Unlocking the Exeter Book Conference
A most extraordinary gathering took place on 16th-17th April 2025 at the Oxford Faculty of English. Organised by Rachel Burns and Francis Leneghan, the ‘Unlocking the Exeter Book’ Conference provided a unique opportunity for new looks at an old book.
Produced in the 10th century, the Exeter Book is a glorious compendium of riddles, elegies, saints’ lives, prayers, wisdom poems, gnomic verse, and much more. Over the course of two days, twenty-seven speakers presented on all aspects of this cornerstone of Old English poetry, this mycel Englisc boc, bringing forth underappreciated gems and showcasing new approaches to well-trodden texts.
The first day began with a session on ‘Monastic Poetics’, chaired by Niamh Kehoe. Brian O’Camb kicked things off with a fascinating discussion of the influences of the Regius Psalter upon the catalogue poem Widsith and the Rhyming Poem. This was followed by Eleni Ponirakis, who offered up a reading of Azarias as paralleling monastic practises of contemplation (and also provided a fabulous visual analogy for the Divine Economy). Giovanni Nichetti closed the session with a look at a plethora of textual evidence for textual and cultural stratification in Precepts.
Session Two, on ‘Manuscripts and Readers’, was chaired by Grace Khuri. It began with a presentation from Ellie Jones of Exeter Cathedral Library, who spoke of the realities of caring for such a beloved cultural and historic artefact, with an eye for both touching and humorous anecdotes. This was followed by Jonathan Wilcox, setting forth evidence on scribal craft in the Exeter Book and highlighting the radical unknowability of exemplars. Tom Birkett’s look at the marginalia of the Exeter Book then coined the phrase of the day in “ship graffiti”. The session ended with Thomas Bredehoft’s examination of the material text in which he presented a compelling discussion of limp bindings.
Session Three, on ‘Genre’, was chaired by Hannah Bailey and began with Mercedes Salvador-Bello’s comprehensive demonstration of how the Physiologus had achieved canonical status by the time the Exeter Book was complied. This was followed by a dual presentation by Megan Cavell and Jennifer Neville which challenged us, as readers, to evaluate our means of evaluation when looking at the Old English riddles. Richard North closed the session with a fascinating suggestion that the elegies are a form of biographical riddle, based upon figures from Germanic history and legend.
The final session of the day was on ‘Origins and Readership’, chaired by Helen Appleton. M. J. Toswell began by exploring ideas of the Exeter Book as a commentary on the Book of Psalms and their sense of shared connectivity. Alice Jorgensen followed with an absorbing examination of the archaeology of early emotional communities of the Exeter Book. Her tool of choice was the pie chart, accompanied by the rallying cry, “Where statisticians fear to tread, literary critics press on!” The session ended with another form of numerical evidence in Daniel Anlezark’s precise analysis of the fitt divisions of the Christ poems in order to explore scribal intention.
Rachel Burns then introduced the keynote speaker, Elizabeth Tyler. She set out textual links between the Exeter Book and manuscript GG.5.35, providing exciting evidence for a potential lost source. This insight lent itself beautifully to larger concerns regarding the use of local language to express belonging to a universal community. The day was topped off with a drinks reception and the launch of Mercedes Salvador-Bello’s new book, The History of the Physiologus in Early Medieval England.
The second day of the conference began bright and early with a session on ‘Sequencing and Anthologising’, chaired by Mark Atherton. Rafał Borysławski spoke passionately on the interplay between the Exeter Book riddles, focusing on the relationship between riddles 25 and 26. This was followed by Ian Shiels who set out an intriguing relationship between the Exeter Book elegies and the poetry of Theoderic. Paul Cavill then concluded the session, with a fresh look at three neglected biblical poems: Alms-Giving, Pharaoh, and Lord’s Prayer I.
Session Six on ‘Landscape and Ecologies’ was chaired by Laura Varnam. Ann Pascoe-van Zyl began by examining the interlocking of mind and landscape features and, through this, the merits of applying toponymic language data to Old English elegies. James Paz then shared his own startlingly original creative-critical responses to the poetry of the Exeter Book. These lively responses served to illuminate ideas of symbiotic relationship between natural world and human self. Emma Hitchcock concluded the session by speaking about colonialism in the Exeter Book. She spoke on the fascinating Sámi concept of ‘yoiking’ as applied to the elegies, illuminating another critical angle with which to view these poems and suggesting that they may evoke a form of place-based peoplehood.
The penultimate session was on ‘Biblical Poetry’, chaired by Anine Englund. Jasmine Jones spoke on the vernacular theology of The Descent into Hell, convincingly presenting this poem as an important exercise of scriptural and apocryphal imagination. Gabrielle Cocco followed this with a penetrating look at the nuanced theology of the depiction of the Fall of Angels in Resignation A. Francisco J. Rozano-García then provided the conference’s second talk on Azarias, highlighting its richness as a text and demonstrating the continuity of the thematic strands running through the manuscript.
The final session, on ‘The Art and Craft of Poetry’, chaired by Tom Revell. John D. Niles began by looking at the “word-hordes cræft” of poetry, painting a vivid image of the Exeter Book as both a versified thesaurus of human suffering, and as a magnificent testament to poetic craft in which all parts work separately but in unison. (He also, helpfully, provided the ‘key’ for ‘unlocking the Exeter Book’). This was followed by Maryann Pierse with an excellent examination of traditions of poetic responsibility in the Wonders of Creation. Finally, in another piece of comparative criticism, Grace O’Duffy looked at the possibilities of a ‘vindictive’ enchanted runestick in The Husband’s Message.
As perhaps the first conference focused solely upon the Exeter Book, these two days provided a valuable space in which a variety of approaches could be explored. Inter-textual influences, intra-textual resonances, religious allegory, marginalia, statistical analysis, the material text, creative writing, close reading; all were given centre-stage at one point or another. The rich variety of talks given, along with the sheer number of speakers and attendees united by this centuries-old book, prove beyond doubt that the Exeter Book is a text which continues to inspire new scholarship and fresh insights.
— Hannah Irvine, MSt in English 1350–1550 (2024)
