concise and useful introduction to The Benedictional of St Æthelwold: A
Masterpiece of Anglo-Saxon Art. A Facsimile, which serves to set in context the very
high-quality, full-colour and actual-size facsimile of the whole manuscript.

The seventh volume in the Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile
series, Anglo-Saxon Bibles and the ‘Book of Cerne’, is published this year, with
descriptions by A.N. Doane. It includes the following manuscripts and manuscript
fragments: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 557; Cambridge, University Library
L1.1.10; Lawrence, Kansas, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, Pryce C2:1, C2:2,
P2A:1; London, British Library Cotton, Claudius B.iv; Cotton Vespasian D.xxi;
Harley 3376; Royal 1 B.vii; Royal 1 D.ix; Oxford, Bodleian Library Auct. D.2.14
(2698); Auct. D.5.3 (277688); Lat. Misc. a.3, fo. 49; and Laud Misc. 509 (1042).
The accompanying booklet includes full codicological descriptions of all the
manuscripts, and notes on their history and contents. The fiches in this volume
include supplemental fiches to volume 6 (Christine Franzen, Worcester Manuscripts
[1998]: YWES 81[2002] 133).

Richards, ed., Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: Basic Readings, first published in 1994,
was issued in paperback in 2001. Mary Richards’s introduction, ‘Basic Readings in
Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts’, surveys the essays in the volume, all but three of which
(those by Rumble and Pfaff, and Kiernan’s ‘Old Manuscripts/New Technologies’)
were originally published in a variety of journals, collections of essays, and other
studies. The volume’s contents are: ‘Using Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts’ by
Alexander R. Rumble, ‘Self-Contained Units in Composite Manuscripts of the
Anglo-Saxon Period’ by P.R. Robinson; ‘Old Manuscripts/New Technologies’ by
Kevin S. Kiernan; ‘N.R. Ker and the Study of English Medieval Manuscripts’ by
Richard W. Pfaff; ‘Further Addenda and Corrigenda to N.R. Ker’s Catalogue’ by
Mary Blockley; ‘Surviving Booklists from Anglo-Saxon England’ by Michael
Lapidge; ‘English Libraries Before 1066: Use and Abuse of the Manuscript
Evidence’ by David N. Dumville; ‘Orality and the Developing Text of Cædmon’s
Hymn’ by Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe; ‘The Construction of Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Junius 11’ by Barbara Raw; ‘The Eleventh-Century Origin of Beowulf and
the Beowulf Manuscript’ by Kevin S. Kiernan; ‘The Structure of the Exeter Book
Codex (Exeter, Cathedral Library, MS.3501)’ by Patrick W. Conner; ‘The
Compilation of the Vercelli Book’ by D.G. Scragg; ‘History of the Manuscript’,
‘Punctuation’ (both on Ælfric’s First Series of Catholic Homilies in London, British
Library, Royal 7.C.xii fols. 4–218), and ‘The Production of an Illustrated Version’
(on The Old English Illustrated Hexateuch), all by Peter Clemoes; and ‘The
Publication of Alfred’s Pastoral Care’ by Kenneth Sisam.



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Michelle P. Brown’s 2000 Jarrow Lecture, ‘In the beginning was the Word’:
Books and Faith in the Age of Bede, is published this year, and presents some of her
very important new findings on the production and preparation of the Lindisfarne
Gospels. Brown situates the Gospels as an element of the cult of Cuthbert, and also
considers the practical prerequisites for the production of this book, and of the
Cuthbert Gospel, the early Lives of Cuthbert, and the Ceolfrith bibles. On the
subject of the making of the Lindisfarne Gospels, Brown describes, and provides
illustrations of, the drypoint sketches and layout markings which reveal the ongoing
process of invention and innovation in the manuscript. She stresses signs of the
influence of Wearmouth/Jarrow on the Gospels’ imagery and text, and argues that
the three houses are ‘working together to establish a new identity for Northumbria,
and thereby for England’ (p. 25).

Richard Gameson offers new studies of two manuscripts. He considers ‘The
colophon of the Eadwig Gospels’ (ASE 31[2002] 201–22)—manuscript Hanover,
Kestner-Museum, WM XXIa, 36—by surveying what is known of Eadwig’s career,
and comparing this manuscript with other examples of his work. He concludes that
the Eadwig Gospels might have been commissioned and written for export. In ‘The
Insular Gospel Book at Hereford Cathedral’ (Scriptorium 56[2002] 48–79),
Gameson examines Hereford Cathedral Library manuscript P.1.2 in terms of its
fabric, text, script, decoration, and Anglo-Saxon additions of a record of an
eleventh-century lawsuit, and provides a translation of the two added Old English
documents.

Peter S. Baker explains ‘How to Cheat at Editing: The Domitian Bilingual
Chronicle, Anno 679’ (ANQ 15:ii[2002] 8–13). This is London, British Library,
Cotton Domitian A.viii, fos. 30–70—the bilingual Latin and Old English F-version
of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Baker uses it to demonstrate editorial strategies for
dealing with text which not only does not make sense when transcribed, but which
is also not aligned with an annal number in the manuscript. E.G. Stanley ventures
into ‘Palaeographical and Textual Deep Waters: <a> for <u> and <u> for <a>, <d>
for <ð> and <ð> for <d> in Old English’ (ANQ 15:ii[2002] 64–72) by examining
examples of these letter forms in Beowulf. He considers the implications of these
examples for the dating of Beowulf, and decides that sure conclusions are not yet
reached.

Michelle Brown studies ‘Female Book-Ownership and Production in Anglo-
Saxon England: The Evidence of the Ninth-Century Prayerbooks’ (in Kay and
Sylvester, eds., Lexis and Texts in Early English: Studies Presented to Jane Roberts,
pp. 45–67), with reference to literary, hagiographical, and historical evidence for
female literacy. Examples examined include the works of Boniface and his
correspondents Leoba and Eadburh; the writings of Bede, Aldhelm, and Asser; and
archaeological evidence from Whitby and Barking. Particular attention is paid to
three early ninth-century Mercian prayerbooks, manuscripts London, British
Library Harley 7653 and 2965, and Royal 2.A.xx. Brown presents important indirect
evidence for female ownership of all three of these books.

Cassidy and Wright, eds., Studies in the Illustration of the Psalter, includes three
essays of relevance to Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. In ‘The Book of Kells and the
Corbie Psalter (with a Note on Harley 2788)’ (pp. 12–23), a slightly altered version
of the original, published in Bernard, Ó Cróinín, and Simms, eds., A Miracle of
Learning: Studies in Manuscripts and Irish Learning (London [1998], pp. 29–39),



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Bernard Meehan draws on a comparison of the first two manuscripts to propose new
readings of some scenes depicted in the Book of Kells illustrations. Peter Kidd
offers ‘A Re-examination of the Date of an Eleventh-Century Psalter from
Winchester (British Library, MS Arundel 60)’ (pp. 42–54). Basing his argument on
a red cross inscribed against the year 1073 in the Easter table of this manuscript,
Meehan highlights the danger of ‘the assumption that “Anglo-Saxon” decoration
and the use of Old English indicates a pre-Conquest date and that Norman-
influenced decoration in England dates from after the Conquest’ (p. 44), and puts
forward two possible contexts for the production of the psalter: the commemoration
of the death of Walkelin, bishop of Winchester, in 1098, and Riwallon’s
appointment as abbot of New Minster in 1072. A report on ‘A Handlist of Anglo-
Saxon Manuscripts’ was given by Helmut Gneuss (in Herren, McDonough, and
Arthur, eds., Latin Culture in the Eleventh Century, pp. 345–52) before the
publication of his Handlist in book form in 2001 (YWES 82[2003] 116].

3. Social, Cultural, and Intellectual Background

Janet L. Nelson’s 1991 Royal Historical Society presidential address, ‘England and
the Continent in the Ninth Century: I, Ends and Beginnings’ (TRHS 12[2002] 1–21)
opens with an overview of the ways in which the historiography of the earlier
Middle Ages has been shaped by ‘periodisation, History’s handy organiser, but also
its bane’ (p. 3). Nelson shows how recent work on the ninth century has provided a
more complex picture, and offers a detailed reading of the pontificate of Leo III as a
moment when ‘England and the Continent meet, figuratively speaking, in Rome’ (p.
1). Ann Williams’s R. Allen Brown Memorial Lecture, ‘Thegnly Piety and
Ecclesiastical Patronage in the Late Old English Kingdom’, is published this year
(Anglo-Norman Studies 24[2002] 1–24). Williams summarizes the documentary
evidence for bequests to churches by Anglo-Saxon thegns, much of which only
survives in later copies. She then focuses on the relationship between eleventh-
century wealthy thegns and the churches which stand on land owned by them, and
notes that all surviving guild statutes from the tenth and eleventh centuries are for
guilds associated with churches.

Pauline Stafford identifies some important ‘Political Ideas in Late Tenth-Century
England: Charters as Evidence’ (in Stafford, Nelson, and Martindale, eds., Law,
Laity and Solidarities: Essays in Honour of Susan Reynolds, pp. 68–82). The
charters in question date from the 990s, are in the name of Æthelred II, and restore
lands and liberties to churches. Stafford’s careful analysis of these texts
demonstrates how valuable charters can be as indicators of mentalities: she shows
that all of these Æthelred charters promote an image of the king’s youth as a time of
ignorance and mistakes, which he now wishes to reverse, and that they thus seek to
rewrite the later 980s and revise the king’s reputation. Hans Sauer discusses Anglo-
Saxon evidence for the language used by—and on behalf of—the rulers of England,
in ‘The English Kings and Queens and the English Language’ (in Lenz and Möhlig,
eds., Of Dyuersitie & Chaunge of Langage: Essays Presented to Manfred Görlach
on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday, pp. 180–98). In ‘Where Did All the Charters
Go? Anglo-Saxon Charters and the New Politics of the Eleventh Century’ (Anglo-
Norman Studies 24[2002] 109–27), Charles Insley contemplates the question of why



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the solemn diploma ceases to be used after the mid- to late eleventh century, and also
the ideological and practical functions of charters.

Almost the whole of the period, and all of Britain, are encompassed in Edward
James’s Britain in the First Millennium. After chapters dealing with the period of
Roman occupation, James turns to the Migration Period, the post-Roman kingdoms,
the missionary Church, the eighth century, Viking attack and settlement, and, in the
Epilogue, includes some remarks on the Norman Conquest. James’s incorporation
of all of Britain into his survey is valuable because it sets out an understanding of
Anglo-Saxon England in its immediate geographical and cultural contexts. Another
wide-ranging study with plenty of relevance to the contexts and connections of
Anglo-Saxon textual culture is Lineham and Nelson, eds., The Medieval World, and
in particular ‘Powerful Women in the Early Middle Ages: Queens and Abbesses’, by
Pauline Stafford (pp. 398–415). Lisa M. Bitel’s Women in Early Medieval Europe,
400–1100 aims to provide ‘not just a history of women, but a history of the early
European Middle Ages through the eyes of women’ (p. 12). Many Anglo-Saxon
women, and much Anglo-Saxon evidence, are included in Bitel’s study, which is
organized thematically, and covers landscape, invasion, migration, barbarian
queens, religion, kinship, marriage, motherhood, mobility, and fame.

Religious developments are the subject of a good number of new pieces of work
this year. Penance is particularly popular, and Philip G. Rusche’s focus is on ‘St.
Augustine’s Abbey and the Tradition of Penance in Early Tenth-Century England’
(Anglia 20[2002] 159–83). Rusche notes evidence for the use of penitential manuals
in England in the period between the ninth-century Viking invasions and the
Benedictine Reform, in the form of entries from a glossed copy of The Penitential of
Halitgar and from the Penitential of Theodore, which are preserved in two texts
copied by a single scribe in St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, in the 930s and 940s.
Brad Bedingfield analyses the evidence for ‘Public Penance in Anglo-Saxon
England’ (ASE 31[2002] 223–55) in a range of mostly slightly later texts, including
works by Wulfstan and Ælfric, an anonymous homily for Ash Wednesday in
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 190, the Penitentials of Theodore and
Pseudo-Egbert, the Rule of Chrodegang, the Regularis Concordia, Pontificals, and
the text of the liturgy. He concludes that this rite was ‘a powerful and malleable
penitential option’ in Anglo-Saxon England (p. 255).

‘Saint Basil in Anglo-Saxon Exeter’ is the subject of Gabriella Corona’s article
(N&Q 49[2002] 316–20). Corona notes the inclusion of a relic of Basil in the
Æthelstan relic list, and the fragment of a Latin Life of Basil in the tenth-century
Exeter manuscript Exeter Cathedral Library FMS/3. She proposes that this text
might have reached England through Æthelstan’s importing of relics and books
from northern France, and might very soon have been copied there, and interprets its
copying in Exeter as a sign of close links with Continental Europe. The Æthelstan
relic list also features in Mary Swan’s ‘Remembering Veronica in Anglo-Saxon
England’ (in Treharne, ed., Writing Gender and Genre in Medieval Literature:
Approaches to Old and Middle English Texts, pp. 19–39). Swan tracks evidence for
narratives about Veronica in pre-Conquest England, and suggests that the two
surviving Old English texts which incorporate parts of this story, and other
evidence, including charms and recipes and a relic list entry, indicate that the story
of Veronica’s miraculous cloth might have been known in Exeter by the late Anglo-
Saxon period.



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Francesca Tinti tracks the trajectory ‘From Episcopal Conception to Monastic
Compilation: Hemming’s Cartulary in Context’ (EMedE 11[2002] 233–61). She
analyses the composition of this text—a late eleventh-century cartulary from
Worcester—in the context of the Worcester monastic community at this date, and
especially the relationship of the monastic community to the bishop of Worcester.
Tinti argues that the Cartulary shows that this relationship had changed between
Wulfstan’s initial suggestion that the Cartulary be composed and the succession of
Samson in 1096, and that in late eleventh-century Worcester ‘the monastic
community started to emerge as a distinctive institutional body’ (p. 257).

Julie Coleman continues her work on Old English as a key to social
categorizations, and specifically to concepts related to women, with ‘Lexicology
and Medieval Prostitution’ (in Kay and Sylvester, eds., pp. 69–87). She notes that
the extensive lexis of terms for prostitution in Old English is mostly recorded in a
restricted range of text glosses, glossaries, translations, and ‘non-native contexts’ (p.
69), and speculates that the Danelaw might have provided the social conditions for
an identifiable culture of prostitution, and that this might account for Scandinavian-
associated terms such as horcwene and portcwene.

