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McGuigan, Neil, “Cuthbert’s relics and the origins of the diocese of Durham”, Anglo-Saxon England 48 (2019): 121–162.

abstract:

The established view of the Viking-Age Northumbrian Church has never been substantiated with verifiably contemporary evidence but is an inheritance from one strand of ‘historical research’ produced in post-Conquest England. Originating c. 1100, the strand we have come to associate with Symeon of Durham places the relics and see of Cuthbert at Chester-le-Street from the 880s until a move to Durham in the 990s. By contrast, other guidance, including Viking-Age material, can be read to suggest that Cuthbert was at Norham on the river Tweed and did not come to Durham or even Wearside until after 1013. Further, our earliest guidance indicates that the four-see Northumbrian episcopate still lay intact until at least the time of Æthelstan (r. 924–39). The article ends by seeking to understand the origins of the diocese of Durham and its historical relationship with both Chester-le-Street and Norham in a later context than hitherto sought.

Brett, Caroline, “St Kenelm, St Melor and Anglo-Breton contact from the tenth to the twelfth centuries”, Anglo-Saxon England 47 (2018): 247–273.

This article discusses the similarity between two apparently unrelated hagiographical texts: Vita et Miracula Kenelmi, composed between 1045 and the 1080s and attributed to Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, and Vita Melori, composed perhaps in the 1060s–1080s but surviving only in a variety of late-medieval versions from England and France. Kenelm was venerated at Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, Melor chiefly at Lanmeur, Finistère. Both saints were reputed to be royal child martyrs, and their Vitae contain a sequence of motifs and miracles so similar that a textual relationship or common oral origin seems a reasonable hypothesis. In order to elucidate this, possible contexts for the composition of Vita Melori are considered, and evidence for the Breton contacts of Goscelin and, earlier, Winchcombe Abbey is investigated. No priority of one Vita over the other can be demonstrated, but their relationship suggests that there was more cultural contact between western Brittany and England from the mid-tenth to the twelfth centuries than emerges overtly in the written record.

Thomas, Rebecca, and David Callander, “Reading Asser in early medieval Wales: the evidence of Armes Prydein Vawr”, Anglo-Saxon England 46 (2017): 115–145.

This article examines the connections between Asser's Life of King Alfred and the tenthcentury Welsh poem Armes Prydein Vawr. It studies the use of the place-name Santwic ‘Sandwich’ in Armes Prydein, and presents evidence that this form derives from a written source. An investigation of the sources containing this place-name before the late tenth century raises the distinct possibility that Asser's Life was the source drawn upon by the Welsh poet. Examination of the context in which Sandwich occurs in Asser and Armes Prydein highlights striking similarities in usage, strengthening the argument for a connection between the two texts. Further correspondences between these works are noted before discussing the potential implications of this new finding for our understanding of Asser (and his reception) and Armes Prydein more generally.

OʼBrien, Conor, “The cleansing of the temple in early medieval Northumbria”, Anglo-Saxon England 44 (2015): 201–220.

abstract:

While the attitudes of Stephen of Ripon and Bede toward church-buildings have previously been contrasted, this paper argues that both shared a vision of the church as a holy place, analogous to the Jewish temple and to be kept pure from the mundane world. Their similarity of approach suggests that this concept of the church-building was widespread amongst the Northumbrian monastic elite and may partially reflect the attitudes of the laity also. The idea of the church as the place of eucharistic sacrifice probably lay at the heart of this theology of sacred place. Irish ideas about monastic holiness, traditional liturgical language and the native fascination with building in stone combined with an interest in ritual purity to give power to this use of the temple-image which went on to influence later Carolingian attitudes to churches.

Norris, Robin, “The sevenfold-fivefold-threefold litany of the saints in the Leofric Missal and beyond”, Anglo-Saxon England 43 (2014): 183–208.

Coates, Richard, “The name of the Hwicce: a discussion”, Anglo-Saxon England 42 (2013): 51–61.

Lapidge, Michael, “The earliest Anglo-Latin poet: Lutting of Lindisfarne”, Anglo-Saxon England 42 (2013): 1–26.

abstract:

In a ninth-century manuscript now in St Gallen (Stiftsbibliothek, 254) are found three Latin poems in three different metres dedicated by a poet who names himself as Lutting, in memory of his master Bede who, according to the first of the poems, died in AD 681 (and cannot, therefore, have been the much better known Bede of Monkwearmouth–Jarrow). In the St Gallen manuscript the poems are transmitted alongside Cuthbert's Epistola de obitu Bedae; judging from the language of Bede's ‘Death Song’ which it contains, the Epistola was copied from a Northumbrian exemplar, and the same is apparently true of the three Latin poems. The fact that the names of Lutting and his master Bede are found near to each other in the Durham Liber Vitae raises the possibility that they were together at Lindisfarne; and detailed metrical analysis indicates that two of the poems follow Hiberno-Latin metrical practice in significant ways, which also points to the Irish cultural milieu of Lindisfarne. In an Appendix, the poems are edited for the first time, with translation and commentary.

