The English Church through the centuries
Researchers have digitized a 9th-century Rome manuscript of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History and identified Caedmon’s Hymn embedded in the Latin text, making it the earliest known English verse. The find is dated to the 9th century, three centuries earlier than the previously earliest 12th-century copy. Magnanti and Faulkner say the discovery underscores the early diffusion of English.