New work on material culture continues to enrich our understanding of the
context of Anglo-Saxon literature. The sixth volume of the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon
Stone Sculpture, Northern Yorkshire, edited by James Lang, was published in 2001.
Like the other volumes in the series, it provides the invaluable service of setting out
photographs of every surviving piece of sculpture in the area so that scholars can
note the range of styles and the potential functions of the items. The photographs
form the final section of the volume, which opens with chapters which summarize
earlier research, outline the historical background, regional geology, Anglian and
Anglo-Scandinavian period forms and ornament, the schools of sculpture identified,
and the inscriptions on the sculpture. These chapters are followed by the catalogue
of items, which gives detailed measurements, descriptions, and notes on probable
date and function. A now lost piece of Anglo-Saxon architectural sculpture,
described in the Liber Eliensis, is discussed in Virginia Blanton-Whetsell’s ‘Tota
integra, tota incorrupta: The Shrine of St. Æthelthryth as Symbol of Monastic
Autonomy’ (JMEMS 32[2002] 227–67). Blanton-Whetsell explores the situating of
Æthelthryth’s corpse as a symbol in the Liber Eliensis, and argues that, in this
collection of texts, the monks of Ely exploit the meanings of female bodies and
female space in order to ‘deliberately rewrite their situation, illustrating their
community as a physical part of the saint’s corporate body in order to appear to be
the victims of aggression during the Norman invasion’ (p. 222).

Christopher Pickles’s Texts and Monuments: A Study of Ten Anglo-Saxon
Churches of the Pre-Viking Period draws together in its analysis documentary,
archaeological, and architectural evidence for the churches in question: St Mary’s
Abbey, Abingdon; Beverley Minster; Canterbury Cathedral; Canterbury Abbey of
SS Peter and Paul; Glastonbury Abbey; Hexham Abbey; Monkwearmouth; Jarrow;
York Minster; York Alma Sophia monastic church; and York St Michael.
Comparative evidence from mainland European churches is presented, and the texts
of almost all the English documentary evidence are provided, along with modern
English translations.

In ‘The Bayeux “Tapestry”: Invisible Seams and Visible Boundaries’ (ASE
31[2002] 257–73), Gale R. Owen-Crocker’s focus is on the range of edges in the



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Tapestry: the increasingly carefully worked seams which join the panels, the borders
which mark its top and bottom edges, and its now lost end. She shows that ‘the
manufacture of the hanging was a learning process’ (p. 258), and stresses the
integrity of the design of the whole. Owen-Crocker also published ‘Anglo-Saxon
Women: The Art of Concealment’ (LeedsSE 33[2002] 31–51), in which she studies
a variety of Anglo-Saxon objects inscribed with individual names, including the
Cuthbert embroideries, the Alfred Jewel, finger rings, a brooch, seals, knives, the
Coppergate helmet, the Brussels Cross, grave slabs, and stone sculpture. She finds
that inscriptions of women’s names are often on the back of the object in question,
and interprets this as ‘a power and self-recognition in these women, which is
otherwise hidden from history’ (p. 43).

Places and identities are of central concern in a number of new pieces of work on
the social context of Anglo-Saxon England. Greta Austin’s ‘Marvelous Peoples or
Marvelous Races? Race and the Anglo-Saxon Wonders of the East’ (in Jones and
Sprunger, eds., Marvels, Monsters and Miracles: Studies in the Medieval and Early
Modern Imaginations,  pp. 25–51) focuses on the version of the Wonders of the East
in MS London, British Library Cotton Tiberius B.v. Austin shows how ‘the
Wonders can be seen to take the theological position that the marvelous peoples
were human and could, therefore, be saved’ (p. 50), and argues that modern
definitions of race do not fit the categories used in this version of the text, and that
‘race’ is not an accurate translation of either of the two related terms used in the text:
‘genus’ and ‘cyn’.

In ‘Beverly, Inderauuda and St John: A Neglected Reference’ (NH 28[2001]
315–16), John Blair’s starting-point is the different versions given by Bede and the
Old English text on the resting places of the saints of the burial place of Bishop John
of Hexham. He offers evidence from a liturgical calendar written in the mid- or late
ninth century in support of the argument advanced by Richard Morris and David
Palliser for Inderauuda being Beverly. N.J. Higham examines ‘Britons in Northern
England in the Early Middle Ages: Through a Thick Glass Darkly’ (NH 28[2001] 5–
25). In opening, he notes how the surviving textual evidence for this region and
period is so limited that it is very difficult to historicize Britons or non-Christians.
He then uses the surviving sources of relevant information to argue that ‘British
cultural identity may have been far more durable, and far more widespread, in early
Northumbria than we imagine’ (p. 24). Andrew C. Breeze makes a number of new
observations about the geography and territorial politics of early Anglo-Saxon
England. In ‘Seventh-Century Northumbria and a Poem to Cadwallon’ (NH
28[2001] 145–52), he draws attention to a Welsh source of information on
Northumbria. Breeze provides a modern English translation of the poem, argues that
it is indeed of seventh-century origin, and stresses its importance to historians of
Northumbria. In ‘The Battle of Alutthèlia in 844 and Bishop Auckland’ (NH
29[2002] 124–5), Breeze examines the evidence for the whereabouts of this battle of
Rædwulf with a pagan army, and argues for Bishop Auckland as the most likely
solution. In ‘The Celtic Names of Blencow and Blenkinsopp’ (NH 29[2002] 291–2),
he proposes translations of ‘hollow of (the) summit’ and ‘ridge-top valley’,
respectively. In ‘The Kingdom and Name of Elmet’ (NH 29[2002] 157–71), Breeze
surveys the standard historical sources for Elmet and scholarship on them. He then
uses Celtic philology to examine the possible meaning of ‘Elmet’, and translates two
Welsh poems, probably sixth-century, on Gwallog and Madgog, lords of Elmet. In



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‘The Early Medieval Shires of Yeavering, Breamish and Bamburgh’ (Archaeologia
Aeliana 30[2002] 53–73), Colm O’Brien demonstrates how post-Conquest records
of tenure and taxation can shed light on early medieval shire organization, and in
particular on the now lost shires of Bamburgh, Bromic and Gefrin.

Alexander R. Rumble’s Property and Piety in Early Medieval Winchester:
Documents Relating to the Topography of the Anglo-Saxon and Norman City and its
Minsters provides scholars with a wealth of documents in edited and translated
form, and also with a context in which to read them in the form of the introductory
discussions of manuscript sources, authenticity, and the evidence in the documents
for historical topography and the history of the city. The volume also includes a
useful set of Latin and Old English word-lists, and indexes of biblical references,
personal and place names, and references to Anglo-Saxon charters.

The defining and redefining of Englishness continues to be a popular topic for
new work. Nicholas Brooks looks to ‘Canterbury, Rome and the Construction of
English Identity’ (in Smith, ed., Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West, pp.
221–45) and argues that ‘Canterbury’s prolonged campaign of imitatio Romae was
an essential element in the process of English ethnogenesis, that is in a programme
of constructing a single gens Anglorum … from a mixed British and Anglo-Saxon
population’ (p. 222). Alan Thacker goes ‘In Search of Saints: The English Church
and the Cult of Roman Apostles and Martyrs in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries’
(in Smith, ed., pp. 247–77), in order to investigate how the cult of saints developed
in this period. He argues that Roman saints and cult forms were introduced into
England by Roman missionaries, and that these influenced the beginnings of the
development of saints’ cults in Anglo-Saxon England, which were only later
influenced by Gallic models.

D.M. Hadley’s ‘Viking and Native: Re-thinking Identity in the Danelaw’ (EMedE
11[2000] 45–70) surveys the use of ethnic and linguistic labels in the literature of
Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Scandinavian England, and examines the evidence of place
names, personal names, and material culture. Hadley argues that ethnic identity
seems to have become relevant at particular times, and that research should focus on
new ruling elites rather than on the scale of Scandinavian settlement. David N.
Dumville examines ‘Images of the Viking in Eleventh-Century Latin Literature’ (in
Herren, McDonough, and Arthur, eds., pp. 250–63), with particular reference to
Æthelweard’s Chronicon and Abbo of Fleury’s Passio Sancti Eadmundi. Matthew
Townend’s Language and History in Viking Age England: Linguistic Relations
between Speakers of Old Norse and Old English offers a wealth of material relevant
to the understanding of how English and Anglo-Scandinavian identities are
interrelated. Townend surveys the evidence for language contact and the evolution
of Viking Age Norse and English, and provides detailed analyses of
Scandinavianized Old English place names, and evidence for and descriptions of
Anglo-Norse contact in literary texts. In conclusion, he makes a case for ‘a situation
of adequate mutual intelligibility between speakers of Old Norse and Old English,
rather than one involving widespread bilingualism or the use of interpreters’ (p.
210).

Archaeology and settlement studies are combined in Geake and Kenney, eds.,
Early Deira: Archaeological Studies of the East Riding in the Fourth to Ninth
Centuries, to shed new light on this part of Anglo-Saxon England. The volume
contains a preface by Martin Carver; ‘Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire: Current Research



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Problems’ by Philip Rahtz; ‘Early Medieval Burials in East Yorkshire:
Reconsidering the Evidence’ by S.J. Lucy; ‘West Heslerton Settlement Mobility: A
Case of Static Development’ by Dominic Powlesland; ‘Anglo-Saxon Settlements
and Archaeological Visibility in the Yorkshire Wolds’ by Julian D. Richards; ‘King
Edwin of the Deiri: Rhetoric and the Reality of Power in Early England’ by N.J.
Higham; ‘Middle Anglo-Saxon Metalwork from South Newbald and the
“Productive Site” Phenomenon in Yorkshire’ by Kevin Leahy; ‘Northumbrian
Coinage and the Productive Site at South Newbald (“Sancton”)’ by James Booth;
‘The Case for Archaeological Research at Whitby’ by Jennie Spofford; ‘Monuments
from Yorkshire in the Age of Alcuin’ by Jim Lang; ‘Where are Yorkshire’s
“Terps”? Wetland Exploitation in the Early Medieval Period’ by Robert Van de
Noort, and ‘The Bioarchaeology of Anglo-Saxon Yorkshire: Present and Future
Perspectives’ by Keith Dobney, Allan Hall, and Harry Kenward.

Sam Lucy tracks the movement ‘From Pots to People: Two Hundred Years of
Anglo-Saxon Archaeology’ (in Hough and Lowe, eds., ‘Lastworda Best’: Essays in
Memory of Christine E. Fell with her Unpublished Writings, pp. 144–69). In
particular, she deals with the debates about the study of fifth- and sixth-century
landscape, settlement, cemeteries, and artefacts, and with the implications of the
interdependence of historical and archaeological investigation. Crabtree, ed.,
Medieval Archaeology: An Encyclopedia, includes many entries of relevance to
Anglo-Saxonists. Those relating to Anglo-Saxon England are easily found via the
index of site entries by country, and the subject guide, both of which form part of the
introduction to the volume, and also in the very useful overall index to the volume.

More work on Anglo-Saxon texts and traditions in the post-Conquest period is
published this year. Jennifer Ramsay offers ‘A Possible “Tremulous Hand”
Addition to The Grave in MS Bodley 343’ (N&Q 49[2002] 177–80). The writing in
question is three verses which are added to The Grave. The development of Anglo-
Saxon saints’ cults after the Conquest is the subject of David Cox’s ‘St Oswald of
Worcester at Evesham Abbey: Cult and Concealment’ (JEH 53[2002] 269–85). Cox
shows that the altering of the Evesham chronicle, the Gesta abbatum, in the twelfth
or thirteenth century, in order to remove references to the tenth-century reform of
the abbey by Oswald, may indicate a desire by the monks of Evesham to dissociate
their house from Worcester, and thus to protect their case for exemption from the
authority of the bishops of Worcester. He contrasts this political distancing from
Oswald with the continuing veneration of the saint’s relic at Evesham. A translation
of the second version of William of Malmesbury’s The Deeds of the Bishops of
England (Gesta Pontificum Anglorum) is produced this year by David Preest. This,
and David Rollason’s edition and translation of Symeon of Durham’s Libellus de
Exordio atque Procursu istius hoc est Dunhelmensis Ecclesie: Tract on the Origins
and Progress of this the Church of Durham, should serve to bring to wider attention
these works, which are of great interest for their account of Anglo-Saxon
ecclesiastical politics. Timothy Graham considers ‘William L’Isle’s Letters to Sir
Robert Cotton’ (in Treharne and Rosser, eds., Early Medieval English Texts and
Interpretations: Studies Presented to Donald G. Scragg, pp. 353–80), which show
L’Isle’s interest in Old English, and also reveal how Cotton developed his library,
and ways in which it was used. Graham edits seven letters from L’Isle to Cotton, and
provides a commentary on each of them.



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4. Literature: General

A milestone in Anglo-Saxon literary studies is reached with the publication of
Biggs, Hill, Szarmach, and Whatley, eds., Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture,
volume 1: Abbo of Fleury, Abbo of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Acta Sanctorum.
This volume sets the tone for the rest of the eagerly awaited SASLC series, with
scrupulously detailed, clear, concise, and well-organized entries on texts which were
available to Anglo-Saxon authors. It will act as an impetus to important new work
on the transmission of narrative, ideas, and traditions.

ANQ 15:ii[Spring 2002] is devoted to articles on Old English topics, which are
reviewed in the appropriate sections of this chapter. J.R. Hall provides an overview
of them all in ‘Nota Bene: Preface to a Collection of Notes by Various Hands on
Various Old English Texts’ (ANQ 15:ii[2002] 3–7).

The influence of Latin textual and linguistic traditions on Anglo-Saxon literature
is the topic of a number of new articles this year. The place of ‘Persius’s Satires in
Anglo-Saxon England’ is investigated by Phillip Pulsiano (Journal of Medieval
Latin 11[2001] 142–55). Pulsiano assesses the relationship of the commentary on
the Satires in manuscripts from Anglo-Saxon England with other versions, and
concludes that the Satires were known in England at least from the seventh century,
were probably introduced through Theodore and Hadrian’s Canterbury school, and
were well used by prominent Anglo-Saxon authors, including Aldhelm and Alcuin.
David Howlett discusses ‘“Tres Linguae Sacrae” and Threefold Play in Insular
Latin’ (Peritia 16[2002] 94–115) from the fifth to the twelfth centuries, making
reference to a range of texts by Anglo-Saxon authors, including Aldhelm and
Aedeluald, and the inscriptions on the Franks Casket and the Ruthwell monument.

Martha Bayless encourages scholars to pay attention to ‘Alcuin’s Disputatio
Pippini and the Early Medieval Riddle Tradition’ (in Halsall, ed., Humour, History
and Politics in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, pp. 157–78) by
highlighting its relationship to wisdom dialogues, curiosity dialogues, and riddle
collections, its varied contents and lively style, and by providing the text of the
riddles in the Disputatio, along with a translation into modern English, and a
commentary.

Michael Lapidge and Jill Mann’s ‘Reconstructing the Anglo-Latin Aesop: The
Literary Tradition of the “Hexametrical Romulus”’ (in Herren, McDonough, and
Arthur, eds., pp. 1–33) sets out the evidence for ‘Aesop’ being studied in Anglo-
Saxon England. They cite a reference to Aesop in Bede’s De Tabernaculo, an entry
in Patrick Young’s seventeenth-century catalogue of Worcester Cathedral Library to
a manuscript containing two Old English homilies and a text of ‘Aesop’, and an Old
English translation of an Aesop moral in a composite homily on the Harrowing of
Hell in MS Junius 121, written at Worcester in the third quarter of the eleventh
century, and argue that the Hexametrical Romulus, which is preserved in a late
eleventh-century English manuscript, was composed in Anglo-Saxon England, and
that it also provides evidence to support the existence of an Anglo-Latin prose
version of this text.

