High King of Heaven: Aspects of Early English Spirituality

Publication Data: Kalamazoo, MI/Spencer, MA: Cistercian Publications, 1999
Format: softcover
Number of Pages: xiv + 114
Dimensions (l × w × h): 21.5 cm × 13.9 cm × 1.0 cm
Additional Information: black-and-white illustrations
ISBN: 0‒87907‒781‒6

   
Benedicta Ward SLG

Number One Hundred Eighty-One of Cistercian Studies Series

“In an article which he wrote in 1907, entitled with typical modesty ‘About an Old Prayer Book’, Edmund Bishop prefaced his comments by referring to what he called ‘a subject deeply, vitally interesting and yet I fancy little known and less considered, viz. the history and vicissitudes of what I may call English piety’. [This book is...]an attempt to follow up the ‘deeply, vitally interesting’ subject, in discussing aspects of the devotional life of the Anglo-Saxons in England in the first years after their conversion, i.e. the seventh and eighth centuries. The discussion is necessarily selective and concentrates mainly on the Latin texts of prayers, corporate and individual, with some references to later texts in Anglo-Saxon and also to non-literary sources.”
—“Preface”

CONTENTS

   List of Illustrations
   Preface
   Abbreviations
1 Mediterranean influences: ‘To teach by word and example’
2 The Irish: ‘Christ in mouth of friend and stranger’
3 Prayer together: ‘We draw near to heavenly mysteries’
4 The companionship of heaven: ‘The heavenly host to be my guard’
5 Prayer alone: ‘Bright candles over the holy white scriptures’
6 Anglo-Saxon prayers: ‘Christ within me’
7 Prayer and the Cross: ‘Christ was on the Cross’
   Further reading
   Index