Rome library – A medieval book in Rome has been identified as containing “Caedmon’s Hymn,” described by researchers as the oldest surviving English poem. The discovery came after Trinity College Dublin researchers examined digitized pages of a 9th-century manuscript holding
When researchers in Ireland first saw the digitized pages of a medieval manuscript tracked down in Rome. their reaction was immediate: “We were extremely surprised.. We were speechless.. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we first saw that. ” said Elisabetta Magnanti. a visiting research fellow at Trinity College Dublin’s school of English.
The object of their astonishment was not just any text.. Inside the digitized Latin pages of a book held in Rome’s main public library. the researchers found what they described as the oldest surviving English poem.. Magnanti said the poem was placed within the main body of Latin text: “It was extraordinary.”
The poem. composed in Old English in the 7th century by a Northumbrian agricultural worker. is “Caedmon’s Hymn.” The hymn appears within some copies of “Ecclesiastical History of the English People. ” written in Latin by the monk and saint known as the Venerable Bede. a history that has been reproduced widely in the Middle Ages. with over 200 manuscripts. according to Magnanti’s colleague Mark Faulkner. an associate professor of medieval literature at Trinity.. Faulkner called Caedmon’s hymn “the start of English literature.”
In the Rome manuscript, the dating is among the key facts.. The manuscript containing the hymn is one of the oldest, dating from the 9th century.. The researchers described two earlier copies as also containing the poem in Old English. but only as afterthoughts—translated from Latin and written into the margins by later scribes or appended rather than placed within the main body of the text.
Faulkner said the Rome finding shifts the timeline that had previously been accepted. Before this discovery, the earliest surviving example was from the early 12th century—“three centuries earlier,” he said—pointing to how much earlier English was already being valued and used.
The discovery carried another layer of frustration: it was hard to find at all.
Caedmon’s story. as recounted by Faulkner. begins at Whitby Abbey in North Yorkshire. where Caedmon is said to have composed the hymn while working.. After guests at a feast began reciting poems. Faulkner said Caedmon left the feast and went to bed “embarrassed that he didn’t know anything suitable.” In the account. a figure appeared to him in his dreams telling him to sing about creation. and Caedmon produced the nine-line hymn.
By contrast, the path of the Rome manuscript through centuries was anything but straightforward. Some 1,400 years later, the copy resurfaced in Rome’s main public library—only after crossing the Atlantic Ocean at least twice and changing hands repeatedly.
According to Valentina Longo. curator of medieval and modern manuscripts at Rome’s National Central Library. monks transcribed this copy of Bede’s history in the scriptorium of the Benedictine abbey of Nonantola. described as one of the most important transcription centers during the Middle Ages. located near modern-day Modena in northern Italy.. Longo said that when the abbey’s importance declined in the 17th century. its collection of manuscripts was shifted to another abbey in Rome. then moved to the Vatican. and finally to a small church.
Along the way. Longo said. some texts went missing before reemerging in the early 19th century in the possession of famous international collectors.. Longo said the copy eventually went to English antiquarian Thomas Phillipps. whose circumstances deteriorated enough that he began selling off portions of his collection.
Swiss bibliophile Martin Bodmer then secured the book. Longo said it later arrived in New York City during the 20th century in the trove of Austrian-born rare bookseller H.P. Kraus.
Italy’s culture ministry was also involved in the pursuit of lost manuscripts.. Longo said it had been scouring the world for missing Nonantola abbey materials, buying them at auctions and from collectors.. She said the ministry bought this copy of Bede’s history from Kraus in 1972.. Since then, she said, the manuscript has remained in Rome’s library, but had received little notice.
Magnanti said she had reason to believe it might already be there.. She described spending over four years studying Bede’s history and compiling a catalog of extant copies. saying she knew the book was listed in the library’s catalog and was “almost certain that the book was. in fact. still here.” She added that the complex provenance meant “no big scholar had really looked at it. ” making it “virtually unstudied.”
The library confirmed the book was in its stacks after Magnanti emailed it. Three months later, Magnanti received digital images of the entire manuscript.
The wider effort behind the find is also central to the story.. Longo said the library has digitized the entire Nonantolan collection and made it freely accessible through the website.. Andrea Cappa. the library’s head of manuscripts and the rare books reading room. said this is part of a broader project to put thousands of rare books and manuscripts within reach of researchers around the world.
“The discovery made by the experts of Trinity College is just one starting point, a single manuscript that might pave the way for countless other discoveries, in countless other fields, through international cooperation like this,” Cappa said.
The chain of events runs from a 9th-century manuscript—described as containing “Caedmon’s Hymn” within the main body of Latin text—back through the library’s decision to digitize the Nonantola collection. and then to Magnanti’s four years of cataloging. which led her to email the library and obtain digital images three months later.
While the poem’s place in the text had not been widely examined. the manuscript’s long travel is specific: a transcription at Nonantola near modern-day Modena. a shift from there in the 17th century to another Roman abbey. then to the Vatican. and finally to a small church—before portions went missing. resurfaced in the early 19th century in collectors’ hands. and ultimately ended up purchased by Italy’s culture ministry from H.P.. Kraus in 1972.
With the poem now identified inside the Latin body of Bede’s history. the Rome manuscript stands as a rare. concentrated correction to what researchers previously believed was the earliest surviving instance—earlier by three centuries. Faulkner said—offering a glimpse of English reaching far farther back than scholars had expected.
Rome medieval manuscript Caedmon’s Hymn Old English Venerable Bede Ecclesiastical History of the English People Trinity College Dublin digitization National Central Library Nonantola abbey