The Old English Genesis A, in a moralizing expansion of the biblical narrative, describes how sin sprouted and spread in evil branches from the blood of the murdered Abel:

Critical discussion of this passage has reflected a basic disagreement about the presence of allegory in the poem. Bernard F. Huppé finds three levels of meaning in the passage:

Literally, the descendants of Cain, born after his sins, are a progeny of affliction, because they perished in the Flood. Symbolically, they are children of affliction because they dwell in the City of Babylon, of which Cain is the spiritual founder. In its moral significance Cain's sin represents the earthly beginning of all mortal, Babylonian sin …

Around the years 755–6 Chrodegang, bishop of Metz from 742 to 766 and metropolitan of the Austrasian church since the death of Boniface in 754, compiled a rule for the canons of his own familia in Metz. His paruum decretulum or parua institutio, as he himself called it, contained very few thoughts not already expressed about the spiritual principles and practical organization of those canons who wished to live in a quasi-monastic, celibate community. Indeed, Chrodegang himself made it abundantly clear in the preface to his Regula that he would have had no need to compile his Rule if the writings of the Church Fathers and existing ecclesiastical laws on this subject had been honoured:

Si trecentorum decem et octo reliquorumque sanctorum Patrum canonum auctoritas perduraret, et clerus atque episcopus secundum eorum rectitudinis normam uiuerent, superfluum uideretur a nobis exiguis minimisque, super hac re tarn ordinate disposita aliquid retractari, et quasi quidem noui aliquid dici.

In a brief discussion of the Vespasian Psalter in 1898, Albert S. Cook offered a statement that set the tone for subsequent debate about the relationship between the Old English gloss of the Vespasian Psalter (A = London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian A. i) and that of the junius Psalter (B = Oxford, Bodleian Library, junius 27): ‘It seems not improbable that it [i.e. the gloss to the Vespasian Psalter] is the original from which all later Old English glosses on the Psalms have been derived, undergoing in the process such modifications as were due to the language of the particular dialect or epoch.’ With regard to the Junius gloss specifically, Cook printed the text of Psalm XCIX [C] from the Vespasian Psalter, which he collated with the Junius, Cambridge (C = Cambridge, University Library, Ff. 1.23), Regius (D = London, British Library, Royal 2. B.V), and Eadwine (E = Cambridge, Trinity College R. 17.1) psalters; he concluded that ‘B stands nearest to A, but is carelessly written, and changes Anglian peculiarities in the direction of West Saxon (in to on, all to eall, &c.) while retaining, in general, a comparatively early and Anglian cast (weotað, scep, leswe, &c.)’. Although Otto Heinzel, writing in 1926, disagreed with Cook's assertion that the Vespasian gloss was the source from which all other psalters ultimately derived their glosses, he reiterated, after a fashion, the idea that the Junius gloss is related to that of the Vespasian Psalter, although, like Cook, he did not argue for a direct relationship between these two works. In Heinzel's stemma, from the Urtext*0 derive *α, which stands as the model for B, and *β, which in turn stands as the model for both A and C. The stemma, in its full form, taking the Dtype (Regius Psalter) tradition into account, has justly been termed ‘fanciful’ by Kenneth Sisam. The relationship between the glosses in these two psalters formed the subject of an extended study by Uno Lindelöf published in 1901.

In March 1992 a diminutive decorated disc was submitted for comment to the Department of Medieval and Later Antiquities, British Museum. The owner had found it by using a metal detector in an arable field south of the M25 motorway at Limpsfield Grange in the parish of Limpsfield near Oxted, Surrey (NGR TQ 4053). The disc appeared to be an isolated find and a Coroner's Inquest was not held. The piece was subsequendy sent for auction and acquired by the British Museum acting in cooperation with Guildford Museum. There is no Anglo-Saxon material recorded from the immediate area.

In the dramatic confrontation between Moses and Pharaoh that preceded the Israelites' departure from Egypt, Pharaoh's magicians played a prominent role: they turned their rods into serpents, if only to have them devoured by Moses's serpent, and then matched the first two plagues brought down on the Egyptians before failing to perform the third (Ex. VII. 11–VIII. 19). Although not named here or elsewhere in the Old Testament, they were identified in II Timothy III.8 as ' ιανν⋯ς and ιαμβρ⋯ς (the Latin forms are usually ‘Iannes’ or ‘Iamnes’ and ‘Mambres’) in a remark that suggests that a considerable tradition had already arisen concerning them: ‘Now just as jannes and Mambres resisted Moses, so these also resist the truth, men corrupted in mind, reprobate concerning the faith.’ Two fragmentary Greek papyri (Pap. Vindob. G 29456 verso, in the Nationalbibliothek, Vienna; and Pap. XVI, in the Chester Beatty Library and Gallery of Oriental Art, Dublin), dated to the third and fourth centuries respectively, confirm the existence of at least one early apocryphon about the brothers. The problem of interpreting these fragments, however, is complicated by a bewildering array of references to the two in various languages, which results from both the importance of Exodus to Jews and Christians, and the connection of the brothers to magic. Albert Pietersma and R. Theodore Lutz note that ‘the precise relationship between the loose traditions and the written composition’ is ‘not yet entirely clear’.

