Old English Lives of Saints, Volume III

Old English Lives of Saints, a series composed in the 990s by the Benedictine monk Aelfric in his distinctive alliterative prose, portrays an array of saints—including virgin martyrs, married virgins, aristocrats, kings, soldiers, and bishops—for a late Anglo-Saxon audience. At a turbulent time when England was under increasingly severe Viking attack, the examples of these saints modeled courageous faith, self-sacrifice, and individual and collective resistance. The Lives also covers topics...