Exeter Book

The Exeter Book, also known as the Codex Exoniensis, is a 10th century book (or, as some prefer, a codex) of Anglo-Saxon poetry. The book was donated to the library of the Exeter Cathedral by Leofric, the first bishop of Exeter. It is believed originally to have contained 131 leaves, of which the first 8 have been replaced with other leaves. The original 8 first pages are lost. The Exeter Book is the largest known collection of Old English literature that exists today. Exeter Book - Historical Context. ...

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• Exeter Book - Historical Context
• Exeter Book - Content
• Exeter Book - External link

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Though the precise date of the Exeter Codex's inscription is unknown, it may generally be described as one of the great fruits of the English Benedictine revival of the 10th century. Proposed dates of authorship range from 960CE to 990CE, but do not generally exceed those bounds. This period sees a rise in monastic activity and productivity under the renewed influence of Benedictine principles and standards. At the opening of the period, Dunstan's importance to the Church and to the English kingdom is established, culminating in his appointm ...

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Exeter Book, Exeter Book - Historical Context, Exeter Book - Content, Exeter Book - External link

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Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon) is an early form of the English language that was spoken in parts of what is now England and southern Scotland between the mid-fifth century and the mid-twelfth century. It is a West Germanic language and therefore is similar to Old Frisian and Old Saxon. It is also quite similar to Old Norse (and by extension, to modern Icelandic). Old English was not static, and its usage covered a period of approximately 700 years – from the Anglo-Saxon migrations which created England in the fi ...

Including:

• Old English language - Germanic origins
• Old English language - Latin influence
• Old English language - Viking influence
• Old English language - Celtic influence
• Old English language - Dialects
• Old English language - Phonology
• Old English language - Standardised orthography
• Old English language - The alphabet
• Old English language - Syntax
• Old English language - Morphology
• Old English language - Sample text

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The city provides strong industries and services to a sizable area. The Met Office, the main weather forecasting organisation for the United Kingdom and one of the most significant in the world, relocated from Bracknell in Berkshire to Exeter in early 2004. It is one of the three largest employers in the area (the others being the University of Exeter and Devon County Council), providing a welcome boost to the local economy. On June 26, 2004, Exeter ...

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Exeter, Exeter - Situation, Exeter - Economy, Exeter - History, Exeter - Politics and administration, Exeter - Notable Buildings, Exeter - Culture, Exeter - Literature, Exeter - Theatre, Exeter - Music, Exeter - Museums and galleries, Exeter - Newspapers, Exeter - Twin towns, Exeter - Colleges and Universities, Exeter - Sports, Exeter - Transport, Exeter - Road, Exeter - Rail, Exeter - Air

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Old English was at first written in runes (futhorc), but shifted to the Latin alphabet with some additions: the letter yogh, adopted from Irish; the letter eth and the runic letters thorn and wynn. Also used was a symbol for the conjunction 'and', a character similar to the number seven ('7'), and a symbol for the relative pronoun 'þæt', a thorn with a crossbar through the ascender (''). Also used occasionally were macrons over vowels, abbreviations for following 'm's or 'n's. ...

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Old English language, Old English language - Germanic origins, Old English language - Latin influence, Old English language - Viking influence, Old English language - Celtic influence, Old English language - Dialects, Old English language - Phonology, Old English language - Standardised orthography, Old English language - The alphabet, Old English language - Syntax, Old English language - Morphology, Old English language - Sample text

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A large percentage of the educated and literate population (monks, clerics, etc.) were competent in Latin, which was then the prevalent lingua franca of Europe. It is sometimes possible to give approximate dates for the entry of individual Latin words into Old English based on which patterns of linguistic change they have undergone, though this is not always reliable. There were at least three notable periods of Latin influence. The first occurred before the ancestral Saxons left continental Europe for England. The second began when t ...

