''Old English Orosius'' is the name usually given by scholars to an adaption into

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

of the Latin '' Historiae adversus paganos'' by

Paulus Orosius Paulus Orosius (; born 375/385 – 420 AD), less often Paul Orosius in English, was a Roman priest, historian and theologian, and a student of Augustine of Hippo. It is possible that he was born in ''Bracara Augusta'' (now Braga, Portugal), th ...

(fl. c. 400).

Malcolm Godden Malcolm Reginald Godden, FBA (born 9 October 1945) is a British academic who held the chair of the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxford from 1991 until 2013. From 1963 to 1966 he studied for a B.A. in Englis ...

's 2016 edition instead calls the text the ''Old English History of the World'', emphasising the degree to which the Old English text selects, adapts, and abets Orosius's. Produced around the year 900 in the

West-Saxon dialect West Saxon is the term applied to the two different dialects Early West Saxon and Late West Saxon with West Saxon being one of the four distinct regional dialects of Old English. The three others were Kentish, Mercian and Northumbrian (the la ...

, the Old English version was produced by an anonymous writer, possibly encouraged or inspired by

King Alfred the Great Alfred the Great (alt. Ælfred 848/849 – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf, King of Wessex, Æthelwulf and his ...

. The translator actively transformed Orosius's narrative, cutting extraneous detail, adding explanations and dramatic speeches, and supplying a long section on the geography of the Germanic world. The work is particularly noted in modern scholarship for including an account of the travels of a Norwegian traveller whom it calls

Ohthere Ohthere (also ''Ohtere''), Old Norse ''Óttarr vendilkráka'' (''Vendelcrow''; in Modern Swedish ''Ottar Vendelkråka'') was a semi-legendary king of Sweden of the house of Scylfings, who is said to have lived during the Germanic Heroic Age, pos ...

, which provides unique information about northern Europe around the late ninth century.Nicole Guenther Discenza, ‘''Orosius'', Old English', in ''The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain'' . It also describes the travels of

Wulfstan of Hedeby Wulfstan of Hedeby was a late ninth century traveller and trader. His travel accounts, as well as those of another trader, Ohthere of Hålogaland, were included in the ''Old English Orosius''. It is unclear if Wulfstan was English or indeed if h ...

Editions and translations

* Orosius, ''Old English History of the World: An Anglo-Saxon Rewriting of Orosius'', ed. and trans. Malcolm Godden, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, 44 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016), . * ''The Old English Orosius'', ed. by Janet Bately, Early English Text Society (London: Oxford University Press, 1980). *
Facsimile of the earliest surviving manuscript
London, British Library, Add MS 47967.

References

Old English literature Historiae adversum pagano VII

Orosius Paulus Orosius (; born 375/385 – 420 AD), less often Paul Orosius in English, was a Roman priest, historian and theologian, and a student of Augustine of Hippo. It is possible that he was born in '' Bracara Augusta'' (now Braga, Portugal), t ...

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