Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic

Want to know more about the peoples of Britain?

Information and resources are available on our web site for teachers and students of the Viking Age (including the OCR A-Level course “The Viking Age”). It covers the history, society and culture of the Scandinavian peoples and their engagement with Britain and Ireland during the period 793-1066.

Departmental Undergraduate Open Day, 28 June 2023.

Are you fascinated by the Vikings and Old Norse sagas? Or Celtic mythology and the Book of Kells? Or King Alfred the Great and the origins of the English language? Then Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic could be the course for you!

Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic (ASNC for short) is a degree course which you can only study in Cambridge. It focuses upon the history, languages and literatures of the different peoples of the British Isles and Scandinavia in the early medieval period — in other words it does for these peoples what Classics does for the ancient Mediterranean world. It will therefore appeal to anyone fascinated by the early histories and writings of the Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Celtic peoples. It’s an interdisciplinary course, involving not just history but languages (you can learn one or more of Old English, Old Norse, medieval Irish and Welsh, and Latin) and literature (we study the classics of early medieval storytelling, like Beowulf, the Icelandic sagas and the Mabinogion). You do not need to have studied any of these subjects before you apply — everything is taught from scratch.

This year's Open Day will take place on Wednesday, 28 June 2023. How to book

Graduate Admissions

The ASNC Department offers a 9-month research-preparation MPhil course and a three-year PhD. It has a lively graduate community with students pursuing research topics in all areas covered by the teaching and research interests of the Department, covering early medieval languages and literatures (Old English, Old Norse, Medieval Welsh, Medieval Irish, Insular Latin), the history of a comparable range of geographical areas (Anglo-Saxon England, Scandinavia, Ireland, Wales, Brittany, and Scotland), as well palaeography.

Undergraduate Admissions

The BA in Anglo-Saxon Norse and Celtic at Cambridge is unique (both in Britain and Ireland and indeed in the world!) in offering a degree in which students can combine a passion for early medieval history with a love of languages and literature, while also ranging across the cultures of early Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia, in any combination they choose.