Lost copy of seventh-century poem in Old English discovered at Rome library

The Old English transcription of the poem discovered by Elisabetta Magnanti and Mark Faulkner (pictured, with a copy of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People) is believed to have been transcribed by a monk in Italy between 800 and 830. Photograph: Trinity College Dublin

A lost copy of a poem composed in the seventh century by a Northumbrian cattle herder – the earliest surviving poem in the English language – has been discovered in Rome.

Scholars from Trinity College Dublin (TCD) uncovered the manuscript that contains Caedmon’s Hymn at the National Central Library of Rome.