Vercelli Book, The

Vercelli Book, The
(Codex Vercellensis)
(10th century)
   Codex CXVII of the chapter library of the cathedral in Vercelli, Italy, is a manuscript generally known as The Vercelli Book. This is one of four manuscripts containing virtually all the extant poetry in OLD ENGLISH. The manuscript seems to have been copied in the late 10th century by a monastic scribe, possibly at Worcester, and is made up of 135 folios containing 23 sermons interspersed with six poems on religious subjects. The best known of these are The DREAM OF THE ROOD and two poems attributed to CYNEWULF, named ELENE and The FATES OF THE APOSTLES by modern editors.
   The scribe seems to have constructed the text from a number of different pieces that came to him, with no particular plan in mind. This is apparent, in part, because he also seems to have copied the dialects of each of the different texts. It has been suggested that there is some thematic connection between the sermons and the poems that occur between them—for example the poems Soul and Body and Falseness of Men are placed immediately following a group of sermons dealing with penitence and Judgment Day. But such connections are rather loose.
   How this manuscript of Old English religious prose and poetry came to belong to a cathedral in Italy is something of a mystery. It was discovered in Vercelli in 1822, by a German jurist, Friedrich Blume, while he was browsing for legal manuscripts. One suggestion is that it had belonged to a hospice for English pilgrims that had been founded in Vercelli in the 13th century.
   Bibliography
   ■ Krapp, George Philip, and Elliott van Kirk Dobbie. The Vercelli Book. Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, 2. New York: Columbia University Press, 1942.

Encyclopedia of medieval literature. 2013.

Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Vercelli Book — The Vercelli Book (Vercelli, Cathedral Library, MS CXVII) is one of the oldest of the four Old English Poetic Codices. It is an anthology of Old English Prose and verse that dates back to the late 10th century. The text is stored in the cathedral …   Wikipedia

  • Vercelli Book — a codex of Old English poems and sermons found in the chapter house at Vercelli. * * * ▪ Old English literature Latin  Codex Vercellensis,         Old English manuscript written in the late 10th century. It contains texts of the poem Andreas, two …   Universalium

  • Vercelli Book — a codex of Old English poems and sermons found in the chapter house at Vercelli …   Useful english dictionary

  • Vercelli Homilies — The Vercelli homilies is a collection of twenty three prose entries within the Vercelli book and exist as an important example of Old English prose structure, owing to the predominance of poetry within the pool of extant Old English literature.… …   Wikipedia

  • The Fates of the Apostles — [Vercelli Book, fol.52b 54a] , is the shortest of Cynewulf’s known canon at 122 lines long. It is a brief martyrology of the twelve apostles of the Bible written in the standard alliterative verse. Fates recites the key events that subsequently… …   Wikipedia

  • Dream of the Rood — The Dream of the Rood is one of the earliest Christian poems in the corpus of Old English literature and an example of the genre of dream poetry. Like most Old English poetry, it is written in alliterative verse. Rood is from the Old English rod… …   Wikipedia

  • Vercelli — Infobox CityIT img coa =Vercelli Stemma.png official name = Comune di Vercelli region = Piedmont province = Province of Vercelli (VC) elevation m = 130 area total km2 = 79 population as of = 2004 12 04 population total = 44967 population density… …   Wikipedia

  • Dream of the Rood, The — (ca. eighth century)    Perhaps the best known of the religious poems and sermons that make up the 10th century OLD ENGLISH manuscript called the VERCELLI BOOK, The Dream of the Rood is a DREAM VISION (the oldest such poem in English), in which a …   Encyclopedia of medieval literature

  • The Vatican as a Scientific Institute —     The Vatican Palace, as a Scientific Institute     † Catholic Encyclopedia ► The Vatican Palace, as a Scientific Institute     Regarded from the point of view of scientific productivity, the Vatican is the busiest scientific workshop in Rome.… …   Catholic encyclopedia

  • The Carmelite Order —     The Carmelite Order     † Catholic Encyclopedia ► The Carmelite Order     One of the mendicant orders.     Origin     The date of the foundation of the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel has been under discussion from the fourteenth century to …   Catholic encyclopedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”