The Old English Catholic Homilies

A contemporary edition and translation of one of the great monuments of Old English literary and religious culture.

The homilies of the monk Ælfric, written in the last decade of the tenth century, offer some of the most important prose writing in Old English. They convey contemporary Christian doctrine shaped during a period of monastic reform. Taken together, the homilies offer a distillation of the spiritual inheritance of the English Church before the Norman Conquest. They cover a broad range of topics, from biblical exegesis to saints’ lives to general Christian history, with a strong focus on the gospel reading at Mass, explained in language that laypeople could understand. Ælfric is famous for his lucid prose, which he later developed into a rhythmical and alliterative style that has often been likened to verse.

In the second series of Catholic Homilies, Ælfric continues his project with an additional forty sermons, sometimes multiple for the same occasion, and relies again on the works of Church Fathers such as Augustine, Gregory, and Bede. This is the first complete translation of the Catholic Homilies since 1844, presented alongside the newly edited Old English text.