The appearance of three publications in 1980 and 1981 – A Bibliography of Publications on Old English Literature by Stanley B. Greenfield and Fred C. Robinson, A Microfiche Concordance to Old English by Antonette DiPaolo Healey and Richard L. Venezky and ‘A Preliminary List of Manuscripts Written or Owned in England up to 1100’ by Helmut Gneuss–initiated a crisis of sorts in the area of Old English studies. For the first time since the inception of work in their field, scholars of the literature of the Anglo-Saxon period were in a convenient position to consult the bulk of existing research and lexical data pertaining to any topic that engaged their interest and, if they managed to find the time, to strike out for new discoveries in neglected manuscripts. The availability of this wealth of bibliographical, lexical and codicological information had an immediate effect that was somewhat stultifying. The quantity of material available for review on a given point frequently threatened to preclude the completion of an introductory paragraph, let alone an entire project. Greenfield and Robinson, in their endeavour to include every book, note, article and review relating to a given literary concern, had included much that was second-rate, as they seemed to acknowledge with their prefatory quotation from the Old English rendition of the Disticha Catonis:‘feola writaõ menn ungelyfedlices’ (‘people write many things which one ought not believe’); the unlemmatized Microfiche Concordance would frequently distract users with misleading homographs; and prospective consultation of a manuscript described by Gneuss as containing, say, ‘Vitae sanctorum; Liturgica’ stood an even chance at best of turning up anything of note on a particular devotional point.