Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, University of Cambridge

Last updated

Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic
Sidgwick site - geograph.org.uk - 557765.jpg
Partial view of 9 West Road, the Cambridge English Faculty Building, housing the ASNC department.
Established1928
Location
Cambridge
,
United Kingdom

Faculty of English at 9 West Road
Website www.asnc.cam.ac.uk

The Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic (ASNC or, informally, ASNaC) is one of the constituent departments of the University of Cambridge, and focuses on the history, material culture, languages and literatures of the various peoples who inhabited Britain, Ireland and the extended Scandinavian world in the early Middle Ages (5th century to 12th century). It is based on the second floor of the Faculty of English at 9 West Road. In Cambridge University jargon, its students are called ASNaCs. [1]

Contents

As of 2011, it was the only university faculty or department in the world to focus entirely on the early Middle Ages. [2]

Name

The name Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic dates to 1971, when the Department of Anglo-Saxon and Kindred Studies was renamed. [3]

The acronym ASNC or ASNaC is pronounced /ˈæznæk/ , and originally denoted members of the ASNC Society rather than of the Department. It was coined as a pun on an early poster for the ASNC Society Lunches: 'A Snack for ASNACs'. [4] Students in the department were referred to in English as Asnackers, in French as Asnaciennes or Asnaques, and in German as Asnäckische. [4] Later the simpler term Asnacs came into common use.

History

English Faculty building, 9 West Road, Cambridge, current home of the ASNaC Department. English Faculty building, 9 West Road, Cambridge.jpg
English Faculty building, 9 West Road, Cambridge, current home of the ASNaC Department.

The study of Anglo-Saxon England and its neighbouring regions has deep roots at Cambridge, beginning with the sixteenth-century Archbishop Matthew Parker. The first half of the seventeenth century saw Abraham Wheelocke hold a readership in Anglo-Saxon, and in 1657 John Spelman bestowed on William Somner the annual stipend of the Anglo-Saxon lecture founded by his father, Sir Henry Spelman, at Cambridge, enabling him to complete the first Old English dictionary. [5] After a lull in interest in Old English, in the nineteenth century, John Mitchell Kemble developed the study of Old English and Anglo-Saxon archaeology at Trinity College, and Joseph Bosworth, another Anglo-Saxonist who was associated with Trinity, endowed the Elrington and Bosworth Chair in Anglo-Saxon, established in 1878, and first held by Walter William Skeat.

Strengths at Cambridge in Old Norse were built up by Eiríkur Magnússon (1833–1913) and in Celtic studies by Edmund Crosby Quiggin (1875–1920).

The ASNaC Department as such has its origins in the work and ideas of Skeat's successor as Elrington and Bosworth Professor, Hector Munro Chadwick, of Clare College. Chadwick took a leading role in integrating the philological study of Old English with archaeology and history and, by bringing the study of Old English from the Faculty of English to Archaeology and Anthropology in 1928, founded what was to become the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic: [6] "Chadwick's aim ... was to keep Old English studies free from philology (as it was then practised), but also from the dominance of English Literature". [7] However, "the alliance of Anglo-Saxon and archaeology suited the professor and not the students; and in the 1960s Professor Dorothy Whitelock led the Saxon flock back into the English fold"—specifically in 1967, though the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology continues to sustain strengths in Anglo-Saxon and early medieval archaeology, with relevant archaeology papers being available to ASNaCs. [8] The Anglo-Saxon and Kindred Studies Tripos was introduced as a single-part (two-year) Tripos in 1957, the class list being published under the title 'Anglo-Saxon'; in 1971 this was relabelled 'Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic' under Peter Clemoes. [3] In 1992, under the leadership of Michael Lapidge, ASNC became a two-part (three-year) Tripos. [9] The Elrington and Bosworth Professor was customarily the head of the ASNaC Department, until a rotating headship system was introduced during the professorship of Simon Keynes in the early twenty-first century.

The Department runs three annual public lectures: the H. M. Chadwick Lecture, the Kathleen Hughes Memorial Lecture; and the E. C. Quiggin Memorial Lectures. [10] Annual pamphlets are produced on the topic of each lecture.

