A Tale of Two Travellers in King Alfred’s Court

Résumé

Considering just the English medieval case, it seems reasonable to assume that some sorts or forms of travel writing must have existed before such canonical texts as The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, the anonymous The Land of Cockaygne or Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (14th century). Indeed, the two short accounts I will discuss were added to, and included in, the Old English translation of Paulus Orosius’s Historiarum (or Historiae) adversum Paganos Libro Septem (5th century), ordered by, and made for, Alfred the Great, King of Wessex (871-899)

Bibliographical references

Sources

Manuscript sources

British Library, Add 47967. Lauderdale Ms ff. 8-8v.

British Library,Cotton Tib.B.i Ms, ff. 10v-13v.

Printed sources  

BATELY, Janet; ENGLERT, Anton (eds.) – Ohthere’s Voyages. A late 9^th century account of voyages along the coast of Norway and Denmark and its cultural context. Roskilde: The Viking Ship Museum, 2007.

CROSSLEY-HOLLAND, Kevin (ed./trans.) – The Anglo-Saxon World. An Anthology. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, “The World’s Classics”, 1984 (The Boydell Press, 1982).

Studies

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ALLPORT, Ben - “Home thoughts of abroad: Ohthere’s Voyage in its Anglo-Saxon context”. Early Medieval Europe, 28:2 (2020), pp. 256-288. Available at Home thoughts of abroad: Ohthere’s Voyage in its Anglo‐Saxon context - Allport - 2020 - Early Medieval Europe - Wiley Online Library. Accessed 21.01.2023.

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BATELY, Janet - “Ohthere and Wulfstan in the Old English Orosius”. In BATELY, Janet; ENGLERT, Anton (eds.) - Ohthere’s Voyages. A late 9^th century account of voyages along the coast of Norway and Denmark and its cultural context. Roskilde: The Viking Ship Museum, 2007, pp. 18-58.

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CUESTA, Julia Fernández; SILVA, Inmaculada Senra - “Ohthere and Wulfstan: One or Two Voyagers at the Court of King Alfred?”. Studia Neophilologica 72 / 1 (2000), pp. 18-23. DOI: 10.1080/003932700750041568; Available at https://doi.org/10.1080/003932700750041568 . Accessed 21.01.2023.

DE ANGELO, Jeremy - “Ohthere, Wulfstan, and Cultural Transmission in the Ninth-Century Baltic”. Peritia 27 (January 2016), pp. 31-41. DOI:10.1484/J.PERIT.5.112194. Access 21.01.2023.

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KEYNES, Simon; LAPIDGE, Michael (trans.) – Alfred the Great. Asser’s ‘Life of King Alfred’ and other contemporary sources. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., “Penguin Classics”, 1983.

PARKER, Joanne – 'England's Darling': The Victorian Cult of Alfred the Great. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007.

LADERO QUESADA, Miguel Angel – El mundo de los viajeros medievales. Madrid: Grupo Anaya, S.A., “Biblioteca Básica de Historia - Monografias”, 1992.

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