Multilingualism in Early Medieval Britain Brady Hardback 9781009467896

Multilingualism in Early Medieval BritainAuthor(s): Lindy Brady\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Cambridge University Press\nISBN-13: 9781009467896, 978-1009467896\nSynopsis\nIn the words of its own historians, pre-Norman Britain held five languages and four peoples. Yet in modern scholarship, Old English is too often studied separately from the other languages that surrounded it. This Element offers a comprehensive synthesis of the evidence from the pre-Norman period that situates Old English as one of several living languages that together formed the basis of a vibrant oral and written literary culture in early medieval Britain. Each section centres around a key thematic topic and is illustrated through a series of memorable case studies that encapsulate the extent to which multilingualism appeared in every facet of life in early medieval Britain: religious and scholarly; political and military; economic and cultural; intellectual a.