In 2015 the department was the subject of the scholarly article collection H. M. Chadwick and the Study of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic in Cambridge, edited by Michael Lapidge (CMCS Publications).

Major research projects

In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise the department was rated as the top Celtic Studies department in the UK, and one of the top departments and faculties within the University of Cambridge, with 75% of its submitted research rated internationally excellent (3*) or world-leading (4*).[ citation needed ] Because of its strongly interdisciplinary nature, elements of the Department's research were considered by the panels for History, English and Classics as well as Celtic Studies.

In collaboration with King's College London, since 2005 the department has developed and organised the free-access Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England. [11]

Languages taught

Language-study is central to ASNaC degree programmes, and the department is a major training ground in these skills for researchers in early medieval history. The department provides ab initio tuition in Old English, Old Norse, Old Irish, Middle Welsh, and Latin.

Despite the Department's medieval focus, its pre-eminence as a UK centre of Scandinavian and Celtic studies has led both the Irish and Icelandic governments to provide grants for the teaching of Modern Irish and Icelandic (respectively) to members of Cambridge University. [12]

Staff

The following table lists lecturers in the department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic and its forerunner institutions. [13]

Staff memberTermDate of matriculation

if former ASNaC

student

Faculties of English and Modern and Medieval Languages 1878-1927
W. W. Skeat 1878-1912
Eiríkur Magnússon 1894-98
Hector Munro Chadwick 1895-1941
Edmund Crosby Quiggin 1895-1920
José Maria de Navarro 1926-56
Maureen M. O'Reilly 1926-48
Bertha Surtees Phillpotts 1926-321898
Department of Anglo-Saxon and Kindred Studies 1927-67

(Faculty of Archaeology and Anthropology)

T. C. Lethbridge 1932-?
Dorothy M. Hoare de Navarro 1932-56
Agnes Jane Robertson 1932-35c. 1918
Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson 1934-391928
Peter Hunter Blair 1937-78
Rachel Bromwich 1945-761934
Bruce Dickins 1946-57
Glyn Daniel 1947-?
Nora Kershaw Chadwick 1950-58
Frank J. Bullivant 1956-61
Audrey E. Ozanne 1956-61
Dorothy Whitelock 1957-691921
Kathleen Hughes 1958-77
Peter Clemoes 1961-821953
R. I. Page 1961-91
Department of Anglo-Saxon and Kindred Studies 1967-71

(Faculty of English)

Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic 1971-

(Faculty of English)

Michael Lapidge 1974-98
Patrick Sims-Williams 1977-93c. 1970
David N. Dumville 1977-2005 [14] c. 1970
Simon Keynes 1978-2019c. 1970
Paul Bibire 1985-99
Andy Orchard 1991-2000 [15] 1983
Erich Poppe 1991-95
Lesley Abrams 1991-95
Oliver Padel 1994-?c. 1968
Máire Ní Mhaonaigh 1995-
Martin Syrett 1996-20011986
Rosalind Love 1998-c. 1980
Richard Dance 2000-
Judy Quinn 2000-2024
Paul Russell 2000-2023
Haki Antonsson 2001-2004
Jonathan Grove 2004-2008
Fiona Edmonds 2005-2015
Elizabeth Ashman Rowe 2008-
Alison Bonner 2016-
Rory Naismith 2019-2002
Erik Niblaeus 2019-2002
Ben Guy2023-2007
Dale Kedwards [16] 2024-

Students

Applications and admissions

Between 1900 and 1999, around 860 students studied in the Department or its precursor institutions. Between 1900 and 1946, 68% were women; thereafter there was a slight majority of men until 1980; and rough gender parity 1980-1999. [17]

From 2009 to 2012, between 50 and 60 applicants applied for the ASNC BA per year; about 53% were offered places; and about 43% (20-25 students) accepted their offers. [18] The undergraduate student body was majority female (⅔ for the 2011 admissions cycle) and had a strong preponderance of state-school leavers (84% of home students for the 2011 admissions cycle). [19]

ASNaC Society

The department has an affiliated student society, the ASNaC Society. It is recorded as hosting academic papers as early as 1971. [20] [21] [22] According to Michael Lapidge,

From the mid-1980s onward, the combined number of undergraduate and graduate students reached (which might be described as) a critical mass, with the result that there was a very palpable surge in corporate spirit and concomitant pride in being an 'ASNaC', a member of a small but elite group of students distinguished throughout the University for its academic attainments.

