I propose here to continue my exploration and survey of the history of that quintessentially tenth-century script form, English Square minuscule. Since 1987, when my account of the background and earliest phases of the script was published in this journal, new material and new thinking have encouraged continued investigations into Anglo-Saxon script of the 930s and the use of Square minuscule at Canterbury in particular. These factors must serve as a justification for taking a further look at Phase II before proceeding to a preliminary and provisional account of the styles of the 940s, 950s and early 960s. This is a self-contained era which concludes with the origination and propagation of Anglo-Caroline script. The closing phases of Square minuscule will have to await treatment in a third instalment of this essay, as will consideration of some of the larger issues advertised in 1987. However, since it is critically intertwined with the mid-century phases of script history, I shall discuss here (as promised at the outset) the role of the royal chancery in calligraphic developments.

The episode of Beowulf's fight with Grendel is followed almost immediately by brief accounts of two very different heroic careers – those of Sigemund and of Heremod – sung by a minstrel-thegn of Hrothgar, apparently in praise of the hero, as the celebrating Danes race their horses back from Grendel's mere. This narrative sequence invites us to contextualize Beowulf's first great exploit in a broader frame, but the poet does not make explicit the precise nature of the comparisons between these three figures. The critics, however, have broadly agreed that the link with Sigemund compliments Beowulf, whilst the parallel with Heremod contrasts with the hero and with Sigemund. E. G. Stanley comments that the poet ‘perhaps … perceives the hero of his poem at this point as being all that, in descriptions known to him, made Sigemund glorious and all that Heremod was not’. F. C. Robinson agrees that the meaning of this section ‘is never spelled out, but the implication is clear: Beowulf is like Sigemund, unlike Heremod’. The contrast between the ‘sustained heroic exploits’ of Sigemund and the downfall of Heremod is, for R. E. Kaske,. ‘the basic theme of the whole Sigemund-Heremod passage’, and this interpretation is, he thinks, ‘hardly open to question’. The purpose of this article is to re-open the question of the nature of the relationship between Sigemund and Beowulf.

The Anglo-Saxons' awareness of their cultural and racial affiliation with their continental cousins is well attested, as is their interest in the earliest migrations of their ancestors to the British Isles from the homelands of northern Europe. The founding figures who led the migrations from Europe across the North Sea had names which were preserved by oral tradition well into the Christian period, and the names of these founders of Anglo-Saxon dynasties entered the historical record when Christian missionaries introduced the technology of writing among the Anglo-Saxons.

Scholarly understanding of the reign of Edward the Confessor is hampered by doubt surrounding the date, authorship and purpose of the Vita Ædwardi regis, its chief biographical source. This article rejects readings that see it as a work written after the Conquest, arguing instead that it was begun in 1065–6 and tried to foresee what would happen in that time of upheaval by optimistic inspection of precedents from Godwine family history, tempered by anxious reflections on pagan Antiquity. Through the prophetic insights of history it finely balanced Edith's hopes and fears. The second part of the article considers evidence that helps us to identify an author.

Solomon and Saturn II, the second verse dialogue between Solomon and Saturn in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 422, has long enjoyed a rather dubious reputation as an exotic work. In part, the poem suffers a guilt by association with the two other Solomonic dialogues in the manuscript, both of which are fanciful treatments of the powers of the Pater Noster. Kemble's 1848 edition of Solomon and Saturn II formed part of an ambitious survey of the sources and analogues of the later, Latin Solomon and Marculf dialogues. Although the subject matter of Solomon and Saturn II ranges widely from bizarre monsters to proverbial wisdom, Menner's 1941 edition influenced the modern reception of the work by presenting the poem in a predominantly ‘oriental’ context. Menner's learned introduction to both the Solomon and Saturn verse dialogues focused on the mass of exotic legends associated with Solomon. In his opinion, both Solomon and Saturn poems were ‘dependent on lost Solomonic Christian dialogues in Latin’.

