Historians identify early ninth-century manuscript containing Cædmon’s Hymn
Updated
Updated · Medievalists.net · Apr 29
Historians identify early ninth-century manuscript containing Cædmon’s Hymn
9 articles · Updated · Medievalists.net · Apr 29
The Rome manuscript, dated 800-830 and held at the National Central Library, was rediscovered after a new search and digitised in May 2025.
Published by Trinity College Dublin scholars Elisabetta Magnanti and Mark Faulkner, the study says the poem is embedded in Bede’s Latin text, the earliest known example of such integration.
The find pushes the eordu recension back more than three centuries, suggests English texts reached Italy within a century of Bede, and highlights digitisation’s role in recovering lost medieval material.
Could other lost treasures of early English literature still be hidden in European libraries, waiting to be found through digitization?
How does the unique integration of Old English in this manuscript reshape our understanding of linguistic and cultural status in early medieval Europe?
What does the manuscript’s turbulent journey—from theft to rediscovery—reveal about the preservation and loss of cultural heritage over centuries?