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Old English language, Old English language - Germanic origins, Old English language - Latin influence, Old English language - Viking influence, Old English language - Celtic influence, Old English language - Dialects, Old English language - Phonology, Old English language - Standardised orthography, Old English language - The alphabet, Old English language - Syntax, Old English language - Morphology, Old English language - Sample text

Read more here: » Old English language: Encyclopedia II - Old English language - Latin influence

The most important shaping force on Old English was its Germanic heritage in vocabulary, sentence structure and grammar that it shared with its sister languages in continental Europe. Some of these features were specific to the West Germanic language family to which Old English belongs, while some other features were inherited from the Proto-Germanic language from which all Germanic languages are believed to have been derived. Though many of these links with the other Germanic languages have since been obscured by later linguistic inf ...

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Old English language, Old English language - Germanic origins, Old English language - Latin influence, Old English language - Viking influence, Old English language - Celtic influence, Old English language - Dialects, Old English language - Phonology, Old English language - Standardised orthography, Old English language - The alphabet, Old English language - Syntax, Old English language - Morphology, Old English language - Sample text

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The inventory of Old English surface phones, as usually reconstructed, is as follows. The sounds marked in parentheses are allophones: [dʒ] is an allophone of /j/ occurring after /n/ and when geminated [ŋ] is an allophone of /n/ occurring before ...

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Old English language, Old English language - Germanic origins, Old English language - Latin influence, Old English language - Viking influence, Old English language - Celtic influence, Old English language - Dialects, Old English language - Phonology, Old English language - Standardised orthography, Old English language - The alphabet, Old English language - Syntax, Old English language - Morphology, Old English language - Sample text

Read more here: » Old English language: Encyclopedia II - Old English language - Phonology

The Wanderer is an Old English poem from the 10th century, preserved in the Exeter Book. The date of composition is unknown but most certainly predates 1070 AD, as it was probably part of an earlier, oral literary culture. It is a profoundly mournful poem, to the extent that it is an elegy, in which the author, an aged man, speaks of an attack upon his people that happened in his youth. In this attack, his close friends and kin were all killed, and memories of the slaughter have remained with him all his life. He questio ...

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Anglo-Saxon literature (or Old English literature) encompasses literature written in Anglo-Saxon (Old English) during the 600-year Anglo-Saxon period of Britain, from the mid-5th century to the Norman Conquest of 1066. These works include genres such as epic poetry, hagiography, sermons, Bible translations, legal works, chronicles, riddles, and others. In all there are about 400 surviving manuscripts from the period, a signifi ...

Including:

• Anglo-Saxon literature - Overview
• Anglo-Saxon literature - Old English Poetry
• Anglo-Saxon literature - The poets
• Anglo-Saxon literature - Heroic poems
• Anglo-Saxon literature - Wisdom poetry
• Anglo-Saxon literature - Classical and Latin poetry
• Anglo-Saxon literature - Christian poetry
• Anglo-Saxon literature - Other poems
• Anglo-Saxon literature - Specific features of Anglo-Saxon poetry
• Anglo-Saxon literature - Old English prose
• Anglo-Saxon literature - Christian prose
• Anglo-Saxon literature - Secular prose
• Anglo-Saxon literature - Historiography
• Anglo-Saxon literature - Notes

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A riddle is a form of word puzzle designed to test someone's ingenuity in arriving at its solution. Riddles have a distinguished literary ancestry, although the contemporary sort of conundrum that passes under the name of "riddle" may not make this obvious. Riddles occur extensively in Old English poetry, and also in the Old Norse literature of the Elder Edda and the skalds. The Exeter Book, a manuscript in Old English, preserves almost sixty versified riddles from the Old English literature. An example: ...

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MS Junius 11 (Caedmon or Junius manuscript) is one of the four major Anglo-Saxon poetical codices. It contains works known by the titles Genesis, Exodus, Daniel, and Christ and Satan. The manuscript is currently part of the collection of the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford. Caedmon manuscript - Name and date. The popular name of the codex is the Caedmon manuscript, after an early theory that the poems it contains might be the work of Caedm ...

