The Preface to the Old English Bede: authorship, transmission, and connection with the West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List

Abstract

Lexical and stylistic features indicate that the Preface to the Old English Bede was composed by a writer different from the anonymous Mercian who translated the body of the text. The Preface, therefore, cannot be taken to reveal aspects of the original translator's aims or attitude to the text. Recently discovered collations of the burnt manuscript London, British Library, Cotton Otho B. xi, made by John Smith prior to the 1731 fire, provide further insight, indicating that a copy of the West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List was attached to the Preface by the mid-tenth century. Thus the origins of the Preface may lie in an Alfredian or post-Alfredian initiative to disseminate the translation at some time later than its actual creation.