This book focuses on the Norse-derived vocabulary in the works of Archbishop Wulfstan II of York (d. 1023). A considerable advantage derives from studying Wulfstan's compositions because, unlike most Old English texts, they are closely dateable and, to a certain extent, localizable. Thus, they offer excellent material for the examination of the process of integration and accommodation of Norse-derived vocabulary in Old English. After establishing the list of terms which can be accepted to be Norse-derived, this book analyses their relations with their native synonyms, both from a semantic and a stylistic point of view, and their inclusion in the word-formation processes to which Wulfstan submitted his vocabulary, native and borrowed alike. The information derived from this approach is used to explore the possible reasons for the archbishop's selection of the borrowed terms and the impact which his lexical practices had on contemporary and later English writers.

Some of the earliest examples of medieval canon law are penitentials - texts enumerating the sins a confessor might encounter among laypeople or other clergy and suggesting means of reconciliation. Often they gave advice on matters of secular law as well, offering judgments on the proper way to contract a marriage or on the treatment of slaves. This book argues that their importance to more general legal-historical questions, long suspected by historians but rarely explored, is most evident in an important (and often misunderstood) subgroup of the penitentials: composed in Old English. Though based on Latin sources - principally those attributed to Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury (d.690) and Halitgar of Cambrai (d.831) - these texts recast them into new ordinances meant to better suit the needs of English laypeople. The Old English penitentials thus witness to how one early medieval polity established a tradition of written vernacular law.

The volume provides an in-depth account of Old English, organized by linguistic level. Individual chapters investigate the state-of-the art in the linguistics of Old English and explore key areas of debate such as dialectology, language contact, standardization, and literary language. The volume sets the scene with a chapter on pre-Old English and ends with a chapter discussing textual resources available for the study of earlier English.

So far, no comprehensive study of the obsolescence of Scandinavian loanwords in English has ever been published. This book remedies that situation, and presents an analysis of the causes of obsolescence of Scandinavian loanwords in English since the 15th century. The study has mainly been based on the Oxford English Dictionary and the Middle English Dictionary. Over 300 loanwords have been selected, grouped into semantic fields and analysed. To account for their disappearance, reasons such as the rivalry of synonyms, the exclusive use in local dialects, the disappearance of the referent as well as rare occurrence or phonological changes were investigated.

This is the first extensive study of Old English to utilise the insights and methodologies of sociolinguistics. Building on previous philological and historical work, it takes into account the sociology and social dialectology of Old English and offers a description of its speech communities informed by the theory of social networks and communities of practice. Specifically, this book uses data from historical narratives and legal documents and examines the interplay of linguistic innovation, variation, and change with such sociolinguistic parameters as region, scribal office, gender, and social status. Special attention is given to the processes of supralocalisation and their correlation with periods of political centralisation in the history of Anglo-Saxon England.

How did the English language change from the Old to the Early Modern period? What effect do linguistic and stylistic choices have on a text? Why is it important to consider linguistic features together in a work? The grammar and vocabulary of the English language changed dramatically between the Old and Early Modern periods. These changes in language usage are explored in The Language of Early English Literature by examining the effect of authors' linguistic choices on the descriptions of characters, events, and situations. Written with today's undergraduate student in mind, this textbook is a highly rewarding guide to the rich history of the English language and literature. The Language of Early English Literature: - Provides detailed explanations of linguistic features, such as word formation, phrase structure, syntax, and semantics - Analyses a wide range of texts from Old English, Middle English and Early Modern English, and establishes comparisons with works written in other languages - Includes an invaluable glossary and an extensive bibliography

