Editing Cædmon (section)

===Other medieval sources===
[[File:Whitby Abbey - Project Gutenberg eText 16785.jpg|thumb|Ruins of [[Whitby Abbey]] in [[North Yorkshire]], England&mdash; founded in 657 by [[St. Hilda]], the original abbey fell to a [[Viking]] attack in 867 and was abandoned. It was re-established in 1078 and flourished until 1540 when it was destroyed by [[Henry VIII of England|Henry VIII]].]]

No other independent accounts of Cædmon's life and work are known to exist. The only other reference to Cædmon in English sources before the 12th century is found in the 10th-century Old English translation of Bede's Latin ''Historia''. Otherwise, no mention of Cædmon is found in the corpus of surviving Old English. The Old English translation of the ''Historia ecclesiastica'' does contain several minor details not found in Bede's Latin original account.<ref>See [[#opland1980|Opland 1980]], pp. 111&ndash;120</ref>

Of these, the most significant is that Cædmon felt "shame" for his inability to sing vernacular songs before his vision, and the suggestion that Hilda's scribes copied down his verse ''{{lang|ang|æt muðe}}'' "from his mouth".<ref>See [[#opland1980|Opland 1980]], pp. 111&ndash;120</ref>  These differences are in keeping with the Old English translator's practice in reworking Bede's Latin original,<ref>See [[#whitelock1963|Whitelock 1963]] for a general discussion.</ref> however, and need not, as Wrenn argues, suggest the existence of an independent English tradition of the Cædmon story.<ref>[[#wrenn1946|Wrenn 1946]], p. 281.</ref>

====''Heliand''====
A second, possibly pre-12th-century allusion to the Cædmon story is found in two Latin texts associated with the [[Old Saxon]] ''[[Heliand]]'' poem. These texts, the ''Praefatio'' (Preface) and ''Versus de Poeta'' (Lines about the poet), explain the origins of an Old Saxon biblical translation (for which the ''Heliand'' is the only known candidate)<ref>[[#andersson1974|Andersson 1974]], p. 278.</ref> in language strongly reminiscent of, and indeed at times identical to, Bede's account of Cædmon's career.<ref>Convenient accounts of the relevant portions of the ''Praefatio'' and ''Versus'' can be found in [[#smith1978|Smith 1978]], pp. 13&ndash;14, and [[#plummer1896|Plummer 1896]] II pp. 255&ndash;258.</ref>  According to the prose ''Praefatio'', the Old Saxon poem was composed by a renowned vernacular poet at the command of the emperor [[Louis the Pious]]. The text then adds that this poet had known nothing of vernacular composition until he was ordered to translate the precepts of sacred law into vernacular song in a dream.<ref>See [[#andersson1974|Andersson 1974]] for a review of the evidence for and against the authenticity of the prefaces.</ref><ref>See [[#1965|Green 1965]], particularly pp. 286&ndash;294.</ref>

The ''Versus de Poeta'' contain an expanded account of the dream itself, adding that the poet had been a herdsman before his inspiration and that the inspiration itself had come through the medium of a heavenly voice when he fell asleep after pasturing his cattle. While our knowledge of these texts is based entirely on a 16th-century edition by [[Matthias Flacius|Flacius Illyricus]],<ref>[[#flacius|Catalogus testium veritatis 1562]].</ref> both are usually assumed on semantic and grammatical grounds to be of medieval composition.<ref>See [[#andersson1974|Andersson 1974]] for a review of the evidence for and against the authenticity of the prefaces.</ref>  This apparent debt to the Cædmon story agrees with semantic evidence attested to by Green demonstrating the influence of Old English biblical poetry and terminology on early continental Germanic literatures.<ref>See [[#1965|Green 1965]], particularly pp. 286&ndash;294.</ref>