Everything about The Exeter Book totally explained
The
Exeter Book, Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3501, also known as the
Codex Exoniensis, is a tenth century
book or
codex which is an
anthology of
Anglo-Saxon poetry. It is one of the
four major Anglo-Saxon literature codices. The book was donated to the
library of the
Exeter Cathedral by
Leofric, the first
bishop of Exeter. It is believed originally to have contained 131 leaves, of which the first 8 have been replaced with other leaves; the original first 8 pages are lost. The Exeter Book is the largest known collection of
Old English literature that exists today.
Historical context
Though the precise date of the Exeter Codex's inscription is unknown, it may generally be described as one of the great works of the English
Benedictine revival of the tenth century, and proposed dates of authorship generally range from 960 to 990. This period saw a rise in monastic activity and productivity under the renewed influence of Benedictine principles and standards. At the opening of the period,
Dunstan's importance to the Church and to the English kingdom was established, culminating in his appointment to the
Archbishopric at Canterbury under
Edgar and leading to the monastic reformation by which this era was characterised. Dunstan died in 998, and by the period's close, England under
Æthelred faced an increasingly determined Scandinavian incursion, to which it would eventually succumb.
The Exeter Book's heritage becomes traceable as of 1050, when Leofric was made
Bishop at Exeter. Among the treasures which he's recorded to have bestowed upon the then-impoverished monastery is one famously described "mycel englisc boc be gehwilcum þingum on leoðwisan geworht" (for example, "a large English book of poetic works"). This book has been widely assumed to be the Exeter Codex as it survives today.
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