E.G. Stanley sets out to define ‘Linguistic Self-Awareness at Various Times in
the History of English from Old English Onwards’ (in Kay and Sylvester, eds., pp.
237–53), and explores the significance of language in concepts of nationhood and
ethnicity, and the ways in which linguistic sensitivity is place- and time-specific.



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Robert Stanton’s The Culture of Translation in Anglo-Saxon England is a major
contribution to our understanding of Anglo-Saxon textual practices, and in
particular of the ways in which vernacular literature was shaped by its contact with
Latin. As he notes in his introduction, ‘Translation is a productive cultural practice
in that it defines an attitude to received authority and sets the terms under which
authority can be reproduced and shifted from one social group to another’ (p. 1).
This construction and transmission of authority is then analysed in detail in the
central chapters of his study, which deal in turn with ‘Interpretation, Pedagogy, and
Anglo-Saxon Glosses’, ‘King Alfred and Early English Translation’, ‘Bible
Translation and the Anxiety of Authority’, and ‘Ælfric and the Rhetoric of
Translation’.

Eight unpublished writings by Christine E. Fell are included in Hough and Lowe,
eds., ‘Lastworda Betst’. They are: ‘Words and Women in Anglo-Saxon England’,
‘Old English bearmteag’, ‘Mild and Bitter: A Problem of Semantics’, ‘Some
Questions of Layout and Legal Manuscripts’, ‘Crook-Neb’d Corslets and Other
Impedimentia’, ‘Wax Tablets of Stone’, ‘Runes and Riddles in Anglo-Saxon
England’, and ‘Introduction to Anglo-Saxon Letters and Letter-Writers’, which
includes sample translations from the draft of this book, on which Fell was working
at the time of her death. Other essays in this collection are reviewed in the
appropriate parts of this chapter.

This year has seen the publication of several new anthologies and reference
guides that are well suited for teaching purposes. Treharne and Wu, eds., Old and
Middle English Poetry, is a short anthology of medieval poetry, approximately half
of which is devoted to Old English texts placed alongside modern English
translations. The anthology opens with an introduction by Treharne, which offers
valuable historical and literary background, as well as brief remarks on manuscript
culture and poetic form. Kevin Crossley-Holland’s The Anglo-Saxon World, which
has long served as a useful edition of modern English translations of Old English
poetry and prose, has appeared in a new edition. The new anthology contains the
same texts as the 1982 edition but features an updated introduction and eight colour
illustrations. Michael Swanton’s English Poetry Before Chaucer offers close
readings of English poems produced between the seventh and thirteenth centuries.
The book is a revised and expanded version of Swanton’s English Literature Before
Chaucer [1987]. Individual chapters offer literary analysis and historical context for
Widsith, Deor, Waldere, The Fight at Finnsburh, Beowulf, Cædmon’s Hymn,
Genesis A, Exodus, The Dream of the Rood, The Wanderer, The Seafarer, The Ruin,
The Phoenix, Guthlac A, Judith, and The Battle of Maldon. Chapters 1–5 deal with
Old English texts, the appendix deals with early English prosody, and the endmatter
contains brief discussions of various writers, texts, and sources. This is a useful book
for scholars looking for a quick and accessible guide to the major critical issues and
problems raised by individual Old English texts.

Lambdin and Lambdin, eds., A Companion to Old and Middle English Literature,
is a reference guide to medieval literature organized by genre. Each chapter offers a
critical history of the particular genre in question and a bibliography. Individual
chapters that discuss Anglo-Saxon texts include ‘Old English and Anglo-Norman
Literature’ by Robert Thomas Lambdin and Laura Cooner Lambdin; ‘Religious and
Allegorical Verse’ by Gwendolyn Morgan; ‘Alliterative Poetry in Old and Middle
English’ by Scott Lightsey; ‘The Beast Fable’ by Brian Gastle; ‘Chronicle’ by



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Emma B. Hawkins; ‘Epic and Heroic Poetry’ by John Michael Crafton; ‘The Epic
Genres and Medieval Epics’ by Richard McDonald; ‘Hagiographic, Homiletic, and
Didactic Literature’ by John H. Brinegar; ‘Lyric Poetry’ by Sigrid King; ‘Riddles’
by Michelle Igareshi; and ‘Visions of the Afterlife’ by Ed Eleazar.

Antonina Harbus has produced two important monographs this year. Helena of
Britain in Medieval Legend offers rich material for scholars interested in the
numerous Anglo-Saxon discussions of St Helena. Moving from late antiquity to the
twentieth century, Harbus traces the origins, development, political exploitation,
and decline of the legend regarding Helena’s British origins, and argues that the
legend contributed to the promotion of her cult as a saint and to her continuing
appeal over time. Anglo-Saxonists will be particularly interested in chapter 1, which
offers a detailed discussion of late Roman historical sources that consider Helena’s
life, and also chapter 2, which analyses Helena’s appearance in Anglo-Saxon and
Frankish writings. Although Anglo-Saxon texts never explicitly refer to Helena’s
British origins, they nevertheless frequently claim that Constantine was born in
Britain, a belief that may have arisen on account of Old English translators’
misconstrual of the Latin creatus (imperator) ‘raised up (as emperor)’ as accened
‘born’. Harbus maintains that ‘[t]he imperfect grasp of Latin by writers of Old
English adaptations may very well supply the key to the origin of the British Helena
legend’ (p. 43), and suggests that the legend probably originated in Anglo-Saxon
England rather than in late antiquity. Harbus’s The Life of the Mind in Old English
Poetry seeks ‘to investigate the emphasis on the mind in the poetic traditions of
Anglo-Saxon England, and to outline the model of the mind on which this poetic
discourse was structured’ (p. 13). Beginning with a detailed discussion of the
vocabulary used to refer to the mind and its functions in Old English, Harbus
proceeds to examine the mind as depicted in wisdom poetry, poetic saints’ lives,
elegies, and Beowulf. She counters common understandings of Old English poetry
as presenting only types rather than unique subjectivities, and shows that particular
viewpoints were encapsulated through a poetic emphasis on the mental arena.
Harbus argues further that Anglo-Saxon literary culture privileges the universality
of mental experience by envisaging mental life as perceptible to both the self and to
others, and she shows that the Anglo-Saxons viewed poetry as an important means
of self-expression.

R.M. Liuzza, ed., Old English Literature, brings together twenty-one essays that
have long been recognized as some of the best work in Anglo-Saxon studies. They
include ‘The Cultural Construction of Reading in Anglo-Saxon England’ by
Nicholas Howe; ‘Anglo-Saxon Lay Society and the Written Word’ by Susan Kelly;
‘The Making of Angelcynn: English Identity before the Norman Conquest’ by Sarah
Foot; ‘Orality and the Developing Text of Cædmon’s Hymn’ by Katherine O’Brien
O’Keeffe; ‘Reading Cædmon’s “Hymn” with Someone Else’s Glosses’ by Kevin S.
Kiernan; ‘Birthing Bishops and Fathering Poets: Bede, Hild, and the Relations of
Cultural Production’ by Clare A. Lees and Gillian R. Overing; ‘Kinship and
Lordship in Early Medieval England: The Story of Sigeberht, Cynewulf, and
Cyneheard’ by Stephen D. White; ‘The Thematic Structure of the Sermo Lupi’ by
Stephanie Hollis; ‘Social Idealism in Ælfric’s Colloquy’ by Earl R. Anderson; ‘The
Hero in Christian Reception: Ælfric and Heroic Poetry’ by Jocelyn Wogan-Browne;
‘Didacticism and the Christian Community: The Teachers and the Taught’ by Clare
A. Lees; ‘The Editing of Old English Poetic Texts: Questions of Style’ by Roy F.



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Leslie; ‘Anglo-Saxons on the Mind’ by M.R. Godden; ‘Sundor æt Rune: The
Voluntary Exile of The Wanderer’ by Robert E. Bjork; ‘From Plaint to Praise:
Language as Cure in “The Wanderer”’ by Margrét Gunnarsdóttir Champion; ‘The
Form and Structure of The Seafarer’ by Peter Orton; ‘En/closed Subjects: The
Wife’s Lament and the Culture of Early Medieval Female Monasticism’ by Shari
Horner; ‘The Devotional Context of the Cross before A.D. 1000’ by Sandra
McEntire; ‘Stylistic Disjunctions in The Dream of the Rood’ by Carol Braun
Pasternack; ‘God, Death, and Loyalty in The Battle of Maldon’ by Fred C.
Robinson; and ‘Maldon and Mythopoesis’ by John D. Niles. This diverse collection
opens with an introduction by Liuzza that contextualizes the various essays and
offers insight into the problems and pleasures of studying Anglo-Saxon literature.

Claire A. Lees and Gillian R. Overing, ‘The Clerics and the Critics: Misogyny
and the Social Symbolic in Anglo-Saxon England’ (in Fenster and Lees, eds.,
Gender in Debate from the Early Middle Ages to the Renaissance, pp. 19–39),
explores evidence for debates about gender in Anglo-Saxon textual culture.
Beginning from the premise that Anglo-Saxon writers do not routinely use the genre
of debate as a vehicle for exploring and enforcing gender norms, Lees and Overing
consider how Anglo-Saxon culture may contribute to our understanding of debates
about women in the later Middle Ages.

Several works from this year discuss Old English verse form, linguistics, and
relations between linguistics and metrics. In a ‘A Bard’s-Eye View of the Germanic
Syllable’ (JEGP 101[2002] 305–28), Geoffrey Russom engages the long-standing
problem of why rules of alliterative metre have proven so difficult to identify, and
proposes that recent developments in phonological theory can help to solve
problems. He focuses on problems with Sievers’s two-stress hypothesis, in the hope
of ‘using new kinds of metrical evidence to obtain a simpler and more consistent
account of the Germanic syllable’ (p. 306). Rachel Mines offers ‘An Examination of
Kuhn’s Second Law and its Validity as a Metrical-Syntactical Rule’ (SP 99[2002]
337–55). Focusing on a sample set of eighteen Old English poems, Mines shows that
Kuhn’s second law—that a clause upbeat must contain at least one clause-particle
and may not consist solely of phrase-particles—is violated in between 1 and 5 per
cent of main clauses. She argues that Kuhn’s second law ‘is neither a metrical rule
nor a special rule of poetic syntax’, and proposes that ‘[t]he fact that phrase-particles
tend not to occur alone in Old English clause upbeats can be alternatively explained
in terms of the Old English lexicon and syntactical rules that occur also in the prose’
(p. 355). Göran Kjellmer studies ‘GÅata LÅod: On the Partitive Genitive in Old
English Poetry’ (Anglia 119[2001] 596–605), and questions why the partitive
genitive is more commonly found in Old English poetry than in prose. Considering
a sample set of Old English poetic and prose texts, Kjellmer finds that the very late
Old English poem The Battle of Maldon contains fewer partitive genitives than
earlier poems, and argues that chronology (that is, the fact that most Old English
poetry was likely to have been composed earlier than the prose) plays an important
part in underlining the distinction between the styles of prose and verse texts.
Minkova and Stockwell, eds., Studies in the History of the English Language: A
Millennial Perspective, contains several essays on historical linguistics that are
relevant to Anglo-Saxon studies: Thomas Cable, ‘Issues for a New History of
English Prosody’ (pp. 125–51); Geoffrey Russom, ‘Dating Criteria for Old English
Poems’ (pp. 244–65); Ans van Kemenade, ‘Word Order in Old English Prose and



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Poetry: The Position of Finite Verbs and Adverbs’ (pp. 355–71); and Jeong-Hoon
Lee, ‘The “Have” Perfect in Old English: How Close was it to the Modern English
Perfect?’ (pp. 373–97).

Several important items from last year escaped notice. Mary Blockley’s Aspects
of Old English Poetic Syntax: Where Clauses Begin investigates the ways in which
Old English poetry and prose signal the beginning and ending of clauses. Focusing
on four of the most common and most syntactically important words in Old English
(ond, þa, ac, and þæt), as well as such aspects of clauses as verb-initial order,
negative contraction, and unexpressed but understood subjects, Blockley elucidates
how these words and structures mark the relationships between phrases and clauses.
She draws on a range of poetic and prose writings to shed fresh light on the rules that
govern syntactic relationships and to show how understandings of clause boundaries
crucially affect our interpretation of Old English texts.

Clare A. Lees and Gillian R. Overing’s Double Agents: Women and Clerical
Culture in Anglo-Saxon England offers a substantial contribution to our
understanding of women’s relationship to culture in Anglo-Saxon England.
Departing from former studies that seek to examine women as they are depicted in
historical and literary texts, this book investigates how textual forms and literary
representations are themselves partly responsible for the absence and presence of
women in the historical record. Drawing on both contemporary critical theory and a
host of Anglo-Saxon texts, Lees and Overing raise questions about the place of
Anglo-Saxon literature in cultural studies at large, and show how Anglo-Saxonists
might productively engage with larger critical conversations about culture,
subjectivity, and identity without sacrificing historical particularity. Individual
chapters deal with Bede and patristic understandings of maternity, women’s
relationship to orality and literacy, gendered sanctity, and the female body as a site
for patristic metaphor. Anglo-Saxonists will be especially interested in the
discussion of Wisdom in Pseudo-Bede’s Collectanea, a recently edited text that has
heretofore received little attention.

Nicole Guenther Discenza examines ‘Wealth and Wisdom: Symbolic Capital and
the Ruler in the Translational Program of Alfred the Great’ (Exemplaria 13[2001]
433–67). Focusing mainly on the prologues of the Alfredian translations, especially
the preface to the Pastoral Care, Discenza argues that these texts ‘constantly slip …
back and forth between the idea of wisdom as wealth and the idea that wisdom
supplants wealth’ (p. 466). The Alfredian translations and prefaces thus ‘attempted
to revalue wisdom and wealth, making “wisdom” a commodity whose worth the
Anglo-Saxons could recognize as easily as they recognized the value of gold’ (p.
467).

The year 2001 also saw the issuing of a sixth edition of Bruce Mitchell and Fred
C. Robinson’s A Guide to Old English. The sixth edition adds two texts, Wulf and
Eadwacer and Judith, as well as a paragraph on Judith 186b–95a in the section on
punctuation. It also contains minor variations and additions to keep the book up-to-
date. Otherwise, most of the book remains unchanged.

The study of Anglo-Saxon literature features in all of the essays in Treharne, ed.,
Vital Signs: English in Medieval Studies in Twenty-First Century Higher Education.
Treharne’s own contribution, ‘Introduction: The Current State of Medieval Studies’
(pp. 1–5), surveys the political climate for the teaching of Old English in universities
in Britain and Northern Ireland, and counters the view that the study of medieval



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English is in decline. Wendy Scase, in ‘Medieval Studies and the Future of English’
(pp. 7–15), addresses the ways in which the study of early English is contributing to
the development of the discipline of English ‘as the discipline responds to and
engages with intellectual, cultural and social change’ (p. 15). Richard K. Emerson
assesses ‘Medieval Studies at the Beginning of the New Millennium’ (pp. 17–27) in
terms of the engagement of scholars of medieval English with critical theories, new
technologies, and pedagogy, and urges further scholarly engagement with popular
medievalism. Robert E. Bjork sets out ‘The Portfolio for Medieval Studies’ (pp. 29–
34), identifies three ‘health indicators’ (p. 29)—organizations, publications, and
electronic resources—and concludes that diversification and flexibility are
important, and that signs for the future are good.

