Latin, Old English and documentary practice at Worcester from Waerferth to Oswald
Anglo-Saxon England 46 : 271-325 (2019)
Laburpena
This article analyses the uses of Latin and Old English in the charters of Worcester
cathedral, which represents one of the largest and most linguistically interesting of the
surviving Anglo-Saxon archives. Specifically focused on the period encompassing the
episcopates of Wærferth and Oswald (c. 870 to 992), this survey examines a time of
intense administrative activity at Worcester, contemporaneous with significant transformations
in the political and cultural life of Anglo-Saxon England more generally. In
doing so, this article argues that when writing in either Latin or the vernacular, charter
draftsmen responded to a number of variables; language choice did not simply reflect
varying levels of literacy. Furthermore, the frequent cases of code-switching found
in tenth-century Worcester documents mark this community out as exceptional, suggesting
that attitudes towards the interaction between the two languages could vary
considerably between institutions.