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• Caedmon manuscript - Name and date
• Caedmon manuscript - Illustrations

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To further complicate matters, Old English was rich in dialect forms. The four main dialect forms of Old English were Mercian, Northumbrian (known collectively as Anglian), Kentish, and West Saxon. Each of these dialects were associated with an independent kingdom on the island. Of these, all of Northumbria and most of Mercia were overrun by the Vikings during the 9th century. The portion of Mercia and all of Kent that were both success ...

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Old English language, Old English language - Germanic origins, Old English language - Latin influence, Old English language - Viking influence, Old English language - Celtic influence, Old English language - Dialects, Old English language - Phonology, Old English language - Standardised orthography, Old English language - The alphabet, Old English language - Syntax, Old English language - Morphology, Old English language - Sample text

Read more here: » Old English language: Encyclopedia II - Old English language - Dialects

The Latin name for Exeter, Isca Dumnoniorum , suggests that the city was originally a Celtic oppidum, or town, on the banks on the River Exe before to the foundation of the Roman city in c. AD 50. Such early towns, or proto-cities, had been a feature of pre-Roman Gaul as described by Julius Caesar in his Gallic Commentaries and it is not improbable that they existed in neighbouring Britain as well. Isca is clearly a Celtic generic noun and the Romans felt the need to label the city Isca Dumnoniorum, or the Isca of the Dumnonii, in order to distinguish it from such settlements as Isca Silurum (modern ...

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Exeter, Exeter - Situation, Exeter - Economy, Exeter - History, Exeter - Politics and administration, Exeter - Notable Buildings, Exeter - Culture, Exeter - Literature, Exeter - Theatre, Exeter - Music, Exeter - Museums and galleries, Exeter - Newspapers, Exeter - Twin towns, Exeter - Colleges and Universities, Exeter - Sports, Exeter - Transport, Exeter - Road, Exeter - Rail, Exeter - Air

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The front of Exeter Cathedral Ruined gatehouse at Rougemont Castle. Note the red sandstone, characteristic of many older Exeter buildings. Among the notable buildings in Exeter are: The cathedral, founded in 1050 when the bishop's seat was moved from the nearby town of Crediton (birthplace of Saint Boniface) because Exeter's Roman walls offered better protection against "pirates", presumably Vikings. A statue of Richard Hooker, the sixteenth century Anglican theolog ...

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Exeter, Exeter - Situation, Exeter - Economy, Exeter - History, Exeter - Politics and administration, Exeter - Notable Buildings, Exeter - Culture, Exeter - Literature, Exeter - Theatre, Exeter - Music, Exeter - Museums and galleries, Exeter - Newspapers, Exeter - Twin towns, Exeter - Colleges and Universities, Exeter - Sports, Exeter - Transport, Exeter - Road, Exeter - Rail, Exeter - Air

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Exeter forms a single parliamentary seat. It is relatively marginal, and since the second World War its Member of Parliament has usually been drawn from the governing party. At the United Kingdom general election, 1997, Ben Bradshaw was elected as MP for Exeter, and he retained the seat at the elections of 2001 and 2005. Exeter's city council is a district authority, and shares responsibility for local government with the Devon County Council. In recent years, the city council has been dominated by Labour Party and Liberal Democrat members. S ...

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Exeter, Exeter - Situation, Exeter - Economy, Exeter - History, Exeter - Politics and administration, Exeter - Notable Buildings, Exeter - Culture, Exeter - Literature, Exeter - Theatre, Exeter - Music, Exeter - Museums and galleries, Exeter - Newspapers, Exeter - Twin towns, Exeter - Colleges and Universities, Exeter - Sports, Exeter - Transport, Exeter - Road, Exeter - Rail, Exeter - Air

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Exeter - Literature. The Exeter Book, an original manuscript and one of the most important documents in Anglo-Saxon literature, is kept in the vaults of Exeter Cathedral. The Exeter Book dates back to the tenth century and is one of four manuscripts that between them contain virtually all the surviving poetry in Old English. It includes most of the more highly regarded shorter poems, some religious pieces, and a series of riddles, a handful of ...