Monk, Christopher, “A context for the sexualization of monsters in The wonders of the East”, Anglo-Saxon England 41 (2012): 79–99.

Gneuss, Helmut, “Second addenda and corrigenda to the Handlist of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts”, Anglo-Saxon England 40 (2011): 293–306.

Woods, David, “Adomnán, plague and the Easter controversy”, Anglo-Saxon England 40 (2011): 1–13.

abstract:

Adomnán's description (Vita Columbae II.46) of how the intercession of St. Columba preserved the Picts and the Irish in Britain alone among the peoples of western Europe against two great epidemics of bubonic plague is a coded defence of their use of the traditional Irish 84-year Easter table against the Dionysian Easter table as used throughout the rest of western Europe. His implication is that God sent the plagues to punish those who used the Dionysian table. Hence Adomnán still adhered to the 84-year table by the time that he composed the Vita Columbae c. 697. It probably took a third epidemic 700–c. 702 to persuade Adomnán that his interpretation of the earlier epidemics was incorrect, so that Bede (HE V.15) is correct to date his conversion to the Dionysian table to a third visit to Northumbria c. 702.

Molyneaux, George, “The Ordinance concerning the Dunsæte and the Anglo-Welsh frontier in the late tenth and eleventh centuries”, Anglo-Saxon England 40 (2011): 249–272.

abstract:

The Ordinance concerning the Dunsæte sets out regulations for dealings between the English and Welsh in some part of the frontier between these two peoples. The text is widely assumed to be from the second quarter of the tenth century, but this article argues for a late-tenth- or eleventh-century date. The Ordinance envisages trade and prescribes procedures to settle disputes: it thus reveals cordial contacts between those dwelling along the frontier. This offers an alternative perspective to the focus on kings and conflicts found in many modern accounts of relations between the English and Welsh in the early medieval period.

Charles-Edwards, Gifford, and Helen McKee, “Lost voices from Anglo-Saxon Lichfield”, Anglo-Saxon England 37 (2008): 79–89.

Lapidge, Michael, “The career of Aldhelm”, Anglo-Saxon England 36 (2007): 15–69.

Bracken, Damian, “Virgil the Grammarian and Bede: a preliminary study”, Anglo-Saxon England 35 (2006): 7–21.

abstract:

The chapters in Bede's De temporum ratione begin with an etymology for the name of the subject to be examined. Sources and analogues for some have not hitherto been identified. This article shows that some of these etymologies of words for the divisions of time come ultimately, though perhaps not directly, from bk XI of Virgil the Grammarian's Epitomae. These accounts of the origins of calendrical and cosmological terms wound their way through early western computistical works and eventually into Bede's De temporum ratione. The article identifies examples of Virgil's influence on anonymous early medieval biblical commentaries and discusses their significance as pointers towards their place of composition.

Boyle, Elizabeth, “A Welsh record of an Anglo-Saxon political mutilation”, Anglo-Saxon England 35 (2006): 245–249.

abstract:

A previously unidentified annal-entry in the Welsh chronicles Brut y Tywysogion and Brenhinedd y Saesson records the blinding of the sons of Ealdorman Ælfhelm as part of the ‘palace revolution’ of 1006. This article discusses how the Old English names Wulfheah and Ufegeat were recorded by Welsh scribes in accordance with Welsh phonological and orthographical norms. Possible Anglo-Saxon sources for the annal-entry are briefly considered and the transmission of the annal-entry in the Welsh sources is analysed.

Carley, James P., and Pierre Petitmengin, “Pre-Conquest manuscripts from Malmesbury Abbey and John Leland’s letter to Beatus Rhenanus concerning a lost copy of Tertullian’s works”, Anglo-Saxon England 33 (2004): 195–223.

Gneuss, Helmut, “Addenda and corrigenda to the Handlist of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts”, Anglo-Saxon England 32 (2003): 293–305.

