The Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic (ASNC or, informally, ASNaC) is one of the constituent departments of the University of Cambridge, and focuses on the history, material culture, languages and literatures of the various peoples who inhabited Britain, Ireland and the extended Scandinavian world in the early Middle Ages (5th century to 12th century). It is based on the second floor of the Faculty of English at 9 West Road on the Sidgwick Site. In Cambridge University jargon, its students are called ASNaCs.Tom Shakespeare, 'A Point of View: Taking England back to the Dark Ages', BBC News Magazine, 6 June 2014.
As of 2011, it was the only university faculty or department in the world to focus entirely on the early Middle Ages.Cf. Hugh Magennis, The Cambridge Introduction to Anglo-Saxon Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 35.
Name The name Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic dates to 1971, when the Department of Anglo-Saxon and Kindred Studies was renamed.E. S. Leedham-Green, A Concise History of the University of Cambridge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 226-27.
The acronym ASNC or ASNaC is pronounced , and originally denoted members of the ASNC Society rather than of the Department. It was coined as a pun on an early poster for the ASNC Society Lunches: 'A Snack for ASNACs'.Anthony Harvey, The Origin of ASNaC, Chadwick Lecture Addendum 1, 2017. Students in the department were referred to in English as Asnackers, in French as or , and in German as . Later the simpler term Asnacs came into common use.
History
The study of Anglo-Saxon England and its neighbouring regions has deep roots at Cambridge, beginning with the sixteenth-century Archbishop Matthew Parker. The first half of the seventeenth century saw Abraham Wheelocke hold a readership in Anglo-Saxon, and in 1657 John Spelman bestowed on William Somner the annual stipend of the Anglo-Saxon lecture founded by his father, Sir Henry Spelman, at Cambridge, enabling him to complete the first Old English dictionary.Dictionarium Saxonico-Latino-Anglicum, voces, phrasesque praecipuas Anglo-Saxonicas... cum Latina et Anglica vocum interpretatione complectens... Accesserunt Aelfrici Abbatis Grammatica Latino-Saxonica cum glossario suo ejusdem generis, 2 pts, Oxford, 1659; 2nd edit, with additions by Thomas Benson, 1701. After a lull in interest in Old English, in the nineteenth century, John Mitchell Kemble developed the study of Old English and Anglo-Saxon archaeology at Trinity College, and Joseph Bosworth, another Anglo-Saxonist who was associated with Trinity, endowed the Elrington and Bosworth Chair in Anglo-Saxon, established in 1878, and first held by Walter William Skeat.
Strengths at Cambridge in Old Norse were built up by Eiríkur Magnússon (1833–1913) and in Celtic studies by Edmund Crosby Quiggin (1875–1920).
The ASNaC Department as such has its origins in the work and ideas of Skeat's successor as Elrington and Bosworth Professor, Hector Munro Chadwick, of Clare College. Chadwick took a leading role in integrating the philological study of Old English with archaeology and history and, by bringing the study of Old English from the Faculty of English to Archaeology and Anthropology in 1928, founded what was to become the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic:A History of the University of Cambridge, ed. by Christopher Brooke, 4 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988–2004), IV (Peter Searby, 1890–1990), 445. See further Allen Frantzen, 'By the Numbers: Anglo-Saxon Scholarship at the Century's End', in A Companion to Anglo-Saxon Literature, ed. by Phillip Pulsiano and Elaine Treharne (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), DOI: 10.1111/b.9780631209041.2001.00030.x (pp. 478-80). "Chadwick's aim ... was to keep Old English studies free from philology (as it was then practised), but also from the dominance of English Literature".John Walmesley, ' "A Term of Opprobrium": Twentieth Century Linguistics and English Philology', in History of Linguistics 2008, ed. by Gerda Hassler, Studies in the History of the Language Sciences, 115 (Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2008), pp. 35-47 (at p. 39). However, "the alliance of Anglo-Saxon and archaeology suited the professor and not the students; and in the 1960s Professor Dorothy Whitelock led the Saxon flock back into the English fold"—specifically in 1967, though the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology continues to sustain strengths in Anglo-Saxon and early medieval archaeology, with relevant archaeology papers being available to ASNaCs.A History of the University of Cambridge, ed. by Christopher Brooke, 4 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988–2004), IV (Peter Searby, 1890–1990), 445, 202; Jana K. Schulman, 'An Anglo-Saxonist at Oxford and Cambridge: Dorothy Whitelock (1901–1982)', in Women Medievalists and the Academy, ed. by Jane Chance (Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005), pp. 553-62 (at pp. 559-60). The Anglo-Saxon and Kindred Studies Tripos was introduced as a single-part (two-year) Tripos in 1957, the class list being published under the title 'Anglo-Saxon'; in 1971 this was relabelled 'Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic' under Peter Clemoes. In 1992, under the leadership of Michael Lapidge, ASNC became a two-part (three-year) Tripos.Departmental History, Department of ASNC The Elrington and Bosworth Professor was customarily the head of the ASNaC Department, until a rotating headship system was introduced during the professorship of Simon Keynes in the early twenty-first century.
