Researchers in Rome recently unexpectedly discovered an early medieval manuscript containing the "beginning of English literature" - the Ode to Caedmon - in a long-dusted ancient Latin manuscript, bringing to light a poetic tradition dating back about 1,300 years. The manuscript, now held in the National Library of Italy, was locked by scholars at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, through traditional document "detective work" and digitization technology. It was confirmed to have been written between 800 and 830 AD, making it the third oldest known preserved copy of the Psalm of Caedmon.
The most important significance of this manuscript is that it does not only have an Old English version in the margins or at the end of the text like the previous manuscripts preserved in Cambridge and St. Petersburg, but has the original Old English poem embedded directly in the Latin text. Researchers pointed out that this arrangement shows that the readers of "English Ecclesiastical History" at that time were not satisfied with the Latin translation provided by Bede, but placed a very high value on the Old English poetry itself.
Composed in the 7th century, the Ode to Caedmon is one of the earliest surviving Old English poems and is widely regarded as the starting point of English literature. This nine-line short poem praises God's great achievements in creating the world. According to legend, it was written by Caedmon, a cattle herder in Whitby, North Yorkshire, northern England. He left the banquet because he could not compose poetry. He received a mysterious visit in his dream at night and was ordered to sing "Creation", so he miraculously composed this poem. The reason why the poem spreads is because the 8th-century British monk and historian "The Venerable" Bede included this story in his Latin work "History of the English Church", and attached a Latin translation of the poem; some manuscripts were later supplemented with the original Old English text, forming various versions that can still be seen today.
The new manuscript discovered in Rome this time is an early copy of the "History of the English Church" and was identified by Elizabethta Manyanti and Mark Faulkner, experts in medieval documents from the English Department of Trinity College. The two initially found conflicting records about a Roman manuscript in the bibliography: some sources said it was lost, while others suggested it still existed somewhere. After confirming with the National Central Library of Rome and obtaining a digital image of the manuscript, they were pleasantly surprised to find that not only was the manuscript still there, but it also had the Old English version of the Psalm of Cadmont fully embedded in the Latin narrative.
The research team described this discovery as embodying the power of combining digitalization with traditional document research. Using high-quality online imagery, two scholars in Ireland were able to remotely identify a ninth-century manuscript from the monastery of Nonantola in northern central Italy and confirm that it contained the English poem "miraculously composed by a shy cowherd." Relevant results have been published in the open-access journal "Early Medieval England and Its Neighbors" under Cambridge University Press, providing brand-new materials for the study of early English writing traditions.
Of the approximately 3 million words of Old English texts that survive, most were written between the 10th and 11th centuries, and few texts can be clearly dated to the 7th century. Faulkner pointed out that the Ode to Cadmont is almost an isolated example of this period. It is directly connected with the earliest written stage of English and is therefore regarded as the beginning of the English literary tradition. He emphasized that the newly discovered early manuscripts not only increase our understanding of the textual history of this poem, but also allow the academic community to re-examine the status of Old English in the hearts of medieval readers: Bede chose to paraphrase the poem in Latin when writing "History of the English Church", but less than a hundred years later, the copyist took the initiative to "embed" the original Old English text back into the Latin narrative.
The circulation experience of this manuscript is also quite tortuous. The manuscript originally belonged to the Monastery of Nonantola. During the Napoleonic Wars in the 19th century, it was transferred to the Church of San Bernardo in Rome to avoid the war. However, it was later stolen and passed through the hands of several private collectors before finally returning to the National Central Library in Rome. Because of such a complicated collection history, the academic community has believed that the manuscript had been lost since 1975. It was not until the library completed the digitization of the collection that it returned to the field of research, and this important testimony of the Caedmon Song surfaced.
Valentina Longo, curator of the Medieval and Modern Manuscripts Department of the National Central Library in Rome, said that the library currently holds the largest collection of early medieval manuscripts from the Benedictine monastery of Nonantola, a total of 45 manuscripts, spanning the 6th to 12th centuries. Some of these manuscripts come from the original "Sesoriana" collection, and some belong to the "Vittorio Emanuele" collection, which was established to house the nonantola documents that were recovered after being stolen in the 19th century. Longo said that the museum has digitized the entire Nonantola document collection and made it available to the public and academic circles for free through its official website.
Andrea Capa, head of the Manuscripts and Rare Books Reading Room of the National Central Library in Rome, added that the library is continuing to expand its digital collection and currently has digital images of about 500 ancient manuscripts online. At the same time, a massive project is progressing: the digitization of the microfilm resources of the National Center for the Study of Manuscripts, which covers some 110,000 manuscripts from 180 Italian libraries and is expected to eventually provide up to 40 million images for researchers around the world.
The legend behind Caedmon's Song is still told to this day. According to legend, Caedmon was a farmer on the manor annexed to Whitby Abbey. He felt ashamed because he could not compose poetry at the banquet, so he chose to leave the banquet and go to bed. But in a dream, a mysterious figure ordered him to sing praises to the creation of the world. Caedmon immediately recited a hymn with rigorous structure and refined language, which became a source of the later Old English religious poetry tradition. Today's readers can read the poem in a modern English translation, or consult the original Old English text through professional organization websites and poetry foundations.
The newly discovered codices also draw renewed attention to the monastery of Nonantola and its cultural network. Riccardo Vangarazzi, the priest in charge of the archives of the Nonantola Abbey in Italy, pointed out that this "newly recognized British cultural heritage treasure" now joins a small but exquisite "Anglo-Nonantola cultural treasure house". This "treasure trove" includes, among others, the Old English poem "Soul and Body" preserved earlier in the Nonantola manuscript Sess. 52, as well as records of the diplomatic mission of Abbot Niccolò Pucciarelli to the court of King Richard II. He believes that in the current uncertain era, this kind of cross-regional academic cooperation and document discovery is a real ray of sunshine that makes the European continent "no longer isolated."
The related paper is titled "A New Early Ninth-Century Manuscript of "Cedemonian Ode": Central Library of Rome, Vitt. Em. 1452, 122v", co-signed by Manianti and Faulkner, officially published on April 28, 2026, and made available to the public in open access form through Cambridge University Press.