Thanks largely to the work of John Mitchell Kemble, it could be said in connection with the publication of a charter of King Edgar in 1984 that ‘the discovery of a new Anglo-Saxon charter is a very rare event’;1 yet by a strange and happy coincidence two more charters of the same king have recently come to light, in quite different places. The first was issued in 958, when Edgar was king of the Mercians, and relates to an estate at Coundon in Warwickshire. The second was issued in 974, near the end of Edgar's reign as king of all the English, and relates to an estate at Brickendon in Hertfordshire. In both cases, the charters survive in the form of early modern transcripts made direct from originals now lost; the transcripts are of excellent quality, complete with vernacular boundary-clauses, full witness-lists, and notes of the vernacular endorsements.2 Both charters prove, moreover, to belong to a distinctive series known to modern scholarship as the ‘Dunstan B’ charters, which stand apart from the mainstream of diplomatic practices in the tenth century, and which appear to have a particular association as a group with Glastonbury abbey. Provisional editions of the two ‘new’ charters are presented below, pending the fuller treatment which each must receive in its appropriate archival context; the opportunity is then taken to redefine the corpus of ‘Dunstan B’ charters, and to review their significance in diplomatic and historical terms.3

Old English prefixed verbs are numerous. At times prefixes are used to convey different shades of meaning, but often the meanings seem, in context, not to convey definite distinctions in sense. Prefixes and prefixed verbs must have been important in Old English, judging from their numbers and morphological distinctions, but most prefixes had adverbial and/or prepositional counter-parts, and verbs with adverbs or prepositional phrases (whether preposed or postposed to verbs) could be used alongside prefixed verbs.

In the second half of the twelfth century Northampton was one of the largest and wealthiest towns in all England. This represented, however, only a transient phase, since by the early part of the fourteenth century the town had assumed a more modest position. As a result of a series of disastrous fires in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, little now survives to remind us of Northampton's former medieval glories, and its earlier development has been until recently but dimly perceived. Over the last decade, however, archaeological and other research has facilitated the identification of elements of continuity in the upper Nene basin (in which Northampton lies) stretching back several thousand years. In particular it is now possible to demonstrate that the late Saxon borough emerged as the culmination of a gradual evolutionary process throughout the Anglo-Saxon period rather than as the result of a single dramatic act of foundation. This has important implications for ideas relating to the re-emergence of towns in the ninth and tenth centuries and is particularly significant in that Northampton has no obvious major Romano-British antecedent.

The author of the Chronicon Æthelweardi is commonly identified with the ealdor-man of the western shires who signed charters from 973–98 and played an important political role particularly in King Æthelred's England. Ealdorman Æthelweard is also known as the patron of Abbot Ælfric, as the addressee of Ælfric's famous preface to his translation of Genesis and of his Old English preface to his Lives of Saints; that is, we know him as a person who took great interest in religious texts written in or translated into the vernacular. The Chronicon was written in Latin, although it was mainly based on the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The reason for his choice of language may be determined from the prologue to his Chronicon, from which it becomes clear that he wrote it for his kinswoman Mathilda (949–1011), abbess of Essen, whose grandmother Eadgyth, daughter of King Edward the Elder, had been married to Emperor Otto I. We may assume that Mathilda's native tongue was Old Saxon, a variety of Low German that was closely related to West Saxon English.

The metrical version of psalms LI–CL, known as the Paris Psalter, is a pedestrian and unimaginative piece of poetic translation. It is rarely read by students of Old English, and most Anglo-Saxonists make only passing reference to it. There is scarcely any literary criticism written on the text, although some work has been done on its vocabulary and metre. I hope to show in this article, however, that its stylistic peculiarities mark an important stage in the disintegration of the Old English poetic mode, and that analysis of these may go some way towards answering the difficult questions which surround the manner and the cause of the style's disappearance at the end of the Anglo-Saxon period. In particular, I shall examine this poet's selective use of the poetic diction normally associated with the form, and the impact of this selectivity on the systems of rank and formula.