Coatsworth, Elizabeth, “The ‘robed Christ’ in pre-Conquest sculptures of the Crucifixion”, Anglo-Saxon England 29 (2000): 153–176.

abstract:

In the nineteenth century, John Romilly Allen confidently claimed that the iconography of the Crucifixion with the robed or ‘fully draped’ Christ was a phenomenon of Celtic art, found in Scotland, Ireland and Wales, distinguishable from the ‘Saxon’ type in which Christ wore a loin-cloth. Other features of the Saxon type were the presence of the sun and moon above the arms of the cross, instead of angels as in Ireland; and the figures of the Virgin and St John at the foot of the cross, without the spear- and sponge-bearers, the latter pair appearing only exceptionally at Alnmouth, Northumberland; Aycliffe, County Durham; and Bradbourne, Derbyshire. Clearly two different versions were identified in this analysis, but no attempt was made to clarify the chronological relationship between the examples cited, and only the geographical distribution of a small number of examples was considered. Romilly Allen's confidence in distinguishing ‘Celt’ from ‘Saxon’ on the basis of art styles, even for the pre-Viking period, is not always shared today, as the continuing discussion of the origins of several important manuscripts shows. The terms ‘Insular’ and ‘Hiberno-Saxon’ used to describe much of the art from the sixth century to the eighth underline die perceived difficulties.

Gretsch, Mechthild, “The Junius Psalter gloss: its historical and cultural context”, Anglo-Saxon England 29 (2000): 85–121.

Deshman, Robert, “The Galba Psalter: pictures, texts and context in an early medieval prayerbook”, Anglo-Saxon England 26 (1997): 109–138.

abstract:

The ‘Galba Psalter’ (London, British Library, Cotton Galba A. xviii) is a pocket-sized (128 × 88 mm.), early-ninth-century Carolingian book, perhaps made in the region of Liège, that was originally decorated with only ornamental initials. By the early tenth century the manuscript had reached England, where an Anglo-Saxon scriptorium added two prefatory quires (1r–19v) containing a metrical calendar illuminated with zodiac signs, KL monograms and single figures (pls. IX–X), and five full-page pictures. Two miniatures of Christ and the saints on 2v and 21r (pls. X–XI) preface the calendar and a series of prayers respectively, and three New Testament pictures marked the customary threefold division of the Psalms. Facing Ps. I was a miniature of the Nativity (pl. XII), now detached from the manuscript and inserted into an unrelated book (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson B. 484, 85r). The Ascension on 120v (pl. XIII) prefaces Ps. CI. A third picture before Ps. LI has been lost, but almost certainly it represented the Crucifixion. The placement of an image of this theme between the Nativity and the Ascension would have been appropriate from a narrative standpoint, and some later Anglo-Saxon and Irish psalters preface this psalm with a full-page picture of the Crucifixion. Obits for King Alfred (d. 899) and his consort Ealhswith (d. 902) provide a terminus post quem for the calendar and the coeval illumination. The Insular minuscule script of the calendar indicates a West Saxon origin during the first decade of the tenth century. On the grounds of the Psalter's style and later provenance, the additions were very likely made at Winchester.

Parkes, Malcolm B., “Rædan, areccan, smeagan: how the Anglo-Saxons read”, Anglo-Saxon England 26 (1997): 1–22.

Werner, Martin, “The Book of Durrow and the question of programme”, Anglo-Saxon England 26 (1997): 23–39.

Meens, Rob, “A background to Augustine’s mission to Anglo-Saxon England”, Anglo-Saxon England 23 (1994): 5–17.

Nees, Lawrence, “Ultán the scribe”, Anglo-Saxon England 22 (1993): 127–146.

Wollman, Alfred, “Early Latin loan-words in Old English”, Anglo-Saxon England 22 (1993): 1–26.

OʼLoughlin, Thomas, and Helen Conrad-OʼBriain, “The ‘baptism of tears’ in early Anglo-Saxon sources”, Anglo-Saxon England 22 (1993): 65–83.

Wack, Mary, and Charles D. Wright, “A new Latin source for the Old English ‘Three utterances’ exemplum”, Anglo-Saxon England 20 (1991): 187–202.

abstract:

The so-called ‘Three Utterances’ exemplum, which tells of the exclamations of a good and a bad soul to the angels or demons who lead them to heaven or hell at the moment of death, was adapted independently by three Anglo-Saxon homilists. Versions of this legend survive in an Old English Rogationtide homily in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 114, 102v–105v, in a homily Be heofonwarum and be helwarum in London, British Library, Cotton Faustina A. ix, 21v–23v, and Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 302, pp. 71–3, and in a Lenten homily in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 85/86, fos. 25–40. In 1935 Rudolf Willard published a study of the exemplum, with a detailed comparison between the three Old English versions, an Irish version, and a single Latin version in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 2628 (s. xi). Two years later Willard published a second Latin version from Oxford, University College 61 (s. xiv). Other texts of the Latin sermon have subsequently come to light.

