Reading Imperial Geographies with the Old English Orosius: Territory and Language

Organised by the Institute for Medieval and Early Modern Studies.

(Free) Hybrid event: in-person (no registration required) and online (registration required through this link: https://durhamuniversity.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_x-9pub21RwGGBkdP7P_b_g)

Original Page: https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/institutes-and-centres/medieval-early-modern-studies/events/general-events-/imems-seminar---epiphany-term-2023/

Details:

This paper will look at the portrayal of geography in the Old English translation of Orosius’s 5th-century History Against the Pagans to open up the importance of imperial models for forging English as a written national language across the 9-11th centuries. The aim is to look at the nexus of territoriality and language to explore the ways written English was not a straightforwardly national language. The paper looks at a theme central to Orosius’s own text – translatio imperii et studii. The paper begins by looking at the place of geography, language and empire in King Alfred the Great’s famous programmatic statement about his promotion of English as a written language - the late 9th-century Preface to a translation of Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Care. The bulk of the paper will then use the Old English translation of Orosius to pursue that theme about geography, language and empire through the 10th and 11th centuries.