by translating and paraphrasing sections of the book of
Kings and Maccabees; he traces the passions of Roman
martyrs, such as Julian, Sebastian, and George; and he
honors the English saints Alban, Æthelthryth, Swithun,
Oswald, and Edmund.
Even if his numerous patristic and hagiographic trans-
lations had not survived, Ælfric’s reputation would have
been secured for posterity solely by the survival of his
brilliant biblical translations. He translated or adapted
sections of Genesis, Numbers, Joshua, Judges, Kings,
Esther, Judith, and Maccabees; his articulate and grace-
ful translations of the pericopes (scriptural readings) that
precede many of the Catholic Homilies contrast with the
more awkward and mundane renderings found in the
nearly contemporary West Saxon Gospels. The same
ease and clarity of expression also mark Ælfric’s other
writings, particularly his letters and even his scientifi c
writings, such as the De temporibus anni, which deals
with astronomy, measures of time, the computation of
Easter, and atmospheric phenomena.
Apart from his religious writings directed largely
toward the educational needs of the laity, Ælfric’s edu-
cational program also provided basic instructional texts
for the study of Latin, presumably for future clerics,
though here too the importance of the vernacular makes
itself felt: Ælfric’s is the fi rst Latin grammar written
in English, and his short conversation piece for boys
to practice their Latin, the Colloquy, survives in one
manuscript with a continuous interlinear English gloss.
In his Grammar Ælfric translates and simplifi es the Ex-
cerptiones de Prisciano (an intermediate grammar) and
augments it with excerpts from Isidore’s Etymologiae,
biblical quotations, and a collection of paradigms in
order to make grammar accessible to younger pupils.
In 1005 Ælfric was chosen to be the fi rst abbot at
Eynsham Monastery, about fi fteen miles outside of
Oxford. There he remembered his former teacher by
composing a life of Æthelwold in Latin, and he also
wrote a guide for his monks by abridging Æthelwold’s
De consuetudine monachorum. Other writings from this
period include letters and homilies, such as De creatore
et creatura and De sex aetatibus mundi, as well as re-
workings of individual homilies and earlier collections
of homilies. None of his works can be securely dated
after about 1010, and he may have died between 1010
and 1020. The success of Ælfric’s educational mission
can be partially measured by the large number of surviv-
ing Anglo-Saxon manuscripts that preserve his writings;
these manuscripts bear witness to the esteem of his
contemporaries and to those scribes and scholars who
continued to copy his writings for the next 150 years.
See also Æthelwold of Winchester;
Alfred the Great; Bede the Venerable;
Dunstan of Canterbury; Paul the DeaconFurther ReadingPrimary Sources
Belfour, Algernon O., ed. and trans. Twelfth-Century Homilies
in MS. Bodley 343. EETS o.s. 137. London: Kegan Paul,
Trench, Trübner, 1909
Crawford, S.J., ed. The Old English Version of the Heptateuch,
Ælfric’s Treatise on the Old and New Testament and His
Preface to Genesis. EETS o.s. 160. London: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1922
Godden, Malcolm, ed. Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: The Sec-
ond Series. EETS s.s. 5. London: Oxford University Press,
1979
Pope, John C., ed. Homilies of Ælfric: A Supplementary Collec-
tion. EETS o.s. 259, 260. London: Oxford University Press,
1967–68
Skeat, Walter W., ed. Ælfric’s lives of Saints. EETS o.s. 76, 82, 94,- London: Trübner, 1881–1900. Repr. in 2 vols. London:
Oxford University Press, 1966
Thorpe, Benjamin, ed. The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church:
The First Part, Containing the Sermones Catholici, or Homi-
lies of Ælfric, in the Original Anglo-Saxon, with an English
Version. 2 vols. London: Richard & John E. Taylor, 1844–46.
Repr. New York: Johnson Reprint, 1971.
Secondary Sources
Clemoes, Peter A.M. “The Chronology of Ælfric’s Works.” In The
Anglo-Saxons: Studies in Some Aspects of Their History and
Culture Presented to Bruce Dickins, ed. Peter A.M. Clemoes.
London: Bowes & Bowes, 1959, pp. 212–47
Corrected repr. The Chronology of Ælfric’s Works. OEN Subsidia- Binghamton: CEMERS, 1980
Clemoes, Peter A.M. “Ælfric.” In Continuations and Beginnings:
Studies in Old English literature, ed. E. Stanley. London:
Nelson, 1966, pp. 176–209
Cross, J.E. “Ælfric—Mainly on Memory and Creative Method
in Two Catholic Homilies.” SN 41 (1969): 135–55
Hill, Joyce. “Ælfric and Smaragdus.” ASE 21 (1992): 203–37
Hurt, James. Ælfric. New York: Twayne, 1972
Law, Vivien. “Anglo-Saxon England: Ælfric’s Excerptiones de
arte grammatica anglice.” Histoire épistémologie langage 9
(1987): 47–71
Leinbaugh, Theodore H. “Ælfric’s Sermo de sacrifi cio in die
Pascae: Anglican Polemic in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries.” In Anglo-Saxon Scholarship: The First Three
Centuries, ed. Carl Berkhout and Milton McC. Gatch. Boston:
Hall, 1982, pp. 51–68
Leinbaugh, Theodore H. “The Sources for Ælfric’s Easter Ser-
mon: The History of the Controversy and a New Source.”
N&Q n.s. 33 (1986): 294–311
Reinsma, Luke M. Ælfric: An Annotated Bibliography. New York:
Garland, 1987 [excellent bibliographic study]
Smetana, Cyril L. “Ælfric and the Early Medieval Homiliary.”
Traditio 15 (1959): 163–204
Szarmach, Paul E. “Ælfric As Exegete: Approaches and Examples
in the Study of the Sermones catholici.” In Hermeneutics and
Medieval Culture, ed. Patrick J. Gallacher and Helen Damico.
Albany: SUNY Press, 1989, pp. 237–47
Wilcox, Jonathan, ed. Ælfric’s Prefaces. Durham Medieval Texts - Durham: Jasprint, 1994
Zettel, Patrick H. “Saints’ Lives in Old English: Latin Manu-
scripts and Vernacular Accounts: Ælfric.” Peritia 1 (1982):
17–37.
Theodore Leinbaugh
ÆLFRIC