Christ II, also called The Ascension, is one of Cynewulf’s four signed poems that exist in the Old English vernacular.
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Cynewulf receives credit for writing Christ II, but his inspiration came from the 23rd Psalm and a homily written by Pope Gregory.
:Christ II (also Christ B), poem written by the Anglo-Saxon poet Cynewulf on Christ's Ascension.
Early editors posited that one or both of the poems could have been composed by the poet Cynewulf, but neither poem is numbered among that writer's compositions today.
While some argue that the use of the traditional epic phrases appears to be not, as with Cynewulf or the author of Andreas, a mere following of accepted models but rather the spontaneous mode of expression of one accustomed to sing of heroic themes, others argue that the Heliand was intentionally and methodically composed after careful study of the formula of other German poems.
The earliest recorded reference to the parish was in AD740 when Cynewulf, King of Wessex gifted the manor of Uplyme to Glastonbury Abbey.
In 786, Cynewulf, king of Wessex, was killed by the exiled noble Cyneheard, brother of the former King Sigeberht.
Cynewulf positively learned the Latin rudiments so many assume that he probably attended the Minster School of York.
The murder of Cynewulf is placed by modern historians, including the Rev G. H. Godwin, at Marten, a hamlet in the county of Wiltshire.
In 786 Cynewulf was surprised and killed, with all his Thegns present, at Merantune (now called Marten, a hamlet in the county of Wiltshire), by Cyneheard the Atheling, brother of the deposed Sigeberht.
His brother Cyneheard was also driven out, but returned in 786 to kill Sigeberht's successor Cynewulf.