Stuart McWilliams 
Saints and Scholars 
New Perspectives on Anglo-Saxon Literature and Culture in Honour of Hugh Magennis

Wide-ranging survey of current research in Anglo-Saxon studies – from literature and material culture to religion and politics.


Anglo-Saxon literature and culture, and their subsequent appropriations, unite the essays collected here. They offer fresh and exciting perspectives on a variety of issues, from gender to religion and the afterlives of Old Englishtexts, from reconsiderations of neglected works to reflections on the place of Anglo-Saxon in the classroom. As is appropriate, they draw especially on Hugh Magennis’ own interests in hagiography and issues of community and reception. Taken together, they provide a ‘state of the discipline’ account of the present, and future, of Anglo-Saxon studies. The volume also includes contributions from the leading Irish poets Ciaran Carson and Medbh Mc Guckian.


Dr Stuart Mc Williams is a Newby Trust Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh.


Contributors: Ciaran Carson, Marilina Cesario, Mary Clayton, Ivan Herbison, Joyce Hill, Malcolm Godden, Chris Jones, Christina Lee, Medbh Mc Guckian, Stuart Mc Williams, Juliet Mullins, Elisabeth Okasha, Jane Roberts, Donald Scragg, Mary Swan, John Thompson, Elaine Treharne, Robert Upchurch, Gordon Whatley, Jonathan Wilcox

Tabela de Conteúdo

Introduction – Stuart Mc Williams

A Note on the Sensational Old English
Life of St Margaret – Elaine Treharne

A Place to Weep: Joseph in the Beer-Room and Anglo-Saxon Gestures of Emotion – Jonathan Wilcox

Aldhelm’s Choice of Saints for His Prose
De Virginitate – Juliet Mullins

Shepherding the Shepherds in the Ways of Pastoral Care: Ælfric and Cambridge University Library MS Gg.3.28 –

‘Consider Lazarus’: A Context for Vercelli Homily VII – Jane Roberts

More than a Female Joseph: The Sources of the Late 5th Century
Passio Sanctae Eugeniae – E. Gordon Whatley

Ælfric, Leofric and
In Natale Plurimorum Apostolorum – Joyce Hill

Stories from the Court of King Alfred – Malcolm Godden

De Duodecim Abusiuis, Lordship and Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England – Mary Clayton

Reluctant Appetites: Anglo-Saxon Attitudes towards Fasting – Christina Lee

A Note on the Function of the Inscribed Strip from the Staffordshire Hoard – Elisabeth Okasha

The Shining of the Sun in the Twelve Nights of Christmas – Marilina Cesario

Sin and Laughter in Late Anglo-Saxon England: The Case of OE (H)leahtor – Donald Scragg

Marginal Activity? Post-Conquest Old English Readers and Their Notes – Mary Swan

Old English for Non-Specialists in the Nineteenth Century: A Road Not Taken – Chris Jones

The Beginnings of English Poetry: Philological and Textual Challenges for the Creative Imagination – John J. Thompson

The Beginnings of English Poetry: Philological and Textual Challenges for the Creative Imagination – Ivan Herbison

The Honey Vision – Medbh Mc Guckian

The Scholar – Ciaran Carson

Hugh Magennis: A Bibliography, 1981-2011 – Ivan Herbison