Liber Monstrorum

The Liber Monstrorum is a late seventh-or early eighth-century Anglo-Latin catalogue of marvellous creatures,^[1] which may be connected with the Anglo-Saxon scholar Aldhelm. It is transmitted in several manuscripts from the ninth and tenth centuries, but is often studied in connection with the more well known text Beowulf, since the Liber also mentions King Hygelac of the Geats and that he was renowned for his large size. The book contains extraordinary people, like Hygelac, some clearly historical reports of actual people, like the Ethiopians, and some obviously mythological reports, as in the cyclops and centaurs.

References

1. ↑ Andy Orchard, Pride and prodigies: studies in the monsters of the Beowulf-manuscript, University of Toronto Press, 2003, p. 86.

External links

• A translation, done by Andy Orchard, is available at http://members.shaw.ca/sylviavolk/Beowulf3.htm
• Lapidge, Michael. 'Beowulf, Aldhelm, the Liber Monstrorum and Wessex', Studi medievali, 3rd ser., 23 (1982), 151-91