Aelfwine's Prayerbook B.L. Cotton Titus D.xxvi + xxvii

Offers an insight into matters liturgical, spiritual, computistical, medicinal, and personal that were of concern to an ecclesiastical administrator in late Anglo-Saxon England. ALBION

A new edition of the important private prayerbook which now survives as two manuscripts in the British Library (Cotton Titus D.xxvi + xxvii) and which was compiled by a number of scribes during the 1030s for the personal use of Ælfwine, abbot of the New Minster, Winchester (1031-57). The book is thus a valuable witness to the intellectual interests of an important abbot of the later Anglo-Saxon period. It contains liturgical texts such as a collectar, various private prayers, and also a number of scientific texts used by Ælfwine for calculating the dates of movable feasts, rising and settings of the moon and optimal days for blood-letting. Also included are several texts to be usedin the interpretation of dreams and a number of Anglo-Saxon illustrations. The introduction provides an analysis of how all the texts were to be used as well as a discussion of the liturgical BEATE GÜZEL completed her doctoral studies at Munich under the direction of Professor Helmut Gneuss; she is currently teaching in Bavaria.