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Anglo-Saxon Studies offers the best scholarship on the Anglo-Saxon peoples in the period from the end of Roman Britain to the Norman Conquest, including comparative studies involving adjacent populations and periods; both new research and major re-assessments of central topics are welcomed. Books in the series may be based in any one of the principal disciplines of archaeology, art history, history, language and literature, and inter- or multi-disciplinary studies are encouraged.

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42 results in Anglo-Saxon Studies

Page 2 of 3

Debating with Demons
  • Pedagogy and Materiality in Early English Literature
  • Christina M. Heckman
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    06 October 2020
    Print publication:
    21 August 2020
  • A consideration of the theme of demons as teachers in early English literature.

Old English Lexicology and Lexicography

Medical Texts in Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture
  • Emily Kesling
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    02 April 2020
    Print publication:
    17 April 2020
  • An examination of the extant pre-Conquest medical material, arguing that the texts are products of a sophisticated intellectual culture.

The Sword in Early Medieval Northern Europe
  • Experience, Identity, Representation
  • Volume 36
  • Sue Brunning
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    27 March 2020
    Print publication:
    21 June 2019
  • A wide-ranging study of the significance of swords throughout the whole Anglo-Saxon period, offering valuable insights into the meaning of and attitude towards swords.

Burial, Landscape and Identity in Early Medieval Wessex

The Chronology and Canon of Ælfric of Eynsham
  • Volume 37
  • Aaron J. Kleist
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    15 October 2019
    Print publication:
    16 August 2019
  • A fresh approach to the works and manuscripts of this influential monk, whose writings sunthesised some of the finest minds of the period.

'Charms', Liturgies, and Secret Rites in Early Medieval England
  • Ciaran Arthur
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    27 July 2018
    Print publication:
    01 July 2018
  • Since its inception in the nineteenth century, the genre of Anglo-Saxon charms has drawn the attention of many scholars and appealed to enthusiasts of magic, paganism, and popular religion. Their Christian nature has been widely acknowledged in recent years, but their position within mainstream liturgical traditions has not yet been fully recognised. In this book, Ciaran Arthur undertakes a wide-ranging investigation of the genre to better understand how early English ecclesiastics perceived these rituals and why they included them in manuscripts were written in high-status minsters. Evidence from the entire corpus of Old English, various surviving manuscript sources, and rich Christian theological traditions suggests that contemporary scribes and compilers did not perceive "charms" as anything other than Christian rituals that belonged to diverse, mainstream liturgical practices. The book thus challenges the notion that there was any such thing as an Anglo-Saxon "charm", and offers alternative interpretations of these texts as creative para-liturgical rituals or liturgical rites, which testify to the diversity of early medieval English Christianity. When considered in their contemporary ecclesiastical and philosophical contexts, even the most enigmatic rituals, previously dismissed as mere "gibberish", begin to emerge as secret, deliberately obscured texts with hidden spiritual meaning.Ciaran Arthur is a Research Fellow at Queen's University Belfast.

The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England
  • Catherine E. Karkov
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    11 May 2017
    Print publication:
    15 July 2004
  • Between the reign of Alfred in the late ninth century and the arrival of the Normans in 1066, a unique set of images of kingship and queenship was developed in Anglo-Saxon England, images of leadership that centred on books, authorship and learning rather than thrones, sword and sceptres. Focusing on the cultural and historical contexts in which these images were produced, this book explores the reasons for their development, and their meaning and function within both England and early medieval Europe. It explains how and why they differ from their Byzantine and Continental counterparts, and what they reveal about Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards history and gender, as well as the qualities that were thought to constitute a good ruler. It is argued that this series of portraits, never before studied as a corpus, creates a visual genealogy equivalent to the textual genealogies and regnal lists that are so much a feature of late Anglo-Saxon culture. As such they are an important part of the way in which the kings and queens of early medieval England created both their history and their kingdom.

    CATHERINE E. KARKOV is Professor of Art History at the University of Leeds.

