Ælfrics Grammatik und Glossar

This listening experience offers a close‑up look at one of the earliest English textbooks, a manual that Ælfric compiled to teach both Latin and the vernacular to young learners. The edition presents the original Latin headings—Nomina, Verba, Adverbia, and so on—followed by the Old English glosses that illustrate how each part of speech was explained in the ninth‑century classroom. As the speaker guides you through the text, you’ll hear notes on the surviving manuscripts, from Oxford’s All Souls’ College to the Cotton collection, and learn why the editor chose to preserve original spelling quirks rather than modernize them.

Beyond the bare grammar, the recording highlights the fascinating apparatus that accompanies the work: pop‑up style error notices, variant readings marked with brackets, and transcribers’ comments on missing or altered lines. Listeners gain a sense of how medieval scholars navigated textual transmission, and why Ælfric’s simple, child‑friendly approach still sheds light on the development of English. The result is a vivid, scholarly yet accessible journey into the language teaching methods of the early Middle Ages.