Old english manuscripts Flashcards
What does the book-moth riddle refer to? Where does the text come from?
It comes from the Exceter book, one of the four major extant old english manuscripts containing poetry. It explores the transcience of languge, both spoken and written.
What does the ecclesiastical history of the english people refer to? where does the text come from? Who wrote it?
written by anglo-saxon monk Bede in the 8th century describes the arrival in Britain in 449 the arrival of germanic tribes invited by the celts to settle. ,
What are the main dialects of old english?
Kentish, west saxon, anglian (divided into northumbrian and mercian)
What is cædmons hymn?
Earliest documented oral poem in OE. A poem in which a cow-herd miraculously recives the gift of poetry is written down by Bede who quoted a latin version of the poem. It is written in a norhhumrian dialect on the last page of the earlist latin manuscript of Bedes Ecclasiastical history.
what is breaking?
a front vowel followed by a back consonant or group of consonants is diphtongized: In the word Ealdseaxum the æ has broken to ea before ld.
How can we see identify cædmons hymn as a norhhumbrian txt?
In the word uard and barnum, we can see that front vowel æ becomes a with back articulation before r when followed by a consonant. In west saxon it would have ea.
What is anglian smoothing?
diphthongs ea and eo before certain back consonants or consonant groups (in cædmons hymn c and rc) became respecitvely the monophtongs æ and e. in word such as mæcti and uerc.
How and when does Bede explain how the missionarys started the conversion of the heatens to christianity
in 597 augustine and his fellows decided started the process of converting after seeing an encounter at a roman market place with a couple of heathen slave -boys from Britain inspired pope Gregory to send missionaries to convert the country
What was the most profound effect of the arrival of christianity in Britain?
The development of an OE script based on the Roman alphabet.
The roman alphabet used letters to represent sounds in OE that they did not have, what were these letters?
The thorn = dental fricative /θ/
The eth = dental fricative /θ/
The ash= æ
The wynn=w
The yogh=g (but the 12th century the diffrents sounds represented by this letter came to be distinguished through the introduction fo the continental caroline form g for /g/ and /dʒ/ as in god (good/ and secgan (say) and the retention of ʒ for the other sounds including /j/ as in ʒear (year) and dæʒ (day)
other features of OE alphabet was the abscence of j and v and the rarity with which q,x and z were used.
What does king alfred write in his preface to hist translation of late sixth century work by pope gregory known as the pastoral care?
King Alfred outlines his intentions regarding his work to educate as many of his subjects as possible.
what spelling would early saxon use ? And what spelling would late saxon use?
early saxon: io
late saxon: eo
Who was Ælfric
a monk and later an abbot who tried to standardize english. He understood the importance of grammar. k
What is the language in the exceter book, the vercelli book, the cædmon manuscript and the beowulf manuscript?
Largely west-Saxon albeit which some non-west saxon elements. The non-west saxon elements are both grammatical and lexical considered appropriate for poetry.
What is recorded in the peterbourogh chronicle?
The norman conquest of 1066. How willhelm the conqurer conquerd king Harold. The language is west-saxon.
