Sunday, day of feast or holy day - on the choice of Old English equivalents of Latin sabbat in the Lindisfarne Gospels

Abstract

The present paper examines the relation between the Latin word sabbat and its English equivalents used in the tenth century gloss translation to the Lindisfarne Gospels. The analysis involves the identification of all English correspondents of the Latin item with the aim of establishing the hierarchy of their frequency and the comparison of contexts in which those Old English items are employed to identify potential differences in their use. A more general purpose of the study is to discuss the methods of translation used in the glosses and discover any consistencies behind the choice of native vocabulary.