Cyril William Edwards

Cyril William Edwards (8 August 1947 – 15 July 2019) was a British medievalist and translator. Teaching in London and Oxford, he published extensively on the medieval German lyric and Old High German literature, and translated four of the major Middle High German verse narratives.

Life Cyril Edwards was born in Neston, Cheshire, the son of William Henry Edwards, a gardener at the University of Liverpool’s Ness Botanic Gardens in the Wirral, and Edith Mary Edwards (née Purchase). At Goldsmiths he was responsible for organizing three conferences devoted to Interdisciplinary Medieval Studies, which brought together historians, literary scholars and linguists.

He published over 30 journal articles and book chapters, with a particular focus on Minnesang and the Arthurian Romance. A number of his papers on Old High German literature were collected in the volume The Beginnings of German Literature: comparative and interdisciplinary approaches to Old High German.

A characteristic feature of his scholarship was a concern with examining the original manuscripts of medieval texts, which led to visits to a wide range of libraries and archives in continental Europe. On a research trip to the Benedictine abbey of Kremsmünster in Upper Austria, he identified a previously unrecognized manuscript page (Cod. 248) in the abbey's library as a song by the Minnesänger Heinrich von Morungen. This led to a series of publications on Morungen's songs, culminating in an edited volume devoted to the "Narcissus song" (MF 145,1).

In 1994, "despite his record of committed and successful teaching and his internationally recognised distinction in research", Goldsmiths made him redundant on "thematic grounds", a move which gave rise to protests from colleagues in the UK and overseas. and he contributed the article on Theodor Fontane to the Dictionary of National Biography. His later publications include two cook books and a book of poems. He was also a tiddlywinks player of some standing, representing both Oxford University and England, and at one point ranked 11th in the world.

Cyril Edwards died of a heart attack, aged 71, on 15 July 2019 in Abingdon. Professor Nigel Palmer wrote, "Cyril was a remarkable figure, a lovable eccentric, a fine scholar with a wide range of cultural interests who had a difficult career. His translations have played an important part in keeping interest in medieval German literature alive in the English-speaking world."

His edition of the Kremsmünster housebook was completed and published by the abbey on the fifth anniversary of his death.

Publications Medieval literature Books

Selected articles

Translations Middle High German literature

Paperback:

Modern works

Other works