Aldred on A nger : A Study of Lexical Choices in Context

In the tenth century, Aldred, a Late Old Northumbrian speaker, added interlinear glosses to the Lindisfarne Gospels and the so-called Durham Ritual or Collectar. This paper explores his approaches to translating Latin terms referring to ANGER (members of the L ira and indignatio word families, and L furor) in the context of a wider range of Old English biblical glosses / translations. The analysis presented here shows that, while the latter are fairly consistent in their rendering of the Latin terms, Aldred’s lexical choices are significantly different regarding his interpretamenta and his frequent disregard for lexical distinctions in the Latin text. Notable lexical disparities in Aldred’s glosses are also identified. Accordingly, this paper offers important findings for ongoing scholarly debates on Aldred’s access to various sources, his intellectual interests, and the expression of emotions in early medieval England, a research area where Late Old Northumbrian texts have hardly featured.