Trinity Researchers Rediscover 1,200-Year-Old Caedmon's Hymn Manuscript in Rome
Updated
Updated · ScienceDaily · May 17
Trinity Researchers Rediscover 1,200-Year-Old Caedmon's Hymn Manuscript in Rome
14 articles · Updated · ScienceDaily · May 17
An early 9th-century manuscript found in Rome contains one of the oldest surviving copies of Caedmon's Hymn, the earliest known poem in English, and had been considered lost by many scholars since 1975.
Dated to 800-830, the codex is the third-oldest known copy of the poem, and unlike the two older manuscripts, it embeds the Old English verses directly into the main Latin text.
That placement suggests early medieval readers valued Old English poetry more highly than previously understood, because Bede's original history had translated the poem into Latin rather than preserving the English.
The manuscript's significance emerged only after Rome's National Central Library digitized it, allowing Trinity College Dublin researchers Elisabetta Magnanti and Mark Faulkner to confirm conflicting references and study it remotely.
The find adds to rare evidence from the earliest phase of written English, a corpus of about 3 million surviving Old English words that is otherwise dominated by texts from the 10th and 11th centuries.
Why was England's first poem treasured in 9th-century Italy, centuries earlier than we knew?
A lost manuscript just rewrote English history. What other treasures are hiding in plain sight in world libraries?
What can a unique punctuation quirk in this ancient poem teach us about how English was originally written?
Landmark 2026 Discovery: Ninth-Century Manuscript of Caedmon’s Hymn Unearthed in Rome Reveals Early English Texts in Continental Europe
Overview
In April 2026, researchers discovered an early ninth-century manuscript containing Caedmon’s Hymn at the National Central Library of Rome, thanks to a comprehensive digitization effort. This manuscript, long thought lost due to its complex history, had remained unrecognized for decades. Its rediscovery is especially significant because early written English texts are rare, and Caedmon’s Hymn is almost unique as a surviving work from the seventh century. The find offers a direct connection to the earliest stages of written English and provides a rare window into the foundational period of the English language.