Overview of award winners

This overview lists ISSEME award winners between 2005 and 2025. There has been some changes in the categories over the years (new categories added, old separate categories conflated, etc.), which explains why some have seen more prize winners than others.

Best article by an Early-Career Researcher

  • 2025: Michael Lysander Angerer, ‘Hebban olla vogala: An Eleventh-Century Link Between Dutch and English Literary History’, Neophilologus 108 (2024), 467–484.
  • 2023: Jake Stattel, “Legal culture in the Danelaw: a study of III Æthelred”, Anglo-Saxon England 48 (2019; publ. Oct. 2022), 163-203
  • 2021: Yuta Uchikawa, “Core and Periphery in Anglo-Saxon England: The Mercian Assemblies in the Kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons and the Formation of the English Kingdom”, East Asian Journal of British History (2019)

Best article

  • 2025: Jill Fitzgerald, ‘Terror and History on the Lid of the Franks Casket‘, The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 123 (2024), 360–390.
  • 2023: Robert Gallagher, “Asser and the Writing of West Saxon Charters”, The English Historical Review 136 (2021), 773–808
  • 2021 (shared): Rory Naismith and Francesca Tinti, “The Origins of Peter’s Pence”, English Historical Review 134/568 (2019), 521-552 & Nicole Marafioti, “Secular and Ecclesiastical Justice in Late Anglo-Saxon England,” Speculum 94/3 (2019): 774-805
  • 2019: Martha Bayless, “The Fuller Brooch and Anglo-Saxon Depictions of Dance,” Anglo-Saxon England 45 (2017): 183-212
  • 2017: Nicole Marafioti, “Seeking Alfred’s Body: Royal Tomb as Political Object in the Reign of Edward the Elder,” Early Medieval Europe 23 (2015): 202-28
  • 2015: Patrick W. Conner, “On the Nature of Matched Scribal Hands”, in Scraped, Stroked, and Bound: Materially Engaged Readings of Medieval Manuscripts, ed. by J. Wilcox (Turnhout, 2014), pp. 39-73
  • 2013: Joanna Story, “Bede, Willibrord and the Letters of Pope Honorius I on the genesis of the archbishopric of York,” English Historical Review 127 (2012): 783-818. Honourable mention: Benjamin A. Saltzman, “Writing Friendship, Mourning the Friend in Late Anglo-Saxon Rules of Confraternity,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 41 (2011): 251-91
  • 2011: Andrew Rabin, “Female advocacy and royal protection in tenth-century England: the legal career of Queen Aelfthryth,” Speculum 84 (2009): 261-88
  • 2009 [shared]:Craig Davis, “An Ethnic Dating of Beowulf,” Anglo-Saxon England 35 (2006), 111-29 & Emily V. Thornbury, “Aldhelm’s Rejection of the Muses and the Mechanics of Poetic Inspiration in Early Anglo-Saxon England” Anglo-Saxon England 36 (2007), 71-92
  • 2007: Joyce Hill, “Authority and Intertextuality in the Works of Aelfric,” Proceedings of the British Academy 131 (2005), 157-81 (The Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture for 2004)
  • 2005: Stacy S. Klein, “Reading Queenship in Cynewulf’s Elene,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 33 (2003), 67-89

Best first monograph

  • 2025: Rachel A. Burns, A History of Old English Verse Layout: Poetics on the Page, Book Cultures (Arc Humanities Press, 2024).
  • 2023: Mark Faulkner, A New Literary History of the Long Twelfth Century: Language and Literature between Old and Middle English (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022)
  • 2021: Emily Kesling, Medical Texts in Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2020)
  • 2019: Herbert Broderick, Moses the Egyptian in the Illustrated Old English Hexateuch (London, British Library Cotton MS Claudius B.iv) (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2017)
  • 2017 [shared]: Richard Sowerby, Angels in Early Medieval England (Oxford, 2016) & Mercedes Salvador Bello, Isidorean Perceptions of Order: The Exeter Book Riddles and Medieval Latin Enigmata, Medieval European Studies Series 17 (Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2015)
  • 2015: Emily Thornbury, Becoming a Poet in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, 2014)
  • 2013: Rory Naismith, Money and Power in Anglo-Saxon England: The Southern English Kingdoms, 757-865 (Cambridge, 2012). Honorable mentions: Scott T. Smith, Land and Book: Literature and Land Tenure in Anglo-Saxon England (Toronto, 2012) & Sharon M. Rowley, The Old English Version of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2011)
  • 2011 [shared]: Francesca Tinti, Sustaining Belief: The Church of Worcester from c. 870 to c. 1100 (Ashgate, 2010) & Renee R. Trilling, The Aesthetics of Nostalgia: Historical Representation in Old English Verse (Toronto, 2009)
  • 2009: David Pratt, The Political Thought of King Alfred the Great (Cambridge, 2007)
  • 2007: [shared]:Daniel Anlezark, Water and Fire: the Myth of the Flood in Anglo-Saxon England (Manchester, 2006) & Martin Foys, Virtually Anglo-Saxon (University Press of Florida, 2007)
  • 2005 [shared]: Andrew P. Scheil, The Footsteps of Israel: Understanding Jews in Anglo-Saxon England (University of Michigan Press, 2004) & Joanna Story, Carolingian Connections: Anglo-Saxon England and Carolingian Francia, c. 750-870 (Ashgate, 2003)

