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New copy of earliest poem in English language discovered by researchers in Rome

Phys · · 1175 words · By Trinity College Dublin
Value of Digitalization/Libraries Academic Discovery/Cultural Heritage

Researchers from Trinity College Dublin discovered a newly-found ninth-century manuscript in Rome containing an Old English version of Caedmon's Hymn. This discovery is considered highly significant as it provides early evidence of Old English poetry, offering new insights into the cultural value of the language during the early Middle Ages. The article details the manuscript's complex history and the ongoing digitization efforts by the National Central Library of Rome.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://phys.org/news/2026-04-earliest-poem-english-language-rome.html

analyticsAnalysis

10%
Propaganda Score
confidence: 90%
Low risk. This article shows minimal use of propaganda techniques.

psychologyDetected Techniques

warning
Glittering Generalities 60% confidence
Using vague, emotionally appealing phrases ('freedom', 'justice') without specifics.

fact_checkFact-Check Results

16 claims extracted and verified against multiple sources including cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia.

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schedule Pending 6
help Insufficient Evidence 2
info Single Source 1
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“An early ninth-century manuscript containing a text of the first known poem in the English language has been discovered in Rome by researchers from Trinity College Dublin.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple web search results report that researchers from Trinity College Dublin discovered an early ninth-century manuscript containing a text of the first known poem in English in Rome. This claim is supported by multiple independent web sources detailing the discovery.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — This is a list of notable alumni and faculty members of Trinity College Dublin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Trinity_College_Dublin…
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, branded by the board as Trinity College, the University of Dublin, and officially incorporated as Trinity College Dublin (…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_College_Dublin
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The University of Dublin (Irish: Ollscoil Átha Cliath), corporately named as The Chancellor, Doctors and Masters of the University of Dublin, is a public research university located in Dublin, Ireland…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Dublin
+ 3 more evidence sources
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“The newly-discovered manuscript in the National Central Library of Rome of Caedmon's Hymn dates from between the years 800 and 830, making it the third oldest surviving text of the poem.”
SINGLE SOURCE
While the claim mentions the manuscript dating from 800–830 and being the third oldest, the provided evidence only confirms the discovery and the general dating period (early ninth century) from multiple sources. No independent source corroborates the specific dating range (800–830) or the claim that it is the third oldest surviving text.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Cædmon's Hymn is a short Old English poem attributed to Cædmon, a supposedly illiterate and unmusical cow-herder who was, according to the Northumbrian monk Bede (d. 735), miraculously empowered to si…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cædmon's_Hymn
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. England shares a land b…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family. It emerged in early medieval England and has since become a global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles, …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language
+ 3 more evidence sources
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“The Latin manuscript contains the poem in Old English in the main body of the text.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple web search results confirm that the newly discovered manuscript in Rome contains the poem in Old English in the main body of the text, which is noted as being significant because it reflects the language's growing status in the ninth century.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Venerable English College (Italian: Venerabile Collegio Inglese), commonly referred to as the English College, is a Catholic seminary in Rome, Italy, for the training of priests for England and Wa…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_College,_Rome
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Old English (Englisc or Ænglisc, pronounced [ˈeŋɡliʃ] or [ˈæŋɡliʃ]), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest attested form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the E…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The grammar of Old English differs greatly from Modern English, predominantly being much more inflected. As a Germanic language, Old English has a morphological system similar to that of the Proto-Ger…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_grammar
+ 3 more evidence sources
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“The two older copies in Cambridge and St Petersburg have the poem in Latin, with the Old English text only added in the margin or at end.”
CORROBORATED
Web search results confirm that the two older copies of the poem in Cambridge and St Petersburg have the poem in Latin, while the Roman copy contains the Old English text. The contrast between the Latin text in the older copies and the Old English text in the Roman copy is consistently reported.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The city of Saint Petersburg was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on 27 May 1703. It became the capital of the Russian Empire and remained as such for more than two hundred years (1712–1728, 1732–1918)…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Saint_Petersburg
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — In combinatorics and in experimental design, a Latin square is an n × n array filled with n different symbols, each occurring exactly once in each row and exactly once in each column. An example of a…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_square
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Saint Petersburg Bede (Saint Petersburg, National Library of Russia, lat. Q. v. I. 18), formerly known as the Leningrad Bede, is an Anglo-Saxon illuminated manuscript, a near-contemporary version …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Petersburg_Bede
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“Written over 1,300 years ago, Caedmon's Hymn is a nine-line poem praising God for the creation of the world.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple web search results confirm that Caedmon's Hymn is a nine-line poem praising God for the creation of the world and that it is extremely old, described as being written over 1,300 years ago.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Cædmon (; fl. c. 657–684) is the earliest English poet whose name is known. A Northumbrian cowherd who cared for the animals at the double monastery of Streonæshalch (now known as Whitby Abbey) during…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cædmon
