The Exeter Book, also known as the Codex Exoniensis, is a tenth century book (or, as some prefer, a codex) of Anglo-Saxon poetry. The book was donated to the library of the Exeter Cathedral by Leofric, the first bishop of Exeter. It is believed originally to have contained 131 leaves, of which the first 8 have been replaced with other leaves. The original 8 first pages are lost. The Exeter Book is the largest known collection of Old English literature that exists today.

Historical context

Though the precise date of the Exeter Codex's inscription is unknown, it may generally be described as one of the great fruits of the English Benedictine revival of the tenth century. Proposed dates of authorship range from 960 to 990, but do not generally exceed those bounds. This period sees a rise in monastic activity and productivity under the renewed influence of Benedictine principles and standards. At the opening of the period, Dunstan's importance to the Church and to the English kingdom is established, culminating in his appointment to the Archbishopric at Canterbury under Edgar and leading to the realisation of the monastic reformation by which this era is characterised. At its close, Dunstan has died as of 988, and England under Æthelred faces pressure from an increasingly determined Scandinavian incursion to which it would eventually succumb.

The Exeter Book's heritage then becomes traceable as of 1050, upon Leofric being made Bishop at Exeter. Among the treasures which he is recorded to have bestowed upon the then impoverished monastery is one famously described "mycel englisc boc be gehwilcum þingum on leoðwisan geworht" (i.e., "a large English book of poetic works"). This has been in subsequent history widely assumed indeed to be the Exeter Codex itself as it survives today.

Content

Among the famous poems that appear in the Exeter Book are:

• The Wanderer
• The Seafarer
• Widsith
• Wulf and Eadwacer
• The Wife's Lament
• The Ruin
• Deor