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In another hugely useful volume from the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, Roy M. Liuzza makes Ælfric’s most important work widely accessible in an edition and translation that is informative, economical, and supremely usable. The whole volume makes superb use of the best scholarship on Ælfric to shape an efficient and appealing presentation of the first homiletic cycle created by the most prolific writer of Old English. Liuzza’s translation is accurate and readable and in the process broadly recreates the style of

The value of the pieces that are the focus of this volume lies in their allotting ample space to literary imagination and portraying saintly figures who transcend the limits of a life entrenched in social conventions. Readers will be transported to a literary landscape that typifies the branch of Byzantine hagiography closest to fantasy or magical realism. All in all, Stratis Papaioannou has put his philological skills and his efforts to excellent use in presenting a sound edition of these

This volume of the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library gathers four of the main repositories of medical remedies from early Medieval England together with a plethora of other scattered recipes from the period. It represents a valuable addition to the already rich array of texts in the series, and one that will be of interest not only to those specialising in medieval English medicine, but also to a broader readership. This new volume makes for compelling reading, from the encyclopaedic approach

The International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England has announced the winner of its 2025 award for Best Edition or Translation: Medical Writings from Early Medieval England, Volume I: The Old English Herbal, Lacnunga, and Other Texts, edited and translated by John D. Niles and Maria A. D’Aronco. “Niles and D’Aronco’s work is the first comprehensive edition and translation of Old English medical texts to be published since Cockayne’s Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England in 1864-1866, and offers

Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus (mid-fifth century to 518 CE), the bishop of Vienne, left us with a large letter collection, a biblical epic of five books, De spiritalis historiae gestis, and a poem addressed to his sister on the virtues of chastity, De consolatoria castitatis laude. With his translation, Michael Roberts aims for readability and accuracy while leaving room to make choices for the sake of fluency. He achieves his goal and offers a clear and uniformly excellent prose translation. As

In the face of scant biblical information about the background and life of Mary, the virginal mother of Jesus Christ, Byzantine theologians relied on a variety of sources including apocryphal texts, homilies, hymns, and exegetical commentaries. Literary attempts to recount and celebrate Mary’s entire life story emerged somewhat late in this tradition. It was John Geometres who produced the most sophisticated, in theological and rhetorical terms, of the surviving texts. In the words of Maximos Constas and Christos Simelidis, this