5. The Exeter Book

Several essays have appeared on The Wanderer. Andy Orchard argues for ‘Re-
Reading The Wanderer: The Value of Cross-References’ (in Hall, ed., Via Crucis,
pp. 1–26). He examines intertextual links between The Wanderer and such texts as
The Dream of the Rood, Deor, Homiletic Fragment 2 (from the Exeter Book),
Vercelli Homily 10, and the Lord’s Prayer, and argues that these cross-references
are the deliberate work of a highly skilled poet who sought to create a ‘heroic
homily’ (p. 26) that would blend imagery, themes, thoughts, and structuring
techniques from both secular poetic and homiletic prose traditions. Recognition of
these intertextual echoes is invited through intratextual echo and repetition.
Rosemary Greentree, ‘The Wanderer’s Horizon: A Note on ofer waþema gebind’
(Neophil 86[2002] 307–9), reconsiders the idea of frozen waves that is commonly
associated with the phrase ofer waþema gebind. She argues that a consideration of
seafaring conditions, namely, the restricted field of vision available to people
rowing on the sea, offers another plausible explanation for the idea of being bound
by waves.

The female-voiced elegies in The Exeter Book continue to generate exciting new
work. Pat Belanoff’s ‘Ides … geomrode giddum: The Old English Female Lament’
(in Klinck and Rasmussen, eds., Medieval Woman’s Song: Cross-Cultural
Approaches, pp. 29–46) offers an important contribution to our understanding of the
gendered nature of lament in Old English poetry. Placing Wulf and Eadwacer and
The Wife’s Lament alongside such male-voiced laments as The Wanderer and The
Seafarer, Belanoff argues that the female-voiced laments contain various features
which distinguish them from male-voiced laments: an intense focus on the present,
a sense of the impossibility of consolation, and a strict adherence to the individual
rather than the generalized voice. However, Belanoff also identifies striking
differences between the two female-voiced laments, and she argues that, while the
speaker of The Wife’s Lament has been immobilized by sorrow, the woman in Wulf
and Eadwacer has been mobilized by her sorrow to look forward to violent action.
Such differences between the two poems render the language and thematics of The
Wife’s Lament closer to the elegiac tradition, and Wulf and Eadwacer closer to the
heroic. Alaric Hall considers ‘The Images and Structure of The Wife’s Lament’
(LeedsSE 33[2002] 1–29). Focusing on the poem’s punctuation, structure, and
analogues, Hall argues that ‘[t]he situations of the speaker and her freond are, then,



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neither merely gloomy landscapes, nor purely pathetic fallacy: they involve distinct
motifs, possibly including “women’s/lovers’ lament” figures, describing
environments with images not only of misery, but also, it seems, inversions of the
paradisical—images of the hellish’ (p. 22). Thomas D. Hill reconsiders possible
meanings for the phrase ‘“Leger weardiað”: The Wife’s Lament 34b’ (ANQ
15[2002] 34–7). Pointing to the fact that leger is cognate with Old Norse-Icelandic
legr and that leir is well attested in Middle English in the sense of ‘bed’, Hill argues
that the phrase leger weardiað refers to the sharing of a bed rather than a grave or
sickbed.

In another article, ‘The Old English Dough Riddle and the Power of Women’s
Magic: The Traditional Context of Exeter Book Riddle 45’ (in Hall, ed., pp. 50–60),
Thomas D. Hill explores literary and folkloric analogues to Riddle 45. Hill reminds
us that, while some of the Exeter Book riddles derive from the Latin riddle tradition,
Riddle 45 more closely parallels accounts of women and dough found in later
English folk tradition and in early medieval accounts of ritual magic. Although these
analogues exhibit a wide range of attitudes towards women’s use of dough, they
nevertheless display a shared sense of dough as a rich symbol of female power
within the home.

Dieter Bitterli’s ‘Exeter Book Riddle 15: Some Points for the Porcupine’ (Anglia
120[2002] 461–87) re-examines solutions commonly proposed to Riddle 15
(badger, fox), arguing that, while the porcupine is not indigenous to England, it
nevertheless appears in numerous Latin texts that inform the Anglo-Saxon riddling
tradition and is the most likely solution to Riddle 15.

In ‘A Reconsideration of the Structure of Guthlac A: The Extremes of Saintliness’
(JEGP 101[2002] 185–200), Manish Sharma argues that ‘each of the three critical
episodes of Guthlac A depicts an approach to a threshold’ (p. 200), and that the
poem should thus be read as ‘essentially tripartite in structure’ (p. 186). Focusing on
‘the binding motif of physical and spiritual “ascension” that runs throughout the
poem’ (p. 200), Sharma maintains that the structure of Guthlac A renders Guthlac
‘inextricably associated with limits, and [emphasizes] his status as a figure upon the
extreme boundaries of the human’ (p. 200). The poet’s use of scenes dealing with
liminality and boundary-crossing thus ‘sharpens the presentation of the struggle
between the demonic and the saintly’ and highlights the sense of the saint as distinct
from the rest of mankind (p. 200).

Bruce Mitchell’s ‘Phoenix 71–84 and 424–42: Two Syntactical Cruces Involving
Punctuation’ (ANQ 15[2002] 38–46) sheds new light on the punctuating of two
difficult passages in The Phoenix. Reviewing previous editorial attempts to
punctuate these passages, Mitchell repunctuates them, and offers detailed discussion
of his rationale for doing so. Sachi Shimomura’s ‘Visualizing Judgment:
Illumination in the Old English Christ III’ (in Hall, ed., pp. 27–49) considers the
allegorization of light and brightness in Christ III. By contextualizing the poet’s use
of light imagery within biblical, patristic, and secular Anglo-Saxon discussions of
light and brightness, Sachimura shows that Christ III contains a ‘rhetorical
transformation that literalizes Christ as the illuminator of the Last Judgment’ (p. 48).
It is thus the light of the Son which reveals the deeds of the blessed, and the light of
the sun which reveals those of the damned. For Sachimura, light imagery functions
as a crucial means of identifying the Christ III poet’s theologies of vision and
judgement.



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6. The Poems of the Vercelli Book

Charles D. Wright finds ‘More Old English Poetry in Vercelli Homily XXI’ (in
Treharne and Rosser, eds., pp. 245–62). He begins by showing how the rigid
scholarly demarcation between poetry and prose has hindered the recognition and
study of the full extent of surviving Old English poetry. The passage in Vercelli
Homily XXI which Wright identifies and edits here runs from lines 128 to 141 of the
homily as edited by Scragg. Its topic is the rebel angels, and Wright defines its
rhetoric and form as ‘self-consciously “poetical”’ (p. 261), and suggests that it offers
evidence for a now lost, separate, Old English poem.

7. The Junius Manuscript

Much work has appeared this year on the Junius manuscript. Liuzza, ed., The Poems
of MS Junius 11: Basic Readings, brings together fourteen important essays on
Junius 11: ‘Confronting Germania Latina: Changing Responses to Old English
Biblical Verse’ by Joyce Hill; ‘The Old English Epic of Redemption: The
Theological Unity of MS Junius 11’ by J.R. Hall; ‘“The Old English Epic of
Redemption”: Twenty-Five-Year Retrospective’ by J.R. Hall; ‘Some Uses of
Paronomasia in Old English Scriptural Verse’ by Roberta Frank; ‘Tempter as
Rhetoric Teacher: The Fall of Language in Old English Genesis B’ by Eric Jager;
‘Conspicuous Heroism: Abraham, Prudentius, and the Old English Verse Genesis’
by Andrew Orchard; ‘Christian Tradition in the Old English Exodus’ by James W.
Earl; ‘The Patriarchal Digression in the Old English Exodus, Lines 362–446’ by
Stanley R. Hauer; ‘The Lion Standard in Exodus: Jewish Legend, Germanic
Tradition, and Christian Typology’ by Charles D. Wright; ‘The Structure of the Old
English Daniel’ by Robert T. Farrell; ‘Style and Theme in the Old English Daniel’
by Earl R. Anderson; ‘Nebuchadnezzar’s Dreams in the Old English Daniel’ by
Antonina Harbus; ‘The Power of Knowledge and the Location of the Reader in
Christ and Satan’ by Ruth Wehlau; and ‘The Wisdom Poem at the End of MS Junius
11’ by Janet Schrunk Ericksen. All of these essays have previously been published,
except for J.R. Hall’s retrospective and Janet Schrunk Ericksen’s contribution,
which was commissioned for this volume. Liuzza provides a lucid introduction that
summarizes the contributions of the individual essays, as well as the ways in which
they engage with one another. Leslie Lockett offers ‘An Integrated Re-examination
of the Dating of Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 11’ (ASE 31[2002] 141–73).
Reminding us that efforts to date Junius 11 through individual features have
produced discrepant results, Lockett offers an integrated analysis of the manuscript
that brings together evidence provided by each datable feature of the codex:
codicological evidence, line drawings, use of colour, palaeographical features, and
punctuation. She concludes that Junius 11 ought to be redated to the period c.960–
c.990, and reminds us that integrated and spectrum-based methods of dating may
shed new light on other Anglo-Saxon manuscripts.

Paul G. Remley writes on ‘Daniel, the Three Youths Fragment and the
Transmission of Old English Verse’ (ASE 31[2002] 81–140). Reminding us that
scholars have often looked to the rare, parallel passages in Daniel (ll. 279–439) and
The Canticles of the Three Youths (long known as Azarius) as evidence for Anglo-



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Saxon scribal practice and literate transmission, Remley seeks to ‘improve our
understanding of the Daniel–Three Youths variants by identifying some discernible
points of scribal intervention in the parallel texts, as well as some thoroughly revised
passages of verse’ (p. 84). He concludes that the transmitted texts of Daniel and The
Three Youths go back to a common antecedent text produced before the period of
vigorous Benedictine reforms, and he suggests numerous transmissional stages after
the emergence of this text, involving physical damage to the exemplar,
comprehensive textual restoration, and several additional types of textual alteration.

Damian Love’s ‘The Old English Exodus: A Verse Translation’ (Neophil
86[2002] 621–39) offers a verse translation of Exodus that ‘adopts the stress metre
and alliterative scheme of the original’ (p. 620). Love also provides notes that
discuss relevant themes and historical events, and a brief bibliography. Thomas D.
Hill writes on ‘Pilate’s Visionary Wife and the Innocence of Eve: An Old Saxon
Source for the Old English Genesis B’ (JEGP 101[2002] 170–84). Pointing to
parallels between the vision of Eve in Genesis B and that of Procla (Pilate’s wife) in
The Heliand, Hill suggests that the Genesis B-poet may have regarded the Procla
narrative as an appropriate model for his account of Eve’s temptation, and as an
attractive means of explaining how Eve could have assumed the role of tempter
without any malice or ill-will.

Carole Hough re-examines ‘Christ and Satan line 406b’ (N&Q 49[2002] 6–8) and
proposes that the manuscript reading 7 ne moste Efe þa gyt ‘but Eve was not yet
allowed …’ ought to be restored. Pointing out that both the Tironian note 7 and the
written conjunction and/ond frequently carry an adversative sense, Hough argues
that we need not read the Tironian note 7 in this line as a contraction for ac.

8. The Beowulf Manuscript

The Beowulf manuscript continues to inspire rigorous scholarship, with much of this
year’s work centred on translations. Beowulf: A Prose Translation offers a new
critical edition by Nicholas Howe of E. Talbot Donaldson’s classic prose translation.
In addition to useful explanatory notes, Howe also provides annotations for
technical terms and historical figures, and has added new material to the ‘Contexts’
section. The edition includes a new final section, ‘Criticism’, which brings together
seven important essays on Beowulf. The selection is limited to essays published after
1980 ‘so that readers can be exposed to the current conversation in the field about
Beowulf’ (p. ix). Essays include ‘Appositive Style and the Theme of Beowulf’ by
Fred C. Robinson; ‘The Beowulf Poet’s Sense of History’ by Roberta Frank;
‘Reconceiving Beowulf: Poetry as Social Praxis’ by John D. Niles; ‘Beowulf and the
Psychology of Terror’ by Michael Lapidge; ‘“Þæt wæs geomuru ides!” A Female
Stereotype Examined’ by Joyce Hill; ‘The Female Mourner at Beowulf’s Funeral:
Filling in the Blanks/Hearing the Spaces’ by Helen Bennett; and ‘The Uses of
Uncertainty: On the Dating of Beowulf’ by Nicholas Howe. The edition concludes
with a short bibliography that directs readers to earlier Beowulf criticism.

Beowulf: A Verse Translation offers a new critical edition by Daniel Donoghue of
Seamus Heaney’s poetic translation. Heaney’s translation is accompanied by a
translator’s introduction and a final essay by Donoghue, both of which address the
process of translation and situate Heaney’s Beowulf in the context of his life and



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work. The edition also provides a ‘Contexts’ section designed to introduce students
to the cultural and historical milieu of Beowulf, thirty-six illustrations, and eight
critical essays. Essays include ‘Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics’ by J.R.R.
Tolkien; ‘The Interlace Structure of Beowulf’ by John Leyerle; ‘The Structural
Unity of Beowulf: The Problem of Grendel’s Mother’ by Jane Chance; ‘The Beowulf
Poet’s Sense of History’ by Roberta Frank; ‘The Tomb of Beowulf’ by Fred C.
Robinson; ‘The Christian Language and Theme of Beowulf’ by Thomas D. Hill;
‘Archaeology and Beowulf’ by Leslie Webster; and ‘The Philologer Poet: Seamus
Heaney and the Translation of Beowulf’ by Daniel Donoghue. Louis J. Rodrigues’s
Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburh: A Modern English Verse Rendering offers a
new verse translation of Beowulf in parallel-text format. The translation is ‘intended
for a non-academic audience’ (p. vi), and offers accessible commentary, glossaries,
genealogies, and name-indices, as well as a number of black and white drawings.

R.M. Liuzza’s ‘Lost in Translation: Some Versions of Beowulf in the Nineteenth
Century’ (ES 83[2002] 281–95) begins with a brief review of the textual history of
Beowulf and subsequently considers the poem’s reception and translation in the
nineteenth century. Focusing on the work of John Josiah Conybeare, J.M. Kemble,
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Morris, and others, Liuzza charts how
nineteenth-century translations of Beowulf were conditioned by contemporary social
and political developments. These local analyses enable Liuzza to argue that all
translations are acts of recovery driven by the dual urges to recapture the spirit of a
vanished and irrecoverable original and to respond to the literary demands of one’s
own time. As Liuzza writes, ‘A translation is successful or not, not by virtue of its
accuracy or fidelity to its indecipherable cause, but by how well it makes the poem
seem like a living thing rather than a dead one’ (p. 295).

