Exeter Book

The Exeter Book, Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3501, also known as the Codex Exoniensis, is a tenth-centurybook or codex which is an anthology of Anglo-Saxon poetry. It is one of the four major Anglo-Saxon literature codices, along with the Vercelli Book, Nowell Codex and the Cædmon manuscript or MS Junius 11. The book was donated to the library of Exeter Cathedral by Leofric, the first bishop of Exeter, in 1072. It is believed originally to have contained 131 leaves, of which the first 8 have been replaced with other leaves; the original first 8 pages are lost. The Exeter Book is the largest known collection of Old English literature still in existence.

History

The precise date when the Exeter Book was compiled and written down is unknown, but it is rightly acknowledged to be one of the great works of the English Benedictine revival of the tenth century, and proposed dates for it range from 960 to 990. This period saw a rise in monastic activity and productivity under the renewed influence of Benedictine principles and standards. At the opening of the period, Dunstan's importance to the Church and to the English kingdom was established, culminating in his appointment to the Archbishopric at Canterbury under Edgar and leading to the monastic reformation by which this era was characterised. Dunstan died in 998, and by the period's close, England under Æthelred faced an increasingly determined Scandinavian incursion, to which it would eventually succumb.

Exeter

Exeter (ⁱ/ˈɛksᵻtər/) is a cathedral city in Devon, England with a population of 124,328 (mid-2014 est.). It lies within the ceremonial county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council. Currently, the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district and is therefore under the administration of the County Council (there was a plan to grant the city unitary authority status, although this was scrapped under the 2010 coalition government). The city is on the River Exe about 37 miles (60 km) northeast of Plymouth and 70 miles (110 km) southwest of Bristol.

Exeter was the most south-westerly Roman fortified settlement in Britain, although there is evidence a Cornish tribe existed in Exeter before the Roman invasion. Exeter became a religious centre during the Middle Ages and into the Tudor times: Exeter Cathedral, founded in the mid 11th century, became Anglican during the 16th-century English Reformation. During the late 19th century, Exeter became an affluent centre for the wool trade, although by the First World War the city was in decline. After the Second World War, much of the city centre was rebuilt and is now considered to be a centre for modern business and tourism in Devon and Cornwall.

Exeter (Leesburg, Virginia)

Exeter was a late 18th century Georgian house near Leesburg, Virginia, that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places from 1973 to August 1980, when it was destroyed by fire and subsequently de-listed from the National Register. The house and its dependencies were unusually elaborate for northern Virginia.

History

The house was built about 1790 by Dr. Wilson Cary Selden on a property that he had inherited from his first wife, Mary Mason Selden, who was a niece of George Mason. Selden and his second wife, Eleanor Love Selden, expanded the property as the centerpiece of a plantation. In 1835 Selden's son Wilson Cary Selden, Jr. inherited the property, but sold it in 1846 to General George Rust, who expanded the house to the rear. The property played a role in the American Civil War when the Battle of Ball's Bluff was fought on the plantation's lands, with Confederate General Jubal Early using the house as a headquarters. The house had fallen into disrepair by the 1970s, and was destroyed by fire in August 1980.

Exeter (1792 Indiaman)

Exeter was a three-decker East Indiaman built by Perry and launched in 1792. She made eight voyages to the East Indies for the East India Company (EIC). More unusually, on separate voyages she captured a French frigate and participated in the Battle of Pulo Aura. She was sold for breaking up in 1811.

Career

East Indiamen traveled in convoys as much as they could. Frequently these convoys had as escorts vessels of the British Royal Navy, though generally not past India, or before on the return leg. Even so, the Indiamen were heavily armed so that they could dissuade Malay pirates and even large privateers. They were not designed, however, to fight naval ships as their ports were small and so the guns could only fire directly out. Furthermore, even the largest guns were smaller than those that naval vessels commonly carried. Still, from their appearance in the distance, or in the dark, it was possible to mistake them for ships of the line, as Exeter's own history proved. Like many other East Indiamen during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, Exeter sailed under letters of marque. This gave her the right to capture enemy vessels, civilian and military, even when not engaging in self-defense. For her first six voyages her principal managing owner was Richard Lewin, who was a former commander for the EIC and a member of the United Company of merchants of England trading to the East-Indies. For her last two it was Andrew Timbrell. He too was a former commander for the EIC.