Old English Pastoral Care (Fulk - HC)

Editor/Translator: R. D. Fulk

Publisher: Dumbarton Oaks

ISBN: 9780674261150

Binding: hardcover

Section: Loeb/Literature of the Middle Ages

The Book of Pastoral Rule, or Liber regulae pastoralis, by Pope Gregory the Great―the pontiff responsible for the conversion of the English to Christianity beginning in 597―is a guide for aspiring bishops. The Old English Pastoral Care, a translation of Gregory’s treatise completed between 890 and 896, is described in a prefatory letter by King Alfred the Great as his own work, composed with the assistance of his bishops and chaplains. It appears to be the first of the Alfredian translations into Old English of Latin texts deemed necessary for the revitalization of the English Church, which had been ravaged by the depredations of Scandinavian invaders during the ninth century and by the decline of clerical competence in Latin.