What alphabet did Anglo-Saxons used for their writings? What written records have survived from that time?

Anglo-Saxons scribes used two kinds of letters: the runes and the letters

of the Latin alphabet, thus the OE letters were sometime very like and sometimes

very unlike those used in modern English.

The Anglo-Saxon runes (also Anglo-Frisian), also known as futhorc (or

fuþorc), is a runic alphabet, extended from the Elder Futhark from 24 to between

26 and 33 characters. They were used probably from the 5th century onward,

recording Old English and Old Frisian.

They remained in use in Anglo-Saxon England throughout the 6th to 10th

centuries, although runic script became increasingly confined to manuscript

tradition as a topic of antiquarian interest after the 9th century, and it disappeared

even as a learned curiosity soon after the Norman conquest.

The Old English Latin alphabet—though it had no standard orthography—

generally consisted of 24 letters, and was used for writing Old English from the 9th

to the 12th centuries. Of these letters, 20 were directly adopted from the Latin

alphabet, two were modified Latin letters (Æ, Ð), and two developed from the

runic alphabet (Ƿ, Þ). The letters K, Q and Z were not in the spelling of native

English words.

Anglo-Saxon literature encompasses literature written in Old English (also

called Anglo-Saxon) in Anglo-Saxon England from the 7th century to the decades

after the Norman Conquest of 1066. Cædmon's Hymn, composed in the 7th century

according to Bede, is often considered the oldest extant poem in English, whereas

the later poem, The Grave is one of the final poems written in Old English, and

presents a transitional text between Old and Middle English. Likewise, the

Peterborough Chronicle continues until the 12th century.

The poem Beowulf, which often begins the traditional canon of English

literature, is the most famous work of Old English literature. The Anglo-Saxon

Chronicle has also proven significant for historical study, preserving a chronology

of early English history.

In descending order of quantity, Old English literature consists of:

sermons and saints' lives, biblical translations; translated Latin works of the early

Church Fathers; Anglo-Saxon chronicles and narrative history works; laws, wills

and other legal works; practical works on grammar, medicine, geography; and

poetry. Most Old English poets are anonymous, and only four names are known

with any certainty: Caedmon, Bede, Alfred the Great, and Cynewulf.

In all there are over 400 surviving manuscripts from the period, of which about 189

are considered "major".

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 907