On numerous occasions Ælfric of Cerne, and of Eynsham, refers to the long-standing patrons of his career and oeuvre, Ealdorman Æthelweard and his son Æthelmær. Ælfric is, however, our sole witness to this patronage. As a result, we get only his view of their relationship, and there are blind spots which, in our enthusiasm for the unusual wealth of personal information from an Anglo-Saxon author, we tend to ignore. In this article I examine Ealdorman Æthelweard's Chronicon for what it might reveal about its author, and his background; and I suggest that it brings into clearer focus his own role in an unparalleled case of literary patronage in Anglo-Saxon England.

The work entitled Libellus quorundam insignium operum beati Æthelwoldi episcopi, in both of the manuscripts in which it is preserved as an independent text, is an account of how the endowment of Ely Abbey was accumulated in the years following the refoundation of the abbey in 970, and how it was defended in the difficult times which followed the death of King Edgar in 975. The Libellus was produced by an Ely monk writing early in the twelfth century, who says in the prologue to the work (LE, Appendix A) that Hervey, first bishop of Ely (1108–31), suggested to him the project of translating into Latin certain vernacular records concerning Æthelwold, bishop of Winchester (963–84), the founder of the monastery, to supplement the vita composed by Wulfstan Cantor. The text includes verses in praise of Æthelwold, and in praise of the village of Downham: similarities in vocabulary and metre to a metrical vita of St Æthelthryth composed by a monk of Ely called Gregory, also during the time of Bishop Hervey, suggest that the author of the Libellus was probably the same man. The Libellus has long been known as a work in its own right, but it has been printed as such only once, over 300 years ago, and it has been accessible to scholarship primarily in the form in which it was incorporated into bk II of the twelfth-century history of Ely Abbey known as Liber Eliensis, whose compiler used it as the basis for his own account of the refoundation of the abbey and its fortunes during the succeeding decades.

Ælfhere, ealdorman of Mercia from 956 to 983, is not an immediately familiar figure. Yet he was one of the most powerful men in the political life of his day. The author of the Vita Oswaldi was in no doubt of his importance in the disturbances which followed the death of Edgar:

In spite of all that is known of the religious, cultural and literary background of The Dream of the Rood in general, the genesis of its form, and especially of its most immediately striking and unique feature, the device of the speaking cross, has so far resisted attempts at explanation and remains something of a mystery. Albert S. Cook long ago called attention to similarities between the mode of portrayal of the cross and the medieval traditions of epigram, epigraph and riddle, while not going so far as to suggest that these traditions had a direct influence on the poet. Now it is true, of course, that our earliest text of the poem is the series of inscriptions on the Ruthwell Cross, but these inscriptions are strikingly different from all others from the Anglo-Saxon period through which inanimate objects are personified and speak. The inscription on Alfred's Jewel, ‘Ælfred mec heht gewyrcean’, for instance, and those, some of them in the first person, in Latin and English, on the blades, hilts and scabbards of various swords and knives are generally quite brief – limited to a simple statement of the object's name, its maker's name or that of its owner – are seldom metrical and, most important, are not couched in the kind of heroic diction used in the poem. While it is quite possible that the poet sensed an analogy between such inscriptions and his personification of the cross, what these inscriptions manifestly lack is the literary quality intrinsic to his personification – whether on the Ruthwell Cross or in the Vercelli Book. Only a literary explanation can account for this.

Anglo-Saxon genealogy is full of pitfalls, and it is not to be wondered that no one has followed the pioneer work of W. G. Searle in reconstructing the pedigrees of some of the noble houses. Much of the source material is suspect, or too vaguely worded for precise conclusions as to family relationships. The whole topic bristles with difficulties, yet its importance is fundamental; for this as for other periods, detailed examination of family ties and estates supplies essential background information for anyone seeking to uncover the interests and pressures which helped to formulate national policy.

The monstrosity of Grendel and his mother have long held the interest of Beowulf-scholars. Examining the bodily attributes of both figures in order to detect inter-textual patterns of diction, this article focuses on depictions of the monsters' skin, hands and blood. In analysing these attributes, it becomes clear that the Beowulf-poet's chosen descriptors align the monstrous body with manmade objects in general and with weapons and armour in particular. This blurring of body and human artifact creates an environment for monstrous existence that is between and outside of both human culture and nature.

