The early medieval Vulgate Bible had no fixed textual form - multiple copying resulted in a multitude of forms. This 1995 book tackles questions about the transmission of the Vulgate Old Testament in Anglo-Saxon England. By tracing the history of the text in the surviving Latin manuscripts we can illuminate monastic and intellectual history. Following an introduction which explains the wider continental history in which the dissemination of the Latin scriptures occurred, Richard Marsden goes on to analyse twenty surviving manuscripts including the Codex Amiatinus, one of the greatest English books and the earliest surviving complete Vulgate Bible. The book provides a comprehensive listing and collation of surviving Anglo-Saxon manuscripts of the Old Testament, and it also establishes textual history as a dimension of wider Anglo-Saxon history.

This 1995 book is a study of the transmission of the Vulgate Old Testament in Anglo-Saxon England.
Reviews
"Marsden concludes that the history of the Old Testament text in Anglo-Saxon England not only reflects the intellectual history of the period but is part of it." New Testament Abstracts
"An impressive feat of sustained scholarship and rigorous thinking, The Text of the Old Testament in Anglo-Saxon England is a major contribution to Anglo-Saxon studies. The book is remarkably error-free considering its length and complexity; it is handsomely produced in the usual Cambridge style, with useful indices of manuscript and scriptural citations." Envoi
"...this study will remain the authoritative examination of its topic. It is recommended with great enthusiasm to paleographers, historians of exegesis, biblical-textual historians, and historians of Anglo-Saxon England." Kevin Madigan, Church History
"The prose is lucid, the scope comprehensive, and the organization well conceived. Marsden's learning is wide, and deep..." J.R. Hall, Speculum
"This learned, meticulous, and beautifully printed volume provides scholars with an authoritative guide to the texts of the Vulgate Old Testament that were available in Anglo-Saxon England and the relationships between them. It is a work of exmeplary clarity from its initial assignation of sigla to the twenty extant manuscripts and numerous fragments to its detailed critical textual analysis of all parts of the extant texts and the helpful historical and cultural background provided for each manuscript and fragment. ...Richard Marsden's study extends not just to extant manuscripts but also to what can be deduced from the scriptual quotations in the leading Anglo-Saxon exegetical , hagiographical, and historical works and to the texts that underly the surviving Old English translations of books of the Old Testament." N.P. Brooks, American Historical Review



Book Information
ISBN 9780521031257
Author Richard Marsden
Format Paperback
Page Count 536
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 790g
Dimensions(mm) 228mm * 152mm * 33mm