Publications of the Richard Rawlinson Center

• Lindy Brady, Edge Hill University, UK, Series Editor
• Thomas A. Bredehoft, Chancery Hill Books and Antiques, USA
• Kees Dekker, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, the Netherlands
• Nicole Guenther Discenza, University of South Florida, USA
• Helen Foxhall Forbes, Ca’ Foscari, University of Venice, Italy
• Susan Kim, Illinois State University, USA
• Rosalind Love, Robinson College, Cambridge University, England

Proposals or completed manuscripts to be considered for publication by Medieval Institute Publications should be sent to Erin Sweany (for literary studies) or Emily Winkler (for historical studies), acquisitions editors for the series, or the series editor, Lindy Brady, Edge Hill University. All proposals and submissions are evaluated by members of the International Advisory Board of the Center and undergo independent peer review.

Thought and Action in Old English Poetry and Prose

By Eleni Ponirakis

Cognitive approaches to early medieval texts have tended to focus on the mind in isolation. By examining the interplay between mental and physical acts deployed in Old English poetry and prose, this study identifies new patterns and offers new perspectives. In these texts, the performance of right or wrong action is not linked to natural inclination dictated by birth; it is the fruit of right or wrong thinking. The mind consciously directed and controlled is open to external influences, both human and diabolical. This struggle to produce right thought and action reflects an emerging democratization of heroism that crosses societal and gender boundaries, becoming intertwined with socio-political, soteriological, and cultural meaning. In a study of influential prose texts, including the Alfredian translations and the sermons of Ælfric, alongside close readings of three poems from different genres –'The Seafarer,' 'The Battle of Maldon,' and 'Juliana'–, Ponirakis demonstrates how early medieval authors create patterns of interaction between the mental and the physical. These provide hidden keys to meaning which, once found, unlock new readings of much studied texts. In addition, these patterns of balance, distribution, and opposition, reveal a startling similarity of approach across genre and form, taking the discussion of the early medieval conception of the mind, soul, and emotion, not to mention conventional generic divisions, onto new ground. 

ISBN: 978-1-50151-852-2 (clothbound), 978-1-50151-441-8 (PDF), 978-1-50151-445-6 (EPUB), © 2023

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Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, and Women in Tenth-Century England

Edited by Rebecca Hardie

Æthelflæd (ca. 870–918), political leader, military strategist and administrator of law, is one of the most important ruling women in English history. Despite her multifaceted roles and family legacy, however, her reign and relationship with other women in tenth-century England have never been the subject of a book-length study. This interdisciplinary collection of essays redresses a notable hiatus in scholarship of early medieval England. Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, and Women in Tenth-Century England argues for a reassessment of women’s political, military, literary and domestic agency. It invites deeper reflection on the female kinships, networks and communities that give meaning to Æthelflæd’s life, and through this shows how medieval history can invite new engagements with the past.

ISBN: 978-1-50151-761-7 (clothbound), 978-1-50151-242-1 (PDF), 978-1-50151-225-4 (EPUB), © 2023

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The Gaelic Background of Old English Poetry Before Bede

By Colin A. Ireland

This ground-breaking study displays the transformations created by the growth of vernacular literatures and bilingual intellectual cultures. Gaelic missionaries and educational opportunities helped shape the Northumbrian “Golden Age,” its manuscripts, and hagiography and the writings of Aldhelm and Bede.

ISBN: 978-1-50152-028-0 (clothbound), 978-1-50151-387-9 (PDF), 978-1-50151-393-0 (EPUB), © 2022

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Poetic Style and Innovation in Old English, Old Norse, and Old Saxon

By Megan Elizabeth Hartman

This book traces the development of hypermetric verse in Old English and compares it to the cognate traditions of Old Norse and Old Saxon. The study illustrates the inherent flexibility of the hypermetric line and shows how poets were able to manipulate this flexibility in different contexts for different practical and rhetorical purposes. This analysis shows what degree of control the poets had over the traditional alliterative line, what effects they were able to produce with various stylistic choices, and how attention to poetic style aids literary analysis.

