This is the first paper from the Haskins Conference at Boston College – it focused on Bede’s narratives of Royal conversion.
“Kings as Catechumens: Royal Conversion Narratives and Easter in the Historia Ecclesiastica” by Carolyn Twomey (Boston College)
November 3, 2012 By
The Stamford and Peterborough mints
October 7, 2012 By
The Stamford mint has received considerable attention from several numismatists and historians, some of whom, including the Rev. Rogers Ruding, Francis Peck, the Stamford annalist, and Samuel Sharp, a Northamptonshire numismatist and antiquary, located the mint at Stamford Baron, Northamptonshire.
“A Swarm in July”: Beekeeping Perspectives on the Old English Wið Ymbe Charm
September 14, 2012 By
At the same time, however, their differing responses to the remedy attest both to the variation of beekeeping practices and the multivalence of Wið Ymbe itself. The fact that two beekeepers interviewed within two days and two hundred miles of each other can respond differently to the charm’s advice on swarms suggests that we reevaluate unilateral assertions regarding what the text might have meant across the hundreds of years that we now know as the Anglo-Saxon period.
Kings, Peasants, and the Restless Dead: Decapitation in Anglo-Saxon Saints’ Lives
August 5, 2012 By
Decapitation is not a particularly common event, however notable, in the records of Anglo-Saxon history.
Reading Bede as Bede would read
August 2, 2012 By
Early medieval readers read texts differently than their modern scholarly counterparts.
Paganism in Conversion-Age Anglo-Saxon England: The Evidence of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History Reconsidered
July 22, 2012 By
With the notable exception of R. I. Page, the attitude that historians and archaeologists alike have taken to Bede’s words about the religion(s) of the pre-Christian occupants of conversion-age Anglo-Saxon England has overwhelmingly been to accept what this eighth-century commentator has to tell us.
Classical and Secular Learning among the Irish before the Carolingian Renaissance
July 17, 2012 By
Classical and secular learn ing maintained their close association with each other until the end of antiquity, when they gradually became divorced.
The Myth of the Anglo-Saxon Oral Poet
July 15, 2012 By
There are at least two reasons why the search for the Anglo-Saxon oral poet is worth reopening. To begin with, current thinking about oral poetry and poetics in the Anglo-Saxon period has been indelibly stamped by the classic Parry/Lord thesis, well known in its evolution from the 1950s to more recent years,
Consorting with the other: Re-constructing scholastic, rhetorical and literary attitudes to pagans and paganism in the Middle Ages
April 11, 2012 By
My thesis suggests that Christian culture in the late antique to medieval period consciously adapted pagan cultures for its own ends, with a particular view to the usefulness of pagan cultures.
Early medieval science: the evidence of Bede
March 10, 2012 By
The Venerable Bede used observable proofs and mathematical calculations in his early 8th-century treatise De temporum ratione to teach the astronomical principles that inform the calculation of the date of Easter. This suggests that the seeds of the modern scientific method might be found before the 12th century in the educational practices of the early medieval monasteries.
Penda the Pagan: Royal sacrifice and a Mercian king
February 20, 2012 By
Regicide was a common occurrence in the early Middle Ages. It was a fairly routine way for a victorious usurper or conqueror to rid himself of a potential source of trouble. Penda’s reputation in this field would almost certainly have been viewed with some approval had he been a Christian, and his foes pagan…
Theological Works of the Venerable Bede and their Literary and Manuscript Presentation, with Special Reference to the Gospel Homilies
February 19, 2012 By
Bede’s theology is complex and closely interwoven; as we can observe, the different themes are interleaved within the homilies. Though Bede was profoundly influenced by Gregory, Augustine and the other Church Fathers, he combined their theologies in a new way that has had a lasting influence.
That country beyond the Humber”: the English North, regionalism, and the negotiation of nation in medieval English literature
December 28, 2011 By
The English North is “Not London” but is “before Scotland,” a strangely liminal space between the familiar
South and those undesirables north of the River Tweed.
Anglo-Saxon Double Monasteries
November 22, 2011 By
Monks and nuns living together: not a cause for scandal but, as Barbara Mitchell explains, an intriguing window onto the variety of monastic life – under the aegis of remarkable abbesses – before the Conquest.