More than fifty years after its first appearance in print, Byrhtferth's Manual, or Enchiridion as he called it himself, is among the most puzzling texts of the Old English prose corpus. Its obscurity is due partly to its unglamorous subject matter – mathematics (computus) and the calendar – but more, perhaps, to its apparently bewildering organization. Humfrey Wanley called it an ‘opus miscellaneum’, Richard Wülker described it as ‘auβerordentlich bunter’ and Frederick Tupper referred to it as ‘that remarkable potpourri’. Indeed the Enchiridion seems often enough to wander aimlessly or shift abruptly; it seems to follow no plan and many an intrepid scholar has come away from it with the disquieting feeling that, having read a scientific primer, he has learned shamefully little science. As Heinrich Henel and N. R. Ker pointed out, the text has come down to us disarranged; but the restoration of the misplaced sections to their proper order only partly relieves the confusion. We may as well admit at the outset that Byrhtferth often digressed and often backtracked: as an organizer he was barely tolerable. But if we fail to understand the Enchiridion the fault is partly our own, for it was not Byrhtferth's intention to write a wholly self-contained book. As Henel ably demonstrated, the Enchiridion was designed as a commentary on the computus; this fact is the key we need to unlock the mysteries of Byrhtferth's work. To read it without referring to a computus would be as pointless as to read a biblical commentary without referring to a bible.

‘Feower tida synd getealde on anum geare’, Ælfric writes in De temporibus anni, translating a portion of Bede's De temporum ratione, and he enumerates the seasons together with their Latin counterparts: ‘Ver is lenctentid … Aestas is sumer … Autumnus is hærfest … Hiems is winter.’ Byrhtferth of Ramsey enumerates ‘Þa feower timan … lengten, sumor, hærfest and winter’, allegorizing them as symbols of childhood, adolescence, manhood and old age, of blood, choler, black bile and phlegm, and of air, fire, earth and water, and elsewhere he refers to ‘gewrixlunge Þæsra feower timan, Þæt ys lenctenis and sumoris and hærfestis and wintres’. From these passages, and others like them, it would appear that the Anglo-Saxons observed four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter. This conclusion seems obvious enough and represents the conceptual baseline for the Bosworth–Toller dictionary entries for lencten, and lenctentid, sumer, hærfest and winter, even though it is clear from their own citations that lencten and lenctentid often mean ‘Lent’ and hærfest often means ‘harvest’.

This article argues that the power of the early Mercian kings from Wulfhere to Aethelbald, c.650-750, rested partly on their ability to exploit the growing economy which characterised this period; and that such exploitation provides a hitherto unacknowledged reason for the rise of Mercia to supremacy. The argument rests on the Mercian rulers' control of two particular places, London and Droitwich, the first the country's foremost port, the second a major industrial site concerned with the production of salt. After the growth of Mercian authority over both places has been traced, it is suggested that taxation of their activities may have resulted in substantial profits, via tolls in both centres and, in Droitwich, via a further levy on the manufacture of salt. The history of taxation on salt is traced back from the early modern period in order to see what light later practices shed upon those of the early middle ages. The article concludes by suggesting that the Mercian rulers were fortunate in exercising power at a time when economic growth, partly church-led, was open to royal exploitation and that those rulers had a conscious appreciation of the advantages so to be gained.

A considerable body of evidence shows that the kings of later Anglo-Saxon England concerned themselves very seriously with the cult of relics. No doubt this involvement arose in part from their piety; but as I hope to show there are grounds for thinking that it also derived from the importance of relics and relic-cults as instruments of royal policy, expressing and reinforcing the kings' power and position. I shall consider in turn three aspects of royal activity with regard to relics: firstly the collection and donation of relics by the kings in order to increase their prestige and to symbolize their political status; secondly the use of relics in the processes of government; and thirdly royal patronage of particular relic-cults as an expedient to political influence.