Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-5b777bbd6c-gcwzt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-06-24T10:14:24.073Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
Series:   Elements in England in the Early Medieval World

Natural and Supernatural in Early Medieval England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 May 2025

Richard Sowerby
Richard Sowerby
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh

Summary

When men and women in early medieval England thought about the world around them, they did so in ways that often strike us as strange. In their surviving writings, we are confronted continually with unfamiliar ideas – about the creatures and beings which populated the world, about the forces and phenomena which shaped it, and about the ways in which human beings might enact change upon it through ritual, magic, and prayer. Although unfamiliar, these ideas give us important indications of how early medieval English thinkers characterized and categorized their surroundings and their experiences. Of substantial interest to many of them was the question of how they might distinguish correctly between what was 'natural' in the world, and what was not. This Element examines what that distinction meant to the inhabitants of early medieval England, and under what circumstances they felt compelled to explore it.
Get access

Keywords

early medievalsupernaturalnaturereligionmagic
Type
Element
Information
Series: Elements in England in the Early Medieval World
Online ISBN: 9781009175456
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 29 May 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Element purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Ælfric, , Catholic Homilies (first series), ed. Clemoes, Peter, Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: The First Series, Early English Text Society, s.s. 17 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).Google Scholar
Ælfric, , De temporibus anni, ed. and trans. Martin Blake, Ælfric’s De temporibus anni, Anglo-Saxon Texts 6 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2009).Google Scholar
Ælfric, , Lives of the Saints, ed. and trans. Mary Clayton and Juliet Mullins, Ælfric: Old English Lives of the Saints, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 58–60, 3 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019).Google Scholar
Æthelwulf, , De abbatibus, ed. and trans. Alistair Campbell, Æthelwulf: De abbatibus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967).Google Scholar
Alcuin, , Disputatio Pippini, ed. Suchier, Walther, in Daly, Lloyd William and Suchier, Walther, Altercatio Hadriani Augusti et Epicteti philosophi (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1939), pp. 134–46.Google Scholar
Alcuin, , Epistolae, ed. Dümmler, Ernst, Epistolae Karolini aevi: Tomus II, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epistolae 4 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1895), pp. 18–481.Google Scholar
Alcuin, , Versus de patribus regibus et sanctis Euboricensis ecclesiae, ed. and trans. Godman, Peter, Alcuin: The Bishops, Kings and Saints of York (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982).Google Scholar
Aldhelm, , Enigmata, ed. Ehwald, Rudolf, Aldhelmi opera, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores antiquissimi 15 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1919), pp. 99–149.Google Scholar
Aldhelm, , Epistola ad Acircium, ed. Ehwald, Rudolf, Aldhelmi opera, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores antiquissimi 15 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1919), pp. 33–204.Google Scholar
Aldhelm: The Poetic Works, trans. Michael Lapidge and Rosier, James L. (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1985).Google Scholar
Altercatio Hadriani Augusti et Epicteti philosophi, ed. Suchier, Walther, in William Daly, Lloyd and Suchier, Walther, Altercatio Hadriani Augusti et Epicteti philosophi (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1939), pp. 101–10.Google Scholar
Ambrose, , Exameron, ed. Schenkl, Karl, Sancti Ambrosii opera: Pars I, Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum 32.1 (Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1896), pp. 3–261.Google Scholar
Asser, , Vita Alfredi, ed. Henry Stevenson, William, Asser’s Life of King Alfred, Together with the Annals of Saint Neots Erroneously Ascribed to Asser (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1904).Google Scholar