Cameron, M. L., “Bald’s Leechbook and cultural interactions in Anglo-Saxon England”, Anglo-Saxon England 19 (1990): 5–12.

Carley, James P., “Two pre-Conquest manuscripts from Glastonbury Abbey”, Anglo-Saxon England 16 (1987): 197–212.

Irvine, Martin, “Bede the grammarian and the scope of grammatical studies in eighth-century Northumbria”, Anglo-Saxon England 15 (1986): 15–44.

Lapidge, Michael, “The school of Theodore and Hadrian”, Anglo-Saxon England 15 (1986): 45–72.

Sims-Williams, Patrick, “The settlement of England in Bede and the Chronicle”, Anglo-Saxon England 12 (1983): 1–41.

Law, Vivien, “The study of Latin grammar in eighth-century Southumbria”, Anglo-Saxon England 12 (1983): 43–71.

Kitson, Peter, “Lapidary traditions in Anglo-Saxon England: part II, Bede’s Explanatio Apocalypsis and related works”, Anglo-Saxon England 12 (1983): 73–123.

Enright, Michael J., “The Sutton Hoo whetstone sceptre: a study in iconography and cultural milieu”, Anglo-Saxon England 11 (1982): 119–134.

Lapidge, Michael, “Byrhtferth of Ramsey and the early sections of the Historia regum attributed to Symeon of Durham”, Anglo-Saxon England 10 (1981): 97–122.

Thomson, Rodney, “Identifiable books from the pre-Conquest library of Malmesbury Abbey”, Anglo-Saxon England 10 (1981): 1–19.

Sims-Williams, Patrick, “Milred of Worcester’s collection of Latin epigrams and its continental counterparts”, Anglo-Saxon England 10 (1981): 21–38.

abstract:

Milred, who was bishop of Worcester from 743 × 745 to 774 × 775, is almost as shadowy a figure in the history of Anglo-Latin literature today as he was in the sixteenth century when John Leland recorded in his Commentarii de Scriptoribus Britannicis: ‘invidiosa vetustas Milredi monumenta destruxit’. The only composition by Milred that has come to light, in a single ninth-century continental manuscript, is the letter of consolation that he sent to Lull of Mainz after St Boniface's martyrdom. Apart from its inherent interest, this letter, with its elegant use of Vergilian echoes, is a valuable indication of Milred's literary interests and aspirations. Better still, it ends with a tantalizing glimpse of the literary world in which Milred lived: a postscript in which he apologizes for failing to send a copy of the picture poems of Optatianus Porphyrius because Cuthbert, the archbishop of Canterbury, had failed to return them. It was perhaps this very copy of Porphyrius that served as the model for the decoration of the Codex Aureus (Stockholm, Kungliga Biblioteket, A. 135), which may have been produced at St Augustine's, Canterbury, during Cuthbert's time.

(source: Introduction, in lieu of an abstract)

Pelteret, David A. E., “Slave raiding and slave trading in early England”, Anglo-Saxon England 9 (1980): 99–114.

Gneuss, Helmut, “A preliminary list of manuscripts written or owned in England up to 1100”, Anglo-Saxon England 9 (1980): 1–60.

Bately, Janet M., “World history in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: its sources and its separateness from the Old English Orosius”, Anglo-Saxon England 8 (1979): 177–194.

Dumville, David N., “The ætheling: a study in Anglo-Saxon constitutional history”, Anglo-Saxon England 8 (1979): 1–33.

Miller, Molly, “The dates of Deira”, Anglo-Saxon England 8 (1979): 35–61.

Harrison, Kenneth, “Easter cycles and the equinox in the British Isles”, Anglo-Saxon England 7 (1978): 1–8.

Winterbottom, Michael, “Aldhelm’s prose style and its origins”, Anglo-Saxon England 6 (1977): 39–76.

argues against the supposed Irish origins of Aldhelm’s style of prose writing

Dumville, David N., “The Anglian collection of royal genealogies and regnal lists”, Anglo-Saxon England 5 (1976): 23–50.

– Cambridge Journals: <link>

Reprinted with revisions in 1990, essay V.

Dolley, Michael, and Christopher D. Verey, “Some Irish evidence for the date of the Crux coins of Æthelred II”, Anglo-Saxon England 2 (1973): 145–154.

Brown, T. Julian, and Christopher D. Verey, “Northumbria and the Book of Kells”, Anglo-Saxon England 1 (1972): 219–246.

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