E-Book Overview
A new, distinct script, English Vernacular minuscule, emerged in the 990s, used for writing in Old English. It appeared at a time of great political and social upheaval, with Danish incursions and conquest, continuing monastic reform, and an explosion of writing and copying in the vernacular, including the homilies of Ælfric and Wulfstan, two different recensions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, two of the four major surviving manuscripts of Old English poetry (the "Beowulf" and "Junius" books), and many original royal and ecclesiastical diplomas, writs and wills. However, although these important manuscripts and documents have been studied extensively, this has tended to be in isolation or small groups, never before as a complete corpus, a gap which this volume aims to rectify. It opens with the historical context, followed by a thorough reexamination of the evidence for dating and localising examples of the script. It then offers a full analysis of the complete corpus of surviving writing in English Vernacular minuscule, datable approximately from its inception in the 990s to the death of Cnut in 1035. While solidly grounded in palaeographical methodology, the book introduces more innovative approaches: by examining all of the approximately 500 surviving examples of the script as a whole rather than focussing on selected highlights, it presents a synthesis of the handwriting in order to identify local practices, new scribal connections, and chronological and stylistic developments in this important but surprisingly little-studied script.
E-Book Content
PUBLICATIONS OF THE MANCHESTER CENTRE FOR ANGLO-SAXON STUDIES Volume 14 English Vernacular Minuscule from Æthelred to Cnut c. 990 – c. 1035 PUBLICATIONS OF THE MANCHESTER CENTRE FOR ANGLO-SAXON STUDIES ISSN 1478-6710 Editorial Board Donald Scragg Richard Bailey Timothy Graham Nicholas J. Higham Gale R. Owen-Crocker Alexander R. Rumble Leslie Webster Published Titles 1. Textual and Material Culture in Anglo-Saxon England: Thomas Northcote Toller and the Toller Memorial Lectures, ed. Donald Scragg 2. Apocryphal Texts and Traditions in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Kathryn Powell and Donald Scragg 3. King Harold II and the Bayeux Tapestry, ed. Gale R. Owen-Crocker 4. The Place of the Cross in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Catherine E. Karkov, Sarah Larratt Keefer and Karen Louise Jolly 5. Writing and Texts in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Alexander R. Rumble 6. Anglo-Saxon Royal Diplomas: A Palaeography, Susan D. Thompson 7. Britons in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Nicholas J. Higham 8. Edgar, King of the English 959–975: New Interpretations, ed. Donald Scragg 9. The Landscape Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Nicholas J. Higham and Martin J. Ryan 10. Place-names, Language and the Anglo-Saxon Landscape, ed. Nicholas J. Higham and Martin J. Ryan 11. A Conspectus of Scribal Hands Writing English, 960–1100, Donald Scragg 12. Leaders of the Anglo-Saxon Church: From Bede to Stigand, ed. Alexander R. Rumble 13. Kingship, Legislation and Power in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Gale R. OwenCrocker and Brian W. Schneider English Vernacular Minuscule from Æthelred to Cnut c. 990 – c. 1035 PETER A. STOKES D. S. BREWER © Peter A. Stokes 2014 All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner The right of Peter A. Stokes to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 First published 2014 D. S. Brewer, Cambridge ISBN 978-1-84384-369-6 D. S. Brewer is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box