The Book of Cerne1996
prayer, patronage, and power in ninth-century England
by Michelle Brown
The Book of Cerne: Prayer, Patronage and Power in Ninth-Century England is the first volume in The British Library Studies in Medieval Culture, an important new series of monographs and multi-author volumes taking manuscript studies as a focus research in all aspects of medieval culture. In this full-length study of the Book of Cerne (Cambridge University Library, MS Ll. 1. 10), the first since the edition of almost a hundred years ago, Michelle P. Brown invites a fresh consideration not only of dating and authorship of the manuscript, but also of its purpose and content. The Book of Cerne is a prayerbook (meditating upon the themes of salvation and the communion of saints) made for a patron whose cultural tastes embraced Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Carolingian, Roman, and Byzantine materials....