Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England

Originally published in 1985, fourteen leading specialists in the field of Anglo-Saxon studies contributed to this substantial collection of essays in honour of Peter Clemoes, founder of Anglo-Saxon England, who had recently retired as Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon in the University of Cambridge. The book is divided into two complementary parts. The first looks at the background to Anglo-Saxon learning, in particular at the composition of monastic and private libraries and the nature of the individual works available in them. The second examines the contents and sources of individual texts and reviews the problems of interpretation and transmission these pose for scholars. Many of these essays deal with complex and difficult materials like manuscripts and liturgical sources that are fundamental to the interpretation of Old English literature and to Anglo-Saxon culture in general.