Description

The Cædmon Manuscript is one of three extant anthologies of English Christian poetry produced in England before 1000 CE. It is formally known as Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Junius 11. The Cædmon Manuscript was given this name in earlier critical literature because of its assumed association with the cowherd Cædmon, who miraculously received the gift of extemporaneous poetic creativity as described in Bede's Ecclesiastical History IV.24. Bede describes the subjects of the poems created by Cædmon, which corresponded closely to the content of this manuscript, leading earlier scholars to regard this anthology as a remarkable discovery of the earliest surviving religious literature from Anglo-Saxon England. It is a collection of four religious poems in Old English based on Biblical materials. They have the editorial names Genesis, Exodus, Daniel and Christ and Satan. This edition consists of an Introduction, Bibliography, Codicological and Paleographical Analysis, an Art-Historical Commentary and an edition of the four poems.