Collection items

Aldhelm's Riddles

Manuscript Created date: Late 10th century – early 11th century

Aldhelm’s Latin verse Enigmata or Riddles was widely read and studied in the Middle Ages, both in England and on the Con...

Asser's Life of King Alfred

Manuscript Created date: 2nd half of the 16th century

The Life of King Alfred by Bishop Asser is the earliest known source about an Anglo-Saxon king, a king often known today...

Bannatyne Manuscript

Manuscript Created date: 1568

The ‘Bannatyne Manuscript’ is one of the most important manuscripts in the history of medieval Scottish literature. It c...

Beowulf

Manuscript Created date: c. 1000

Beowulf is the longest epic poem in Old English, the language spoken in Anglo-Saxon England before the Norman Conquest....

Collection of homilies

Manuscript Created date: Mid 9th century-12th century

Most sermons (or homilies) in this collection are copies of earlier ones in Old English. But this one is different. It i...

Confessio Amantis

Manuscript Created date: 1425–1475

The Confessio Amantis by John Gower was written between 1386 and 1390. Gower was a contemporary and friend of Geoffrey C...

Exeter Book

Manuscript Created date: 2nd half of the 10th century

The Exeter Book, which belongs to the Dean and Chapter of Exeter Cathedral, is one of the four most significant verse ma...

Felix's Life of Guthlac

Manuscript Created date: 3rd quarter of 10th century

This manuscript is a copy of the Life of Guthlac by the East Anglian monk, Felix. Falling within the genre of hagiograph...

John Lydgate, The Siege of Thebes

Manuscript Created date: c. 1457–1530

Pilgrims travelled to holy places where saints’ relics were held as they believed that by touching the relics, usually b...

John Lydgate’s The Lives of Saints Edmund and Frem...

Manuscript Created date: 1434–1439

In 1433–34, the 12-year-old King Henry VI spent Christmas until Easter at the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. To ce...

Junius Manuscript

Manuscript Created date: The manuscript was made in two segments – one part was made c.1000 and the other in the 1st half of the 11th century

The Junius Manuscript is one of the four most significant manuscripts of Old English verse, which contain the vast major...

Laȝamon's Roman de Brut

Manuscript Created date: 1250–1300, possibly after 1275

Laȝamon’s Brut is a translation and reworking of an earlier text, Roman de Brut, written by Wace in around 1155. The Rom...

Le Morte Darthur

Manuscript Created date: c. 1471–83

This sole surviving manuscript copy of Thomas Malory’s version of the legends of King Arthur and his Knights was made wi...

Lindisfarne Gospels

Manuscript Created date: c. 700

The Lindisfarne Gospels has long been acclaimed as the most spectacular manuscript to survive from Anglo-Saxon England....

Marvels of the East

Manuscript Created date: 4th quarter of the 10th century or 1st quarter of the 11th century

Written in Old English, The Marvels of the East is part travel guide, part quasi-zoological description, based on the Li...