"Books Most Needful to Know": Contexts for the Study of Anglo-Saxon England

162 Pages·2016·1.33 MB·English

by  Paul E Szarmach (ed.)

“Books Most Needful to Know”
OLD ENGLISH NEWSLETTER SUBSIDIA
Volume XXXVI
Medieval Institute Publications is a program of
The Medieval Institute, College of Arts and Sciences
“Books Most Needful to Know”
Contexts for the Study of Anglo-Saxon England
Edited by
Paul E. Szarmach
Old English Newsletter Subsidia
MEDIEVAL INSTITUTE PUBLICATIONS
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo
Copyright © 2016 by the Board of Trustees of Western Michigan University

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
are available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN: 9781580441827
eISBN: 9781580441834
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part
of this book may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or trans-
mitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of
the book.
Contents
Preface vii
Anglo-Latin Literature in the Foreground 1
Rosalind Love
North Sea Currents: Old English and Old Norse 61
in Comparison and in Contact
Richard Dance
Légend hÉrenn: “The Learning of Ireland” 85
in the Early Medi eval Period
Máire Ní Mhaonaigh

Preface
TO A 1978 LUNCHEON, Mr. John Pickles brought along a copy of
W. W. Skeat’s An English—Anglo-Saxon Vocabulary, which he sug-
gested might reappear as a pamphlet under the auspices of the Old English
Newsletter. The suggestion was friendly and the idea good. Despite some
mild caution by elements of the SUNY–Binghamton administration, the
Old English Newsletter Subsidia came forth, but more as a one-off than as
the beginning of some grand new enterprise. OEN Subsidia, volume 1, was
cast in the image and likeness of its older sibling: plain and unaffected—
and above all cheap. But the technical and intellectual success of this first
volume unearthed in the Anglo-Saxonist community a professional inter-
est in accessible ancillae for research or teaching that over its nearly three
decades in existence Subsidia has sought to serve the field by a variety gen-
res. In its pre–Western Michigan incarnation, Subsidia published several
special volumes. Perhaps the volume that best exhibited the potential of
the Subsidia series was William Schipper’s brilliant navigation of various
bureaucracies and cultural expectations to produce Old English Studies
from Japan 1941–81 (vol. 14 [1988]). Schipper arranged for funding in
Japan, collected representative essays, supervised the translation process,
and edited the volume, which went out to some 1,100 plus individual and
institutional subscribers as a free good in the interests of international
scholarship. Others who consult the Subsidia series may have their own
favorites. These might include Simon Keynes’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts
in Trinity College (vol. 18 [1992]) with its forty illustrations or the first
printed version of his Anglo-Saxon History: A Select Bibliography (vol.
13 [1987]). The discerning Anglo-Saxonist will see from the appendix
that the publishing history of Subsidia includes the support of Sources
of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture, various studies in meter, the programs
of the Old English Division of the Modern Language Association, and of
course the International Congress at Western Michigan Uni ver sity.
viii PREFACE
When Subsidia joined the OEN in its move to Western Michigan
Uni ver sity in 1994, it became a sponsored program of the Richard
Rawlinson Center and eventually a publication of Medi eval Institute
Publications. Subsidia took on a new life when Patricia Hollahan assumed
the position of managing editor of Medi eval Institute Publications in
2002. The volumes published under her general editorship showed new
production values and a new professionalism, while developing the core
missions of the series. Thus, Donald Scragg on canonized popes, Helmut
Gneuss on Ælfric, and Robin Norris on interpolations in Ælfric’s Lives of
Saints represent current high points for the series, as does this special vol-
ume, “Books Most Needful to Know”: Contexts for the Study of Anglo-Saxon
England. Volume 36 derives from the 2006 Summer Seminar, “Holy
Men and Holy Women,” supported by the National Endowment for the
Humanities. Rosalind Love and Máire Ní Mhaonaigh were faculty mem-
bers in the seminar. Richard Dance generously stepped in to offer “North
Sea Currents.” And I should like to thank King Alfred for supplying the
title of this volume from his Preface to the Pastoral Care.
While OEN Subsidia leaves its home at The Medi eval Institute and
Medi eval Institute Publications at Western Michigan Uni ver sity, it will
continue under a new editorial board directed by Prof. Stephen Harris
(Uni ver sity of Massachusetts at Amherst). Send orders, inquiries, and
submissions to Prof. Harris at [email protected]. The Western
Michigan staff wishes its successors a successful future.
I should like to acknowledge the kind permission of the Master
and Fellows of Corpus Christi College for the use of an image from
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 183, fol. 1v.