Augustine, , De ciuitate Dei, ed. Dombart, Bernhard and Kalb, Alfons, Sancti Aurelii Augustini episcopi De civitate Dei, Corpus christianorum series latina 47–8 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1955).Google Scholar
Augustine, , De diuersis quaestionibus octoginta tribus, ed. Mutzenbecher, Almut, Sancti Aurelii Augustini opera: Pars XIII, 2, Corpus christianorum series latina 44 A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1975), pp. 1–249.Google Scholar
Augustine, , De doctrina christiana, ed. and trans. Madeleine Moreau, Bochet, Isabelle and Madec, Goulven, La doctrine chrétienne, Œuvres de Saint Augustin 11.2 (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1997).Google Scholar
Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram, ed. Zycha, Joseph, Sancti Aureli Augustini De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim eiusdem libri capitula, De Genesi ad litteram inperfectus liber, Locutionum in Heptateuchum libri septem, Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum 28.1 (Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1894), pp. 1–456.Google Scholar
B., Vita S. Dunstani, ed. and trans. Michael Winterbottom and Lapidge, Michael, The Early Lives of St Dunstan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2012), pp. 1–109.Google Scholar
Bald’s Leechbook, ed. and trans. Oswald Cockayne, Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, Rolls Series 35, 3 vols. (London: Longman, 1864–1866), vol. 2, pp. 1–299.Google Scholar
Bazire, Joyce and Cross, James E. (eds.), Eleven Old English Rogationtide Homilies, 2nd ed. (Exeter: Short Run Press, 1989).Google Scholar
Bede, , De natura rerum, ed. Jones, Charles W., Bedae Venerabilis opera: Pars I: opera didascalica, Corpus christianorum series latina 123 A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1975), pp. 173–234.Google Scholar
Bede, , De temporum ratione, ed. Jones, Charles W., Bedae Venerabilis opera: Pars VI: opera didascalia, 2, Corpus christianorum series latina 123B (Turnhout: Brepols, 1977).Google Scholar
Bede, , Expositio actuum apostolorum, ed. Laistner, Max L. W., Bedae Venerabilis opera: Pars II: opera exegetica, 4, Corpus christianorum series latina 121 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1983), pp. 1–99.Google Scholar
Bede, , Homilia, ed. Hurst, David, Bedae Venerabilis opera. Pars III: opera homiletica. Pars IV: opera rhythmica, Corpus christianorum series latina 122 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1955), pp. 1–378.Google Scholar
Bede, , In epistulas septem catholicas, ed. Hurst, David, Bedae Venerabilis opera: Pars II: opera exegetica, 4, Corpus christianorum series latina 121 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1983), pp. 179–342.Google Scholar
Bede, , In Genesim, ed. Jones, Charles W., Bedae Venerabilis opera. Pars II: opera exegetica, 1, Corpus christianorum series latina 118 A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1967).Google Scholar
Bede, , In Marci evangelium expositio, ed. Hurst, David, Bedae Venerabilis opera: Pars II: opera exegetica, 3, Corpus christianorum series latina 120 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1960), pp. 427–648.Google Scholar
Bede, Vita S. Cuthberti, ed. and trans. Bertram Colgrave, Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert: A Life by an Anonymous Monk of Lindisfarne and Bede’s Prose Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1940), pp. 141–307.Google Scholar
Beowulf, ed. Klaeber, Frederick, Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, 3rd ed. with supplements (Boston: D. C. Heath, 1950).Google Scholar
The Blickling Homilies, ed. and trans. Richard Morris, Early English Text Society, o.s. 58, 63 and 73 (London: Oxford University Press, 1874–1880); rptd in one volume (London: Oxford University Press, 1967).Google Scholar
Boethius, , De consolatione Philosophiae, ed. Bieler, Ludwig, Anicii Manlii Severini Boethii Philosophiae Consolatio, Corpus christianorum series latina 94 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1957).Google Scholar
Byrhtferth, , Enchiridion, ed. and trans. Peter S. Baker and Michael Lapidge, Byrhtferth’s ‘Enchiridion’, Early English Text Society, s.s. 15 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).Google Scholar
Cassiodorus, , Expositio psalmorum, ed. Adriaen, Marc, Magni Aurelii Cassiodori senatoris opera: Pars II, Corpus christianorum series latina 97–8 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1958).Google Scholar
