Felix’s Life of St Guthlac and Its Two Old English Versions

Felix’s Vita Sancti Guthlaci, composed in the mid-eighth century at the request of King Ælfwald of East Anglia (r. 713–49), is the earliest substantial literary work from the middle kingdoms of pre-Viking England. Written in Latin and modelled on the ornate style of Aldhelm, the Vita offers a vivid account of Guthlac, a Mercian noble turned hermit who died at Crowland in 714. It stands as both a literary landmark and a crucial historical source for early Anglo-Saxon religious life.

The Vita also shaped the development of vernacular hagiography. Though the Alfredian translation is lost, its Mercian legacy endures in the ‘Gates of Hell’ sequence reworked in the Vercelli Book, in the fuller Life at the end of a collection of Ælfric’s writings, and in entries in the Old English Martyrology. It inspired two major Old English poems preserved in the Exeter Book.

This volume presents, for the first time, a complete text of Felix’s Vita together with the Old English Homily and Life, offering a comprehensive view of Guthlac’s evolving cult. It is essential reading for scholars of early medieval literature, religion, and textual transmission across languages and centuries. All the texts are accompanied by translations and commentaries.