Beowulf, The Battle of Maldon, The Dream of the Rood, The Wanderer, and The Seafarer are among the greatest surviving Anglo-Saxon poems. They, and many their treasures, are included in The Anglo-Saxon World: hronicles, laws and letters, charters and charms, and above ll superb poems. Here is a word picture of a people who came to these islands as pagans and yet within two hundred years had become Christians, tosuch effect that England was the centre of missionary endeavour and, for a time, the heart of European civilization.