Cath Maige Tuired, ed. and trans. Elizabeth A. Gray, Cath Maige Tuired: The Second Battle of Mag Tuired, Irish Texts Society 52 (London: Irish Texts Society, 1982).Google Scholar
Chardonnens, László Sándor (ed. and trans.), Anglo-Saxon Prognostics, 900–1100: Study and Texts, Brill’s Texts and Sources in Intellectual History 3 (Leiden: Brill, 2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Concilium Lateranense (649), ed. Riedinger, Rudolf, Concilium Laternanense a. 649 celebratum, Acta conciliorum oecumenicorum II.1 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1984).Google Scholar
De sex dierum creatione, ed. Migne, Jacques-Paul, Patrologia Latina 93 (Paris: Migne, 1862), cols. 207–34.Google Scholar
Die Briefe des heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus, ed. Tangl, Michael, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epistolae selectae I (Berlin: Weidmann, 1916).Google Scholar
‘1 Enoch’, trans. Matthew Black, The Book of Enoch or 1 Enoch: A New English Edition (Leiden: Brill, 1985).Google Scholar
Eustathius, Hexaemeron, ed. Amand de Mendieta, Emmanuel and Rudberg, Stig Y., Eustathius: Ancienne version latine des neuf homélies sur l’Hexaéméron de Basile de Césarée (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1958).Google Scholar
The Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry: An Edition of Exeter Dean and Chapter MS 3501, ed. Muir, Bernard J., 2 vols., 2nd ed. (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2000).Google Scholar
Felix, Vita S. Guthlaci, ed. and trans. Bertram Colgrave, Felix’s Life of St Guthlac (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956).Google Scholar
Gregory the Great, Dialogi, ed. and trans. Adalbert de Vogüé, Grégoire le Grand: Dialogues, Sources Chrétiennes 251, 260, 265 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1978–1980).Google Scholar
The Guthlac Poems of the Exeter Book, ed. Roberts, Jane (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gysseling, Maurits (ed.), Corpus van Middelnederlandse teksten (tot en met het jaar 1300). Reeks II: Literaire handschriften, Deel 1: Fragmenten (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1980).Google Scholar
Helisachar of Trier, Legimus in ecclesiasticis historiis, ed. James E. Cross, ‘“Legimus in ecclesiasticis historiis”: A sermon for All Saints, and its use in Old English prose’, Traditio 33 (1977), 101–35.Google Scholar
Herman, Miracula S. Eadmundi, ed. and trans. Tom Licence, Herman the Archdeacon and Goscelin of Saint-Bertin: Miracles of St Edmund (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2014), pp. 1–125.Google Scholar
Isidore, , De natura rerum, ed. and trans. Jacques Fontaine, Isidore de Seville: Traité de la nature (Bordeaux: Féret et fils, 1960).Google Scholar
Lacnunga, ed. and trans. John D. Niles, in John D. Niles and D’Aronco, Maria A., Medical Writings from Early Medieval England. Volume I: The Old English Herbal, Lacnunga, and Other Texts, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 81 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2023), pp. 419–531.Google Scholar
Lantfred, , Translatio et miracula S. Swithuni, ed. and trans. Michael Lapidge, The Cult of St Swithun, Winchester Studies IV.2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003), pp. 252–333.Google Scholar
Leechbook III, ed. and trans. Oswald Cockayne, Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, Rolls Series 35, 3 vols. (London: Longman, 1864–1866), vol. II, pp. 300–360.Google Scholar
Liber beatae Gregorii papae, ed. and trans. Bertram Colgrave, The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great by an Anonymous Monk of Whitby (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1968).Google Scholar
Liber monstrorum, ed. and trans. Andy Orchard, Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf-Manuscript (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1985), pp. 254–317.Google Scholar
Liebermann, Felix (ed.), Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, 3 vols. (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1903–1916).Google Scholar
Liuzza, Roy M. (ed. and trans.), Anglo-Saxon Prognostics: An Edition and Translation of Texts from London, British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius A.iii, Anglo-Saxon Texts 9 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2010).Google Scholar
