Cædmon's Hymn

An Old English poem praising God as creator, traditionally attributed to the seventh-century Northumbrian poet Cædmon and preserved in several forms.

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Cædmon: A seventh-century Northumbrian poet described by Bede as composing religious poetry after receiving a gift of song. Bede identifies him as the poem’s composer and recounts its origin.
Germanic alliterative verse: A verse form organized chiefly by stress, a central pause, and alliteration linking stressed syllables. The hymn uses the traditional poetic structure of early Germanic verse.
Moore Bede: An early eighth-century manuscript of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, now held at the University of Cambridge. It contains the earliest surviving Old English version of the hymn.
Christianization of Anglo-Saxon England: The gradual adoption of Christianity by the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, beginning in the late sixth century. The poem presents Christian belief through the language of an emerging English religious culture.
Cædmonian authorship: The attribution of Old English religious poems to Cædmon, beyond the hymn named in Bede’s account. The hymn’s traditional attribution raises questions about how much poetry Cædmon composed.
Bede: An eighth-century Northumbrian monk and historian who wrote the Ecclesiastical History of the English People. His account is the earliest known testimony about Cædmon and the hymn.
Alliteration: The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginnings of nearby words or stressed syllables. Repeated initial sounds bind the hymn’s half-lines into memorable verse.
The Leningrad Bede: An early eleventh-century manuscript of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, now held in Saint Petersburg. Its copy preserves a Northumbrian form of the poem.
Anglo-Saxon poetry: Poetry composed in Old English in Anglo-Saxon England, often using alliterative meter. The hymn is an early surviving example of English religious verse.
Textual criticism: The study of textual variants to reconstruct a text’s transmission and, where possible, earlier forms. Comparing manuscript versions helps explain the hymn’s changing wording.