SOURCE: “Bones of Contention: The Context of Ælfric's Homily on St. Vincent,” in Anglo Saxon England, Vol. 19, 1990, pp. 117-32.

In the following essay, Irvine explores the circumstances of the creation of Ælfric's sermon on Saint Vincent.

The Old English account of the passion of St Vincent of Saragossa survives only in one late manuscript, Cambridge, University Library, Ii. 1. 33, written in the second half of the twelfth century.¹ This manuscript contains a large proportion of saints' lives by Ælfric, belonging mainly to his two series of Catholic Homilies and his later collection known as the Lives of Saints.² The passion of St Vincent, from its alliterative style, reveals itself also to be the work of Ælfric. Since it was appended by W. W. Skeat to his edition of the Lives of Saints, it has generally been treated as part of the Lives of Saints collection, although there is no...