rome

A remarkable manuscript discovered in Rome has brought to light a rare early copy of Cædmon's Hymn, widely considered the oldest known poem in the English language. Dating to the early ninth century, this ancient text offers profound new insights into how early English literature was preserved, valued, and transmitted across medieval Europe. Historians from Trinity College Dublin successfully identified the manuscript, which is currently held at the National Central Library of Rome. The document includes the Old English poem embedded within a copy of the Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Their groundbreaking research, recently published in the journal Early Medieval England and its Neighbours, sheds new light on the cultural connections between early medieval England and