Manuscripts in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms

Cultures and connections

Claire Breay & Joanna Story, editors

Manuscripts that were made and used in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms before the Norman conquest of England are treasure troves of art and text. Many of these books and documents were brought together in the British Library exhibition, ‘Anglo-Saxon kingdoms: art, word, war’. Together, these manuscripts illuminate extensive intellectual connections as well as widespread scribal and artistic networks that developed within the islands of Britain and Ireland, and further afield across much of early medieval Europe. Using new scientific methods, as well as textual criticism, art historical analysis and historical research, the essays in this richly illustrated volume, written by leading scholars, present innovative research that focuses on manuscripts that were copied, decorated or used in the early English kingdoms and their neighbours, across a 500-year period from the advent of Christianity among the English, c.600, to the age of conquest in the eleventh century.

Claire Breay is head of Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts at the British Library and curated the Library’s recent ‘Anglo-Saxon kingdoms’ exhibition. Joanna Story is professor of early medieval history, U Leicester.