The Department runs three annual public lectures: the H. M. Chadwick Lecture, the Kathleen Hughes Memorial Lecture; and the E. C. Quiggin Memorial Lectures. Annual pamphlets are produced on the topic of each lecture.
In 2015 the department was the subject of the scholarly article collection H. M. Chadwick and the Study of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic in Cambridge, edited by Michael Lapidge (CMCS Publications).
Major research projects
In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise the department was rated as the top Celtic Studies department in the UK, and one of the top departments and faculties within the University of Cambridge, with 75% of its submitted research rated internationally excellent (3*) or world-leading (4*). Because of its strongly interdisciplinary nature, elements of the Department's research were considered by the panels for History, English and Classics as well as Celtic Studies.
In collaboration with King's College London, since 2005 the department has developed and organised the free-access Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England.Janet L. Nelson, 'From Building Site to Building: The Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England (PASE) Project', in Collaborative Research in the Digital Humanities, ed. by Marilyn Deegan, Willard McCarty (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 123-34.
Languages taught
Language-study is central to ASNaC degree programmes, and the department is a major training ground in these skills for researchers in early medieval history. The department provides tuition in Old English, Old Norse, Old Irish, Middle Welsh, and Latin.
Despite the Department's medieval focus, its pre-eminence as a UK centre of Scandinavian and Celtic studies has led both the Irish and Icelandic governments to provide grants for the teaching of Modern Irish and Icelandic (respectively) to members of Cambridge University.
Staff The following table lists lecturers in the department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic and its forerunner institutions.Unless otherwise stated, information is from 'Appendix VIII', in H. M. Chadwick and the Study of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic in Cambridge, ed. by Michael Lapidge (Aberystwyth: Department of Welsh, Abersytwyth University, 2015), [=Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies, 69/70], pp. 272-78. +Staff memberTermDate of matriculation
if former ASNaC
studentFaculties of English and Modern and Medieval Languages 1878-1927W. W. Skeat1878-1912Eiríkur Magnússon1894-98Hector Munro Chadwick1895-1941Edmund Crosby Quiggin1895-1920José Maria de Navarro1926-56Maureen M. O'Reilly1926-48Bertha Surtees Phillpotts1926-321898Department of Anglo-Saxon and Kindred Studies 1927-67 (Faculty of Archaeology and Anthropology)T. C. Lethbridge1932-?Dorothy M. Hoare de Navarro1932-56Agnes Jane Robertson1932-35c. 1918Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson1934-391928Peter Hunter Blair1937-78Rachel Bromwich1945-761934Bruce Dickins1946-57Glyn Daniel1947-?Nora Kershaw Chadwick1950-58Frank J. Bullivant1956-61Audrey E. Ozanne1956-61Dorothy Whitelock1957-691921Kathleen Hughes1958-77Peter Clemoes1961-821953R. I. Page1961-91Department of Anglo-Saxon and Kindred Studies 1967-71 (Faculty of English)Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic 1971- (Faculty of English)Michael Lapidge1974-98Patrick Sims-Williams1977-93c. 1970David N. Dumville1977-2005c. 1970Simon Keynes1978-2019c. 1970Paul Bibire1985-99Andy Orchard1991-20001983Erich Poppe1991-95Lesley Abrams1991-95Oliver Padel1994-?c. 1968Máire Ní Mhaonaigh1995-Martin Syrett1996-20011986Rosalind Love1998-c. 1980Richard Dance2000-Judy Quinn2000-2024Paul Russell2000-2023Haki Antonsson2001-2004Jonathan Grove2004-2008Fiona Edmonds2005-2015Elizabeth Ashman Rowe2008-Alison Bonner2016-Rory Naismith2019-2002Erik Niblaeus2019-2002Ben Guy2023-2007Dale Kedwards2024- Becky Shercliff2026-
Students Applications and admissions
Between 1900 and 1999, around 860 students studied in the Department or its precursor institutions. Between 1900 and 1946, 68% were women; thereafter there was a slight majority of men until 1980; and rough gender parity 1980-1999.Michel Lapidge, 'Introduction: The Study of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic in Cambridge, 1878-1999', in H. M. Chadwick and the Study of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic in Cambridge, ed. by Michael Lapidge (Aberystwyth: Department of Welsh, Abersytwyth University, 2015), pp. 1-58 [=Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies, 69/70], pp. 1-58 (p. 41).
From 2009 to 2012, between 50 and 60 applicants applied for the ASNC BA per year; about 53% were offered places; and about 43% (20-25 students) accepted their offers. The undergraduate student body was majority female (two-thirds for the 2011 admissions cycle) and had a strong preponderance of state-school leavers (84% of home students for the 2011 admissions cycle).http://www.study.cam.ac.uk/undergraduate/apply/statistics/archive/admissionsstatistics2011.pdf, pp. 12, 15.
ASNaC Society