The oldest surviving collection of English literature in the world has been put on public display at Exeter Cathedral.
The Exeter Anthology of Old English Verse was first given to the cathedral by Exeter's first Bishop Leofric between 1050 and 1072 when it was around 100 years old.
The volume – widely referred to as the Exeter Book – is also the largest of only four surviving books of Anglo-Saxon poetry. It is understood to be worth several million pounds.
In his will, Bishop Leofric described it as "mycel Englisc boc be gehwilcum þingum on leoð-wisan geworht" ("a large English book of poetic works about all sorts of things").
Members of the public were given a unique opportunity to view the ancient text at an open afternoon on June 4.
Peter Thomas, the cathedral's librarian, said: "Given that it's the oldest English literary book in the world, you could regard it as the foundation of all English literature. As far as I'm concerned it's priceless."
The collection of poems and riddles has been kept at Exeter Cathedral for around 950 years.
The precise date of its compilation is unknown, but it is acknowledged to be one of the great works of the English Benedictine revival of the tenth century between 960 and 990.
The collection includes famous longer poems such as The Wanderer and Widsith. It also contains 96 riddles on a range of topics including natural phenomena, animal and bird life, domestic objects and the Christian concept of creation.
The Exeter Book, also known as the Codex Exoniensis, will be publicly displayed one afternoon a month this summer.