Medicina de quadrupedibus, ed. and trans. Maria A. D’Aronco, in John D. Niles and Maria A. D’Aronco, Medical Writings from Early Medieval England. Volume I: The Old English Herbal, Lacnunga, and Other Texts, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 81 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2023), pp. 367–417.Google Scholar
Napier, Arthur (ed.), Wulfstan: Sammlung der ihm zugeschriebenen Homilien nebst Untersuchungen über ihre Echtheit, Sammlung englischer Denkmäler in kritischen Ausgaben 4 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1883).Google Scholar
Old English Boethius, ed. and trans. Malcolm Godden and Irvine, Susan, The Old English Boethius: An Edition of the Old English Versions of Boethius’s ‘De consolatione Philosophiae’, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).Google Scholar
Old English Dialogues of Gregory the Great, ed. Hecht, Hans, Bischofs Wærferth von Worcester Übersetzung der Dialoge Gregors des Grossen, 2 vols. (Leipzig: George H. Wigand, 1900–1907).Google Scholar
The Old English Dialogues of Solomon and Saturn, ed. and trans. Daniel Anlezark, Anglo-Saxon Texts 7 (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2009).Google Scholar
The ‘Old English Heptateuch’ and Ælfric’s ‘Libellus de veteri testamento et novo’, ed. Marsden, Richard, Early English Text Society, o.s. 330 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).Google Scholar
Old English Herbarium, ed. and trans. Maria A. D’Aronco, in John D. Niles and Maria A. D’Aronco, Medical Writings from Early Medieval England. Volume I: The Old English Herbal, Lacnunga, and Other Texts, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 81 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2023), pp. 1–365.Google Scholar
Old English Penitential, ed. Raith, Josef, Die altenglische Version des Halitgar’schen Bussbuches (sog. Poenitentiale Pseudo-Ecgberti), Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 13 (Hamburg: H. Grand, 1933; repr. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1964).Google Scholar
Paenitentiale Halitgarii, ed. Joseph Schmitz, Hermann, Die Bussbücher und die Bussdisciplin der Kirche, 2 vols. (Mainz: Franz Kirchheim and L. Schwann, 1883–1898), vol. II, pp. 252–300.Google Scholar
Passio sanctorum apostolorum Petri et Pauli, ed. Lipsius, Richard Adelbert, in Lipsius, Richard Adelbert and Bonnet, Maximilien, Acta apostolorum apocrypha, 2 parts in 3 vols. (Leipzig: Hermann Mendelssohn, 1891–1903), vol. I, pp. 119–77.Google Scholar
Pliny, , Naturalis historia, ed. and trans. Harris Rackham, William H. S. Jones and David E. Eichholz, Pliny: Natural History, 10 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938–1963).Google Scholar
The Prayer Book of Aedeluald the Bishop, Commonly Called the Book of Cerne, ed. Kuypers, Arthur B. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902).Google Scholar
Prose Life of St Guthlac, ed. and trans. Johanna Kramer, Magennis, Hugh and Norris, Robin, Anonymous Old English Lives of Saints, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 63 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2020), pp. 141–217.Google Scholar
Pseudo-Apuleius, , Herbarius, ed. Ernst, Howald and Henry, E. Sigerist, Antonii Musae de herba vettonica, Liber pseudoapulei herbarius, Anonymi de taxone liber, Sexti Placiti liber medicinae ex animalibus, Corpus Medicorum Latinorum 4 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1927), pp. 12–225.Google Scholar
Pseudo-Dionysius, , De diuinis nominibus, ed. Suchla, Beate Regina, Corpus Dionysiacum I, Patristische Texte und Studien 33 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1990), pp. 93–231.Google Scholar
Pseudo-Dionysius, , Epistulae, ed. Günter, Heil and Adolf, Martin Ritter, Corpus Dionysiacum II, Patristische Texte und Studien 36 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1991), pp. 151–210.Google Scholar
Rituale ecclesiae Dunelmensis: The Durham Collectar, ed. Lindelöf, Uno, Surtees Society 140 (Durham: Andrews, 1927).Google Scholar
Scriftboc, ed. Spindler, Robert, Das altenglische Bussbuch (sog. Confessionale Pseudo-Ecgberti): Ein Beitrag zu den kirchlichen Gesetzen der Angelsachsen (Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1934).Google Scholar
Sex aetates mundi, ed. and trans. Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, The Irish Sex Aetates Mundi (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1983).Google Scholar
