Researchers stunned by a forgotten medieval book in Rome hiding the oldest English poem
ROME (AP) — Researchers in Ireland peered at their computer screens and marveled at a medieval book found in a Roman library. They flipped through its digitized pages and found the treasure they were looking for: the oldest surviving English poem.
“We were extremely surprised. We were speechless. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we first saw it,” Elisabetta Magnanti, a visiting research fellow at the school of English at Trinity College Dublin, told The Associated Press.
Moreover, he said, the poem was included in the main body of the Latin text: “It was extraordinary.”
“Caedmon’s Hymn”, composed in Old English by a Northumbrian agricultural laborer in the 7th century, appears in some copies of the “Ecclesiastical History of the English People” written in Latin by a monk and saint. Reverend Bede. His history is one of the most widely reproduced texts in the Middle Ages, with nearly 200 manuscripts, according to Magnanti’s colleague Mark Faulkner, an associate professor of medieval literature at Trinity.
He sees Caedmon’s poetry as the beginning of English literature.
The manuscript he and Magnanti found is one of the oldest, dating from the 9th century. According to researchers, two earlier copies contained the poem in Old English; but this was an afterthought; It was translated from Latin and scribbled or added in the margin but not included in the main body of the text.
The discovery sheds light on the widespread spread of the English language much earlier than previously understood, Faulkner said in Rome, where the pair traveled to see the text in person for the first time.
“Before the discovery of the Roman manuscript, the oldest was from the early 12th century. So this is three centuries before that. And this proves the importance that was already attributed to the English in the early 9th century,” Faulkner said.
And it’s truly a miracle that they came up with this.
The book had a long and crooked origin
Faulkner said Caedmon was said to have written the poem while he was studying at Whitby Abbey in North Yorkshire, after guests at a banquet began reciting the poem.
“Ashamed that he did not know anything proper, Caedmon left the banquet and went to bed,” he said. “A figure then appeared in his dreams, telling him to sing about creation, which Caedmon miraculously did, producing the nine-line hymn.”
Nearly 1,400 years later, this copy of his poem resurfaced in Rome’s main public library; but not before crossing the Atlantic Ocean at least twice and changing hands on further occasions.
According to Valentina Longo, curator of medieval and modern manuscripts at the National Central Library in Rome, monks copied this copy of Bede’s history in the scriptorium of the Benedictine monastery Nonantola, one of the most important transcription centers of the Middle Ages, located near present-day Modena in northern Italy.
As the monastery’s importance declined in the 17th century, its large collection of manuscripts was moved to another monastery in Rome, then to the Vatican, and finally to a small church.
Longo said some texts were lost along the way, but resurfaced in the hands of famous international collectors in the early 19th century.
This copy of Bede’s history went to the famous English antiquarian Thomas Phillipps. He fell on hard times selling parts of his collection, and Swiss bibliophile Martin Bodmer secured the book. From there, it somehow found its way to New York City, into the treasure trove of 20th-century Austrian-born rare bookseller HP Kraus.
Italy’s culture ministry was scouring the world for the lost manuscripts of the Nonantola monastery; he was snapping them up at auctions and from collectors around the world. Longo said he bought a copy of Bede’s history from Kraus in 1972, and since then the famous text has remained in the Roman library but received little attention.
Enter Magnanti, who has been studying Bede’s history for more than four years and compiling a catalog of existing copies.
“I knew the book was listed in the library’s catalog, so I was almost certain that the book was actually still here,” he said. “I realized that because of the very complicated history of this book, no Bede scholars had really looked at it. So it had been virtually unstudied.”
He emailed the library to confirm the book was on the shelves. Three months later, he received digital images of the entire manuscript.
Old English text of the poem
Nupue. scientist. Herga. hefunricaes. puard Methods. maechti. and his.
mode geðanc. puerc. is a stamp. Fadur. suæhepundragiaes
ecidrichtin or astalde. o aeristscoop eor dubearnū hefento
hrofe halig. sceptend Yes. middle. threaded. Moncinnes Pear Eci
Drichtin. later. this is it. firu. In Foldu. frea. allmechtig.
The text of the poem has been translated into modern English
Now we must praise the guardian of the heavenly kingdom,
The power and intent of the Creator,
The work of your glorious father, it is more than all wonders,
the eternal lord established the beginning.
He created the earth for humans for the first time,
heaven as roof, holy creator,
then the middle world, the protector of humanity,
eternal lord created later
God Almighty for the people on earth.
Library makes more rare books available
Longo said the library has digitized its entire Nonantolan collection and is available for free through its website.
This is part of a massive project by the library to make thousands of rare books and manuscripts available to researchers around the world, according to Andrea Cappa, head of the library’s manuscripts and rare books reading room.
“The discovery made by Trinity College experts is just a starting point; it is a single manuscript that could pave the way for countless other discoveries in countless other fields through international collaboration like this,” Cappa said.
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An earlier version of the story incorrectly quoted Elisabetta Magnanti as previously saying that “no great scientist had really looked at” the book. “No Bedean scholars had really looked at this,” he said.
