From Caedmon to Chaucer @caedmontochaucer - Tumblr Blog

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LIST OF RESOURCES I use

www.bosworthtoller.com (use the ADVANCED search feature, the regular search feature sucks)

http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/resources/IOE/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_phonology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English#Orthography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_grammar

www.etymonline.com

www.wiktionary.com

#old english #anglo saxon #middle english #english #medieval #language

forgottenancients-blog

From the Anglo Saxon Vespasian Psalter, 8th century

#anglo saxon #anglo saxons #medieval #art #religion

Anyone who sets out to discuss Beowulf as an oral poem immediately places him- or herself on some rather shaky ground; for this is a hotly contested area where opinions are very defi nitely, even emotionally stated. I remember as a graduate student in the mid-1970s being told by a very distinguished scholar that Beowulf could not be an oral poem, since it was simply too good. But since that time oral studies have burgeoned in all directions, and those of us who try to keep up with the field are gaining an increasing admiration for the sophistication and complexity achieved by poets working in preliterate cultures, or societies where the impact of literacy is marginal or restricted. Indeed, the appearance in recent years of two major books that give full weight to the oral affiliations of Beowulf, not to mention a host of lesser productions, signals the emergence of a new consensus in Old English studies.

Paul Sorrell - Oral Poetry and the World of Beowulf

#old english #anglo saxon #literature #oral poetry #beowulf

medievalistsnet

From Anglorum basileus to Norman Saint: The Transformation of Edward the Confessor

#normans #edward the confessor #bayeux tapestry #medieval #anglo saxon

medievalistsnet

Did people in the Middle Ages take baths?

#middle ages #medieval #anglo saxon #history #baths

wjhghf

For it is not possible to translate verse, however well composed, literally from one language to another without some loss of beauty and dignity.

Bede, Caedmon’s Hymn

#bede #caedmon #translation #old english #anglo saxon #language

pandolfo-malatesta

Northumbrian dialect version of Cædmon’s Hymn, the first recorded piece of poetry in any form of the English language.

#dialect #caedmon #old english #anglo saxon #poetry #literature #english language

fuckyeahnorsemen

caedmontochaucer

Here is a specimen of common words in English that owe their origin to the language of the Scandinavians: bank, birth, bull, dirt, egg, gap, kid, link, race, skirt, sister, window, low, meek, rotten, shy, tight, weak, bait, crawl, dig, gape, kindle, lift, screech, thrust, they, their, then, aloft, athwart and many more.

#scandinavia #language #history of language #english #english language #old english

sighildr

Anglo Saxon Runes

#runes #anglo saxon #old english #language

hollobone-blog

The likely derivation of the word “giddy” meaning “dizzy, vertiginous, swooning” is from Old English gidig (for gydig) from a Germanic form gudigaz “possessed by a god”. If being possessed by a god meant dizziness, a swimming in the head, feinting, vertigo, loss of balance, this sensation might well have been induced by inhaling the smoke of burning plant material, or drinking a strong alchoholic brew spiked with some narcotic substance.

from the section Healing Drugs (Lybb) in the book Leechcraft, Early English Charms, Plantlore and Healing by Stephen Pollinton published by Anglo Saxon Books. (via hollobone)

#etymology #history of language #language #words #anglo saxon #old english #giddy

lexilatry-blog-blog

#old english #anglo saxon #stars #lexicography #interesting words

mirousworlds

“In an Anglo-Saxon manuscript (early 11th century) illustrating an apocryphal Biblical story, a magician is threatened by the monsters he has called up.”

From Medieval Panorama, page 203.

#anglo saxon #old english #11th century #monsters #magician #illustration

ushishir

Leechdoms, wortcunning, and starcraft of early England - being a collection of documents, for the most part never before printed, illustrating the history of science in this country before the Norman conquest collected and edited by Oswald Cockayne

Scanned versions are available at archive.org:

Vol 1

Vol 2

Vol3

#anglo saxon #medieval #science #history of science #normal conquest

thebadluckbird-deactivated20200

A comparison between ourselves and our ancestors in the light of their calender will illuminate some of the dark corners (as we may think of it) of their heathenism. Their roof was the sky with the sun by day and the moon by night: as for us, most of our heads are covered day and night by a home or office ceiling or a factory shed; their walls were the winds, ours are bricks and mortar; their floor was the earth carpeted with grass and crops, weeds and wild flowers, ours is concrete and tarmacadam; their measure of time was the seasons and the heavenly lights, ours is the alarm clock or the wireless ‘pips’. Their food came not from processing plants, cans and deep-freeze cabinets but from their own fields and stock. Their clothes were not reach-me-downs at the end of a production line but rough homespun garments made by their own hands. And their success or failure in life depended not on the scientific application of knowledge, but on the gods and goddesses of the sky, earth and weather in combat with the demon giants of flood, fire, drought and pestilence. In other words, our forefathers of fifteen hundred years ago lived not what we call ‘close to nature’ but actually involved with nature; they were not creatures apart, different from the birds, plants or animals, but fitted into the natural cycle of synthesis and disintegration which any kind of civilization always modifies. Because they were involved with nature, with whom they had intimately to come to terms if they wanted to go on living, the Old English looked with awe on the life-giving sky and earth, on the death-dealing thunderstorm and winter. It is from the constant awareness of the living connection between man and the phenomenal world that the myths of our ancestors arise, that their gods are born.

Brian Branston, The Lost Gods of England (via icebelow)

#anglo saxon #medieval #heathenism #paganism #nature

eadfrith

The Bewcastle Cross

The Bewcastle Cross is an Anglo Saxon cross which still stands in its original place in the church yard of St Cuthbert’s Church, Bewcastle, Cumbria, England. While the very top of the cross is missing it remains an impressive 14.5 feet high (4.5m). Precise dating is difficult with some scholars suggesting the late 600s and others the early 700s.

Each side of the cross is beautifully decorated. The West side depicts various figures, including Christ with halo, holding a scroll and standing on two beasts, St John the Baptist - with the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) and possibly St John the Evangelist. Animals, knots, complex interlaced vine scrolls and even a sundial feature on the other faces.

Another prominent feature of the cross are the Anglo Saxon Runic inscriptions. Many are heavily worn and difficult to read. Above the figure of Christ is the runic inscription “Jesus Christ“ Another longer runic inscription has this tentative translation: ‘This Cross set up Hwætred, Wothgær, Olwfwolthu in the memory of Alcfrith a king and son of Oswiu; Pray for his soul’.