Placitus, Sextus, Liber medicinae ex animalibus, ed. Howald, Ernst and Sigerist, Henry E., Antonii Musae de herba vettonica, Liber pseudoapulei herbarius, Anonymi de taxone liber, Sexti Placiti liber medicinae ex animalibus, Corpus Medicorum Latinorum 4 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1927), pp. 233–86.Google Scholar
Stephen, , Vita S. Wilfridi, ed. and trans. Bertram Colgrave, The Life of Bishop Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1927).Google Scholar
Storms, Godfrid (ed. and trans.), Anglo-Saxon Magic (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1948).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Priscianus, Theodorus, Euporiston, ed. Rose, Valentin, Theodori Prisciani Euporiston libri III (Leipzig: Teubner, 1894).Google Scholar
Vegetius, , Epitoma rei militaris, ed. Reeve, Michael D., Vegetius: Epitoma rei militaris (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).Google Scholar
The Vercelli Homilies and Related Texts, ed. Scragg, Donald G., Early English Texts Society, o.s. 300 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).Google Scholar
Vita S. Cuthberti, ed. and trans. Bertram Colgrave, Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert: A Life by an Anonymous Monk of Lindisfarne and Bede’s Prose Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1940), pp. 59–139.Google Scholar
Vita et miracula S. Kenelmi, ed. and trans. Rosalind C. Love, Three Eleventh-Century Anglo-Latin Saints’ Lives: Vita S. Birini, Vita et miracula S. Kenelmi, and Vita S. Rumwoldi (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), pp. 49–89.Google Scholar
Wigbod, , Liber quaestionum super librum Genesis, ed. Migne, , Patrologia Latina 96 (Paris: Migne, 1862), cols. 1105–68.Google Scholar
The Wonder of Creation, ed. and trans. Eric G. Stanley, ‘The Wonder of Creation: A new edition and translation, with discussion of problems’, Anglia 131 (2013), 475–508.Google Scholar
Wulfstan, , Polity, ed. and trans. Karl Jost, Die ‘Institutes of Polity, Civil and Ecclesiastical’: Ein Werk Erzbischof Wulfstans von York, Schweizer anglistische Arbeiten 47 (Bern: Francke, 1959).Google Scholar
Wulfstan of Winchester, Vita S. Æthelwoldi, ed. and trans. Michael Lapidge and Winterbottom, Michael, Wulfstan of Winchester: The Life of St Æthelwold (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991).Google Scholar

Secondary Sources

Ahern, Eoghan, Bede and the Cosmos: Theology and Nature in the Eighth Century (London: Routledge, 2020).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahern, Eoghan, ‘Bede’s miracles reconsidered’, Early Medieval Europe 26 (2018), 282–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arthur, Ciaran, ‘The heavenly field: A reconsideration of Mother Earth in the Æcerbot rite’, Journal of English and Germanic Philology 122 (2023), 49–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banham, Debby, ‘Dun, Oxa and Pliny the great physician: Attribution and authority in Old English medical texts’, Social History of Medicine 24 (2011), 57–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banham, Debby and Faith, Rosamond, Anglo-Saxon Farms and Farming (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartlett, Robert, The Natural and the Supernatural in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).Google Scholar
Bately, Janet M., ‘Did King Alfred actually translate anything? The integrity of the Alfredian canon revisited’, Medium Ævum 78 (2009), 189–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biggs, Frederick M. (ed.), Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture: The Apocrypha (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute, 2007).Google Scholar
Brooks, Britton Elliott, Restoring Creation: The Natural World in the Anglo-Saxon Saints’ Lives of Cuthbert and Guthlac (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 2019).Google Scholar
Bynum, Caroline Walker, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cameron, Malcolm L., Anglo-Saxon Medicine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carney, James, Studies in Irish Literature and History (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1955).Google Scholar
