An Ancient Rome Manuscript Hid a 1,300-Year-Old Copy of the First English Poem

The first poem written in English is not Beowulf or a work of Shakespeare – it is a nine-line poem written by a humble English farmer. Researchers have discovered this poem, known as Caedmon’s Hymn., in a Latin manuscript in Rome after combining traditional archival detective work with modern digitization.

New research published in Medieval England and its neighbors details the history of the poem and how this newly discovered copy reveals how early readers appreciated early English literature at a time when Latin dominated written culture.

“The magic of digitization has allowed two Irish researchers to recognize the importance of a manuscript now in Rome, containing a poem miraculously composed in northern England by a timid cowherd a millennium and a half ago,” Elisabetta Magnanti, one of the researchers behind the discovery, said in a press release.

How researchers found the lost poem in Rome

The researchers began their search with hints of a manuscript believed to exist in Rome that some researchers weren’t even sure had survived – until librarians at the National Central Library in Rome confirmed its existence and provided a digital copy to the research team for analysis.

“I came across conflicting references to Bede’s work. History in Rome, some emphasize its existence and others indicate that it was lost. When its existence was confirmed by the library and the manuscript was digitized for us, we were extremely pleased to discover that the manuscript contained the Old English version of Caedmon’s hymn and that it was integrated into the Latin text,” explained Magnanti.

Its placement in Old English within a Latin text is crucial. Earlier surviving versions of the poem – located in Cambridge and St Petersburg – include the Old English version only as marginalia or later additions. In contrast, this newly identified manuscript incorporates the poem directly into the main Latin text, suggesting that it was not an afterthought or later translation.

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What Caedmon’s Hymn Reveals About Ancient English Literature

Composed over 1,300 years ago, Caedmon’s Hymn is a short, nine-line poem celebrating the creation of the world. Written in Old English – the oldest form of the language – it is often considered the starting point of English literary history.

“In total, about three million words of Old English survive, but the vast majority of texts come from the 10th and 11th centuries. Caedmon’s Hymn is almost unique as a survival from the seventh century – it connects us to the earliest stages of written English,” said Mark Faulkner, another researcher who helped discover the poem.

The poem is traditionally attributed to Caedmon, a cowherd who worked at Whitby Abbey in England. According to historical accounts, Caedmon had no prior poetic abilities before writing his poem, which came to him in a dream.

The poem’s journey through history

The poem survives today because it was copied into manuscripts of Ecclesiastical history of the English peoplea Latin chronicle from the 8th century written by the monk The Venerable Bede. The Rome manuscript, dated to the early 9th century, is now one of 160 known copies of the text – but only the third oldest version of the hymn itself.

“The discovery of a new medieval copy of the poem has significant implications for our understanding of Old English and how it was valued,” Faulkner explained. “Bede chose not to [to] include the original Old English poem in its Historybut to translate it into Latin. This manuscript shows that the original Old English poem was reinserted into Latin less than 100 years after Bede completed his work. History. This shows how much early readers appreciated English poetry.

The story of the manuscript is also quite dramatic. It was once housed in the church of San Bernardo alle Terme, then moved to safekeeping during the Napoleonic Wars – only to be stolen, passed into private hands and eventually acquired by the Roman library where it resides today.

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