Rudiments of Runelore

Stephen Pollington
A5 ISBN 1-898281-16-5 Illustrations 96pp

Wordcraft
Concise English/Old English Dictionary and Thesaurus

Stephen Pollington
A5 ISBN 1-898281-02-5 240pp

Alfred’s Metres of Boethius

Edited by Bill Griffiths
ISBN 1-898281-03-3 10"x7" 208pp

In this new edition of the Old English Metres of Boethius, clarity of text, informative notes and a helpful glossary have been a priority, for this is one of the most approachable of Old English verse texts, lucid and delightful; its relative neglect by specialists will mean this text will come as a new experience to many practised students of the language; while its clear, expositional verse style makes it an ideal starting point for all amateurs of the period. In these poems, King Alfred re-built the Latin verses from Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae (“On the Consolation of Philosophy”) into new alliterative poems, via an Old English prose intermediary. The stirring images and stories of Boethius' original are retained - streams, legends, animals, volcanoes - and developed for an Anglo-Saxon audience to include the Gothic invasion of Italy (Metre 1), the figure of Welland the Smith (Metre 10), and the hugely disconcerting image of Death's hunt for mankind (Metre 27). The text is in effect a compendium of late classical science and philosophy, tackling serious issues like the working of the universe, the nature of the soul, the morality of power - but presented in so clear and lively a manner as to make it as challenging today as it was in those surprisingly Un-Dark Ages. The text is in Old English without Modern English translation

Monasteriales Indicia
The Anglo-Saxon Monastic Sign Language

Edited with notes and translation by Debby Banham
A5 ISBN 0-9516209-4-0 96pp

The Monasteriales Indicia is one of very few texts which let us see how life was really lived in monasteries in the early Middle Ages. Written in Old English and preserved in a manuscript of the mid-eleventh century, it consists of 127 signs used by Anglo-Saxon monks during the times when the Benedictine Rule forbade them to speak. These indicate the foods the monks ate, the clothes they wore, and the books they used in church and chapter, as well as the tools they used in their daily life, and persons they might meet both in the monastery and outside. The text is printed here with a parallel translation. The introduction gives a summary of the background, both historical and textual, as well as a brief look at the later evidence for monastic sign language in England. Extensive notes provide the reader with details of textual relationships, explore problems of interpretation, and set out the historical implications of the text.

A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary - Fourth Edition

J.R. Clark Hall
With Supplements by Herbert D. Meritt

Published by University of Toronto Press
ISBN 0-8020-6548-1
Reprinted 2000 6X9 Paperback 467pp

Four Anglian Kings of Northumbria

Raymond E.O.Ella;

ISBN: 0 9533762 3 0
Author's own Preface

The purpose of this little book is to give an insight to those who have an interest in the formation of England during the Dark-Ages, mainly the northern part of which we call Yorkshire, although other parts of England are mentioned in the narrative. Indeed, my own name is prominent into this insight, but I hope for it to be a leader into further readings about Anglo-Saxon history. However, because of Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and Old-Norse (Viking) artworks, we should refer to this dark period in our history as the Golden-Age.

We only have to look at the survival of illuminated manuscripts and gospels, many of them written by Christians, e.g. monks etc. If it had not been for their learnings, because of the coming of Christianity into our land, most of what we know of our early history would never have been passed on. Archaeological excavations however, do show us that history is actually a slow fusion from one society into another. But, writers on history need to give set categories to certain groups of people that lived long ago, so to distinguish periods of time, areas and peoples from one another. Then we can relate to what we know as history.

This little book is dedicated to my long suffering family, Yet shall they remain always Proud.

R. E.O.Ella, 2002.

The Lindisfarne Gospels
Turning the Pages™ CD-ROM

ISBN 0-7123-4691-0

The Lindisfarne Gospels is one of Britian's greatest artistic treasures, and an outstanding example of Anglo-Saxon book painting. Written and illustrated "In honour of God and St Cuthburt" in about AD 698 by the monk Eadfirth, (later Bishop of Lindisfarne) it is famous for the superb quality and intricate design of it's pages. Turning the Pages™ is a unique, award-winning touch-screen system, developed by the British library, which digitises and animates a manuscript, enabling the reader to physically turn the electronic pages in real time. Now for the first time the home computer user is able to utilise this technology as 25 pages from the Lindisfarne Gospels. plus the decorated and jewelled binding have been digitised into an animated mouse-driven programme.

The images include the most highly decorated pages of the four gospels, plus several arcaded canon pages, and examples of smaller decorated initials. The gospels and their history are described and explained by Janet Backhouse, based on her book The Lindisfarne Gospels (British Library 1995).

2001
Specification: Dual Mac / Windows format. Windows 95 or higher, Plus Pentium processor, 32 MB RAM

Early Medieval Art
300-1150

ISBN 0-8020-6628-3

" The Conversion of Constantine, the fall of Rome, the rise of papacy and the early history of France, England and Germany all fall within this period. To maintain some degree of cultural unityin a time of such turbulent and radical change required the unremitting efforts of patrons, artists and intellectuals, who had to gain their own sense of historical continuity by submitting to what must have been an often painful process of education and transformation. The paucity of early medieval records tends to give a false air of impersonality to the art of this period, making us forget how very large a role individual choice and initiative had to play in its making."