Translation (and text) of colloquies gives vivid picture of Anglo-Saxon monastic education. The monk Aelfric Bata is the only identifiable graduate of the school of Aelfric `Grammaticus', the tenth-century Anglo-Saxon homilist whose Grammar, Glossary and Colloquyformed part of an educational plan for English boys. Bata's Colloquies, Latin conversations set in a monastic school, open a door into the world of Anglo-Saxon monasticism, revealing the details of daily activities: rising and dressing, studying the day's lesson, eating, bathing and tonsuring. Oblates ask a master's help in reading, bargain for a manuscript-copying job, obtain help in sharpening a pen. One colloquy depicts a flyting between master and student, who exchange graphic scatologicalinsults. Combining the spare diction of his teacher Aelfric with the ornate glossematic vocabulary of Aldhelm, Aelfric Bata creates a cloistered world where comedy, invective, sermon and poetic recitation mix. The Colloquiesare presented with an English translation, glosses and full notes. Dr SCOTT GWARA teaches in the Department of English at the University of South Carolina: Professor DAVID PORTER teaches in the Department of English at SouthernUniversity, Baton Rouge.

'Angus Wilson is one of the most enjoyable novelists of the 20th century... Anglo-Saxon Attitudes (1956) analyses a wide range of British society in a complicated plot that offers all the pleasures of detective fiction combined with a steady and humane insight.' Margaret Drabble First published in 1956, Anglo-Saxon Attitudes draws upon perhaps the most famous archaeological hoax in history: the 'Piltdown Man', finally exposed in 1953. The novel's protagonist is Gerald Middleton, professor of early medieval history and taciturn creature of habit. Separated from his Swedish wife, Gerald is increasingly conscious of his failings. Moreover, some years ago he was involved in an excavation that led to the discovery of a grotesque idol in the tomb of Bishop Eorpwald. The sole survivor of the original excavation party, Gerald harbours a potentially ruinous secret...

Land and Book places a variety of texts in a dynamic conversation with the procedures and documents of land tenure, showing how its social practice led to innovation across written genres in both Latin and Old English.

An inside look at one revealing battle over multicultural education.

The seven centuries of the Anglo-Saxon period in England, roughly AD 400-1100, were a time of extraordinary and profound transformation in almost every aspect of its culture, culminating in a dramatic shift from a barbarian society to a recognizably medieval civilization. This book traces the changing nature of that art, the different roles it played in Anglo-Saxon culture, and the various ways it both reflected and influenced the changing context in which it was created.