Several articles this year focus on the natural and supernatural worlds. Margaret
Gelling investigates ‘The Landscape of Beowulf’ (ASE 31[2002] 7–11), with
particular attention to the poet’s use of such landscape terms as hlið, hop, and gelad.
Although rarely attested in other literary sources, these terms are well evidenced in
place names, and Gelling argues that attending to place-name usage may help us to
better understand how landscape terms are used in Beowulf. Michael Swisher’s
‘Beyond the Hoar Stone’ (Neophil 86[2002] 133–6) considers the formulaic phrase
se harne stan ‘the hoar stone’ as a ‘boundary marker separating the known natural
world from the dangerous supernatural one’ (p. 133). He focuses mainly on the
phrase as used in Beowulf, with some attention to its appearance in Blickling Homily
17 and Andreas. Roberta Frank gives us some ‘North-Sea Soundings in Andreas’ (in
Treharne and Rosser, eds., pp. 1–11), by drawing on skaldic poetry to offer
clarification of the Old English poem’s imagery.

A striking number of this year’s essays focus on monsters and animal imagery.
Frederick M. Biggs examines ‘Beowulf’s Fight with the Nine Nicors’ (RES
53[2002] 311–28) and the implications of the nine sea-beasts, who comprise the
major discrepancy between Beowulf’s and Unferth’s accounts of the competition
with Breca. Biggs argues that the poet’s early account of sea-beasts offers a
paradigm for understanding how monsters function throughout the poem as literary
constructs that offer commentary on human actions. In ‘From “Whale-Road” to
“Gannet’s Bath”: Images of Foreign Relations and Exchange in Beowulf’ (RMSt
28[2002] 59–86), Robert L. Schichler considers the three sea-kennings with animal
elements found in Beowulf. Highlighting the idea of the sea as a path with the



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capacity to either facilitate or hinder foreign relations and social exchange,
Schichler argues that the Beowulf-poet employs a succession of sea-kennings to
construct a distinct shift in foreign relations as we move from Scyld’s to Hrothgar’s
reigns: ‘from one marked by intimidation and forced tribute, to one rooted in
friendship and free exchange’ (p. 60). John Tanke’s ‘Beowulf, Gold-Luck, and
God’s Will’ (SP 99[2002] 356–79) focuses on the dragon’s treasure and the curse
laid upon it. Tanke investigates possible meanings for the hapax legomenon
goldhwæte (l. 3074a), and argues that ‘the poet has conceived of the curse in a
thoroughly plausible, pagan-Germanic context as a protective spell laid upon a
sacrificial treasure, and that death and not damnation is the fate assigned to its
victim’ (p. 358).

Gale R. Owen-Crocker continues her work on death and burial in Beowulf with
‘Horror in Beowulf: Mutilation, Decapitation and Unburied Dead’ (in Treharne and
Rosser, eds., pp. 81–100). Focusing on deaths in the poem which are presented as
being so unnatural that the body cannot be buried with the proper funeral rites,
Owen-Crocker highlights evidence for Anglo-Saxon sensitivities, and the poem’s
exploitation of them to produce horror in its audience.

The poem’s many feuds continue to generate interest. Michael Pantazakos’s
‘From Epic to Romance: The Literary Transformation of Private Blood Feud into
Societal Ressentiment’ (Comitatus 3[2002] 37–57) offers a ‘comparative literary
critique of … the Chanson de Roland and Beowulf’ (p. 37) to argue for a connection
between literary and social changes in the late eleventh century. Pointing to this
period as one that witnessed the transformation of epic into romance as well as
increased anti-Semitism, Pantazakos suggests that the movement towards romance
was enacted and expressed as a new form of anti-Semitism that resulted from
changing world-values, namely, an increasing tendency to reject private blood feud
in favour of a kind of social ressentiment, or revenge directed against an innocent
other rather than against the true source of one’s wrath. Lidan Lin writes on ‘The
Narrative Strategy of Double Voicing in Beowulf’ (NDQ 69[2002] 40–9), with
particular attention to the poem’s digressions on feuds. Lin argues that feud
digressions, such as the Finnsburh episode, create a ‘unified counter-heroic
narrative constantly competing for authority with the heroic narrative’ (p. 40).

As usual, there is a substantial amount of new work on poetic form, style, and
metrics. In The Indeterminacy of Beowulf, Johann Köberl takes a fresh look at some
of the indeterminacies, ambiguities, and ambivalences that have engaged Beowulf
scholars for many years. Focusing on syntactic, lexical, and thematic contradictions
within the text, Köberl suggests that readers ought to embrace these ambiguities as
part of its aesthetic appeal rather than looking for resolution, and that we ‘might
want to see structures—such as ambiguity, a high-lighting of transitionality, or an
open-ended questioning of values—that permit a continual discourse on, and
therefore a continual recreation of, Beowulf, thus deferring ad infinitum any final
resolutions’ (p. 178).

John Harkness offers some ‘Observations on Appositions in Beowulf’ (JIEP
43[2002] 79–88), with particular attention to where appositions fall in the poetic
half-line. Defining apposition as ‘coreferent, parallel, unconjoined lexical noun
phrases in the same clause’ (p. 79), Harkness shows that the majority of such
appositions begin in the second half-line, with the second element of apposition in
the following first half-line, and he offers several possible explanations for this



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phenomenon. John D. Sundquist discusses ‘Relative Clause Variation and the Unity
of Beowulf’ (JGL 14[2002] 243–69). He argues that aspects of various relative
clause types in Beowulf are unique in the Old English poetic and prose corpus and
consistent throughout all three proposed parts of the poem. Sundquist thus
concludes that quantitative data on relative clause variation provides additional
evidence that Beowulf is a unified poem and that it is not the work of multiple
authors. Michael Getty studies The Metre of Beowulf: A Constraint-Based
Approach. Getty’s goal is ‘to present a theory of the metrical system behind the Old
English alliterative poem Beowulf’ (p. 1), and he writes for an audience of both
generative linguists and traditional metrists willing to consider an alternative to
Sievers, Kuhn, and Bliss. This book offers detailed analyses of Old English stress
phonology and metrical structure at the level of the foot, the half-line, and the line.
Getty argues that Old English poetry does not constitute a language of its own, but
merely a kind of tidying-up of the prose language, which occurs ‘according to a set
of conditions on form which, by and large, can be justified quite independently of
any need to understand the metre’ (p. 5).

The numerous analogues to Beowulf continue to intrigue scholars. Alexander M.
Bruce’s Scyld and Scef: Expanding the Analogues examines the identity and textual
functions of Scyld and Scef, two figures who are most well known from the opening
of Beowulf. The book begins with a foreword by Paul Szarmach, and then proceeds
to part I, an analysis of Scyld and Scef in Anglo-Saxon poetry, early English
genealogies, English records from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, Icelandic
sources, and Danish texts. In part II, Bruce presents primary texts and translations of
the forty-three extant references to Scyld and Scef. Dean Swinford studies ‘Form
and Representation in Beowulf and Grettis Saga’ (Neophil 86[2002] 613–20). While
previous studies have identified plot similarities between Beowulf’s battle with
Grendel and Grettir’s battle with Glámr, Swinford focuses on generic distinctions
between the two battles to show that ‘the dimensions of psychological horror
conveyed by Grendel are clearly lacking from the saga’s depiction of Glámr’ (p.
619). He argues that such distinctions point to different conceptions of heroic action
and to varying cultural expectations of Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse audiences.

As in past years, Alfred Bammesberger offers helpful textual notes on difficult
lines. In ‘The Syntactic Analysis of Beowulf, Lines 750–754’ (Neophil 86[2002]
303–6), he re-examines the syntax of lines 750–4 and argues that they are correctly
translated: ‘At once the keeper of crimes realized that he had never met a greater grip
in another man of the corners of the earth, of the world. He became terrified in spirit.
Yet he was not able to get away any sooner’ (p. 305). In ‘An Unnecessary
Emendation (Beowulf, line 1763a)’ (N&Q 49[2002] 174–5), he suggests that the
phrase adl oððe ecg ‘illness or the sword’ ought not to be emended to adl oððe ece
‘illness or pain’. In ‘OE Ænegum in Beowulf’ (N&Q 49[2002] 312–14), he suggests
that the phrase ænegum men actually represents (normalized) Ángan menn, that the
phrase ought to be translated as ‘to one man alone’ and that the emphasis thus lies
on Beowulf fighting alone. In ‘Beowulf’s Death’ (N&Q 49[2002] 314–15), he
argues that the manuscript reading hwæðre in line 2819b makes good sense and
ought not to be emended to hræðre. In ‘Grendel’s Death (Beowulf 850–852)’
(Neophil 86[2002] 467–9), he suggests that him in line 852b (þær him hel onfeng)
does not refer to Grendel but to either his ‘life’ (singular) or to his ‘life and soul’
(plural). In ‘Old English Ealuscerwen in Beowulf 769a’ (RES 53[2002] 469–74), he



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contends that ealuscerwan ought to be translated as ‘a dispensation of good luck’
and that the noun -ealu ought not to be identified as the noun for ‘ale’.
Bammesberger also revisits the question of ‘Where Did Hrothgar Deliver his
Speech?’ (ES 83[2002] 1–5). Drawing on an earlier suggestion made by Leslie
Webster, Bammesberger argues that the phrase on stapole (l. 926a) ought to be
translated ‘at the pillar’ and that Hrothgar’s speech took place outside Heorot, at a
large pillar-like structural support to the building which may have also had
ceremonial functions.

Other brief analyses of difficult lines and phrases have also appeared. Sarah M.
Elder offers ‘A Note on the Meaning of Beowulf, Lines 1288–1295’ (N&Q 49[2002]
315–16). Elder argues that se broga (l. 1291b) refers to Grendel’s mother, and that
the half-line is thus correctly translated as ‘when that monstrous thing perceived
him’, rather than ‘when the terror seized him’. Carl T. Berkhout writes on ‘Beowulf
2200–08: Mind the Gap’ (ANQ 15[2002] 51–8). He briefly reviews debates on the
textually mutilated condition of fol. 179, and considers ‘why both sides of 179,
along with the first three lines on the verso of 180, might have been erased or
partially erased in the first place’ (p. 52). In ‘An Aspirin for Beowulf: Against Aches
and Pains—ece and wærc’ (ANQ 15[2002] 58–63), Roberta Frank considers recent
calls for emendation of ecg ‘sword’ (l. 1763a) and weorc ‘work’ (ll. 1418b, 1638b,
and 1721b) to ece ‘ache’ and wærc ‘pain’. Frank offers a detailed discussion of the
various Anglo-Saxon uses and contexts for these words, and concludes that the drive
towards such emendations is inadvisable and may simply result from a modern
sensibility in which language is seen as a harmonious mathematical system.

E.L. Risden, ‘Teaching Anglo-Saxon Humor, or Yes, Virginia, There Is Humor in
Beowulf’ (SMRT 9[2002] 21–38), suggests that focusing on humour in Old English
poetry may help to increase interest in medieval poetry. Risden argues that Anglo-
Saxon humour ought to be understood as ‘a sudden pleasing mental catharsis
experienced in safety’ (p. 29), and identifies examples of humour in Beowulf, the
Riddles, and Juliana.

Drout, ed., Beowulf and the Critics, is a critical edition of the two earlier and
heretofore unpublished versions of Tolkien’s landmark essay ‘Beowulf: The
Monsters and the Critics’. Labelling the two versions ‘A’ and ‘B’, Drout shows how
they differ from the final, far shorter version delivered to the British Academy in
1936, and he suggests that Tolkien wrote the longer texts in the early 1930s and may
have delivered them as a series of lectures at Oxford. Drout provides a description
of the manuscript containing the two longer works, complete textual and
explanatory notes, and an introduction that discusses the place of Tolkien’s
scholarship in literary studies and in Beowulf scholarship.

Interest in gender issues keeps Judith at the centre of scholarly investigation. In
‘Five Textual Notes on the Old English Judith’ (ANQ 15[2002] 47–51), Fred C.
Robinson offers fresh insight into five problematic aspects of the poem: the Old
English poet’s omission of Judith’s dressing herself in fine clothes, Holofernes’
fleohnet, Judith’s prayers, the responses of the retainers to Holofernes’ confinement,
and their efforts to rouse him. Hugh Magennis explores ‘Gender and Heroism in the
Old English Judith’ (in Treharne, ed., Writing Gender and Genre, pp. 5–18).
Magennis considers the ways in which Judith departs from gender roles typically
ascribed to women in heroic poetry, while nevertheless retaining a recognizable
femininity which renders her naturally unsuited to the task of defending Bethulia.



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Magennis argues that the poet maintains a sense of Judith as female, thereby
heightening the sense of difficulty in her achievement and the profound faith that
enables it. An item from last year that escaped notice was Lori Ann Garner’s ‘The
Art of Translation in the Old English Judith’ (SN 73[2001] 171–83). Focusing on the
battle scenes, Holofernes’ feast and descent into hell, and Judith’s relationship with
her maid, Garner sheds new light on the poet’s manipulation of his Latin sources and
on how these scenes would have registered in Anglo-Saxon culture.

For work on the Passion of Saint Christopher, see Section 10 below.

9. Other Poems

The Battle of Maldon continues to intrigue scholars. Michael Matto’s ‘A War of
Containment: The Heroic Image in The Battle of Maldon’ (SN 74[2002] 60–75)
investigates images of containment and bounded spaces as recurring motifs in
Maldon. Matto argues that the poet uses containment imagery to schematize the
conflicts between two different heroic ideals: an ideal that views social order as a
product of ‘containment and the attendant processes of restraint, intake, and metered
release’ (p. 69) and an ethos ‘that is based not in containment but in individual
action, loyalty, and vengeance’ (p. 63). In ‘Wistan’s Parentage’ (N&Q 49[2002]
175–6), Carole Hough offers fresh insight into lines 297b–300 of Maldon. Hough
reminds us that the Anglo-Saxons frequently formed names for both men and
women by combining elements of the mother’s and father’s names. Since Wistan is
a reduction of Wigstan, Wistan’s mother may have been Wigelines and his father
Þurstan, and lines 300a and 298a ought to be recognized as containing these names.

Jonathan Watson’s ‘The Finnsburh Skald: Kennings and Cruces in the Anglo-
Saxon Fragment’ (JEGP 101[2002] 497–519) focuses on the phrases Celæs borð (l.
29a) and Hwearflacra hrær (l. 34a), both of which appear in the Finnsburh
fragment. Watson rejects the usual explanation of these unintelligible phrases as a
product of the unsure hand of George Hickes, and proposes, instead, that they ‘point
toward a shared Scandinavian identity … [and] are mythological kennings
consistent with those found in Old Norse verse’ (p. 498). Watson suggests further
that the Finnsburh fragment ‘probably reflects a Viking-Age rendering of the
Danish ancestral past’ (p. 519).

Paul E. Szarmach’s ‘Meter 20: Context Bereft’ (ANQ 15[2002] 28–34) shows
how the valuation of Bodley 180 over the fire-damaged Cotton Otho A.vi may
obscure our understanding of Meter 20 in the Old English Boethius.

Alfred Bammesberger claims that there has been ‘A Doubtful Reconstruction in
the Old English Ruthwell Crucifixion Poem’ (SN 74[2002] 143–5). Challenging two
readings in David Howlett’s 1976 reconstruction of the poem, Bammesberger
argues that gastæ must be replaced by gast, and sendæ by onsendæ or possibly
ondsende.

