Anglo-Saxon Aptitudes

For some decades Cambridge has taught Old English in an interdisciplinary department that linked it with Old Norse and early Irish and Welsh, bringing together the study of languages, literatures, history and antiquities. In this lecture Ray Page considers whether it is still possible, in the existing highly specialised state of early medieval scholarship, to retain such a mode of studying Old English. Semantic problems in Anglo-Saxon texts make it clear that it is important for philologist, historian and archaeologist to understand one another's aims, methods, models and discoveries.