Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 October 2009
At first glance, the evidence (other than that provided by lexical and stylistic links) for ascribing the Royal Psalter gloss to Æthelwold and his circle is less straightforward than one might wish, since we have no source, contemporary or later, in which Æthelwold is connected with that gloss or with psalter glossing at large. Furthermore, it is notoriously difficult to ascertain whether glosses, as they have been transmitted in a manuscript, are the work of a single author or of a group of scholars closely collaborating, or even of several generations of scholars. Even if we rule out this last possibility, since (unlike the Aldhelm glosses), the Royal Psalter is a continous interlinear version, revealing (in spite of its rich and varied vocabulary) much homogeneity and pronounced lexical and stylistic predilections, and since the manuscript in which it is transmitted must be fairly close to the original gloss, the question of single or multiple authorship remains nonetheless to be considered. However, if the various reasons for assuming an origin of the Royal Psalter gloss in a circle where Æthelwold was active can be accepted, we may be certain that his influence on the compilation of this gloss was paramount and pervasive.
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