History of the English Language

Benjamin A. Saltzman

I research and teach the literature and culture of early medieval England, focusing on texts written in Old English and Anglo-Latin roughly between the seventh century and the eleventh. My work focuses on the relationship between textuality and religious/social practices in medieval law and monastic life with particular attention to manuscript culture and paleography, the cultural implications of literature, and critical theory.

Christina von Nolcken (emerita, teaching 2019-20)

Christina Von NolckenI start the chronology in the Department, with courses on Old and Middle English language and literature, and the history of the English language. I am especially interested in Anglo-Scandinavian relations towards the end of the Anglo-Saxon period, and, in the later period, late fourteenth- and fifteenth-century devotional texts. My research has mainly been on the Wycliffite attempt to bring education, and especially religious education, to the people. My publications include an edition of a handbook for itinerant Wycliffite preachers, and essays on various Wycliffite texts, including a set of sermons in Latin, a movingly personal letter written from prison, and a startling reworking of that early Middle English guide for anchoresses, the Ancrene Riwle.
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