The new series, `Anglo-Saxon Texts', offers scholarly editions of important texts from Anglo-Saxon England, with suitable apparatus and accurate modern English translations, informative general introductions and full historical and literary commentaries.
This first volume in the series presents the first edited version of the canon collection associated with two of the key literary figures of the late Anglo-Saxon period: Ælfric, abbot of Eynsham (d. after 1006), and Wulfstan, bishop ofWorcester and archbishop of York (d. 1023). Although of considerable importance, its textual problems (how many items comprise the collection? When, and by whom, was it composed?) have made proper critical study difficult. This edition aims to answer the need; the texts of the two recensions are edited with full critical apparatus of the five known manuscripts, a detailed study of sources, an English translation, and an introductory essay on the text and its background.
Dr ANDREW HAMERteaches at the University of Liverpool.