Cavell, Megan, ‘A community of exiles: Whale and human domains in Old English poetry’, in McHugh, Susan, McKay, Robert, and Miller, John (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Animals and Literature (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), pp. 97–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chardonnens, László Sándor, ‘Ælfric and the authorship of the Old English De diebus malis’, in Giliberto, Concetta and Teresi, Loredana (eds.), Limits to Learning: The Transfer of Encyclopaedic Knowledge in the Early Middle Ages (Leuven: Peeters, 2013), pp. 123–53.Google Scholar
Chenu, Marie-Dominique, Nature, Man, and Society: Essays on New Theological Perspectives in the Latin West, ed. and trans. Jerome Taylor and Little, Lester K. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968).Google Scholar
Christie, Edward J., ‘The idea of an elephant: Ælfric of Eynsham, epistemology, and the absent animals of Anglo-Saxon England’, Neophilologus 98 (2014), 465–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, Michael, ‘The lore of the monstrous races in the developing text of the Irish Sex Aetates Mundi’, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 63 (2012), 15–49.Google Scholar
Cross, James E., ‘The elephant to Alfred, Ælfric, Aldhelm and others’, Studia Neophilologica 37 (1965), 367–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daston, Lorraine, Rules: A Short History of What We Live By (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022).Google Scholar
de Lubac, , Henri, , Surnaturel: Études historiques, rev. Michel Sales (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1991).Google Scholar
Dickens, Charles, A Child’s History of England, 3 vols. (London: Bradbury and Evans, 1852–1854).Google Scholar
Durkheim, Émile, Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse: le système totémique en Australie (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1912); trans. Joseph Ward Swain, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, 2nd ed. (London: Allen and Unwin, 1976).Google Scholar
Epstein, Stephen A., The Medieval Discovery of Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flint, Valerie I. J., The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forbes, Foxhall, Helen, , Heaven and Earth in Anglo-Saxon England: Theology and Society in an Age of Faith (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013).Google Scholar
Garner, Lori Ann, Hybrid Healing: Old English Remedies and Medical Texts (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2022).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrison, Mary, ‘An insular copy of Pliny’s Naturalis historia (Leiden VLF 4 fols 4–33)’, in Kwakkel, Erik (ed.), Writing in Context: Insular Manuscript Culture 500–1200 (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2013), pp. 67–125.Google Scholar
Gatch, Milton McC., ‘Eschatology in the anonymous Old English homilies’, Traditio 21 (1965), 117–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gittos, Helen, Liturgy, Architecture, and Sacred Places in Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godden, Malcolm, ‘Did King Alfred write anything?’, Medium Ævum 76 (2007), 1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, Stephen, Supernatural Encounters: Demons and the Restless Dead in Medieval England, c. 1050–1450 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2020).Google Scholar
Green, Richard Firth, Elf Queens and Holy Friars: Fairy Beliefs and the Medieval Church (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Alaric, Elves in Anglo-Saxon England: Matters of Belief, Health, Gender and Identity (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Alaric, ‘The etymology and meanings of eldritch’, Scottish Language 26 (2007), 16–22.Google Scholar
Hall, Alaric, ‘The evidence for maran, the Anglo-Saxon “nightmares”’, Neophilologus 91 (2007), 299–317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Thomas N., ‘The psychedelic transmogrification of the soul in Vercelli Homily IV’, in Jaritz, Gerhard and Moreno-Riaño, Gerson (eds.), Time and Eternity: The Medieval Discourse (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), pp. 309–22.Google Scholar
Heiduk, Matthias, Herbers, Klaus, and Lehner, Hans-Christian (eds.), Prognostication in the Medieval World: A Handbook, 2 vols. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021).Google Scholar
Hill, Thomas D., ‘The æcerbot charm and its Christian user’, Anglo-Saxon England 6 (1977), 213–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, Thomas D., ‘The falling leaf and buried treasure: Two notes on the imagery of Solomon and Saturn, 314–322’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 71 (1970), 571–76.Google Scholar