The Society organises a weekly 'ASNaC Lunch', field trips, punting expeditions, dinners, and ASNaC mugs and sweatshirts. [23] The Society is also noted for producing the (mostly) twice yearly Gesta Asnacorum, founded by Tom Shakespeare, which satirises the life of the Department and the medieval texts and modern scholarship it studies. [24] Though the Gesta Asnacorum is merely a scurrilous student rag, it does feature the juvenilia of many alumni of the department who have gone on to become prominent historians.

In June 2022, the ASNC society launched a new updated website. [25]

Alumni

ASNaCs have gone into many walks of life, but a significant proportion of academics in the fields of early medieval European literature and history, particularly in Celtic studies, have studied or taught at the department, making it a historically highly influential institution in its field. Academically prominent alumni of the department or its forerunner institutions who are not listed above as staff include:

Other noted alumni include:

Maria, the protagonist of Thomas Thurman's children's book Not Ordinarily Borrowable; or, Unwelcome Advice (2009), is an Asnac (there characterised as "a person who studies the way people lived a long, long time ago, far longer ago than the time when Maria lived, and looks at the things they made and the writings they left behind"). [26]

Related Research Articles

Jane Barbara Stevenson is a British historian, literary scholar, and author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hector Munro Chadwick</span> English philologist

Hector Munro Chadwick was an English philologist. Chadwick was the Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and the founder and head of the Department for Anglo-Saxon and Kindred Studies at the University of Cambridge. Chadwick was well known for his encouragement of interdisciplinary research on Celts and Germanic peoples, and for his theories on the Heroic Age in the history of human societies. Chadwick was a tutor of many notable students and the author of numerous influential works in his fields of study. Much of his research and teaching was conducted in cooperation with his wife, former student and fellow Cambridge scholar Nora Kershaw.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dorothy Whitelock</span> English historian

Dorothy Whitelock, was an English historian. From 1957 to 1969, she was the Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Cambridge. Her best-known work is English Historical Documents, vol. I: c. 500-1042, which she edited. It is a compilation of translated sources, with introductions.

Paul Adrian Bibire is an author and former lecturer in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of St Andrews (1971–85) and the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, University of Cambridge (1985–99). His area is Anglo Saxon and Old Norse and he has written many articles on these and related subjects. Bibire is also a keen enthusiast of the author J. R. R. Tolkien whom he credits as the motivation for his academic career.

Oliver James Padel is an English medievalist and toponymist specializing in Welsh and Cornish studies. He is currently Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic, in the University of Cambridge. and visiting professor of Celtic at the University of the West of England

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Foot</span> English Anglican priest and historian (born 1961)

Sarah Rosamund Irvine Foot, is an English Anglican priest and early medieval historian. She has been Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Oxford since 2007, and Dean of Christ Church, Oxford since 2023.

Kathleen Winifred Hughes was an English historian, her specialisation was Irish ecclesiastical history, particularly the early Christian Church in Ireland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dan Starkey (actor)</span> English actor

Dan Starkey is an English actor known for making numerous appearances in the BBC One science-fiction TV series Doctor Who. He has portrayed a number of different Sontaran characters, most notably Strax, who has come across the Eleventh and Twelfth incarnations of the Doctor, played by Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi respectively. In 2016 joined the CBBC sketch show, Class Dismissed and has appeared in 36 episodes He left the show after Series 3.

Richard Sharpe,, Hon. was a British historian and academic, who was Professor of Diplomatic at the University of Oxford and a fellow of Wadham College, Oxford. His broad interests were the history of medieval England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. He had a special concern with first-hand work on the primary sources of medieval history, including the practices of palaeography, diplomatic and the editorial process, as well as the historical and legal contexts of medieval documents. He was the general editor of the Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, and editor of a forthcoming edition of the charters of King Henry I of England.

