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IMC 2010: Sessions

Session 320: Religious Travellers in Anglo-Saxon Culture

Monday 12 July 2010, 16.30-18.00

Organiser:Shannon Godlove, Division of Human Studies, Alfred University
Moderator/Chair:Mary Garrison, Department of History, University of York
Paper 320-aLiving the Dream: Exile and Suffering in the Letters of Anglo-Saxon Missionaries
(Language: English)
John-Henry Clay, Institute of Medieval & Early Modern Studies, Durham University
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Language and Literature - Latin, Religious Life
Paper 320-bTravellers across Space and Time: Apostles and Anglo-Saxons in Cynewulf's Fates of the Apostles and the Anonymous Metrical Calendar
(Language: English)
Shannon Godlove, Division of Human Studies, Alfred University
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Hagiography, Language and Literature - Old English
Abstract

The Anglo-Saxons were famously mobile - as exiles, pilgrims, missionaries, and emissaries they criss-crossed Europe. This session explores the representations, implications, and outcomes of Anglo-Saxon religious travel from literary, historical, and art-historical perspectives. Luisa Izzi investigates the architectural influences carried to England by religious travellers to Rome such as Wilfrid. John Clay treats the theme of peregrinatio, focusing on how the literary persona of the suffering exile was employed in the correspondence of Anglo-Saxon missionaries. Shannon Godlove discusses the travels of the apostles as a meaningful subject of veneration for Christian Anglo-Saxons in two Old English poems.