ABSTRACT
Aldhelm’s major poem is De Virginitate (2904 lines), a versification of a prose treatise of his which bears the same name. He also wrote a number of short Carmina Ecclesiastica (428 lines in all), and 100 versified riddles, done on the model of the 100 Enigmata of Symphosius,8 but departing from these in various ways.9 Aldhelm incorporated his riddles into the learned prose treatise which he wrote on versification, a treatise which took the form of a letter to King Ealdfrith of Northumbria, whence its title Epistola ad Acircium.10