Best book

  • 2025: Jennifer Neville, Truth is Trickiest: The Case for Ambiguity in the Exeter Book Riddles (University of Toronto Press, 2024).
  • 2023: Mark Atherton, Kazutomo Karasawa & Francis Leneghan, ed., Ideas of the World in Early Medieval English Literature (Turnhout: Brepols, 2022)
  • 2021: Chris Fern, Tania Dickinson & Leslie Webster, ed., The Staffordshire Hoard: An Anglo-Saxon Treasure (London: Society of Antiquaries of London, 2019)
  • 2019: Lindy Brady, Writing the Welsh Borderland in Anglo-Saxon England (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017)
  • 2017: Conor O’Brien, Bede’s Temple: An Image and its Interpretation (Oxford, 2015)
  • 2015 [shared]: Asa Mittman and Susan Kim, Inconceivable Beasts: The Wonders of the East in the Beowulf Manuscript (Arizona, 2013) & M. J. Toswell, The Anglo-Saxon Psalter (Turnhout, 2014)

Best Teaching Aid or Public Outreach Project

  • 2023: Renée R. Trilling, Old English Literature: Language as History (Wondrium, 2022)
  • 2021: Megan Cavell, with Matthias Ammon, Neville Mogford and Victoria Symons, ed. and trans., The Riddle Ages: Early Medieval Riddles, Translations and Commentaries, (2013; redeveloped 2020), https://theriddleages.com.

Best Research Aid, Edition or Translation (any medium)

  • 2023: R. D. Fulk, ed. and trans., The Old English Pastoral Care. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library (Harvard University Press, 2021)
  • 2021: Roy Flechner, ed. and trans., The Hibernensis; Book 1: A study and edition; Book 2: Translation, commentary, and indexes (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2019)

Best edition or translation of an Old English or Anglo-Latin text (any medium)

  • 2025: John D. Niles and Maria A. D’Aronco, ed. Medical Writings from Early Medieval England, Volume I: The Old English Herbal, Lacnunga, and Other Texts. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 81 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2023).
  • 2019: Jacob Riyeff, Saint Æthelwold of Winchester, The Old English Rule of Saint Benedict with Related Old English Texts, Cistercian Studies Series 264 (Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2017)
  • 2017: Kazutomo Karasawa, The Old English Metrical Calendar (Menologium) (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2016)
  • 2015: Christine Rauer, The Old English Martyrology (Woodbridge, 2013)
  • 2013: R.D. Fulk and Stefan Jurasinski (eds.), The Old English Canons of Theodore, Early English Text Society (Oxford, 2012). Honorable mention: D. A. Woodman, Charters of Northern Houses, Anglo-Saxon Charters 16 (Oxford/The British Academy, 2012)
  • 2011: The Old English Boethius: An Edition of the Old English Versions of Boethius’s De Consolatione Philosophiae, ed. Malcolm Godden and Susan Irvine (Oxford, 2009)
  • 2009: [shared]: R. D. Fulk, Robert E. Bjork, and John D. Niles, eds., Klaeber’s Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, Toronto Old English Series 21 (Toronto, 2008) & Michael Lapidge, ed. and trans., Byrhtferth of Ramsey. The Lives of St Oswald and St Ecgwine (Oxford, 2009)
  • 2007: Scott DeGregorio, trans., Bede: On Ezra and Nehemiah (Liverpool, 2005)
  • 2005: [shared]:Martin K. Foys, The Bayeux Tapestry: Digital Edition (Scholarly Digital Editions, 2003) & Rosalind C. Love, Goscelin of Saint-Bertin: The Hagiography of the Female Saints of Ely (Oxford, 2004)

Best research aid (any medium)

  • 2025: Anina Seiler, Chiara Benati, and Sara Pons-Sanz, ed., Medieval Glossaries from Northwestern Europe: Tradition and Innovation. The Medieval Translator/Traduire au Moyen Âge 19 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2023)
  • 2019 [shared]: Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War, ed. Claire Breay and Joanna Story (London: British Library, 2018) & Hans Sauer and Elsabeth Kubaschewski, Planting the Seeds of Knowledge: An Inventory of Old English Plant Names, English and Beyond 8 (Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag, 2018)
  • 2017 [shared]: Carole Hough, Mapping Metaphor: Old English: Metaphor in English (mappingmetaphor.arts.gla.ac.uk) & Rory Naismith, and Francesca Tinti, The Forum Hoard of Anglo-Saxon Coins/Il ripostiglio dell’Atrium Vestae nel Foro Romano, Bollettino di numismatica 55-6 (Rome, 2016)
  • 2015: Peter Stokes, English Vernacular Minuscule from Aethelred to Cnut, circa 990 — circa 1035 (Manchester, 2014)