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

The collection opens with Gneuss’ Rawlinson Center lecture, delivered just a few months prior to the Handlist’s publication. The lecture is followed by essays by Donald Scragg and Thomas N. Hall that examine the scribes, contents, circumstances of production, and intended uses of selected manuscripts from the late Anglo-Saxon period. Four essays follow, by Kees Dekker, Rebecca Brackmann, Aaron J Kleist, and Rolf H. Bremmer Jr., investigating the fates of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts at the hands of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century antiquaries. The resulting collection addresses the concerns of Anglo-Saxon manuscript studies today, which have been given new energy by the publication of the Handlist.