00:06Music
00:32The Beads of Felicity Ask the Question of the English People is one of the most widely
00:34copied works in the Middle Ages. There's almost 200 manuscripts, but the most famous two are
00:40the earliest two, one of which is in Cambridge, one is in St. Petersburg, and both are thought
00:45to have been completed in or very shortly after Beads' death. Those two have always
00:51been very important for reconstructing what Beads wrote, but then there's a much smaller
00:55number of slightly later copies, of which this is one, we're talking a handful, maybe
00:59five or six, and the fact that this has now been recognised as a copy of the Ecclesiastical
01:04History will be very important for how we understand the transmission of Beads' text.
01:17So one of the very unusual features of this copy of Cadman's Hymn is the punctuation, where
01:23there's a point or a full stop, as we might say in modern English, after almost every word.
01:27So we've got one here after Way, one after Sulean, one after Herge, one after Hefen
01:47Rechus's word, metude's mechti and his modya thank.
01:52Weert quuldur feere, swahi wandre yekhwas, etchad ritten, o'er astalde.
01:58I ere shup beordu bearnam, even to Hrova, halig sepend, thamid um yeard, moncunas weard, etchad ritten,
02:08evtter theade, verum om voldu freia elmyhtig.
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