Anglo-Saxon Predecessors and Precedents: Early English Engagements with Old English Culture and Literature

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Special Session

Organizer Name

Jay Paul Gates, Brian O'Camb

Organizer Affiliation

John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY, Indiana Univ. Northwest

Presider Name

Brian O'Camb

Paper Title 1

The Adventus Saxonum: Remembering the Conquerors in Bede and William of Malmesbury

Presenter 1 Name

Christopher Flack

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Univ. of Minnesota-Twin Cities

Paper Title 2

The Hermitic Topos: “Selling” Shared Sanctity to Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman Audiences

Presenter 2 Name

Maren Clegg-Hyer

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Valdosta State Univ.

Paper Title 3

Hereward the Wake and the Cultural Reclamation of the Fenland in Anglo-Norman England

Presenter 3 Name

Joseph Grossi

Presenter 3 Affiliation

Univ. of Victoria

Paper Title 4

Respondent

Presenter 4 Name

Jay Paul Gates

Start Date

8-5-2014 10:00 AM

Session Location

Bernhard Brown & Gold Room

Description

Inspired by Elaine Treharne’s Living Through Conquest: The Politics of Early English, 1020-1220 (Oxford, 2012), this panel seeks to build on conversations started among Anglo-Saxonists working in diverse fields (literature, history, art history, paleography, legal studies) at the 2013 Congress on Medieval Studies. This panel will focus on how individuals living in England’s late Anglo-Saxon and post-Conquest periods (late tenth through thirteenth centuries) engaged with the cultural authorities / authorizing culture of the Anglo-Saxons. By tapping into the vast reservoir of overlooked early English documents, texts, and artworks, we will explore how English poets, artists, scribes, ecclesiasts, and politics consciously drew upon their Anglo-Saxon predecessors for rhetorical purposes and, in the process developed sophisticated responses to social, cultural, and linguistic change.

Jay P. Gates