Over six hundred years before John Milton's Paradise Lost, Anglo-Saxon authors told their own version of the fall of the angels. This book brings together various cultural moments, literary genres and relevant comparanda to recover that version, from the legal and social world to the world of popular spiritual ritual and belief. The story of the fall of the angels in Anglo-Saxon England is the story of a successfully transmitted exegetical teaching turned rich literary tradition. It can be traced through a range of genres - sermons, saints' lives, royal charters, riddles, devotional and biblical poetry - each one offering a distinct window into the ancient myth's place within the Anglo-Saxon literary and cultural imagination.

Reviews

'Rebel Angels is an ambitious book that traces the many dynamic reinterpretations of theangelic rebellion story. Fitzgerald's nuanced approach to her subject's many complexities, together with the attention given to the texts' historical circumstances, makes a persuasive argument for the influence of the fall of the angels narrative in the literary imagination of early English authors. This is a thought-provoking book that will prove an inspiration to its careful reader.'
Speculum

'Rebel Angels is a fantastic resource collating stories of angelic rebellion in early medieval England... Fitzgerald's work opens the door for future studies that more fully explore the interaction of sovereignty and space in early England.'
Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures

List of figures
Introduction
1 Lands idle and unused
2 The anxiety of inheritance
3 Rebel clerics, monastic replacements
4 The angels' share
5 A homeland as a possession
6 A new praedestinati in Wulfstan's Sermo Lupi ad Anglos
Afterword
Bibliography
Index