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THE HOMILIES OF
THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH.
THE FIRST PART,
CONTAINING
THE SERMONES CATHOLICI,
OR
HOMILIES OF ÆLFRIC.
IN THE ORIGINAL ANGLO-SAXON, WITH AN
ENGLISH VERSION.
VOL. I.
By BENJAMIN THORPE, F.S.A.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR THE ÆLFRIC SOCIETY.
MDCCCXLIV.
PRINTED BY
RICHARD AND JOHN E. TAYLOR,
RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET.
PREFACE.
The work now presented to the Members of the Ælfric Society, the first fruit of its praiseworthy attempt to rescue from oblivion the literary remains of our forefathers, was selected for the earliest publication of the Society, on account both of its valuable matter and the beautiful medium by which it is conveyed.
Of the author of the Sermones Catholici we know nothing with certainty beyond his name, though from the words of his own preface, where he speaks of king Æthelred's days as past, and informs us that in those days he was only a monk and mass-priest, it follows that he was not Ælfric archbishop of Canterbury, who died in the year 1006, or ten years before the death of king Æthelred.
With better foundation we may assume him to have been Ælfric archbishop of York, who presided over that see from the year 1023 to 1051[1]. Against this supposition there seems no objection on the score of dates, and that the composer of the 'Sermones' was a person of eminence during the life of archbishop {vi}Wulfstan, of whom, according to our hypothesis, he was the immediate successor, is evident from the language of his Canons, and of his Pastoral Epistle to Wulfstan, in which he speaks as one having authority; though in the first-mentioned of these productions he styles himself simply "humilis frater," and in the other "Ælfricus abbas[2]," and afterwards "biscop."
Of Ælfric's part in these Homilies, whether, as it would seem from his preface, it was that of a mere translator from the