AElfric’s Letter to the Monks of Eynsham

Though best-known today for his Old English homilies, the Anglo-Saxon scholar Alfric also composed a Latin ‘letter’ to his fellow monks at Eynsham (Oxfordshire) containing a detailed outline of their daily and seasonal round of prayer and other duties. The document offers a rare glimpse of what ordinary monks in Anglo-Saxon England were expected to know and do. This book contains a new edition of the Latin letters a textual commentary, and the first complete English translation of the work. Dr Jones also provides substantial introductory chapters which establish the exceptional importance of the Eynsham letter for our understanding of late Anglo-Saxon monasticism and liturgy. The book will interest students of early medieval culture, monasticism and church history.