The Battle of Maldon 300: Wigelm or Wigelin(e)?
The reading "ƿiʒelines bearn" in line 300 of The Battle of Maldon has been the subject of much speculation. This is no doubt partly a consequence of the fact that the poem is known only from a transcript made c. 1724, the original manuscript having been largely destroyed in the fire of the Cotton Li...
| Publicado en: | Anglia: Journal of English Philology / Zeitschrift für Englische Philologie Vol. 144; no. 2; pp. 233 - 242 |
|---|---|
| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Literary Criticism |
| Publicado: |
De Gruyter
Jun2026
|
| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=194554500&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 194554500 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 03405222 1VQX jtl: Anglia: Journal of English Philology / Zeitschrift für Englische Philologie issn: 03405222 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jun2026 vid: 144 iid: 2 pid: 1734 pub: De Gruyter artinfo: ui: 194554500 10.1515/ang-2026-0015 ppf: 233 ppct: 9 formats: tig: atl: The Battle of Maldon 300: Wigelm or Wigelin(e)? aug: au: Insley, John affil: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Germany su: Textual criticism Onomastics Paleography Historical linguistics Old English poetry sug: subj: Textual criticism Onomastics Paleography Historical linguistics Old English poetry keyword: Ƿiʒelines bearn Battle of Maldon Casley's transcript Old English feminine personal names and masculine genitival endings ab: The reading "ƿiʒelines bearn" in line 300 of The Battle of Maldon has been the subject of much speculation. This is no doubt partly a consequence of the fact that the poem is known only from a transcript made c. 1724, the original manuscript having been largely destroyed in the fire of the Cotton Library in 1731. Two major questions are apparent. The first involves the accuracy of the reading itself. The second is that of the identity of ƿiʒelin(e) within the context of the poem itself. Since that part of the manuscript in which the poem appeared is now lost, we must assess the transcript within a set of comparative morphological and etymological parameters. The present article favours the emendation of the ƿiʒelines of the transcript to ƿiʒelmes (for OE Wīġhelm) and rejects the retention of the reading ƿiʒelines deriving from a feminine *Wigelin(e) and denoting the name of the mother of the Ƿistan Þurstanes suna of lines 297–298. Instead, Ƿistan Þurstanes suna is interpreted as the anglicized form of the name of a Scandinavian who had taken the Old English name Wīġhelm on being baptised when entering Ealdormann Byrhtnoth's entourage. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Literary Criticism src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y dt: @attributes: year: 2026 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
|---|