The Old English Catholic Homilies: The First Series (Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library)

The Old English Catholic Homilies: The First Series (Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library)

A contemporary edition and translation of one of the great monuments of Old English literary and religious culture. The homilies of the monk Ælfric, written in the last decade of the tenth century, offer some of the most important prose writing in Old English. They convey mainstream Christian thought, a distillation of the spiritual inheritance of the English Church before the Norman Conquest and during a time of monastic reform. The homilies cover a broad range of topics, from biblical exegesis to saints’ lives to general Christian history, with a strong focus on the gospel reading at Mass, explained in language that laypeople could understand. Ælfric is famous for his lucid prose, which he later developed into a rhythmical and alliterative style that has often been likened to verse. In his first series of Catholic Homilies, Ælfric drew on the works of Church Fathers such as Augustine, Gregory, and Bede to create forty sermons for use throughout the church year. This is the first complete translation of the Catholic Homilies since 1844, presented alongside the newly edited Old English text. “Another hugely useful volume from the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library…makes superb use of the best scholarship on Ælfric to shape an efficient and appealing presentation of the first homiletic cycle created by the most prolific writer of Old English. Liuzza’s translation is accurate and readable and in the process broadly recreates the style of Ælfric…making a voice that once sounded loudly in tenth- and eleventh-century England broadly accessible to a twenty-first century audience.” ― Jonathan Wilcox , Medieval Review “Amidst the ongoing contemporary devaluation of the humanities and the study of ancient languages, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library and Liuzza have, rather, committed to the value of both, to the benefit of anyone desiring greater knowledge of early medieval culture and language as well as anyone open to the wisdom of this Benedictine abbot from a millennium ago.” ― Jacob Riyeff , American Benedictine Review Roy M. Liuzza is Professor of English at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.