ineptshieldmaid (ineptshieldmaid) wrote in little_details,
ineptshieldmaid
ineptshieldmaid
little_details

Learning Old English in early 20th Century England

Story Background: I'm working with the character Digory (the Professor) from the Chronicles of Narnia; I'm writing a vignette about him reading the Song of Caedmon in Old English. (Yeah, weird. The person I'm writing for is also a medievalist, it makes sense to us.) I need to know if his first encounter with Anglo-Saxon language would have been at school or university.

Setting: Either an elite boy's school in the early 1900s, or Oxbridge in the 19-teens.

Searched: Variations on 'Anglo-Saxon language' and 'Anglo-Saxon, school'- gets me lots of historical and linguistic introductions, nothing on the history of Old English in the British school curriculum. I *am* an Anglo-Saxonist, and I can comfortably write this set in a university. But I'm not sure where to look to find out if the language was taught in British schools in the early 20th century.

Exact Question: Was Old English taught as a language (ie, Beowulf in translation doesn't count) in elite British schools (public schools, I know it was taught in universities) in the early 1900s?

Thanks!
Tags: 1900-1909, 1910-1919, uk: education, ~languages: english: historical
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