have been an appropriate gift to St.
Andrew's Church in Vercelli. Wuelker's theory that it was owned by an
Anglo-Saxon hospice at Vercelli rests on very shadowy arguments, since
he adduces no satisfactory proof that such a hospice ever existed.

[Footnote 1: _Cardinal Guala and the Vercelli Book_, Univ. of Cal.
Library Bulletin No. 10. Sacramento, 1888.]

[Sidenote: _Authorship and Date_.]

On the strength of certain marked similarities of style and diction
to the signed poems of Cynewulf, the earlier editors of the _Andreas_
assigned the poem to him, and were followed by Dietrich, Grein, and
Ten Brink. But Fritsche (_Anglia_ II), arguing from other equally
marked dissimilarities, denies its Cynewulfian authorship, and is
sustained in his position by Sievers, though vigorously opposed by
Ramhorst. More recently Trautman (_Anglia_, Beiblatt VI. 17) reasserts
the older view, declaring his belief that the _Fates of the Apostles_,
in which Napier has discovered the runic signature of Cynewulf, is
but the closing section of the _Andreas_. There is much to be said
in favor of this last theory, which would establish Cynewulf as the
author of the entire work; but the whole question is far from being
settled. We can at least affirm that the author was a devout churchman
and a dweller by the sea, thoroughly acquainted with the poems of
Cynewulf.

It is equally impossible to determine with any certainty the date
of authorship, since the poem is wholly lacking in contemporary
allusions. Nor can we base any argument upon its language, since, in
all probability, its present form is but a West Saxon transcript of an
older Northumbrian or Mercian version. If Cynewulf flourished in the
eighth century, the date of the _Andreas_ is probably not much later.
The Vercelli manuscript is assigned to the first half of the eleventh
century.

[Sidenote: _Sources_.]

Fortunately we can speak with more assurance about the sources of the
poem. It follows closely, though not slavishly, the _Acts of Andrew
and Matthew_, contained in the _Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles_.[1]
Like the great English poets of the fourteenth and sixteenth
centuries, the poet of the _Andreas_ has borrowed his story from a
foreign source, and like them he has added and altered until he has
made it thoroughly his own and thoroughly English. We can learn from
it the tastes and ideals of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers quite as well
as from a poem wholly original in its com