Landscapes of Monastic Foundation
  • The Establishment of Religious Houses in East Anglia, c.650–1200
  • Tim Pestell
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    11 May 2017
    Print publication:
    01 November 2004
  • Monastic studies usually focus upon the post-Conquest period; here, in valuable contrast, the focus is on pre-Conquest monastic foundations, in the present-day counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. Tim Pestell considers the place of the monastery in wider landscapes - topographical, social, economic and political. He observes that by 1215 the Diocese of Norwich contained about a tenth of all English monasteries, a remarkable richness of patronage was no sudden flush of enthusiasm, but a manifestation of religious devotion that had been evolving in East Anglia since the seventh-century Conversion. By integrating archaeological and historical sources, Dr Pestell presents an in-depth examination of where and how communal religious life developed in the region over half a millennium. In so doing, he demonstrates how the more visible and better-evidenced post-Conquest monastic landscape was typically structured by its Anglo-Saxon past.

    Dr TIM PESTELL is Curator of Archaeology at Norwich Castle Museum.

Trees in Anglo-Saxon England
  • Literature, Lore and Landscape
  • Della Hooke
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    09 May 2017
    Print publication:
    19 May 2011
  • Trees played a particularly important part in the rural economy of Anglo-Saxon England, both for wood and timber and as a wood-pasture resource, with hunting gaining a growing cultural role. But they are also powerful icons in many pre-Christian religions, with a degree of tree symbolism found in Christian scripture too. This wide-ranging book explores both the "real", historical and archaeological evidence of trees and woodland, and as they are depicted in Anglo-Saxon literature and legend. Place-name and charter references cast light upon the distribution of particular tree species (mapped here in detail for the first time) and also reflect upon regional character in a period that was fundamental for the evolution of the present landscape.

    Della Hooke is Honorary Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Research in Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Birmingham.

Elves in Anglo-Saxon England
  • Matters of Belief, Health, Gender and Identity
  • Alaric Hall
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    13 April 2017
    Print publication:
    15 March 2007
  • Anglo-Saxon elves [Old English ælfe] are one of the best attested non-Christian beliefs in early medieval Europe, but current interpretations of the evidence derive directly from outdated nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholarship. Integrating linguistic and textual approaches into an anthropologically-inspired framework, this book reassesses the full range of evidence. It traces continuities and changes in medieval non-Christian beliefs with a new degree of reliability, from pre-conversion times to the eleventh century and beyond, and uses comparative material from medieval Ireland and Scandinavia to argue for a dynamic relationship between beliefs and society. In particular, it interprets the cultural significance of elves as a cause of illness in medical texts, and provides new insights into the much-discussed Scandinavian magic of seidr. Elf-beliefs, moreover, were connected with Anglo-Saxon constructions of sex and gender; their changing nature provides a rare insight into a fascinating area of early medieval European culture.

    Shortlisted for the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award 2007

    ALARIC HALL is a fellow of the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies.

Feasting the Dead
  • Food and Drink in Anglo-Saxon Burial Rituals
  • Christina Lee
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    13 April 2017
    Print publication:
    21 June 2007
  • Anglo-Saxons were frequently buried with material artefacts, ranging from pots to clothing to jewellery, and also with items of food, while the funeral ritual itself was frequently marked by feasting, sometimes at the graveside. The book examines the place of food and feasting in funerary rituals from the earliest period to the eleventh century, considering the changes and transformations that occurred during this time, drawing on a wide range of sources, from archaeological evidence to the existing texts. It looks in particular at representations of funerary feasting, how it functions as a tool for memory, and sheds light on the relationship between the living and the dead.

    CHRISTINA LEE is a lecturer in the School of English Studies at the University of Nottingham.

Direct Speech in Beowulf and Other Old English Narrative Poems
  • Elise Louviot
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 June 2016
    Print publication:
    16 June 2016
  • Some of the most celebrated passages of Old English poetry are speeches: Beowulf and Unferth's verbal contest, Hrothgar's words of advice, Satan's laments, Juliana's words of defiance, etc. Yet DirectSpeech, as a stylistic device, has remained largely under-examined and under-theorized in studies of the corpus. As a consequence, many analyses are unduly influenced by anachronistic conceptions ofDirect Speech, leading to problematic interpretations, not least concerning irony and implicit characterisation.
    This book uses linguistic theories to reassess the role of Direct Speech in Old English narrative poetry. Beowulf is given a great deal of attention, because it is a major poem and because it is the focus of much of the existing scholarship on this subject, but it is examined in a broader poetic context: the poem belongs to a wider tradition and thus needs to be understood in that context. The texts examined include several major Old English narrative poems, in particular the two Genesis, Christ and Satan, Andreas, Elene, Juliana and Guthlac A.

