Contributors to this volume explore Anglo-Saxonism as a set of beliefs and cultural practices that posits a unity among English-speakers based on their common racial, linguistic, and institutional descent from the people of Anglo-Saxon England. Value has often been set on such heritage, for Anglo-Saxonism asserts the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon people and sees their institutions as models of good government, commercial prosperity and piety. In an examination of Anglo-Saxonism in a variety of forms and in several different periods of English and American literary history, the authors investigate how the Anglo-Saxons themselves thought about the origins of national and racial identity. By linking current theoretical studies to the early manifestations of Anglo-Saxonism, they seek to contribute to the ""new mediaevalisms"" - theoretically aware, institutionally focussed, and interdisciplinary mediaeval studies - that are transforming the academy.
Introduction - Anglo-Saxonism and Mediaevalism, Allen J. Frantzen and John D. Niles; Bede and Bawdy Bale - Gregory the Great, Angels, and the ""Angli"", Allen J. Frantzen; Anglo-Saxonism in the Old English Laws, Mary P. Richards; The ""Anglo-Saxon Chronicle"" Poems and the Making of the English Nation, Janet Thormann; Received Wisdom - the Reception History of Alfred's Preface to the ""Pastoral Care"", Suzanne C. Hagedorn; 19th-Century Scandinavia and the Birth of Anglo-Saxon Studies, Robert E. Bjork; Mid-19th-Century American Anglo-Saxonism - the Question of Language, J.R. Hall; Byrhtnoth in Dixie - the Emergence of Anglo-Saxon Studies in the Postbellum South, Gregory A. VanHoosier-Carey; Historical Novels to Teach Anglo-Saxonism to Young Edwardians, Velma Bourgeois Richmond; Appropriations - a Concept of Culture, John D. Niles.