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Exeter, Exeter - Situation, Exeter - Economy, Exeter - History, Exeter - Politics and administration, Exeter - Notable Buildings, Exeter - Culture, Exeter - Literature, Exeter - Theatre, Exeter - Music, Exeter - Museums and galleries, Exeter - Newspapers, Exeter - Twin towns, Exeter - Colleges and Universities, Exeter - Sports, Exeter - Transport, Exeter - Road, Exeter - Rail, Exeter - Air

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Exeter - Road. The M5 motorway to Bristol and Birmingham starts at Exeter, and connects at Bristol with the M4 to London. The older A30 road provides a shorter but sometimes slower route to London. Going west, the A38 connects Exeter to Plymouth and South Cornwall, whilst the A30 continues to Okehampton and North Cornwall. Exeter - Rail. There are two main line railway routes from Exeter to London, the faster Great Western Main Line route via Taunton to London Paddington ...

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Exeter, Exeter - Situation, Exeter - Economy, Exeter - History, Exeter - Politics and administration, Exeter - Notable Buildings, Exeter - Culture, Exeter - Literature, Exeter - Theatre, Exeter - Music, Exeter - Museums and galleries, Exeter - Newspapers, Exeter - Twin towns, Exeter - Colleges and Universities, Exeter - Sports, Exeter - Transport, Exeter - Road, Exeter - Rail, Exeter - Air

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As a West Germanic language, Old English syntax has a great deal of common ground with Dutch and German. Old English is not dependent upon S (subject), V (verb), O (object) or "SVO" word order in the way that Modern English is. The syntax of an Old English sentence can be in any of these shapes: SVO order, VSO order, and OVS order. The only constant rule, as in German and Dutch, is that the verb must come as the second concept. That is, in the sentence 'in the town, we ate some food', it could appear as 'in the town, ate we some food', or 'i ...

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Old English language, Old English language - Germanic origins, Old English language - Latin influence, Old English language - Viking influence, Old English language - Celtic influence, Old English language - Dialects, Old English language - Phonology, Old English language - Standardised orthography, Old English language - The alphabet, Old English language - Syntax, Old English language - Morphology, Old English language - Sample text

Read more here: » Old English language: Encyclopedia II - Old English language - Syntax

The Renaissance was slow in coming to England, with the generally accepted start date being around 1509. It is also generally accepted that the English Renaissance extended until the Restoration in 1660. However, a number of factors had prepared the way for the introduction of the new learning long before this start date. A number of medieval poets had, as already noted, shown an interest in the ideas of Aristotle and t ...

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English poetry, English poetry - The earliest English poetry, English poetry - The Anglo-Norman period and the Later Middle Ages, English poetry - The Renaissance in England, English poetry - Early Renaissance poetry, English poetry - The Elizabethans, English poetry - Jacobean and Caroline poetry, English poetry - The Restoration and 18th century, English poetry - Satire, English poetry - 18th century classicism, English poetry - Women poets in the 18th century, English poetry - The late 18th century, English poetry - The Romantic movement, English poetry - Victorian poetry, English poetry - High Victorian poetry, English poetry - Pre-Raphaelites arts and crafts Aestheticism and the Yellow 1890s, English poetry - The 20th century, English poetry - The first three decades, English poetry - The Thirties, English poetry - The Forties, English poetry - The Fifties, English poetry - The 1960s and 1970s, English poetry - English poetry now, English poetry - Reference

Read more here: » English poetry: Encyclopedia II - English poetry - The Renaissance in England