Bruce Dickins, FBA, a graduate of Magdalene College, Cambridge, was Professor of English Language at the University of Leeds from 1931 to 1946, teaching medieval English and Old Norse. He sat on the executive committee of the Yorkshire Society for Celtic Studies from 1931 to at least 1943, serving as president in 1936-37, and editing several numbers of its journal, Yorkshire Celtic Studies.

Michael Lapidge, FBA is a scholar in the field of Medieval Latin literature, particularly that composed in Anglo-Saxon England during the period 600–1100 AD; he is an emeritus Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, a Fellow of the British Academy, and winner of the 2009 Sir Israel Gollancz Prize.

Audrey Lilian Meaney was an archaeologist and historian specialising in the study of Anglo-Saxon England. She published several books on the subject, including Gazetteer of Early Anglo-Saxon Burial Sites (1964) and Anglo-Saxon Amulets and Curing Stones (1981).

Florence Elizabeth Harmer FBA was an English historian, specializing in the Anglo-Saxon period. Translating from Old English and Latin, she edited a number of primary sources for early English history, and her Anglo-Saxon Writs (1952) remains a standard text.

David Michael Benjamin Denison is a British linguist whose work focuses on the history of the English language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julia Crick</span> British historian, medievalist and academic

Julia Catherine Crick, is a British historian, medievalist, and academic. She is Professor of Palaeography and Manuscript Studies at King's College London.

Dorothy De Navarro (1901–1987) was a lecturer at the University of Cambridge, who specialised in Anglo-Saxon literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Faculty of English, University of Cambridge</span>

The Faculty of English is a constituent part of the University of Cambridge. It was founded in 1914 as a Tripos within the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages. It could be studied only as a 'Part I' of a degree course, alongside a 'Part II' either in medieval languages or from another Tripos. In 1926, the course became a distinct Faculty.

Agnes Jane Robertson M.A. PhD (1893-1959) was a historian of Anglo-Saxon England. She was a student of Hector Munro Chadwick in the Department of Anglo-Saxon and Kindred Studies at the University of Cambridge, matriculating in about 1918. She was a Pfeiffer Research Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge and a lecturer in the Department of Anglo-Saxon and Kindred Studies between 1932 and 1935. She was later a reader in English language at the University of Aberdeen, which gives the Agnes Jane Robertson Memorial Lecture in her honour.

Patrick Sims-Williams is Emeritus Professor of Celtic Studies at Aberystwyth University and founding editor of the journal Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies.

Maureen Margaret O’Reilly was a British academic who taught Anglo-Saxon archaeology and Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic languages at the University of Cambridge and was an assistant curator of the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography in the 1920s and 30s.

