Third-Oldest Copy of Caedmon’s Hymn Found in Rome

A previously unknown copy of Caedmon’s Hymn, the earliest surviving poem in English, was discovered in the National Central Library of Rome by scholars from Trinity College Dublin. The poem, a nine-line praise of creation attributed to a 7th-century illiterate cattle herder, appears in a 9th-century manuscript of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica transcribed by a northern Italian monk at the Abbey of Nonantola. This version is the third oldest known, after copies at Cambridge and St. Petersburg, but uniquely places the Old English text in the main body rather than the margin. The manuscript is the fifth-oldest surviving copy of Bede’s work and shows punctuation after every word, indicating evolving spacing conventions. Scholars Mark Faulkner and Elisabetta Magnanti published their findings on April 28 in “Early Medieval England and its Neighbours.” The manuscript’s history includes moves to Rome by the mid-17th century, theft during the Napoleonic wars, reappearance in Thomas Phillipps’ collection, and purchase by the library in the 1970s. The library is digitizing its holdings, with over 500 manuscripts already online.