1st Edition

Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts Basic Readings

Edited By Mary P. Richards Copyright 1994
    420 Pages
    by Routledge

    420 Pages
    by Routledge

    The study of manuscripts is fundamental to the appreciation of Anglo-Saxon texts and culture. Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: Basic Readings provides an introductory collection of materials covering basic terms, techniques, resources, issues, and applications. Focusing on manuscripts copied before 1100 in England, the selections gathered here consider their history, production, analysis, and significance. Drawn from a variety of published sources and new writings commissioned for this collection, these essays offer a thorough background in principles and practices, along with up-to-date coverage of new developments in paleography. This interdisciplinary collection introduces key subjects of research for Anglo-Saxon studies while suggesting potential developments and new directions within the field.

    Using Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts; Self-Contained Units in Composite Manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Period; Old Manuscripts / New Technologies; N.R. Ker and the Study of English Medieval Manuscripts; Further Addenda and Corrigenda to N.R. Ker's Catalogue; Surviving Booklists from Anglo-Saxon England; English Libraries Before 1066: Use and Abuse of the Manuscript Evidence; Orality and the Developing Text of Caedmon's Hymn; The Construction of Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 11; The Eleventh-Century Origin of Beowulf and the Beowulf Manuscript *; The Structure of the Exeter Book Codex (Exeter, Cathedral Library, MS. 3501); The Compilation of the Vercelli Book; from Ælfric's First Series of Catholic Homilies (British Library, Royal 7.C.xii, fols. 4-218) History of the Manuscript; from The Old English Illustrated Hexateuch The Production of An Illustrated Version; The Publication of Alfred's Pastoral Care

    Biography

    Mary P. Richards is Professor of English at the University of Delaware. She is the author of Texts and Their Traditions in the Medieval Library of Rochester Cathedral Priory.

    "Mary Richards has collected . some of the standard works of the past forty years on Old English manuscripts, ranging from a more or less traditional bibliographical approach to the use of the latest electronic methods of studying damaged manuscripts in order to tease from them letters and words long considered lost beyond recovery."-English Language Notes."