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Informed by multi-cultural, multidisciplinary perspectives, The Cambridge History of Early Medieval English Literature offers a new exploration of the earliest writing in Britain and Ireland, from the end of the Roman Empire to the mid-twelfth century. Beginning with an account of writing itself, as well as of scripts and manuscript art, subsequent chapters examine the earliest texts from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and the tremendous breadth of Anglo-Latin literature. Chapters on English learning and literature in the ninth century and the later formation of English poetry and prose also convey the profound cultural confidence of the period. Providing a discussion of essential texts, including Beowulf and the writings of Bede, this History captures the sheer inventiveness and vitality of early medieval literary culture through topics as diverse as the literature of English law, liturgical and devotional writing, the workings of science and the history of women's writing.
Informed by multi-cultural, multidisciplinary perspectives, The Cambridge History of Early Medieval English Literature offers a new exploration of the earliest writing in Britain and Ireland, from the end of the Roman Empire to the mid-twelfth century. Beginning with an account of writing itself, as well as of scripts and manuscript art, subsequent chapters examine the earliest texts from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and the tremendous breadth of Anglo-Latin literature. Chapters on English learning and literature in the ninth century and the later formation of English poetry and prose also convey the profound cultural confidence of the period. Providing a discussion of essential texts, including Beowulf and the writings of Bede, this History captures the sheer inventiveness and vitality of early medieval literary culture through topics as diverse as the literature of English law, liturgical and devotional writing, the workings of science and the history of women's writing.
Introduction: literature in Britain and Ireland to 1150 clare a. lees Taking to sea The Parker Manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 891 records that Dub Sláine, Mac Bethad and Máel Inmain crossed the Irish Sea in a rudderless boat, without sails and with little food. The three risk-takers did not care whether or not their food ran out or where their journey or pilgrimage 'for Godes lufan' took them, yet they landed in Cornwall and travelled on to the Anglo-Saxon court of King Alfred the Great. Immediately after this, the annal notes the death of the best teacher among the Scotti at that time, Suibhne (Swifneh in Old English). 1 These celebrated stories of three men in a boat and of the excellence of Irish scholarship are not without precedent in the history of early medieval travel and cultural exchange. In the seventh century, the scholarpoet Aldhelm, bishop of Malmesbury, who may himself have benefited from Irish training, describes the English as travelling to Ireland like swarms of bees to learn from its scholars. The Chronicle entry for 891 opens, however, with an update on the activities of the Viking forces on the continent and the battle at Louvain (now in modern Belgium) between the Vikings, the East Franks, the Saxons and the Bavarians. The cultural world of the Anglo-Saxons, the earliest people to call themselves English, was informed as much by its interests and relations with the continental kingdoms as with its neighbours. In the history of English literature the entry for 891 in the Parker Chronicle (manuscript A of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) is also noteworthy because it provides remarkable insight into how writing, as the technology of script and manuscript production, is a dimension of the broader conceptualization of history as written record in the early Middle Ages. Visible in the Chronicle entry is the moment when the second scribe of the manuscript takes over from the first and, with this transfer of hands, comes a new series of annals 1 Bately (ed.), Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, MS A, pp. 54-5 (p. 54).
Haec in praesenti iuxta numerum librorum quibus lex diuina scripta est, quinque gentium linguis unam eandemque summae ueritatis et uera sublimitatis scientiam scrutatur et confitetur, Anglorum uidelicet Brettonum Scottorum Pictorum et Latinorum, quae meditatione scripturarum ceteris omnibus est facta communis.At the present time, there are five languages in Britain, just as the divine law is written in five books, all devoted to seeking out and setting forth one and the same kind of wisdom, namely the knowledge of sublime truth and of true sublimity. These are the English, British, Irish, Pictish as well as Latin languages; through the study of the scriptures, Latin is in general use among them all. JMH Smith, CHEMEL Chapter 1 2 identity in exceptionally creative ways which transformed the cultural landscape. As will rapidly become clear, Ireland is deeply implicated in that British story: the purpose of this survey is to sketch the framework for these interconnected literary histories.We should acknowledge at the outset that throughout the centuries covered by this volume, writing was a separate activity from reading, and that writing in the sense of composing meaningful text was often distinct from writing in the sense of crafting the shapes of characters. The vast majority of the population was illiterate, and, of those who could read, even fewer could write. Instead, oral and symbolic communication bound most people to each other, their deities and even their ancestors. Nevertheless, literate modes of communication co-existed with non-written ones: early medieval men and women encountered writing by seeing it around them, marked on the landscape, in Christian books, or in the hands of royal or ecclesiastical officials. They would also have heard it read aloud by priests, bailiffs and sometimes even by kings, yet, unless the writing was in their local language, it would not have been comprehensible without a translator to hand. The written word was thus an elite mode of interaction, not an everyday one. It carried heavy symbolic
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