Primary Sources Recommended for Study
The following reading list has been complied to offer current students on the Tripos with the primary sources for the Part I study of:
Part I Paper 1 - England before the Norman Conquest
Paper co-ordinator: Professor Simon Keynes (Dr Fiona Edmonds for 2006-7)
The early Anglo-Saxon period (4th-9th centuries)
- Gildas, De excidio Britanniae: Gildas: The Ruin of Britain and Other Works, ed. and trans. M. Winterbottom (Phillimore, 1978)
- The Whitby Life of St Gregory: The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great, ed. B. Colgrave (Lawrence, KA, 1968)
- The Anonymous (Lindisfarne) Life of St Cuthbert: Two Lives of St Cuthbert, ed. B. Colgrave (Cambridge, 1940)
- Stephen of Ripon's Life of St Wilfrid: The Life of Bishop Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus, ed. B. Colgrave (Cambridge, 1927)
- Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum: J. McClure and R. Collins, Bede: The Ecclesiastical History of the English People (OUP World's Classics, 1994)
- Bede, Historia abbatum and Letter to Bishop Ecgberht: J. F. Webb and D. H. Farmer, The Age of Bede (Penguin Classics, 1983)
- Felix's Life of St Guthlac: Felix's Life of St Guthlac, ed. B. Colgrave (Cambridge, 1956)
- Selected correspondence of Boniface: E. Emerton, The Letters of St Boniface (New York, 1940); E. Kylie, The English Correspondence of St Boniface (London 1911)
- Selected correspondence of Alcuin: S. Allott, Alcuin of York: his Life and Letters (York, 1974)
- Æthelwulf: De Abbatibus, ed. A. Campbell (Oxford, 1967)
- The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: a Revised Translation, ed. D. Whitelock with D. C. Douglas and S. I. Tucker (London, 1961; rev. 1965); also in English Historical Documents, ed. Whitelock (see below), no. 1, and M. J. Swanton, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Dent, 1996)
- S. Keynes and M. Lapidge, Alfred the Great: Asser's 'Life of King Alfred' and other Contemporary Sources (Penguin Classics, 1983)
- English Historical Documents, c. 500-1042, ed. D. Whitelock, 2nd ed. (Methuen, 1979), reprinted (Routledge, 1996), esp. nos. 1 (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle), 29-34 (laws), 54-99 (charters, etc.), 155-210 and 214-27 (early saints' Lives and correspondence)
The later Anglo-Saxon period (10th and 11th centuries)
- Regularis Concordia (c. 970): T. Symons, Regularis Concordia / The Monastic Agreement of the Monks and Nuns of the English Nation (Edinburgh, 1953)
- Wulfstan of Winchester: The Life of St Æthelwold, ed. M. Lapidge and M. Winterbottom (Oxford, 1991)
- The Chronicle of Æthelweard, ed. A. Campbell (London, 1962)
Encomium Emmae Reginae, ed. A. Campbell [1949], with Supplementary Introduction by S. Keynes, Camden Classic Reprints 4 (Cambridge, 1998) - The Vita Ædwardi regis (Edward the Confessor): The Life of King Edward who Rests at Westminster, ed. F. Barlow, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1992)
- D.M. Wilson, The Bayeux Tapestry (London, 1985)
- The 'Gesta Normannorum Ducum' of William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis, and Robert of Torigni, ed. E. M. C. van Houts, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1992-5), esp. vol. II
- The 'Carmen de Hastingae Proelio' of Guy Bishop of Amiens, ed. F. Barlow (Oxford, 1999)
- English Historical Documents, c. 500-1042, ed. D. Whitelock, 2nd ed. (Methuen, 1979), reprinted (Routledge, 1996), esp. nos. 1 (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle), 10 (poem on the battle of Maldon), 35-53 (laws), 100-39 (charters, etc.), 228-36 (later correspondence and saints' Lives), 237-40 (vernacular prose literature)
- English Historical Documents, 1042-1189, ed. D. C. Douglas and G. W. Greenaway, 2nd ed. (Methuen, 1981), reprinted (Routledge, 1996), esp. nos. 1 (ASC), 31-6 (writs), 74-6 (papal bulls), 172-5 (surveys, etc.), 181-9 (writs, wills, etc.), 273 (writ)
Selections of Old English literature in translation
- S.A.J. Bradley, Anglo-Saxon Poetry, Everyman's Library
- M. Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Prose, Everyman's Library
Maps and Atlases
- Ordnance Survey Maps, Britain in the Dark Ages and Britain before the Norman Conquest
- D. Hill, An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1981)