The strong influence of Rome on Anglo-Saxon England, and especially on Anglo-Saxon Christianity, is well established. In this book, Yann Coz seeks to identify a more nuanced understanding of this influence by examining how Roman antiquity and the distant Roman past were represented and used in Anglo-Saxon contexts, in contrast to the influence of contemporary Rome and especially the papacy.

The book is structured more or less chronologically, and within this framework Coz has identified two aspects for particular focus: firstly, texts which consider the Roman past; and secondly, texts which allowed Anglo-Saxons to learn Latin (such as grammars and glossaries, both ancient and contemporary), and therefore to access the literary culture of ancient Rome. Several chapters are devoted to major Anglo-Saxon authors or contexts, so that (for example) Aldhelm and Bede receive their own detailed analyses, while the late ninth- and early tenth-century translations of Latin works into Old English, some associated with Alfred and his court, are the subject of an extended section of the book. Finally, Coz considers the literary culture of the tenth and eleventh centuries, and how ancient Rome and its influence feature (or not) in Latin and Old English homiletic and hagiographical writings of this period. Although his approach is primarily literary, Coz takes care to investigate the evidence of glosses and surviving manuscript witnesses of ancient Latin texts, and he also considers other contexts in which the image of ancient Rome played a role or acted as a model, such as coinage, charters and the Franks Casket.

This approach is helpful in setting the thought of specific authors alongside one another clearly, so that it is possible to see different authorial perspectives on the ancient Roman past. Coz highlights, for example, that Bede's interest in world history, especially in his computistical works De temporibus and De temporum ratione, did not extend to political or military history of the Roman Empire, and that information about the Roman past features in his Chronica primarily as it relates to Christian or Jewish history (pp. 166–81). In contrast, Ælfric's Lives of Roman martyrs placed these saints somewhat more closely in their Roman context, although Ælfric also did not see the empire itself as playing a particular role: in some ways Ælfric seems to have viewed the Roman past simply as an extension of the biblical past (pp. 361–8, 387–9, 404–20).

Coz concludes that ancient Rome played less of a role for Anglo-Saxons in the tenth and eleventh centuries than it did for their predecessors (pp. 455–8), although in general his assessment of Anglo-Saxon responses to the ancient Roman past is that the importance of ancient Rome as a model, inspiration, or even as a period of reference was minimal, and that the Christian past held much greater interest for Anglo-Saxon scholars. The particular significance of this is drawn by comparison with Carolingian and Ottonian contexts, where the idea of imperial Rome was far more important in constructing models of kingship and rulership, and where classical texts were much more widely read and imitated.

The major contribution which Coz makes here is his insistence on a careful reading of romanitas and its contexts, and in underlining that not all aspects of the Roman past were of equal interest to Anglo-Saxon authors, kings and others. However, some of the distinctions drawn in this study, and the specific lines of enquiry taken, are more questionable. Coz repeatedly distinguishes between Republican and Imperial Rome, but does not really address how far this difference held any concrete significance for Anglo-Saxon (or contemporary continental) writers. He does acknowledge that identifying ‘ancient Rome’ (‘Rome antique’) is not a straightforward task (pp. 12–13), but despite this acknowledgement he does not consider whether this was even a valid category, or periodisation, for early medieval authors. Certainly, the Anglo-Saxon scholars whose works survive were much more interested in the ‘Christian’ (including Jewish) past than in events which seemed to hold little relevance for the history of salvation; but it is not clear where the lines between ‘ancient’, ‘more recent’ and ‘contemporary’ Rome should be drawn, especially since the concept of ‘late antiquity’ is relatively modern. The issue is not so clear-cut as to allow a distinction simply between ‘Christian’ and ‘pre-Christian’.

In a similar vein, the discussion of grammatica as a representative mark of ancient Roman culture is not always entirely appropriate, since although such texts depend on classical models and present an ancient language, they were clearly also part of a living tradition and a living language. This is reflected by the adaptation of some of these texts to incorporate more citations from Christian, rather than pre-Christian classical, authors; and although, as Coz notes, this shows the careful negotiation of the use of the classical past in the Christian present, it is also quite clear that Anglo-Saxon authors did read and use classical texts, even if these held less interest than the works of Christian writers in some contexts. For the discussion of grammatica in particular, the chronological structure is not entirely successful, and in some ways a more thematic structure for the whole book might have allowed for a clearer, and less repetitive, statement of the main arguments.

For the most part the book is cleanly presented, though there are a few typographical errors and occasional slips: for example, ‘monstruorum’ for ‘monstrorum’ (throughout, but inconsistently); ‘maryrum’ for ‘martyrum’ (p. 73); ‘inefabili’ for ‘ineffabili’ (p. 95 n. 2 – and the reference to Ehwald's edition should read p. 492 here, not p. 491); ‘ulgarica’ for ‘uulgarica’ (p. 150 n. 2); ‘Tryttman’ for ‘Tyttman’ (p. 226); ‘cetererarumque’ for ‘ceterarumque’ (p. 351); ‘Rydiard’ for ‘Ridyard’ (p. 375); Oswald of Northumbria is given two sets of regnal years on the same page, firstly 633–42 and secondly 634–42 (p. 228; correctly, 633/4–642); Archbishop Wulfstan ii of York was bishop of Worcester from 1002 until 1016, not until his death in 1023 (p. 344). The lack of a general index is also rather frustrating, though there is a useful index of manuscripts.

This book has an important point to make, and the emphasis placed here on the necessity of a more careful reading of the influence of ‘Rome’ is especially welcome. It will be particularly useful for literary scholars and historians of literary culture in the early Middle Ages.