The Wessex Gospels occupy a prominent place among Old English texts, since the frequency of the use of habban+participle II and its preterite version is very low as compared to other Old English texts. The present article aims at investigating the reasons behind this phenomenon. An analysis of peculiar ways in rendering Latin verbs as well as functional and semantic features of the construction under consideration allows us to claim that the author of the translation opted for specific lexico-grammatical means to convey events expressed by Latin verbs. In many contexts the choice of habban+participle II was precluded not only due to its statal semantics, but also because of its expressive charge.