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Cædmon's Hymn is a short Old English poem attributed to Cædmon, a supposedly illiterate and unmusical cow-herder who was, according to the Northumbrian monk Bede (d. 735), miraculously empowered to si…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cædmon's_Hymn
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Northumbrian was a dialect of Old English spoken in the Anglian Kingdom of Northumbria. Together with Mercian, Kentish and West Saxon, it forms one of the sub-categories of Old English devised and emp…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northumbrian_Old_English
+ 3 more evidence sources
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“The poem was composed in Old English—the form of English used in the early Middle Ages.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple web search results explicitly state that Caedmon's Hymn is an Old English poem, connecting it to the earliest stages of written English.
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web search NEUTRAL — Cædmon's Hymn is a short Old English poem attributed to Cædmon, a supposedly illiterate and unmusical cow-herder who was, according to the Northumbrian monk Bede (d. 735), miraculously empowered to si…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cædmon's_Hymn
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web search NEUTRAL — Dublin scholars find 1,200-year-old manuscript of Caedmon's Hymn composed by Northumbrian cattle herder A lost copy of a poem composed in the seventh century by a Northumbrian cattle herder ...
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/apr/29/lost-copy-of-s…
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web search NEUTRAL — Caedmon's Hymn is almost unique as a survival from the seventh century—it connects us to the earliest stages of written English. As the oldest known poem in Old English, it is today celebrated ...
https://phys.org/news/2026-04-earliest-poem-english-language…
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“It survives today thanks to its inclusion in some copies of the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, an 8th century history of England written in Latin by the Venerable Bede, a northern English monk.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple web search results confirm that Caedmon's Hymn survives in copies of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, and that this history was written in Latin by Bede and is an 8th-century work.
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web search NEUTRAL — These are all manuscripts of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People.Cædmon's Hymn survives in Old English in twenty-one manuscripts, originally as marginal annotations to Bede's Latin acc…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cædmon's_Hymn
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web search NEUTRAL — Caedmon’s Hymn Discovery. New copy of earliest poem in English language discovered by Trinity researchers in Rome.
https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/top-stories/featured/caedmons…
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web search NEUTRAL — The Ecclesiastical History of the English People is an eighth century history of England written in Latin by Bede. The manuscript was discovered by Elisabetta Magnanti and Mark Faulkner from Trinity’s…
https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026/04/29/rare-copy-of-o…
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“The manuscript was discovered by Dr. Elisabetta Magnanti and Dr. Mark Faulkner, School of English, both experts in medieval manuscripts.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple web search results independently name Dr. Elisabetta Magnanti and Dr. Mark Faulkner as the discoverers of the manuscript, and confirm their expertise in medieval manuscripts.
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web search NEUTRAL — The manuscript was discovered by Dr Elisabetta Magnanti and Dr Mark Faulkner, School of English, both experts in medieval manuscripts.
https://www.tcd.ie/english/news/news-2026/new-copy-of-earlie…
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web search NEUTRAL — Elisabetta Magnanti and Mark Faulkner wearing protective gloves with Trinity College Dublin's copy of Bede's Ecclesiastical History.of the English People.Elisabetta Magnanti: ‘This discovery is a test…
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/apr/29/lost-copy-of-s…
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web search NEUTRAL — The manuscript was discovered by Elisabetta Magnanti and Mark Faulkner from Trinity’s School of English, who are both experts in medieval manuscripts.
https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026/04/29/rare-copy-of-o…
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“The newly-discovered manuscript of Bede's History is one of at least 160 surviving copies.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence was gathered for this specific claim. While the general context involves Bede's History, no source confirms that the newly-discovered manuscript is one of at least 160 surviving copies.
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“This manuscript was produced at the Abbey of Nonantola in Northern Central Italy between 800 and 830 and is now in the National Central Library in Rome.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence was gathered for this specific claim. While the general context involves the Abbey of Nonantola and the dating period, no source confirms that the manuscript was produced at this specific abbey or that it is currently located in the National Central Library in Rome.
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“According to the researchers, it has endured a torrid history—stolen from the church of San Bernardo alle Terme in Rome, where, with other manuscripts, it had been sent for safekeeping amid the Napoleonic Wars in the 1810s.”
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“Its complex ownership history meant that the manuscript had been regarded as lost by Bede scholars since 1975 and no one realized it contained a copy of Caedmon's Hymn until the National Central Library of Rome digitized the manuscript.”
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“Valentina Longo, Curator of Mediaeval and Modern Manuscripts at the National Central Library of Rome, said, 'Today, the National Central Library of Rome holds the largest collection of early medieval codices from the Benedictine Abbey of Nonantola.'”
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“This collection comprises 45 manuscripts dating from the sixth to the twelfth century, divided between the original Sessoriana collection and the Vittorio Emanuele collection, where the manuscripts recovered following their dispersal due to the 19th-century theft have been housed.”
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“Andrea Cappa, Head of Manuscripts and Rare Books Reading Room, National Central Library of Rome, added, 'The Central National Library of Rome continually expands its digital collections, providing free access to its resources.'”
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“The library has already made available digital copies of around 500 manuscripts, and is also completing a major project to digitize the holdings of the National Centre for the Study of the Manuscript, which includes microfilm reproductions of approximately 110,000 manuscripts from 180 Italian libraries.”
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info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.