The Irish in Mercia: A Cultural Context for the Earliest Anglo-Saxon Prayer Books

Abstract

1st soldier: You’re using coconuts! King Arthur: What? 1st soldier: You’ve got two empty halves of coconut and you’re bangin’ ‘em together. King Arthur: So? We have ridden since the snows of winter covered this land, through the kingdom of Mercia, through . . . 1st soldier: Where’d you get the coconuts? King Arthur: We found them. 1st soldier: Found them? In Mercia?! The coconut’s tropical! (Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975, directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones) Mercia is a county in the English midlands, and its foundation dates to the sixth century. In studies of the Anglo-Saxon period, Mercia is overshadowed by its neighbour Northumbria as famous works of art such as, the Cuthbert Cross and Lindisfarne Gospel Book were manufactured in Northumbria. However, Mercia produced manuscripts which are thought to be the earliest surviving European devotional prayer books. My research focuses on these Mercian manuscripts ...