Scholars from Trinity College Dublin have discovered a previously unknown manuscript of Caedmon's Hymn — considered the oldest surviving poem in the English language — at the National Central Library of Rome. The ninth-century copy, believed to have been transcribed by a monk at the abbey of Nonantola in northern Italy between AD800 and AD830, is notable because it places the Old English text in the main body of the manuscript rather than as a marginal addition, reflecting the growing prestige of the English language at the time. The poem, originally composed in the seventh century by Caedmon — a cattle herder at Whitby Abbey in North Yorkshire said to have received divine inspiration — was first recorded in Latin by the theologian Bede, and this newly identified copy is only the third oldest surviving version of the text.