\paperw5400 \margr0\margl0 \plain \fs20 \ri195 \f1 \fs22 In the \ATXnt901 6th and 7th\ATXnt0 centuries, the most highly prized arts among all the peoples in the British Isles we
re those of the bards, or poets, and the goldsmiths. Although much of the fine decorative work in precious metals was lost when such items were melted down to create other artefacts, at least some of the sword pommels, pendants and brooches have survive
d. \ATXnt902 Unfortunately \ATXnt0 nothing of the oral poetry of the same period has survived, unless there are echoes of it in poems like \i Beowulf\i0 , a tale of fictional heroic deeds in a historical setting believed by most scholars to have been wr
itten in the 8th century. This is the only example of vernacular heroic verse to have come down to us in manuscript form from the Anglo-Saxon or early Germanic worlds. \ATXnt903 The books that first came to the British\ATXnt0 Isles concerned the new C
hristian religion, and finely illustrated books were mainly for Christian worship. However, one of the original contributions of the early Anglo-Saxons was the development of \i insular miniscule\i0 , a fluent and legible handwriting which could be writ
ten more quickly than the formal capital and majuscule letters of late Antiquity.