ISBN: 978-1-50151-832-4 (clothbound), 978-1-50151-368-8 (PDF), 978-1-50151-355-8 (EPUB) © 2020

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The Wisdom of Exeter: Anglo-Saxon Studies in Honor of Patrick W. Conner

Edited E. J. Christie

This interdisciplinary volume collects original essays in literary criticism and literary theory, philology, codicology, metrics, and art history. Composed by prominent scholars in Anglo-Saxon studies, these essays honor the depth and breadth of Patrick W. Conner’s influence in our discipline. As a scholar, teacher, editor, administrator and innovator, Pat has contributed to Anglo-Saxon studies for four decades. It is hard to say which of his legacies is most profound.

ISBN: 978-1-58044-782-2 (clothbound), 978-3-11066-306-0 (PDF), 978-3-11066-290-2 (EPUB) © 2020

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Late Anglo-Saxon Prayer in Practice: Before the Books of Hours

By Kate Thomas

An examination of the creation of complex devotional programs in late Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, which were the forerunners of the Special Offices. This is demonstrated through close readings of prayer collections for liturgical feasts, the canonical Hours, prayer before the Cross, private confession, and prayers for protection and healing.

ISBN: 978-1-58044-361-6 (clothbound), 978-3-11066-195-8 (PDF), 978-3-11066-049-4 (EPUB) © 2020

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Darkness, Depression, and Descent in Anglo-Saxon England

By Ruth Wehlau

This collection of essays examines the motifs of darkness, depression, and descent in both literal and figurative manifestations within a variety of Anglo-Saxon texts, including the Old English Consolation of Philosophy, Beowulf, Guthlac, The Junius Manuscript, The Wonders of the East, and The Battle of Maldon. It investigates the connection between the burgeoning interest in trauma studies and darkness and the representation of the mind or of emotional experience in Anglo-Saxon literature.

ISBN 978-1-58044-367-8 (clothbound), 978-3-11-066197-2 (PDF) © 2019

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The Third Gender and Ælfric's Lives of Saints

By Rhonda L. McDaniel

"The Third Gender" considers Ælfric of Eynsham's treatment of gender as he translates Latin monastic saints' Lives for his Anglo-Saxon lay audience.

ISBN 978-1-58044-309-8 (clothbound), 978-1-58044-310-4 (PDF) © 2018

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Eye and Mind: Collected Essays in Anglo-Saxon and Early Medieval Art by Robert Deshman

Edited by Adam Cohen

Deshman wove together a dense and tightly structured nexus of Early Christian, Carolingian, Anglo-Saxon and Ottonian manuscript illuminations, ivories, textiles, mosaics and wall paintings on the one hand, and contemporary exegetical, liturgical and political writings on the other.

ISBN 978-1-58044-121-6 (clothbound), 978-1-58044-122-3 (paperback) © 2010

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Anglo-Saxon Books and Their Readers: Essays in Celebration of Helmut Gneuss's "Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts"

Edited by Thomas N. Hall and Donald Scragg

The collection opens with Gneuss's Rawlinson Center lecture, delivered just a few months prior to the publication of the "Handlist." The lecture is followed by six essays that examine the scribes, contents, circumstances of production and intended uses of selected manuscripts from the late Anglo-Saxon period and investigate the fates of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts at the hands of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century antiquaries.

ISBN 978-1-58044-137-7 (clothbound), 978-1-58044-138-4 (paperback–out of print) © 2008

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Aedificia Nova: Studies in Honor of Rosemary Cramp

Edited by Catherine E. Karkov and Helen Damico

The essays offered to Professor Cramp in this volume, while varied in subject, discipline and methodological approach, center on interpretations of the material world, whether that materiality appears in literature, in stone or in the artifacts removed from an archaeological dig.

ISBN 978-1-58044-110-0 (clothbound) © 2008

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The Old English Hexateuch: Aspects and Approaches

Edited by Rebecca Barnhouse and Benjamin C. Withers

Its over four hundred images make this manuscript (Cotton Claudius B. iv) one of the most extensively illustrated books to survive from the early Middle Ages and preserve evidence of the creativity of the Anglo-Saxon artist and his knowledge of other important early medieval picture cycles.

ISBN 1-58044-024-X (clothbound), 1-58044-050-9 (paperback) © 2000

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The Recovery of Old English: Anglo-Saxon Studies in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

Edited by Timothy Graham

The eight essays in this collection consider major aspects of the progress of Anglo-Saxon studies from their Tudor beginnings until their coming of age in the second half of the seventeenth century.

ISBN 1-58044-013-4 (clothbound) © 2000, 1-58044-014-2 (paperback)© 2000

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