Scholars from Trinity College Dublin have discovered a lost copy of Caedmon's Hymn, the earliest surviving poem in the English language, at the National Central Library of Rome. The poem was composed in the seventh century by a Northumbrian cattle herder and recorded by the medieval theologian Bede in the eighth century.
The Old English version found in Rome is believed to have been transcribed by a monk in northern Italy between AD800 and AD830. It is the third oldest surviving text of the poem, after older copies held at Cambridge and St Petersburg, which have the poem in Latin with Old English added in the margin.
Elisabetta Magnanti, who discovered the manuscript with Mark Faulkner, said: 'When we saw it we looked at each other and I said, “No one knows about this.” To make sure I wasn’t dreaming I double-checked the catalogues and there was no mention of it.'
The Rome copy is significant because it contains the Old English version in the main body of the text, reflecting the language's growing status in the ninth century. The poem is punctuated with a full stop after every word, indicating that word spacing was a relatively new invention.
The researchers have detailed their findings in the journal Early Medieval England and its Neighbours. Caedmon is said to have been an illiterate cattle herder at Whitby Abbey who was inspired by a divine visitation to compose the hymn, which praises God for creating the world.
