Mīn Webblēaf

The sample sentences used in this blog post are from The Cambridge Old English Reader. Monks following the rule of St. Benedict have been using sign language since at least the 10th century. This is because silence was demanded of those seeking divine contemplation in and around monastic buildings, including dormitories (during nighttime hours). The use of sign language became so prevalent that it was eventually felt necessary to codify them. The Old English text (with a Latin title), Monasteriales Indicia, describes 127 signs used by Early Medieval English monks. Other books of signs have been found in France at the Abbey of Cluny, and in Germany at Hirsau Abbey, for example. Below is an illustration depicting what St Paul's monastery in Jarrow may have looked like ( source ). The following is eight sets of instructions given to monks as an alternate method of communication. 1. Huniġes tācen is þæt þū sette þīnne finger on þīne tungan. The sign of honey is that you put your finger...

Most of the sample sentences in this post are from Learn Old English with Leofwin (a brilliant book). For the most part, people in early medieval England lived in small houses often with just the one room. Their walls would have been made of wooden planks or 'wattle and daub,' the windows would have had shutters and no glass, and the roof would have been thatched (with no chimney). The villages or towns they lived in were not much bigger. The fictional couple in this post, Leofwin and Golde, live in a town called Prittewella (now Southend-on-Sea_) containing only six or seven houses. These may have surrounded a larger hall (heall) intended for the local social elite and for group activities like feasting. There may have also been a church, either made or wood, stone, or a blend of the two. This gives you a picture of the scale of English life at this time. None of these houses have survived today, but they can be identified by the postholes they leave in the ground and by local...

It means, 'my webpage' in Old English, the language of the early medieval English. Of course, the people of that time didn't have webpages, so I made up the word. This is a blog for me to post translations and exercises in Old English, and to write about anything relating to the history of the ancient and early medieval world. There might also be some reeenactment bits thrown in too.