Distractions TB - Surviving Trump
Distractions TB - Surviving Trump

Lost copy of seventh-century poem in Old English discovered at Rome library

Caedmon’s Hymn
A long-lost copy of “Caedmon’s Hymn”— the first poem ever written down in Old English — is visible in the five lines above the final line of the left page from a 9th century manuscript copy of the Venerable Bede’s “Ecclesiastical History of the English People” at Rome’s National Central Library. (Andrea Rosa / Associated Press)

Dublin scholars find 1,200-year-old manuscript of Caedmon’s Hymn composed by Northumbrian cattle herder

A lost copy of a poem composed in the seventh century by a Northumbrian cattle herder – the earliest surviving poem in the English language – has been discovered in Rome.

Scholars from Trinity College Dublin (TCD) uncovered the manuscript that contains Caedmon’s Hymn at the National Central Library of Rome.

Bede, the medieval theologian revered as the father of English history, recorded the nine-line poem in the eighth century. The Old English version discovered in Rome is believed to have been transcribed by a monk in northern Italy between AD800 and AD830.

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