References

  1. ↑ Tom Shakespeare, 'A Point of View: Taking England back to the Dark Ages', BBC News Magazine, 6 June 2014.
  2. ↑ Cf. Hugh Magennis, The Cambridge Introduction to Anglo-Saxon Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 35.
  3. 1 2 E. S. Leedham-Green, A Concise History of the University of Cambridge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 226-27.
  4. 1 2 Anthony Harvey, The Origin of ASNaC, Chadwick Lecture Addendum 1, 2017.
  5. ↑ Dictionarium Saxonico-Latino-Anglicum, voces, phrasesque praecipuas Anglo-Saxonicas. . . cum Latina et Anglica vocum interpretatione complectens. . . Aecesserunt Aelfrici Abbatis Grammatica Latino-Saxonica cum glossario suo ejusdem generis, 2 pts, Oxford, 1659; 2nd edit, with additions by Thomas Benson, 1701.
  6. ↑ A History of the University of Cambridge, ed. by Christopher Brooke, 4 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988–2004), IV (Peter Searby, 1890–1990), 445. See further Allen Frantzen, 'By the Numbers: Anglo-Saxon Scholarship at the Century's End', in A Companion to Anglo-Saxon Literature, ed. by Phillip Pulsiano and Elaine Treharne (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), DOI: 10.1111/b.9780631209041.2001.00030.x (pp. 478-80).
  7. ↑ John Walmesley, ' "A Term of Opprobrium": Twentieth Century Linguistics and English Philology', in History of Linguistics 2008, ed. by Gerda Hassler, Studies in the History of the Language Sciences, 115 (Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2008), pp. 35-47 (at p. 39).
  8. ↑ A History of the University of Cambridge, ed. by Christopher Brooke, 4 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988–2004), IV (Peter Searby, 1890–1990), 445, 202; Jana K. Schulman, 'An Anglo-Saxonist at Oxford and Cambridge: Dorothy Whitelock (1901–1982)', in Women Medievalists and the Academy, ed. by Jane Chance (Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005), pp. 553-62 (at pp. 559-60).
  9. ↑ Departmental History, Department of ASNC
  10. ↑ "ASNC Public Named Lectures". ASNC Department. Retrieved 15 March 2020.
  11. ↑ Janet L. Nelson, 'From Building Site to Building: The Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England (PASE) Project', in Collaborative Research in the Digital Humanities, ed. by Marilyn Deegan, Willard McCarty (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 123-34.
  12. ↑ ASNC Modern Icelandic, University of Cambridge, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, retrieved 12 October 2023
    ASNC Modern Irish, University of Cambridge, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, retrieved 12 October 2023
  13. ↑ Unless otherwise stated, information is from 'Appendix VIII', in H. M. Chadwick and the Study of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic in Cambridge, ed. by Michael Lapidge (Aberystwyth: Department of Welsh, Abersytwyth University, 2015), ISBN   9780955718298 [=Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies, 69/70], pp. 272-78.
  14. ↑ "Professor David Dumville". Staff profile. University of Aberdeen. Archived from the original on 3 August 2018. Retrieved 2 August 2018.
  15. ↑ "Professor Andrew Orchard". Institute of Continuing Education. Retrieved 22 January 2014.
  16. ↑ "New Assistant Professor of Old Norse-Icelandic". Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic. Retrieved 1 July 2024.
  17. ↑ Michel Lapidge, 'Introduction: The Study of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic in Cambridge, 1878-1999', in H. M. Chadwick and the Study of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic in Cambridge, ed. by Michael Lapidge (Aberystwyth: Department of Welsh, Abersytwyth University, 2015), pp. 1-58 ISBN   9780955718298 [=Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies, 69/70], pp. 1-58 (p. 41).
  18. ↑ "Undergraduate Study". study.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 20 September 2014.
  19. ↑ http://www.study.cam.ac.uk/undergraduate/apply/statistics/archive/admissionsstatistics2011.pdf, pp. 12, 15.
  20. ↑ M. C. W. Hunter, 'The Study of Anglo-Saxon Architecture Since 1770: An Evaluation', Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, 66 (1975-76), 129-39 (p. 129). doi : 10.5284/1073057
  21. ↑ R. W. Clement, 'University of Cambridge Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic Society', Old English Newsletter, 13.1 (Fall 1979), 8.
  22. ↑ D. W. Rollason, 'The Cults of Murdered Royal Saints in Anglo-Saxon England', Anglo-Saxon England, 11 (1982), 1-22 (p. 1 fn 1), doi : 10.1017/S0263675100002544.
  23. ↑ Michel Lapidge, 'Introduction: The Study of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic in Cambridge, 1878-1999', in H. M. Chadwick and the Study of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic in Cambridge, ed. by Michael Lapidge (Aberystwyth: Department of Welsh, Abersytwyth University, 2015), pp. 1-58 ISBN   9780955718298 [=Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies, 69/70], pp. 1-58 (pp. 44-45, quoting p. 44).
  24. ↑ Historia Asnacorum. 'Gesta Asnacorum', 1985–1995: The First Ten Years, ed. by Richard Fairhurst (Cambridge: The Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, 1997), p. 7; http://www.srcf.ucam.org/asnac/data/gesta.php.
  25. ↑ ASNC Society. https://asnacsoc.wordpress.com/.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  26. ↑ Thomas Thurman, Not Ordinarily Borrowable; or, Unwelcome Advice ([n.p.]: CreateSpace, 2009), p. 10.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.