Miracles of healing in Anglo-Celtic Northumbria as recorded by the venerable Bede and his contemporaries: a reappraisal in the light of twentieth century experience
September 15, 2011 By
Miracles of healing in Anglo-Celtic Northumbria as recorded by the venerable Bede and his contemporaries: a reappraisal in the light of twentieth century experience By Rex Gardner British Medical Journal, Vol.283 (1983) Introduction: The vigorous hybrid culture of Briton and Angle’ blossomed in the seventh century into the amazing Northumbrian golden age whose artefacts still […]
Alfred’s Historia Ecclesiastica
September 5, 2011 By
Alfred’s Historia Ecclesiastica Uijttewaal, B.T. B.A. Thesis, Universiteit Utrecht (2011) Abstract The “English” had been punished by God through the arrival of the Vikings. The British before them, had lapsed in their faith and been sent the scourge of the Anglo-Saxons. This was the message of king Alfred at the end of the 9th century […]
The Place of Metrics in Anglo-Saxon Latin Education: Aldhelm and Bede
August 17, 2011 By
The Place of Metrics in Anglo-Saxon Latin Education: Aldhelm and Bede Ruff, Carin (John Carroll University) Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 104:2 (2005) Abstract The Anglo-Saxons are well known for having been pioneers in teaching Latin as a foreign language and in developing materials for elementary Latin instruction to supplement the grammars they […]
Pagans by Comparisons: Medieval Christian and Muslim Constructions of the Pagan “Other”
July 23, 2011 By
Pagans by Comparisons: Medieval Christian and Muslim Constructions of the Pagan “Other” Busalacchi, Philip Perspectives: A Journal of Historical Inquiry, Vol.37 (2010) Introduction: During the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries German and Danish clergymen and knights set off on a crusade to the lands of the eastern Baltic Sea into the modern day Latvia. Henricus […]
A study of Bede’s Historiae
June 15, 2011 By
Household Men, Mercenaries and Vikings in Anglo-Saxon England
May 29, 2011 By
Mercenary soldiers played a crucial role in both the birth and death of Anglo-Saxon England.
‘In the beginning was the Word’: books and faith in the age of Bede
May 29, 2011 By
‘In the beginning was the Word’: books and faith in the age of Bede Brown, Michelle P. The Heroic Age, Issue 4, Winter (2001) Abstract In this paper I discuss the role of the book in a nascent Christian culture and focus in upon its value as a cult object, with particular reference to the […]
Anglo Saxon Music: 500-1066
May 23, 2011 By
Anglo Saxon Music: 500-1066 By Jessica Lovett Published Online (2000) Introduction: Unlike its current trivial place in today’s society, in the early middle ages music was a valued part of the four sciences, or quadrivium. The potential effects of this science were both useful and dangerous. While no anglo-saxon treatise surv ives pertaining to music, […]
Contextualizing Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People with Bioarchaeological Data – Reassessing Anglo-Saxon Culture, Health, and Disease
April 17, 2011 By
Contextualizing Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People with Bioarchaeological Data – Reassessing Anglo-Saxon Culture, Health, and Disease By Joseph Z. Boyer The School of Historical Studies Postgraduate Forum E-Journal Edition, Vol. 7 (2009) Abstract: Both the limitations of paleopathological data and the lack of textual remains from early Anglo-Saxon Britain create difficulties when trying to interpret culture, […]
Monasticism in Anglo-Saxon England: An Analysis of Selected Hagiography from Northumbria Written in the Years after the Council of Whitby
March 24, 2011 By
Monasticism in Anglo-Saxon England: An Analysis of Selected Hagiography from Northumbria Written in the Years after the Council of Whitby By Carrie Couvillon Master’s Thesis, Louisiana State University, 2005 Abstract: Hagiography, writings about saints, was generally a means of venerating a saint’s life. An author of hagiography wrote to advance his own salvation as well […]
The Anglo-Saxon Cross at St. Andrew, Auckland: ‘Living Stones’
January 25, 2011 By
The Anglo-Saxon Cross at St. Andrew, Auckland: ‘Living Stones’ Maleczek, Nina York Medieval Yearbook, ISSUE No. 2, (2003) Abstract The remains of the High Cross at Auckland St. Andrews are well-known, but little documented. Rosemary Cramp describes and dates the cross (to between the end of the eighth-century and the beginning of the ninth), and […]
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