This article discusses the development of the spelling for the name of Cnut the Great, Viking king of England from 1016 to 1035, from to . The origin of this disyllabic spelling is uncertain and has been attributed to taboo deflection, the simplification of the consonant cluster /kn/ in English and even a pope’s inability to pronounce the name C…[Read more]

This note calls attention to a precursor of the Latin text of Durham Proverb 7 in the ninth-century Collectanea Pseudo-Bedae and, in doing so, sheds some light on the unresolved relationship between the Old English and Latin versions of the Durham Proverbs in general and Durham Proverb 7 in particular.

This note established that an Old English confessional prayer in BL Vespasian D.xx is a close analogue to the Latin text in the Book of Cerne (Cambridge University Library MS L1.1.10). These two text and two other Old English prayers in BL MS Tiberius C.i and the Old English Handbook for the Use of a Confessor may have sprung from a common, Latin…[Read more]

The present article analyses and makes available one of the earliest known texts on book preservation. The text in manuscript The Hague, KB 133 F 2 dates back to 1527 and contains eight guidelines on how to preserve books. These guidelines give us a unique insight into the way people in the later Middle Ages thought about handling books and the…[Read more]

In this chapter, I discuss the use of Anglo-Saxon literature and culture in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

A book review of R.D. Fulk, An Introductory Grammar of Old English with an Anthology of Readings

Ongoing digitization provides new opportunities for teaching and engaging students both inside and outside the class room. This article reports on three approaches to using new media to facilitate undergraduate teaching of Old English at Leiden University, the Netherlands. First, the use of video clips to explain basic features of Old English…[Read more]

An interview with Rolf H. Bremmer Jr about Frisians in the Middle Ages on the occasion of his retirement.

This article outlines briefly the methodology of studying Tolkien’s sources and then attempts to move beyond the early medieval English sources that have so often been the topic of research, such as Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon. The paper proposes hitherto unnoticed links between Tolkien’s fiction and Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, Old English law…[Read more]

An introduction to the volume of conference proceedings of the international Tolkien conference ‘Tolkien Among Scholars’, as well as a brief introduction to Tolkien Studies.