    Elise Louviot is a Lecturer at the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne (France) and a specialist of OldEnglish poetry. Her research interests include orality, tradition, formulas and the linguistic expression of subjectivity.

The Peterborough Version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
  • Rewriting Post-Conquest History
  • Malasree Home
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 December 2015
    Print publication:
    21 May 2015
  • In the twelfth century, a version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was rewritten at Peterborough Abbey, welding local history into an established framework of national events. This text has usually been regarded as an exception, a vernacular Chronicle written in a period dominated by Latin histories. This study, however, breaks new ground by considering the Peterborough Chronicle as much more than just an example of the accidental longevity of the Chronicle tradition. Close analysis reveals unique interpretations of events, and a very strong sense of communal identity, suggesting that the construction of this text was not a marginal activity, but one essential to the articulation of the abbey's image. This text also participates in a vibrant post-Conquest textual culture, in particular at Canterbury, including the writing of the bilingual F version of the Chronicle; its symbiotic relationship witha wider corpus of Latin historiography thus indicates the presence of shared sources. The incorporation of alternative generic types in the text also suggests the presence of formal hybridity, a further testament to a fluid and adaptable textual culture. Dr Malasree Home teaches at Newcastle University.

The Cruciform Brooch and Anglo-Saxon England
  • Toby F. Martin
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 May 2015
    Print publication:
    16 April 2015
  • Cruciform brooches were large and decorative items of jewellery, frequently used to pin together women's garments in pre-Christian northwest Europe. Characterised by the strange bestial visages that project from the feet of these dress and cloak fasteners, cruciform brooches were especially common in eastern England during the 5th and 6th centuries AD. For this reason, archaeologists have long associated them with those shadowy tribal originators of the English: the Angles of the Migration period. This book provides a multifaceted, holistic and contextual analysis of more than 2,000 Anglo-Saxon cruciform brooches. It offers a critical examination of identity in Early Medieval society, suggesting that the idea of being Anglian in post-Roman Britain was not a primordial, tribal identity transplanted from northern Germany, but was at least partly forged through the repeated, prevalent use of dress and material culture. Additionally, the particular women that were buried with cruciform brooches, and indeed their very funerals, played an important role in the process. These ideas are explored through a new typology and an updated chronology for cruciform brooches, alongside considerations of their production, exchange and use. The author also examines their geographical distribution through time and their most common archaeological contexts: the inhumation and cremation cemeteries of early Anglo-Saxon England. Dr Toby Martin is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Archaeology, Oxford University.

The Anglo-Saxon Chancery
  • The History, Language and Production of Anglo-Saxon Charters from Alfred to Edgar
  • Ben Snook
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 May 2015
    Print publication:
    18 June 2015
  • The principal aim of this book is to assess Anglo-Saxon charters from a 'literary' point of view. In the ninth century, a new and highly complex Latin style started to appear in Anglo-Saxon charters: rather than writing traditional, straightforward legal language, the authors of these documents turned to their Anglo-Saxon literary heritage for inspiration, and began to fill their charters with complex and archaic vocabulary, extensive metaphors and lurid imagery. Dr Snook offers a thorough discussion of why and how this seemingly inappropriate style was adopted, throwing light on a range of broader issues, including the place of the documents in the wider intellectual history of tenth-century England, and their role in promoting the ideologies of different Anglo-Saxon kings. Benjamin Snook gained his doctorate from Cambridge University.

