SOURCE: “An Orthodox Old English Homiliary?: Ælfric's Views on the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles,” in Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, Vol. 100, No. 1, 1999, pp. 15-26.

In the following essay, O'Leary examines Ælfric's use of apocryphal material.

Ælfric, abbot of Eynsham, who died in the early eleventh century, has been described as ‘the most prolific … vernacular author of the Anglo-Saxon period’.¹ His known works consist mainly of didactic and hagiographical material—sermons, Lives of saints, and a grammar are the best known of these. Ælfric had access, as a pupil of Æthelwold's school at Winchester Cathedral, to a broad range of theological works.² Much scholarly debate has taken place concerning his attitude towards the sources with which he worked, and, in particular, the criteria used by him in choosing material for his sermons, which date from the last two decades of the tenth century.³ The predominant view among scholars of Ælfric's writings...