‘Crook-Neb’d Corslets and Barefaced Cheek’ (in Hough and Lowe, eds., pp.
189–97) are the subject of Tania Styles’s development of the reading proposed by
Christine Fell (published in the same volume, and reviewed in Section 4 above) for
geapneb, a hapax legomenon in Waldere. Styles discusses the historical semantics
of neb, including in her examination its use in Old English homilies, and proposes a
new sense for this term and its derivatives: imprudence



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Paul Cavill examines the relationship between ‘Bede and Cædmon’s Hymn’ (in
Hough and Lowe, eds., pp. 1–17), by assessing the evidence for the opposing views
that the Old English Hymn is a back-formation from Bede’s Latin version, and that
Bede constructed his Latin version as a paraphrase of an earlier Old English one. His
conclusion is that the latter is the more likely of the two possibilities.

D.R. Howlett offers a study of ‘The Verse of Æthelweard’s Chronicle’ (Bulletin
du Cange 58[2000] 219–24) which proposes some changes to the last lines of the
relevant section in Campbell’s edition, gives a new translation of the section, and
shows the influence of the ‘Insular tradition of metrical experiment’ (p. 224) on
Æthelweard’s poetry.

10. Prose

Bede and his works continue to attract new analysis. In ‘Discovering the Calendar
(annalis libellus) Attached to Bede’s Own Copy of De temporum ratione’ (AnBol
120[2002] 5–64), Paul Meyvaert re-examines the manuscripts of De temporum
ratione, and concludes that ‘DTR stands apart in Bede’s works as the product of his
classroom teaching’ (p. 42), and that Bede copied entries from the Codex
cosmographiorum into his calendar. Daniel Paul O’Donnell assesses ‘The Accuracy
of the “St Petersburg Bede”’ (N&Q 49[2002] 4–6), and finds that, despite the
presence of many more errors than previous scholars have acknowledged, this
version of the Historia ecclesiastica is indeed early and accurate. Scott
DeGregorio’s ‘“Nostrorum socordiam temporum”: The Reforming Impulse of
Bede’s Later Exegesis’ (EMedE 11[2002] 107–22) examines examples of Bede’s
commentaries from different periods of his career in their social and political
context. DeGregorio draws attention to how intertextual and socially involved
Bede’s later writings are.

In ‘A Northumbrian Phrase in the Formation of the Hieronymian Martyrology:
The Evidence of the Martyrology of Tallaght’ (AnBol 120[2002] 311–63), Pádraig
Ó Riain argues that the Echternach version of the Martyrology of Tallaght, and also
the three versions produced at St-Wandrille or St Servatius, St-Avold, and Sens, all
use a Northumbrian/English exemplar.

Two of the essays in Treharne and Rosser, eds., Early Medieval English Texts,
deal with Alfredian texts. In ‘Editions of Alfred: The Wages of Un-influence’ (pp.
135–49), Paul E. Szarmach evaluates ‘the lamentable state of the texts that comprise
the Alfredian corpus’ (p. 135), and names as contributory factors to this lack of
sustained scholarly interest modern disciplinary divides between history and
literature, failure to recognize Alfred as a poet, failure to credit ninth-century Anglo-
Saxon authors with philosophical interests, a lack of clarity in Anglo-Saxon studies
about what should constitute an edition, and the declining value attributed to the
work of editing. ‘Book Divisions and Chapter Headings in the Translations of the
Alfredian Period’ are the subject of Janet Bately’s analysis (pp. 151–66). Through
an examination of manuscripts of a range of Alfredian translations, Bately shows the
extent to which editors of the texts have imposed their own divisions, that Anglo-
Saxon scribes of the texts are much less interested in dividing them up, and that
where contents lists, titling, and numbering do exist in manuscript, there is no sign
of a uniform approach. Alfred P. Smyth publishes The Medieval Life of King Alfred



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the Great: A Translation and Commentary on the Text Attributed to Asser. The
commentary in the volume engages further with the arguments about the reliability
of the Life, the identity of Asser as its author, the style of the text, and its use of the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and Smyth advances a case for the Life being written at
Ramsey in c. a.d. 1000.

O’Neill, ed., King Alfred’s Old English Prose Translations of the First Fifty
Psalms, offers a welcome new edition of the prose psalms contained in the Paris
Psalter. O’Neill includes discussions of the manuscript, sources, translation and
style, language, and authorship. The text of the psalms is supplemented by extensive
commentary, a glossary, and a select bibliography. [SK]

Studies on Ælfric and his work continue to multiply this year. Hugh Magennis
examines ‘Warrior Saints, Warfare, and the Hagiography of Ælfric of Eynsham’
(Traditio 56[2001] 27–51). Magennis addresses the potential conflict between
secular heroism and sanctity, and focuses on Ælfric’s Lives of Martin, Oswald,
Edmund, Sebastian, and the Forty Soldiers to argue that, in content and style, they
represent ‘a kind of managed popularization of the cult of saints’ (p. 50). In ‘Ælfric
on the Creation and Fall of the Angels’ (ASE 31[2002] 175–200), Michael Fox notes
Ælfric’s numerous treatments of this subject, and how his interpretation of it differs
from his main authorities, and traces Ælfric’s increasing ‘need for scriptural
authority’ (p. 200) on this matter.

Several of the contributors to Hall, ed., Via Crucis, write on Ælfric’s hagiography.
Dabney Anderson Bankert’s ‘Reconciling Family and Faith: Ælfric’s Lives of Saints
and Domestic Dramas of Conversion’ (pp. 138–57) focuses on two Lives which
have conversion as a central theme—those of Agnes and Gallicanus—and shows
how Ælfric uses the pairing of these stories to construct models which will appeal in
particular to lay members of his audience. E. Gordon Whatley also considers
Ælfric’s interaction with lay readers in ‘Pearls before Swine: Ælfric, Vernacular
Hagiography, and the Lay Reader’ (pp. 158–84). After surveying Ælfric’s expressed
views and anxieties about lay access to vernacular translations of Latin texts, and his
manipulation of his own sources in the Catholic Homilies so that what he considers
to be problematic elements are counterbalanced, Whatley turns to the Lives of
Saints, and shows how these too are refashioned from their sources into narratives
acceptable in Ælfric’s mind for reading by his lay patrons.

Six of the essays in Treharne and Rosser, eds., Early Medieval English Texts, also
focus on Ælfric. Malcolm Godden considers ‘Ælfric as Grammarian: The Evidence
of his Catholic Homilies’ (pp. 13–29). He considers the evidence for changes made
by Ælfric to the text of the Catholic Homilies, notes the lack of signs that these
changes were consistent, or part of a systematic revision of the whole work, and
concludes that ‘Ælfric was primarily a stylist rather than a grammarian or even a
pedagogue’ (p. 29). Mechthild Gretsch compares ‘Ælfric’s Sanctorale and the
Benedictional of Æthelwold’ (pp. 31–50) in order to discern something of the
rationale behind Ælfric’s selection of saints for his hagiographical writings. Gretsch
surveys the evidence for ‘political and ethical motivation’ (p. 34) on Ælfric’s part,
and for influence being brought to bear on him by the patrons and commissioners of
his work, and then goes on to examine the compare the saints in the Benedictional
of Æthelwold and the subjects of Ælfric’s hagiography, to characterize the
Benedictional as a book which ‘furnishes much of the ideological background of
Edgar’s rule and coronation, and hence may have always been intended for public



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display in the church on certain occasions’ (p. 50), and to propose that it may have
influenced Ælfric’s choice of subjects. Joyce Hill furthers her work on ‘Ælfric’s
Authorities’ (pp. 51–65) with a study of homilies VII, X, and XVII in Pope’s edited
collection of Supplementary Homilies, which aims to show ‘the problems to be
faced and the predispositions to be overcome in negotiating the intertextual
minefield’ (p. 59), and which confirms the importance of Carolingian compilers as
sources of Ælfric’s exegetical writings. Mary Clayton offers ‘An Edition of Ælfric’s
Letter to Brother Edward’ (pp. 263–83). Clayton’s edition is accompanied by a
modern English translation, and is preceded by a discussion of the text in which she
argues convincingly for Ælfric’s authorship of it, and presents it as offering ‘a
fascinating insight into the views of an English person around the last millennium,
reacting to the spread of Danish ways in England’ (pp. 263–4). Jonathan Wilcox’s
‘The Transmission of Ælfric’s Letter to Sigefyrth and the Mutilation of London,
British Library, Cotton Vespasian D. xiv’ (pp. 285–300) traces Ælfric’s composition
of this text, his reworking of it into a homily, the popularity of the text as a treatise
on virginity, the survival of part of the preface to the Letter to Sigefyrth in Vespasian
D.xiv, and the impact on that manuscript of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
readers, including Robert Cotton, whom Wilcox shows to have been most probably
responsible for the excision of the rest of the Letter. Michael Lapidge examines the
evidence for ‘Ælfric’s Schooldays’ (pp. 301–9) by scrutinizing the Latin preface to
his Grammar, in which reference is made to the pronunciation of brittonice. Lapidge
compares this assertion to the description in Latin poems composed at Æthelwold’s
school at Winchester of a Welsh schoolmaster named Iorwerth, and argues that
Ælfric’s Preface supports the case for Iorwerth being at Winchester in the time of
Æthelwold, and thus being an influence on Ælfric’s education.

A post-Conquest copy of one of Ælfric’s probable sources is examined by Joana
Proud in ‘The Cotton-Corpus Legendary into the Twelfth Century: Notes on
Salisbury Cathedral Library MSS 221 and 222’ (in Treharne and Rosser, eds., pp.
341–52). Proud analyses this late eleventh-century manuscript for information on
‘the ways that scribes responded to the demand for Latin hagiography in the period
1060–1200’ (p. 342), and argues that the adaptation of the collection to include more
English saints was a gradual process begun by Ælfric in his adaptation of parts of it
into English, but then not resumed until the augmentation of the Latin collection
with the addition of English saints’ lives in twelfth-century copies. Kathy Lavezzo
offers interesting insights into ‘Another Country: Ælfric and the Production of
English Identity’ (NML 3[for 1999; published 2002] 67–93). Focusing on Ælfric’s
narration of the encounter with the English slave-boys in his homily on Gregory,
Lavezzo shows how Ælfric ‘presents a fantasy of English-Christian belonging’ (p.
70).

Ælfric’s language is also scrutinized this year. Alfred Bammesberger surveys the
use of ‘OE bysegan in Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies, ii.440.20’ (N&Q 49[2002] 9–10),
and suggests a translation of ‘chores’. In ‘Speaking Brittonice: Vowel Quantities
and Musical Length in Ælfric’s Grammar’ (Peritia 16[2002] 26–39), Melinda J.
Menzer studies Ælfric’s statement on the pronunciation of short vowels. She argues
that he is drawing on the systems of musica and grammatica, and notes that his
attribution of short pronunciation to the Welsh might indicate differences between
Latin pronunciation in different parts of Britain.



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Wulfstan is also the subject of new studies, including two essays in a collection
on the year a.d. 1000. Mary P. Richards writes on ‘Wulfstan and the Millennium’ (in
Frassetto, ed. The Year 1000: Religious and Social Response to the Turning of the
First Millennium, pp. 41–8). Richards focuses on those of Wulfstan’s eschatological
sermons which reveal his millenarian concerns, contrasts them with the
eschatological writings of Ælfric, and emphasizes how Wulfstan’s ‘criticisms and
warnings become ever sharper as he seeks to end the current crisis’ (p. 46). Nancy
E. Atkinson and Dan E. Burton’s examination of ‘Harrowing the Houses of the
Holy: Images of Violation in Wulfstan’s Homilies’ (in Frassetto, ed., pp. 49–62)
shows how Wulfstan’s eschatological homilies respond to the conflict between the
English and the Danes, promote the idea of the violation of the English clergy by
Vikings, and thus position the English clergy as potential national saviours.

Andy Orchard comments ‘On Editing Wulfstan’ (in Treharne and Rosser, eds.,
pp. 311–40), using Bethurum XXI as an example of the problems generated by
earlier editorial treatments of the different versions of this text, which typifies the
tendency of Wulfstan and other Anglo-Saxon writers to adapt and recycle his prose.
Orchard emphasizes the value of a manuscript-centred approach to editing
Wulfstan’s works, and in the appendix to his article provides an edition and literal
modern English translation of Bethurum XXI from manuscript London, British
Library Cotton Nero A.i. The balance of ‘Germanic Tradition and Latin Learning in
Wulfstan’s Echoic Compounds’ is assessed by Don W. Chapman (JEGP 101[2002]
1–18). Chapman concedes that these compounds seem at first sight to be drawn from
native, Germanic style, but argues that they also echo learned, Latinate style, that
Wulfstan would have been aware of both of these connections, and that he is
‘enhancing native idiom from an awareness derived from Latin learning’ (p. 18).

In ‘The Division of the Ten Commandments in Anglo-Saxon England’ (NM
103[2002] 227–40), Aaron J. Kleist opens by noting differences of opinion over the
numbering of the Commandments, and then turns to an analysis of five Anglo-
Saxon texts which order them: Solomon and Saturn I, Wulfstan’s De christianitate,
and three texts by Ælfric: the Second Old English Letter for Wulfstan, Decalogus
Moysi, and Dominica in media quadragesime. He shows that Wulfstan’s De
christianitate draws on Ælfric, and that all five texts represent a single tradition of
the Decalogue, under the influence of Ælfric.

New studies of the anonymous prose homiletic corpus appear this year. Don
Chapman’s analysis of ‘Poetic Compounding in the Vercelli, Blickling, and
Wulfstan Homilies’ (NM 103[2002] 409–21) builds on studies of compounding in
poetic texts, contrasts it with the use of the technique in prose, and finds that the
homiletic tradition shows ‘an independent creativity with the resources of the
language’ (p. 419). The relationship between ‘Vercelli Homily 6 and the
Apocryphal Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew’ is assessed by Frederick M. Biggs (N&Q
49[2002] 176–8), in the light of the possibility that the whole of this apocryphal
gospel might have circulated in Anglo-Saxon England. Charles D. Wright publishes
three more important studies of the Vercelli Homilies. He assesses ‘Vercelli
Homilies XI–XIII and the Anglo-Saxon Benedictine Reform: Tailored Sources and
Implied Audiences’ (in Muessig, ed., Preacher, Sermon and Audience in the Middle
Ages, pp. 203–27). Through a combined attention to codicology, internal references,
and treatment of sources, Wright is able to construct a convincing hypothesis of an
intended audience of secular clerics. In ‘The Old English “Macarius” Homily,



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Vercelli Homily IV, and Ephrem Latinus, De paenitentia’ (in Hall, ed., pp. 210–34),
Wright explores the relationship between these two Old English homilies, and
identifies the Latin source of their shared introductory section. Wright’s ‘More Old
English Poetry in Vercelli Homily XXI’ (in Treharne and Rosser, eds., pp. 245–62)
is reviewed in Section 6 above. Jane Roberts offers ‘Two Readings in the Guthlac
Homily’ (in Treharne and Rosser, eds., pp. 201–10)—Vercelli Homily XXIII—by
examining emendations made in D.G. Scragg’s 1992 edition of the text. She
concludes that in the first case, ‘big fer[c]ede’ (ll. 81–2), Scragg is correct, and that
in the second, ‘[h]recetunge’ (l. 126), it is possible that the reading ‘ræscetunge’
might be the correct one. Paul E. Szarmach edits and analyses the adaptations of
Alcuin’s Liber de virtutibus et vitiis in ‘Pembroke College 25, Arts. 93–95’ (in Hall,
ed., pp. 295–325), a manuscript which contains an intermediate source linking
Alcuin’s Liber and Vercelli Homily XX.