Hines, John, ‘Practical runic literacy in the late Anglo-Saxon period: Inscriptions on lead sheet’, in Lenker, Ursula and Kornexl, Lucia (eds.), Anglo-Saxon Micro-Texts (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019), pp. 29–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jolly, Karen Louise, ‘Anglo-Saxon charms in the context of a Christian world view’, Journal of Medieval History 11 (1985), 279–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jolly, Karen Louise, ‘Father God and Mother Earth: Nature-mysticism in the Anglo-Saxon world’, in Joyce, E. Salisbury (ed.), The Medieval World of Nature: A Book of Essays (New York: Garland, 1993), pp. 221–52.Google Scholar
Jolly, Karen Louise, Popular Religion in Late Saxon England: Elf Charms in Context (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996).Google Scholar
Jones, Christopher A., ‘Furies, monks, and folklore in the earliest miracula of Saint Swithun’, Journal of English and Germanic Philology 113 (2014), 407–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kesling, Emily, Medical Texts in Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2020).Google Scholar
Keynes, Simon, ‘An abbot, an archbishop, and the viking raids of 1006–7 and 1009–12’, Anglo-Saxon England 36 (2007), 151–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kieckhefer, Richard, ‘The specific rationality of medieval magic’, American Historical Review 99 (1994), 813–36.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kitson, Peter, ‘Lapidary traditions in Anglo-Saxon England: Part I, the background; the Old English Lapidary’, Anglo-Saxon England 7 (1978), 9–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lehoux, Daryn, ‘Laws of nature and natural laws’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 37 (2006), 527–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leja, Meg, ‘The sacred art: Medicine in the Carolingian renaissance’, Viator 47 (2016), 1–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lionarons, Joyce Tally, The Homiletic Writings of Archbishop Wulfstan: A Critical Study (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 2010).Google Scholar
Markus, Robert A., ‘Signs, communication, and communities in Augustine’s De doctrina christiana’, in Duane, W. H. Arnold and Bright, Pamela (eds.), De doctrina christiana: A Classic of Western Culture (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), pp. 97–108.Google Scholar
Meaney, Audrey L., ‘Ælfric’s use of his sources in his homily on auguries’, English Studies 6 (1985), 477–95.Google Scholar
Meaney, Audrey L., ‘The Anglo-Saxon view of the causes of illness’, in Campbell, Sheila, Hall, Bert, and Klausner, David (eds.), Health, Disease and Healing in Medieval Culture (Houndmills: Macmillan, 1992), pp. 12–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meaney, Audrey L., ‘Extra-medical elements in Anglo-Saxon medicine’, Social History of Medicine 24 (2011), 41–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mearns, Adam, ‘This, that and the other: Locating the supernatural enemy in Old English’, English Language and Linguistics 19 (2015), 213–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mellinkoff, Ruth, ‘Cain’s monstrous progeny in Beowulf: Part I, Noachic tradition’, Anglo-Saxon England 8 (1979), 143–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mellinkoff, Ruth, ‘Cain’s monstrous progeny in Beowulf: Part II, post-diluvian survival’, Anglo-Saxon England 9 (1981), 183–97.Google Scholar
Millard, Hannah Katherine, ‘The significance of the wyrm in early medieval England’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Birmingham (2021).Google Scholar
Mostert, Marco, ‘Communicating the faith: The circle of Boniface, Germanic vernaculars, and Frisian and Saxon converts’, Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik 70 (2013), 87–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murray, Alexander, Reason and Society in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978).Google Scholar
Neidorf, Leonard, ‘Cain, Cam, Jutes, giants, and the textual criticism of Beowulf’, Studies in Philology 112 (2015), 599–632.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neidorf, Leonard and Zhang, Kexin, ‘Grendel and the witches: Germanic mythology and Beowulf line 163’, ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews 37 (2024), 321–25.Google Scholar
