The Whitby Life of Gregory the Great

The Whitby Life of Gregory the Great, preserved in an unique manuscript, housed in the Stiftsbibliothek in St Gallen and written c. 704–714 at Whitby in North Yorkshire, is one of the most intriguing and engaging of all texts in early insular Latin. It is particularly important, as it provides the earliest evidence of the conversion of the English and of the cult of St Gregory the Great in England. It was also a catalyst for an explosion of interest in St Gregory's cult on the continent in the late eighth and ninth centuries, resulting in the production of multiple lives of St Gregory.A new edition of The Life is long overdue. Since Bertram Colgrave's 1968 edition, scholarship has moved on and technology has developed resources which have transformed the study of insular Latin. It is, therefore, fitting that Colgrave's text, apparatus, and commentary should benefit from currently available resources and scholarship. This new edition revisits the manuscript afresh and re-edits the text. It provides a comprehensive introduction covering authorship, place of composition, the historical context, the possible purpose of The Life in the context of the cult of King Edwin of Northumbria, The Life's unorthodox form and its sources. It also contains a fuller commentary and a new translation which enables students of insular Latin to understand both the syntax and the meaning of the Latin text and with the aim of being as readable as possible for the non-Latinist. The editor also examines the reception of the text anew and places it in the context of the interest in St Gregory in the eighth and ninth centuries on the continent.