Anglo-Saxon Prognostics

Prognostics were a means of predicting future events; they deal with matters of everyday life, from illness to the weather, and the meaning of dreams. They offer fascinating insights into monastic life, medicine, pastoral care, the transformations of classical learning in the middle ages, and the complex interconnections between orthodox religion, popular belief, science and magic. This volume provides the first full critical edition, with a facing-page translation, of a diverse and peculiar group of prognostic guides and calendars, in Latin and Old English, found in an eleventh-century manuscript from Christ Church, Canterbury; they are collated with related versions in both Anglo-Saxon and continental manuscripts. A lengthy introduction and commentary examines the transmission and translation of these texts, and sheds light on their origins and uses in late Anglo-Saxon monastic culture. Roy Liuzza is Professor of English at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

R.M. Liuzza is Professor of English at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.