Patrizia Lendinara’s ‘frater non redimit, redimet homo … : A Homiletic Motif and
its Variants in Old English’ (in Treharne and Rosser, eds., pp. 67–80) examines the
use of this motif—which emphasizes that no one will be able to receive help from
relatives or friends on Judgement Day—in a number of anonymous Old English
homilies. Lendinara finds parallels for the motif in lines 97–102 of The Seafarer, in
the Old High German poem Muspilli, and in Otfried’s Evangelienbuch, explores a
range of possible sources for it, and shows how it is reshaped in Old English texts to
fit an Anglo-Saxon cultural context. Frederick M. Biggs offers ‘Comments on the
Codicology of Two Paris Manuscripts (BN Lat. 13,408 and 5574)’ (in Hall, ed., pp.
326–30), both of which are in Latin, and the latter of which is of particular interest
to Anglo-Saxonists because its script and contents, including some saints’ lives,
suggest English production.

Two editions of anonymous Old English hagiographic texts by Phillip Pulsiano
are published this year. In ‘The Passion of Saint Christopher’ (in Treharne and
Rosser, eds., pp. 167–210) Pulsiano discusses this text, found in MS London, British
Library, Cotton Vitellius A.xv and also once in MS Cotton Otho B.x, and edits it
from Vitellius A.xv with notes and a glossary. ‘The Old English Life of Saint
Pantaleon’ (in Hall, ed., pp. 61–103), in MS London, British Library, Cotton
Vitellius D.xvii, is edited by Pulsiano along with the Anglo-Latin version of the
narrative which is closest to the probable source of the Old English. The edition is
preceded by a discussion of the development of the tradition of the narrative about
St Pantaleon.

Hugh Magennis produces a very welcome addition to the corpus of edited Old
English saints’ lives in The Old English Life of St Mary of Egypt. The edition, which
is based on the text in London, British Library, MS Cotton Julius E.vii, is preceded
by a clear introduction to the narrative of the legend, its transmission, the Old
English versions and the relationship between them, the question of sources, and the
language, style, and register of the Old English version. The edition is made
particularly useful for undergraduate students by the inclusion of facing-page
translation into modern English, and for scholars at all levels by the provision of the
surviving Latin text closest to the probable source, which is also accompanied by a
modern English translation.

Thomas N. Hall edits ‘The Earliest Anglo-Latin Text of the Trinubium Annae
(BHL 505zl)’ (in Hall, ed., pp. 104–37) from MS Cambridge, St John’s College 35,
written in the late eleventh or early twelfth century at Bury St Edmunds, and also the



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Old English version of the Trinubium from MS London, British Library Cotton
Vespasian D.xiv, produced in Canterbury or Rochester in the second quarter of the
twelfth century. Hall also traces the development of narratives about St Anne and
her family, and in particular her three marriages; reconstructs the context for the
production of the Bury text as part of a well-developed Marian cult; and proposes
that a copy closely related to the Bury text was the immediate source of the Old
English version.

Ted Johnson South edits Historia de Sancto Cuthberto: A History of Saint
Cuthbert and a Record of his Patrimony from a text produced in the late Anglo-
Saxon or early Anglo-Norman period. The introduction to the edition deals with the
context for the composition of the text, sources available to its author, surviving
manuscripts and their interrelationships, the date of composition, and previous
scholarship on the text. The edition is accompanied by a facing-page translation into
modern English, and the appendices supply editions of related texts, discuss estate
structure in the Historia, and provide a catalogue of place names in the text.

Hagiography and its context of production are the subject of Pauline Head’s ‘Who
Is the Nun from Hildeheim? A Study of Hugeburc’s Vita Willibaldi’ (MÆ 71[2002]
29–46). This saint’s life was written between 776 and 786 in Heidenheim, by an
Anglo-Saxon nun called Hugeburc, traces of whose identity are, Head argues,
woven into the narrative. Head shows Hugeburc to have constructed a parallel
between the life of her subject and her own life as a pilgrim and missionary, and thus
responded to the ongoing redefinition of ‘the boundaries of gender and vocation’ (p.
41). Jane Roberts studies ‘The Case of the Miraculous Hand in the Old English
Prose Life of Guthlac’ (ANQ 15:ii[2002] 17–22) by comparing it to Felix’s Vita
sancti Guthlaci. Roberts notes that the Old English Life, in MS London, British
Library, Cotton Vespasian D.xxi, shares one particularly striking difference from
Felix’s Life with an eleventh-century office for Guthlac from Worcester, and
speculates that the Vespasian redactor might have been influenced by a liturgical
text in making this change. ‘Job and Jacob in the Old English Life of Malchus’, a text
surviving in a mid-eleventh-century Worcester manuscript, is the subject of Michael
S. Armstrong’s investigation (N&Q 49[2002] 10–12). Armstrong accounts for the
apparent confusion of Job and Jacob in the text by tracing a hypothetical error in the
Latin exemplar, and the Old English translator’s response to this. John Edward
Damon considers the possibility of ‘Sanctifying Anglo-Saxon Ealdormen: Lay
Sainthood and the Rise of the Crusading Ideal’ (in Hall, ed., pp. 185–209), by
focusing on five ealdormen from the late tenth and early eleventh centuries—
Byrhtnoth, Æthelwine of East Anglia, Æthelweard of Wessex, Leofric of Mercia,
and Waltheof of Northumbria—whose lives were represented in literature. He
concludes that the representation of all these men’s lives was influenced by
hagiographical conventions, and that Waltheof came closest to being treated as a
saint.

New editions of liturgical texts continue to appear. Nicholas Orchard describes
The Leofric Missal as ‘[f]or the most part … not really a missal at all’, but rather a
‘combined sacramentary, pontifical and ritual’ (p. 1) in MS Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Bodley 579. In the first volume of his edition, Orchard discusses the
manuscript and its history, untangles the layers of annotation and augmentation
added to it between the early tenth and late eleventh centuries, and provides a
number of useful collation tables and indexes. The second volume contains the



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edited text. Phillip Pulsiano’s posthumously published edition of Old English
Glossed Psalters: Psalms 1–50 gives an introductory survey of the relevant
manuscripts, explains the presentation and arrangement of material in the edition,
and sets out notes on the scribal hands and their representation in the edition which
follows. The volume’s appendices contain the Blickling Psalter red ink glosses and
folio references for the psalm verses.

Lisi Oliver provides welcome new editions and modern English translations of
the laws of Æthelberht, Hloþhere and Eadric, and Wihtred in The Beginnings of
English Law. The volume opens with a useful introduction to the historical context
of the laws, the twelfth-century manuscript in which they survive (Rochester,
Cathedral Library A.3.5), the language of the texts, and their chronology. Each of
the main chapters of the volume contains the edition and translation of one of the
three laws, supplementing these with detailed commentary. The volume’s
appendices include diplomatic transcriptions of the laws.

C.P. Biggam explains the relationship between ‘Ualdenegi and the Concept of
Strange Eyes’ (in Kay and Sylvester, eds., pp. 31–43), with reference to an entry in
the Third Erfurt Glossary: the Latin lemma cessius (caseius), the Latin interpretation
glaucus, and the Old English interpretation ualdenegi.

Pettit, ed., Anglo-Saxon Remedies, Charms, and Prayers: From British Library
MS Harley 585: The Lacnunga, provides an important contribution to the study of
Anglo-Saxon medicine and folklore in his two-volume edition and translation of the
Lacnunga. Volume 1 includes a detailed discussion of BL MS Harley 585 and the
sources, analogues, cultural context, and language of the Lacnunga. The text is
accompanied by facing-page translations, as well as a full glossary of Old English
and Old Irish words. Volume 2 is devoted to extensive commentary and a
bibliography. [SK]

Concepts of the past, and of its relevance to Anglo-Saxon identity, are the subject
of three articles this year. Daniel Anlezark surveys references to ‘Sceaf, Japheth and
the Origins of the Anglo-Saxons’ (ASE 31[2002] 13–46) in Anglo-Saxon texts
including Exodus, the Old English Consolation of Philosophy, the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle, Æthelweard’s Chronicon, Ælfric’s homilies De initio creaturae,
Dominica XXI post Pentecosten, and Dominica II post Aepiphania Domini, and his
Old English version of Alcuin’s Interrogationes Sigeuulfi in Genesin, and notes the
contrast between those texts which uphold the idea that the kings of Wessex are
descended from Noah’s ark-born son, and Ælfric’s writings, which reject the
existence of this son. Malcolm Godden examines ‘The Anglo-Saxons and the Goths:
Rewriting the Sack of Rome’ (ASE 31[2002] 47–68), tracing accounts of this event
from the fifth to the tenth centuries through the works of Augustine, Orosius, Bede,
Gildas, Alcuin, the Old English Consolation of Philosophy, the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle, and Æthelweard’s Chronicon. He shows how the significance of the sack
of Rome developed for the Anglo-Saxons, and in particular how ‘in the Alfredian
circle at least Goths could be an honourable ancestry’ (p. 68). Alice Sheppard’s
‘Noble Counsel, No Counsel: Advising Ethelred the Unready’ (in Hall, ed., pp. 393–
422) presents a carefully worked-out argument for a single chronicler composing all
of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Æthelred annals as a single narrative, either at the end
of Æthelred’s or the beginning of Cnut’s reign. She compares these Chronicle
entries with works for Cnut written by Wulfstan, and shows how the chronicler
‘builds a unifying identity for Cnut’s nobles and the conquered Anglo-Saxons’ (p.



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397). Nicole Guenther Discenza approaches Anglo-Saxon identity from a slightly
different angle to Godden and Lavezzo. In ‘The Old English Bede and the
Construction of Anglo-Saxon Authority’ (ASE 31[2002] 69–80), she investigates
the ways in which ‘the Old English Bede authorizes itself not through any overt
claims in an original preface but through strategic translations of the Latin preface
and of the text itself’ (p. 69), and also how, unlike other Alfredian translations, the
text does not announce itself as the work of a translator, but instead ‘Bede speaks to
the reader directly in Old English’ (p. 79).

M. Bradford Bedingfield’s The Dramatic Liturgy of Anglo-Saxon England has at
its core an analysis of the Regularis Concordia, the liturgical manuscripts of the late
tenth and eleventh centuries, and Old English preaching texts of the same period.
Acknowledging the longstanding scholarly tendency to claim that the tenth-century
English Church is the point of origin of liturgical drama, Bedingfield highlights
evidence for liturgical innovation in this period, but is careful not to equate this with
drama. He finds, instead, that the Regularis Concordia and the other texts he studies
represent ‘something of a turning point in the stability and vigour of liturgical and
devotional experience in Anglo-Saxon England’ (p. 2).

Joyce Hill also continues to produce new insights into the Regularis Concordia.
In two articles, her focus is on the version of the text in the early eleventh-century
manuscript Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 201. ‘Lexical Choices for Holy
Week: Studies in Old English Ecclesiastical Vocabulary’ (in Kay and Sylvester,
eds., pp. 117–27) deals with the unusual lexical choices made by the Old English
translator. The lexical choices are compared with those made by the Old English
gloss-translator of the Regularis Concordia in London, British Library, Cotton
Tiberius A.iii, a mid-eleventh-century Canterbury manuscript. Hill also evaluates
the use of the words of ‘Provost and prior in the Regularis Concordia’ (ANQ
15:ii[2002] 13–17). She shows that the rank of ‘provost’ is not clear in the Old
English version, and that ‘prior’ is not consistently recognized here as a title of
office, and thus reminds us that ‘we have to keep an open mind about what might be
signified by apparently familiar terms’ (p. 17).

R.M. Liuzza’s ‘The Devil and his Father: A Case of Editorial Irresponsibility in
the Old English Gospels’ (ANQ 15:ii[2002] 22–8) draws on his work editing the
texts of the Old English Gospels, in the course of which he identified many ‘bad
translations’, some of which he thinks might be evidence for the existence of
‘unorthodox nontraditional readings and understandings of the Gospels’ (p. 22). The
specific example Liuzza discusses in this essay is from the Old English version of
John 8:44, and he notes that there exists a tradition, referred to in writings including
those of Augustine and Origen, and Juliana, of reading this line in the way the Old
English translation reads it. Mary Garrison studies ‘The Bible and Alcuin’s
Interpretation of Current Events’ (Peritia 16[2002] 68–84) and identifies ‘a turning-
point in his outlook’ (p. 68) in 796, at which point—after learning of a number of
events which he found shocking, including the murder of Æthelred of
Northumbria—he begins to assign a clear providential meaning to the Viking attack
on Lindisfarne.

Three new articles on Gildas, with Anglo-Saxon import, are published this year.
David Howlett’s ‘The Prophecy of Saxon Occupation in Gildas, De Excidio
Britanniae’ (Peritia 16[2002] 156–60) notes that this passage preserves the earliest
written word of Old English, and also suggests that it might have influenced the



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composer of Æthelberht’s law-code. Alex Woolf draws attention to the same
passage in ‘An Interpolation in the Text of Gildas’s De Excidio Britanniae’ (Peritia
16[2002] 161–7), and argues that it might have been interpolated, possibly in
Canterbury. Alf Siewers’s ‘Gildas and Glastonbury: Revisiting the Origins of
Glastonbury Abbey’ (in Hall, ed., pp. 423–32) surveys interpretations of the
archaeological evidence for early British Christianity in general, and at Glastonbury
in particular, and argues that these reinforce Gildas’s account of Christianity coming
to Britain by a.d. 37, and that the ‘Glastonbury legend as myth may reflect an
historically plausible memory of contact between Irish-Welsh migrants and a
remnant of earlier Romano-British Christianity’ (p. 432).

Anglo-Saxon teaching texts continue to attract attention. David W. Porter edits
‘Excerptiones de Prisciano’: The Source for Ælfric’s Latin–Old English Grammar.
The introduction to the edition includes discussion of the manuscripts, their
relationships and provenance, the content and organization of the Excerptiones de
Prisciano, and the history of the study of Priscian. The edited text is supplemented
with a facing-page modern English translation, and is followed by a commentary. In
‘Anima quae pars: A Tenth-Century Parsing Grammar’ (Journal of Medieval Latin
12[2002] 181–204), Don Chapman provides an edition and discussion of a text from
MS Worcester Cathedral Library Q.5, probably written at Christ Church,
Canterbury.