The Fonthill letter has recently been described as ‘one of the most interesting of the corpus of documents which illustrate the working of the Anglo-Saxon law’. It tells a story that is too complicated to summarize here, but the text is now readily accessible alongside a translation and wide-ranging commentary. For present purposes it may be sufficient to say that the letter was written to King Edward the Elder of Wessex (899–924) by the godfather of a troublesome character called Helmstan. The first and longest section of the letter begins with an allusion to Helmstan's theft of a belt and ends with his surrender to his godfather of five hides of land at Fonthill (Wiltshire). Helmstan gave up this land in return for his godfather's support in an oath that Helmstan had to take to defend his title to it against a third party. His godfather promised that Helmstan could continue to occupy the property for his lifetime, provided that he behaved himself. He thus held it under what was in effect a life-læn or lease. All this happened in the reign of King Alfred, some years before the letter was written. The story was told to Alfred's son and successor after the author had exchanged the Fonthill land with the bishop of Winchester and wanted the king to confirm the arrangement. The account is written in the first person but the godfather's name is not given. J. M. Kemble, however, took it that the author of the letter was a man called Ordlaf who is mentioned, in the third person, in the second section of the letter.

Since their excavation in the 1950s and early 1960s, the palace buildings at Yeavering (Northumberland) and Cheddar (Somerset) have exemplified the physical impact of kingship on the Anglo-Saxon landscape. When, in 1980–2, massive eighth- and ninth-century halls were found at the heart of Northampton, the temptation to recognize a major residence of the Mercian kings was irresistible. Thanks to archaeology, the image of the king's tūn as the one fixed point in a shifting, uncertain world, encouraged by poetic sources and adopted in the first detailed studies of Anglo-Saxon local organization, was assuming concrete reality.

Two masterpieces stand out of the mass of Anglo-Saxon religious poetry: The Dream of the Rood and the sequence of liturgical lyrics in the Exeter Book variously known as Christ I, the Advent Lyrics or simply Advent. The two works are similar in focus and technique as well as in quality. Both express the mystery of Incarnation in terms of a riddle: how can it be that Deus and Homo make their impossible contact? What terms can make this meeting graspable by the imagination? Both give eloquent voice to human suffering and human hope, and seem to recognize that it is only through appealing to these feelings that theology can come to life for us by being experienced.

Exeter, Cathedral Library, 3501, fols. 8–130, the celebrated Exeter Book of Old English Poetry, preserves approximately one-sixth of the surviving corpus of Old English verse, and its importance for the study of pre-Conquest vernacular literature can hardly be exaggerated. It is physically a handsome codex, and is of large dimensions for one written in the vernacular: c. 320 × 220 mm, with a written area of c. 240 × 160 mm (see pl. III). In contrast to many coeval English manuscripts, particularly those in the vernacular, there is documentary evidence for the Exeter Book's pre-Conquest provenance. Assuming it is identical with the ‘i mycel Englisc boc be gehwilcum þingum on leoðwisum geworht’ (‘one large English book about various things written in verse’) in the inventory of lands, ornaments and books that Leofric, bishop of Crediton then Exeter, had acquired for the latter foundation, then it has been at Exeter since the third quarter of the eleventh century. This, however, is at least three generations after the book was written, and it has generally been assumed that it originated else where. Identifying the scriptorium where the Exeter Book was made is clearly a matter of the greatest interest and importance. A recent, admirably thorough monograph has put forward a thought-provoking case for seeing Exeter itself as the centre responsible, and has proceeded to draw a range of literary and historical conclusions from this. The comprehensive new critical edition of the manuscript has favoured the thesis, and it has been echoed elsewhere. If correct, this is extremely valuable and exciting – but is it correct? The matter is of sufficient importance to merit further scrutiny.

To offer a solution to Riddle 57 must seem to many like a fool rushing swiftly in where others have swallowed gnats – and raindrops, hailstones, thunderclouds, musical notes, bees and more. Yet for a long time I have been convinced that everyone else had got it wrong, and that the answer could only be ‘swifts’. On further investigation, it turned out that some scholars, indeed, had had the same idea – it was Moritz Trautmann's final solution, and Cyril Brett thought of swifts but rejected them in favour of starlings – and that it was only (as it were) half-right. However, it still seems worthwhile attempting to demonstrate that, at least on the literal level, swifts are the only possible answer. I shall therefore dissect Riddle 57, discussing the identity of its subject under four headings: appearance, locomotion, habitat and call. Though initially ignoring the riddle's last half-line, I shall not forget it.

Westminster Abbey Muniment 67209 is a strip of parchment sliced from an Old English manuscript, perhaps to be dated to the first half of the eleventh century (pl. IX a and b). It has top and bottom margins preserved, possibly in full, but no part of either side margin. The height of the fragment is 268mm, with top margin measuring 32mm (recto)/34mm (verso) and bottom 46mm (recto)/45mm (verso). Thus the height of the text block is c. 190mm. The strip is unevenly cut, so its width varies, top, 38mm, bottom 42mm, minimum 31mm.

The editio princeps of the works of the Venerable Bede was published in 1563 by Johann Herwagen the Younger († 1564) in Basel; the edition had been begun by his father, the well-known printer and publisher, Johann Herwagen (†1557), who was active first in Strasbourg, then in Basel, and was a friend and associate of Johann Froben. In his edition of Bede's De temporum ratione and De natura rerum, Herwagen printed glosses on these two works under the name of Byrhtferth of Ramsey along with Bede's texts. To date, no manuscript of these glosses has ever been found, so our knowledge of them depends entirely upon Herwagen's edition.