This book explores the foundations of the intellectual renaissance in tenth-century England, including both the English Benedictine reform and the establishment by Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester (963–84), of the most influential school in late Anglo-Saxon England. The vital early stages of Æthelwold's scholarly career are explored for the first time, particularly his formative years in King Æthelstan's entourage and his period of study at Glastonbury. Light is shed on the contribution which Æthelstan's cosmopolitan court made to intellectual and spiritual life. Based on a wide range of evidence Dr Gretsch assigns to Æthelwold two influential texts: an interlinear translation of the psalter and a vast corpus of Old English glosses to Aldhelm's prose De virginitate. These glosses are shown to have played a pivotal role in the development of the vernacular as a medium for scholarly discourse.
The cult of saints was one of the most important aspects of life in the Middle Ages, and it often formed the nucleus of developing group identities in a town, a province or a country. The literature of Anglo-Saxon England is unique among contemporary European literatures in that it features a vast amount of saints' Lives in the vernacular. Of these Lives, Ælfric is the most important author, and his saints' Lives have never previously been explored in their contemporary setting. In this study, Gretsch analyses Ælfric's Lives of five important saints in the light of their cults in Anglo-Saxon England. This gives the reader fascinating glimpses of 'Ælfric at work': he adapts the cults and rewrites the received Latin hagiography of the five saints, with the result that each of their English Lives conveys a distinct message to the contemporary political elite and to a lay audience at large.
