735), first historian of the English and one of the greatest scholars of the Middle Ages. Originally published in 1970 and out of print for many years, the book remains a minor classic of historical writing, now made available again for the enjoyment of all those interested in the early medieval world. A new preface and supplementary bibliography by Michael Lapidge have brought the book up to date.

    His surviving prose works include a long treatise De virginitate, and a number of letters; these in particular are an important source of knowledge concerning Anglo-Saxon England. The treatise, a lengthy exhortation on virtue addressed to nuns at Barking Abbey, is a fascinating series of exempla drawn from the prodigious range of Aldhelm's knowledge of patristic literature, and tailored to the expectations of a seventh-century Anglo-Saxon female audience. Because of the extreme difficulty of his Latin, however, Aldhelm's prose works have rarely been read, and have never been adequately appreciated - which this translation seeks to remedy. It is accompanied with an introduction outlining Aldhelm's central importance to Anglo-Saxon literary culture; a critical biography which throws new light on what has previously been assumed about him; and an essay establishing an accurate canon and chronology of his writings.