Wilhelm Levison
Oxford University Press (Clarendon Press), 1998 (reprint of 1946 edition).
cloth, dj., 355 pp. ISBN: 0198212321.
Book Number 19832
Based upon the Ford Lectures of 1943, with substantial additions, Levison's work is a detailed survey of the 'broad, deep, and lasting influence upon continental ways of thought and life' which England exercised during the 8th century. It deals with the English missionaries to the continent - men such as Willibrord and Boniface who took Christianity to Germany, and Alcuin, who became an adviser to Charlemagne - and places particular emphasis on the exchange of learning and scholarship. Levison's work is renowned for its meticulous attention to detail - his scrutiny having unmasked the early charters of Canterbury as 11th century forgeries - and the appendices of this volume include important studies of the Anglo-Saxon charters as well as discussions of the correspondence of Bonificae and Lullus of Mainz and of texts by Lullus and Alcuin.