Preliminary material /Editors Reading La3amon's -- INTRODUCTION /ROSAMUND ALLEN , JANE ROBERTS and CAROLE WEINBERG -- DID LAWMAN NOD, OR IS IT WE THAT YAWN? /ROSAMUND ALLEN -- THE BRUT AS SAXON LITERATURE: THE NEW PHILOLOGISTS READ LAWMAN /HARUKO MOMMA -- “ÞE TIDEN OF ÞISSE LONDE” - FINDING AND LOSING WALES IN LA3AMON'S BRUT /SIMON MEECHAM-JONES -- THE SEVERN: BARRIER OR HIGHWAY? /ANDREW WEHNER -- THE POLITICAL NOTION OF KINGSHIP IN LA3AMON'S BRUT /ERIC STANLEY -- QUEER MASCULINITY IN LAWMAN'S BRUT /JOHN BRENNAN -- LA3AMON'S LEIR: LANGUAGE, SUCCESSION, AND HISTORY /KENNETH J. TILLER -- LOSING THE PAST: CEZAR'S MOMENT OF TIME IN LAWMAN'S BRUT /JOSEPH D. PARRY -- LAWMAN, BEDE, AND THE CONTEXT OF SLAVERY /DANIEL DONOGHUE -- DRINKING OF BLOOD, BURNING OF WOMEN /ANDREW BREEZE -- THE CORONATION OF ARTHUR AND GUENEVERE IN GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH'S HISTORIA REGUM BRITANNIAE, WACE'S ROMAN DE BRUT, AND LAWMAN'S BRUT /CHARLOTTE A.T. WULF -- LA3AMON'S GESTURES: BODY LANGUAGE IN THE BRUT /BARRY WINDEATT -- CONQUEST BY WORD: THE MEETING OF LANGUAGES IN LA3AMON'S BRUT /HANNAH MCKENDRICK BAILEY -- A TALE OF TWO CITIES: LONDON AND WINCHESTER IN LA3AMON'S BRUT /IAN KIRBY -- MAPPING THE NATIONAL NARRATIVE: PLACE-NAME ETYMOLOGY IN LA3AMON'S BRUT AND ITS SOURCES /JOANNA BELLIS -- THE LEXICAL FIELD “WARRIOR” IN LA3AMON'S BRUT - A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE TWO VERSIONS /CHRISTINE ELSWEILER -- THE LANGUAGE OF LAW: LOND AND HOND IN LA3AMON'S BRUT /DEBORAH MARCUM -- FRIÐ AND GRIÐ: LA3AMON AND THE LEGAL LANGUAGE OF WULFSTAN /SCOTT KLEINMAN -- LA3AMON'S PROSODY: CALIGULA AND OTHO - METRES APART /ERIK KOOPER -- GETTING LA3AMON'S BRUT INTO SHARPER FOCUS /JANE ROBERTS -- JULIUS CAESAR AND THE LANGUAGE OF HISTORY IN LA3AMON'S BRUT /CAROLE WEINBERG -- LA3AMON'S URSULA AND THE INFLUENCE OF ROMAN EPIC /NEIL CARTLIDGE -- CONSTRUCTING TONWENNE: A GESTURE AND ITS HISTORY /GAIL IVY BERLIN -- WACE TO LA3AMON VIA WALDEF /JUDITH WEISS -- TRANSLATING ENGLAND IN MEDIEVAL ICELAND: GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH'S HISTORIA REGUM BRITANNIE AND BRETA SQGUR /SARAH BACCIANTI -- LA3AMON'S WELSH /JENNIFER MILLER -- THE WISDOM OF HINDSIGHT IN LA3AMON AND SOME CONTEMPORARIES /M. LEIGH HARRISON -- READING THE LANDSCAPES OF LA3AMON'S ARTHUR: PLACE, MEANING AND INTERTEXTUALITY /GARETH GRIFFITH -- LA3AMON'S BRUT AND THE VERNACULAR TEXT: WIDENING THE CONTEXT /ELIZABETH J. BRYAN -- BIBLIOGRAPHY /Editors Reading La3amon's -- NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS /Editors Reading La3amon's -- Index /Editors Reading La3amon's.

This book shows how, when, and why English took words from other languages and explains how to find their origins and reasons for adoption. It covers the effects of contact with languages ranging from Latin and French to Yiddish, Chinese, and Maori, from Saxon times to the present. It will appeal to everyone interested in the history of English.

In The Etiquette of Early Northern Verse, Roberta Frank peers into the northern poet’s workshop, eavesdropping as Old English and Old Norse verse reveal their craft secrets. This book places two vernacular poetries of the long Viking Age into conversation, revealing their membership in a single community of taste, a traditional stylistic ecology that did serious political and historical work. Each chapter seeks the codes of a now-extinct verse technique. The first explores the underlying architecture of the two poetries, their irregularities of pace, startling formal conventions, and tight verbal detail work. The passage of time has worn away most of the circumstantial details that literary scholars in later periods take for granted, but the public relations savvy and aural and syntactic signals of early northern verse remain to some extent retrievable and relatable, an etiquette prized and presumably understood by its audiences. The second and longest chapter investigates the techniques used by early northern poets to retrieve and organize the symmetries of language. It illustrates how supererogatory alliteration and rhyme functioned as aural punctuation, marking off structural units and highlighting key moments in the texts. The third and final chapter describes the extent to which both corpora reveled in negations, litotes, indirection, and down-toners, modes that forced audiences to read between half-lines, to hear what was not said. By decluttering and stripping away excess, by drawing words through a tight mesh of meter, alliteration, and rhyme, the early northern poet filtered out dross and stitched together a poetics of stark contrasts and forebodings. Poets and lovers of poetry of all periods and places will find much to enjoy here. So will students in Old English and Old Norse courses.

The ancient Romans believed that the Gods sent signs of future events to them through the flight of birds, meteorological disturbances and other natural phenomena. These signs influenced every sphere of ancient life, both public and private, from a state's decision to go to war or make peace, hold an election or meet a public crisis to an individual's business, marriage or travel plans. The articles in this book illustrate how the various Roman divinatory techniques were inter-woven into the structures of ancient society as well as how they were used in literary contexts. The intriguing question of the alleged doublethink among Roman intellectuals in their attitude to Divination is an important theme taken up in this book.