Ad Fontes: A New Role for the Primary Sources in Anglo-Saxon History

Abstract

Scott Renner’s extraordinarily sophisticated article, “Ad Fontes, A New Role for the Primary Sources in Anglo-Saxon History,” is the winner of this year’s Griswold Prize for Excellence. Renner displays uncommon command of both qualitative and quantitative methods, spinning a facinating tale from the stuff of archaeological and genetic data. In his hands, ancient texts long thought to have exhausted by earlier generations of interpreters, are made fresh and revealing. –Raphael Folsom