Old English
This introductory course will provide a foundation in the grammar and vocabulary of Old English, as well as the culture and history of Anglo-Saxon England in its early medieval milieu. We will confront the challenges of a language that is both uncannily familiar and astonishingly foreign to modern English speakers, arming students for further study of medieval and more recent literature.
Website for our textbook, the third edition of Peter Baker's Introduction to OE.
Here's the Prezi containing all of our daily slides:
Scanned images of J. R. Clark Hall, A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary
Sadly, the 1916 edition is the most recent that is in the public domain....
Takes a bit of fiddling to master, but can be very useful. Here are units for learning Old English via the TOE.
Stunning maps of Anglo-Saxon England by the late Reginald Piggott
On this one, note the depiction of Alfred allowing the cakes to burn!
A word on the aftermath of strong verb preterites
Sutton Hoo
Sutton Hoo items at the British Museum
Recreation of Sutton Hoo king's burial chamber (BBC, 23 March 2011)
The Staffordshire Hoard
Website for the Staffordshire Hoard
Photos of the Staffordshire Hoard. You can now view photos of the entire hoard together, as well as reading about some new insights, here.
Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts
Damian Fleming's list of "Free, Fully Digitized Manuscripts Containing Old English"
British Library image of the opening of the Gospel of Luke in the Lindisfarne Gospels
(And a bit of insight into the Viking reaction to the manuscript.)
Some information on the Beowulf MS
BL Harley MS 3271 - contains, among other things, the Tribal Hidage and Ælfric's Grammar
The illustrated Life of St Cuthbert
What do we do with things written in the twelfth century, when English was still quite close to OE but also beginning to show changes? Here are the Wessex Gospels, one of eight surviving copies of the earliest known English vernacular translation of the Gospels, other than the interlinear gloss in the Lindisfarne Gospels.
The Exeter Book Riddles
The Riddle Ages, a blog on the riddles and their possible solutions
The Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture
Documenting English sculpture between the 7th and 11th centuries
Anglo-Saxon Fun
Is this what it sounded like around the hall during the Mercian Supremacy?
Hwæt ic do (brought to you by Made of Wynn)
Alfred the Great
Overview and images of the OE translation of Orosius's Historia contra paganos from the BL (Additional MS 47967)
Other News Items
Burial near the Ridgeway: probably Vikings, possibly killed during the infamous St. Brice's Day Massacre in 1002 (10 Jan. 2011)
The other thing to note here is that, as Jonathan Jarrett points out, in spite of their fearsome reputation, we have far more archaeological evidence for the killing of Scandinavians by Englishmen than we do for Englishmen being killed by Vikings, in battle or otherwise.
Could the Lewis Chessmen possibly be Icelandic? (16 Aug. 2011)
Cnut and footballers (26 May 2011)
Cnut's "hold back the waves" stunt as a way of demonstrating his piety, not a deluded belief in his own power
Skeletons may belong to victims of St. Brice's Day Massacre (12 Aug. 2011)
Intact Viking boat burial found in Scotland (19 Oct. 2011)
Viking silver found in Cumbria (28 Oct. 2011)
One of the only 7th-century buildings in the north of England found in Yorkshire Dales National Park (BBC, 3 Dec. 2011)
Two medieval brooches discovered near Selby (North Yorkshire) with the use of metal detectors, as with the Staffordshire Hoard (17 Dec. 2011)
Remains of seventh-century Anglo-Saxon 'princess' unearthed near Trumpington. See also the accompanying photo gallery. (16 March 2012)
Fifth-century Anglo-Saxon woman found, buried with cow. This is unique in Europe! (25 June 2012)
Anglo-Saxon and later medieval artefacts (some dating back to 700 AD) found in dig at Polesworth Abbey (31 Aug. 2012)
Making a state in tenth-century England
Anglo-Saxon grave may confirm site of St. Hilda's seventh-century monastery (16 April 2013)