Lost 1,200-Year-Old Copy of Caedmon’s Hymn Unearthed in Rome

Trinity College Dublin scholars Elisabetta Magnanti and Mark Faulkner identified a previously unknown codex in the National Central Library of Rome. The manuscript, dated between AD 800 and AD 830, contains the full Old English version of Caedmon’s Hymn within the main body of Bede’s *Ecclesiastical History of the English People*. It is the third oldest surviving copy, after versions in Cambridge and St Petersburg that present the Old English only in marginal notes.

The Irish TimesThe GuardianLost Copy of Old English Poem Caedmon’s Hymn Discovered in Rome

Caedmon, a seventh-century Northumbrian cattle herder, is said to have composed a nine-line praise of creation after a divine vision. The Venerable Bede recorded the hymn in Latin in the eighth century, omitting the original vernacular. Later copies added the Old English in the margins; the Rome manuscript is unique in embedding the vernacular directly, indicating a shift in the status of English poetry by the ninth century.

Lost Copy of Old English Poem Caedmon’s Hymn Discovered in RomeThe GuardianThe Irish Times

• Elisabetta Magnanti – medieval-manuscript specialist, co-discoverer.

The Guardian

• Mark Faulkner – Trinity College English scholar, co-discoverer.

The Guardian

• Andrea Cappa – head of manuscripts and rare books, Rome library.

The Guardian

• Riccardo Fangarezzi – head of archives, Abbey of Nonantola, Italy.

The Guardian

• Transcription: AD 800-830 by a monk in northern Italy.

The Guardian

• Old English corpus: ~3 million words survive, >90 % from the 10th-11th centuries.

The Irish Times

• The Rome copy is the oldest verified Germanic-language text outside runic inscriptions.

Lost Copy of Old English Poem Caedmon’s Hymn Discovered in Rome

• Punctuation: a full stop follows every word, an early marker of word-spacing.

Lost Copy of Old English Poem Caedmon’s Hymn Discovered in Rome

The find shows that Old English was already valued as a literary language on the continent, predating the later dominance of Latin. The inter-word punctuation offers concrete evidence of the evolution toward modern reading practices. Moreover, the discovery underscores the scholarly potential of digitised collections, expanding the primary source base for early English literature.

Lost Copy of Old English Poem Caedmon’s Hymn Discovered in Rome

Andrea Cappa explained that the library’s digitisation programme, part of Italy’s National Centre for the Study of the Manuscript, will eventually provide researchers with access to more than 40 million images. Riccardo Fangarezzi welcomed the find, describing it as a “genuine ray of sunlight” that highlights the continent’s growing scholarly connectivity. The researchers’ analysis appears in the open-access journal *Early Medieval England and its Neighbours* (Cambridge University Press).

The Guardian

Earlier catalogues listed the manuscript as missing; Magnanti noted “conflicting references” to Bede’s History in Rome, some indicating loss, others suggesting survival. The exact provenance remains partially unclear: the codex was reportedly stolen from San Bernardo alle Terme during the Napoleonic wars, changed private hands, and entered the library’s collection only later. Precise dating of the transcription remains a range rather than a fixed year.

The Irish Times

• “When we saw it we looked at each other and I said, ‘No one knows about this’,” — Elisabetta Magnanti, researcher

The Guardian

• “It is a sign of how much early readers valued English poetry.” — Mark Faulkner, researcher

The Guardian

• “The present times may be rather dark, yet such intellectual contributions are genuine rays of sunlight: the continent is less isolated,” — Riccardo Fangarezzi, archivist

The Guardian

• “I came across conflicting references to Bede’s History in Rome, some pointing to its existence and some indicating it was lost,” — Elisabetta Magnanti

The Irish Times

• “About three million words of Old English survive in total, but the vast majority of texts come from the 10th and 11th centuries,” — Mark Faulkner

The Irish Times

The manuscript is undergoing chemical analysis to confirm its material origins. Scholars are calling for a “Global Archive Audit” to re-examine uncatalogued holdings in major European libraries, anticipating further hidden early texts. Continued digitisation promises to make such discoveries increasingly accessible to the international research community.

Lost Copy of Old English Poem Caedmon’s Hymn Discovered in Rome