The Dating of Beowulf
  • A Reassessment
  • With contributions by Leonard Neidorf , Frederick M. Biggs , Thomas A. Bredehoft , George Clark , Dennis Cronan , Michael D. C. Drout , Allen J. Frantzen , R. D. Fulk , Megan E. Hartman , Joseph Harris , Thomas D. Hill , Rafael J. Pascual and Tom Shippey
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    20 November 2014
  • This book will be a milestone, and deserves to be widely read. The early Beowulf that overwhelmingly emerges here asks hard questions, and the same strictly defined measures of metre, spelling, onomastics, semantics, genealogy, and historicity all cry out to be tested further and applied more broadly to the whole corpus of Old English verse. Andy Orchard, Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, University of Oxford. The dating of Beowulf has been a central question in Anglo-Saxon studies for the past two centuries, since it affects not only the interpretation of Beowulf, but also the trajectory of early English literary history. By exploring evidence for the poem's date of composition, the essays in this volume contribute to a wide range of pertinent fields, including historical linguistics, Old English metrics, onomastics, and textual criticism. Many aspects of Anglo-Saxon literary culture are likewise examined, as contributors gauge the chronological significance of the monsters, heroes, history, and theology brought together in Beowulf. Discussions of methodology and the history of the discipline also figure prominently in this collection. Overall, the dating of Beowulf here provides a productive framework for evaluating evidence and drawing informed conclusions about its chronological significance. These conclusions enhance our appreciation of Beowulf and improve our understanding of the poem's place in literary history. Leonard Neidorf is a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. Contributors: Frederick M. Biggs, Thomas A. Bredehoft, George Clark, Dennis Cronan, Michael D.C. Drout, Allen J. Frantzen, R.D. Fulk, Megan E. Hartman, Joseph Harris, Thomas D. Hill, Leonard Neidorf, Rafael J. Pascual, Tom Shippey.

John the Baptist's Prayer 'The Descent into Hell' from the Exeter Book
  • Text, Translation and Critical Study
  • Edited by M. R. Rambaran-Olm
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 August 2014
    Print publication:
    16 January 2014
  • The Old English poem known popularly as the "Descent into Hell", found on folios 119v to 121v of the Exeter Book, has to date received little critical attention, perhaps owing to various contextual problems and lacunae on the leaves that contain it. This first full-length study offers a full account of the poem, together with an edition of the text and facing translation. It aims to resolve some of the poem's vexing issues and provides a variety of possible interpretations of the poem. The in-depth literary analysis seeks to enrich modern scholarly perceptions of the poem, suggest a more appropriate title, and contribute to continued scholarly discussion and analysis ofthe Exeter Book and its compilation. It provides a guide towards understanding the poem's main theme, presents the text in light of its position in ecclesiastical history, and sheds fresh light into its place and significance within the corpus of Old English poetry. M.R. Rambaran-Olm received her PhD from the University of Glasgow.

Honour, Exchange and Violence in Beowulf
  • Peter S. Baker
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    16 April 2013
  • This book examines violence in its social setting, and especially as an essential element in the heroic system of exchange (sometimes called the Economy of Honour). It situates Beowulf in a northern European culture where violence was not stigmatized as evidence of a breakdown in social order but rather was seen as a reasonable way to get things done; where kings and their retainers saw themselves above all as warriors whose chief occupation was the pursuit of honour; and where most successful kings were those perceived as most predatory. Though kings and their subjects yearned for peace, the political and religious institutions of the time did little to restrain their violent impulses. Drawing on works from Britain, Scandinavia, and Ireland, which show how the practice of violence was governed by rules and customs which were observed, with variations, over a wide area, this book makes use of historicist and anthropological approaches to its subject. It takes a neutral attitude towards the phenomena it examines, but at the same time describes them fortnightly, avoiding euphemism and excuse-making on the one hand and condemnation on the other. In this it attempts to avoid the errors of critics who have sometimes been led astray by modern assumptions about the morality of violence. Peter S. Baker is Professor of English at the University of Virginia.

Environment, Society and Landscape in Early Medieval England
  • Time and Topography
  • Tom Williamson
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 April 2013
    Print publication:
    15 November 2012
  • The Anglo-Saxon period was crucial in the development of England's character: its language, and much of its landscape and culture, were forged in the period between the fifth and the eleventh centuries. Historians and archaeologists have long been fascinated by its regional variations, by the way in which different parts of the country displayed marked differences in social structures, settlement patterns, and field systems. In this controversial and wide-ranging study, the author argues that such differences were largely a consequence of environmental factors: of the influence of climate, soils and hydrology, and of the patterns of contact and communication engendered by natural topography. He also suggests that such environmental influences have been neglected over recent decades by generations of scholars who are embedded in an urban culture and largely divorced from the natural world; and that an appreciation of the fundamental role of physical geography in shaping human affairs can throw much new light on a number of important debates about early medieval society. The book will be essential reading for all those interested in the character of the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian settlements, in early medieval social and territorial organization, and in the origins of the England's medieval landscapes. Tom Williamson is Professor of Landscape History, University of East Anglia; he has written widely on landscape archaeology, agricultural history, and the history of landscape design.

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