Neville, Jennifer, Representations of the Natural World in Old English Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Niles, John D., ‘The Æcerbot ritual in context’, in John, D. Niles (ed.), Old English Literature in Context (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1980), pp. 44–56.Google Scholar
O’Keeffe, O’Brien, Katherine, , ‘Beowulf, lines 702b–836: Transformations and the limits of the human’, Texas Studies in Language and Literature 23 (1981), 484–94.Google Scholar
Orchard, Andy, ‘Alcuin’s educational dispute: The riddle of teaching and the teaching of riddles’, in Irvine, Susan and Rudolf, Winfried (eds.), Childhood and Adolescence in Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018), pp. 162–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orchard, Andy, Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf-Manuscript (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1985).Google Scholar
Parish, Helen L., ‘“Impudent and abhominable fictions”: Rewriting saints’ lives in the English Reformation’, Sixteenth Century Journal 32 (2001), 45–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peltola, Niilo, ‘Grendel’s descent from Cain reconsidered’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 73 (1972), 284–91.Google Scholar
Pratt, David, ‘The illnesses of King Alfred the Great’, Anglo-Saxon England 30 (2001), 39–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, Richard, The Acts of the Lateran Synod of 649 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2014).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rauer, Christine, ‘Female hagiography in the Old English Martyrology’, in Szarmach, Paul (ed.), Writing Women Saints in Anglo-Saxon England (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), pp. 13–29.Google Scholar
Ray, Roger, ‘Who did Bede think he was?’, in DeGregorio, Scott (ed.), Innovation and Tradition in the Writings of the Venerable Bede (Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2006), pp. 11–36.Google Scholar
Rowe, Tamsin, ‘Blessings for nature in the English liturgy, c. 900–1200’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Exeter (2010).Google Scholar
Shaw, Richard, ‘“Just as the books tell us”: A new work by Ælfric?’, Notes and Queries 61 (2014), 328–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sorrell, Paul, ‘Like a duck to water: Representations of aquatic animals in early Anglo-Saxon literature and art’, Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 25 (1994), 29–68.Google Scholar
Sowerby, Richard, Angels in Early Medieval England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sowerby, Richard, ‘When medicine doesn’t work: Making sense of failure in the early Middle Ages’, in Bouras-Vallianatos, Petros and Mistry, Zubin (eds.), Ecologies of Healing in the Premodern World (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming).Google Scholar
Thornbury, Emily V., ‘Ælfric’s zoology’, Neophilologus 92 (2008), 141–53.Google Scholar
Wallis, Faith, ‘Si naturam quæras: Reframing Bede’s “science”’, in DeGregorio, Scott (ed.), Innovation and Tradition in the Writings of the Venerable Bede (Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2006), pp. 65–99.Google Scholar
Watkins, Carl S., History and the Supernatural in Medieval England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weaver, Erica, ‘A Canterbury school of literary theory: Aldhelm’s De virginitate, the Liber monstrorum, and (un)reliable fictions’, in Donoghue, Daniel, Simpson, James, Watson, Nicholas, and Wilson, Anna (eds.), The Practice and Politics of Reading, 650–1500 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2022), pp. 63–83.Google Scholar
Williams, Mark, Ireland’s Immortals: A History of Gods of Irish Myth (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, Charles D., ‘Jewish magic and Christian miracle in the Old English Andreas’, in Zacher, Samantha (ed.), Imagining the Jew in Anglo-Saxon Literature and Culture (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016), pp. 167–93.Google Scholar

Save element to Kindle

To save this element to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Natural and Supernatural in Early Medieval England
Available formats
×

Save element to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Natural and Supernatural in Early Medieval England
Available formats
×

Save element to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Natural and Supernatural in Early Medieval England
Available formats
×