ABSTRACT
The search for ‘fixed’, ‘original’ Anglo-Saxon texts drove editorial and analytical work on, and indeed determined, the homiletic canon for many years, and has resulted in the marginalisation of many later or ‘variant’ versions of texts. Indeed, twentieth-century notions of authorial and textual identity may well tempt us to make inappropriate assumptions about the attitudes of Anglo-Saxon homily compilers both to their source-material and to the status and ownership of the composite texts they produce. The homily encourages the observance of the custom of Rogationtide and stresses the importance of prayer and fasting. The main source of this homily is a version of the Jonah story very close to that preserved in Vercclli Homily XIX. These texts provide evidence for speculation about the ways in which scribes and compilers had access to material for homily composition, and for addressing the issues of authority and textuality or rather intertextuality in late Anglo-Saxon England.
