2014/12/12 by Janet Bately · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · #Medieval Literature and History #Byzantine Studies and History #Historical, Literary, and Cultural Studies
paper · doi:10.1163/9789004283763_006
openalex publication_date 2014/12/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/04/14
In the second part of a circular letter to be attached to copies of the text intended for transmission to named individuals, including amongst others Plegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, and bishops Heahstan of London, Wulfsige of Sherborne, and Warferth of Worcester, King Alfred calls on its recipients to play their part in what he sees as an urgently needed revival of learning in England. He first studied and then rendered into English, that book which is named in Latin Pastoralis , and in English Hierdeboc , Shepherd's Book, that is to say the Regula . The only manuscripts containing Old English literary texts to have survived from the last part of the ninth century are two copies of Alfred's Hierdeboc , and a fragment of an anonymous Old English Martyrology , while a second Martyrology fragment is in a hand of the end of the ninth or the beginning of the tenth century. Keywords: England; King Alfred; Pastoralis ; Plegmund; Wulfsige of Sherborne