I The general theme of the conference was ‘Anglo-Saxon Traces: Her mon mæg giet gesion hiora swæð’. The conference was attended by 196 people.

The following papers were delivered:

Anton Scharer, ‘Objects of Royal Representation (in England and on the Continent)’

Jennifer O'Reilly ‘The Topography of Islands in Bede's Historia ecclesiastica’

Diarmuid Scully, ‘Among the Ruins: Bede and his Sources on the Geography and Built Environment of Roman Britain’

Joshua Westgard, ‘Traces of Bede?: the Moore Continuations and the Transmission of Bede's Historia ecclesiastica’

Richard North, ‘Revenue and Real Estate: Archbishop Wulfred and the Strange Case of Cynehelm’

Alcuin's Disputatio de rhetorica et de uirtutibus has traditionally posed problems of interpretation in terms of both form (its apparently bipartite structure) and content (as a digest of the rules of rhetoric combined with an exposition of the four cardinal virtues). However, a close reading of the sources from which Alcuin was drawing his argument (Cicero, Julius Victor, Fortunatianus, Marius Victorinus, Cassiodorus and, above all, Augustine and Quintilian) suggests why he should have chosen to emphasize the connection between rhetoric and the virtues in this particular way.

S 786 is one of the so-called Orthodoxorum charters, a group of documents which provide important evidence about the Anglo-Saxon chancery, the development of charters in the tenth century, and the history of Pershore Abbey and the tenth-century Benedictine reforms. The document has therefore received a great deal of attention over the past century or so, but this attention has been focussed on the surviving tenth-century single sheet, and so a second, significantly different version of the text has lain unnoticed. This second version is preserved in a copy made by John Joscelyn, Latin Secretary to Archbishop Matthew Parker. Among the material uniquely preserved in this copy are Old English charter bounds for Wyegate (GL), Cumbtune (Compton, GL?) and part of the bounds probably for Lydney (GL), as well as a reference to a grant by Bishop Werferth of Worcester. In this article both versions of the document are discussed and are published together for the first time, and a translation of the single sheet is provided. The history of the two versions is discussed in some detail, and the text of a twelfth-century letter which refers to the charter is also edited and translated.

Several dry-point glosses were added to the Lichfield Gospels during the tenth or eleventh century, apparently recording the names of members of the pre-Conquest community at Lichfield. We consider the relationship of these glosses to the list of Anglo-Saxon names on p. 141 of the Gospels, and discuss parallels from elsewhere in the Insular world.

The Old English Promissio regis is a translation of the threefold promise made at their coronations by Anglo-Saxon kings in the tenth and eleventh centuries followed by two paragraphs on the duties of kingship; it is preserved in one eleventh-century manuscript and we have two copies of a second. This article reviews discussions of the text, looks at the manuscript evidence for what it can tell about its authorship and history, examines its sources and function and suggests a close connection with Wulfstan, archbishop of York. A new edition of the text concludes the piece.

In the margins of Ӕlfric's ‘Ash-Wednesday’ homily in Cambridge Corpus Christi College 162, an early-eleventh-century annotator adds a remark specifying ‘invasions’ among various misfortunes afflicting the English on a daily basis. This article argues that this marginal annotation constitutes a contemporary reference to the viking raids of King Ӕthelred the Unready's reign. The article examines this marginal text in the context of Ӕlfric's homily and in relation to other marginalia possibly written by the same scribe, including a second comment on the viking incursions. Based on this evidence, it is suggested that the annotator is revising homilies in this manuscript for preaching, possibly at St Augustine's, Canterbury, in the years 1009–12.

Strap-ends represent the most common class of dress accessory known from late Anglo-Saxon England. At this period, new materials, notably lead and its alloys, were being deployed in the manufacture of personal possessions and jewellery. This newly found strap-end adds to the growing number of tongue-shaped examples fashioned from lead dating from this period. It is, however, distinctive in being inscribed with a personal name. The present article provides an account of the object and its text, and assesses its general significance in the context of a more nuanced interpretation of the social status of lead artefacts in late Anglo-Saxon England.

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), originally designated the New Dictionary of National Biography, was published in 2004 as a successor to the renowned Dictionary of National Biography (DNB), edited by Sir Leslie Stephen (1832–1904) and itself published in sixty-three volumes between 1885 and 1900, with supplements. All of the subjects in the old DNB were retained for the ODNB; new entries were commissioned for a significant proportion of the existing subjects (including almost all of those falling within the early medieval period); and of course the opportunity was taken to add entries for a large number of new subjects. In its print version, the ODNB occupies sixty volumes, though it is unlikely to be found in that form outside reference libraries; most importantly, it is also available online, to subscribing institutions, with search facilities and other useful features. Like its most distinguished predecessor, the ODNB is already well established as an invaluable academic resource.