Post-Conquest transmission of Old English generates more new scholarship.
Loredana Teresi’s ‘Be Heofonwarum 7 be Helwarum: A Complete Edition’ (in
Treharne and Rosser, eds., pp. 211–44) presents an edition and glossary of this
homily, which is preserved in MSS Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 302 (first
half of the twelfth century) and London, British Library, Cotton Faustina A.ix (late
eleventh to early twelfth century), along with a discussion of the two manuscripts
and their relationship, the homily’s theme, and the sort of milieu in which it could
have been composed, which she speculates might be ‘Irish-influenced … sometime
before the end of the eleventh century, possibly in Anglia or in a scriptorium where
WS was not powerfully influential’. Alexander R. Rumble’s ‘Interpretationes in
latinum: Some Twelfth-Century Translations of Anglo-Saxon Charters’ (in
Treharne and Rosser, eds., pp. 101–17) examines ‘the tension in the relationship
between English and Latin’ (p. 103) after 1066, as witnessed in Latin translations of
Old English charters. Rumble sorts the charters in question into three categories,
describes the examples of each, comments on the translation of Old English
technical terms, on the influence of a glossary circulating in the twelfth century
which contained Old English technical terms, on the case of Winchester Cathedral
Priory, and on the palaeographical response in the twelfth century to Anglo-Saxon
scripts.

Books Reviewed

Alexander, Michael. A History of Old English Literature. Broadview. [2002] pp.
xviii + 299. pb £12.99 ($22.95) ISBN 1 5511 1322 8.

Bedingfield, M. Bradford. The Dramatic Liturgy of Anglo-Saxon England. Boydell.
[2002] pp. ix + 246. £45 ($75) ISBN 0 8511 5873 0.



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Biggs, Frederick M., Thomas D. Hill, Paul E. Szarmach, and E. Gordon Whatley,
eds. Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture, vol. 1: Abbo of Fleury, Abbo of
Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Acta Sanctorum. MIP. [2001] pp. xlvi + 548. $40
ISBN 1 5804 4073 8.

Bitel, Lisa M. Women in Early Medieval Europe, 400–1100. CUP. [2002] pp. xv +
326. £42.50 ISBN 0 5215 9207 0.

Blockley, Mary. Aspects of Old English Poetic Syntax: Where Clauses Begin. UIllP.
[2001] pp. xii + 248. $39.95 ISBN 0 2520 2606 3.

Brown, Michelle P. ‘In the beginning was the Word’: Books and Faith in the Age of
Bede. Jarrow Lecture 2000, St Paul’s Church, Jarrow. [2002] pp. 37 + 9 plates. £4
ISBN not given.

Bruce, Alexander M. Scyld and Scef: Expanding the Analogues. Routledge. [2002]
pp. xiii + 209. $85 ISBN 0 8153 3904 6.

Cassidy, Brendan, and Rosemary Muir Wright, eds. Studies in the Illustration of the
Psalter. Shaun Tyas. [2000] pp. x + 86 + 64 plates. £19.95 ISBN 1 9002 8942 3.

Crabtree, Pam J., ed. Medieval Archaeology: An Encyclopedia. Garland. [2001] pp.
xxi + 426. £80 ISBN 0 8153 1286 5.

Crossley-Holland, Kevin, ed. and trans. The Anglo-Saxon World, rev. edn. Boydell.
[2002] pp. 275 + 8 colour plates. £30 ($50) ISBN 0 8511 5885 4.

Doane, A. N. Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile, vol. 7: Anglo-
Saxon Bibles and ‘The Book of Cerne’. ACMRS. [2002] pp. x + 78. £58 ($90)
ISBN 0 8669 8229 9.

Donaldson, E. Talbot, trans. Beowulf: A Prose Translation, ed. Nicholas Howe.  2nd
edn. Norton. [2002] pp. xvi + 198. pb $ 9.38 ISBN 0 3939 7406 5.

Drout, Michael, ed. Beowulf and the Critics by J.R.R. Tolkien. MRTS 248. ACMRS.
[2002] pp. xix + 461. £33 ($38) ISBN 0 8669 8290 6.

Fenster, Thelma S., and Clare A. Lees, eds. Gender in Debate from the Early Middle
Ages to the Renaissance. Palgrave [2002] pp. xi + 292. $59.95 ISBN 0 3122 3244
6.

Frassetto, Michael, ed. The Year 1000: Religious and Social Response to the
Turning of the First Millennium. Palgrave. [2002] pp. xi + 278. $59.95 ISBN 1
4039 6029 1.

Gameson, Richard, ed. The Codex Aureus: An Eighth-Century Gospel Book. Part II.
EEMF 29. R&B. [2002] pp. 16 + 137 plates. hb $1297 ISBN 8 7423 0537 3, pb
$1112 ISBN 8 7423 0535 7.

Geake, Helen, and Jonathan Kenny, eds. Early Deira: Archaeological Studies of the
East Riding in the Fourth to Ninth Centuries AD. Oxbow. [2000] pp. xi + 140.
£28 ISBN 1 9001 8890 2.

Getty, Michael. The Metre of Beowulf: A Constraint-Based Approach. MGruyter
[2002] pp. x + 368. $88 ISBN 3 1101 7105 8.

Hall, Thomas N., ed., with assistance from Thomas D. Hill and Charles Wright. Via
Crucis: Essays on Early Medieval Sources and Ideas in Memory of J.E. Cross.
WVUP. [2002] pp. xvii + 449. pb $45 ISBN 0 9370 5858 0.

Halsall, Guy, ed. Humour, History and Politics in Late Antiquity and the Early
Middle Ages. CUP. [2002] pp. xiv + 208. £37.50 ISBN 0 5218 1116 3.

Harbus, Antonina. Helena of Britain in Medieval Legend. Brewer. [2002] pp. viii +
215. £44 ($75) ISBN 0 8599 1625 1.



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Harbus, Antonina. The Life of the Mind in Old English Poetry. Costerus ns 143.
Rodopi. [2002] pp. ix + 220. pb $45 ($56) ISBN 9 0420 0814 8.

Heaney, Seamus, trans. Beowulf: A Verse Translation, ed. Daniel Donoghue.
Norton. [2002] pp. xxiii + 256. pb $11.88 ISBN 0 3939 7580 0.

Herren, Michael W., C.J. McDonough, and Ross G. Arthur, eds. Latin Culture in the
Eleventh Century. 2 vols. Proceedings of the Third International Conference on
Medieval Latin Studies. Cambridge, 9–12 September 1998. Publications of the
Journal of Medieval Latin 5/1 and 5/2. Brepols. [2002] pp. xx + 519 (vol. 1), pp.
vii + 520 (vol. 2). $50 ISBN 2 5035 1255 0.

Hough, Carole, and Kathryn A. Lowe, eds. ‘Lastworda Best’: Essays in Memory of
Christine E. Fell with her Unpublished Writings. Shaun Tyas. [2002] pp. xv +
298. £35 ISBN 1 9002 8953 9.

James, Edward. Britain in the First Millennium. Arnold. [2001] pp. x + 310. £19.99
ISBN 0 3405 8687 7.

Johnson South, Ted, ed. Historia de Sancto Cuthberto: A History of Saint Cuthbert
and a Record of his Patrimony. Brewer. [2002] pp. x + 155. £45 ISBN 0 8559
1627 8.

Jones, Timothy S., and David A. Sprunger, eds. Marvels, Monsters, and Miracles:
Studies in the Medieval and Early Modern Imaginations. MIP. [2002] pp. xxv +
306. £24 ISBN 1 5804 4066 5.

Klinck, Anne L., and Ann Marie Rasmussen, eds. Medieval Woman’s Song: Cross-
Cultural Approaches. UPennP. [2002] pp. viii + 279. £35 ($49.95) ISBN 0 8122
3624 6.

Köberl, Johann. The Indeterminacy of Beowulf. UPA. [2002] pp. xiv + 226. pb $35
ISBN 0 7618 2321 2.

Lambdin, Laura Cooner, and Robert Thomas Lambdin, eds. A Companion to Old
and Middle English Literature. Greenwood. [2002] pp. xi + 433. $74.95 ISBN 0
3133 1054 8.

Lang, James. Northern Yorkshire. Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture 6. OUP.
[2001] pp. xvi + 540. £130 ISBN 0 1972 6256 2.

Lees, Clare A., and Gillian R. Overing. Double Agents: Women and Clerical
Culture in Anglo-Saxon England. UPennP. [2001] pp. x + 244. £35 ($49.95)
ISBN 0 8122 3628 9.

Lenz, Katja, and Ruth Möhlig, eds. Of Dyuersitie & Chaunge of Langage: Essays
Presented to Manfred Görlach on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday. Anglistische
Forschungen 308. Winter. [2002] pp. xxx + 389. $50 ISBN 3 8253 1322 0.

Lineham, Peter, and Janet L. Nelson, eds. The Medieval World. Routledge. [2001]
pp. xx + 745. £25 ISBN 0 4153 0234 X.

Liuzza, R. M., ed. The Poems of MS Junius 11: Basic Readings. Routledge. [2002]
pp. xxi + 328. $95 ISBN 0 8153 3862 7.

Liuzza, R. M., ed. Old English Literature: Critical Essays. YaleUP. [2002] pp.
xxxviii + 479. $26 ISBN 0 3000 9139 7.

Magennis, Hugh, ed. The Old English Life of Saint Mary of Egypt. UExe. [2002] pp.
xii + 260. £13.99 ISBN 0 8598 9672 2.

Minkova, Donka, and Robert Stockwell, eds. Studies in the History of the English
Language: A Millennial Perspective. MGruyter. [2002] pp. vi + 496. hb $98
ISBN 3 1101 7368 9, pb $36.95 ISBN 3 1101 7591 6.



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Mitchell, Bruce, and Fred C. Robinson. A Guide to Old English. 6th edn. Blackwell.
[2001] pp. xviii + 400. pb £19.99 ($38.95) ISBN 0 6312 2636 2.

Muessig, Carolyn, ed. Preacher, Sermon and Audience in the Middle Ages. Brill.
[2002] pp. xix + 322. $126 ISBN 9 0041 1416 5.

Oliver, Lisi. The Beginnings of English Law. UTorP. [2002] pp. xiv + 297. £40
ISBN 0 8020 3535 3.

O’Neill, Patrick P., ed. King Alfred’s Old English Prose Translations of the First
Fifty Psalms. MAB 104. MAA. [2001] pp. vii + 362. $50 ISBN 0 9156 5113 0.

Orchard, Nicholas, ed. The Leofric Missal. 2 vols. HBS. [1999–2000 (vol. 1); 2001–
2 (vol. 2)] pp. xii + 387 (vol. 1), vii + 514 (vol. 2). £40 ($70) per volume. ISBN 1
8705 5217 9 (vol. 1), 1 8702 5218 7 (vol. 2).

Pettit, Edward, ed. and trans. Anglo-Saxon Remedies, Charms, and Prayers. From
British Library MS Harley 585: The Lacnunga. 2 vols. Mellen. [2001] pp. lxiii +
276 (vol. 1). pp. 404 (vol. 2). £74.95 ($119.95) ISBN 0 7734 7555 9 (vol. 1),
£79.95 ($129.95) ISBN 0 7734 7557 5 (vol. 2).

Pickles, Christopher. Texts and Monuments: A Study of Ten Anglo-Saxon Churches
of the Pre-Viking Period. BAR Series 277. Archaeopress. [1999] pp. ix + 316.
£37 ISBN 0 8605 4941 0.

Porter, David W., ed. ‘Excerptiones de Prisciano’: The Source for Ælfric’s Latin–
Old English Grammar. Brewer. [2002] pp. xiv + 408. £60 ($110) ISBN 0 8599
1635 9.

Preest, David, trans. The Deeds of the Bishops of England (Gesta Pontificum
Anglorum) by William of Malmesbury. Boydell. [2002] pp. xv + 320. £25
($39.95) ISBN 0 8511 5884 6.

Prescott, Andrew. The Benedictional of St Æthelwold: A Masterpiece of Anglo-
Saxon Art. A Facsimile. BL. [2002] pp. 27 + 120 plates. £50 ISBN 0 7123 4755 0.

Pulsiano, Phillip, ed. Old English Glossed Psalters Psalms 1–50. UTorP. [2001] pp.
lv + 742. £65 ISBN 0 8020 4470 0.

Richards, Mary P., ed. Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: Basic Readings. Routledge.
[2001] pp. xv + 401. pb £15.99 ISBN 0 8153 3567 9.

Rodrigues, Louis J. Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburh: A Modern English Verse
Rendering. RunetreeP. [2002] pp. vii + 179. ISBN 1 8985 7708 0.

Rollason, David, ed. and trans. Libellus de Exordio atque Procursu istius hoc est
Dunhelmensis Ecclesie; Tract on the Origins and Progress of this the Church of
Durham, by Symeon of Durham. OUP. [2000] pp. xcvi + 353. £65 ISBN 0 1982
0207 5.

Rumble, Alexander R. Property and Piety in Early Medieval Winchester:
Documents Relating to the Topography of the Anglo-Saxon and Norman City and
its Minsters. Winchester Studies 4:3. The Anglo-Saxon Minsters of Winchester.
Part III. Clarendon. [2002] pp. xxiv + 253. £120 ISBN 0 1981 3413 4.

Smith, Julia M.H., ed. Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West: Essays in
Honour of Donald A. Bullough. Brill. [2000] pp. xxxii + 446. $109 ($136) ISBN
9 0041 1716 4.

Smyth, Alfred P. The Medieval Life of King Alfred the Great: A Translation and
Commentary on the Text Attributed to Asser. Palgrave. [2002] pp. xx + 280. £35
ISBN 0 3336 9917 3.



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Stafford, Pauline, Janet L. Nelson, and Jane Martindale, eds. Law, Laity and
Solidarities: Essays in Honour of Susan Reynolds. ManUP. [2001] pp. ix + 274.
£16.99 ISBN 0 7190 5836 8.

Stanton, Robert. The Culture of Translation in Anglo-Saxon England. Brewer.
[2002] pp. x + 198. £40 ($70) ISBN 0 8599 1643 X.

Swanton, Michael. English Poetry Before Chaucer, rev. edn of English Literature
Before Chaucer (Longman [1987]). UExe. [2002] pp. ix + 379. hb £47.50 ISBN
0 8598 9633 1, pb £15.99 ISBN 0 8598 9681 1.

Townend, Matthew. Language and History in Viking Age England: Linguistic
Relations between Speakers of Old Norse and Old English. Brepols. [2002] pp. xv
+ 248. £42 ISBN 2 5035 1292 5.

Treharne, Elaine, ed. Vital Signs: English in Medieval Studies in Twenty-First
Century Higher Education. Issues in English 2. EA. [2002] pp. iii + 36. £5 ISBN
0 9002 3220 X.

Treharne, Elaine, ed. Writing Gender and Genre in Medieval Literature. Brewer.
[2002] pp. 142. £30 ISBN 0 8599 1760 6.

Treharne, Elaine and Susan Rosser, eds. Early Medieval English Texts and
Interpretations: Studies Presented to Donald G. Scragg. ACMRS. [2002] pp. xix
+ 391. £36 ($40) ISBN 0 8669 8295 7.

Treharne, Elaine and Duncan Wu, eds. Old and Middle English Poetry. Blackwell.
[2002] pp. vii + 174 hb £40 ($52.95) ISBN 0 6312 3073 4, pb £9.99 ($18.95)
ISBN 0 6312 3074 2.