Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library

Producing books of original medieval and Byzantine texts with facing-page translations.

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The Old English Catholic Homilies, The Second Series: Ælfric

A contemporary edition and translation of one of the great monuments of Old English literary and religious culture

The homilies of the monk Ælfric, written in the last decade of the tenth century, offer some of the most important prose writing in Old English. They convey contemporary Christian doctrine shaped during a period of monastic reform. Taken together, the homilies offer a distillation of the spiritual inheritance of the English Church before the Norman Conquest. They cover a broad range of topics, from biblical exegesis to saints’ lives to general Christian history, with a strong focus on the gospel reading at Mass, explained in language that laypeople could understand. Ælfric is famous for his lucid prose, which he later developed into a rhythmical and alliterative style that has often been likened to verse.

In the second series of Catholic Homilies, Ælfric continues his project with an additional forty sermons, sometimes multiple for the same occasion, and relies again on the works of Church Fathers such as Augustine, Gregory, and Bede. This is the first complete translation of the Catholic Homilies since 1844, presented alongside the newly edited Old English text.

Related titles

Old English Catholic Homilies, The First Series, by Ælfric
Old English Lives of Saints, Volume I, by Ælfric
Old English Lives of Saints, Volume II, by Ælfric
Old English Lives of Saints, Volume III, by Ælfric

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The Book of Miracles of Saint Louis, Bishop of Toulouse

At the intersection of medieval religion and medicine

Prince Louis, son of Charles II of Anjou, died at age twenty-three in 1297, but had already taken vows as a Franciscan friar and been invested as bishop of Toulouse only six months earlier. Immediately after he was buried in Marseille, miracles were reported—first by local citizens then by pilgrims as rumors of his powers spread to villages and towns in Provence. Louis was canonized in 1317, the third member of the First Order of the Friars Minor to achieve official sainthood, after Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Anthony of Padua.

Originally written in Provençal and then translated into Latin, The Book of Miracles of Saint Louis, Bishop of Toulouse carefully records 211 miracle stories that attest to Louis’s qualifications for canonization and document remarkable community engagement in saint-making. Illness prompted most petitions to Saint Louis. The narratives thus include detailed reports of diseases, conditions, and disabilities afflicting both people and animals. At a time when new medical practices were being promoted and both Christian and Jewish physicians were ubiquitous at the bedsides of the sick, The Book of Miracles testifies to an enduring faith in God and in the healing skills of meritorious saints such as Louis, who was unequivocally qualified as a “doctor of souls.”

The Book of Miracles of Saint Louis, Bishop of Toulouse is the first translation of the early fourteenth-century Latin manuscript and offers vivid and valuable insights into medieval medicine and mentalités.

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The Works of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim

The complete works of the first known woman playwright

Hrotsvit, a canoness at the convent of Gandersheim in Saxony during the tenth century, is the first Latin dramatist since late antiquity whose work survives. While her plays are still frequently performed, her other works are not readily available in English.

A desire to provide a morally superior, elegant alternative to Terence motivated Hrotsvit—instead of lascivious women, chaste virgins; instead of misbehaving young men defying their fathers, well-behaved young women obeying their mothers and defying male superiors; instead of erotic love, the love of Christ. Her plays are preeminently women’s plays: written for an audience of women and principally about women. Her female characters have extensive speaking parts; they are active, assertive, and self-directed.

In addition to the plays, Hrotsvit composed poems centered on saints and holy persons such as the Virgin Mary, Saint Denis, and the early Christian martyr Agnes. She also wrote epics on Otto the Great and on the founding of Gandersheim Abbey. Her poems for Theophilus and for Saint Basil both present versions of the Faustus legend. The Works of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim includes all of these texts, plus her introductory letters and several shorter poems, in this first complete translation of Hrotsvit into English.

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The Old English Chronicle, Volume I

A thousand years of English history, encapsulating invasions, the rise and fall of kings, and religious events

Among the vernacular historical writings of early medieval England, the Old English Chronicle holds a prominent place, providing not only a backbone of English history from the fifth through the twelfth centuries but also a record of language development and geography. The seven texts in the Chronicle, known as manuscripts A through G, offer a brief year-by-year summary of important national events.

The Old English Chronicle: The A-Text to 1001 is the earliest and most interesting of these manuscripts. It covers more than a thousand years, with entries written throughout the tenth century by different scribes. Although many entries are spare, noting only the death of a king or church official, others offer detailed accounts and interpretations of events such as the movement of viking armies against King Alfred or the narrative of treachery, retribution, and loyalty widely known today as “Cynewulf and Cyneheard.” In addition to the A-Text, this edition contains two highly political poems, The Death of Alfred and The Death of Edward, as well as The Battle of Maldon, a brilliant verse rendering of a defeat against Scandinavian invaders in 991.

The Old English Chronicle, Volume I contains newly edited Old English texts and expert translations of key works of medieval historical writing.

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The Menologion of Basil II

A fascinating window into daily Byzantine religious observances

The Menologion of Basil II, one of the most famous manuscripts surviving from Byzantium, contains short narratives to be read during the morning office to commemorate the saint or feast of the day. Dedicated to the emperor Basil II (r. 976–1025), it is best known for its decorative program: each of the 430 entries features a large, dazzling illumination of a corresponding scene. Yet the texts have received much less attention than their illustrations, despite the wealth of information that they provide about the commemoration of the saints in Byzantine society. This unillustrated volume highlights the Menologion as a work that maps the many paths toward Christian sanctity and celebrates the people who walked them, from martyr to monk, from patriarch to prostitute, and everyone in between.

The Menologion of Basil II includes both a new Greek edition, prepared from a fresh reading of the manuscript that replaces the previous eighteenth-century edition, and the first full translation into English—the first into any modern language.

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The Labyrinth of Fortune: Juan de Mena

A classic, Dantesque political epic from medieval Spain that inspired Cervantes and Góngora, in its first English translation.

Why do the injustices of the past still afflict the present? With this question, Juan de Mena is transported to heaven by a vision in the Dantesque The Labyrinth of Fortune. Composed in 1444 by Mena, a royal chronicler and Latin secretary in the court of Juan II of Castile, El Laberinto de Fortuna became the most important political allegory of medieval Spain. Allegorizing the past, present, and unknowable future through the figure of Providence, the poem reflects on the contentious kingship of Juan II and frames the Reconquest of Moorish territories—the foundational mythos of the emerging nation—as a virtuous, sacred task that would restore justice and the moral order because it fulfills a destiny ordained by God. This is the first English translation of a masterpiece that enriched the Spanish language with a density of learned allusions and a new Latinate humanistic style that deeply influenced subsequent writers such as Miguel Cervantes and Luis de Góngora.