Cynewulf (lived 8th century or 9th century)

Anglo-Saxon poet. He is thought to have been a Northumbrian monk and is the undoubted author of ‘Juliana’ and part of the ‘Christ’ in the Exeter Book (a collection of poems now in Exeter Cathedral, England), and of the ‘Fates of the Apostles’ and ‘Elene’ in the Vercelli Book (a collection of Old English manuscripts housed in Vercelli, northern Italy), in all of which he inserted his name by using runic acrostics.

‘Elene’ describes the legendary finding of the True Cross by the empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great. The ‘Christ’ poem describes the Ascension and is the second part of a three-part work entitled ‘Christ’ about the Incarnation, Ascension, and Last Judgement, commonly held to be the work of three different authors.