The Power of a Word: Non-Anglophone Perspectives on the Use and Abuse of 'Anglo-Saxon' (Medievalism)

Like a ship navigating shifting tides, the word Anglo-Saxon has been carried across time and space by the currents of history, ideology, and cultural interpretation. This collection of essays explores the evolving significance of the term, revealing how it has been constructed, contested, and reimagined from the early medieval period to the present day. Bringing together perspectives from history, literature, archaeology, and political thought from a non-Anglophone perspective, the contributors examine how Anglo-Saxon has been used to shape national identities, scholarly traditions, and social narratives across Europe.

From medieval chronicles to modern political discourse, this volume uncovers the many lives of a term that continues to spark debate. Addressed to scholars, students, and anyone interested in the power of historical narratives, this work invites us to reconsider not just a label, but the broader questions of heritage, identity, and belonging that it represents.

Omar Khalaf is Associate Professor of Germanic Philology at the Department of Linguistic and Literary Studies, University of Padua. His main research areas are Old and Middle English philology and literature and he has published extensively on the Old English Orosius and on the textual tradition of Earl Rivers’ Dicts and Sayings of the Philosophers (late 15th century). His first monograph Alexander and Dindimus. Edited from Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 264, (Heidelberg, Winter, 2017) won the prize of the Italian Association of Germanic Philology.