Writing and Texts in Anglo-Saxon England. Edited by Alexander R. Rumble. Publications of the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies, 5. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2006. Pp. xii+160. $80.

This slender and over-priced volume is—like the Manchester conference that lies behind it—an offshoot of an AHRB-funded research project entitled "An inventory of script categories and spellings in eleventh-century England." This presumably explains the curious form of the first chapter (by the editor) in which a survey of the history of scholarship on Anglo-Saxon manuscripts culminates in a short description of the Manchester endeavor to construct a "database of English vernacular manuscripts surviving from the period c. 980 to 1099, with details of texts, scribes, spellings and letter-forms." The database includes "a 'vocabulary' of photo-images from facsimiles …of the perceived variant forms of each of the chosen letters [which] have now been digitally scanned, cleaned up and stored" (p. 15). "The combination of images relating to each manuscript sample is expected either to differ sufficiently from that relating to another sample to reflect the work of a different scribe or to match it sufficiently to indicate the work of one individual" (p. 16). Rumble concludes by admitting that "the use of new technology may speed many processes but a solid base in the ability to read handwriting and to describe letter-forms is still essential to the modern scholar working with the surviving corpus and seeking to use or date a manuscript" and he concedes that "despite the volume of effort and work already expended, it should be a relief to research students and other scholars that there are still places where corrections, modifications and additions can be made to our current knowledge" (p. 17)!

Richard Gameson
Durham