The intellectual foundations of the English Benedictine reform

by Mechthild Gretsch

"This book explores the foundations of the intellectual renaissance in tenth-century England, which is marked by the Benedictine reform and the establishment of the most influential school in late Anglo-Saxon England by Aethelwold, bishop of Winchester (963-84). The vital early stages of Aethelwold's scholarly career are traced for the first time, particularly his formative years in King Aethelstan's (924-39) entourage and his period of study, together with the new Benedictines, at Glastonbury. After assessing a wide range of evidence from the fields of philology, history, liturgy, textual criticism, palaeography and art history, Mechthild Gretsch definitively assigns to Aethelwold and his circle two influential texts: an interlinear translation of the psalter and a vast corpus of Old English glosses to Aldhelm's prose De uirginitate. These glosses are shown to have played a pivotal role in the development of English as a medium for scholarly discourse. New light is also shed on the co