George Hardin Brown was an American scholar of medieval studies. The focus of his scholarship includes Anglo-Latin and Anglo-Saxon literature, especially the work of the Venerable Bede. Brown had a long academic career at many renowned institutions and has studied under other notable scholars in his field. He died on November 6, 2021. [1]
Brown received his B.A. (1955), Ph.L. (1956), and M.A. (1959) degrees from Saint Louis University. He also studied theology in Austria before returning to the United States. Brown earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1971, [2] from a department that included scholars of medieval and oral literature such as Francis Peabody Magoun, Albert Lord, and Walter Ong.
After receiving his Ph.D., Brown took a position at Stanford University, where he worked until his death and where he headed the Medieval Studies Program in the Stanford University School of Humanities and Sciences. In 1994 he gave the Toller Lecture, [3] which is considered a foundational work in early English textual studies. [1] In 1996, at the Bede Foundation in Jarrow, he gave the Jarrow Lecture. Before his death he was editing a new edition of Bede's historical works (Opera historica minora), to be published by Brepols for the Corpus Christianorum Series Latina. [4]
Bede, also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable, was an English monk at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom of Northumbria of the Angles.
Northumbria was an early medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom in what is now Northern England and south-east Scotland.
The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened within Britain, and the identity was not merely imported. Anglo-Saxon identity arose from interaction between incoming groups from several Germanic tribes, both amongst themselves, and with indigenous Britons. Many of the natives, over time, adopted Anglo-Saxon culture and language and were assimilated. The Anglo-Saxons established the concept, and the Kingdom, of England, and though the modern English language owes somewhat less than 26% of its words to their language, this includes the vast majority of words used in everyday speech.
Wilfrid was an English bishop and saint. Born a Northumbrian noble, he entered religious life as a teenager and studied at Lindisfarne, at Canterbury, in Francia, and at Rome; he returned to Northumbria in about 660, and became the abbot of a newly founded monastery at Ripon. In 664 Wilfrid acted as spokesman for the Roman position at the Synod of Whitby, and became famous for his speech advocating that the Roman method for calculating the date of Easter should be adopted. His success prompted the king's son, Alhfrith, to appoint him Bishop of Northumbria. Wilfrid chose to be consecrated in Gaul because of the lack of what he considered to be validly consecrated bishops in England at that time. During Wilfrid's absence Alhfrith seems to have led an unsuccessful revolt against his father, Oswiu, leaving a question mark over Wilfrid's appointment as bishop. Before Wilfrid's return Oswiu had appointed Ceadda in his place, resulting in Wilfrid's retirement to Ripon for a few years following his arrival back in Northumbria.
Jarrow Hall is a museum in Jarrow, South Tyneside, England which celebrates the life of the Venerable Bede; a monk, author and scholar who lived in at the Abbey Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Wearmouth-Jarrow, a double monastery at Jarrow and Monkwearmouth,, England.
Saint Ceolfrid was an Anglo-Saxon Christian abbot and saint. He is best known as the warden of Bede from the age of seven until his death in 716. He was the Abbot of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Abbey, and a major contributor to the project to produce the Codex Amiatinus Bible. He died in Burgundy while en route to deliver a copy of the codex to Pope Gregory II in Rome.
The Saint Petersburg Bede, formerly known as the Leningrad Bede, is an Anglo-Saxon illuminated manuscript, a near-contemporary version of Bede's 8th century history, the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum. Although not heavily illuminated, it is famous for containing the earliest historiated initial in European illumination. It is so named because it was taken to the Russian National Library of Saint Petersburg in Russia at the time of the French Revolution, by Peter P. Dubrovsky.
Ecgbert was an 8th-century cleric who established the archdiocese of York in 735. In 737, Ecgbert's brother became king of Northumbria and the two siblings worked together on ecclesiastical issues. Ecgbert was a correspondent of Bede and Boniface and the author of a legal code for his clergy. Other works have been ascribed to him, although the attribution is doubted by modern scholars.
Tatwine was the tenth Archbishop of Canterbury from 731 to 734. Prior to becoming archbishop, he was a monk and abbot of a Benedictine monastery. Besides his ecclesiastical career, Tatwine was a writer, and riddles he composed survive. Another work he composed was on the grammar of the Latin language, which was aimed at advanced students of that language. He was subsequently considered a saint.
James the Deacon was a Roman deacon who accompanied Paulinus of York on his mission to Northumbria. He was a member of the Gregorian mission, which went to England to Christianise the Anglo-Saxons from their native Anglo-Saxon paganism. However, when he arrived in England is unknown. After Paulinus left Northumbria, James stayed near Lincoln and continued his missionary efforts, dying sometime after 671, according to the medieval chronicler Bede.
Henry Maria Robert Egmont Mayr-Harting is a British medieval ecclesiastical historian. From 1997 to 2003, he was Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Oxford and a lay canon of Christ Church, Oxford.
Charles Patrick Wormald was a British historian born in Neston, Cheshire, son of historian Brian Wormald.
The Abbey Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Monkwearmouth–Jarrow, known simply as Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey, was a Benedictine double monastery in the Kingdom of Northumbria, England.
Anglo-Saxon riddles are a significant genre of Anglo-Saxon literature. The riddle was a major, prestigious literary form in early medieval England, and riddles were written both in Latin and Old English verse. The pre-eminent composer of Latin riddles in early medieval England was Aldhelm, while the Old English verse riddles found in the tenth-century Exeter Book include some of the most famous Old English poems.
Bertram Colgrave, D. Litt. was a medieval historian, antiquarian and archaeologist, specializing on the lives of the early saints in Anglo-Saxon England.
Dame Rosemary Jean Cramp, is a British archaeologist and academic specialising in the Anglo-Saxons. She was the first female professor appointed at Durham University and was Professor of Archaeology from 1971 to 1990. She served as President of the Society of Antiquaries of London from 2001 to 2004.
Catherine E. Karkov is professor of History of Art and head of the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds. Her research centres on early medieval art, especially Anglo-Saxon art, and she has published three monographs. Her first concerns Anglo-Saxon art; the second one on the relation between text and image in Anglo-Saxon literature; and the third on how Anglo-Saxon writers imagined England as a place, how Anglo-Saxon England is understood by modern audiences, and the "fraught history of 'Anglo-Saxon' studies".
Gernot Wieland is an emeritus professor at the University of British Columbia, who specializes in the Anglo-Saxon period, specifically glosses in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, relations between Anglo-Saxon scholars and their continental counterparts, and the Latin literature written by Anglo-Saxons.
Carol L. Neuman de Vegvar is an art historian and Professor of Fine Arts at Ohio Wesleyan University.
Jennifer O'Reilly FRSA MRIA (1943–2016) was a medieval historian of Britain and Ireland known for her work on text and image, the writings of Bede, and medieval iconography.
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