Trinity College Dublin researchers found an early 9th-century Rome manuscript of Caedmon’s Hymn with the Old English text embedded in the Latin body.
Key Takeaways
The Rome manuscript (MS. Vitt. Em. 1452) dates 800-830, making it the third oldest surviving copy of Caedmon’s Hymn.
Unlike the two older Cambridge and St Petersburg copies, this one places the Old English poem inside the Latin text, not in a margin or appendix.
The manuscript was produced at the Abbey of Nonantola in northern Italy, stolen during the Napoleonic Wars, changed hands privately, and was considered lost by Bede scholars since 1975.
Digitization by the National Central Library of Rome enabled two researchers in Ireland to identify its significance remotely.
Only ~3 million words of Old English survive total; most date from the 10th-11th centuries, making a 7th-century text like Caedmon’s Hymn nearly unique.
