Caedmon’s Hymn and Material Culture in the World of Bede

This title is printed to order. This book may have been self-published. If so, we cannot guarantee the quality of the content. In the main most books will have gone through the editing process however some may not. We therefore suggest that you be aware of this before ordering this book. If in doubt check either the author or publisher’s details as we are unable to accept any returns unless they are faulty. Please contact us if you have any questions.

The essays in this book use the nine-line poem known as
Caedmon’s Hymn
as a lens on the world of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History. A cowherd who is given a divine gift, Caedmon retells the great narratives of Christian history in the traditional form of Anglo-Saxon verse. An immense amount has been written about this episode, much of it concentrating on the hymn’s significance in the history of English literature. Relatively little attention has been paid to what the story of Caedmon and his hymn might tell us about the material as well as the textual culture of Bede’s world. The essays in this collection seek to connect
Caedmon’s Hymn
to Bede s material world in various ways. Each chapter begins with the hymn and moves from the text to the worlds of scientific thought, settlements and social hierarchy, monastic reform, ordinary things, and others. The connections explored here are a sampling of the material concerns this one text,
Caedmon’s Hymn,
raises.