Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library

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

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The Life and Death of Theodore of Stoudios

Theodore (759–826), abbot of the influential Constantinopolitan monastery of Stoudios, is celebrated as a saint by the Orthodox Church for his stalwart defense of icon veneration. Three important texts promoting the monastery and the memory of its founder are collected in The Life and Death of Theodore of Stoudios.

In the Life of Theodore, Michael the Monk describes a golden age at Stoudios, as well as Theodore’s often antagonistic encounters with imperial rulers. The Encyclical Letter of Naukratios, written in 826 by his successor, informed the scattered monks of their leader’s death. Translation and Burial contains brief biographies of Theodore and his brother, along with an eyewitness account of their reburial at Stoudios.

These works, translated into English for the first time, appear here alongside new editions of the Byzantine Greek texts.

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A Commentary on “The Old English and Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition”

This volume is a companion to The Old English and Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition. Its extensive notes and commentary on hundreds of Latin, Old English, and Old Norse–Icelandic riddles illuminate and clarify the multifaceted and interconnected nature of a broad, international tradition. Within this commentary, readers will encounter a deep reservoir of knowledge about riddles produced in both Latin and Old English during the Anglo-Saxon period, and the literatures with which they were in dialogue.

Riddles range from those by prominent authors like Aldhelm, Bede, Alcuin, and Boniface to those presented anonymously in collections such as the Exeter Book. All are fully discussed, with particular attention paid to manuscript traditions, subject matter, solutions, style, sources, parallels, and recommendations for further reading. Consideration is given to running themes throughout the collection, comparisons to other riddles and to other literature more broadly, and important linguistic observations and manuscript readings. The commentary also lists the manuscripts and earlier editions for each riddle, extensive catalogues of proposed solutions, and additional bibliographic references. Following the general discussion of each riddle there is detailed line-by-line annotation.

This authoritative commentary is the most comprehensive examination to date of the bilingual riddle tradition of Anglo-Saxon England and its links to the wider world.

Related Titles
The Old English and Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition

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The Old English and Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition

What offers over seven hundred witty enigmas in several languages? Answer: The Old English and Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition. Riddles, wordplay, and inscrutable utterances have been at the heart of Western literature for many centuries. Often brief and always delightful, medieval riddles provide insights into the extraordinary and the everyday, connecting the learned and the ribald, the lay and the devout, and the familiar and the imported. Many solutions involve domestic life, including “butter churn” and “chickens.” Others like “the harrowing of hell” or “the Pleiades” appeal to an educated elite. Still others, like “the one-eyed seller of garlic,” are too absurd to solve: that is part of the game. Riddles are not simply lighthearted amusement. They invite philosophical questions about language and knowledge.

Most riddles in this volume are translated from Old English and Latin, but it also includes some from Old Norse–Icelandic. The Old English and Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition assembles, for the first time ever, an astonishing array of riddles composed before 1200 CE that continue to entertain and puzzle.

Related titles
A Commentary on “The Old English and Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition”

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Fortune and Misfortune at Saint Gall: Ekkehard IV

The eleventh-century monk Ekkehard IV’s Fortune and Misfortune at Saint Gall, part of the chronicles of the famous Swiss abbey, is a treasure trove of medieval monastic life. Saint Gall’s records span its humble beginnings in the early seventh century to the late Middle Ages, with Ekkehard’s contribution covering the 880s to 972, near the end of the monastery’s two-century-long golden age. Its unforgettable tales, sometimes at odds with the historical record, contain sharp flashes of Ekkehard’s signature humor—when, for instance, a spying abbot from a neighboring monastery is caught hiding in the latrine. Ekkehard also shows how the abbey’s role as a spiritual haven could be compromised by worldly ties, including close associations with the powerful Carolingian and Ottonian courts. He bears witness to the struggles of the tenth-century church reform movement, when Emperor Otto I dispatched investigators to uncover Saint Gall’s deviations from the Rule of Saint Benedict.

This volume publishes the Latin text alongside its first complete English translation.

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The Byzantine Sinbad: Michael Andreopoulos

The Byzantine Sinbad collects The Book of Syntipas the Philosopher and The Fables of Syntipas, both translated from Syriac in the late eleventh century by the scholar Michael Andreopoulos.

Originally written in Persian and part of a multilingual and multicultural medieval storytelling tradition, The Book of Syntipas recounts how the Persian king Cyrus’s unnamed son—a student of the fictional philosopher Sinbad, who is known in Greek as Syntipas—is falsely accused of rape by a royal concubine. While the young man awaits execution, seven philosophers and the concubine attempt to influence Cyrus’s judgment. After seven days of storytelling, the son is exonerated and demonstrates the wisdom he learned from Syntipas.

The sixty-two moral tales in The Fables of Syntipas are inspired mainly by the tradition of Aesop but include fifteen that are uniquely attributed to the philosopher.

This volume is the first English translation to bring together Andreopoulos’s Byzantine Greek texts.

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Old English Legal Writings: Wulfstan

Archbishop Wulfstan of York (d. 1023) was a powerful clergyman and the most influential political thinker of pre-Conquest England. An advocate for the rights and privileges of the Church, he authored the laws of King Aethelred and King Cnut in prose that combined the rhetorical flourishes of a master homilist with the language of law. Some works forged a distinctive style by adding rhythm and alliteration drawn from Old English poetry. In the midst of Viking invasions and cultural upheaval, Wulfstan articulated a complementary relationship between secular and ecclesiastical law that shaped the political world of eleventh-century England. He also pushed the clergy to return to the ideals of their profession.

Old English Legal Writings is the first publication to bring together Wulfstan’s works on law, church governance, and political reform. When read together, they reveal the scope and originality of his thought as it lays out the mutual obligations of the church, the state, and the common people. This volume presents new editions of the Old English texts alongside new English translations.