This book explores the foundations of the intellectual renaissance in late-tenth-century England, including both the English Benedictine reform and the establishment by Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester, of his influential school. The early stages of Æthelwold's scholarly career are explored and new light is shed on the role which King Æthelstan's cosmopolitan court played. Two widely influential Old English texts are definitively attributed to Æthelwold and his circle, which attest to the importance that the reformers attached to the vernacular.