Anglo-Saxon England

by Edited by Michael Lapidge , Malcolm Godden , Simon Keynes

• ISBN13: 9780521038478
• ISBN10: 0521038472
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-10-15
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

That Alcuin addressed to the monks of Lindisfarne the question, What has Ingeld to do with Christ?, is a much repeated dogma in Old English studies; but in this book close examination of the letter in question shows that it was addressed not to Lindisfarne nor to a monastic community, but to a bishop in Mercia. That Ultàn the scribe was responsible for some of the most lavishly illuminated Anglo-Saxon manuscripts is shown to be another untenable dogma. Fresh perspectives from interdisciplinary study: the beasts-of-battle typescenes which are characteristic of Old English poetry are studied in the wider context of other European literatures. The nasty Viking habit of murdering hostages by throwing bones at them (as happened to St lfeah) is illuminated by a wide-ranging study of analogues in Scandinavian literatures. Characteristic features of Aldhelms enigmata are elucidated by the study of Byzantine riddles, thereby revealing a link between England and the Greek orient. The usual comprehensive bibliography of the previous years publications rounds off the book.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations

Early Latin loan-words in Old English

Three men and a boat: Sutton Hoo and the East Saxon kingdom

Aldhelm's Enigmata and Byzantine riddles Celica Milovanovic-Barham

The -baptism of tears- in early Anglo-Saxon sources

An unreported early use of Bede's De natura rerum

What has Ingeld to do with Lindisfarne?

Ult+ín the scribe Lawrence Nees

A smith's hoard from Tattershall Thorpe, Lincolnshire

An Anglo-Saxon fragment of Alcuin's letters in the Newberry Library, Chicago

Convention and originality in the Old English -beasts of battle- typescene

Serious entertainments: an examination of a peculiar type of Viking atrocity

Miracles in architectural settings: Christ Church, Canterbury and St Clement-s, Sandwich in the Old English Vision of Leofric

A lost cartulary of St Albans Abbey

Bibliography for 1992

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